Pod Save the World - The worst Secretary of State in history, Rex Tillerson

Episode Date: March 16, 2018

Tommy giddily discusses Rex Tillerson’s firing by tweet with Politico foreign affairs correspondent Nahal Toosi. Then they discuss suspected assassination of Putin enemies in London and Nahal’s exclusive report about Trump administration attacks on career State Department staffers.

Welcome back to Pots Save the World. This is Tommy Vitor. There are a lot of days on this show where I talk about sad, depressing things. Today is not one of them because Rex Tillerson got thrown out of the fucking building. The worst secretary of state in history is finally gone. My guest is Nahal Tussi. She's a foreign affairs correspondent at Politico. She's a dogged reporter. We talked through what it means that Tillerson is now gone. What Mike Pompeo, Trump's choice to replace Tillerston, will do, what policies he'll implement, how they will actually. execute these one-on-one talks with Kim Jong-un that are supposed to come up. And then we talk about what to do with Russia. The Trump administration finally put sanctions on the Russians as a response to the 2016 election hacking. And then we talk about the ongoing assassination of Russian dissidents in London and what the international community should do about it. A lot of news this week. It's a great show. Nahal is an amazing guest, a brilliant reporter.

So here is the interview. I promise you will enjoy it. I am thrilled to have back on POTTA of the World, Nahal Tusi. She is a foreign affairs correspondent for Politico. She is brilliant. One of my favorite guests in my whole time doing this show. So thank you again for coming back. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Well, we have quite the grab bag of foreign policy news today. So I was thinking we would start with my favorite cabinet official. Secretary Rex, King Joffrey Baratheon Tillerson is gone. Thank God. I said it before, I'll say it again. I think he will go down as one of the worst secretaries of state in history. At a bare minimum, he will be remembered as the first secretary of state to be fired by his boss on Twitter. So, congrats on that historic first Rex. Now, was there a straw that broke the camel's back with Rex and Trump?

Or was this just a cumulative thing? I think it was overall a cumulative thing. And I think a couple of things in the final days may have made a difference, though. I'm not going to say they're like the straw, but, you know, the whole thing with Trump deciding that he wanted to talk to the North Koreans, the North Korean leader face to face. And Rex seeming a bit out of the loop on that and a bit flustered about that. I think that probably annoyed Trump. There's also this, you know, coincidence, not sure how much of it is correlation versus causation, but, you know, Trump didn't really say anything about some of the Russian activities in recent days in the UK where two people have been. left severely ill by a nerve agent blamed on Russians. But Tillerson did, and he came out and he had some very, very harsh terms for the Russians.

So I think perhaps those two played a factor. But this has been a long time coming. And yet, strangely enough, it still took people by surprise, including me. Yeah. I mean, it's so funny that Trump would get mad at him for suddenly not being on board with direct talks with North Korea when earlier in the year Rex was trying to facilitate those talks. and Trump cut his legs out from under him on Twitter. But I guess such is working for Donald Trump, right?

Well, see, this is the thing is, you know, yeah, you're right. Tillerson was advocating talks for a long time. Now, of course, you know, I do think there is a distinction between talks and negotiations. But, you know, he was saying we need to talk. And so that, when you saw Trump kind of take that position, you thought, oh, maybe Rex is actually hitting his stride. Maybe they're more sympathetico now. And yet, it seems not. Yeah.

You reported that the response among State Department staff to Tillerson's ouster was somewhere between relief and elation. Why do they hate Rex Tillerson so much? How did Rex manage to make both Donald Trump and his entire staff, including all the career professionals who serve under secretaries of state of both parties, hate him? Well, you know, for people who work at the State Department, either the civil service or foreign service, they kind of look at this through two prisms. One is personnel and management. The other one is policy. Okay. Now, when it comes to policy, Tillerson is a pretty kind of middle of the road Republican establishment type when it comes to dealing with foreign policy.

