Pod Save the World - The world is watching

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

The global reaction to the protests in the United States and the scary and inappropriate way the US military is being asked to police them. Trump’s latest fight with the G-7, an update on the war in Libya, why Ted Cruz is threatening Twitter, and locusts. Then Washington Post Global Opinions Editor Karen Attiah joins to talk about how Western media would be covering the protests in the US if they were happening in another country.

Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy D.Tor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, we are both live from our respective homes in Los Angeles, and both of us asked the other if they were distracted by the sound of helicopters overhead. So that kind of gives you a sense of life in L.A. right now. Yeah, yeah, five hours now of helicopters constantly circling overhead here. And there's like a couple of protests that went by, so you're very active here. Yeah, it's good. It's good. We are very, very in favor of protests here at Crooked Media and Pod Save the World, both in the U.S. and abroad. So today we are going to talk a lot about that, the protests. We're going to talk about the global reaction to what people are seeing on the streets in the

United States, to the police violence that has swept across the country over the past week. We're also going to talk about the strange and, you know, frankly disconcerting role the U.S. military is being asked to play in the protest response by President Trump. Then we're going to get into why Trump is in another pissing war with the G7 countries. We're going to talk a little bit about Libya because we don't enough, but a lot is going on there and has been for a while. We're going to talk about why Ted Cruz is a complete tool, so that will leave you guessing about all the options. And then, Ben, you're going to drop some knowledge on locusts. I purposely did zero prep on the locust issue because I want to learn all of it from you.

And then we're going to be joined by Karen Atia, who is just the badass global opinions. editor at the Washington Post. Ben and I was talking before we started recording. That Washington Post Global Opinion section is not just like interesting with, it's like the best writers all in one place that people should really check out. Totally. Okay. So for the last week, Americans all across the country in towns large and small have been marching to protest the murder of George Floyd and, you know, police brutality in America generally. And, you know, it has been, I think, at times inspiring, at times infuriating when you see police brutality being repeated in real time on these protesters, at times a little frightening, both images on TV and what's happening around us in L.A.

But here's something I thought was pretty remarkable and in some ways hopeful. So people all over the world are marching in support of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd, even while the coronavirus is raging in those countries just like it is here. So I've seen marches in the UK, Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, Poland, Australia. Syria. Yes, Syria. Ben, I tweeted this photo from a CNN piece if anyone wants to see it. But two Syrian artists painted a mural of George Floyd on what looks like, you know, just sort of a bombed out building in Idlib province, Syria.

So, you know, Ben, the solidarity is inspiring. And it is just incomprehensible to me that two men living in Idlib, Providence, Syria, could muster empathy for human beings living in America, given what they have gone through the last decade. But, you know, the flip side is that these horrifying images of America are being shown to the world. And that is dark and is embarrassing as an American that African Americans are treated this way. I mean, we saw an Australian TV crew get assaulted on live TV. That's Australia's window into what's happening here. seeing protesters beaten, and, you know, allies, adversaries are watching. I mean, Patrick Braddon Keith in Wind of Change talks about how, you know, America's shameful treatment of African-Americans

has long been part of Soviet propaganda. That is true now. We saw that in 2016. It's now part of Chinese propaganda because, you know, that injustice, that original sin of America undercuts everything we say about democracy and freedom and universal rights. I'm sorry if you don't like to hear that, listeners, but it is true. And now, you know, we're, you know, we're seeing like China-backed leaders in Hong Kong, for example, accusing the U.S. of a double standard in our response to the protests in America. And Ben, you know, let me read you a quote from Mike Pompeo from November 2019. Here you go.

Unrest in violence cannot be resolved by law enforcement efforts alone. The government must take clear steps to address public concerns. In particular, we call on the government to promote accountability by supplementing the independent police complaints council review with an independent investigation into the release related incidents. No, that was not about the United States and U.S. policing. That was a Pompeo's statement on what was happening in Hong Kong that he should be also putting out about the treatment of protesters by police. So long wind up there, Ben. I just, you know, want to get some things off my chest. But then I want to know what you made of this, both the global solidarity

with George Floyd and his family, but also what you think the events of this last week due to America's image and moral standing around the world and ability to get things done. Yeah, I was really struck by the global solidarity. You know, I think part of what it shows, Tommy, is that obviously governments are not stepping up to defend universal rights around the world. The U.S. government has not done that essentially for three and a half years under Trump, except selectively on Hong Kong, maybe. And certainly you're not going to get that from the Chinese, India, the world's largest democracy. We've talked about them moving in this nationalist direction. Europe occasionally speaks up, but a very preoccupied home. There was this kind of bizarre clip today of Justin Trudeau

pausing for 20 seconds. Remarkable. And then dodging the question about Trump's actions here. And so I think part of what's happening that I do think is hopeful is that in the absence of government's acting, there is this kind of growing civil society that you've seen take many different forms. You know, the Hong Kong protests, the climate strikes, some of the protests against inequality in places as different as France and Chile. And now you're seeing it expressed in the context of our protests. And there's kind of an international community of citizens who are angry and upset by injustice everywhere and democratic backsliding everywhere. I'll say, you know, this kind of transitions into the U.S. government piece.

I had a pretty, like, poignant night the other night. I video conference with three young Hong Kongers who were involved in Hong Kong politics. And they're not hardcore protesters, but, you know, they've been involved. And, you know, sitting in my house, you know, and they're sitting in their houses and we're talking about what China had done, the steps that they'd announced. These young people were debating. What do they do? do they stay politically involved, do they emigrate?

And I felt, though, like this kind of solidarity. They're asking about the United States, you know, that there are people all over the world who don't like what they're seeing, want to do something, want to have agency. And protest is one of the most direct outlets that you have to have agency. And even amidst a pandemic, you still see people doing that. I think the challenge, though, and this came up as I was talking to these people in Hong Kong, you know, people in Hong Kong want Trump to take a tough line against the Chinese government.

