Pod Save the World - Threats from Iran and the time Ben met the Queen

Episode Date: May 8, 2019

First, Tommy and Ben discuss the US sending an aircraft carrier to the Middle East in response to threats from Iran, fighting between Palestinian militants and Israel, North Korea, Venezuela, our escalating trade war with China and Viktor Orban coming to the White House. Then Ben shocks us with his excitement about the royal baby and shares unforgettable story about the time he met the Queen of England. Then The New Yorker's Dexter Filkins dials in to talk about his piece on National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Welcome back to POTA of the World. This is Tommy Vitor. Thank you all for tuning in. We have an intense show today. There's a lot of heavy topics, but trust me, it ends well. Over the weekend, there was news about the United States moving an aircraft carrier to the Middle East to deal with some threats out of Iran. So we talked through that in great detail. We talked about the ceasefire, thank God, after some fighting in Gaza between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces. talked about North Korea and updates there with Kim Jong-un firing various projectiles into the ether. The situation in Venezuela, the ongoing trade war with China, and then President Trump inviting a hardcore authoritarian fascist leader named Victor Orban to the White House. We closed it out with a story from Ben about the time he tried to meet the Queen of England. I'll let him fill in the details. It was probably not how if you dreamed of your moment to meet the Queen of England, you would have scripted it, but holy shit, it's a funny story. And if you want to see my face turns several shades of red,

check up the stream on YouTube, the Crooked Media channel, because it's all up there. And then after the conversation with Ben, we patch in Dexter Filkins. He's an unbelievable writer for The New Yorker. He wrote a long, fascinating profile on John. John Bolton, and we talked about that piece. So Pax Show, excited for you guys to hear this one. And without further ado, here's a conversation with Ben Rhodes. So, Ben, late Sunday night, the White House announced that an aircraft carrier strike group

and a bomber task force were being deployed to the Middle East in response to indications that Iran was planning to attack U.S. forces in the region. Axios, I believe, later reported that the warning was based on intelligence passed along by the Israelis. So we don't know a lot of specifics here. We do know that Iran has a long history giving Shiite militia groups and Iraq weapons that they later used to attack our troops. We also know that they have a history of harassing ships in the Strait of Hormuz. But, I mean, deploying one of our 11 total aircraft carriers is a pretty big deal, a pretty big response.

What did you make of this decision? Well, I was pretty disturbed by it, Tommy. You know, I think there are a few things to say about this. One, Commander-in-Chief Bolton, you know, kind of made this blustery announcement. Yeah. And I think we need to be honest here. If John Bolton is the one talking about intelligence that is potentially a pretext for war, like the track record matters here.

And so I don't think we should just take it face value leaks to friendly, you know, journalists or even unfriendly journalists about how there's this intelligence. We haven't seen it. And John Bolton has a history of cherry-picking intelligence and frankly lying about intelligence. He did that before the war in Iraq. He did that on Cuba. Didn't you try to say that Cuba's had a biological weapons program? One of the reasons he wasn't confirmed as UN ambassadors.

He demanded that the State Department tell him that Cuba had a biological weapons program and they don't, right? So I do think we just have to be very skeptical and we need to have our antenna up on Iran or Venezuela or anything else. John Bolton also went out a couple days ago and said that three Venezuelans were prepared to defect from Maduro and none of them did. Right? So his intelligence has not exactly borne out. No. I think the second thing is, look, this idea that the Iranians might be targeting U.S. forces in the region, when the decision was made to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, we were told in reporting that the Defense Department and the intelligence community opposed that action because they worried that it could put our troops in harm's way, that the Iranians might feel. that they need to engage in some reprisal act. So I don't know if that is related to the intelligence, but what we've seen consistently

is a pattern of this administration seeking to provoke the Iranians into doing something, whether it's stepping out of the nuclear deal or some escalation in the region. That doesn't in any way, shape, or form give the Iranians the car punch to do that, and they should not do that. But what I see is this administration goading the Iranians, into some action. And frankly, having an aircraft carrier and, you know, some bombers on call demonstrates what this administration wants to do in that scenario, which is essentially potentially engaged in some military action with Iran. So I think we've talked for months on this

podcast about the potential for escalation with Iran. I worry that we may be seeing that in real time now. Yeah. I mean, again, we've talked at length about the IRGC and the Quds Force and how they are bad actors, but there's also a long history, as we've also discussed in this country, of wars needing a pretext from the Gulf of Tonkin to remember the main, to name your incident. It's worrisome. Here's the other thing that really worries me. We pulled out of the Iran deal, despite the fact that Iran is complying with the Iran deal. We are ratcheting up sanctions against Iran in ways that will cripple their economy, hurt the Iranian people. How do we climb down from this? Where is the diplomatic effort that will help reduce tensions? I mean, Bolton clearly has a regime

change strategy. And if we provide the Iranians with two choices, capitulate, completely or fight. I'm pretty sure I know which one they're going to choose. They're going to fight. And, you know, this is the problem. It's one year since we pulled out of the Iran deal. Throughout that year, Iran continued to comply. But the U.S. was the one who was isolated. We're isolated from our European allies. We're isolated, obviously, from Russia and China. We isolated ourselves, not the Iranians. And we did put these sanctions in place. They are having an effect. They're not having as big an effect as they would have. In fact, if you look at Iranian oil exports, they're not, they're not falling, actually, in part because not a lot of other countries are going

along with this, and not a lot of the countries are refusing to purchase Iranian oil. Now there are reports that the Iranians might not comply with parts of the Iran deal, right? And that was almost inevitable. If we violate the deal, we essentially tear up the deal, and then the Iranians pull out and we say, you're going to have consequences, potentially military action because you pulled out of this deal that we tore up, the rest of the world is not going to be with us in that effort. we're going to lack the legitimacy to do this. And so, again, I don't see what the strategy is unless the strategy is to goad and goad and goad and press and press the Iranians until they do something, and then we have a pretext for military action. And that's a cynical view. But I'll,

you know, I'll give you a couple other data points. Why is there no Secretary of Defense? This must be the longest we've gone in history. True. Without a Secretary of Defense nominee, it's been four or five months, we know that Mattis was resisting efforts to go to war with Iran. And Mattis had argued to stay inside the Iran deal. It may be they don't want a strong secretary defense to say, hey, this is a bad idea, guys. They're not good military options here. There was also a consulate that we had in Basra in southern Iraq, which is a Shia majority part of Iraq. This consulate was open through some of the worst times of the Iraq war. We closed this consulate a few months ago. saying that it was too dangerous to keep it open. Some of the people, you know, I know who have been

working in that part of Iraq thought immediately, well, are they closing this consulate because they're removing a potential target for the Iranians in the event of a military action? So there are these warning signs that they're kind of setting the table to escalate with the Iranians. And I think we had to take this, you know, very seriously. I hope that nothing happens. But, you know, You got Bolton out there making belligerent statements talking about intelligence that we can't see. You've got aircraft carriers going to the region. You've got the Iranians now finally looking like they might do something potentially to not comply with parts of the Iran deal. This can spiral pretty quickly if there's a triggering event.