And that, you know, it was fine. You know, the one tough thing about it was he wasn't always in line with the president, which made people in the department worried because they felt like their department was devalued and kind of sidelined in this whole administration, right? But the personnel part was what really, really was driving people crazy. Tillerson came in, basically agreed to Trump's desire to cut 30% of the State Department's budget. He froze hiring. He did not fill numerous leadership positions. He surrounded himself with a handful of people who were very suspicious of the career diplomats. And he basically isolated himself and did not really draw on the expertise in the building. So people felt ignored. They felt frustrated. They saw an inability that couldn't get promoted. It was just all these sorts of things that they felt like he was not managing the building well. And so that's really kind of the main driver of their frustration.

Did they just sort of cleaned house of all those folks, chief of staff, deputy chief of staff press people? Are they just gone now? Several of the ones that were widely disliked are gone or are going to go. the last day for Rex and these aides was March 31st, technically. They include his chief of staff, Margaret Peterlin, his deputy chief of staff, Christine Chaconne, I believe. That's how you pronounce her name. His Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, who was only on the job for like a couple of months, and frankly, it was actually very good in terms of dealing with reporters.

But he also was pushed out. But there's one person who may survive all this because he has a good relationship with the White House and yet also is the same person spurs a lot of resentment at the State Department. And that's Brian Hook. Brian is the director of the policy planning staff and, you know, he has strong ties throughout the administration beyond the State Department. And, you know, people feel like he kind of, through his policy planning staff, has built up a mini state department within the State Department and his effectively doing a lot of things that traditionally regional bureaus would be handling in the State Department. And yet, you know, he's well connected enough. And, and

And there is a sense that perhaps keeping him on for a while at least will have some policy continuity with the next Secretary of State. And so he looks like he'll survive. But you never know. I'm really not in the prediction business anymore. I don't know about you. I feel you. Haven't been since November of 2016 because I was not good at it.

Were you there when Tillerson gave his final press conference statement, whatever that was? I was not in the room. I was watching it on a live stream. But I could tell you, he definitely looked shaken. Yeah. I'm sure some of it was just the situation, you know, being fired in what was in many ways a very undignified manner. Frankly, even people who don't care for Tillerson within the department just did not really appreciate the way the Secretary of Strait was treated by the president. But, you know, there was another thing.

You know, he apparently had like some sort of food poisoning or something when he'd been traveling in Africa the last few days. He was jet lagged. He'd barely gotten any sleep. So all that stuff could have factored in. to it. He's probably going to be seriously much happier in the next few weeks when he's back home in Texas, just chilling out. Yeah, I agree. I just hope one of these clowns who gets humiliated and booted out the door by Donald Trump will actually speak the truth and tell us what they saw because, boy, it's time. So Trump nominated CIA director Mike Pompeo to take Tillerson's place

at state. There is talk that Trump's national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, will be the next to go. these are folks who are seen as moderating voices. If Trump sits down with Kim Jong-un, like you would mention earlier, if he gets into a negotiation, who staffs him? Who is gaming out these talks? Who's determining the goals, prepping Trump himself? Do you have any sense of how this would work? Well, the National Security Council staff, I think, are going to be pretty heavily involved, including the senior director for Asia, Matt Podinger. You know, there is a person who is the acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia. Asia, Susan Thornton, I believe she still has that acting title. There's some legal issues, so she might not technically have that title, but she's the senior person in that bureau. And she's been, you know, involved in these as well. But there are some serious notable vacancies. We don't have an ambassador to South Korea. We do not have a special envoy for North Korean affairs. That person just retired only a few days ago. And so there are definitely going to be some gaps. And, you know, the president has