They want Trump to use sanctions. But, you know, if we have no credibility, I just fear that those steps are kind of meaningless. And, you know, as I really looked at the Hong Kong protest and travel there and talk to protesters, what I kept hearing again and again is what happened is large peaceful protests were turned violent by police actions deliberately, and then the protesters are all called looters and rioters. And literally one of the demands of the Hong Kong protests is to have their dignity and have them not called rioters, but have them called protesters. And it's really alarming to see the same dynamic, the same play here, you know, where largely peaceful protest,

turn violent, sometimes because people are, you know, have an agenda, sometimes, though, because police initiate the violence. And so I think we just have to recognize as Americans that we have no standing, that our credibility to speak up on something like Hong Kong is tied completely to what we're doing at home. And until we get our act together at home democratically and in terms of social justice, we're just not going to be the same voice on these things abroad and that gap is being filled that used to be filled, frankly, by the U.S. president or the U.S. government is actually just being filled by activists around the world. And that's a hopeful sign, but it's only hopeful, frankly, if it leads to political change really starting in November

in our country. Yeah, I mean, like throw another massive item on Joe Biden's to-do list in the same way. Barack Obama's to do list on day one started with trying to fix the massive hit the U.S. image had taken around the world because of the Iraq. war in the Bush administration. But you know, but, like, you're right that we've really surrendered a lot of moral authority. But that doesn't mean this show is going to let the Beijing-backed Hong Kong government off the hook because for the first time, these authorities in Hong Kong are prohibiting an annual gathering to honor the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

This decision directly follows their announcement that they're going to enact this national security law that is going to essentially crush dissent and crush democracy in Hong Kong. For those unfamiliar with Tiananmen Square, this was a massacre that occurred on June 4, 1989. Chinese soldiers brutally cracked down on and murdered hundreds, if not thousands of protesters. Chinese authorities have literally tried to erase it from memory in China. So it's no surprise that they don't want this memorial to happen in Hong Kong. But I did, Ben, want to read you a quote from Donald Trump on this subject from an interview he did in 1990 that speaks to that moral authority question. quote, when the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it, Trump said.

Then they were vicious. They were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak. That is almost verbatim what he told American governors on a phone call on Monday. And I guess like anyone who ever doubted his authoritarian tendencies just needed to look a little harder. Yeah. And the problem with it, right, is they pivot to this hard line against China and Mike Pompeo's meeting with like Tiananmen Square survivors today.

Everybody knows that that's what Trump really thinks, you know. So even if Trump like puts out a statement about Hong Kong because it's part of his anti-China thing, nobody believes that Trump really cares about Hong Kong protesters. And everybody believes and understands that he admires the way that the Chinese government does. dealt with Tiananmen Square in the same way that he's talked admiringly about how much Kim Jong-un is revered by his people. That is who he is. And there's no, you know, and so we've had this kind of, you know, contradictory foreign policy at times where there's Trump and then there's like the State Department or Pompeo still trying to give lip service when there's an adversary, like Venezuela or Cuba or Hong Kong, to democracy and human rights. And it's got to,

increasingly absurd over the last three and a half years because nobody can take this at all seriously, even people who would want the U.S. to be speaking out on these issues. And it is a huge step. You know, Hong Kong is supposed to be this bastion of free speech. And the Tiananmen annual vigil was kind of like the emblem of that, the fact that this is the one, you know, one of the few places where Chinese people could remember an event that, as you said, it's been literally whitewashed. The Chinese internet controls in China, you cannot search Tiananmen Square. There are key words that are restricted.

You don't learn about it in school. You literally, unless you kind of travel and learn on your travels about Tiananmen Square, you just wouldn't even know what happened, you know? And when I talk to people at Hong Kong with these national security laws, what they basically say they're worried about is that in five years, they're just going to be another Chinese city. It's going to be like living in Shanghai in the sense that it might be, somewhat wealthy, but there'll be no freedom. And the kind of effort to shut down this vigil,

I think symbolically, points to what Hong Kong could become. And I've heard in the past, too, like there used to be events on Tibetan issues. There used to be events on Taiwan-related issues in Hong Kong. Those are increasingly off limits. And it's what it's like to feel like you're living in a place where your freedoms are disappearing for your eyes. But I have to say, for one of first times in my life, I felt that yesterday watching Trump, you know, standing up at the White House and essentially calling for the U.S. military to engage in, I don't know, you know, God knows what. Really dictatorial behavior. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so let's talk about that. So I mentioned this call as Trump did on Monday with the country's governors to discuss the protests. So that call was a mess

for a variety of reasons. And the audio of it leaked in full if you want to horrify yourself. But for our purposes here as Worldose, I just wanted to talk about. the U.S. military involvement in this process. So on the call, Trump said he would put General Millie, who is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, quote, in charge. When asked to clarify what in charge means, no one at the White House would and no one at the chairman's office could. So we just really don't even know. The Secretary of Defense, the former lobbyist, Mark Esper, was also on this call. He talked about the need to, quote, dominate the battle space, end quote, which is just like an unbelievably messed up way to describe any military activity on American soil unless we were literally

invaded. General Millie was later seen walking around D.C. in uniform, like checking on National Guard guys who were posted. So as of Monday, 23 states and D.C. have mobilized members of the National Guard. And the important thing to remember or understand about that is that, you know, the governor of a state can bring in their own National Guard for support. But these aren't like federal. troops. Trump is reportedly considering a much more drastic step by invoking a law called the Insurrection Act, which dates back to 1807. And that would allow him to deploy troops to states, even if they're not requested, which would obviously be a huge deal. The Insurrection Act was invoked in L.A. in 1992 during the protest after Rodney King's brutal beating. But that was

at the request of the governor at the time. You know, another famous instance of the National Guard coming into a protest is May of 1970, when the National Guard was called to Kent State after a group of activists burned the campus ROTC building the night before the next day. There were a bunch of students assembled. The class had just gotten let out, and the guardsmen fired on unarmed students. They killed four. They wounded nine. And what's horrifying about that incident is that it didn't really horrify everybody.

I mean, some conservatives thought the murders were warranted. liberals thought it was the worst thing that ever heard, but like it kind of split down partisan lines. So, you know, I mentioned that history, both just L.A. and Kent State because this is a huge deal. And things can go badly. And yes, they are National Guard and not Navy SEALs. Like, these are men and women with full-time jobs. They're not like hardened soldiers. But you send people with military equipment to a city and they might use it. I mean, that's the worst case. So I personally was just horrified to see military blackcock helicopters hovering over D.C. last night as other Republicans in the White House are calling these protesters domestic terrorists. And then, you know, because if you hover a black hawk helicopter over someone you call a terrorist abroad, they are there to kill them, right? Like that is clearly the message. So anyway, I just want to step back and ask the question, Ben.

I mean, what did you make of the role that the Secretary of Defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs seem to be playing in this response? Both of then went on this walk for this photo op with Trump through Lafayette Park yesterday to the church. Like, are these guys following orders? Is this something else? Like, what's happening here? Yeah, it's really concerning to me. And first of all, I'd note that, you know, we're talking about, you know, Trump invoking the Insurrection Act from the early 19th century when he hasn't invoked the fucking Defense Production Act. Act, which could actually deal with the pandemic.

It tells you everything about what he likes to do as president. Now, I have a lot of concerns. I mean, first of all, DOD should not be doing this. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should not be wandering around D.C., like supervising military responses to protest. The Secretary of Defense and the chairman shouldn't be walking in clearly a campaign photo op across Lafayette Park to watch Trump wave a Bible around in the air. And I think what people need to understand is DOD can push back if at once.