Jesus. I didn't know all that. No, no, no. I mean, look, I had not heard that about the consulate in Basra. And, you know, the irony of it is that one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, you know, the actions that they cited was an attack on the Iranian consulate. So it wasn't even the Iranians who were involved in the threat information per se. But again, I'm not aiming to be a conspiracy theorist here, because frankly, this is not a conspiracy theory. It's all in front of our eyes.

You got them issuing threats, them designating the IRGC, stacking up sanctions, you know, sending an aircraft carrier to the region, obviously closely aligned with Netanyahu and MBS, who want this conflict with the Iranians. And again, the only way I think we are assured in which there's not a conflict in the next year and a half is if the Iranians show a significant amount of restraint. And very little about their politics suggests that they can sustain that. They have hard, hardliners who are comfortable in some kind of adversarial, if not conflict situation with the United States.

And we're playing into the worst elements in their system. by provoking them like this. You mentioned that in Yahoo. I mean, so let's go to Gaza for a minute. After a very scary weekend of fighting, there's a ceasefire in place between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. The AP reported that 25 Palestinians and four Israelis were killed. The Israeli defense forces said Hamas and other militant groups, one called Islamic Jihad,

launched nearly 700 rockets into southern Israel. Many were intercepted by Israeli defense systems like the Iron Dome, which is a system that U.S. taxpayer has paid for, in part thanks. to Obama, by the way. But, you know, look, I'm very glad for everyone involved that this ceasefire is in place. Again, I worry that this fighting is very likely to happen again unless there is a diplomatic effort to resolve the broader tension in the, in the situation in Gaza after 12 years of, you know, it being blockaded and Hamas is rule seemingly stronger than ever. Yeah. I mean, I completely sympathize with any government saying that you can't have rockets fired indiscriminately at us,

hitting civilian territory, putting innocent people at risk. Schools, hospitals, kids. I mean, it's utterly unacceptable. At the same time, you can't ignore the context of 12 years. I mean, I saw some people commenting, you know, well, and the Israelis don't even occupy Gaza in the way that they occupy the West Bank. But I don't, they don't occupy it physically with troops. But there's this blockade that prevents all kinds of materials from getting into Gaza because the Israelis have very liberally defined a material that could be of benefit to Hamas. And so you have people essentially living in squalor cut off from the rest of the world, restricted in their movements. And you can feel the boiling frustrations from within the population in Gaza.

60% unemployment? Yeah, these people have no jobs, no hope, no nothing. They're hungry and they feel humiliated by this blockade. And yes, they have terrible governance from Hamas. But you know what? Like, I'm a little bit over the, just blame the Palestinians for everything that happens when the reality is, as you said, this policy is not succeeding in dislodging Hamas. You know, a policy of closing off and hermetically sealing Gaza is. is not addressing the governance challenges in the Palestinian territories in Gaza. It's entrenching Hamas and making them stake their claim on being the ones who stand up to Israelis. And I think unless you want to be in this endless cycle where you have Palestinian

civilians occasionally killed by Israeli security forces, and we should note, it's not always just when their rockets fired. I mean, the day that our embassy, moved to Jerusalem, dozens of Palestinians were killed when they tried to approach the security barrier there. There have been a significant amount of Palestinian casualties throughout this. There's going to be this endless cycle of building tensions in Gaza, rocket fires or protests, and then very aggressive Israeli reprisals, lives lost, human misery in Gaza. And I think you have to get at the broader dynamic, which is how do we improve the lives of the people in Gaza? How do we make them feel?

connected to the outside world? How do we give them alternatives to Hamas? And I don't think the current approach of just keeping the boot on their throat is the way that's going to succeed. Yeah. I mean, this is, these flare-ups could happen at any time. Yeah. And we also know, I mean, another relevant data point to just be mindful of is that Jared Kushner has said that he's going to put forward the Trump administration peace plan sometime after Ramadan. So, you know, I guess June, July. And from all early, reports and indications, it sounds like that plan won't have much to offer the Palestinian people in terms of territory. They're going to try to buy them off with a bunch of economic sweeteners.

It's hard for me to see a scenario where this is viewed as an acceptable plan and that there's not some sort of response. No. And you are treating the Palestinian people like they're not been paying attention to what's happening. The United States has closed down our diplomatic representation to the Palestinian people in Jerusalem. So we basically said, we're treating you as stateless people. The Israeli prime minister has said he is going to annex the West Bank, or at least major West Bank settlements. The President of the United States has recognized the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights. So over here, you see the U.S. President and the Israeli Prime Minister clearly preparing to consolidate Israeli control over pieces of the West Bank and Israeli control over

Jerusalem. And then over here you got Jared Kushner talking about giving some minor economic assistance to some parts of the West Bank. And by the way, for all we know, is that going to the Palestinian people or is that lying in the pockets of some people they're trying to pay off there? If you really wanted to address this issue, you need to include territory. How can you solve the dilemma of there being two peoples living in this area and not provide one of those peoples with a sense of where their state is going to be. Who would accept that deal? Nobody would accept that deal. Right. And so I think they're going to put this on the table. The Palestinians were rejected. And then they'll say, oh, well, the Palestinians can never say yes to a deal.

Well, that's not a real fucking deal. And by the way, if you want to help the Palestinian people, you need to address this blockade in Gaza because we have hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living in complete and utter humiliation and destitution in Gaza. And, You know, this is not working. It's not like it's dislodging Hamas. Let's improve their lies if we're really going to have a humanitarian effort in helping the Palestinians. It's also hard to say that you're offering aid or any sort of economic incentive when in February of 2019, the U.S. cut off all aid to Palestinians in the West Bank in Gaza. So it's like you take something away.

You try to give it back. Now it might be much more substantial in terms of numbers or whatever. Who knows what Jared has been cooking up for like two and a half years. But, you know, it's I don't think it's like. to go over well in the region. A deal is something where both sides give and both sides get. The deal that they've been cooking up is the Israelis, not just Israelis, Bibi Nanyahu dictates the terms of Palestinian surrender, right?