has said in the past, look, I'm the only one that matters. And he probably thinks he's going to go into these talks and going to be able to strike a deal with this young 30-something Korean dictator who, as far as we know, I don't think, has ever met another foreign leader, you know, since at least since taking office. And I mean, the president seems to think he can kind of wing this on his own. Right. And I'm not so confident of that. No. And you shouldn't be. And like, and that's not an insult to Donald Trump. During the Iran deal negotiations, Obama had so. many technical experts on his side. I mean, the Secretary of Energy was involved because in a nuclear deal, you know, you're talking about getting rid of nuclear weapons in a way that is

verifiable, highly technical, fabricating metals, like all these things. Donald Trump shouldn't know how to do any of these things, right? Correct. But, you know, again, there's a difference between talks and negotiations, right? For instance, for what Tillerson was advocating for a long time was just talks about talks. So, you know, there's a possibility that Trump could just go in there and be like, hey, let's keep this up. Let's continue this. Let's get some people to put more meetings in the place and then we'll work it out. And this could be just a first step.

And there are plenty of people who don't think this is necessarily a bad idea. The challenge is that it's Trump and he may not be as well versed on even some of the broad brush issues as some other people might be. And he might make promises that he might not be able to keep. So this is the thing. It's this particular president and how he handles it, especially if it's behind closed doors. You know, the North Koreans, you know, they're pretty good with their propaganda and their spin. And so they could walk away from it saying, hey, look, you know, he said everything's fine and we're completely legitimate as a nuclear power. And but I will tell you this, like, I am very eager to see this happen because I just think it's fascinating. And I think this, considering how long it's been that there's not been much progress on this front, you know, here is a potential shot, but it's a long shot. This is not a layup. This is like, you know, the half point mark. Right. Yes. I like that. Excellent March madness metaphor. If I were, if I were North Korea, I am a tar heel. Oh, nice. Congratulations. We got a bunch of those in the room with me physically right now. If I were North Korea, if I were Kim Jong-un, I would propose one-on-one talks and make Trump say

no to it or walk in the room knowing that, you know, you got to hand up on this guy. I mean, you know, one can only imagine what is actually going through Kim Jong-un's mind. Last I checked, there has not been an actual formal invitation from the North Koreans. Like, correct me if I'm wrong on that, but this is something that was basically conveyed orally, you know, via the South Koreans. You know, we don't really know what they want or what their plan is. And I guess, you know, the U.S. just, when you're dealing with the North, you've got to be prepared for just about anything. Yeah. But you're right.

I mean, I think this was an invitation conveyed in the midst of a four-hour drunken dinner. So who knows? With Tillerson gone, if H.R. McMaster goes, it feels like prospects for preserving the Iran deal feel pretty bleak. Have you heard any updates on that decision or timing on what we might hear more? I mean, I think as we get closer to May, there's going to be a lot more flurry. The president has some decisions to make on waiving sanctions and other things. in that month. And, you know, I think it's a pretty decent analysis to say that this deal probably won't survive. And part of the reason I say that is because Pompeo, the nominee to be the next Secretary of State, is one of the most anti-Iran deal people basically in Washington. I mean, when he was a congressman, this was one of his big things bashing the Iran deal. And now he's going to be the one who's going to have the authority to tell the president, you know, whether or not this deal should be certified. And, Tillerson wanted the president to continue to certify it, to continue to uphold it. Pompeo has shown

no sign that he's going to do that. Now, let's not forget, though, it's very different being a congressman from Kansas, you know, or even the CIA director, than being the actual secretary of state and having to put your name to some of this stuff and having to deal with the leaders of foreign countries who very much want the United States to stay in this deal. So Pompeo might feel a level of pressure than he hasn't before. There's one other factor, too, the North Korea situation. If the U.S. pulls out of the Iran deal, you know, why should the North Koreans want to strike a deal with the U.S. at all? And so, you know, Pompeo may have a different equation to think about now than he did back when he was a congressman. God, I hope so. I mean,

