Pod Save the World - The Trump-Bibi Netanyahu bromance is dead

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

Tommy and Ben discuss why a holiday party is causing big problems for British PM Boris Johnson, why the Trump – Netanyahu bromance is officially dead, partying in Finland, an update on the assassination of the president of Haiti, a confusing choice to be US ambassador to Kenya, updates on Russia and Ukraine, the Iran deal, accountability at the Pentagon, a debate over whether progressives are getting rolled on defense policy, a court ruling on Julian Assange’s extradition, and camel influencers.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 Pod Save World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, I want to take people behind the music for a second here and just talk about how we almost couldn't do the podcast in person in the office today because it's raining in Los Angeles. Yeah. And that took out our internet in the office for a couple hours. That apparently accounts for a major natural disaster. True.

From the Los Angeles perspective. Truly. People cannot, they cannot handle it. I'm shocked you made it here safely. I mean, it was kind of Mad Max out on the roads. You know, there are people, you know, driving five miles per hour, like drifting across the street. And it's like, it's raining. It's just raining.

It's not even snowing. It's not even snow. It's raining. Although I saw Tahoe might get like 70 inches of snow in the mountains. That's cool. That's cool. That'll have our drought issues. Yeah.

We'll be using that for a while. Hopefully not. Yeah. Hopefully not forever. Ben, there's no drought when it comes to the content. Oh. Today. No, there's not.

We got big problems for Boris Johnson. Ready to dive in. Deep waters of content. Why the Trump Netanyahu bromance is officially dead. One of my favorite stories in a long time. We're going to talk about why we all need to go hang out in Finland. An update on the assassination of the president of Haiti. Confusing choice from President Biden for a U.S. ambassador nominee.

Updates on Russia and Ukraine, the Iran deal. Accountability problems at the Pentagon. A debate over whether progressives are getting rolled on defense policy. A court ruling on Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks founding. and his extradition, and then Camel influencers. Don't see a lot of them in LA. I'm looking forward to that item. That item.

I wasn't tracking. You know. The camel influencers. We'll catch you up real quick. Ben, also, if you're excited for the release of Spider-Man No Way Home, then you have to check out X-ray Vision, the fantastic podcast with Jason Concepcion. He is breaking it down with Marvel super fan, Rosie Knight. They're looking at all the previous Spider-Man films.

They're breaking down all the returning villains. sharing their wildest theories about the future of the MCU multiverse, not universe, multiverse. New episodes of X-Gar Vision drop every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Ben, so in recent weeks, we've talked about how our friends in the UK were concerned about Prime Minister Boris Johnson's mental well-being and his affinity for Peppa Pig. I actually think the latter is understandable. Yeah, Peppa seems cool. Yeah, she's cool.

Yeah, so friendly pig. The challenge now is there are increasing concerns from conservatives about Boris's political future. Here is why. First, it is now confirmed that last December, as the UK was putting in place strict lockdown rules that Boris Johnson staffed through a Christmas party where they hung out, drank wine, ate snacks, and played party games. Even worse, Johnson and his team denied that this party happened until a video leaked of one of his staffers, like, I guess it's kind of like the White House press secretary-ish role, preparing for a White House-style briefing at a podium, and they were practicing questions about this alleged party and essentially practicing how to lie about it and laughing

about it. Yeah. So not smart. No, it's a future staffers. Don't record yourself practicing how to lie. So Johnson still maintains that he had no knowledge of the party and that he is, quote, sickened and furious about the whole thing. He has asked a cabinet secretary to investigate.

I'm sure an internal investigation will really get to the bottom of this whole thing. The Daily Mirror claims that there was a second party, a second event that Boris Johnson actually attended and spoke at. So far, that's not part of this investigation. Great picks from that party, by the way, I saw. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got to check that out. What? Why are they sitting on the ground? They're like, yeah, I don't know what's going on here. I mean, nothing good is happening. That looks like a scene from the office. Boris Johnson is also facing major pushback for members of his own party about his plan to put in place, basically vaccine passports that require proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test to do certain

activities through the UK. So this is all. swirling together at the worst possible time. I guess my take on this was like, I'm not a, obviously not a big Boris Johnson fan. In general, though, it was just nice to see hypocrisy matter again. Remember that? Yeah. Remember that was the thing in our politics? Yeah.

Well, look, there's a meta thing happening in the world, which is you'll remember what it was like to be an incumbent in 2009, 2010 during the financial crisis when people are just, people are just pissed. Like, things aren't getting better fast enough. And so, you know, I think what we're going to see in a lot of places is, like, in comments just having problems because people are pissed about COVID and they're pissed, you know, about hypocrisy and they're pissed that, you know, certain elites are seeming to, you know, be able to do things that they can't do. But I think there's a bigger problem for Boris Johnson, right? The bigger problem is he, like, clearly doesn't seem to give too much of a shit about, like, you know, how all of his constituents are doing. relative to how he and his circle of friends and advisors are doing, they appear to have been living

under a different set of rules. There have been multiple scandals now throughout COVID of people around Boris Johnson or Boris Johnson himself, not doing the things that they're requiring other people to do. So it's one thing to say, like, okay, maybe these COVID restrictions, you know, you can make an argument they're necessary. But if they appear to be imposing draconian COVID restrictions while they're like partying and not wearing masks and not following the protocols and there's a different set of rules that apply to them that apply to everybody else, it starts to feel like he doesn't respect the voters who elected him and thinks that he doesn't have to play by the same rules or the people around him to not play by the same kind of rules.

And that is like poison for politicians. That's like the let me eat cake stuff, which didn't end very well from Murray Antoinette and usually doesn't end very well for leaders. It's also surprising in this case since Boris Johnson almost died from COVID. Yeah, yeah, like Chris Christie kind of situation. You know, like he was in the ICU for like a while. It was bad. Yeah, yeah.

Real bad. And now it just doesn't seem to take it seriously. No, and again, like that they've been riding this wave where no matter what happens, like, you know, the Brexit thing took a while they get done. And then, you know, certain consequences have been pretty negative out of Brexit. But they just keep getting rewarded. And I think they kind of in terms. internalizes a dynamic where like, we can do order to the fuck we want, you know, and it feels

like that's finally catching up to him, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it does. And at least he started combing his hair. And I don't know that's worked. I don't think people want that. No, I want the fuzzy air. It's not like a huge improvement, let's be honest.