And of course, the Palestinians say no to that, and then they blame them. And what we've seen time and again is that Trump has certain groups of people that, you know, he sees his enemies, Cubans, Palestinians, Iranians, some Venezuelans. and there there is no such thing as a deal. It's just like you completely submit or there's nothing. Then he's got his buddy like Kim Jong-un, who's done literally nothing, who is the most brutal dictator in the world,

who's now firing off missiles, and he's praising him on Twitter, right? So this is not on the level. If you're in the groups of people that Trump has in his crosshairs, this is not diplomacy. Diplomacy would be, how do you negotiate Maduro's exit? Diplomacy would be, what is the outline of a two-state solution?

Diplomacy is not, you accept our terms, which are your complete and utter defeat and humiliation. Yeah, let's go to North Korea, as you mentioned it. So on Saturday, North Korea fired several short-range projectiles off its east coast. It is not totally clear what kind of projectile missile, whatever you want to call it was, though, Secretary Pompeo helpedfully clarified on the Sunday shows that it wasn't an ICBM capable of hitting the U.S., So I guess it's all hunky-dory for him. You know, it's just the kind capable of killing, you know, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Americans living abroad, along with all our closest allies in the region. So that should make everyone feel better. What do you think Kim's doing here?

And I guess if you were advising Trump, like what do you think the next step should be? First of all, there's a rank smell of hypocrisy here because the Iranians sometimes fire off ballistic missiles or space vehicles that cannot hit the United States. States. And Mike Pompeo rushes out like fucking General Patton, like this is the biggest crisis facing us in the world today. Right. And meanwhile, the North Koreans are firing off missiles that could take out tens of thousands of U.S. service members in South Korea in Japan, never mind take out major population centers in our treaty allies, South Korea and he's like, well, no big deal. Because he's out there spinning for this complete failure of a diplomatic process that they've had with North Korea.

what the North Greens are doing is trying to get our attention, say, you didn't make the concessions we wanted, we didn't get our sanctions relief, we are going to be ratcheting up this pressure. They've made no concessions, no rollback of the nuclear program, no inspections of the nuclear program, no rule back of the missile program, nothing. And now they're showing that they're willing to start testing these things again. They want concessions. If I'm, the Trump administration, what I'm trying to do is try to figure out what are incremental steps that we can take, right? you don't go to the big, big deal first where you say, we're going to lift all sanctions on North Korean exchange for something the North Greens are never going to do. You say,

what are some incremental steps that we want? Do we want some inspections of North Korean nuclear facilities? Do we want to see the North Koreans begin to dismantle pieces of their infrastructure, of their nuclear program, in exchange for some limited sanctions relief? Make this a step-by-step process and not just this like periodic Super Bowl summit thing. where nothing happens. Yeah. Super Bowl Summit. I like that. So let's update folks on the situation in Venezuela as well. A lot of huge issues out there in the news of it were jumping around.

So right before we recorded last week, it looked like there could be a major power shift towards the opposition in Venezuela. Juan Guaido, the man the international community mostly recognizes as president, was calling for an uprising by the military. Another one of Venezuela's most prominent opposition leaders, the guy named Leopoldo-Lopez, re-emerged from House arrest. but then somehow it all fell apart. The Maduro loyalists who were supposed to switch sides from Maduro to the opposition never did.

U.S. officials said that Maduro was about to leave the country but then was stopped by the Russians and never left to go to Havana. It's hard to figure out what happened. But again, what's particularly worrisome for me is that the chatter about U.S. military options seems to have increased. Like, I'm just, I'm trying to gut check. how serious we think officials in Washington are about some sort of military intervention. Like, imagine your Mike Pompeo or John Bolton, you go over to the Pentagon, you meet in the

tank where the Joint Chiefs have their big military planning meetings. Like, aren't those guys in uniform telling you that this is an insane idea? Yeah. And I do think we have to just come back to this point of, like, it's a pretty astonishing thing. how many things that this administration has said just didn't happen, right? Right. These guys are going to defect.

This is the third time that they basically come out and announce that they're just about to win in Venezuela and none of these things materialized. It seems like if I'm going to be generous to them, and first of all, I'm going to do this. I haven't done in a while. Imagine if we'd done that? Like, imagine if Susan Rice went out

and said that three Venezuelans are going to defect and we were going to win today and nobody defected. And, like, Lindsay Graham would have lit himself on fire for the White House. And, and senior ensign Rubio would be, like, marching up Pennsylvania Avenue, like, ready to scale the fucking fence of the White House. And meanwhile, now they're just like keeping praise on this guy, right? So get that out of the way. I clearly Bolton thinks that he's engaged in some kind of sci-op.

Yeah, he's releasing little videos of himself. Well, it's obvious. He's saying, like, these three people were willing to defect. And Maduro was going to get on this plane. and I'm going to go meet in the tank and talk about military options with the generals. He clearly thinks that he's getting inside the heads of the Maduro people, but there's no evidence that that's working, you know? And there were some pretty troubling signs that day, even if you're sympathetic to Guido and the opposition, which I think most people are. You know, Guido, nothing, there was no broad military support that came behind him.

Leopoldo Lopez getting out of house arrest was a step, but by the end of the day, he's taking rest. in the Chilean embassy, which doesn't suggest that he feels it's even safe for him to be out and about in Venezuela. It doesn't feel like a situation that is tipping in their direction. So it feels like in the absence of that happening, Bolton just thinks he's running this psychological operation on the Venezuelans, but there's no evidence that that's working. There was also a report that in a meeting at the White House in the situation, in the kind of meeting, you were in a lot. It sounded like a deputies meeting. You remember how the number two guy at the Joint Chiefs was always in the deputies. Yeah, yeah. He's usually like some fucking hard-ass guy. Yeah, they're great.

You know, by the book. And it's now this guy, Paul Silva. And some armchair NSC ideologue staffer for Bolton was apparently hectoring him about the need for military options. You saw this, right? I'm just trying to imagine some situation where some like backbench NSC guy is like yelling at the fucking vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs demanding military options for Venezuela, there's a reason they don't exist. Who apparently slammed his hands down on the table so hard and so loud that I assume like his West Point class ring nearly snapped the table in half and the meeting was adjourned.

