Pod Save the World - The world watches Trump’s arrest

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

Tommy and Ben talk about Donald Trump’s historic arrest and arraignment, Finland PM Sanna Marin’s election loss, Taiwan’s president visits America, a potential interim Iran nuclear deal, the Washington Post’s tone deaf op-ed on veterans rights, the arrest of an American journalist in Russia, new propaganda tactics from Russian state media, Montenegro’s long-standing president loses his re-election bid, more shady business dealings between Jared Kushner and Gulf states, and Mussolini’s granddaughter chugs wine in protest.  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 Potta of the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, here is what we're going to cover today. We're going to talk a little bit about some extreme Republican foreign policy ideas. Big news out of Finland. The president of Taiwan's visit to the U.S. and Latin America. Some nuke negotiations, the VA, a blogger who got assassinated in Russia and the U.S. journalist who got arrested. Montenegro's new president, OPEC oil cuts, Jared Kushner, King Charles's inauguration, Mussolini's granddaughter for the first. We've got to just. talk about Trump getting arrested. Just perp walked. I, you know, I think we do. I think we do. I just watched it from France, which was kind of like a funny place. You're abroad. You're abroad right now. Is Trump all over the news? Are people like, I spotting you as an American and asking you about it? So it's kind of interesting. In the UK, I was in the UK before this. Like it was everywhere, right? Like, you know, it hasn't been Scotland. The cab drivers want to talk about it. Here it's a little more chill, maybe because they got their own stuff going on with like these strikes and protests. The protests, yeah.

So definitely travel. It seemed to travel a more intensely to our special relationship up there. Yeah, no, have you hit the streets? Have you burnt any, you know, trash piles? I have not. There's like a general strike apparently on Thursday, so I'll see what happens there. Yeah, don't take the train that day. So we're recording this at 1 p.m. Pacific time on April 4th, Tuesday.

By the time this comes out tomorrow, I'm sure there'll be. lots more information out there about the indictment, what happened behind the scenes, et cetera, et cetera, the protests. But one thing is clear, Ben, is that Trump is trying to push the narrative that his arrest is somehow an indictment of America itself. He tweeted, the USA is now a third world nation in all caps. His idiot sons made the same point. But as we discussed a couple weeks ago with crooked contributor Max Fisher, that is not the case.

So maybe we give a little data for everybody to help you. you push back on this nonsense. So this was a helpful story in Axios. Leaders who have left office since 2000 have been jailed or prosecuted in at least 78 countries. That is more than I expected then. 78 is a lie. He's some dictatorships where they're not arresting anybody. Yeah. Also, like, what does he mean by Third World at this point? Because it's, first of all, it's not the Cold War anymore. And it's just basically a racist comment that he's been making for like the last eight years. But honestly, like, I think people looking at this from outside of America would think less of the United States in our legal system if Trump was allowed to just commit crime after crime

after crime and not be prosecuted for it. Like, I don't want to use the third world terminology, but whatever term you want to use for a country that is kind of not evolved and not a democracy, you would think that putting people above the law is more the problem than actually just enforcing the law. Yeah, again, countries that have prosecuted heads of state include France, Italy, Israel, Brazil, Taiwan, South Korea, the former president of Mexico is being investigated for corruption, but he hasn't been charged yet. Latin America has racked up the most prosecutions. Apparently every president of Peru except one who served between 1985 and 2018 has been arrested or charged. So that's not great. But you're right. I mean, I think far more destabilizing are

countries that don't demand accountability. And what turns you into a banana republic is what BB Nanyahu is doing over in Israel was trying to cut the judicial system, right? Yeah, totally. Like, I mean, there's like a North Korean vibe to some of the rhetoric from the Republican Party about Trump. You know, like he is our chairman, like he is our leader, he is our champion. How could this possibly happen to him? Like, that's the stuff, I think, from other countries. It looks weird. Like, I honestly, having traveled a lot, I'm traveling now. I don't think people in other countries are looking at this and thinking, well, it's very strange that Donald Trump is being prosecuted. I think they've looked at this for a while and thought, like, it's very strange that Donald Trump can get away with everything and that he has this kind of cultish following in the Republican Party.

Like, that is the accurate, like, overwhelming majority of global opinion. So whenever they pivot to this talking point, it flies in the face of the reality that, like, Trump is a thing that people around the world look at and say, that's American decline. that's America becoming whatever you can call it, banana republic. Yeah. And second, like this is a bummer for us, Libs over here. But being prosecuted doesn't mean your career is over. Lula de Silva spent 580 days in jail and was just elected president again. And then in Italy, former prime minister, Sylvia Berlusconi, made a comeback after being

convicted of tax fraud. But Ben, people shouldn't just take our word for it. We wanted to play a quick clip from an actual expert, a real historian who's steeped in this stuff. President Trump is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested today. Nelson Mandela was arrested, served time in prison. Jesus, Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government. There have been many people throughout history that have been arrested and persecuted by radical corrupt governments.

And it's beginning today in New York City. And I just can't believe it's happening, but I'll always support him. He's done nothing wrong. That was Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green set in the straight. Yeah, like those radical leftists in the apartheid regime and that radical Pontius pilot, you know. Favre said Pontius pilot was a Soros back judge. I didn't actually know that. I mean, like, it is, it's just totally absurd. Like, she is clearly the thing that people around the world look at and think, like, these people have lost their fucking minds. Yes.

But the other, I have to say, like, looking at the images, it was actually more powerful than I thought it was. I actually have not been able to read all this breathless coverage of this stuff because it was sliding back into the like circa 2018 Trump's mood and a person familiar with his mood said he's, you know, defiant or something like that. But seeing him in, this is not Nelson Mandela in the dock, right? This is like an overweight aging criminal like sitting in in the iconic place, right, with the lawyers there and the judge. I did kind of reflect on the fact that like everything we talk about on this podcast, everything in American politics, in our own lives, right, Tommy, like we wouldn't be doing this podcast probably if somehow Donald Trump didn't come along, you know? Like this man has been so central. And there's something powerful about the fact that there's some accountability here, you know, and we can argue about whether or not this is the right case to lead with. But like, I personally felt pretty like I was surprised at how much. And I was surprised at how much. And I'm not. And I was how you felt like personally, but like, you know, because as someone who like has, has any listening to this podcast knows, like, you know, things I'm proud of, Cuba, Iran that this guy wrecked.