you know, there are some will say, well, Rex was more of a moderating voice losing him as bad if you like the Iran deal. I think that Trump probably would love to tear up the Iran deal in part to piss off Tillerson. So maybe Pompeo can talk some sense into him. I don't know. I hope. You know, your guess is as good as mine. I mean, I'm sure there are, I know there are people looking at creative solutions, looking at possibility of like an additional deal that deals with stuff that's not dealt with in the nuclear deal. I mean, these are things that might mollify Trump if you present them to him in a way that he feels will make him come out looking good and will actually, you know, have some significant policy effect. But, you know, the other thing that

remember is what the Iranians are thinking. And indications right now is that they themselves are like, look, you know what, whether the U.S. pulls out of the deal now or whether, you know, it lets it survive, like it's pretty clear that this is not something, this is not a partner we can rely upon for the long term. So I would not be surprised if the Iranians are already thinking about ways to resume their nuclear program whenever the deal ends up being over with. Yeah. I mean, they already feel squeezed by American pressure on companies that might otherwise have tried to do business in Iran. So not great all around. In Russia news, on Thursday, the Trump administration rolled out at long last sanctions on five Russian organizations and 19 individuals in response to the 2016 election interference.

These folks won't be able to travel the U.S. their assets will be frozen. This would bar U.S. businesses from working with them. This action comes a year and a half after Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats, seized to comment. compounds in the U.S. and put in place sanctions. Do you have a sense of why they did this now? Is it connected with the recent attempted assassination of a former Russian spy in the U.K.? I don't think it's connected to that. And I think it's because these things tend to take a long time just to pull together. And, you know, that incident happened fairly recently. Of course, it might have given it some added urgency. But I think it's partly because Congress passed a law in June that basically diminished. that the administration puts some sanctions on Russia. And quite frankly, like, the administration's been pretty slow in responding to that law. And the law, you know, it's kind of structured in a way to where Trump can't even, you know, exercise an option not to put the sanctions on. So in a sense, like, the administration is being forced to do this by Congress. And already we have members of Congress

complaining that, you know, they did the minimum that they had to do and that they actually needed to do a lot more in terms of sanctioning. For instance, people close to Putin, oligarchs, those sorts of things. And that these sanctions aren't going to do it very much. I mean, remember, a bunch of these sanctions are actually on people that Bob Mueller has indicted already. So it's, I mean, in a way, it's kind of like low-hanging fruit, you know? So I just, I think this is like pressure from the hill. Got it. Yeah. I mean, so, I mean, simultaneously, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain expelled 23 Russian diplomats over that previously mentioned poisoning of a former Russian spy in London. May said that Britain would suspend all high-level contacts with Russia.

She vowed to crack down on corrupt Russian money and business people in the UK, some of the oligarchs you were talking about. This marks the biggest escalation of tension since probably the Cold War, and because everything in 2018 is stupid, the U.S. and the U.S. and the U.K. are fighting on Twitter via stupid memes and going back and forth. Where does this go from here? Like, how did it take this long for the UK to respond to a series of really suspected assassinations of Russian dissidents and Putin opponents who are currently living in London? You know, I think that that's the question that the Russians are asking. It's almost like they're testing the West to see how far they can go and how much they can get away with. Okay, so Theresa May expels 23 Russian diplomats. does that really matter to the Russians?

I mean, and then she says, yeah, we're going to crack down on the money and we're going to do all this other stuff. Okay, I mean, are you actually going to do it? How far are you going to go? And, you know, at what point, like, how far will you go to where, you know, you might even look at, you know, some sort of military action? I mean, that's far out there. But, you know, you can argue that this is like, this isn't an attack, you know, on a NATO member. And so the Russians are sitting there to some extent thinking, hmm, is it just going to be somebody saying a lot of stuff and throwing out a few of our diplomats for a while? And then never, you know, once the rhetoric dies down, this just goes away.