It's the most powerful government agency, right? They've got millions of people who work there. They've got almost a trillion dollar budget. Shit, Tommy, you sat in the sit room. When you asked DOD to do something they didn't want to do, they pushed back. And they complained endlessly about Obama micromanaging them because he really wanted to review any troop deployments, or he wanted to review what the rules of engagement were for troops.

So they can make their voices heard when they don't like what you're doing. They can push back. They can say no. We were very mindful of not putting them in political settings. And so it tells me that at least the leadership there, Esper and Miley, have failed catastrophically. They're just going along with this. There's nothing in their body language that suggests they're,

they're remotely uncomfortable with this. Today I saw them kind of say, well, we didn't know it was a photo op. Come on. Yeah, come on. Come on. You work for Donald fucking Trump. What did you think he was walking across Lafayette Park to do? So I think this is a colossal failure of the DOD leadership. They should be ashamed. And to see the U.S. military basically brought in an election year, you'll recall before the midterms, remember Trump was going to deploy the military to fight the caravan, and they went along with that too. Yeah, send him to the border. Yeah, they went along with Trump's Fourth of July thing. Like, there's a real

problem with how much the leadership of the Pentagon, including the uniformed military, that always gets a pass, because nobody likes to pick a fight with the military, but what are they doing? This is embarrassing. It also is a question of D.C. itself, because D.C. is not a state.

Because it has certain federal controls, Trump can do things in D.C. that he can't do elsewhere. You know, you can't can't just send Black Hawk helicopters over LA. And he is essentially using Washington, D.C. as a movie set for his authoritarianism. Because there's greater federal control there, I can put Bill Barr in charge of all the stormtroopers that I'm going to send out to bust up peaceful protest. Or I can send the

chairman and the joint chiefs walking around in a way that he couldn't do in states. At least with the National Guard, the governors are involved, you know, and there's a partnership with local law enforcement. So I'm also particularly concerned about what we see in D.C. And again, it gets back to this point. Like, I, as you know, Tommy, I'm like working on a book about authoritarianism. Like, I, I, I, one of the central premises I have is that America's kind of gone farther down this authoritarian spectrum than we think. I didn't think I would see this, you know, like, this is well beyond what I saw yesterday. I mean, Bill Barr is somehow in charge, by the way, I see a, um, of Secret Service and all these agencies that are not in DOJ, why is Bill Barr commanding

essentially this law and order response? And if you think that that is not connected and part of the same problem of Bill Barr letting Mike Flynn off the hook and trying to prosecute or pursue Trump's political enemies, it's all the same thing. It's a guy who's trying to turn the institutions of the U.S. government, including the military and the law enforcement, and to the extensions of his own authoritarian political agenda. And people should be really worried about it. Yeah. The time between when they forcibly brutalized and moved those protesters and when Trump spoke and then walked to his photo op was one of the most unsettling hours, two hours that I feel like I've personally experienced since Donald Trump was president.

It just felt like something was broken. The images we were seeing couldn't possibly have been from America. You couldn't possibly see, you know, armed troops walking the grounds of Lafayette Park. I mean, it just, it did not feel real. And I'm quite concerned that it is only the beginning. Yeah, and I guess just, you know, because first of all, yeah, if it could have been even worse, right, there could have been more violence or loss of life even. But just watching that, you know, the group of peaceful protests, and this is like one of the most peaceful parts of D.C., right? It's Lafayette Park. It's, you and I walked by there a million times to see like this kind of weird mix of people on horseback and tear gas and all of this force being brought.

brought to bear on peaceful protesters who were doing nothing and routing them out of the way so that the President of the United States flanked by his chief law enforcement officer Bill Barr and the chairman of the Joint Chief Staff can walk around and hold up a Bible. The fact that that happened in America should be a bigger deal. And it is a big deal. But like, have you seen any Republican members of Congress say anything about this? I saw Ben Sass had like a mildly concerned statement or something. But like, how did we get to a place where that could happen and the whole political culture of the country is not just being like, what the hell is going on here? It just shows you how much Trump has numbed people in part because he has the total support of the Republican Party to be able to do stuff like that.

Okay, enough about how Donald Trump is roiling the American body politic. Let's talk about how he is disrupting the most advanced nations on the planet. So over the weekend, Trump announced that he plans to postpone the G7 summit. until this fall because of coronavirus concerns, which is totally valid. But he also said that he wants to invite four non-member nations to attend. So those non-member nations are Russia, Australia, India, and South Korea. He said he thinks the G7 is outdated. It doesn't really represent what's going on in the world. He didn't really get more specific than that. But just some important context for listeners, the G7 or group of seven, it used to be the G8 because it included Russia. That changed in

2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Russia got booted out. They have not left Ukraine. They're still occupying Crimea. Trump first proposed reinstating Russia to the G8 back in 2018. It was not, didn't go over well then, but this time his pitch was pretty much immediately slapped down. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, you know, letting Russia back into the G7 would be a mistake. And then even more, you know, surprisingly, maybe humiliatingly for Trump, his best buddy, Boris Johnson, the prime minister of the UK, said that the UK would veto the idea. So that's a big deal. That's a big ally giving you the finger.

Ben, can you just do like the 30-second 101 on what the G7 does? And like, I guess part of that is, is this the right number of countries? Like, is there something special about the U.S., the UK, Italy, Germany, Japan, Canada, and France together for a meeting? Should we not add an Australia, a Korea, and India? and then, like, what do you make of this pitch to get Russia back in? Like, is there any condition where that's acceptable? Yeah, so I think what people need to understand is that the part of the reason why what Trump is saying makes no sense is there's a G20. And the G20 was created so that there was a larger body of countries that was more representative of the need for global cooperation, particularly on economic issues, right?

And so part of what's absurd about Trump's kind of justification here is that there is a body that includes South Korea, Russia, India, and Australia. They're all in the G20. And so the reason to have a G7 in addition to a G20 is the G20 allows you to get all these countries around the table that represent so much of the world's population and output. But the G7 are the people that you agree with. That's like your core team, right? Right.

So one way to think about it is I always felt like you go to the G7. you're talking to your friends. You already agree about everything. What you're doing is strategizing about, okay, what do we do about X hotspot around the world? What do we do to cooperate to fight terrorism or climate change? What do we do cooperatively as an economic block as we then look to the G20, right? And so the reason to have two different entities is like the G7 is your closest friends and allies, and then the G20 is the big group. I think that the G7 is a value. it was actually even of more value, frankly, after Russia was kicked out, because then it really was just our allies. And a lot of what we did through the G7 was talk about how to respond to the

incidents in Ukraine. So when you look at why is Trump doing this, I mean, there's no reason other than that he wants to somehow invite Russia into this. You know, it feels like he probably even threw in India and Australia and South Korea just to give himself a little covered. Yeah, it's like cover like it felt like to have Putin come here. and oh, by the way, he likes Modi and, you know, he's trying to win Indian American votes or something. Otherwise, there's no rationale. I, too, was struck by how much the European leaders stood up to him. You know, Miracle said, no way. As you, you know, rightly flagged Boris Johnson, very strong in saying he'd veto this. In an election year, you know, it felt a little bit like the European leaders saying we're not going to, at a minimum, we're not going to go along with this bullshit.