Yeah. No, he's not much he can do. Yeah. Our next topic here, a little more vengeance for us, maybe personally, Ben, because the bromance between Donald Trump and former Israeli Prime Minister B.B. Nanjahoo is officially dead. You hate to see it. Yeah. Here's a quote from Donald Trump.

Fuck him, Trump said of Netanyahu. Donald Buddy, like, welcome to the BB Netanyahu, not a fan club. Brief and rejection is like, it was one of those things where I was like, well, it leaked out that Barack Obama had said fuck him by B. B.N. You know, like the world invented, the statements being issued by organizations, the pearl clutching. With Donald Trump, it's like, oh, that's interesting, axios, you know. No, no, but, like, I mean, the truth is like every American president, most officials who had to

work with B.B. Netanyahu are sort of in the same place here. But so the backstory is, according to Barack David of Axios, reporter there, the Trump-Netanyahu relationship fully ruptured when Netanyahu congratulated Biden on his victory. You're not allowed to do that, right? You're not allowed to talk about reality if Donald Trump doesn't like reality. But things were souring long before that. Trump told Axios that initially had had a much better relationship with Bukh Mood Abbas, the leader of the Palestinians, and ultimately determined that a boss wanted to make a peace deal more than Netanyahu ever did. Trump said that, quote, Bibi just tapped us along. Bibi did not want to make peace.

He never did. Again, thank you, Donald, stating the obvious, joining a long list of public officials who admit to this cynical effort by Bibi to drag out talks and never actually do anything. Now, of course, Trump gave Netanyahu every political gift possible. He moved the embassy to Jerusalem. He recognized the Golan Heights as part of Israel's territory. He cut off contact with a boss, cut assistance to the Palestinians. So I don't know, Ben, it's odd to just sort of agree with Donald here?

I don't know. Well, I mean, I think there are a few things that send out here. Like, first of all, what's interesting is that his attitude towards Netanyahu is kind of like his attitude towards like the Georgia Secretary of State. Like he sees Bibi Netanyahu as like a local Republican elected official. You know what I mean? Like clearly that's his mentality, right? Like, oh, you know, we're the right-wing party on Israel now, and that means that this guy's going to do everything I want, including backing up my Stop the Steel, like, campaign.

Yeah, yeah. And, again, like, that speaks to how crass and transactional and full of shit their whole, like, wrap themselves in the Israeli flag thing is. It's not about any genuine feeling for Israel or Israelis. It's this idea that we can cynically manipulate the politics of this issue for, benefit at home, and we expect the Israeli prime minister to be a party to that, which, by the way, Netanyahu, by and large, was. Totally cool. Like, he was totally cool with it.

He is not the Georgia Secretary of State who stood up to Trump. He's just somebody who, like, called the incoming president of the United States Joe Biden, right? Second thing is, I'm a little dubious on the, like, oh, I actually had a great relationship with Abu Masa. I don't believe they're really. He said he was like a father figure to him. Yeah, come on. I mean, let's, let's be clear here, right?

I don't think that there was like some deep chemistry developing between Donald Trump and Obamazin. And then lastly, like a bit of like the tell that maybe the Abraham Accords wasn't the peace deal, right? Because it's suddenly like, well, he wasn't interested in peace. Like, no, maybe that was not about peace either. Right. So this kind of just exposes the obvious truth at the core of the whole Trump-Nen-Yahu thing, which was entirely about each one another's like respective political views at home. and not about trying to do anything.

And Trump being like, oh, well, fuck him is more about the fact that, you know, even though Netanyahu put up billboards to Trump and remember they were like naming shit after him in Israel, that, you know, if you're not willing to like storm the Capitol in January 6th and participate in like hang Mike Pence chance, you know, you're going to end up getting trashed in like a Barack Reveed book. Right. I mean, as much as I love reading about Trump slapping Netanyahu around, what it does reveal is that. okay, you're telling us that you knew from the early, from the very beginning that Netanyai was never going to cut a peace deal. And yet you gave him all those political gifts. It was only to excite an evangelical base back in the United States. It was as cynical as it gets. He basically was admitting that.

It's also like an enormous repudiation of Jared Kushner and all of his strategies and everything he stood for. In fact, so Barack DeVito is writing this book on the Abraham Accords. He did a podcast, a couple podcast episodes with Jonathan Swan of Axios, like about the negotiations. And it is very self-congratulatory, a bit of a circle-jerk vibe about, you know, the UAE ambassador, you know, coming to Jared with this idea for the Abraham Accords. And, you know, ultimately they talk about how essentially the Abraham Accords or what became them was essentially a way to get Netanyahu to not annex the West Bank. because I guess Trump didn't have this SWAT to like call up Netanyahu and say, hey, do not annex the West Bank. They had to give him this giant diplomatic gift. It's all very annoying and confusing.

Like what, peace is a slight delay in the annexation of the West Bank? Right. I mean, it's not like peace was like the West Bank becoming part of Palestinian state. It was like, oh, I'm not going to just publicly claim all this land as annex isn't a part of Israel. I am going to continue to build settlements. I am going to do nothing to bring about a Palestinian state. So, no, this didn't accomplish anything, right? Like, let's be clear.

Like, the idea that they forestalled, like, an even worse outcome of an annexation of the West Bank, like, in exchange for massive arms deals to the UAE and the, like, look, Morocco is, you know, basically got support for, like, a war in the Western Sahara, Sudan, we've had a coup. Like, if you look at the countries that are a part of this. It's not ended well for them. The behavior in those countries is not improved on the back end of this deal, you know? I do just think like Nanyahu himself like looks like an increasingly ridiculous figure.

You've got multiple Israeli officials now coming out and saying that his Iran policy was like the biggest disaster for Israel in recent history. And you have Iran moving in the direction of a nuclear weapon because of even Nanyahu. Peace is further away. Nanyahu is out of power. Trump, his best buddy, is telling him to go fuck himself. Like, I mean. And both of them have spent a lot of their time either in a courtroom defending themselves against corrupt. charges that's on Yahoo or Trump preparing to defend himself potentially against corruption

charges or fighting back against subpoenas and you know both in New York and at the in Congress. Yeah. So this is not exactly like, you know, Anwar Sadat and. Yeah, they're not covering in glory here. Jimmy Carter here. No, no. Enough about those creeps. Ben, it is time for the world does out there to mount up in defense of an unfairly maligned world leader. So Santa Marine is the prime minister of Finland. she had to apologize because she went clubbing until 4 a.m. And she missed a text message informing her that she had been in close contact with someone who had COVID-19. Now, that's obviously a bummer. But that someone was the foreign minister of Finland.

