Pod Save the World - Trump Blames Zelensky for War, Sucks Up to Saudis

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Tommy and Ben discuss the biggest foreign policy debates on the 2024 campaign trail, like Trump blaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the war in Ukraine, Kamala Harris campaigning with Liz Cheney, speculation about who would serve in Harris’s foreign policy cabinet, and Gaza policy. Then they talk about the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the devastating humanitarian situation in Northern Gaza, continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, the BRICS summit in Russia, Moldova’s razor thin vote to pursue EU membership, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleging that right wing personalities Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson are financed by the Russian government, the electrical grid collapse in Cuba, and a shady pizza operation in Germany. Then, Tommy speaks to Casey Michel, Director of the Combating Kleptocracy Program at the Human Rights Foundation and author of the new book, “Foreign Agents”. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome back to Potsay of the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Benrods. Ben, earlier this morning I talked to Nish and Coco from Potsay of the UK. Killers. Best part of my week, by far. Always. Laughes so hard. I came away very jealous, though, that they were past their election and we're kind of staring down the barrel of ours. Well, and they didn't have a lot of stress around their election. No. It turns out a 13-year incumbent.

It's pretty lucky. You know, you're going to beat them. Several prime ministers. Yeah, I'm still getting over my Mets loss. Yeah. I lost a battle with a bottle of black label the other night. But it reminded me that being a Mets fan is, you know, it's preparation for life, right? Yeah. It doesn't always work out.

You just got to roll with it. I'm wearing my Patriot shirt today, my sweatshirt. I know. I'm impressed. Here's why. If you're going to rep the colors when they're good, you've got to rep them when they suck. I admire it. And I did apologize to Nish and Coco for the Patriots Jaguars games over the weekend.

I know. Was that, well, but it also could be perceived as a shot at the British Empire. That's my hope. Yeah. Yeah, I want to remind them. That's good. We're still here. Hold on.

We're still proud. We're having things appear in this country. We're still proud Americans. Damn right. We got a great show today. We are going to talk about the many ways that foreign policy has become part of the presidential campaign from Ukraine to Gaza to speculation about personnel to weird Saudi state-run media interviews that Trump is doing to the name Cheney being invoked on the campaign trail. This is, this is complementary to the election series that you're doing this. dropping on Saturdays.

Oh, yes. Good segue here. Thank you. We've got a great episode on China coming up. You know, we've done Gaza. We've done Ukraine. Next up, we're looking at the, you know, conflict with China, the competition with China, what Trump would do, what Harris would do.

We look at, you know, the economic competition. We look at the geopolitical competition. And then we go deep on Taiwan. Taiwan piece is really important, actually, because it reminds you of the stakes of the election itself, right? And Ryan Haas, pretty, you know, sober guy, you know, points out that a Trump presidency could, in some ways, usher in like a cataclysmic global conflict, which it would be a bad thing. Is it Ryan Haas related to Richard Haas? No, he's from the other, you know, the better looking hosses.

So there's two R-Hosses in the foreign policy circles? Yeah, there are. Excellent. Good to know. I'm learning. So, yeah, that China piece is going to be this week on on Saturday. Ben and I are going to do some of the more hackish fun stuff with lots of clips today. And then we're also going to talk.

about the death of Yaga Sinwar in Gaza, the Hamas leader. That feels like it happened like two months ago. Yeah, you and I, I said to you this morning, did we cover that yet? He didn't cover it yet. We're like, no. We'll talk about the famine gripping northern Gaza, the constant escalation of the war in Lebanon. And we're also going to talk about why Vladimir Putin is hosting a major summit near Moscow, as we speak, I believe, in what it says about Russia's standing in the world years after the invasion of Ukraine.

We're also going to cover Russian efforts to influence a critical vote in Moldova and how. how some C-list celebrities on cameo were involved. Very fun. And then finally, we're going to cover some surprising allegations made by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about right-wing, you know, media figures. We'll talk about the power blackouts in Cuba and a hell of a pizza place. A pizza place with a twist. You'll learn more about this.

This is a fun show. This is a fun show. And then you're going to hear my interview with Casey Michelle, who is the director of the combating kleptocracy program at the Human Rights Foundation about the ways that foreign government, especially dictatorships, are buying influence in Washington, D.C. You will love this conversation, but it's a so up your alley. Sounds like a real banger. We talk about think tanks, think tanks, bread and butter. Lobbyists. Yeah, you're going to like it. Make it a TV show. His book is called foreign agents, how American lobbyists and lawmakers threaten democracy around the

world. So check that out. That's a subtitle right there. Yeah, it's solid. Solid. You know, books, they always have a short title and a long one. I wonder if you need the long subtitle. Because you can have text on that cover anyway. I don't know. I think people want to be told what the book is about, you know, and the subtitle is where that usually takes place. War. I'm playing with this idea, though, Tommy. When we do the title reveal, I'll let you know. Okay.

Because I kind of think you might want to just pick one or the other. Short or long. Yeah, short, you know, just do the subtletal as the title or do the short title, you know. That's what I'm wrestling with right now. We'll debate it offline, but yeah, I'm excited for this reveal. All right, Ben. Well, so let's start by talking about foreign policy on the campaign trail. I think arguably the most glaringly obvious difference between the two candidates, Harrison Trump, is probably Ukraine.

I remember Trump was impeached over trying to get Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, to dig up dirt and Joe Biden. That happened. Hard to remember. The CIA analyst, who was the original whistleblower, did a long on background or anonymous interview with the Washington Post over the weekend about what that experience was like and how scary it was. It was interesting to revisit. But now, you know, fast forward to today, Trump says if he's president, he's going to end the war immediately, presumably by making Zelensky surrender and give up, you know, a fifth of the country to the Russians. Harris would continue Biden's policy of sending arms to Ukraine and rallying NATO to the defense of Ukraine.

However, Trump recently took things a step further during an interview with a podcaster named Patrick Bet, David. Let's listen to a clip. I think Zelensky is one of the greatest salesmen I've ever seen. Every time he comes in, we give him $100 billion. Who else got that kind of money? in history has never been. And that doesn't mean I don't want to help him because I feel very badly for those people.