Right. just because you want to have an election year photo op with a bunch of world leaders in the fall, which is notable. I mean, I think Trump, you know, likes to give the impression that he has all these friends around the world, and he has some of these strong men that he's cozy with, like Mahmab and Salman, but you would have thought that Boris Johnson was his best friend, certainly in the West. And on this, like, clearly the guy has no appetite to go along with it. Yeah. Let's jump to Libya, another place where there needs to be a little more coordinated action. So there's been this, you know, I don't know if it's the Civil War or just a

straight war going on in Libya for several years now, but it doesn't get a ton of attention. We've talked about it a couple of times, so I figured we could dig it into today. The newspeg here was last week, the U.S. military accused Russia of covertly deploying over a dozen fighter jets to Libya to support this warlord named Khalifa Hiftar, who's, you know, this guy who, you know, has been around for a long time. I think he tried to stage a coup against Gaddafi in like the 70s or 80s, and now he's back and he's staging these attacks from Benghazi. He's been trying to take out the current government. He wants to run. on the country. Things have been really bad in Libya since he, his militia forces try to take

the capital in I think April of 2019. And the fighting has become a proxy war with the Russians and the UAE and the Egyptians on one side. And then Turkey is supporting the UN-backed government on the other side. And according to some great reporting in New York Times, you know, previously the Russian support has been mercenaries and like literal troops, but supplied through a private company that has basically this like Kremlin-backed Blackwater type thing we have in the U.S. But these new fighter jets, this is like direct military support. And, you know, Ben, direct Russian military support was a game changer in Syria. So we could break this into two parts.

Can you just do like the quick 101 on the backstory of what's happening in Libya right now? And then, you know, how significant do you think Russian fighter jets are? So Heftar is this, you know, very interesting character. He had a long-standing relationship with the CIA. dating back into the Qaddafi years, not under the Obama years. Right. But what he did is, because he was living in like Virginia, right? He went back to Libya a few years ago and under the guise of wanting to kind of clear out Islamists from Benghazi.

And he had the backing of the UAE and Saudi and Egypt, you know, basically the counter-revolutionary elements in the Middle East and got the backing of Russia. but he was just incredibly heavy-handed, you know, and by the way, not at all working under the umbrella of this UN-supported civilian government in Tripoli, the capital. And so there's always been this kind of weird tug of war where you have essentially these external powers supporting this strongman type who clearly doesn't just want to fight jihadists and Benghazi. He clearly wants to take over the whole country. And at the same time, you have the UN backing a more legitimate political process in Tripoli. The Trump administration itself got twisted in knots on this question because official U.S. policy is to support the UN-backed government,

but Trump himself has made statements of support for Heftar, probably because he talks to his buddies like Cece, the Egyptian dictator, Muhammad Salman, goes along with us. So that's the kind of very strange backstory here, is that you have this proxy war that's played out. Hufftar is the key figure in that. And he was losing ground to the Turkish-backed, UN-backed government, official government in Tripoli. And now the Russians are intervening. And what's strange about it is it's part of, I guess, this effort by the Russians to assert themselves as, you know, the new key security player and a big chunk of the Middle East. It interestingly aligns them with, you know, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who are traditional U.S. partners, I think that deserves a lot of scrutiny. I don't really see

any outcome other than just a perpetuation of this push-and-pull conflict. Nobody's been able to really assert authority over Libya since the ousting of Gaddafi. And so unfortunately, you know, this is more likely to just prolong the conflict rather than in any way, you know, resolve it. So that was a great laydown of the situation in Libya. What I also jumped down to me, Ben, is like, this is the second place in the world, as far as I could tell, where it seems like we're on the cusp of potentially a direct military conflict between Russia and Turkey. These forces are clashing through proxy forces here in Libya, but Russian and Turkish forces are dangerously close in northern Syria, too.

I mean, how much does that worry you? And what do you think Russia's interest? here? Is it just oil in Libya? Like, what are they after? Well, some of these proxy wars, and particularly in Syria, have played out in the sense that the Turks tend to back more Islamist elements, and Qatar also often backs more Islamist elements. And then the Russians are backing the kind of secular strongmen types like Assad or Haftar. And again, that's causing this kind of realignment where Saudi Arabia and the UAE are, you know, in this proxy war, not just with Iran, which you've talked a lot about, but also with Turkey and Qatar in some of these same places. So I think the Russians have decided that their, you know, their foot in the door to get more

influence in the Middle East is by backing this kind of strong man, anti-Islamist front that, you know, stretches from the Gulf through Egypt into Libya and then up into Syria. It's complicated because it's not as straightforward as them backing the Saudi side because the Russians are also aligned with the Iranians. And so, and Assad, obviously. And so like everything in the Middle East, it's kind of tied up in contradictions. I, you know, in terms of their interest, like it feels to me like Putin, you know, just likes to feel like he's a player and he has influence and he's this big man on the world stage. I think the U.S. experience, like, should be a cautionary note. Be careful what you wish for. You know, do you really want to be in a series of rotating conflicts?

You know, Russia's spent a lot of money in Syria already. Now, are they going to do it in Libya? I don't really know why the payoff is that great. Russia already has a lot of oil. So I think that some of this is just posturing geopolitically. I do worry about this Turkish thing, though. because they have had, you know, you've had planes shot down, you've had near misses, and you have an Erdogan, a very hot-tempered guy, and Putin, obviously. So, you know, we've watched a lot of these simmering hotspots around the world, and, you know, all takes as one thing to blow, you know, Turkey, Russia, U.S. China, you know, India, China, India, Pakistan, like, it feels very unsettled, yeah.

Right. Yeah, a lot of bad ways. A brief apology to listeners, if they're here, hearing like the seven helicopters of my bedroom right now. We're doing our best here. You mentioned Iran. So I want to talk about Iran for a second. Here's a, here's a dumb idea from a bad person. So on Friday, Ted Cruz asked the Treasury Department and Department of Justice to investigate whether Twitter is violating the law by letting Iranians have Twitter accounts. He literally asked DOJ to investigate possible criminal violations of U.S. sanctions because Twitter let Iran's Supreme Leader and the foreign minister tweet. I'm sure this has nothing to do with the recent decision by Twitter to fact check some of Trump's tweets, Ben. I'm sure the timing was totally

coincidental. So here's my question for you. Like taking away my snarky lead-in, I know that broad-based sanctions can be blunt and kind of dumb sometimes and maybe have unintended consequences. Is there any merit to this claim that somehow an American company allowing Javad Zarif, the foreign minister to tweet is a sanctions violation. Was this the intent of these sanctions to silence Iranian leaders on the platform? Like, couldn't this open up the New York Times to problems that they take a submission in an op-ed form? Yeah. I mean, look, the coincidence here is pretty stark in the sense that when Twitter fact-checked Trump, the White House put out a tweet kind of saying that the supreme leader of Iran had not been similarly fact-checked or whatever.