It wasn't like some random thing headed a bar. Here's where this all gets a little confusing. Marine was initially told that despite her close contact with the foreign minister who got COVID, that she didn't need to isolate because she was fully vaccinated. So she did, I think, what every one of us wished we could have done for all. of 2020 on a Saturday night. She left her fucking work phone at home and she went out to the bars. But then on Sunday when she got home, she saw a text on her work phone that said, hey, you're in close contact. You should self-isolate. You should get tested. So she wasn't got tested. The results

came back negative. All as well, that ends well. The Finland guideline don't require you to isolate if you're fully vaccinated and come in contact with someone with COVID, but they suggest that you do. I don't know. I don't get how this is a scandal. Seems like the problem here is some poorly written rules. But Marine became the world's youngest prime minister when she was a to lead Finland's center-left coalition back in 2019. At that time, she was 34. Now she's 36. Here's a hot take for her critics.

Shut up. Yeah. You guys are losers. You're losers. You wish you could stay awake till 4 a.m. That's the problem. I wish I could stay awake until 4 a.m. Well, yeah.

I mean, it wouldn't end well for me. You know, like about 2 a.m., like things would start to go really south, really fast. You know? But look, first of all, it's very different from the Boris Johnson scandals where he was putting forward these guidelines that they were all breaking. This was pre-vaccine too when Boris was doing this thing. Yeah, you know, he's just parting back there. Like, we want our leaders, our political leaders, to be recognizable.

We want them to, you know, essentially be authentically themselves, right? And like, who wouldn't want a leader to feel like, you know what? It's been a pretty fucking shitty year. Yeah. So you know what I want to do? Live your life. Like, I want to go out until 4 a.m. I'm going to have the jello shot.

like, or whatever the thing is that you do at the club, you know. And, and look, she's a, she's, she's the kind of leader we need. Like, would you want, like, Donald Trump at the club till four in the morning? Like, no. You think Biden wasn't hitting the clubs during the roaring 20s or whenever he was? I'm saying that, like, this is a person who's at the vanguard of this trend. Yes. We've talked about of women leaders in their 30s getting elected, being very reasonable people,

doing a great job in office. And if you want to go out to the club at four, like, you know what every now and then like that's something that like you got to do right and i think this is something where world doesn't need to circle the wagons and defense here of all the haters and back the fuck up i will tell you also helsinki is a fun place to hang out doesn't the sun not ever go down so i went there uh i went there a long time ago and i had like a really good time and i went out and remember one night and i had a little too much to drink and i go back and it was the white nights it was literally the time when the sun like never goes down and i will tell you it is rough

when you have had a little too much drink and I didn't have her stamina so I didn't make it until four so I go back and I crash at my like crappy hotel at the time and I wake up at like three in the morning and you know like you don't feel that great and it's just bright light

Yeah how are you supposed to sleep anyway What's the point of going home? I have a lot of respect for these people they can power through in the summer and right now it's like dark all the fucking time like I mean yeah You don't even know what time it is I went to Oslo in January

And basically the sun came up at like 830 and went down at 4 It was the reverse. It was not good. But I'm just saying, like, if part of the problem that we have in the world today is that a bunch of autocratic nationalist creeps are getting elected because in many countries, too many countries, more old people vote than young people because young people are looking at politicians and not seeing people that they can relate to and not seeing people they can connect to, the idea that you have like an effective social Democrat prime minister in her 30s, crushing it on the job and then crushing it at the clubs. is like the kind of thing that would get more people involved in politics. Totally. This story is getting traction because she is a young, attractive woman.

But I just want to point out that some of the world's greatest leaders have been known to party. As has been discussed before on this show, Queen Elizabeth I second of England was known to pregame her lunch. Yeah. Pregame her lunch. She would have a Dubene cocktail. Good for her. Just fortified wine mixed with gin.

Jesus. That's his stupid cocktail. Sounds like I had to like crawl off the floor after a couple of those. Former Russian president Boris Yeltsin reportedly got so drunk during a visit to Washington, D.C., that he was found by Secret Service standing alone trying to hail a cab on Pennsylvania Avenue in his underwear. Yeah. And when asked why, he said he was going to go grab a slice of pizza. Who among us hasn't wanted to get that slice of pizza? Can you imagine if you ran into half-naked Boris Yeltsin, the jumbo slice?

Well, I was going to say, I was going to say that you get the jumbo slice, you know? Like, that was clearly what he was going after, you know? FDR Ben reportedly served dirty martini's to Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin at the Yalta conference as they were figuring out, you know, sort of post-war Europe. It didn't end that well for Eastern Europe, but, you know, like it, you know, they, they save half the world, you know. Yeah, you know, maybe they'd get them. Merkel is reportedly a fan of a good German beer.

Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, she loved Quantro and Scotch. I don't like, look, what I'm saying is a lot of great leaders, New York. had to have a great time. You know who did never have a drink, did never seem to have fun? Donald Trump. I mean, you know, sitting around drinking Diet Coke's and eating like fast food. Look, we're team Finland here. We're team Finland. We're team Marin. You know, we're invested in her success and the success of basically all political leaders under 40 who try to do the right thing in office and, you know, try to get after it on the weekends. Yeah, except for that douchebag done in El Salvador. We don't like him. Ben, the New York Times published a report about the estate.

assassination in Haiti, though, I thought was an important update. So they said that President Jovenile Moise of Haiti, who was assassinated back in July, had been keeping a list of government officials and business people linked to the drug trade and was about to hand it over to the U.S. government before he was assassinated. This list reportedly included close associates, people who had basically helped him gain power. And Moise's wife, who survived the assassination attempt, described how the killers had rifled through all his documents before declaring, that's it. grabbing something and leaving. It's a long story. It's worth reading in full. There was actually a great episode of The Daily where they talked about it. But I don't know, not an entirely surprising motive here, I thought.