But he should never have let that war start. That war is a loser. So he's blaming Zelensky for the war there, Ben? Does that seems like the takeaway, right? Yes, I mean, he evidently could have stopped the war from starting. Who knew? At a minimum, who knew that Zelensky had the capacity to do that? Just capitulate, I guess.

And then, you know, a few weeks back, though, just to the politics in the U.S., you and I were debating whether Harris should go on offense on this issue and whether she should go to say, you know, Polish communities or Ukrainian communities in Pennsylvania just to talk to them about the stakes and try to message this. Since then, I don't know if you saw this. There's been some depressing reporting. The Washington Post had a piece out this week that found Ukrainian voters in Pennsylvania were more split than you would expect between Trump and Harris. This was anecdotal. It was not a survey of like the 200,000 Ukrainian voters in PA. But they thought it was like a 40-60 split because some of them liked Trump's strong man image. Some just cared about like domestic issues and low gas prices and were not worried about foreign policy. There were some people I read about who like didn't love the Zelensky visit or the signing of the weapons. So it was incredibly exasperating. Like a pretty obvious distinction that should cut one way or the other seemed. I don't know.

It was more nebulous than you think. But what do you make of this clip we just heard of Trump just blaming Zelensky and. in the politics of this. Well, first of all, Trump has long had this antipathy to the Ukrainians. You remember that he seemed to believe or wanted to believe that it was actually the Ukrainians who had interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton. He had the theory about the DNC server. I'm trying to go back several conspiracy theories.

They're thrown speedy at the wall for a while. Hillary Clinton had a server in Ukraine or something. Then he leans on Zelensky for this dirt. The common threat here is he seems to want to take Putin's side. And whatever the Putin narrative is, seems to be the one that he grasps onto. I don't think you can, for a minute, think that he's going to provide any kind of enduring support for the Ukrainians. I think the most important thing, though, is when you strip all this down and even all of the context of, you know, who interfered in the election and what does he think about Putin, what is clear is that he doesn't care at all about the stakes

involved in that war, that essentially, let's remember why this matters. It matters because obviously Ukrainians are being killed and it's a horrific event for Ukrainians. It also matters because you have an authoritarian state, a dictatorship in Russia, trying to invade and take over or determine the future of a democracy. And so part of what's at stake here is the future of democracy in the world, the future of European security. If Putin can prevail in Ukraine, you know, Georgia, Moldova, other former Soviet republics may be next, there could even be a war in Europe. And that context is completely missing from anything Trump ever says about it. Never so it's not just the kind of, you know, what team are you on? Do you like the Ukrainians of the Russians? It's also just the kind of

absence of an understanding of the consequences, the stakes involved there. I will say to those numbers about Ukrainians, apart from the fact that Eastern European diaspora voters, you know, skew Republican generally. I was surprised in talking to some people in Ukraine and in Eastern Europe. And even on our election series, when we had Ilya Panamarenko on great journalists, and these weren't necessarily his views, but he was kind of communicating Ukrainian views. There is a school of thought that perhaps Trump's unpredictable strong man persona could shake things up, right? That currently things are not going well, there's a lot of frustration with Biden. He's been slow in delivering these weapon systems. He does not appear to be a strong man. And so there's a bit of a mentality, even among Ukrainians,

that perhaps Trump is this new X factor who could come in, shake it up, and make things better somehow. Or perhaps are Ukrainians that just kind of do want the war to end and like the idea of the war ending quickly. But I think what is important for Kamala Harris, and she's doing this, is connecting the argument not just to Ukraine, but to American security and values generally, that we will be less safe if Putin is able to run roughshod over Ukraine, that what's at stake is democracy globally, security and stability, globally, that emboldening Putin would be dangerous. And also this line that she's used since the convention that Trump's an easy mark,

that these dictators are going to take advantage of them. They'll flatter him. They'll go what they want. And that will lead to a more dangerous world. So it's a simple message, but it's important to make it about, yes, Ukraine, but make the stakes bigger than that, too. Yeah, I guess people don't love sending money and weapons overseas. Although I did say just on the policy front today, there's a report in the New York Times that the U.S. has agreed to give Ukraine $800 million for manufacturing long-range drones. So they're trying to invest in their kind of long-term capacity to build these things rather than just send over the newest, you know, kind of shiny object.

Switching gears a little bit, Ben. And so we talked a lot about Arab American and Muslim American voters in Michigan in particular and how Biden's handling of the war in Gaza could be a problem for Harris with those voters. There was a recent poll by Arab News and UGov that found Trump was basically barely winning Arab American voters. It was 45% Trump, 43 Harris, 4% Jill Stein, 8% undecided or declined to stay. Notably, also I saw that Trump's team told the New York Times that their research found that up for grabs voters were about six times as less. likely as other battleground state voters to be motivated by their views of Israel's war in Gaza. The story annoyingly didn't clarify whether those people wanted the war to end or they wanted

the U.S. to be more supportive. But clearly, it's just like a high salient issue, according to the Trump people. Targeting those voters could be why Trump recently sat down with Al-Arabia, which is a Saudi state-owned news channel for an interview. Could be other reasons. Let's take a listen. It could be some other reasons. Some people believe you, the only person who can stop this war because...

I think you're right. From Mr. Netanyahu listens to you. How would you describe the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia? And what kind of role do you think they can play in a crisis in the Middle East? I think it's fine right now. When I was president, it was great with capital letters. G-R-E-A-T, great. And so much respect for the king, so much respect for Mohammed, who is doing so great.

I mean, he's really a visionary. He's done things that nobody else would have even thought about. is his very long city that he's building. He's really doing something. He's a great guy. And he's doing, he's respected all over the world. I want to end on personal note. Yes.

You're going to become my grandfather soon. Congratulations again. Yes, thank you very much. That's right. And your grandchild is going to be half Arab or Lebanese. That's true. So how do you feel about that? I'm happy about it.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. Thank you very much. And say a lot of my friend. I will. Usually you're at like a beer league game before you see. Softball is getting lob, like that. Also, weird to include the little love fest with MBS at the end. Like, say hello to my buddy, Muhammad, I assume, Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince. Okay, what do you make of this?