And lo and behold, that's when Ted Cruz decided to care about this issue. So this was, you know, the defense, the hill that the Trump people chose to die on when they were pissed at Twitter. And that's all Ted Cruz is doing. I don't, it's not at all the intention of sanctions to, you know, restrict the ability of officials of other countries to speak. on social media platforms. I mean, we're taking such a broad definition of these sanctions. I mean, technically they're basically just supposed to apply pressure on Iran to get a deal, but clearly they tore up the nuclear deal and they're just sanctioning for the purpose of sanctions. I think what the U.S. should want in Iran is, frankly, for the Iranian people to have access

to Twitter. And that, you know, there are efforts that we made. in the Obama administration to try to unjam certain broadcasts or try to advocate for social media platforms to be available to people in these countries. Look, if you shut down Javad Zarif's Twitter account, he's still going to be able to put out statements. And by the way, Tommy, just to point up the hypocrisy of this, I don't see them expressing this concern about Facebook, right? Because they liked Facebook, right? Because Facebook is the Republican Party's biggest propaganda disseminator. So that tells you this is really just about, you know, linking their anti-Iran politics with their anti-Twitter politics.

Yeah, they're just trying to show Twitter that there's a cost. I mean, you know, Trump is threatening to take away liability protections from some of these technology companies like Twitter. I mean, I think ironically, it might allow people to sue Twitter or Facebook for stuff that Trump says on their platform and potentially lead to more censorship or fact-checking, right? I mean, this is a law from many years ago that was passed by Congress that allows internet companies to regulate or, like, delete. materials they find objectionable, even if those are constitutionally protected free speech. You know, it's like it's different than, you know, a corporate entity that owns a newspaper is more responsible for that content than you are if you're posting on a Reddit board.

It was really, like the law was really about letting these companies keep porn off their platforms and now it's sort of evolved to different kinds of companies like Twitter. But yeah, I mean, the whole thing, you know, look, I am, I struggle with this basket of issues, right? I'm enraged at Facebook and think that their decision not to fact-check political ads is one of the dumbest, most absurd things I've ever heard. That doesn't mean that I don't sometimes get uncomfortable when people talk about, like, censoring or kicking off a elected official, a little in the President of the United States in America from a platform. But, you know, I guess a topic for another day. Yeah, I mean, the bigger problem is not what one politician is saying, even though I don't like what Trump is saying,

it's the fact that the algorithms prioritize and disseminate the most extreme content. Force feeders, that crap. Yeah, exactly. So it's the mainlining of hate because the algorithms make that travel faster that has to be regulated more than saying like, oh, yeah, pull down Trump and then pull down the Supreme Leader. Like that, that to me is actually not the real debate. Yeah.

Before we move on, you wanted to give a quick shout out to some of the Plowshire funds. Yeah, well, Joe Cernsione, who's been the head of Plowshires, which has been an organization, the nuclear issues we talked about last week, the Iran nuclear deal, they were huge proponents of. Joe is stepping down as president of Plashore's after like an iconic run. So we're doing an event next week. You can go to Plashores.org to check it out. But Nancy Pelosi is going to be there and Jerry Brown. And it's all going to be zoomed. So you can see it all. So I want to give a shout out to Joe. And if people want to see a lively discussion of nuclear nonproliferation arms control, there'll be one next week.

Excellent. A great organization that does amazing work. that focuses people's attention on an existential issue that does not get the time it deserves. Okay, we got a couple more things. We'll go quicker because we're going a little long. So this was interesting, Ben. According to a poll by UGov for the University of Oxford's Reuters Institute, they did an opinion poll, and they found that less than half of British citizens now trust the government to provide accurate information about the coronavirus. That is down from two-third support in mid-April. The institute director said, quote, I've never in 10 years of research in this area seen a drop in trust like what we have seen for the UK government in the course of six weeks.

This polling was done in the midst of this scandal we talked about last week with this guy Dominic Cummings, who works as a top aide to Boris Johnson, the prime minister. He was blatantly breaking the curfew rules, even though he was in the government enforcing them. But, you know, I just thought it was an interesting moment for the UK public and the government. I mean, if they have to order another lockdown to stop the virus, this is clearly going to make it harder. I'm sure it'll make it harder to govern long term. The good news is the British people still trust scientists and health officials. But, you know, Ben, I'm just curious what you made of this data. I mean, I guess as cynical and broken as I am as an American in the Trump era, like my initial

reaction was wow. Two-thirds support is pretty high and maybe 50% is more realistic. But I don't know. What did you take? Yeah, I mean, I just clearly they've had a terrible response, right? And we've noted that these kind of nationalist figures like Boris Johnson and Bolsonaro and Trump have been the worst at handling the coronavirus. You know, I think what stood out to me, though, is that Brexit has dominated British politics

completely, right, for the last three or four years. And now that they're on the other side of at least a decision to Brexit, it does seem to suggest that it's not a single-issue country anymore, and that actually that makes it harder for Boris Johnson. you know, because he's not just running this kind of binary political permanent campaign, I'm for Brexit and they're not. He's responsible for shit, you know. And competent, yep. Yeah, exactly. And this far, the results aren't that good. And that's what the polling suggests to me. Yeah, that's for sure. All right. So, Ben, you went down a internet

rabbit hole on locust. Uh, I have not followed suit yet. So please educate me. Why are we talking about locust today? Well, I saw like some headlines popping up. here and there about locusts, you know. And my first response was like everybody had a pandemic, we've got a depression, we've got, you know, now we've got locust. And then if you actually dig into it, it's actually a real problem and a huge issue in that there are these enormous swarms of locust descending on the Horn of Africa, on the Middle East, on India, and why does this matter? Tens of millions of people, the locusts come in and they destroy crops. In some cases, they've destroyed 100% of the crops that people depend upon for their livelihood. So there's going to be

tens of millions of people who are going to be facing food insecurity that already was acute in these places. These are not wealthy places. And that's all getting worse. Now, what I think is also notable and interesting about this is that they think that one of the triggers for this, one of the reasons this is happening, is climate change because the part of the Indian Ocean is warmer and that's changing the patterns of these locusts and driving them, you know, into places that they wouldn't normally come in these numbers. And it shows you once again, like we, I think, don't fully appreciate the range of threats that climate change is going to introduce. You know, there's, obviously there's disappearing coastlines and stuff, but like plagues of locust is not something

that I had on my list. And I think it just shows how far reaching the climate. and impacts are going to be. So if people want to check it out, Vox had a great explainer on this locust issue, but I would not want to see these gargantuan locust descending upon my land. I'll tell you that. No, me either, me either. Okay, we're going to end on locust this week. Normally we try to kind of go light into the interview, but this is not a light week.