No, and I mean, it was nice to feel like you were getting the beginning of some answers about this, right? Because it was so opaque why this incredibly dramatic thing happened, you know? And, you know, it is a sign that in Haiti and through Haiti, you have gangs and drug cartels that are far more powerful than the state. so that if they become aware and start to feel like they might become the target of the state,

it's like, okay, we'll just take out the president, right? So good that, you know, hopefully this is a thread that can be pulled to figure out what happened, but, you know, a sign of just like how big a problem it is that, you know, the state is not the big actor here when it comes to violence in Haiti. Yeah, it makes you worry that the corruption is so endemic in, you know, the halls of power in Haiti that there might not ever be accountability for what happened. But hopefully it does seem like we are a little bit closer to knowing why he was assassinated. Yeah. Another interesting story that has to do with President Biden and his ambassadorial nominees. So President Biden nominated

former Quibi, Hewlett-Packard, and eBay CEO Meg Whitman to be the U.S. ambassador to Kenya. Whitman endorsed Biden in 2020, Hillary Clinton in 2016, so she was sort of an anti-Trump Republican. but before that was a senior member of Mitt Romney's campaigns in 2008, 2012, and she ran for governor of California in 2010 as a Republican. Kubi used to be in this building. It used to be in elevators with her randomly. Here's my question, though. Why?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why, why, why, why, why, what connection does she have with Kenya? Yeah. She's an incredibly accomplished CEO. But Kenya is a big, important country. Really important country. We have lots of counterterrorism interests there. like Ethiopia, their neighbor is in the middle of a year-long civil war.

I get rewarding supporters with ambassadorial posts. I don't think it's the greatest practice that presidents do, but Obama did it, others have done it. But normally you're like sending people to like the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas. Is Kenya a spot where you try out a novice political appointee rather than some like hardened career diplomat with experience in the region? It seems like a bad idea to me. It's pretty random. I mean, first of all, Kenya is really important country, right? So, and it's a country with a lot of sensitive issues you have to manage.

You've had situations in the past that we've had to get involved in the United States government, kind of mediating between some tribal violence and Kenyan politics between the Tutsi and Kikyu tribes, you know, that you've had really bad election violence. It's a dynamic economy. It's a place where China is seeking to get greater influence in Africa. It's a key counterterrorism partner. it's a part of any diplomatic strategy related to Tigray or South Sudan or any number of the other issues there. It's the biggest and most important country in that part of Africa.

And you would want someone who knows a lot about Kenya or knows a lot about the diplomacy that you're going to have to pursue in that kind of country. And the reality here is it like, yes, sometimes you reward people. But like you try to get the right person for the right post or the right job. I mean, Quibi didn't work out. Let's face it. I mean, when I first started coming to this building where Quibi had offices, you know, it was cool for like about two months. You'd see like some celebrity coming in for a meeting and stuff.

Like that is not the prep work that you want, though, the cratered Quibi experiment to be the springboard to an ambassadorship to Kenya. Yeah, it's just what's weird to me is like I get, look, I'm okay with non-traditional ambassadorial choices. I'm okay with like plucking a few Republicans and trying to show a bipartisan, you know, image to the world. But another one that was weird is Jeff Flake, former Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona to be ambassador to Turkey. Again, it's a country where like a lot of shit is happening. It's a big important place. They're kind of falling out of NATO. We have an, you know, autocratic leader. It's just an odd, odd choices to me. I don't get it. Yeah. I mean, I think that you like the role of ambassadors too is, you, you know,

you know, it's actually getting kind of more important, right, in the sense that when you're talking about a Kenya or even to some extent of Turkey, these are really important countries that are at the center of a lot of stuff. And yet a lot of the Washington bandwidth is going to be taken up by China, by Middle East issues, by, you know, these large trends that are being managed out of Washington, COVID, climate change. And so you actually rely a lot on, on the ambassador to be the typical the spear of your diplomacy in all these places. And I think like this is not restricted to the Biden administration. You know, I think as a general matter, thinking through like the kind of profile that you want for people to be ambassadors is important. And by the way, like also not having a

confirmation process that is so fucked up that, you know, you can't really get your own people in there. So maybe it's easier to get a Republican. And, you know, when you're Democratic president, it's worth taking a step back and kind of thinking through this whole enterprise going forward. Yeah, it's all for creativity, but it's got to be like square peg, square hole kind of fix. Exactly. And I'm just not sure that we get that here. And sometimes it can fit with a political supporter or donor. Sometimes someone who hasn't been in government has like a lot of unique and relevant expertise to a country doesn't have to.

I'm not one who thinks it always has to be a foreign service officer as good as foreign service officers are. but you do want to make sure it makes the most sense. You have to be able to explain it. Yeah. And I just haven't seen it. Ben, I made a little section that we call very serious problems that seem to be getting worse, but there's no good answers for some quick updates here. One, Ukraine, again, G7 got together.

They warned Russia against invading Ukraine just for listeners. The G7 is the U.S., UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan. This meeting came after Biden's talk with Vladimir Putin last week. State Department sent the U.S. and Secretary of State for Europe to Ukraine and to Russia for meetings. I think those are happening right now. Friend of the pod, Karen Dornfried. Yes.

Yes. I also saw that former world heavyweight boxing champion and current mayor of Kiv Vitale, Klitsko said he was prepared to personally join the army, join the fight if Russia invades. So, I wouldn't want to fuck with that guy. Ben, so the G7 is saying there's going to be political and economic consequences for Russia. If an invasion occurs, it's worth remembering that the G7 was the G8 until 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea, not sure that that deterred to them. We talked about this last week, about how Russia doesn't seem to be really all that scared about U.S. sanctions. Do you think

the G7 collective has more sway, do they have more tools, or is this sort of status quo? I think it's useful to send a message that it's not just the United States, like, raising these concerns. It suggests to Russia that there'll be multilateral consequences for things that they do. it provides a good backdrop to diplomacy that Karen Donfried is is excellently qualified to carry out. You know, the whole thing, though, continues to be worrisome because the Russian troop buildup just continues. And, you know, part of, I was kind of trying to think of at a different angle of like where this might be going.

I mean, obviously worst case scenarios, Russia just invades Ukraine. But, you know, sometimes what Putin can do is he can create a worst case situation. scenario, right? Like, oh, my God, he's going to invade the whole country. And then he can do something short of that. Like, what if they move a whole bunch of these troops into the two provinces that are contested in eastern Ukraine, right? The Donbos area of Ukraine that's on the Russian border. And so it's like, well, he didn't invade the whole country, but, you know, maybe it's a play to kind of annex those pieces of Ukraine like he did Crimea. And so then he's done something that is not this worst case scenario necessarily, but it's still invading and claiming it in chump of a country.

Yeah, yeah. So that's the other angle that occurred to me as I thought about this is just like, I think Putin in the past sometimes has created like fears about something that is extreme so that when he then does something that is less extreme, it doesn't look as radical as if he had just rolled a bunch of troops into a couple of provinces of Ukraine, you know. Yeah. Well, I guess just keep watching this one because it's still. building up trips.