I mean, judging by you're laughing, I think I know the answer. Why is he doing this? Is he actually targeting Arab American voters with this interview? Are we just sucking up to the Saudi Crown Prince, Muhammad bin Salman? What do you make of it? I think he's just sucking up to Muhammad bin Salman. I did. I think he's trying to get his ducks in a row. You know, could MBS do anything that is helpful or unhelpful in the next couple of weeks, right after the election, he's plowed billions of dollars into Jared's, you know, piggy bank as well. I told myself I wasn't going to do it, Tommy, but I'm going to do it. The Long City point, you know, I don't know if he's still on an arm or Palmer kick. Oh, yeah. Right. Big swing of city. That city's quite a

package. But I think that, first of all, that's kind of hilarious because the Long City, for those of you don't follow this as closely as time. And I do. MBS is trying to build some very long city in the desert. Called the line. I think it's like 150 meters. Or no, it's kilometers long.

And it's vastly, you know, let's just say, behind schedule and over budget. It's a joke. So it's not exactly the thing I would pick out if I was looking to praise him. But I guess Trump is a real estate guy. But I love how he describes MBS, you know, like he's a local official in the acknowledgments, doing a hell of a job there. Prince. He's a real visionary, you know.

But I think he's trying to get the, you know, he's trying to get the band back together the guys he liked. You know, it's MBS, it's Putin, it's Netanyahu. Those are Trump's guys. And it is kind of funny that in the last two weeks of a campaign when you're doing your closing argument, he's going on Al-Arabia. But, you know, the thing about Al-Arabia is it generally reflects, obviously, the editorial preferences of MBS and, you know, to some extent the Emirates. Right. It's based in the Emirates. And you could tell from the questions, you know, they definitely wanted this to be a soft interview.

So he also probably knew beforehand this will be a nice platform. You can say whatever you want. And I do think it's a bank shot to Arab voters in this country. Hey, look, I've got a Lebanese grandkid. I'm going to end the war. And so he worked in some messaging there. You can see he's going after in his own micro-targeting way the voters that he thinks are stalled for grabs. Yeah, not a bad use of 15 minutes necessarily from a messaging perspective.

I agree with you. I think it's just sucking up to MBS. Zero conversation about the political constraints. that BB Netanyahu would still be under, where Trump to be elected, you know, he's going to still have a super right-wing cabinet that won't let him

end the war quickly. You know, clearly the, you know, people, everyone, the Netanyahu was a clear preference for Trump, but it doesn't mean that Trump's going to be able to tell him what to do. It's going to be the same kind of situation. You know, that raises another question, right, which is, let's say it is true

that essentially there was some back channel communication from, you know, let's just say a Gulf Arab government in the Trump campaign, hey, do this interview. They may be trying to butter him up. They want the word to end, I think, in Saudi Arabia. You know, they have no love for Hamas or Hezbollah, but this is a mess in the region.

They're nervous about it. We talked about this last week. This may be part of their effort to try to curry favor with Trump, you know, to think that perhaps they can persuade him to use some leverage on Nanyahu. It's not going to happen. I mean, there's no question in my mind that Trump is going to give a blank check to Nanyahu who even more so, the already pretty blank check that Joe Biden's given him. So I don't know that it's going to work, but that may be what they're trying to do.

A lot of these leaders, you keep reading about all of these leaders who are calling Trump or meeting with Trump, you know, hedging furiously against the possibility of a Trump victory. I think that's part of the backdrop of this too. Yeah, absolutely. So while Trump's talking to Al Arabia, Kamala Harris has been doing all these events with Liz Cheney and other Republicans who say they're not able to vote for Trump, they won't vote for Trump. She's also been highlighting comments from Mark Millie, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs and other Republicans and other sort of senior military leaders who say Trump is an

authoritarian threat to democracy. Blueprints, which is a Democratic polling organization, says they recently found that the most effective closing argument against Trump are, quote, those that emphasize his lack of support from his former cabinet and numerous Republicans. So it sounds like this message has been effective in some circles. However, it can be a double-edged sword with progressives who understandably despise Dick Cheney, blame him for the Iraq War and lots of other things, and worry about what Liz Cheney's presence in the kind of inner circle with Kamala Harris on the campaign trail, at least, might say about her future cabinet choices. The Daily Show's John Stewart appears to be one of those people with concern.

Here's a clip from Stewart's conversation with VP nominee Tim Walls. I think Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney give permission to. those folks who want to find a reason to do the right thing. It doesn't mean they agree with this. We're not going to take their foreign policy decisions and discussions, you know, and implement those. We're going to take their... Promise? Yes, promise. Great response to everyone. So Ben, I actually, like, we talked about this on PSA on Monday. I get the thinking behind these events. I think they're probably smart, given who, you know,

the David Pluffs of the world say they are targeting. They think there's a bunch of soft Republican voters out there, especially Republican women who hate Trump, who don't. don't like what he's done in terms of abortion access and believe that seeing someone like Liz Cheney on stage with Kamala Harris says to them, okay, there is a place for me in this coalition. Do you want to make, you know, whether real or straw man, the kind of opposite case that it could harm Harris? I'll make the opposite case. We've gone back and forth on this.

Look, and I'll posit by saying, you know, if she can create that permission structure and if that can tip the scales in suburban Pennsylvania, then they just. did the right thing. I do think there are several risks. Number one, if you're already a voter concerned about Gaza and you're trying to kind of convince yourself that Trump would be worse and we should go with Kamala despite kind of discussed over the Biden policy in Gaza, the presence of Liz Cheney just doesn't help that, that permission structure, the permission structure of the last of treat evils. And actually, I'm glad Tim Walt said that because, you know, Kamala Harris has talked about putting a Republican in her cabinet and the most prominent Republican who's with her

is Liz Cheney and Liz Cheney would not want a domestic cabinet agency. So, you know, if Liz Cheney did have a foreign policy rule, that would be a big fucking problem. That would be a big deal. And let's be honest, we're all hoping that what Kamala Harris meant was like Department of Transportation. Yeah, like a good railroad kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So then the second thing, which is not an electoral concern. And the third one is it electoral concern. The second thing is this kind of continued evasion of accountability for the Cheney's. I mean, Dick Cheney is responsible.