Never mind my entire kind of life's work up to that point. He, you know, tried to wreck at least. Never mind everything I believe in. Like, there was something pretty powerful about the fact that this happened. And I have to give it to brag, you know, like, like this guy didn't hesitate. You know, there's no like Hamlet in the Justice Department here. This guy's like, okay, like I've got enough to go.

go, like, we're going to bring this guy in and rain him. I kind of loved it, actually. Yeah, there's been a lot of kind of approaches to thinking about, talking about sort of thematic approaches to dealing with Trump that you would see from the media or on Twitter over the past several years. And I think the one that annoyed me the most was the, like, LOL, nothing matters take. Yeah. Because that was like, oh, you know, his racism doesn't matter.

His corruption doesn't matter. Lying doesn't matter. And I think if we just accept all those things to be true, then the worst people in the world are just going to flourish in politics and no one else is going to be able to compete. So I agree with you. Like there is something cathartic and important and very meaningful to seeing him at least begin this process of accountability. Yeah. And that picture will be with him like, you know, the rest of history. Like, and look, I mean, what drives me crazy and like you guys have to engage just a lot more on PSA, but like the coverage, it's like if he doesn't,

get indicted, he wins, and if he does, he somehow wins too. Like, everything is a win for him. Like, no, maybe actually, like, gravity laws, like, are catching up with this guy. And again, for our purposes, there is deep fear around the world, particularly in this continent of Europe where I am, of his return, you know? And we are not going to be out of the woods in terms of even having any hope of restoring American credibility until it's clear that this guy, whether it's at the ballot box or in the judicial system or both, is just not coming back. Until that day, like, there's going to be this dark cloud over America. I mean, I'm in France now.

Emmanuel Macron is in China, right? He's there as a hedge against Donald Trump coming back. You know, these are huge geopolitical things that are tied to whatever happens at this guy. Yeah. So as long as we're talking about a foreign policy reason why him not returning is so important. This is just sort of like these extreme views that are bubbling up because of Trump. So the first ban is a proposal to bomb Mexican cartels with or without the Mexican government's permission to stop the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

Fentanyl, as listeners probably know, is this incredibly potent synthetic opioid. It's responsible for most overdose deaths in the United States. It's an absolute scourge. We have to get rid of it. But Trump used to muse about bombing Mexico and private back in the day. I remember Mark Esper, as Secretary of Defense, kind of leaked that he would do this. But now Rolling Stone is reporting that Trump has asked advisors to draw up battle plans and military options for his second term. But he's not alone here.

Republican members of Congress, including Dan Crenshaw, have put forward bills authorizing military force. Lindsay Graham is flirting with the idea of introducing an authorization for the use of military force to target cartel. And the point is basically they're trying to treat cartels and drug importation into the U.S. like terrorism and attack these people with or without support from the Mexican government. And it's becoming this mainstream idea. In fact, James Comer, the House Oversight chairman, actually criticized Trump for not bombing Mexico during his first term. So like in case it needs to be said, just a couple of reasons why this is not a good idea. One, the U.S. spent years trying to bomb drug dealers into submission in Afghanistan, and we fail.

miserably at it. Two, invading Mexico probably wouldn't go over very well in, like, Mexico. So, Ben, a couple weeks ago we talked about how Amlo, the president of Mexico, blamed U.S. fentanyl deaths on this weird stuff. He talked about like a lack of hugs among Americans and the treatment of the elderly and all this weird shit. I suspect that this loose talk about, like, us invading his country, maybe has made him sensitive about the subject in general. But I also I also don't really get why he wouldn't want to be helpful to Biden when one party is threatening to invade his country and the other isn't. But I don't know. Any deep thoughts on bombing cartels? Good idea? I just think, like, you're right to point out that this is not, like, an impossible thing.

Like, it's a thing that might happen. Because if, like, this is where the Republican Party is going. And Donald Trump is still, like, the front man of the Republican Party. And he is, like, clearly capable of doing insane shit and wanted to do this. this by all reports, you know, or at least mused about doing it, it's worth just pointing out the insanity of this beyond your point that it won't solve the problem at all. It's also the case that we, you know, the militarization of the war against the cartels hasn't worked to begin with. It needs more multifaceted approach here. The Mexican military has been targeting them for decades. Yeah. And it's been really, this thing has been, you know, at like it really kicked up in the Bush years, you know, like, you know, and it just hasn't, has been.

hasn't solved this problem, right? And it just shows you the Republicans aren't interested in solving this problem. I would also say, though, like, just the discussion of it, right? We're, the biggest thing in American foreign policy right now is trying to get as many countries together around the basic idea that a big country shouldn't be able to invade its neighbor against international law, like in Ukraine, right? And so, like the Republican Party's platform is essentially, we don't want to support Ukraine anymore. Like, we're going to end support for the Ukrainians, because that's where Trump is, that's where DeSantis is. But we do want to invade our neighbor, just like Russia did, you just shows you the complete bankruptcy and insanity of this

political party and its incapacity to, like, think responsibly about these things. Never mind that this would like, I mean, not only be illegal, but I can't imagine what the response would be across Latin America, around the world. Like, this is just an insane batch of crazy idea. But it's one that we're probably going to hear more about. Can you imagine being just sort of your average family in Mexico? You wake up. You make up. You make a lot. some pancakes for the kids, you flip open the paper and it's like Trump wants to invade Mexico to take out cartels. It's insane. It's insane. This is completely insane. Yeah, the Mexican-American War 2.0. I mean, let's not do that again. Not since Polk, you know. A quick aside,

here's one reason we might be seeing some extreme foreign policy ideas coming out of the House GOP. The Intercept reported that the legislative aid handling military policy for Matt Gates is a convicted war criminal. He is a former Army National Guard sergeant who spent eight years in prison, wait for it, for shooting an Afghan civilian in the head during an interrogation. This guy is handling military policy and has a security clearance for that case. Do you think that Gates found him or he found Gates? That's a good question. That's a good question. You do wonder, like, who's in these offices, all these, like, nut jobs?