Yeah. I mean, it is like Groundhog Day, but also it's worth pointing out that like the Biden team has a full plate here. And that when you look at the progress of Iran's nuclear program, you look at the risk of an invasion of Ukraine. Like next year, you know, could be, could have some serious foreign policy challenges, you know. Yeah. I mean, so you mentioned the Iran nuclear deal. So the International Atomic Energy Agency says that restrictions that are being put on their inspectors by Iran are giving the world, quote, a very blurred image of the nuclear program. in Iran. Iran refuses to let the IAEA replace cameras they have in some parts of their sort of nuclear

infrastructure because the Iranians say, well, those cameras were probably used in sabotage efforts where the Israelis blew up this facility at some point. So no, you can't put them back in. The U.S. and European diplomats are warning that time is running out. Tony Blinken, the Secretary of State said the U.S. is preparing, quote, alternatives in case the talks collapse. Anything out there giving you hope? Do you think is alternatives code for? dusting off Pentagon plans to blow up shit. Like, I wouldn't try to read that. I'm, you know, usually it means like, even more sanctions, you know, which I don't think

are going to accomplish much other than, you know, just squeezing Iran more. What's left the sanction? Yeah, I mean, like, they've clearly priced in sanctions with the course that they're on. And no, I mean, every, every signal that seems to be coming out of these steps by Iran and these negotiations points to an Iran that is at best engaged in pretty extreme brinksmanship as a part of a negotiating tool or at worst has just decided like they're moving ahead with their nuclear program and they're, you know, doing some smokescreen talks to just, you know, play the clock.

Yeah. Not good. Another good one, yeah. Last sort of problem we've been sort of observing for a while, which is the Pentagon says that no U.S. troops are going to be punished for the drone strike in Kabul in. August that killed 10 civilians. Talked about this a lot of the time. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman said, quote, what we saw here was a breakdown in process and execution in procedural events, not the result of negligence, nor the result of misconduct, not the result of poor leadership, end quote. Remember that, you know, at the time the Defense Department did not acknowledge that civilians

were killed until the New York Times challenged their assertion, that this was a, quote, righteous strike that killed a nicest bomber. Some of the reporting on this decision by the Pentagon not to punish anyone noted that the military almost never holds anyone accountable, never punishes anyone, with the one notable exception being when a dozen military personnel were disciplined for an airstrike on Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Afghanistan in 2015. They killed 42 people. The decision from the Pentagon not to punish someone comes as the Times released another major report detailing how the military routinely circumvented rules put in place to protect civilians

in Syria by saying, look, all our airstrikes are defensive in nature. so we don't have to, you know, make sure that civilians will be killed. I just wanted to highlight all this, Ben, because I'm just having a growing sense that these are systemic failures, that not enough is being done to protect civilians. And that the message that's getting sent to the world when there's no accountability is really damaging. And it worries me. And I'm not sure what to do about it. Yeah. And I think part of what is kind of troubling here is we learned a lot about this drone strike.

And, you know, nothing that we learned suggested really anything that would point to this being like a legitimate target, right? I mean, the guys like driving around town running some errands, putting some water in his car with his family, you know. Driving to like an NGO. And so, you know, part of the issue here is when the panicking. comes out and says nobody did anything wrong there's no failure of this no failure of that you almost want to ask the question and they need to answer the question what would what would qualify as a failure of of execution or leadership you know like like like like what is this because it's so opaque you know like who like you know and and there's different kinds of processes if they

were clear about what the standards are that would merit accountability. then there could be an easier way to measure what happened against what those standards are. And there's a lot of just kind of like, trust us, we looked into this and nothing wrong happened when, you know, in fact, that doesn't answer any questions. If nobody did anything wrong, then how did this happen? You know, and so I think bottom line is you want more accountability and more circumstances. I think you would also want there to be a kind of clear public explanation of what, does constitute a failure so that you can measure these incidents against that, you know?

Yeah, it's real like mistakes were made vibe. Yeah. At some point, like someone made a mistake. Someone made a mistake. Like, if killing someone isn't a mistake, what is? Yeah. I don't know. Ben, Politico had a piece that I want to get your, get a gut check from you on because

the headline felt frustratingly accurate and worth talking about. So this headline was progressives get rolled on Pentagon policy. Yeah. A few examples cited in the article, we still have been able to get rid of the authorization for the use of military force that was passed to go to war in Iraq. A bipartisan group of senators were unable to block a $650 million arm sale to Saudi Arabia. Efforts to fundamentally reform the military justice system were paired back. And the price tag on this big defense spending bill was massive.

It was $768 billion, which was $25 billion more than the White House even asked for. It's worth noting just before we talk about it that progressives have made a ton of progress towards, you know, building support to end the U.S. support for the Saudi war. In Yemen, Senator Kirsten-Jillibrand has done incredible work to push the Pentagon to reform the way it handles sexual assault allegations and deserves credit for it. She was furious of the way it was watered down. But I don't know, what did you make of that article? Do you think that take is fair?

And then more importantly, I guess, like, do you have thoughts on how Democrats can actually do a better job and win some of these fights? the Pentagon budget, reformed the military, et cetera. I think it's fair, you know, in those Trump years when, you know, progresses were, and frankly just even center-left folks, we're kind of thinking through like what are the types of changes you would want to make in this space. You know, you would be looking at cuts to the Pentagon budget. You'd be looking at cuts, for instance, to the massive trillion-dollar nuclear infrastructure

modernization plan. Do we really need to spend trillion dollars modernizing our nuclear weapons? infrastructure, right? Didn't Bob Corker forced us to do that during the Obama years? John Kyle, Bob Corker, these guys, but it just grew mushroomed, right? So there was an original sin there in like 2010, but it's just

got, it's like a snowball rolling down a hill. It's just more and more money. And so there's the overall cut to the budget and particularly this nuclear weapons piece. And Biden has like a nuclear posture of you. That's how you look at nuclear weapons. And all the mood music out of that is it's not going to be particularly progressive.

We used to talk about, you know, no no first use of nuclear weapons as being a part of that. You don't hear anything about that anymore, right? Then the Yemen war, you know, Biden came out in his first major speech and said, you know, we're going to end support for offensive military operations. But, you know, here we are. And Saudi arms sales is something that obviously progressives, and I think Democrats generally thought we need to hit a pause button on.