Like that's how it ended. And these guys, they look like they could break you in half over their knee. Mostly because they could. But because the realities, what do you mean? What is the military option? Are we going to send in the special forces to capture Maduro? Are we, I've heard force in humanitarian aid. So what, U.S. ground troops are going to enter into Venezuela?

Like, are we going to bomb something in Venezuela? Like, they keep talking about military options. Like, what the fuck are they? So let's talk about that for a second. Because, so Venezuela has lots of Russian weapons and hardware. It's about the size of Texas. So one of the great mistakes the U.S. made in the Iraq War is that when our troops rolled towards Baghdad, there were all these massive weapons caches on the side of the

road that were never secured, right? So unless you have literally 200,000, 300,000, 400,000 troops that get sent in, you're not going to have the manpower to like keep the peace, win the fight, secure all these weapons caches, and then you just, again, have the most well-armed insurgency you could possibly imagine. Like, this is a rock-style disaster in the making if these guys do this. And it would be in a, you know, it would be just like you drew insurgents from across the Middle East to Iraq, every leftist revolutionary would descend on Venezuela. We have to prepare ourselves for the fact that let's say there is a military option.

And let's say we knock over Maduro. Like, picture the Saddam Hussein statue falling, right? The triumphalism that will explode, the New York Times analysis piece saying that Donald Trump is... Oh, no. The Brett Stevens takes. That is not the end of the story. It's the beginning of the story. So let's all be prepared that if this happens in Venezuela or, God forbid Iran, which would be an even more complicated war, that the first day of hot takes from everybody saying that Donald Trump just became president and the Brett Stevens column.

and the deification of Donald Trump is the beginning of what will be a very violent and chaotic and almost certainly negative outcome over time. Because, again, like, Maduro has been arming paramilitary groups. They're drug traffickers there. It's a hornet's nest of violence and competing factions. So any military option is going to have to involve, not just, like, knocking over the head of the regime,

but, like, how do you prevent civil violence? How do you prevent looting? How do you prevent just the further destruction of this country and human suffering? Mass displacements of people in the Americas. By the way, a lot of those people will try to come to the United States, right? And Bolton specifically said he would not give TPS temporary protected status to, or he didn't answer the question. Marco Rubio, Private Rubio, has floated the idea of giving TPS to the Venezuelan people, Bolton will not do it. Again, showing he doesn't care about them.

Yeah, and so temporary protective status allows you to come here and seek asylum. So the reason that this administration can never get there is because ideologically, they're hostile to the concept of asylum. Trump is actually proposing policies to make people have to pay for that and to make it more difficult. They say their policies about helping the Venezuelan people. And yet there are millions of Venezuelans outside that country who need help. And he's slamming the fucking door in their face, which tells you everything you need to

know about how he actually feels about the Venezuelan people. The reality, I think, as a cynic, is this is largely motivated by his demand. domestic politics. He's attracting support from some hardline, well, and hardline, but from Cuban-American and Venezuelan-American elements in Florida, but he cares less about that than he cares about his immigration message. And that's, by the way, a message to those Cuban and Venezuelan Americans. He doesn't really care about you and your people. He cares about his own politics, right? I think there are two other points to make here. One is neither Venezuela or Iran, there's no legal justification to go to war. No, not even close. And so,

So Congress should be saying, and I would even be passing resolutions in the House, that there is no authorization for military force in either Venezuela or Iran without this administration coming to Congress. That's a marker worth laying down right now because they're going to try to drum up all kinds of clever legal rationales. We need to get on the record now that there's nothing authorized about this. Yeah, agreed. Okay, let's talk about a different kind of war. Ben, we are back in a trade war with China over the weekend. President Trump threatened to expand tariffs to cover nearly all of U.S. imports from China. That's a lot of stuff.

That understandably spooked the markets, which were down on Monday. They're off like 2 percent, I believe, today. Trump's trade representative Bob Leheiser said that the U.S. would implement 25 percent tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports starting on Friday. And this is all happening is I believe the Chinese negotiators are either on their way or in D.C. for talks. Ben, the Chinese are tough, tough negotiators. But do you think that this level of brinksmanship is a good idea? No.

In part because, like, first of all, all the tariffs so far have hurt us more than China. Yeah. So the people who are paying for the tariffs are U.S. consumers who are paying higher prices and U.S. ag that is not selling some of their goods in China. China is, you know, suffering this economic uncertainty, but the concrete cost paid for by the tariffs come here. And I think Americans do understand that. And if not, Democrats should be making that point. Trump lies about it every day. He lies about every day that they're filling our coffers. He makes it seem like tariffs are a check that a foreign country pays to you when, no, it's something that raises the cost of goods that are imported here.

And that means that you just pay more for those goods, right? I mean, that's one of the most clear manifestations in which tariffs has an impact. I think the other problem here is it's like North Korea. like step back and let's look at or Iran like the art of the deal here what is the goal what is the goal in Iran what is it regime change is it the better nuclear deal nobody knows what he's doing he's just ratcheting up what is the goal in north korea is it full denuclearization of north korea it doesn't seem like that trump has certainly walked back from that what is the goal of this trade war what is success i've long thought that what Trump would try to do is essentially had the Chinese make some cosmetic concessions,

you know, like agree to buy more, you know, like when we got them and to agree to buy more beef or something, right? And he'll go out and say he won this great victory when nothing really structurally changed in the relationship. But what is he trying to do? Is he really trying to completely overhaul the nature of the trade relationship and the how many goods they sell to us versus what we sell them? Is he trying to get them to abide by intellectual property protections? I don't think anybody watching this knows why is he he's putting at risk the health of the global economy. And again, I think people have to understand these consequences, which are that this is introducing an enormous amount of uncertainty in the markets. It's slowing down the Chinese economy. Okay,

Trump points to that as some kind of win. If the Chinese economy slows down, the Chinese buy a lot of stuff from us. Like, this could slow down the entire global economy. This could unravel the decade-long economic boom that we've had in this country, which, by the way, most of which took place under Barack Obama. And so he's gambling with essentially our own economy and the health of the global economy. And it's not even clear in service of what. I mean, I think that's the key point. I think that Trump's goal in all the areas you mentioned, China, Iran, North Korea is good headlines. But I don't think that he has a real policy decision, which is why you read stories to this day about Gary Cohn and Steve Bannon and all these trade advisors at each other

strokes, like literally nearly coming to blows in meetings over China policy. And when Trump doesn't really have a North Star to guide them, like, can you imagine him sitting down in a National Security Council meeting and really doing the hard work of talking through objectives and where he wants to end up? Absolutely not. He's upstairs watching Fox and Friends. He's got other shit to do. So these guys just like whoever's up in status that week like implements his or her own strategy. Right now it's Bolton. Yeah. And I think, you know, this is a really important broad point. And the world goes out there, you know, listen to this podcast because they care about these issues. The problem is it kind of works in the short term. So if you look across the board, I'll point to a few farm policy things.