because like these do they have access to information? Do they have security clearances? Are they like able to get briefings on stuff? Like this is the most insane stuff. But again, like you can think that this is fringe. But we've talked a lot about Eddie Gallagher, remember? Like the war criminal that became like a hero on the right. On Fox News, yeah, the Navy SEAL who was shooting dead bodies and the, you know, allegations of horrible stuff that came from his unit,

his seals. It just shows you like how grotesque, there is a gateway drug thing to this too, where like first they were like into Gitmo, like they were defending that. That was so great. You know, then they were defending waterboarding. And now they literally have more criminals working for them. That's where this stuff leads, you know. Yeah. Crazy stuff. Okay. So let's turn to Finland because we don't get to talk about it enough and there's some big updates. So the first is that Sana' Marin, the 37-year-old prime minister of Finland, lost her bid for re-election. So this is a three-way contest and both the center-right National Coalition Party and the populist Finns Party narrowly beat her Social Democratic Party.

When she was elected in 2019, Marin was the world's youngest sitting leader, but it seems like voters have blamed her for Finland's rising debt and inflation. She's also come under criticism for being young and fun and doing things like going to concerts and going to the occasional party like literally everyone her age. Finland has a parliamentary system. So now the leader of the National Coalition Party will try to form a coalition government and likely become prime minister, but that could take some time. And it's not clear whether this sort of center-right party will try to form a coalition with people, the populace to their right or with the more progressive, so we'll see. But the second big update is that Finland has officially

joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO. This is a huge change for Finland. For decades, they did this delicate dance of maintaining relations with both the West and Russia. They share an 800-mile land border with Russia, so they have a vested interest in not getting into a shooting

war with the Russians, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the calculus for Finland. Despite once blaming NATO expansion for the invasion itself, the Russian response has been relatively muted, but of course that could change if NATO starts moving in, I don't know, weapons systems or something to Finland. Finland itself has a capable and advanced military. This is a

boon for NATO. Sweden has also been trying to join NATO, but their application, is that what it's called? Their process has been held up by Turkey, who is demanding that Sweden extradite members of a militant Kurdish political party to Turkey. So NATO now is 31 member states. They all agree to defend each other against an attack. It's a big deal. It's a big change. Ben, any thoughts on Sonomeren's defeat or this newly expanded refurb. some might say, NATO. Well, I mean, on Sonamaran's defeat, congratulations Finland on becoming really boring again.

Like, I hope you feel good about that. But more seriously, in addition to losing a social democratic voice, which is, you know, we're out on the social democratic team here on this podcast, there's something just kind of a little, I was thinking about this, a little depressing about the fact that like one of the hopeful trends out there in global politics in democracies was the emergence of, of these younger female social Democrats who were getting elected in a bunch of different places. And now we've seen Jacinda Ardern leave office, not defeated, but leave office,

you know, in part because she was burned out, right? And though she kind of pushed back a little bit against the idea that the burnout was due to the vitriol that had been directed her way from anti-vaxxers and right wingers, like that seemed to play a role. And then we talked about Nicole Sturgeon, again, not a leader. but the leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party, you know, a little older than Justinda Ardern and Sondon Marin. But once again, her private, like 50 something, right? Yeah. Not that much. And her private life, you know, I was when I was in Scotland, like, she was saying that, like, there were these rumors and, you know,

that because she was having lesbian affairs with, like, French diplomats and she wasn't. And, like, that clearly played a role there, too. So, and then Santa Marin, I don't know that the, you know, party gate and all this stuff played a role in her defeat. It does seem like it was a lot to do with inflation and government spending and kind of demagoguing things that she probably didn't control, right? Like there's inflation everywhere. But I do worry about a trend like of these female leaders getting more shit than male counterparts. And, you know, I hope that she stays in politics. I hope that she continues to be like someone who is at the front of a trend where there are other people in their 30s and early 40s, women, progressives getting elected. On the NATO piece,

look, anything that doubles Russia's land border with NATO is a really big deal. And it shows you how profound the impact is of the war. We've talked about this, but essentially if Finland could go through all of the Cold War and then all of the post-Cold War period in 9-11, not in NATO, this is the thing that got them there, very capable military. Like if Barack Obama was welcome the Finnish prime minister, he'd say they punch above their weight. Oh, yeah. Generally what he said for the Nordic countries, but it's true. And the new Finnish government will have to make a decision about whether to house NATO troops on their country.

I do think stepping back, like for listeners making sense of all this stuff and all these pieces moving around the geopolitical board, I think what we can say a year into this war is that the West, the democracies of the world, have kind of reconstituted themselves, consolidated their alliances, reinvested in NATO, at the same time that, as we've talked about, like Russia, China, Iran, this other group of countries is deep in their ties. And this is like the, you know, I think the foremost signal of that, that essentially we have seen a kind of revitalization, but it has been limited within the borders of what we would have once called the free world, you know? Yeah. And this is kind of, this is drawing that boundary, literally. Like the 800 miles that just became a border between NATO and Russia with Finland's accession, you know, does say like, okay, the line is drawn and we're revitalizing democratic institutions and values and common defense

over here. But we know that the other team is doing that as well. So speaking of the front lines of democracy, we should talk about Taiwan because Taiwan's president, Tsayun Wen, is visiting the U.S. this week. She's stopping in California after visiting Guatemala and Belize. We should start with that Latin America piece of the trip because it comes shortly after Honduras broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Taiwan's relationship with Honduras had dated back to the 1940s. It was sort of a Cold War anti-communist relationship. But today, Honduras is deep in debt and they reportedly demanded billions of dollars in assistance from the Taiwanese government before breaking off ties and establishing relations with China. President's side's visit was designed to firm up relations

with Guatemala and Belize and prevent more of Taiwan's 13 remaining diplomatic allies from cutting ties with them. Since 2017, Panama, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic in Nicaragua have all cut ties with Taiwan. So this is a scary trend for them. Presidents I will meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California near L.A., actually. She met with Congressman Hakeem Jeffries last week in New York. She flew to New York, flew to Latin America, then flew back through California. We'll go back to Taiwan. The Chinese government is very pissed off about the meeting with Kevin McCarthy and has warned McCarthy not to repeat disastrous past mistakes, is their quote. Remember that they flipped out about Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in 2022.