Chris Murphy's had great leadership on that. So, you know, then you see this arm sale going through. The progressives are very pissed at Murphy for not voting to cut off this latest arm's cell. Yeah, yeah, exactly, right? And then, well, that's at the point, there's kind of like downgrading of expectations on a bunch of stuff. The AUMF was an area where people had a lot of enthusiasm. When you're a Democratic president coming in, you're going on Afghanistan, it's time to replace the EMF. So if you look at that kind of wish list or agenda of repealing the AUMF, ending the war in Yemen, suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia, making meaningful cuts to the defense budget, like none of that is happening, you know. And it feels like the autopilot. of the machinery of Congress and the military industrial complex, you know, plusing up defense spending, which we should point out, like Joe Manchin and, you know, the deficit hawks there and the No Labels Caucus, like we're talking about an annual expenditure of something that is almost half of the overall 10-year price tag of billback better, right?

I mean, massive amounts of money. And I don't think that that changes. absent, like, real concerted presidential and White House focus on this. Because Congress, you know, the lobbyists and the defense contractors can always get to just enough members to kill something like the effort to cut off this Saudi arms sale, right? Or to add some more pork to the defense budget. And so, you know, this is something that they would have to decide to meaningfully take on. Yeah. Yeah. And look, it's frustrating that, you know, I think the U.S. is still providing some support for airstrikes in Yemen. The blockade hasn't been ended. Millions people are at risk of starvation.

So like there is, there's some good pressure from the left on these issues. It's just kind of, I don't know, it's not penetrating the Biden team's decision making on this set of topics, in part because just in fairness, the White House folks are probably thinking, all right, we're going to need the Saudis help with the Iran nuclear deal if we can get back into that. We're going to need their help on energy prices. We need their help on AQAPL, those other things. And so, you know, you can see how really critical priorities like ending the war in Yemen can get squeezed out a little bit. But I do think, like, there is more urgency there than on almost any other issue to end that blockade and prevent people from starving. And I would expect what they would tell you,

and this is just, you know, me saying this, not based on on the conversations, you know, that we're trying to do this. We're trying to end the war in Yemen. And actually, it could harm our diplomacy in China and the war in Yemen if we picked a fight with the Saudis over this thing and, you know, kind of the strategy of like you kind of hug the person to try to get them to do something. I don't know. I don't, like, I just feel like the war in Yemen is so beyond the pale that you have to set some markers. The nature of the Saudi regime is, you know, so compromised that you have to do something more concerted on themselves. But then also this question of the Pentagon budget is within your purview. And, you know,

we don't need this big of a Pentagon budget. If you look under the hood of that budget, this is not all stuff that is going for future threats, you know, whether it's China or cyber or whatever. It's a lot of bloated stuff, you know, like a trillion dollar nuclear weapons modernization plan, right? And so I think it's just time to, you know, to have government reflect the priorities that I think Democrats have. And this feels like it's not there. Here's another example of, you know, a priority that's continued from Trump to Biden that sort of surprised me, which is the extradition of Julian Assange. So last week, a British court ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited to the U.S. to face charges, which reversed a lower court ruling. So in 2019, the Trump administration charged Assange on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act, the Biden administration has continued that prosecution effort.

the Obama team, the Obama administration back in the day, debated charging Assange but decided not to because of concerns that could harm press freedom. This British court ruling wasn't about any of these bigger issues we're talking about. Their concern is that Assange's physical and mental health had deteriorated so much in British custody that his extradition to the U.S. could put him in a prison where the conditions are so inhumane that they could create an extreme risk of suicide. I would just say, pausing for a second, like no matter how you feel, about Assange. I think the fact that the British court system is debating how horrific the U.S. prison system is should probably all make us pause and be ashamed for a minute of just how fucked up our penal system is. So, you know, the charges that Assange is facing, none of them have to do

with 2016 or, you know, the election. It's all about documents he was given by Chelsea Manning in 2010. DOJ says Assange solicited the documents that he participated in a conspiracy with Manning to cover his tracks after Chelsea Manning got the documents. So, Ben, you know, I'm not a fan of Assange. I find this whole thing deeply uncomfortable. I worry about the precedent. But I guess the question I had for you is, are you surprised that the Biden administration is continuing with this prosecution and extradition? Is like, are these, you know, prosecution efforts at DOJ just sort of like a source of enormous inertia? I just don't get at this works. they are kind of a source

I mean they they kind of the wheels start spinning and then they just continue spinning you and I went through a version of this in the Obama years on I think even more

questionable cases which are those leak cases right? Yes. And remember we a lot of those originated in the Bush administration previous national security leaks

and and then it just like it was hard to explain to people that Barack Obama didn't come in and say like I want you to to prioritize this. They're just ongoing prosecutions, you know, some which began Bush and some just, and so you have to kind of make a decision to deprioritize something at times, which, you know, I think you can make a pretty credible argument,

like the Obama administration should have done on some of those leak investigations. And so in this case, I'm not surprised because it kind of runs on autopilot, but at a certain point, like what is the relative value? of pursuing kind of futile this extradition over something that happened over a decade ago that has really been, you know, we are like so many universes past that time. You know, like, we've sent the message that, like, there will be efforts to bring to justice people that leak or the people that are involved in this. Like, I just don't see that with all the things that the Justice Department can and should be doing,

why this should be like prioritized in the U.S. UK relationship or or in the kind of universe of stuff that we had to worry about it. Yeah. And look, I don't like Julian Assange. I find it be a pretty odious character in a lot of ways. But like I just don't know that like what are we achieving here? And also I think the global reaction to this extradition effort is horror. Yeah. And concern about the precedent and press freedom. And concern about and dragging back up the all the debates about everything WikiLeaks was. Like, what is the best case scenario here, right? Like, from the U.S. government standpoint, like, what, is it really worth, like, having Julian Assange in a prison and then a trial and bring back all the Chelsea Manning stuff? It just, it just feels like we're past the expiration date on this one, you know?

Yeah, and look, I mean, some of the materials Manning released were whistleblowing. There was that horrific video of a U.S. helicopter shooting journalists, murdering them, a huge mistake. That should have been disclosed by the government before. Shouldn't have to have been leaked. No one is arguing that disclosing 250,000 State Department cables was whistleblowing or necessary or appropriate. Or like taking from the GRU cut out the 2016 documents releasing them, but that's not what the is at issue here. Right, right. And that's not what the issue.