Nothing feels very good. That does not mean you shouldn't stick around. Karen Atia is an incredible journalist and has a lot of interesting things to say about the protests, the world, work she's doing at the global opinions section. So stick around. So Ben and I are very excited now to have on the Global Opinions Editor at the Washington Post, Karen Atia. Karen, it's so great to see you again. I hate that we always talk at times of like there's been horrible tragedies and maximal stress for you, but your writing has been so incredible lately and such a unique perspective into the world we're

all living that I'm just really grateful that you can make the time. Oh, no. Thanks for having me. So you wrote this piece for The Washington Post that was about how Western media would cover the events in Minneapolis if they happen in a foreign country. And I want to just read two quick passages. The first is, in recent years, the international community has sounded the alarm on the deteriorating political and human rights situation in the United States under the regime of Donald Trump. Now is the country marks 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic. The former British colony finds itself in a downward spiral of ethnic violence. Here's another graph. These are

ancient inexplicable hatreds fueling these ethnic conflicts in inequality, said Andrea Dulek, a foreign correspondent whose knowledge of American English consists of a semester course in college in the occasional session on the duolingo app, end quote. That is really funny. That is really funny, but it's also a little too real. Reading the piece, help me step out of myself. Do you think that there is something broken or false about the way we view and discuss ourselves here in America? You know, I don't think it's always a matter of false. I think in general, humans tend to be just very focused about like what's around them and what they see and what they hear. And we tend to put ourselves in a positive light and the things that we're, the things and the people and the places that we're not familiar with in order for us to process our world, we tend to create that sort of.

distance and sometimes tend to make things a little more negative or formulaic and I think for me I mean I actually don't do these pieces often at all I think the last time I did one was like two years ago maybe the first one I did was even for a couple of years ago and I tend to do them when it feels like it's an emotional thing like when it feels like the situation in our country gets to be so absurd that you kind of have to take a step out. Like you kind of just like have to see things as if you are looking from the outside. And I think when you do that, America doesn't look that great in a lot of ways, especially

over the last couple of years. So it's interesting that you read that first part with the fictional character Andrea, and I don't know if anybody caught the reference, there's a reason why I picked the specific names that I do for that one. A Balkan name, I mean, the ancient, inexplicable hatreds was applied to that conflict. You know, so it's just like, it's just this idea that we tend to very much oversimplify sometimes what happens in other countries. And when to try to do that to us, of course we know our history. Of course we're like, no, it's not ancient.

No, it's not inexplicable. We know what it is. But we often, you know, jam these very complicated problems in other places and end up flattening them. You know, so I just wanted to, I don't know, perhaps both laugh and cry at the same time. Yeah, I mean, you could have chosen an Afghan name. You could have chosen an Iraqi name and it would have represented so much coverage we've all read over the past two decades. Yeah. And, you know, to be fair, I mean, I've reported from abroad.

I did get some backlash from foreign correspondence sort of hashtag not all foreign correspondence. And look, it's just part of it is structurally how we practice journalism about other countries. It's not easy. I've been in places where I have to rely on a translator or a fixer, and I don't speak the local language. it doesn't mean I can't do my jobs, but, you know, at the same time, it puts you at a limitation

to understand what's happening. So I think there are a couple of people who were like, really mad, like, how dare you? Like, you know, talking about duolingo. And I'm like, hmm, um, it's, again, like, it's real. That's what we really go through. And I mean, I don't know. It's funny, but it's true. Like, well, Karen, I was thinking, like, you. made me think, I must have written dozens, probably hundreds of statements in the White House, calling for de-escalation and dialogue and, you know, there's a kind of formula that the statements the U.S. puts out about a protest. But one of the things that you would do, right, is you would look at what is what is happening in a protest that implicates some larger value around the world that the United States,

at least used to care about, right? And when I look at the footage of the protests here the last few days, one of the more disturbing elements is the targeting of journalists and media. You know, yesterday you saw the Australian journalists, you know, kind of physically assaulted. They've been journalists shot with rubber bullets. And obviously you've been, I mean, you've talked to this podcast in the past about, you know, Jamal Khashoggi, for instance. How, how concerned are you about, I mean, this is kind of a subplot, obviously, of much bigger issues, but how concerned are you about what you're seeing in terms of the treatment of journalists by authorities in these protests, how that might in some way be fueled at least by Trump's own rhetoric about the journalists being

the enemy of the state? How would we be speaking about the freedom of the press in another country if we were seeing the images that we've seen in the U.S. protest here? Yeah, so I think about this in two ways. I think from a sort of macro perspective, anytime we are looking at, and I would from time to time we'd write editorials for the post looking at unrest, you know, again, in other countries. And very often, yeah, I would probably include a line about journalists being arrested and about these crackdowns. And again, I think it signals just, it's a deliberate signal that the powers, the powers

that be the security forces want to quell the situation at any cost. They don't want information to get out and it's a form of intimidation and it's a form of sort of dispersing, potentially dispersing any sort of organized movement. So I think, again, it's just something that we tend to think of in other places. I don't think Americans are really used to at all in our sort of normal day-to-day news gathering around the country. We're not used to seeing journalists being roughed up, bloodied up, or anything like that. So it's definitely shocking. But I will say, I mean, I do agree that Trump and the fake news and this sort of,

I mean, I still think that a lot of Americans do hold journalists in high regard. And to a certain extent, I don't want to say that journalists are, necessarily that our lives are more valuable than activists or other citizens or other civilians. I don't want to say that. But there is something quite egregious about, you know, a journalist who shows their badge and they still get tear-gast and rubber-bulleted anyway. But I will say about these particular protests that there is a history in the United States, particularly when it comes to civil rights.

and issues of racial unrest back in the civil rights movement in the Deep South, that was a dangerous assignment for journalists. Dorothy Gillen, the first Washington Post reporter, writes about this in her book, Trailblazer, that it was like going to a war zone, and that at the time, the government, the U.S. government, did not want images and reporting of what was going on in the Deep South with the clashes there.

over civil rights over segregation. So there is a history of here of crackdowns on freedom of the press when it actually does come to challenging our racial issues that I actually wish we would speak a lot more about. That I think would, when I read about it, I was like, my God, hearing of journalists who were severely injured during that time, even killed. So, you know, it is new and yet it's not. Yet it's not new at the same time.