So, Ben, I would love to hear your thoughts on this visit to Belize and Guatemala and the value of, you know, sort of keeping together Taiwan 13 remaining diplomatic allies, even if we're talking about in many cases, very small countries that, you know, couldn't do much to push back on China, as well as this plan meeting with Kevin McCarthy. I think, you know, when Pelosi went to Taiwan, I think you and I both were kind of like, you know, is the juice worth to squeeze here? I mean, this is creating so much angst. There was this, like, massive military response from the Chinese government for months and months and months afterwards. But the Chinese government telling Kevin McCarthy who to meet with in the United States seems like a whole other bridge

further and pretty unprecedented and observed to me. But I don't know. What do you think? On the visit to Central America, I mean, you know, if you go to Taiwan, like when I was there, like they, these allies and, you know, these friends that they have, the countries that have diplomatic relations are very important to them psychologically. Like, you know, you go into their foreign ministry, the flags are up on the wall. It's basically Pacific Island countries and some countries in the Americas. As someone who's very sympathetic to Taiwan, I, I just don't think that this is going to last, you know, in the sense that the Chinese have so many cards to play to pressure these countries to shift to not having relations with Taiwan. I actually think if I was Taiwan, if I was advising the Taiwanese, I would focus more on can we build more connectivity with, you know, European countries, with other democracies around the world in different ways, right?

Can we have, you know, and yes, ideally you'd want some diplomatic relationship, right? You'd want, like, Lithuania recently opened, the Taiwanese opened an office in Lithuania. I think the Lithuanians are doing the same in Taiwan. Like, rather than kind of try to hang, this is a game China is going to win because they just have a lot more cards to play. So rather than try to hang on to these small countries. The Marshall Islands, Palau. Exactly. And the price keeps going up for the Taiwanese.

Like, as you said, like, I would focus more on just. Can we not make that the measure of our own success and the measure of whether or not we're isolated in the world? And can we have like deeper, stronger, more multifaceted relationships with the world's democracies generally, whether or not they kind of formally recognize us in the same way that these countries have? With the McCarthy thing, like I think it's interesting. I had thought McCarthy would go because I didn't think he would settle for less than what Nancy Pelosi did. So it's clearly like the case that he was told probably by a mixture of the Biden. White House and some other Republicans, hey, like, this isn't worth you going and kind of, you know, setting off another massive Chinese military exercise. Can I say for the first time ever,

a credit to him in my book, if he listened to that and thought, okay, well, this is, like, now I'm in a more senior role. This is kind of the more prudent thing. Like, I don't know. Like, he worried less about, like, looking less tough than Nancy Pelosi than doing something that would create fewer problems. Yeah. I mean, I, and, And I was wrong. I thought he would go for sure. Maybe he still might. I mean, he's got another year and a half to go. But like, you had because, you know, Mike Pompeo went over there, despite having been Secretary of State and presumably knowing, like, how dangerous this was and demanded that the U.S. recognized Taiwan's independence, which is like the one thing that could trigger a war, right?

So there's a, it's interesting, whatever play was clearly that Taiwanese got together with the U.S. government in Congress and agreed on this kind of careful choreography where Tsang Wen gets something, right? Like Taiwanese presence don't usually transit the United States like this. And she's meeting the Republican Democratic leader. So it's not like she's losing face. She's doing this trip. But it's slightly less provocative to the Chinese. Now, what we'll have to see is what the Chinese reaction will be because they'll do

something. After Pelosi's visit, their military exercises were so, like they were firing missiles over Taiwan. They were flying missiles into, like, Japanese waters. they were doing exercises that were basically meant to eliminate what's called the median line, the Taiwan Strait, the body of water that separates Taiwan from mainland China, the People's Republic of China. Like, you know, halfway through that body of water is usually, you know, used to be, like on this side is Taiwanese and this side is Chinese. The Chinese were just trying to like totally eliminate that with their exercises. So if they do another kind of massive military exercise with missiles, with ships and air,

assets that are aiming to kind of eliminate the idea that Taiwan has its own airspace and waters, you know, that's part of like their military strategy is of just eating away Taiwanese like sovereignty and kind of rehearsing invasions. So if they do that, well, that's a big deal. If they don't, it does show that maybe there's some de-escalation happening or maybe everybody's kind of taking it down on, you know, after the eventful year that we had. That would be good. Speaking of situations that we all could love to see get taken down a notch. Axios reported that the U.S., a European and Israeli diplomats are discussing what has been called a freeze-for-freeze approach to Iran's nuclear program. That basically means the West gives Iran some sanctions relief in

exchange for Iran freezing parts of its nuclear program. This comes as Iran has made enormous progress towards getting a bomb since Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement in 2018. part of that bomb making process involves enriching uranium. You use these centerfuges to enrich uranium. You need to get uranium to 90% purity to use it as a nuclear weapon. And currently Iran has nearly 90 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium, which gets you a long way towards weapons-grade material. So Israel has reportedly said they will bomb Iranian nuclear sites if Iran enriches it past 60% as a big stockpile. Axio says that so far Iran is not into this.