But like my point was just on the State Department cables like Chelsea Manning was punished for that crime extensively. And so was the point where Obama commuted the sentence. So was Julian Assange. Yeah. I mean, he's been living in a fucking embassy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not like, you know, he's been high on the hog here the last few years, right? So there's been punishment.

You have sent the message that there are consequences for people who do this kind of stuff. Like, I don't, yeah, it just doesn't seem like, why are we still doing this? It's surprising to me. Last thing. Very, very serious topic here. According to the Saudi Press agency, over 40 camels were disqualified from an annual camel beauty contest because they were administered. Botox, hormones, or other appearance-enhancing techniques. Participants in the King of Dool-A-Z's Camel Festival compete for, wait for it, $66 million in price money. Yes. Judges pick the camel winners

based on the shape of their heads, necks, humps, dress, and postures. That's a quote. These poor camels are treated- What qualifies is like an attractive hump? I don't know. We got to find, we got to go. No, we probably shouldn't go, bonsock. These poor camels, they're treating them like, Instagram influencers or bodybuilders. They're poked in their product and injected it with like fillers and steroids and shit. They should all move to L.A. The goal of the festival is to keep Saudi Arabia's Bedouin tradition alive. It's to highlight the role the camels have played in it.

So I guess, you know, good, I guess that they're cracking down on cheaters. But like, so the idea of giving a camel Botox is obviously crazy and hilarious. But I guess also PEDs are pervasive at horse races, dog tracks, other competitions. But Ben, while I was researching this, I came. across the following headline that I just thought you would love. Quote, Barry Bonds is unrecognizable at Westminster Dog Show. Barry Bonds, former baseball player, had a miniature schnauzer named Rocky competing in the Westminster Dog Show in 2021. And the headline was about how he doesn't look roided up anymore. So, it's a full circle. Yeah. So like the head isn't swollen up and

Oh, no. Dude, I used to go to a gym in San Francisco and Barry Bonds would work out there and he looks like a different person. Huh. Well, I was thinking, like, remember the movie Best in Show? Pretty good movie. Great show? Right. Fantastic show. Like, you could make a remake or a sequel, it's like the camel show. Write it up. That's some show.

I mean, because like, every society is a little peculiar about their animals. And we have dog shows here. So, like, we're in a bit of a glass house. I don't know that the dogs are getting Botox and PDs. Like, you could probably find that they are. Yeah. I bet they, yeah, you're probably right. I just think.

I mean, my dog's haircuts cost four times as much as mine do, so I shouldn't really talk. I do just think it's a little, like, wouldn't the camel contest be like, you know, which camel can, like, walk the farthest across the desert or something? Yeah, I would think more utilitarian. Beauty is not the word I associate with a camel. No. They're kind of mean, too. I hear they can be kind of real bastards, you know. Did you?

I mean, but I'm not a Bedouin. I assume that they know how to kind of tame. Yeah, you build a relationship. Did you go on the Obama trip to Egypt? I did. Didn't you guys go on like a camel thing? I didn't. Are you stuck writing?

Well, no, I wasn't that enthusiastic to ride on camel. And I remember seeing like Rahm manual riding around a camel is something I'll never unsee. But it's, I mean, like the health of the camels need to be for, you know, of course. For fun and center here on this thing. The camel influencer thing is kind of dystopian. Yeah. They're probably using like Instagram filters and like those beautification apps on on. Right.

Face tune and stuff. Yeah. Hump tune. Yeah. $66 million? That's the thing They really jumped down. Some high stakes.

That number is what got this topic in the show. 66 mil? Do you think Bieber when he was over there for the big MBS Bonesaw party at the Formula One racing thing was doing a little side show with the camels? I wonder. That's a good question. Maybe I had a ride on a camel. I bet, do you think if you get, I bet that the Bieber concert appearance price tag comes with like a three day.

Yeah. Like you have to do. it tour. Ride a camel through the desert. Hang out, kind of participate in their weird, you know, like propaganda events they want you to do. Yeah, there's probably some camel beautification picks out there that Bieber could get, you know, ripped into.

Yeah. Well, good for him. Anyway, if any of you out there are camel officinados, if you've been to this competition, if you know more. I wouldn't know more about this. I would love to know. Is there a llama version of this? Please.

Like, that's kind of our version of a camel over here in this hemisphere. You know that we had a llama for Obama in Iowa in 2008. No, an actual llama? It went to like, oh yeah, went to all kinds of events. That llama was in dozens of parades for Obama. It was like that llama would always show up to stuff. I think there might have been llamas for Obama in 2004 too, which we love a good, you know, alliteration rhyme scheme kind of thing.

But, yeah, it was that, the llamas and my shitty-ass truck would always be in these events. Who would drive the llama around? Did you have a, someone would walk him? staff who was like a llama caretaker? Yeah, there's a guy, um, uh, Oren who lived up in the sort of llama Lama region who I think was sort of the designated point of conflict. Are there llamas in Iowa? Is that a thing?

There's just lots of weird people. Yeah, yeah. I've always like a good apaca. Oh yeah, those are cool. Yeah, those are cool. But those are, why don't people farm them? Is that for their fur? Is it like a hair thing?

I think so. I think they have like the, you know, like you make a sweater. Do they die when you do that? Or is it shaved? No, I think you shave them off. Okay. Better. It's like a shake, right?

Yeah. You feel good about it. You can feel okay about it. I guess we can feel okay about the, as long as the Campbell's seal, a little piece of that 66 mill. Right. I mean, I wonder how you celebrate. If you go to Finland, you're at the club, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just like bring all these threads together. Yeah, well. I'd rather go to Finland and go to hit the clubs and hang out at the Tory party, Christmas party. Ugh. Yeah. I can you, first of all. The Tory, I saw the video of the, of the Tory Jensocky, like, making fun of the fact that.

Trying to spin it. Like, we did not have a party or something. And it's just, it wasn't a, funny. It was bad. It wasn't funny. At least be funny. Don't you think that Boris Johnson was absolutely aware of these parties and was probably at one of them? No question about it. No question about it. Like this shoe is going to drop so hard on him. He's so full of shit. He's down in the polls for the first time in a while. There was a poll that showed Labor has like an eight point edge on it. Let's go Lammy. Yeah. I mean, there's been a lammy bounce. Mamie was quoted knifing for us of a lot of these stories. Yeah, he's been all, you know,

his Twitter feeds been pretty good. If you want to know where I saw like the picture from the mirror. Oh, that's how you got it? Yeah, right on. But yeah, he's been wielding the knife. But like, you know, I mean, the problem is that the election is not supposed to be for a couple of years, you know? You know, you wish that the election was like in a few months.