And Liz Cheney was a ferocious, you know, backer of her father's farm policy. And she was at the State Department. At the State Department, literally the most catastrophic thing that has been done in American farm policy, certainly in the 21st century and probably going way back further than that. And every time they're seen as these credentials, you're kind of saying you're helping them out of the, you know, giving them a gel free card. And you're kind of renormalizing the Cheney's as these mainstream figures. And let's not forget, they beat this shit out of Barack Obama's foreign policy. These are not people that have overlapping views of the world.

But this leads me to the third point, which is the one that I think concerns me the most, Tommy. What Trump has done very well, and J.D. Vance does this, too, is kind of bait and switch to the Democrats into defending the very establishment that people don't like. That's true. And so, you know, we were talking about this earlier, and the point was like, well, low information voters, maybe just want to know that there's a Republican that they've heard of that gives them a permission structure to vote for Kamla. Low information voters also, they don't like, you know, wars and globalization and Cheney's and Bushes. and I do, this is a hard thing to pull. It's a hard thing to see in the data. So maybe there's data that says, well,

Liz Cheney is a good surrogate and a good validator. But I kind of feel like we keep walking into this trap where we're constantly as Democrats defending, you know, capitalism and the military industrial complex and the intelligence community and now we're lifting up the Cheney's. And it looks like we've become the defenders of this establishment that a lot of people, in this country in both parties, including kind of low information voters, think is corrupt and fucked everybody over. And that to me is actually the biggest risk is that, you know, does association with the name Cheney, does the gains it makes among certain Republicans

outweigh the risk of you looking like you are part of an establishment that Trump wants to run against? I have a similar fear, which is kind of prioritizing micro-targeting over macro messaging. Exactly. The micro-targeting being like, you know, women who are, you know, like, slicing and dicing a voter. Suburban Philadelphia, white women. Exactly.

Versus the obvious takeaway from this election in elections around the world that everyone hates incumbents. Everyone hates the status quo. Yeah, yeah. And we're like, you know, and I think Kamala Harris stepped in it a bit when on the view, she didn't have a great answer about what she would have done differently from Joe Biden. I think she's addressed that and improved that answer going forward. But, like, basically, both candidates are.

are trying to run as the change candidate. And Trump is the one who says he'll shake things up. And I think people believe it. And I think you're right that maybe embracing the Cheney's can signal that this will just be the same old shit. Yeah, yeah, that this is going to be the same machinery that people are tired of. I mean, certainly, like, Joe Biden had some comments where he was sort of over the top, effusively praising Dick Cheney. Buddy, we don't have to do that. We really don't.

I mean, that's why I love the Wall's answer. It was such a tactical answer. I like that. You know what? If Liz and Dick can give people some permission structure to do the right thing, that's great, we won't listen to them. And I, you know, I know she can't, Kamla can't say that. But that, that made me feel better. That made me feel better, too. One just aside on Tim Walls. Interestingly, there was this fake video going around social media where there was a man who claimed to be a former student of Tim Walz's saying that Tim Walls abused him in some way, like sexually. This video was completely fake. It used the name of a real student from Mancato High School, where walls taught, but it was someone else, which is like another man who's kind of resembled the

actual student in question. So according to Wired, though, they traced the origin of the video. It was Russian. So this is not a deep fake. It's not AI necessarily. It's seemingly just they found a person who looked enough like this real individual to portray him, but I got five million plus views before it was deleted. And there's going to be more of this stuff, right? And it's a reminder that this Russian interference is happening. And you know, you and I probably didn't run across that in our algorithm. But that doesn't mean that a lot of people aren't going to run across garbage like that in their algorithms in the next couple of weeks. And we should remind listeners that last time around Twitter and Facebook had different policies. Like

Twitter was marking state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. Elon Musk has removed all those guardrails. So warning, you know, your social media feeds are going to be even more of a Gomsder fire than they normally are as the closer we get to the election. Yeah. So to your point on, you know, people may be worrying that Liz Cheney will play some senior role in national security, Politico had a piece speculating on who could be in Harris's foreign policy kind of cabinet. I don't know how they source this. I don't know where this is coming from. It feels a little premature. But some of the people named for Secretary of State include current CIA director, Bill Burns, who was a lifelong diplomat. Jeff Lake, former Republican

Senator, most recently, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey. Chris Murphy, friend of the pod, Senator from Connecticut, Linda Thomas Greenfield, the current U.S. ambassador to the U.N., and Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Transportation. And then for Secretary of Defense, they mentioned Christine Wormouth, who has been Secretary of the Army, Michelle Flournoy, who has served in a number of senior roles of the Pentagon. And then Adam Smith, who is on the House Armed Services Committee and was a very early vocal supporter of Biden dropping out of the race. So, interesting list. I mean, I think, I don't know, Ben, I guess if I'm not trying to overreact because it's

like politico speculating in October. I guess my takeaway was it wasn't a particularly progressive list of names besides, well, I don't know, besides any. I guess Murphy's the most progressive name on that list. I will say as someone who's in these. kind of parlor conversations with people in D.C., that's the kind of list that you hear all around town all the way out here in L.A., and I think it's guessing. You know, I don't think that, you know, we know Johannes Abram was running the transition.

I was texting to it. I was like, every time you try to get out, man. This is tight, like this stuff is tightly held. I think this is all, you know, forecasting. But I'm going to do it too, because why not? You know, it's fun to forecast about it. I mean. I think that Bill Burns.

Burns makes a ton of sense as a potential frontrunner at the State Department just because, as you and I know, spent decades at the State Department. The State Department's been hollowed out. It's still trying to come back. The experience. Having someone with that experience, the people love him in that building,

he'll be on any list. I do think Chris Murphy should be on any list. Certainly the most ideologically aligned with the pod here, you know, and just someone who's built a lot of relationships around the world. So, you know, Burns, Murphy make a lot of sense. I think Christine Wormuth, you know, I would expect Kamala Harris to want to do something to signal gender diversity at the highest level. There's never been a woman secretary of defense.

So an obvious place, if she wins, to try to make history with an appointment would be at DoD. And Christine Wormouth is kind of the, she worked with us in the Obama White House. She's been the... As a Michelle. Yes, as a Michelle. She's been Secretary of the Army. And so I think she'd be on any short list. Pete, you know, you keep hearing this thing about Pete wanting to do something in the foreign policy realm, which makes a lot of sense.