freeze-for-free's approach. But Ben, I mean, I guess I was surprised and excited to read this because it felt like diplomacy had just been off the table for a while. But I'm also a little bit confused about whether the Israelis are on board. And if so, how Netanyahu is so intensely opposed to the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal from 2015, but in favor of this proposal, which is sort of similar in a lot of ways. What did you make of this leak? This just is insane to me. I mean, it's the right thing. I'm glad that if this were to happen, it would be a good thing. It wouldn't do as much as the Iran nuclear deal to roll back Iran's program,

but it would kind of stop the clock and, like, prevent this from being like a flashpoint that could lead to war in the next few months or a couple of years. What's so crazy about this, Tommy, is that in 2013, the pathway to the Iran nuclear deal was a freeze-for-freeze. So, like, this is like literally 10 years ago. We negotiated this, a freeze-for-freeze. was opening the doorway to this bigger deal. Netanyahu opposed that freeze for freeze at that time. So to me, the fact that this is where we are in 2023 kind of highlights the insanity of just

not being in this bigger deal in the first place. If you're willing to do this kind of deal, why not just have the whole thing? Again, I would say, obviously, Trump is the one to blame. The guy sitting in the Manhattan courtroom is the reason why this is happening. Like the only reason that these diplomats have to do this and that we're worried about this war is because this idiot who knew nothing about what he was doing overruled his own advisors to pull out. I'm going to say, like, and again, like many good things happening in Biden foreign policy. In Ukraine, we've talked about Africa. Like, this is a huge indictment of them because when they came back in office, like the deal was on the table. Like, I don't know that we don't know for sure that the Iranians

would have accepted, but they didn't even really try out of the box to go back to the full nuclear deal. The freeze for freeze was something they could have done when they came in office, but they didn't want to touch this at the beginning. And now this is where they are, you know. So I hope this happens. I'm skeptical. I think, you know, for the Iranians to do this, like, you know, they'd have to feel a lot of heat. Maybe this thing with the Chinese and the Saudis has got them in the mood to deal and to just

kind of get some heat off their back. So this would be good. But nobody looks good about the fact that this is where this all. ended up, you know. Yeah, and I think you'll probably see some, uh, activists, some Iranian activists very frustrated with the suggestion that the West would cut a deal with Iran at this time after all the protests and after the horrific treatment of women in the Masa Mini marches and this bizarre poisoning of schoolgirls that we still don't really totally understand. And I understand that. But there still is, I think, a, um, a security argument for getting the

nuclear issue off the table, especially from a U.S. West perspective. Well, I get that completely, but even, like, I wouldn't expect any Iranians and activists to feel good about any deal that is with this government that they want to, that they see as having a legitimacy for good reasons. I would say that that government having a nuclear weapon is bad, you know, and is more likely to entrench than than power. There could be an argument that, like, maybe we want a military conflict because that could

be the thing that removes this government. I'm not so sure. I think like if there's bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the Israelis, maybe that just drives this government to like any more hardline place and they're trying to get nuclear weapons. So I don't think it like a freeze for freezes somehow, yes, it does kind of like contribute to this idea that there is a legitimate government there making diplomatic agreements. But the thing that is going to bring down or dramatically change this government over time is the Iranian people demanding change. Not, I don't think Israel bombing nuclear facilities, right? And so for that reason, I think this is worth exploring. I do want to say,

like, Rob Mallee's taking a lot of heat, the envoy for the U.S., I think, from those activists. Like, his job is to try to solve this nuclear issue. And by the way, I don't blame Rob for what I was saying before. I think, like Rob Malli wanted to, if after Rob Mallet, we probably would have been back in this agreement, you know, like at the beginning of the Biden administration. So, you know, not having a nuclear weapon, I think, is good, not just for U.S. security. I think ultimately that that's better for the prospect of change because a nuclear, look at North Korea. Like a regime that has nuclear weapons can hang on in a way that regimes that don't, I mean, not to sound like not the U.S. imposed regime change here. This is not Libya or Iraq either.

I'm just saying I wouldn't equate this deal with something that's going to somehow solve their. domestic problems. Yeah. And let's just talk about why it's important to avoid war at all costs. So a few weeks back, we did a special episode on the Iraq War, and we talked about the enormous cost of that war, both in terms of live loss, the reputation of the United States, and then just the dollar amount. And if you look even more holistically, if you combine all of the post-9-11 wars, the Brown University Cost of War Project estimates that the U.S. government has spent over $8 trillion. dollars. A big and growing chunk of that spending is the Department of Veterans Affairs budget. So the VA budget was $45 billion in 2001 and more than $300 billion this year. That is in part because

better technology, better medicine, met there were fewer casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, but you had much higher disability rates for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans because they could survive these horrific blasts and horrific wounds, but needed a lot of care afterwards. So here is what pissed me off. The Washington Post editorial board wrote a piece where they called for changes in how the VA determines whether a veteran gets disability payments to account for a shift from the old way they sort of figured out your disability by deciding whether or not you could do manual labor jobs. And now that the Washington Post wants the VA to account for the fact that there's basically desk jobs in the world, right? And then they also called

for the VA to means test disability payments so that high earner veterans don't get them. Here's how this editorial ends bed. Quote, but the moral responsibility Americans have to those who fought for the country is of diminished value if it does not align with the fiscal responsibility Americans have to keep their financial house safe and sound. Just quick reason why I think that's one of the dumbest things I've ever read. One, the Washington Post ran 27 editorials in favor of the Iraq War before the invasion. and the editorial board itself was a very loud, very vocal proponent of the war. Two, a former Washington Post reporter named Howie Kurtz, who's now at Fox and lost his mind,

said that between August 2002 until the invasion in March, there were approximately 140 front page pieces in the Post making the Bush administration's case for war. That detail came from a great Huffing to Post story on this. And then, as the VFW noted, none of the 10 editorial board members of the Post have served in the military, so this wouldn't impact them at all. So, of course, they can opine on military affairs. They can talk about budgets, all this stuff that they want. But it's insane to me that an editorial like this doesn't include any self-awareness about their role in supporting the war.

It doesn't include any contrition about completely failing to anticipate the cost of war, right? Remember we talked about in the Iraq episode how the Bush administration said it would cost like 40 to 50 billion. There were, you know, a couple trillion off. And then just to say, like, we should balance the budget on the back of veterans who have disabilities is like, honestly, I'm trying to figure out how. how this piece was written and became alive into the world. How they could actually publish this? You flagged this for me, and I read the, at first when you flagged it, I was like, oh, no, like, who's going after these veterans benefits?

And I assume when you sent the clip that it was like a Washington Post news story. And I read it. And I, like, I had the same reaction, like, I was, I had to read it a couple times because and I'm just now I'm like having to control my like emotion like I was so angry like it's hard to explain again to people who might not follow this as closely as we do

no editorial board in the country not the Wall Street Journal like these guys weren't just on board with the war in Iraq the Washington Post they could not have been more all in every single chip they had every shred of credibility they had pushed in the middle they never held themselves accountable for it. After the war, it was always more troops, more troops.