In the Global Opin section, you guys published this great op-ed by a name I will butcher Agnes Kamelard, the UN Special summary or Arbitory Executions. That is the title, about how the U.S. might be violating international law. So they talk extensively about the use of these non-lethal weapons that I think a lot of people in this country are waking up to right now. I mean, you know, unfortunately, we've been using tear gas in this country for a long time. We've been exporting tear gas to other countries for a long time, much to the detriment of foreign policy. But also, people are learning the destructive power of rubber bullets. A journalist was blinded. You're seeing people with just horrific lacerations on their head and face.

Can you talk a little bit about how those weapons have been used to enable, you know, police violence domestically and even internationally? Yeah. I mean, I mean, we saw this in Ferguson, right? Where Palestinian activists were giving advice to Ferguson activist about how to deal with tear gas and pepper spray, saying, you know, don't use water. It makes it worse. Use milk. And similar here, I'm seeing posts from people around the world who have been living under, in places under siege, basically, giving advice via social media over how to, not only how to deal with these, you know, you know, whatever we'd want to call it, crowd control agents or crowd control tools.

You know, personally, sometimes I'm like, this is a form of a chemical agent. This is how, personally, if I were to write this, I would, or write the piece again, I would say, yeah, you know, these forces are using chemical agents on civilians. And it's true, like you, exactly like you said, you know, we have been exporting some of these, not only tools but tactics to other places. And then when these places end up using these tools and tactics and strategies, and then we end up writing our foreign dispatches about, right? It's all just one big feedback.

But this question about, you know, violating international laws and norms. And in some ways, again, like what we're seeing with police brutality and impunity, I mean, laws are only as good as they're able to. able to be enforced, right? So who polices the U.S.? And in that regard, too, the other dimension of this, you know, there was a kind of crazy coincidence of Mike Pompeo putting out a statement this morning about Hong Kong protesters having the right to free speech and assembly and then meeting with some Tiananmen Square veterans, you know, presumably the smell of pepper spray had subsided around the State Department when you did. I mean, what do you think?

the, there's so many dimensions to how this is impacting, transforming the reputation of the United States, not just these protests, but the whole Trump presidency. But what do you think the response to the protest here and what we saw from Trump and calling in a military, what does that do to our credibility to be a voice on issues around freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, issues like Hong Kong, you know, issues like Sudan. I mean, how do you think this is going to impact U.S. credibility around the world and the way in which other governments or people either listen or don't listen to us when we try to raise concerns?

Yeah, I mean, I mean, on this question of credibility. I mean, there was kind of a reason why even in the sort of satire piece I did. some of the earlier versions in the past, you know, I've always said, the international community is warning, is stounding the alarm on rising tensions and issuing statements. And I guess there's sort of a reason why this time I felt like the international community is drawing up its hands, doesn't know what to do. Because maybe it's like this feeling that people or America is showing, showing our cracks.

Our credibility, if our credibility hit rock bottom, even before all this, this last week, like rock bottom has found a trapdoor. Like, it's fallen through. And I've heard from some of my friends from around the world who were just aghast. And not in a way where they even think it's funny anymore in a way, an interesting deep sadness.

And I'm hearing from people even in the Middle East just saying, Karen, I'm scared for you guys. I'm nervous. And so it feels different. It feels different here in the country, but seeing how there are protests even in Berlin, in Nigeria even, it feels global in a way.

And we're talking about all of this without even talking about the fact that we have a coronavirus pandemic going on right now and 100,000 plus people in this country are dead. But I feel like this moment is very different and been to your observation about Hong Kong. I mean, I think that I've seen a lot of response about how we...

glorified the Hong Kong protesters who were facing down the Chinese state and so many messages of support. And I think that was kind of, that was around the time where there was pressure on U.S. businesses on engaging with China, whether or not to bring up Hong Kong and democracy and everything. And yet when like those protests, that's a valiant fight, right, for the, their democracy and autonomy. And yet when black people here are trying to say, hey, don't kill us, all of a sudden it's not legitimate.

It's demonized. It's, it is painted as if, you know, it's looters and as if we're not facing forces, a police force that has, A, impunity, be, I mean, weapons, militarized weapons that we use, some of which, you know, we use overseas, right? And so I think that a lot of people are noting in some ways the double standards, even overseas, who gets to be glorified, like who gets to be a hero for democracy?

It feels like Hong Kong processors were painted as those symbols here, at least. But then here at home, black people are not. So what does that say? Yeah. I mean, the protesters in Hong Kong were protesting the potential of being thrown into a different judicial system with zero rights. And African-Americans here are protesting exactly the same thing where you are being, you know, extraditionally killed with impunity by police.

And it's hard for us to just stay focused on that and not the knockoff effects of property destruction, other things is driving me completely crazy. But that's a rant for another day maybe. So the last time we talked, we focused mostly on the murder of your friend, your colleague, Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government. And it has been very frustrating and infuriating to watch the Trump administration defend Mohammed bin Salman, block accountability. you wrote a piece about how the Saudis were going, you know, bargain shopping during the pandemic. They were, they bought up 5% of Live Nation, which is like, you know, concert business. They bought half a billion dollars of shares of Walt Disney, which is, you know, these are things on the public markets, I believe. So I don't think you can prevent that purchase.

But it's, wow, it was eye-opening and notable. I mean, at best one could describe that as blood money, but worse is that it could lead to censorship by the Saudi government. can you talk a little bit about how the Saudi government has tried to silence critics with money or political pressure? And then are there things you think that listeners or corporations can do to resist that kind of censorship? Yeah, I mean, it was just so eye-opening to see. In fact, it sort of started that the Saudi public investment fund was wanting to buy Newcastle, the soccer team in the UK. and then over here, the Saudis invested in Carnival Cruise Lines. And then after that, you're seeing these investments in other companies, U.S. companies.

I mean, Mohammed bin Salman was very clear in terms of his Vision 2030 plan, that entertainment and culture was going to be a part of it. you know, if we remember Black Panther was actually the first film to be shown in 2018 when cinemas were opened up. So this is a part of like the long-term grand plan for Mohammed bin Salman. And, you know, myself and a lot of other activists have long said that a large part of it, yes, it is a sea change for Saudi Arabia, which for so long entertainment, I mean, these forms of fun and diversion were, were basically, I'm not allowed in the conservative society. But the idea that the country's political issues and problems

can be overlooked and seen as the country modernizing because now there's like raves that world class of DJs go and perform at is frankly ludicrous. And I think for myself, I mean, I was, And it's true, you know, these are public companies. I mean, there is nothing to necessarily stop Saudi Arabia from investing in these companies. I think what the issue is, is we remember, particularly after Janal's murder, that there was that shock and that sort of PR, like, moment or that moment where people were like, hmm, maybe like I shouldn't be taking money from a government head by a guy. who's willing to chop up and murder journalists in consulates.