He gets the headline of Trump, axon redline bomb Syria after the chemical weapons attack. Trump, keeps campaign promise, pulls out of Iran deal. Trump has historic summit with Kim Jong-un. Trump getting tougher than any U.S. president on China. Trump recognizes Democratic opposition in Venezuela. All those are actually pretty good headlines, right? And people are thinking, like, this guy's doing stuff. Well, after he bombed Syria, nothing changed in Syria, not a single thing.

The Syrians even rebuilt that runway that he bombed. Yeah, that day. After he pulled out of the Iran deal, nothing changed with respect to Iran's behavior across the region that he was complaining about. Certainly didn't improve. It didn't improve. Sounds like it got worse since we'd sent an aircraft. Yeah, if that's true, then it's gotten worse, right?

Trump, you know, North Korea has a summit. No change in the North Korean nuclear program, right? Trump recognizes Venezuela in opposition. Well, Nicholas Maduro is still sitting there in Venezuela, right? So in China, you know, Trump gets tough, puts all these tariffs on board, but where is that leading? What is it? What are the Chinese doing that actually really matters in the law?

long run. So he gets the headlines, but none, people need to be smart enough, and I think they are to understand that, like, this is not changing anything. What is hurting is American credibility across the board, right? The idea that we would keep agreements, right? So if you're Kim Jong-un, and you're looking at Iran, you're thinking, how the fuck would I ever make a nuclear deal with someone who's shown that he's just willing to pull out of it, right? If you're looking at the China trade stuff, he pulled out of TPP, which was the way in which we were going to organize all the other Asian countries to put pressure on China together. So all these short-term headlines that he's getting are not only not achieving their objectives. They're gradually weakening the United States over time. And the bill is

going to come due for this. And what Trump is counting on is that the bill comes due later after he's gone. Or after he's re-elected. Or after he's re-elected when he doesn't, when he never so worry about running again. The last thing I'd say is that Trump also ran, this is a point Democrats should be making on getting us out of wars. But look at Iran, look at Venezuela, and even look at this craziness with China, not that it's going to lead necessarily in the near term to a war.

Like this guy is getting us more involved in conflicts that could lead to either military actions in Venezuela or Iran or deeply destabilizing economic wars with China. So he's doing the opposite of what he said he was going to do. Yeah. Well, let's say on this China piece for a second because there was a great article in the New York Times

about how human rights are just not a part of these trade talks of China at all. So as we've discussed on this show a couple times, the Chinese have put millions literally of Uyghur Muslims living in Western China in concentration camps. Michael Barbaro and the folks of the Daily did a two-part special on this that everybody should listen to because this is one of the greatest crimes against humanity happening on the planet right now and it's not getting the attention it deserves. But back to the talks, you know, the issue of the Uyghurs is reportedly not a part of the talks. And, you know, my initial reaction to that was it fucking infuriated me. But I wanted to gut check something with you because

thinking back to the Obama days, you know, we were doing a negotiation over the Iran nuclear agreement with the Iranians. Now, they do a lot of terrible things. They suppress their own people. They lock up political prisoners. They fund terrorism. Those issues weren't part of the Iran nuclear deal talks because it was seen as such a critical national security objective that putting in other issues on top of it could overly complicate things. Do you think? think that this is an analogous situation or like I don't know I'm trying to be as charitable as possible to them in the midst of a negotiation as a way of you know maybe understanding their priorities better well yeah I I I do think that it is fair that you negotiate with countries

on specific issues right we negotiated arms control particularly adversarial or competitive countries, right? So we negotiated arms control agreements with the Soviet Union. We didn't like a lot of the things that they were doing. We negotiated, obviously, the Iran deal without bringing in other issues, because it's a way of isolating a set of problems and accomplishing something. And if you create linkages, those can actually become problematic because are we suggesting that the Uyghurs are like a bargaining chip? You know, it's. Now, what is also true, though, is that, so obviously, I'm sympathetic to the idea that they might not make the U.S. U.S. U.S. agenda item in the trade discussions.

What is also true, though, is that the U.S.-China relationship is very big, and there are a lot of issues. And the way in which it's usually structured is you have dialogue on lots of, you know, on economic issues, on cyber issues, on Taiwan. I'm not confident at all that they're raising the Uyghurs at all, right? So my concern would probably be less that they are not, you know, making the Uighers part of the trade discussion. My concern is they're probably not raising at all. And they're not publicizing information about it. And they're not bringing it to the UN Security Council. And they're not, frankly, they're not even on the fucking UN Human Rights Council, which is where you'd raise some of these issues.

So I'm worried that they're not raising it, period, and that there are all kinds of other places and forums that they could be raising it in. Also, Trump's own behavior seems to validate, you know, he praises Kim Jong-un as someone who's beloved by his people when Kim has people in camps, right? The issue we've talked about with Rohingya has done. Donald Trump said word one about the Rohingya, has he called Aung San Suu Kyi or anybody in Burma about that? He just doesn't seem to care about this set of issues, again, unless it's in Venezuela or Cuba. You never hear word one about human rights. So in its own way, you know, I think that is lending credence to this broader perception in the world that democracies, small D democracies are in retreat and that autocracies are on the advance, that the Chinese. model of state surveillance and suppression of religious minorities is more and more the norm in

more places, and that frankly the trend even in the West with people like Trump and, you know, Victor Orban and Hungary and far right parties in Europe and the Rogues Gallery of Erdogan and Yahoo and Duterte, that all this suggests that that's the future direction of things. That's the most worrying part to me about the dynamic with the Uyghurs. Yeah. Well, so that's the perfect segue to the last thing I want to ask you about, which is the White House announced that they're going to host Hungarian Prime Minister, Victor Orban, at the White House on May 13th, you know, this, you know, it's not really jaw-dropping anymore.

Of course they are. But, I mean, I just can't think of a leader who has more systematically undermined democracy over the last decade. Basically, he sees control of the media. Civil society in Hungary has been smothered with regulations and rules that make it impossible to function. It's a constant drumbeat of xenophobia and Islamophobia. and now we welcome this dude into the Oval Office. I mean, is there any argument for taking this meeting? No, no.