If you wanted to pull out any troops, you were a pussy. You were like anti-American. You couldn't carry. Cut and run. These people, which I know is surprising people because the Washington Post is generally thought of as, you know, friendly or the Democrats. Like, not on this issue. Like these people never, never owned up to their responsibility for the Iraq War. And they were responsible for the Iraq War.

They were the lead editorial page in the nation's capital, making the Bush administration's case more aggressively than the Bush administration at times, right? Truly. And then these people, I agree with a lot of things they say about democracy, never wrestle with the fact that their support for democracy around the world was profoundly, profoundly undermined by the Iraq war, by the policies they supported. And for them to have the gall, the nerve, to advocate taking away. veterans benefits? Because the only thing that they've also cared about as much as supporting war in Iraq is like a Simpson-Bowls, like overstated hyperbolic concern about death deficit. Like I'm just, I can't even talk about it because it's so devoid without getting angry because it's so divorced from reality. They should have, I hope that the editorial board

should have to go to military bases, should have to go to veterans communities. They should have to go to veterans affairs hospitals in this country. And look those people. people in the eye and tell them that they supported sending them to Iraq for no reason, and now they support taking away their benefits. This is so offensive. Hey, I know you lost a leg, but what if you just sat at a desk all day? Would that, would that bother you? You're not disabled.

Are you kidding me? Me, Mr. Washington Post editorial writer, like, first I supported sending you to Iraq for false premises. And now I'm going to ask you to sacrifice. I asked you to sacrifice in Iraq, and now I'm going to have to ask you to sacrifice on the altar of Washington's fiscal discipline like talking points. Give me a break. Sorry. It's just truly. It's like it's truly outrageous. I couldn't believe it when I read it. Okay. I'll talk about the other war that's happening right now. Sort of a roundup of news out of

Ukraine and Russia. So first, just let's focus on Russia, Ben, because a couple of weird stories. First, a pro-war Russian blogger was killed in an explosion in St. Petersburg, Russia on Sunday night. This guy's name is Vladlan Tartarski. He was giving a public lecture in a cafe. was reportedly owned by Yegevni Prygosen, who's the Russian oligarch, who controls the Wagner mercenary group. So Tatarthki was handed this small statue that was a likeness of him, apparently, from a women in the audience shortly before the blast. So the assumption is this thing was, like, loaded up with explosives. It killed him. It injured dozens more. This guy was one of those right-wing bloggers, we've talked about many times in the show. He had a big following on Telegram,

this popular social media app in Russia. He was originally from Eastern Ukraine, but became super pro invasion and actually would criticize the Russian military for not being, you know, militant enough. And so far, the Russians have blamed Ukraine and they blame supporters of anti-corruption activist Alexi Navalny for this attack. And they arrested a 26-year-old woman. The other thing that happened in Russia last week was the Russian intelligence service, the FSB, arrested a Wall Street Journal reporter named Evan Gerskovich and accused him of spying. Now, I am confident, without knowing Evan, that these charges are a complete and total bullshit, and the Russians are just looking for hostage to get some leverage. But the last time an American reporter was arrested and accused

of espionage in Russia was in 1986. So it was the end of the Cold War when the Moscow bureau chief for U.S. News and World Report was thrown in prison for 13 days. I'm very worried that this current process could stretch on much longer. Since the 70s, we should just note, the CIA has officially prohibited recruiting any U.S. news agency in employee because they want to avoid exactly this sort of scenario, either someone being rightly or wrongly accused of being a spy. But Ben, let's pause there because pretty big developments inside Russia for once and not just Ukraine. I would think that the longer this war goes on, the more you're going to see stuff blowing up or people getting killed in Russia.

Again, whether it's some element of the Ukrainian services or whether it's some domestic resistance or oppositionist inside of Russia. And that's a big deal. Like, that's going to bring, I mean, this was right in St. Petersburg, right? This is not like some small, like out in the boondocks here. It's like a public event. Yeah, public event. Like it goes and owns the place, right? So like, that's the first thing. I think this is, I'm more skeptical of the Navalny thing. Like that's, yeah, it seems weird. They do like any corruption investigations that they put on YouTube. Yeah, they make YouTube's. Yeah, like I don't see that. That's the one thing that feels, and this is not me trying to defend them. It just felt kind of out of character for them. But I'd keep,

I'd watch this space. Because also, if I'm Ukrainians, again, I'm not saying they should be doing this. I'm saying it's human nature that if this war goes on two, three, four years and Ukrainian kids are getting stolen, like, they're going to start doing more of this, like whether we tell them to or not. Yeah, they're going to want to bring it home to Russia. This is going to happen no matter what the U.S. government is telling the Ukrainians. I just, again, I'm not saying they should be doing it.

I'm just saying that somebody in Ukraine, whether it's, you know, even if it's not Zelenskyy ordering it, Like, there are people that are getting pissed in Ukraine and want to do this. The journalist thing is really troubling. And to me, just, like, whether or not Western journalists can stay in Russia is going to be a growing question. If another one, because there's still a bunch of, you know, journalists there, if another person has taken these on clearly trumped up charges, then we have a real problem. And Evan has a real problem. I mean, like espionage charges, this is not like Brittany Griner with the weed charge. Like, if they prosecute him for this, they're not going to want to.

let him go unless there's like a very high level spy swap. Yeah, spy swap. So I'd watch that space too. What the things have together is like Russia becoming like a darker place, like, you know, more controlled, more violent. Like Russia is changing too through this war in, in ways that are kind of scary, you know. Yeah. And with the, you know, arrest of the journalist, you never know if this is a plan coordinated from the top, if some more localized security, official, you know, did something very stupid. Unfortunately, the result can kind of be the same, and this could take a very long time to negotiate his release. I think Tony Blanket is demanding his release already. The White House is leaning into this, but it's scary. Some other important

updates, Ben, so the U.S. announced some of their 2.6 billion in military aid for Ukraine. The White House says that Russia is offering North Korea food in exchange for ammunition. A number of news outlets got their hands on this leak of secret files from a private Russian company that is providing cyber warfare and hacking services to the Russian government. If you want to read more about it, Google the Vulcan files. But it's interesting that they, you know, Russia has its own little like WikiLeaks now reportedly from a disgruntled Russian worker who is angry about the invasion of Ukraine. But, you know, who knows, there could be some intelligence service behind this. And then I thought that there's a Nobel Peace Prize winning Russian journalist named

Dmitri Muratav. And he is warning that Russian state propaganda is now laying the groundwork to make people believe that using nuclear weapons is sort of not that big of a deal. That also coincides with this really interesting Washington Post story about the Russians digging massive numbers of deep trenches throughout Crimea and other parts of the occupied Ukrainian territories, which just shows that they're digging in for the long haul for this war. Yeah. I mean, that last piece, like to me, I saw that and was found it quite alarming because, you know, if they are conditioning their people for the normalization of the use of nuclear weapons, they're moving these nuclear weapons to Belarus.