Like, that was a bad look. Like, you don't want to be seen, like, gripping and grinning with someone like that. And, but now, and this is what we were always afraid of, that once those headlines disappeared and once the spotlight dimmed, that people would go back to business as usual. And I think that the reason why culture is a little more nerve-wracking for anybody who cares. about repression is that they can help shape narratives,

and they have done that before. The famous case of death of a princess, the documentary that aired in the early 1980s, and Saudi Arabia put insane amounts of pressure, the documentaries about an execution of a princess back then. They didn't even use the name Saudi Arabia, but everybody knew. And they put insane amounts of pressure on the distributors. to not show it, even to the point of withdrawing, threatening to withdraw the ambassador to the UK at the time

and taking out ads and newspapers in the U.S. to prevent the screenings. So we've seen that before, and we've seen with Netflix when Hassan Minaj did his Patriot Act show on Janaka Shoggi, that Netflix pulled the episode from their Saudi catalog without much explanation as, as to even trying to defend Hassan's right to express himself. So yeah, I mean, this is a country where, again, obviously we've seen freedom of expression, if it's anything that's negative about MBS or about the regime, in worst case,

you can be killed in a consulate brutally. There are many, even though women who we're in June now, I mean, it's almost the two year anniversary of women being allowed to drive And many of those very prominent women, like Lujain Hasul, a lot of these women that Jamal actually wrote about in the few months before he was killed are still in jail. In fact, Lujain, we haven't heard from her in three weeks. Her family is posted about being extremely worried about what's going on. So, you know, this is the company that has power, shareholder power, in major U.S. companies.

And I think for me it was just like, you know, it's it's important, but also easy to go after like individual celebrities who go to Saudi Arabia to go like party it up with drinks and take their Instagram posts for a lot of money and then like fly home. Like that happened. That was okay, pretty easy. But this is the bigger, the bigger question, the bigger long term question. What happens when there could potentially be pressure on U.S. companies to not paint Saudi Arabia in a bad light? So we'll just see. We will see. I do think that the next administration, and I pray to God it's the Biden administration in a few months,

needs to work overtime to right size and correct the U.S. Saudi relationship. Because, you know, allowing Mohammed bin Salman to operate with impunity with a trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund and all the U.S. weapons that several administrations, including our old boss, have sold him, has not worked out for anybody, not the United States, not the Iranians, not Yemen, not the Saudi people. so it's a mess. Yeah, it's all bad. It's all bad. I can't really, I don't see redeeming much of anything. Yeah, so, you know, we can only, not that we can only hope, I think there's a lot more we can do,

which is still calling attention to this stuff. But it's, we're living in kind of a global age of impunity right now. I don't know, five years is considered an age, but it definitely seems like the ushering in of a time where there is no accountability for a lot of the world's major, major leaders. And, you know, for those, perhaps like Ben, you know, that you've worked so long, perhaps in kind of instilling, like, democratic values, it just feels like we are in a backlash. across the world and it's worrying.

Yeah, it's very worrying. Not great. All right. That's fun. Look, this week sucks. We're not going to pretend to be happy this week. We always try to do some lightship. I guess my hope, Karen, right, is that there's like, there's a backlash coming, right?

And maybe there's a backlash to the backlash that's the backlash to the backlash. I mean, I think so, but it's kind of hard when we have to like, when we like can't even organize in person at this point, right? Yeah. with the pandemic. And that's something I even think about with these protests right now. In some ways, in some ways, I mean, the Hong Kong protesters didn't have a pandemic to deal with. Like right now, if we think about it, the way we should be thinking about it is that, you know, those of us who are speaking and writing and going out into the streets, we're not just risking our lives for the police.

we're risking our lives because there's a virus out there that is more lethal than we've seen in generations and we don't have a cure vaccine for it. And I keep thinking about, you know, we're living in a state or in a country where we can, I don't know what the costs are, what the economic costs to deploy national guards to send out all these police forces to be working overnight. I mean, into the tens of millions, I'm sure. But like, and then I keep thinking, okay, but we couldn't get our nurses, PPE. We have healthcare workers wearing garbage bags. We still don't have adequate testing.

And it's just like this vortex of threat. And so to a certain extent, I think that underscores how fed up protesters are here in the U.S., that they are willing to risk their lives doubly to say our lives matter. And, you know, I just hope and pray that we're not going to see a massive spike in infections and cases, you know, but it's it said it definitely says something that that's how that's how fed up we are and that's how much we believe in this in this cause so yeah amen and also sir i think speaks to the responsibility that young able-bodied healthy people have on top of their normal responsibility to be part of social justice movement in this moment because i heard some people interviewed on npr this

morning who had immunodeficiencies and lupus and other diseases and they were out there and it made me just think, okay. Dang. No excuse, 50-20. Nope. Karen, thank you so much for joining. Everyone should follow you on Twitter at Karen, ATT-I-A-H. You should subscribe to the Washington Post if you haven't already.

And what was the third homework? There was a documentary you mentioned that people should watch to piss off Muhammad bin Salman. Late-night assignment. So this is actually on YouTube and actually, I mean, I'll write about it in my book. It was Jamal who told me to watch it while we were discussing a piece. It's called Death of a Princess, who's made by ITV, and it's in, I think, four or five parts on YouTube. And it's quite, it's good, but if you follow the Jamal Khashoggi story,

it's a very, I always get chills when I watch it in many ways. So yes, and of course, you know, for everybody who is following the protests, you know, do what you can to still not remain silent about a lot of these issues when it comes to racism, racial justice, you know, amplify the work of black people. And also, it's not just a black issue. Honestly, I'm seeing a lot of non-black, white, if, like you said, you know, folks with disabilities, different, you know, just different backgrounds. Like, there's a different an awareness, I think, to this, which is good. And so I just believe we should keep that up. And I hope something good comes out of all of this. Yeah. Amen. Me too. Thank you again for joining the show.

Always great to talk with you. And we really appreciate it. I appreciate you guys. Thanks for having me on. Thanks to Karen for joining the show today. Ben, thanks to you. We managed to record two ends of the audio despite some helicopter noise, but that's the reality, I guess. You know, I think a lot of people will probably well actually ask that in some cities, in some countries, you hear this all the time, and we know we're aware. Yeah, and yeah, it could be a lot worse. We have it pretty good. I will say that I'm, to be hopeful, like it's pretty inspiring just to see this, not just in the U.S., but this kind of global expression of activism. So if there's hope, I take it there. I totally agree with you. I'm all in favor of all people protesting, and to see people who have never

talked about this issue before out there and caring is good. So, all right, guys, we'll talk to you next week. Pottae the world is a product of crooked media. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our assistant producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Chris Basil. Kyle Segglin is our sound engineer.

Special thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Malkonian, and Milo Kim who film and share our episodes as videos every week.