Was Hungary like a, you know, is there nuclear weapons interest in Hungary? Is there, there's no reason, there's no pressing national security reason. The only reason to have Victor, Victor Orban is an authoritarian. He has engaged in trafficked in anti-Semitism. He is, you know, shut down free media. he's shut down the independence of the rule of law. He's so outside the boundaries of what are democratic values in the West that the EU has been in this constant fight with him.

So for Trump to validate him with a White House visit is sending a message that he's on the side of authoritarianism in Europe at a time when Europe is teetering between the, you know, not, I won't even say progressive, just democratic values, right, versus these authoritarian. Orban is kind of the quintessential. He's the frontman. He was the first guy to test out this model and have it work, where he consolidated power through authoritarian means. And so for Trump to validate that is incredibly dangerous. It's saying that America is not on the side of people who are fighting corruption in Hungary and fighting anti-Semitism in Hungary and fighting for free press. He's on the side of the man who's locking those people up or intimidating those people. And that, to me, is incredibly troubling. It was also notable that this meeting was announced the same day that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's meeting with Chancellor Merkel in Germany and her foreign minister was canceled. Yeah, it's like a big, fuck you. What world are we living in when they get along with Victor Orban, who's a crypto-fascist, and they don't get along with Angela Merkel, who's been holding up almost single-handedly the free world in Europe for years now? it's mind-boggling that this is happening.

And it's also interesting, the headline issue, like, he doesn't pay much cost for it. No. I mean, when you really step back, we got more heat from Congress and the media for, like, a diplomatic agreement with Iran to prevent a war or, you know, for some of the efforts that we, you know, engaged in overseas to change problematic aspects of our foreign policy, then this guy just kind of going authoritarian on us, you know? Yeah. We just don't have a, we don't have our own state-run media to drive a message. Remember when the Dalai Lama visited the White House and he went out a side entrance and he had to walk by the trash and it was a horrible, horrible optic and it was embarrassing

for us. But, you know, Fox News did that nonstop for a week and like it was a thing that broke through and we just, we don't have a way to make that happen. Yeah. It is. No one knows that Victor Orban is unless we tell them. To me, the worry I have is that the consequences of this, again, they play out over time. And, you know, if we look up in five years, five years of this stuff, there is no international order. There are no more, you know, U.S. alliances. Authoritarianism is sweeping the world. And no one will be able to point to the one moment when it tipped, but it's been happening before our eyes the whole time.

And the press doesn't seem to be able to find the language to describe it, you know. that this is this is profoundly abnormal to have a president who's more comfortable with authoritarian and Democrats to have a president who like a bull in China shop tears up agreements and goes around the world looking for fights yeah have a president who not only doesn't defend democratic values around the world he attacks them at home the independence of the rule of law the the role of a free press in our society like you have to kind of consistently pull yourself back and be like, this is not normal. Like, we have a fundamentally authoritarian undemocratic president. And then sometimes, you know, someone like,

me will say that and, you know, I'll get the response at Twitter like, oh, like, you know, go, you know, look at Rhodes. You're so upset. Like, okay. So you want to turn this country into a fascist dystopia to own the libs, you know? Like, like, what is wrong with people out there? You know, Like, this is, because the same, Lindsay Graham, we used to get on the high horse with John McCain talked to us about democracy and how we needed to be doing more to send for democracy. And now he's so busy, you know, carrying Trump's briefcase and owning the libs that he's literally emboldening and enabling and validating like a fundamentally authoritarian approach to politics and foreign policy.

Yeah. I mean, counterculture for our parents was like opposing wars and going to Woodstock and counterculture these days seems to be like these strange, creeping authoritarian, you know, chat rooms in 4chan and 8chan. It's just unnerving. Let's end with one happy thing. Prince Harry and Megan Markle had a baby. Do you give a shit? Do you, are you a royal washer? Did you watch the wedding when the, remember when the Europe director at the White House, National Security Council, Europe director, had a wedding watch party that I think kicked off at 3 a.m. Eastern or something so they could see it. I'm kind of into it. And I have to say, so I met Prince Harry. Really?

Yeah, yeah. Cool. It's one of the cooler things about me. I'll be the judge of that. I met Prince Harry like a year and a half ago. We went over to Kensington Palace. I was at the bomb. We spent like an hour, hour and a half of the guy.

Like just super cool, smart guy was focused on how to improve the situation for youth around the world, does a lot of community-oriented stuff in the UK, does a lot of stuff with wounded warriors. Like, he comes across as, like, a fundamentally decent guy who's been through a lot of shit, right? I mean, there's a step back here. I mean, you know, that's a pretty rough deal he was handing. Losing your mom.

Your parents have this weird divorce that everybody knows about. Your mom gets killed in this horrific accident. You know, he had his ups and downs as a teenager. And to see him kind of come out the other end, like, that's why people pull for the royals. It's not just because they're these, like, rich, powerful people. It's in part because you've kind of seen this guy go through a bunch of shit and come out on the other end as a pretty fundamentally decent human being.

And he's married to an American. He's married to American as an African American. That matters. She's cool. I was a suits fan way before I heard about this wedding nonsense. Obama was a suits fan. I actually, you know, I wasn't, but I'm there for it. I'm here for the suits. And, you know, like that matters to people that this, the ultimate emblem of kind of, you know, for lack of a better way of putting it, white privilege. You know, the British world family doesn't get more than that. You have an African-American member who's welcomed into that family and you have some diversity in that family.

Like, I think that matters to people around the world as a symbol. So in addition, like the worlds are just kind of, like the queen is cool. Do you know, do the, I don't know I'm asking you this, but do the British people like, are they popular? Are the world popular? Or do they, is there a significant faction that's like, why are we wasting our taxpayer dollars on these people? No, I think they are.

The queen is popular. and Harry and William are popular. No offense, Charles. I mean, I think it gets to some of the people in there. He's a listener. And, yeah. I mean, maybe Charles is too. I think that, look, we've talked a lot about Brexit in this pod.