If you've done transportation, fill out your resume with a foreign policy, he'd be great at UN. I mean, actually, I think Pete Buttigieg, because that that does off that Norwegian. Well, that job is really about messaging now. You know, it's about delivering a message at the UN and being a surrogate, being an alternative diplomat. So all those names make a lot of sense. but you're right. I'd like to see you're not getting strong progressive vibes, but there I'd look not just to those cabinet appointments. I think it's really important, you know, who are national security advisors? Phil Gordon would obviously be the frontrunner. I think, you know, Phil's got some progressive vibes going on there. But who's at the NSC generally, too. I mean, who do you fill out? I mean, let's just face it. Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein, who are basically running the policy on Israel, these are not progressives. And I like Brett, but I mean, these are not. I don't agree with him, though, on this issue. Who she chooses for these Middle East policy portfolio positions.

So who is, you know, the Deputy National Security Advisor, who's in charge of the Middle East at the NSC, who's the Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East region, those are going to be really important signals about whether she intends continuity with Biden's Israel and Middle East policy or whether she wants to bring in other people. There are people who've left government like Andrew Miller who resigned from the State Department, I think who's probably much more aligned with where we are on issues like Israel, Gaza. So I'd be looking not just at the top. I'd be looking at how she fills out this team. If she, I mean, knock on wood.

This is a high class problem. We're assuming she went to her. We'll talk about her on Gaza in a second. But the one thing I just, I demand to see is, and Obama screwed this up to. There are so many Democrats who feel like you have to name a Republican to national security positions to be taken seriously. I don't want to see a single Bob Gates. No.

I don't want to see a fucking Jim Comey on this list. I don't need a Mueller. I don't actually, I don't know his politics. No, I think this is the worst thing, you know, Obama did in national security appointments is he kind of perpetuated this defensiveness about having a Republican secretary of defense, not just once, Bob Gates, then Chuck Hegel. And look, Chuck Hegel is a good guy, but it kind of signals that Democrats somehow can't be trusted to run the Pentagon.

He didn't get us anything. Jim Comey was the biggest one. I mean, the great what if of history in my mind, Tommy, has always been, you know, and you didn't need to pick a left-wing Democrat, Lisa Monica. Any Democrat. Lisa Monica, our friend, you know, across the hall at the time in the White House would have been a great FBI director. And who knows how history might have been different. We may not even be sitting here talking about Donald Trump ever having been president if Jim Comey wasn't director of the FBI. So it's a reminder to Democrats.

Don't trade away these positions. Don't think you have to be defensive about FBI or DOD. Put your people in there. Put your people in there. And let's get to Kamala Harris on. Gaza because she's still navigating these politics during a visit to Detroit on Saturday. Harris was asked whether she thinks she could lose the election because of the war. Here's what she said. It is undeniable that it is something that everyone is aware of what is happening

there. I speak publicly all the time about the fact that there are so many tragic stories coming from Gaza. And of course, the first in this phase of everything that has happened, the first most tragic story is October 7 and what happened that day and then what has happened since. And I think what's critically important as we look at this moment is, one, acknowledging the tragedy of what has happened in Gaza in terms of the extraordinary number of innocent Palestinians who have been killed and taking that seriously and speaking truth about that. In addition, of course, to what I said about what happened on October 7 in terms of 1,200 innocent Israelis being slaughtered, women being horribly raped.

And then fast-forwarding to today, with the killing of Sinwa, this creates an opening that I believe we must take full advantage of to dedicate ourselves to ending this war and bringing the hostages home. Okay. So you and I've talked about how we have some, we've empathy for her on this issue, because Joe Biden is still president. She has to respect that. She can't undermine him. Biden has been driving this train. He is responsible for this policy, not her. But I just want to be honest that I hate that answer. It's terrible answer. Because I just, I feel like I don't know why politicians still feel like

like we have to start with October 7th every time Gaza comes up and why she felt the need to say that it was the first and most tragic story. I mean, again, October 7th was an evil, unjustifiable attack on civilians. No doubt. It is unleashed hell on Gaza. It was hell for Israelis. But it's a year later, 40,000 people in Gaza are dead. At least thousands. Thousands and thousands of kids are dead. Why are we ranking these tragedies? You know what I mean? I'm just like, we have to evolve and get to a simpler message that's like, this war has to end. It's not making anyone safer. I will end it. It's a strange answer too because she has to know she's going to get this question. It's not like it came out of the blue. And I see kind of three problems with it. The first is the one you said about, obviously, I echo everything you say about October 7th. The problem with the formulation that that's somehow the first and most important tragedy is it plays into the sense that Israeli lives matter more than Palestinian lives, which is the core. kind of moral argument that is on the minds of the Arab American voters. You know,

do our lives matter as much as these other lives? And I'm sure she didn't intend to, but that phrasing kind of reinforced that. The second is this inability to just not give any bridge for these uncommitted voters to walk across. And we saw this with, you know, not platforming any Palestinian-American speaker at the DNC. But to your point earlier, you mentioned the question about what would you do differently than Joe Biden. Obviously, I know that what's most important is it's something related to the economy, inflation.

I get that. But I do think that even if she doesn't want to break completely from policy, she, you know, frankly should maybe push a little further in saying, you know, you know, you. You know, I think we could have done more as a White House to indicate our concern about the scale of the loss of life among Palestinians, you know. I maybe she could have said, and I know this might have got her some angry phone call from the White House, but she could have, you know, said, I didn't think it was the right thing when President Biden questioned the Palestinian death toll. Remember, that was something that happened, you know. That would go a long way. I would go.

That specific point, right? just saying that, which is not a huge shift in policy, just saying, you know, I don't think it was the right thing to question the Palestinian debt. I really regret that. I regret that that happened. And I think we could have done more as a White House to indicate. And frankly, she could have included herself in that and gained some credibility that way and saying we could have done more consistently over the last year to indicate our concern and horror at the scale of loss of life for Palestinians. And then the third thing that I just think she could do more of is, you know, she pivoted right to this in the same way that she used to pivot to the ceasefire. for hostage deal when asked before Sima War she did this thing about, you know, now is the time down the war. But there's no vision. There's no, I mean, every now and then she pivots back to,

you know, we want to work for a future of Palestinian self-determination. And that's good. Why not offer those people, you know, I can tell you that as president, you know, I will do everything I can, not just to bring this war to an end, but to try to pursue a future in which Palestinians can have a state of their own, you know, just some vision that people can grab. on to. I mean, I'm talking pure politics here.