They're like hunkering down, like, as if Crimea, again, is like, they see it as a part of Russia. Yeah. The nuclear question is not, like, gone because they didn't use it in the first year. So that, that, to me, of all these things that are worrisome and varying degrees, like, that got my attention. Like, that's not a good thing. Yeah. The only thing counts as good news is, um, There was this report, I think it was in Washington Post. There's just like an apocryphal story about Vladimir Putin. He runs into one of his old high school teachers during a visit to Israel in 2005.

And after their run in, this former teacher of his said that Putin showered her with gifts and bought her an apartment and, oh, isn't he such a great guy? It turns out, based on some newly leaked documents, that the apartment was actually paid for by Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch, connected to Putin. He's owned the Chelsea soccer team. So not at all surprising, but just sort of like perfectly illustrative about how Putin operates and who he is. And Roman Abramovich, right?

Like, like, because, you know, Putin's full shit, but, you know, we've all seen him, like have pictures with like fake people. Remember the same five people dressed in different outfits? Like one day they were teachers and the next day they were like, you know, scientists or something. Yeah. But the Roman Abramvich spent a lot of time trying to say like, oh, you know, I'm not that close to Putin anymore, you know, like that was way, way back in the day. when I was in Russian politics in the early 2000s, like,

now, Roman Vonovich is like putting up teachers and paying for Putin's propaganda, like, that guy should be on the sanctions list, you know. Yeah, for sure. A couple more quick things. So Montenegro is a new president. So Yaakov Militovic is 37 years old. He briefly served as Montenegro's economy minister and is the deputy head of the Europe now movement. This is actually a huge change for Montenegro because the incumbent president,

Milo Dukanovich has basically been president or prime minister since 1991 with a couple breaks here and there. He's basically in power the whole time. So as always, you know, these Balkan politics are complicated. Militovich has pledged to bring Montenegro into the EU during his first term. But during the campaign, he received support from parties with links to Russia, Serbia, and the Orthodox Church, which have been hostile to the EU and Deidot. Dukanovich led Montenegro when it gained independence from Serbia in 2006. and brought them into NATO in 2017, despite objections from the Russians. For those unfamiliar, Montenegro is just a tiny little country.

It's like 600,000 people on the Adriatic Sea between Bosnia, Albania, Serbia, and Kosovo. But Ben, any thoughts on this big change for a little country? I mean, like, I think the Balkan neighbor has been a little unsteady, like politically in recent years. And I mean, look, I think, you know, having one person dominant for that long is not healthy. So transitions of power, I think are important. I think the question is like you want to see the continued European orientation. And so the hope is that like a different person also carries, if you see multiple leaders of different politics continuing to pursue integration with Europe and, you know, good relations with neighbors, that's a healthy sign of, you know, maturing democracy. Like, if there's backsliding and, like, corruption and stability, like, that, you know, that's the kind of

trend that, like, we've seen in other Balkan countries, like, pull things backwards. So I think TBD is, I think you teed up well, like the jury's out here. Transfer power, like, generally a good thing in democracies, but the question is, like, let's see where that goes. Yeah, let's see where that goes. A quick little segment here called We Know Who Side You're on. The first piece of this is OPEC plus, which is the cartel of oil producing. country is led by Saudi Arabia. They announced a cut in oil production, sending prices up about

5% over the weekend. Second, Ben, we learned that our old buddy, Jared Kushner, former Trump aide slash son-in-law, he has a private equity fund that receives an investment of more than $200 million of United Arab Emirates, sovereign wealth fund, and a similarly sized investment from an entity linked to Qatar. So those funds from the UAE and Qatar come on top of a $2 billion dollar investment into Kushner's investment company, private equity company from Saudi Arabia that we've known about for a while. And then before that, Katari Ling company bailed out Jared's property on Fifth Avenue that was deep in debt during the Trump administration. So for those keeping scored home, I think this OPEC production cut is mostly about just like maximizing profits and making

money after a dip in energy prices. But it's a nice little side benefit for the Saudis to know that it hurts Joe Biden and it helps Russia bring in cash to fund their work. war. And we know these Gulf countries are pouring money into Jared Kushner's pocket, either for favors received in the past or for favors they hope to get in the future. So we know which side you're on. You don't think they just are looking out at the whole world thinking like the best person to put my money with is market genius Jared Kushner? Yeah, this guy's got the track record. He knows the lay of the land. He's going to 10x this. Savvy guy. I mean, like, again, like, bears repeating that essentially, if your interest, and this is the Saudi interest and the

Emirati interest, right, if your interest in the world is autocracy succeeding and being democracy proof, fossil fuels continuing to bring in the money, and the Trump family, I don't think there's anything that the U.S. foreign policy can do to make you, like, nice to us. Again, like all the, most of whom are on the payroll somehow of the Gulf, all the people, the analysts who think there's some mix of U.S. policies, they're going to make like MBS join our team, like maybe need to take a look at what the actual interests of these families are. They run these countries and their oil companies and their sovereign world funds. Yeah, I don't know if you saw this, but one of the big Saudi investment entities, it's called

Sanibel Investments, released the list of direct investment. into companies and also into private equity funds. And it's like a lot of the most annoying VCs in Silicon Valley, like Inter-Reeson-Harrowitz, you know, like these VCs like Mark Adresen who are out there, like, whining on Twitter all day long about Joe Biden and the SVB and the Silicon Valley Bank, et cetera. So, you know, it's just good to know this funding these people. Just amoral guys, you know, like, and they're all guys. You're like just like the most amoral VC type guys.