Or are they actually going to really crack down? Right. And they've been testing the West for a while. I mean, this goes back to, you know, the war in Georgia. And, you know, so far it seems like the Russians feel like they can get away with a lot. And the West, which is, like you said, squabbling, is not going to do much beyond just talk. Yeah. We're at a tough place, right? I mean, Obama was criticized for not responding forcefully enough to Russian and Kurdens, Ukraine and other places. Now you have a Europe that's increasingly fractured and divided. I think you're right. These are the raptors testing the fences. And it's not clear to me that this kind of response has a real cost to it. Yeah, and I think the Russians, you know, are very, very aware of this.

But one of the things, I had to say, it's really struck me as fascinating, is the way that the Russians have been responding to even like the verbal attacks or whatever. You know, they've been using like sarcasm and like just kind of like these weird types of formulations and responses where you're just like, really? You know, I mean, they just kind of act like everyone else is silly. Yeah. And I just find that fascinating. It's almost like they're trying to weaponize sarcasm. I don't know. What do you think, Tommy?

Is that something that you think will work in the long run when it comes to the relationship with the rest of the world? You're right. It's so bizarre. I was looking today at the Russian Foreign Ministries Twitter page or I guess it was maybe their whatever Twitter account was responding to the UK. And it was like literally stupid memes in like sort of like braddy, childish sarcastic language. I can't tell if this is just. just how they think language and information travels on the internet these days. And if that's the case, they might have a point. Or there's just sort of, you know, a level of immaturity within

the foreign ministry that feels a little bit new and not kind of getting dictated by Sergey Lavrov in some of the very serious career people who usually run foreign policy. Well, frankly, even Sergey Lavrov at times can say things that will raise a lot of people's eyebrows. That's true. I mean, he is, you know, he has his little quips here and there. But, you know, I recently, I recently interviewed the Russian ambassador to the United States. And it was really fascinating. On the one hand, he was quite diplomatic and charming. On the other hand, he didn't hesitate to call out, you know, people who he felt were frustrating him, like members of Congress who wouldn't, didn't want to meet with him. And it was just this, like, really fascinating thing where on the one hand, he would just

poke at them, you know, and on the other hand, he would, you know, just be like, oh, but we want, you know, we want to get along with the U.S. The U.S. is such an important country. And I was just like, what is this situation that, what is his approach to this? I'm still trying to figure out. But one of the fascinating things is, as I was doing reporting on this story, is it turns out that the Russian embassy has launched a podcast. Really? And, you know, yes. And yeah. So, hey, big rival to you guys. Good to know. And it's really interesting. And they started off with Russian bluegrass music. And there's, you know, someone saying, hello, America. And they basically kind of read their

newsletter out for people to listen to. And it's so, so fascinating because they absolutely, you know, they don't really hold back. I mean, they'll just be like, yeah, the U.S. needs to figure this out. Or, you know, we don't understand why they are thinking this way. It's just absolutely fascinating. Yeah. And so at the same time, they're taking this sort of campy, sarcastic internet tone. You know, BuzzFeed has a report where they've identified 14 cases that U.S. spy agencies have linked to Russia. Assassinations in the U.K. of of individuals who are seen as Putin opponents. And the nerve agent used in the most recent attack is something out of a Cold War nightmare.

I mean, American labs stopped producing these nerve agents in the 1970s after creating horrible weapons like sarin gas or VX gas. But the Russians kept going and they produced another generation of nerd agents that are believed to be even more, like orders of magnitude more lethal. And that was what was used here. I can't tell if they use these substances to avoid detection. or if the idea is to send a message to the victims instead of the West, that the Russia is going to act with impunity and there's nothing you can do to stop us. Yeah, that was one of the things that fascinated me too because, you know, I'm saying that they're thinking, like, why would you use a nerve agent, especially one that, you know, is kind of known to be made by the Russian government?