You know, every country, what is the national identity of the country, right? And when you look at the royals, and you particularly look at the queen, like she was there in World War II when they were in the shit. She was there through the breakup of the British Empire, handled that gracefully, has weathered, has been a presence in the lives of the British. people through everything that has happened and has kind of carried herself with a certain kind of dignity. And I think, you know, people are into that. And that matters to them. Have I ever told the story on the spot about when I, what happened to me with the Queen in Normadita? No. So I should put this in my book, but it was a good story. Was that the trip I was on? Yeah. No, no. This is on the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, right? So in

2014 and we're in Normandy and I had been out the night before in Paris as one does with Cody Keenan and some other people and because I had nothing to do that day like the trip was over the last stop of the foreign trip you always remember the last time of the foreign trips and I you go out right and the only speech is done the meetings are done the press is briefed only thing that was going to happen the last day is this kind of ceremonial event with the leaders in normandy so we fly there and I'm you know I'm not feeling that great I'm in the staff area. There's always some staff area where people are grazing on a bunch of food. And all the leaders are in some chateau in Normandy. And suddenly Pete Suza comes looking for me or Susan Rice or somebody's

like, Obama's talking to Putin. Obama's talking to Putin. And this is at the height of tensions over Ukraine. I'm like, fuck. Someone's got to be there just to hear what happened and maybe the offer me out to the press. So I run with Pete Souza into this chateau. I didn't even occur to me that I wasn't allowed to be there. Like it was leaders only. Because I'm just like, I'm thinking I'm just I got to get there, right? So I'm like running through. I'm like running past Angla Merkel. All the leaders are sitting there watching this. Some of them have iPhone cameras up of Obama and Putin. So I get up next to Obama and Putin and they're talking. Pete's taking pictures. I'm trying to listen to it. And this conversation ends and I'm like, you know,

I'm wiped out. So I go to find the restroom and I swear this pays off. You ever like go up to the door and you're rattling the door and you can't get in? But you don't know whether it's locked No. So like four or five times I'm like jangling the knob. I'm like just trying to get in because I just wanted to go like run some cold water on my face. I'm like fuck. So I finally step back from this door like and the second I step back the door opens and it's

the queen of fucking. The queen of England. But the queen of England man. Like that's what did you say? That's like the top person in the world. Yeah. You don't rattle the door while she's going pee or whatever. You know she always has that handbag.

Yeah. She like adjust. She holds up her forearm. and just a justice handbag on her forum and looks at me like I'm the biggest fucking loser that has ever walked the face of the earth

and just kind of makes eye contact and just walks right by me without saying anything. Did you go tell Obama like I think I just reignarded of war? So then I went and actually Obama was with David Cameron

and so I told him this immediately of course and the two of them laughed for about like three minutes and made fun of me the rest of like the time of the event. You know, it's too bad Cameron led to the greatest disaster in recent British. He was a funny guy. He was a funny guy.

He was nice. He was friendly. He was good guy. He was like walk up to staff. That's my queen. Unfortunately, that's my queen. Unfortunately, that's my queen's story. I have a much better at Prince Harry's story, which is a good dude.

That's a hell of a queen of England story. And a great place to end the pod. Next week, I don't know what we're going to talk about. No, I don't know. Because it's bad and there's all this bad news. The queen's a funny note down on because like, whenever you think it's really bad, you look at the fucking queen of England, you're like, like we've been through some more shit, right?

Yeah, they did. The Blitz and all the blitz and all this stuff. Like, we're not there yet. Not there yet. That's a great tagline for the show. Yeah, yeah. We're not there yet. All right.

We're going to do a thing where we just force ourselves to remember and tell more fun stories from the White House days because the majority of them are not cool. They're not like the West Wing where you write the phrase that saved the day and, you know, solve the problem. It's trying to rip open the door while the Queen of England's day. taking a piss. That happens more often, you think, and those are fun. Those are good. On the line is Dexter Filkins. He's a staff writer at the New Yorker. His latest piece, John Bolton on the warpath is in the magazine now. Dexter, thank you so much for joining the show. Thank you. So Bolton basically auditioned for the job of National Security Advisor by going on Fox News. But for a while, the word on the street was that he would never get hired because he has a gross mustache.

I wish I was kidding. How did Bolton manage to keep the same? and get the gig. I think that's right. I think Trump pointed to that mustache during his first go-round in early 2017 when Trump needed a new national security advisor and H.R. McMaster got the job instead of him. And one of the reasons why he, I think he overtained that, you know, it took him, took him more than a year. But he, I think Bolton, it's fair to say, had a lot of, has a lot of very powerful friends

who decided they didn't like A. Char McMaster anymore, and they really worked to push him out and to get Bolton in there. And so really that's, it wasn't very pretty. And I think, you know, Bolton kept the mustache and she didn't shave it off. But he got in because he's got some very powerful friends. Yeah, he does. Can you describe the Bolton worldview? How does his foreign policy vision differ from Trump's, in your opinion?

Well, this was kind of the big revelation for me in the piece. I think, you know, Bolton's views are pretty well known because he's been on Fox News for so long and he's been writing. I think he's written like 600 newspaper articles like in the past 20 years. He's, you know, he's advocated bombing Iran. He's advocated bombing North Korea. He believes in a really muscular American foreign policy. And one that, you know, it's the American colossus. going out and taking what it wants without apologizing.

And I think that's basically his worldview. I think Trump doesn't really buy into all that. I think, as we know, Trump is very uncomfortable with anything that costs money, anything that commits America to a possible action in the future, like NATO or like the World Trade Organization, or like even the European Union. Trump doesn't like that stuff. And so I really, where they intersect, the areas where they intersect are pretty narrow. And that's been pretty surprising to me because, of course, you know, they see each other every morning because Bolton's right down the hall from the Oval.

Yeah. So in maybe the nerdiest flex of all time, Bolton is running around bragging about bringing back the Monroe doctrine. Can you explain what the Monroe doctrine is and why Bolton seems intent on bringing back policies from. the 1820s? It is. That's how old it is. He brought this up. I followed him to Coral Gables, Florida, where he gave a speech, a very impassioned speech

to a group of aging Bay of Pigs veterans, aging Cuban exiles. And he said the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well. And that is, basically it's the hemisphere, the entire hemisphere from North America to South America to the very tip is. is the U.S. That's our sphere of influence, and that means any foreign power stay out, particularly when it comes to any kind of armed force, you know, whether a Navy vessel or airplanes, troops, anything like that. This is our hemisphere, stay out. And I think that's where he brought that up in reference to Venezuela, where they have, Bolton has very stridently called

for regime change. And he's particularly disturbed by the presence of Russian, I think Russian troops there, definitely Russian mercenaries. And he wants them out. And he said to me in an interview, the way to get the Russians out is to change the regime. But that's the Monroe Dock. Yikes. So there's a lot of just amazing detail in the piece. I mean, one thing I was struck by is just the sheer volume or the number of groups that have paid John Bolton to provide his opinion on issues in foreign policy, which was a little bit alarming. But maybe my favorite detail in the piece is you quote an Iranian source who said that President Trump invited President Rouhani of Iran to dinner. And when I read that passage to Ben Rhodes last