The kind of guys who have like podcasts where they talk about like genocide being below their line. You know? Yep. That's the kind of crew. So, Ben, two more things. As our royal correspondent, I am eager to hear your views on President Biden's reported decision to skip the coronation of King Charles III.

This is apparently in the news. I'm not sure why, given that President Biden went to Queen Elizabeth's funeral last year, and no president has apparently ever attended the coronation of a British sovereign since 1776. But it seems likely we will get a round of kind of wither the U.S. UK special relationship stories, even if Biden sends a delegation that includes his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, the first lady. But your thoughts on this snub? Yeah, I would have been pretty shocked if Joe Biden went to the coronation. So I don't think there's, I don't read much into it, except like you can feel how much like the press, whether it's in the UK or in the U.S.

or anywhere, once to write the like Charles has diminished the monarchy story. That to me's deadline. Like anything that happens, you know, it's going to be like, oh, you know, like Charles says not Elizabeth, you know, just this guy's got like a pretty high bar that he's not going to be able to clear. So like if I'm Charles and I'm trying to think about like how to how to not like hold people, have people hold me to the standard of like what they did for my mother they're doing for me because it's not going to happen.

And so you got to set expectations here. That's a really good point. final story. Here's a headline from Semaphore. Musilini's granddaughter chugged wine at 11 a.m. to protest health warnings on wine bottles. So very fascists and their kids are very hot right now. So this is a European Parliament member, Alessandra Mussolini. She took a couple of slugs of wine straight from the bottle at a press conference to protest Ireland's planned to add health warnings to wine bottles. These warnings will just include basic information about diseases linked to alcohol. Seems like a good idea. Spain in Italy or apparently whining about this plan. I personally support wine consumption at all hours. I hope you do too since you're in France right now. But do we think this label is going to slow people down? I don't know.

And did you know, Ben, that Alessandra Mussolini was an actress, that her aunt is Sophia Loren, and that she recorded a pop album that was only released in Japan. Thank you, Semaphore, for all this news. I didn't know any of that. That's like some pretty good content. That's a pretty good niche Semaphore is carved out there. And I mean that's really that's good stuff.

I love that she just owns the name. You know, like it does kind of show you like the Mussolini kind of not being in like the worst dictator club thing has always been kind of weird to me because if you read the history like pretty bad guy. Like about, you know, like kind of like a front runner for Hitler, you know, like testing the waters, you know. So it's kind of weird. Like if there was a some woman named Hitler in German politics like slugging beer at 11A. the morning, like, that'd be pretty weird. Yeah, wouldn't play well. Wouldn't play well.

I don't, as someone who's in France, drinking a lot of wine, have after this podcast recording a Chateau Nuf de Pupup. There you go. I was able to pick up at half the price is in the U.S. This was 25 euros. Do we still have huge tariffs on French imports of wine in particular? Yes, we do. Why don't we get rid of those?

It's wine that is phenomenally expensive in the U.S. It's like not like crazy here. So I will be indulging. that. Like, I don't know why. It's not like the label is like one of the smoking labels where they show you some like really awful horrific thing. We're just talking about like, you know, hey, like, be careful. Like, you shouldn't drink if these things happen or, you know, you have these conditions, right? So I don't have a problem to drinking 11 o'clock nor have a problem with the labels. And frankly, the Irish, like, it's not like that, you know, like they're, they're not like abstaining

from alcohol across the board either here. Like, they're just trying to like, you know, let people know what's up. Yeah, it's very strange. By the way, so I've mentioned before Hannah's younger sister, Melanie's boyfriend, Raphael, is from Strasbourg and we went and visited him. We drove around, Provence, we drove around, Chateau-Nosephab, actually, and it's just really fun to say. So I highly recommend drinking.

I just like saying it. That's why- It's just fun. But you're right, stuff over there costs like 15 bucks. It's much less. Like the best bottle you get. Yeah, like the good stuff over here is like, it's just a lot less. And then mark up in an LA restaurant, forget it. You know, you're paying like 90 bucks or something you're picking up for 20 euro in a store here.

Yeah, just sort of like house wine out of a cask over in France. Okay, that is it for us today. We don't have a guest because we're doing different time zones. Everybody's busy. Leave us alone. But don't forget to follow us at Cricket Media on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Now, we're still on TikTok, even though the UK just find them $16 million for allowing over a million of kids under 13 to use TikTok. back in 2020 in violation of its own rules.

We'll see if they get banned over here in the U.S. But also, subscribe to POTA of the World on YouTube for access to full episodes and other exclusive content. And give us a review, please. It helps everyone find the show. You get like this background if you watch us on YouTube.

You get this like, it's like kind of like a, I mean like an annex, like a closet to this room. Ben's in a closet. I would describe the pattern as sort of waiting room couch. Yeah. With a little French flair, you know, there's like a pre-revolutionary vibe to it.

Yeah, that's nice. It's very nice. Like a little indulgent. I've been reading this book about it's a biography of Voltaire. There's sort of like a famous 17th French thinker in the 1700s. And man, French Catholics were not nice to my Protestant people back in the day. Not a good time to be a Huguenot. Yeah, you don't want to be Huguenot.

He had a rough. Didn't have well for those guys. We got. Fucked up. All right. Well, it's like 11 o'clock where you are, 11.05 p.m. So Ben's working late hours for you people. So thank you for listening. Thanks, Ben for joining. And thanks Donald Trump for getting indicted. Yeah. Thanks for that. Thanks for made the day a little bit better. Excellent. Talk to guys soon. Pot Save the World is a cricket media production. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor, Ben Rhodes, and Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse. Our associate producer is Ashley Mizzou. It's mixed and edited by Andrew. Chadwick, Kyle Seglan, Charlotte Landis, and Vesilius Futopoulos are our sound engineers. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, D.B. Bradford, and Milo Kim, who upload our episodes and videos to YouTube every week and check out the Potsave the World YouTube account.

Thanks to Saul Rubin for production support.