No, I know. I think they're trying to get it in the answer so fast. And I do, I agree with you. I do wonder if people are so cynical right now that any mention of the two-state solution just that everyone's like, give me a break. Yeah, yeah. But I'm with you, like, something, some horizon, some horizon. Post like the first thing I'll do as president is bring together a summit on Gaza reconstruction. Yeah. Something like that. Just, yeah. All right. Well, that's, I think that's an important note. And one, there's still time to take, frankly. Yeah, no, it's still time. And look, we're all in for. Kamala.

All in. And she's doing a lot well. Say it with love. And a lot right. This is all with love. Before we take a break, I just want to let you guys know that the entire season of Empire City, the untold origin story, the NYPD, is finally out. It has been named one of Vulture's best podcast of 2024, and it's an official Tribeca selection.

Empire City takes you on a journey through the pivotal moments in the NYPD's history that shaped modern policing, including how the police got militarized, what happened when New York City cops started policing abortion in the first ever investigation into police corruption. You can binge all episodes now by following Empire City wherever you get your podcast and enjoy ad-free listening by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Also, if you care about the planet and some of the people who live on it, the time for action is now. As part of Crooked Ideas Anti-Doom initiative, we're spotlighting the people who are fighting for our planet and working to solve the climate crisis every day. First up is a crooked correspondent

Priyanka Arabindi's conversation with the first member of Gen Z to be elected to Congress, Maxwell Frost, stick around at the end of this episode to hear it. Well, let's turn to Gaza because the biggest news since we last recorded is that Yaga Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, the mastermind, a mastermind of the October 7th attacks, was killed in southern Gaza and Rafa last week by the IDF. He was not in a tunnel, you know, that sort of what everyone thought or the IDF's vision of where he was. I thought.

Yeah, in a tunnel, like, surrounded by hostages. Instead, he was above ground with a small group of fighters. and they basically ran into a group of IDF trainees who engaged them in a firefight and ultimately killed Sinwar. It was only, I think, a day later that the IDF realized that one of the bodies looked like Yaga Sinwar. They sent back photos. They sent back DNA and fingerprints. And they IDed him. President Biden released a statement that talked in part about coordination between the U.S.

Special Operations and Intelligence Community and the Israelis to locate and track Sinwar. But again, it sounds like they just kind of lucked onto him. bizarrely been also the IDF released this drone footage of Sinwar's final moments where he was kind of sitting in a chair covered in dust like one hand I think was blown off he threw a stick at the drone that was filming him so a few questions just on all of this there does seem to be some discrepancy or debate over how Sinwar died the initial reports were that you know the tank round hit the building and it killed him now the Israeli government says that Sinwar was killed by a gunshot wound to the head. If that's the case, I don't know if it was a suicide, if he was shot by a member of the IDF with a rifle, was he available for capture? I'm not trying to nitpick how difficult it is to operate in a war zone,

but just imagine a version of this where Sinwar is picked up. You collect all that intelligence on where the hostages are, right? It could be game changer. Bigger picture. Everyone's trying to figure out how does Sinwar's death impact the broader war. Folks like us would love to see Netanyahu take the win, See, this is a moment to declare victory, wind down the fighting. But so far, that does not seem like the direction he's going.

Hamas is named a replacement, although that guy might have been killed between when we started recording. Oh, that was the Hezbole guy. Oh, sorry, the Hezboa guy. It's hard to keep track of the number two is getting whacked out there. But, you know, like, I, Sinwar's a... You're not getting a good life insurance policy if you're number two in Hamas or Hisbel these days. To be clear, Yaya Sinwar is a fucking evil terrorist. He deserved to die.

You know, this is a man who's responsible for the slaughter of... of innocent people, countless innocent people. I hope it's cathartic for Israelis who were hurt or friends who were hurt on October 7th. But Ben, what's your gut on the impact of his death in this bizarre decision to release this drone footage? Seems like a real mistake. Yeah, I think, first of all, it was interesting to me.

I almost wondered, you know, Sinwar had talked a lot over the years about being, you have to be willing to die. And, you know, whether he almost maybe was like, I'm ready to go martyr myself or something. It's just strange to me as wandering around. But you pointed out, actually, there's been some reporting on the fact that you kind of can't stay in these tunnels for that long. Yeah, apparently it's like so claustrophobic. People get sick.

It's so humid down there. These fighters, there was all these reports early on that, like, they have enough food to stay in the tunnels for a year. But actually, you physically just can't. You have to come up. Yeah. So, look, well, just first of all, on the video, and then we'll get into the effects. I was flabbergasted by the decision to release the video. That me too.

Just from a pure strategic communication standpoint, I mean, you'll remember we had this debate about whether to release the Bin Laden photos. We had these photos of bin Laden, you know, at various stages after he was killed. And actually, the only reason to release them would have been to prevent conspiracy theory. President Obama, I still remember, you know, calling us in the Oval Office and saying, look, we don't want to spike the football here and make him a martyr. You know, if you put out pictures, they can become pictures that endure forever, you know. And I do worry that the, you know, the Israelis kind of walked into this one because they're releasing footage that shows him essentially, you know, fighting as best he can, throwing something at a drone till the end. I have to imagine that will endure in parts of the world for a long time.

Yeah, and we've already seen examples of people coming. Yeah. you know, talking about him, praising him with that footage. Yeah. So I just, I don't get it. I don't get what they were trying to achieve. Yeah, it seemed like just a mistake. And I genuinely, yeah, just like I genuinely don't know what the argument in the room was

that this somehow may look good or was, I mean, if anything, maybe it shows they want to, I mean, the drone being in that building was creepy to me. But I guess anybody in Gaza knows there's this kind of omnipresent surveillance. But anyway, that seemed like an understanding. enforced error. I think in terms of the consequences, look, for Hamas, you know, I'm not some deep Hamas analysts, but if you talk to people over the years, even before October 7th, Sinwar was always identified as a kind of uniquely capable military discipline type leader. You know, he, even before he was arrested the first time by the Israelis, he was the guy who literally enforced discipline

within Hamas. By the way, a pretty brutal guy, too, killing. Brutely. He went to prison for killing Palestinians to intimidate them to support Hamas. So there will be other Hamas operatives. There'll be another Hamas leader. This is not the end of Hamas and the same way that Nasrallah was not the end of Hisbalah. But I think this guy was clearly their most capable commander. And so they'll lose something intangible there. But there'll be another, you know, Israel keeps killing these guys and they keep getting replaced by other guys. And sometimes those guys are, you know, even more diabolical than the people they're replacing. So I don't think it ends this cycle of violence. In terms of taking the win, what concerns me, Tommy, is that if Netanyahu doesn't take this, what else is he going to take?