How's Keir Starmer doing over there? He's, I mean, they're up now for the first time in a while. I mean, like, they've got, you know, they've got a, they've got a lead. And I mean, but Keir Stummer needs to just close the deal on, like, making labor a credible alternative. Totally. That actually, like, you know, respects the voters and has a program for them. doesn't, you know, spend their money or donor money, you know, redesigning number 10 and,

you know, partying and contravention of your COVID protocols. Idiots. I'm waiting for the skexit shoe to drop and for them to just piece out. Scotland, that is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the problems Labor has to get a little wonky on British politics is that, like, there were two referendums, right?

There was a Scottish referendum, and Labor used to get a lot of Scottish voters. But some of the voters used to get in Scotland now move to the Scottish nationalist. So they lost those people. Then there's a Brexit referendum. And a bunch of Labor's own people were really for Brexit. So then they lost some voters in that referendum, you know. So they got to kind of build back. Better?

Better. There you go. Ben, I almost forgot. Donald Trump did an interview with Hugh Hewitt. Oh. Dan and John talked about this on the Thursday, five. Just a historic suck up. A suck up of epic proportions.

A man who traces his political lineage back to Richard Nixon's administration, and I believe is the head of the Nixon library. And presents himself as this like intellectual, you know, who's like deeply versed in foreign affairs. Yeah. Anybody who presents himself as like an incredibly serious and deeply read person on foreign affairs simultaneously completely sucking up to Donald Trump should be taken by the grain of salt. Yes. So here's a clip of Hugh Hewitt's interview with Trump, where they go on this sort of odd tangent about China and hypersonic missiles that raise a lot of eyebrows. So Russia started it after they got our information. You know, somebody gave them during the Obama administration everything we had on hypersonic. And Russia did it. And what I did is a catch-up program. And we've caught up largely caused. up. But what happened is Russia got it. And then

China got it perhaps from Russia. I doubt they did it themselves. They got it perhaps from Russia. Maybe from some bad spy in the United States. So he's talking about hypersonic missiles. Yeah. Yeah. But like clearly detailing what sounds like

some pretty closely held intelligence about how the Chinese got a hold of really advanced technology. It's a very, very weird, weird quote. part of this interview. I mean, like a lot of the times with Trump, first of all, like the idea that like the Obama administration gave Russia supersonic missiles is like one of the dumbest fuckings ever heard

and not at all true. And I think we would have known. I think I think if the Trump, put it this way, I think if the Trump administration had uncovered some massive, you know, program by Barack Obama to deliver a brand new missile to Russia and China, like, you might have put that out there. Yeah, prosecuted that one. Everything about Donald Trump and these types, when he has like a foreign affairs question like this, there's like some shred of information. Like he was once like briefed on like Russia's hypersonic weapons program or something.

And he remembers like one shred of something about that. And then he just like wraps it up in some insane conspiracy theory. Yeah. He's just like making up on the spot that aggrandizes him and runs down Obama. And then the Chinese at China, as he says, has to be brought in as like a villain. But that is like completely insane commentary on very sensitive nuclear missile-related technology. Yeah, kind of esoteric, weird deep dive there. There's things I can't even say about this.

Not that the Obama administration. But like, this is insane. This is not something you should be talking about on the radio. Yes. For the former president. Also in the interview, Trump mocks his former Secretary of Defense. Asper, he called him Yesper. Hugh had said something about him being scuba diving when they needed him.

at some point. I don't know what the fuck they were talking about. I have to say I'm occasionally on, you know, on MSNB or something and like Mark Esper, like I want to reference him by name. I forgot his first name. I love that I can often not remember his full name. Like I, I'm glad that I can't. It's such a sign of what caliber of Secretary of Defense this guy was. I literally forgot it until you said it just there. Hugh also asked Trump whether they thought the Chinese like knew about COVID, let it spread without doing anything. And Trump basically said, You know, the question that you're really asking is, did they do it on purpose? And I don't think so. Then he went on to sort of detail what others say, all the other conspiracy theories. So we sort of had it both ways in his answer. But it's interesting because the sort of Steve Ben and Peter Navarro wing of the party. Josh Rogan. Jason. Well, the lab league people too. I'll, you know, sort of either overtly say or suggest that the Chinese Communist Party like, you know, essentially treated COVID like a weapon. Yeah, it's interesting that he hasn't, because it's not like this guy has boundaries. It's not like truth is a binding factor with him. Never, ever, ever.

And so it's interesting that he, like, so why doesn't he just say that given that he'd say anything? Like, it suggests that he's like afraid of something about the Chinese. Yeah, I think. It's very weird. He also talked about the, this was right after the Biden-Putin phone call about Ukraine. And, you know, you can tell Trump just, like, wants Putin to invade Ukraine because he thinks it'll make Biden look bad. But he called Biden a high school football team versus Putin, who is the Steelers in their prime, which is only funny to me because Hugh Hewitt is a huge Cleveland Browns fan. And it's kind of a bit of a tacit to fuck you, then.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, like Hugh Hewitt, like all the Trump's sick offense is going to figure out that, like, you know, he doesn't really love you, Hugh. I'm sorry. No, he just doesn't. All you're sucking up and reputation destruction and revealing yourself. to be a deeply unsurious person posing as a serious person is not going to win you that affection. Yeah.

Weird to me that a Nixon staffer, you know, wouldn't be on the up and up, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, God, you know, who knows, like, why a Nixon staffer would be on board with a man who's willing to break democratic norms and subvert our democracy. Corruption, all that stuff. Okay, so that's it for us today. We are off next week because of the holidays. But the episode after that is going to be a deep dive into all things China because, you know, Ben, in some ways, it's the biggest story in the world in many ways.

Yeah, we don't get to talk about it quite as much as we should, given that it's not always like pressing in the news, but I think the ability to step back and really go deep into all the dimensions of what's going on with the U.S. and China, kind of tee up the next Cold War, you know. It's worth an episode. Worth an episode. So we'll get you guys that next week. And until then, happy holidays. Merry Christmas. Merry war on Christmas. Yeah. Be careful in that rain, Angelinos. Yes. Drive safe. Hunker down. Hunker down. Pod Save the World is a crooked media production.

The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seiglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Yale Freed, and Phoebe Bradford, and film and share our episodes as videos each week.