week, his head nearly exploded from hypocrisy overload, do you think were one Rouhani Trump McDonald's dinner away from Iran going from being this pariah state with an aircraft carrier barreling down towards it to getting love letters and a summit like Kim Jong-un? I think so. I mean, I think this this White House when it comes to foreign policy, it's a kind of schizophrenic worldview. And you have the Bolton worldview, which wants to take

it to Iran and collapse the economy, everything that you're seeing now. But then you have Trump and I think his, what Trump wants at the end of the day is pageantry and TV cameras and Cleeglights. And I think he, I think as I understand it, they

sent eight invitations to the Iranians, to the Iranian government. asking them to get together. And that's Trump. And so I think, I think the reason why this hasn't happened is not because of the White House. I think it hasn't happened because the Supreme leader in Iran doesn't want it. And I think, honestly, I quote something in my piece saying, if the Supreme Leader in Iran sent Trump a letter, you know, a handwritten letter saying, hey, let's get together. I think Trump would jump at that in a minute. My God, send the letter, man. Like, let's, let's calm things down a little bit.

It doesn't feel like a real off-ramp right now for the U.S. Iran policy. It feels like we are headed towards some sort of conflict. I'm not sure what. I mean, where do you think Pompeo and Bolton want to take this? I think they say we don't want to do regime change. You know, we've tried that. We have a terrible history. But what we do think we can do and what we want to do is collapse the Iranian economy.

And we think we can do that. And, you know, kind of where that takes is, hey, if we collapse the economy and the Iranian people decide in their anger that they want to rise up, you know, and take down the government, that's fine with us. But we're not going to do it. But we're certainly going to set the conditions for it. And I think we're seeing that. I mean, that the, you know, Iranian oil exports are collapsing. Their economy is collapsing. I mean, it's the, you know, the American power over the international financial system is so great that they can. can they really decide to. They can really, really squeeze an economy, particularly one, one like Iran that's so dependent on one thing, which is oil. So I think what we're seeing play out right now is a real squeeze of the Iranian state. And I don't think they know where it leads. They are pretty adamant about the fact they don't want to use force. But then again, we got an aircraft carrier sailing into the Persian Gulf. So who knows? Yeah, I mean, that kind of reminds me of when I was little, my brother would take my own fist and beat the shit out of me with it and say,

stop hitting yourself. But I digress. I mean, speaking of regime change, we have made a pretty big regime change play in Venezuela. So far, those efforts have failed diplomatically. The military hasn't defected. I mean, you are hearing more and more talk of U.S. military intervention. Ben Rose and I just stressed out about it for 15 minutes. But, I mean, how serious do you guys, do you think these guys are about U.S. military intervention in Venezuela? Bolton, had that conspicuous little note on his, on his, you know,

yellow legal pad that said 5,000 troops to Columbia. That seems like a message to me. Yes. I suppose we are, but I think we're certainly heading in, in that direction. You know, when,

when Bolton said to me, you know, the Monroe doctrine, uh, is alive and well, he said something else, which is he said, but the Roosevelt corollary,

uh, and that is the use of, military force. So we have not invoked that yet. But he certainly was leaving open that possibility, and he said all options are on the table. And so I think they're determined to see Maduro leave. And honestly, I think that's going to happen one way or another. They're going to keep turning up the pressure until it does. And if that, you know, if that necessarily leads to U.S. military force, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, I think when the uprising failed the other day, you saw, I think, Pompeo and Bolton went over and met definitely in play. It's definitely in play.

We'll have to see. You are a guy who's covered far too many wars in the past decade. I mean, do you get the sense that the military would go along with sending troops to Venezuela on top of everything else we're doing? I can't imagine that they would. I mean, I could certainly see them, you know, there's thousands of Americans were living in Venezuela, and I could see them going down there to evacuate them and going down to, like, you know, protect the American embassy and, you know, pull the diplomats

out and that sort of thing. But, you know, knocking off a regime in Latin America, I mean, that just sounds like something out of the 1950s. And I think there'd be a lot of pushback. But I think what, getting back to Bolton, I think this is where it gets interesting. There's a big vacuum

right now. I mean, we don't have, we have an acting secretary of defense. We don't have one who's been confirmed by the Senate. We don't have a United Nations ambassador. We don't have a secretary for Homeland Security. Foreign policy is just a really big vacuum. It comes basically down to Bolton and Pompeo. And, you know, Trump doesn't really care all that much. And so it's kind of, they've got a big field on which to run. And I think we're seeing that play out. So these guys have a lot of latitude. Man, I mean, everyone should read the piece. I mean, it was, it was very hard for me to read. I spent so much time in that office, you know, doing work for Tom Donnellin or, you know,

sprinting to find Dennis McDonough. I mean, you walk into the National Security Advisor suite and there's, you know, generally a couple people who sit at the front. There's literally a closet where the Deputy National Security Advisor sits. On the, on the left side of the office, there's a sort palatial corner office. And you talk about how, you know, the executive order to ditch the Iran deal is hanging on the wall. I mean, like everything you, every detail in the piece was designed to trigger me. So thank you for that. What did you make of the man himself? He's just like notoriously a surbic guy. But he came off as, I don't know, nice is the wrong word, but like genial. What's your take on

Bolton? He's very nice when you talk to them in person. And I, and any number of people will tell you that, including diplomats and people who have worked with him. I think where it changes, you know, pretty quickly is when you have to kind of get together to, uh, to, cooperate in some way. And I think that's when he reverts to, I mean, this according to virtually every person he's ever worked with, it's kind of my way, the highway. And that's when he becomes, I think, very skilled, very sharp-elowed, bureaucratic infighter. So, you know, as a guy to hang out with, I think he's perfectly nice. You know, maybe not super exciting, but perfectly nice. But I think I think going one-on-one with him in the bureaucracy,

I think that's pretty tough going. He played hard. Hey. Dexter Filkin, thank you so much for doing the show. Everyone should read your piece in The New Yorker. And look, if you want to go deeper, you should buy the Forever War. Everyone should check it out. And, you know, thank you for everything you're doing.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thanks again to Dexter Filkins for joining the show. Thanks, as always, to my co-host, Ben Rhodes. Thank you to the Queen of England. for using the lock on the bathroom door. Not everyone does that, but it feels like we dodged a bullet there. Have a great week, you guys.