Because there's no other way in which, you know, we've talked, Hamas is never going to come out and say they surrender. You'll never totally destroy Hamas. You'll never stop all resistance among the Palestinian people. And so if you can't identify the killing of Yaya Sinwar as the end of the war, then there is no end of the war that I can think of that he can find. And we know this through our own mistakes. Like the U.S. should have ended the war in Afghanistan. Anderson after bin Laden's death. Oh, yeah. I remember thinking that at the time, like, that was the last chance we're going to get like that. And so the reality is you see Biden messaging, this is a chance, but there's literally no indication whatsoever that Netanyahu, once again, the U.S. government's like a commentator.

It's like Biden should get a podcast, you know. Yeah. And just kind of say what he thinks should happen and everybody, nobody pays any attention to it, you know. Yeah. And the broader context is that, you know, Sinwar might be dead, but the situation in northern Gaza is just unimaginally bad. You know, over the weekend, the IDF carried out an airstrike that reportedly killed at least 87 people. It's a massive airstrike. There is this ongoing assault on the Jabalia refugee camp on Sunday, and Israeli colonel was killed in northern Gaza with the highest ranking officer to die in the war so far.

So there's extreme fighting, and it's taking out the IDF members as well. But then, you know, most frightening is the fact that basically all of northern Gaza seems to be under siege. There's almost no food, water, medicine getting in. There's reports of people starving to death. Hospitals are under attack and almost out of supplies. You're seeing these videos, I think, released again by the IDF of huge groups of Gazans getting rounded up. They're separating men from women. They're being told to march south to southern Gaza, to evacuate, to basically clear out northern Gaza. On top of that, I mean, the videos I'm seeing in my social media feeds, I don't want to make this about myself, but I keep seeing these things like little babies getting pulled out of the rubble.

I saw a video of an ambulance driver unloading the corpses of children. It's like it's the worst things imaginable that you've ever seen. You're running out of words to describe how fucked up this is. And yet, despite that reality, despite the success of Sinwar, the Israeli government seems to be operating with even more impunity. Yeah. You know, like we used to... The most of the whole war, I think. Yeah, I mean, we used to fight about getting aid in, and now it seems like they don't care.

You have far-right members of these Israeli governments saying they're talking about building settlements in Gaza again. You've got the national security minister, Tamar Ben-Gavir, openly talking about the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And like that context is partly why the Kamala Harris answer we played earlier frustrated me because the situation on the ground has gotten so much worse, but the kind of U.S. response has not evolved at all. This is the maximum moment of impunity that I can identify in this war since maybe the first few weeks in the sense that we have huge aid restrictions, you know, kind of a siege mentality around Gaza, the kind of thing that the Biden administration used to complain about. Nothing seems to be changing there. You've had humanitarian workers killed on the ground. Tons. And no complaints there. I mean, maybe they have to work for Jose Andreas for it to resonate in Washington. sadly. But also, I just, I'm haunted by the reality, Tommy, that I just think we have no idea the scale of casualties. I mean, the number has been around 40,000 for, you know, they can't count anymore. These people are under rebel. There's not been a foreign journalist in Gaza in over a

year, which is to these people without like an IDF minor. To these people who always try to draw these comparisons, well, this happens in wars, that is not normal. That no one is allowed to see what is happening. Then these things like, you're talking about Bengavir, like having conferences about settling northern Gaza, and ethnic cleansing, there are things said by Israeli ministers about what Israel is doing, that if we said them here, people would be like, how dare you say that about Israel? They're saying it out loud there. That this is about ethnic cleansing.

This is about making Gaza unlivable. This is about reclaiming our land. That's what Bengavir said. I mean, this is what is happening before our eyes. And I don't know if it's because it's right before an election. So BB thinks he's got the freest reign possible. I don't know if this is just because Joe Biden's given up trying to do anything about this. Or maybe Joe Biden doesn't care.

But this is word maximum impunity here. And it does seem to me, I don't know if Ben Gavir is driving the train and they're going to be settlers there soon. But they do seem to want to depopulate Northern Gos. And at a minimum, create some kind of strange buffer zone. And at a maximum start settling it and just start taking that land. And this is happening. And so whoever wins the election is going to be stepping into a situation where this is at the worst stage that it's ever been in terms of the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe. Yeah.

And just a little more on just the humanitarian suffering. We talked with Louise Wateridge, who is the UN senior communications officer in Gaza, just to talk about the humanitarian situation. Here's a clip. Today in Jabaliyah camp, there has been no water supply at all. All eight of the water wells that were functioning just weeks ago, now destroyed, out of fuel or inaccessible. A colleague described the horrific scenes of bodies lying on the ground, including children, destroyed buildings, streets torn up and homes and institutions set on fire. Since this siege started, the United Nations has had 37 requests to enter Jabalya denied by Israeli authorities.

We are not able to reach people with food, with water, with medicine. And for five days, the UN has even been denied access to dig people out from under the rubble. Even in the last 24 hours, we're seeing videos of schools in Jabalya set on fire. It literally looks like hell on earth. If the conflict continues to escalate at this scale, it's unclear how long limited food supplies will last. Last night I received a message from my colleague in Jabalya saying, no one cares about us anymore. We are awaiting our fate.

So that is as dire as it gets, Ben. And then I just would say one more thing. We've covered this to some extent, but it bears repeating. Because some people will say, I'm sure you have these conversations sometimes, well, there may be some Hamas guys at that refugee camp. It doesn't fucking matter. Like, if a Hamas guy is standing behind a bunch of kids, that doesn't mean you're allowed to drop a bomb on those kids.