Yeah, only down. Like, why would you use something like that that can be traced? I mean, there's much easier ways to, you know, frankly, kill people, you know, less detectable ways. And I just don't quite understand why they're doing with that. But then there's two things. You know, I'm not sure, like, which do you think is scarier? The idea that the Russian government might be doing this or the idea that they may have lost control of this substance somehow

and that it's in the hands of people out of their control. Yeah, that's, I mean, those are the worst case possible scenario. The proliferation scenario of a chemical weapons agent like that, I think, is the most horrifying thing because ultimately it could be sold to literally anyone. I think, you know, I guess I'm slightly less scared by the idea that Russian intelligence service assassins are using these things because ultimately they're still targeting individuals, but boy, that's, you know, it doesn't make me feel much better. A lot of people could have, you know, died as a result of this recent attack. I mean, this was,

you know, you put gas out there. This is in the air. Who knows? I don't know. It's a very, it's just like a brave new world in a way. Yeah. It's scary because they poisoned a guy named Alexander Litvinenko and they used a polonium isotope that essentially killed him with radiation poisoning. Like they have gone for these horrifying, spectacular headline-grabbing ways of killing people when if they just pulled out a gun and made it look like a robbery, they probably could have gotten away with it. Right. And but there's like, I mean, gosh, we're talking like we're like in an assassination school or something here. But like, you know, but there's like a big gulf between like shooting someone with a gun and like using a nerve agent.

I mean, you could do something that's still dramatic, you know, and sense of. message but doesn't involve a nerve agent. I don't know. I'm not sure. You know, again, we don't, you know, there's an accusation that Russia is responsible for this. They are denying it. Perhaps one day the truth shall be known. Yeah, they are denying it. I don't believe them for a second. I don't think anyone should. They denied invading Ukraine until, you know, the very last minute. So it is, it is a frightening situation. They still deny invading Ukraine. I mean, it's, it's It's fascinating. I'm like, wow, okay. And when you talk to, I've talked to a lot of Russian diplomats recently. And, you know, you walk away feeling like, wow, like this is like a completely different world. It's fascinating. I mean, that's one of the best things about being a reporter is like going in and out of people's different realities. Yeah. Too many realities for me right now. Back on the home front, you published a major and pretty disturbing report today about the Trump administration's efforts to find.

career staffers that were seen as sympathetic to President Obama and drive them out of the State Department. Trump's team was quoted in emails that you obtained calling them leakers, calling them troublemakers, calling them troublemakers, turncoats. They attacked an Iran expert because of her name and her ethnicity. They conspired with right-wing news outlets like Breitbart, and they enlisted creeps like Newt Gingrich to spread that news and to, you know, sort of target these individuals. Can you explain what you found and what you reported out today and how this happened? So this basically started about a year ago, almost exactly a year ago, when I wrote a story about what had happened to a particular woman at the State Department who's an American-born,

U.S. citizen of Iranian descent. She's an Iran expert, and she had worked, she's a career civil servant. She joined the government under the George W. Bush administration. And, you know, suddenly she had been reassigned from her position on the Secretary of State's policy planning staff, her detail to that staff had been cut short and she'd been sent back to her original Bureau that she was, her home base, the Middle East Bureau. Now, the thing is that she was a career staffer who, like several others, had been attacked by name in conservative media outlets, for instance, Breitbart. These media outlets had put out lists of people that they

called Obama holdovers, even though some of them had worked for the, you know, government years before Obama. And they were insisting that Trump had to fire these people or get rid of them. They used all sorts of, you know, terminology like, you know, their hangers on who are burrowing into the government. And, you know, it's kind of this whole deep state idea, like that these people are going to try to undermine the Trump agenda, that sort of thing. And, you know, so when I wrote these stories about this, I wasn't quite able to get the full backstory. I was trying to figure out what. I had a sense some people were lying to me. I mean, I couldn't quite figure out because the say tomorrow was freaking out that I was writing this story. So anyway, fast forward to yesterday,

literally, in the evening when I come into possession of a bunch of emails that had been exchanged among Trump administration officials about her just as she was being attacked by the conservative media and as I was writing this story about her. And, you know, it was just extraordinary the way that they were trying to figure out who she was. And somebody said that she was born in Iran, even though she wasn't. Right. And there was just all these weird language and insinuations. And it was very clear.

And it wasn't just her. I mean, there were other people named. And it was just this sense that, like, they really felt there, there seemed to be a level of paranoia, that there are these people, you know, who are out to get us who don't want Trump to succeed. Again, these are career, civil and foreign service officers who take an oath to, you know, you know, uphold the Constitution, and they are supposed to, and they do, you know, they're supposed to implement the policies of whatever party is in charge of the White House. That is their job. And so it felt like kind of like a witch hunt situation. And, you know, these emails, like, it was really

extraordinary. And one of the things that was really upsetting to me was, you know, they showed that there were efforts to lie to me and say that she had completed her detail on the policy planning stuff and that she was just naturally finishing up her role there and going to a different position. When that was not true, it was being cut short. And it was just a very fascinating look. I hope a lot of people check it out on Politico.com. But it was a really interesting insight into what they were thinking and how much the role of like conservatives outside the Trump administration, how much of a role they played in, you know, getting these stories and these, bringing these people to the attention of people within the administration. Yeah, it's very worth the read. I mean, I was struck by how paranoid they are. How brawl.

reason the lying is, how it seemed like any efforts to correct the record with this one particular Iran bureau staffer you talk about informed them repeatedly that she had started working at the State Department in 2005 and was actually a Bush administration holdover before she was an Obama administration holdover. None of it matter. Yeah. It's really something. I got to tell you, as a reporter, like nothing makes me more angry than being lied to. Like, as a human, I just, I'm very, very, I'm tired of the lying. I get very frustrated by lying and this really personally offended me. On the other hand, you know, they did describe me within the emails as she's not one to back down. Yeah, I like that. That's very good. So I was like, hey, you know what? I'll take that as a compliment.

Question, does this cross the line into being illegal? I mean, when you're talking about pushing someone out and questioning their loyalty to the United States, because they're Iranian or because you think they may not have been born in the United States, even if you're wrong, is that discrimination? I think you have to look at the exact language and what the intent was. You know, it's possible that the person who wrote this stuff, you know, was just like, sorry, I just got wrong information. And I'm not a lawyer, but if I was a lawyer, I would definitely be trying to contact this woman and seeing if she's interested. Yeah. But my guess is that she's not the only one who's endured something like this.

And, you know, there could possibly be others as well. And, you know, hopefully if there are, they'll reach out to me. But, you know, I certainly think that there are some legal questions that are raised here. But, again, it kind of comes down to motivation and what exactly ended up happening. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, the individual, we mentioned earlier, Brian Hook, the head of the policy planning staff, who's staying on and not getting cleaned out with the rest of the Tillerson team, was very much involved in this. So, you know, some of these bad actors are still sitting in that building. No comment.

Okay. Now, thank you so much for doing the show. Everyone should check out that incredible piece. I also would highly recommend that they give a read to a very long piece you wrote about the situation in Burma with the Rohingya. You went back several years and looked at a whole series of decisions made by the Obama administration, including people I worked with and during the time I was there. Internal debates that may have led to, you know, some would argue, pushing forward a normalization process with Burma too fast. and how things really unraveled. So it is a, you know, it's a tough read, but it's a really important piece. So thanks for doing it. Thank you. I'm really glad I got the chance to do that. It was one of the most emotional, but also educational reporting experiences I've ever had. Yeah, it is, once you read it, it's hard to stop thinking about some of the things you reported. So anyway, thank you for that. Thank you for doing the show. Nahal Tussi, Foreign Affairs correspondent for Politico, a fantastic reporter who we can tell in FOIAEA emails does not back down but is a hell of a lot of fun to talk to you thank you so much for

having me thanks again for tuning to pod save the world i promised not to in the future promise you an uplifting show and then do a deep dive into various kinds of poisonous nerve agents mistakes were made talk to you soon