We have a Geneva convention. People got together and decided to make some rules about how war went after World War II. because of how badly that went. And you cannot say we have Geneva conventions and rules that apply around civilian casualties and protection of children and innocence in a refugee camp and then say that, well, that doesn't matter if it's in Gaza

because people rely on those rules to protect everybody in future wars. Those rules are why what Hamas did on October 7th is a war crime. And so if you're saying, there's no such thing as a war crime anymore, if somebody I think is a bad guy is surrounded by women and children,

I'm allowed to drop a bomb on all those people, then what kind of world are we're going back in time? We're turning the clock back to before the Geneva Conventions. Yeah. And unfortunately, things are horrific in Gaza and they're getting worse in Lebanon. I mean, the IDF has now started targeting Hezbollah-affiliated banks and NGOs in Lebanon

and what they say is an effort to cut off Hezbollah's financing for the war. A couple weeks back, we were talking about that there's a financial crisis in, you know, I think 2020. It started in Lebanon that led all the traditional. banks to collapse and people were forced to turn to these kind of shadow banking entities. And now those are literally being blown up. A few hours ago, the IDF flattened an 11-story residential building in Beirut. It's not clear why. The IDF accused Beirut's Al-Sahel hospital of storing Hezbollah cash beneath it. And then they're sort of like tweeting at journalists

telling them to go find it or check it out. There's also bombing sort of inside the grounds of these hospitals. And so, you know, Biden dispatched Tony Blinken to Israel to try to, you know, restart ceasefire talks in Gaza. He also sent his advisor on Israel and Hezbollah Amos Hoxstein to Beirut, where Hoxstein said the war has escalated out of control, but it doesn't seem like the Israeli government cares, and they're just kind of plowing away because, you know, it's countless airstrike after airstrike, and then Israeli ground forces are slowly fighting their way into the country. And there's just, there's literally no, there's no diplomatic off-ramp at all. No. None. And, you know, the U.S. government is describing these as like limited

incursions. But the thing is, if you can blow up an apartment building, because there's just some cash underneath it, it's the same point as being like, Gaza, what, what message is that sent about the value of the human life that is in that building? Yeah. Versus like, there's, you're blowing up some money? I mean, what, we've lost all sight of humanity here. Yeah, and just final thing on this, we've all been waiting for weeks now to see how the Israelis might respond to the Iranian ballistic missile attack, what, three, four weeks ago now. Um, US intelligence has apparently been watching very closely to see what might happen to, because incredibly, Again, two top secret Pentagon documents about Israeli preparations for a strike leaked out onto

social media. They were both produced on October 16th by the Pentagon's National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. One of the documents covered like IDF preparations of bombs and moving munitions around and their drones. And the second is about stuff the Israeli Air Force is doing to prepare for a strike. All of it is top secret. Again, just shocking that this leaked out. I mean, the FBI is looking into it. I guess this was five-eyes information, so it could have gone to one of our partner countries,

you know, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, et cetera. But I just, they're, you know, an October 16th document leaking out on the internet, like, the same day is remarkable. That is, that is, you know, something's going on there. Someone's trying to influence the course of events if it happens that fast. Big time. Big time. Okay.

So we'll move on a few more things, Ben. So Russia's hosting a meeting of the BRICS countries this week. Brick stands for Brazil, Russia, India, and China. This year, the group is expanding to include. include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE. So they represent about 41% of the world's population and 37% of global GDP. The BRICS originally, they had wanted to counter U.S. economic domination, create an alternative to the dollar as a world's reserve currency. But I think the group has evolved to generally just push back on what the West is up to. One big topic this year,

that will be an idea around a BRIC's payment system to help countries like Russia evade U.S. sanctions. Putin couldn't make it to last year's summit in South Africa because he was worried about getting arrested by the international criminal court. This year he's hosting it. Look, you hear a lot about how Russia is isolated because of the war in Ukraine. But what does it say when you have Xi Jinping and all these other countries and leaders visiting Russia? It just confirms that Putin is basically isolated from the U.S. and Europe and a handful of like-minded countries, but the rest of the world is not isolating him at all. Well, one of the underappreciated failures of the response that war in Ukraine is the fact that these sanctions are just not really having much of an impact at all on the Russian economy.

They're just finding other ways to evade it, to trade. And look, I don't think that that's a failure of sanctions enforcement. I just think what we continue to learn time and again is that sanctions don't work. There's this magic elixir in Washington that somehow we can hermetically seal some country as large as Russia by weaponizing the dollar, and clearly it doesn't work. And countries have figured out how to work around it. And I think the main point, Tommy, beyond just the spotlighting and the fact that the rest of the world isn't coming along with our view on Ukraine, is this question of the dollar. I think it's a live issue that we have so overused sanctions that the dollar is

a reserve currency, right? The idea that trades around the world are most securely done through the U.S. dollar that's backed by the U.S. military, you know, there's a, there is, you know, a parallel system emerging here. And it doesn't mean that the dollar will stopping the reserve currency tomorrow, but it does mean that in particular that these tools that we have like sanctions, they really don't work. And when you add crypto into this, there's all kinds of other ways in which we're heading into a world in which, you know, we, you know, our capacity to think that we can pull levers and make countries to do things because of the dollar, those days are gone. Yeah. Well, and speaking of Russian influence. If they were ever here, by the way.

Right, right. Speaking of the Russian influence globally, Moldova had a really important, you know, country-defining vote over the weekend where they were voting on whether to enshrine a commitment to eventually joining the European Union into their constitution or not. And the results were very close. 50.4% voted in favor of the EU. 9% voted against it. For those who don't know, Moldova is a small, former Soviet country between Romania and Ukraine. Economically, it's been struggling. It's got a population of about 2.5 million people, and that's been shrinking because of

emigration. Moldova is currently led by a pro-Western president named Maya Sandu, who is also up for election on Sunday. She came in first, but is going to be heading to a runoff against a pro-Russia candidate on November 3rd. But she called the referendum an unfair fight saying on Twitter, quote, Moldova has faced an unprecedented assault on our country's freedom and democracy, both today and in recent months. Criminal groups working with foreign forces hostile toward national interests have attacked our country with tens of millions of euros, lies and propaganda, using the most disgraceful means to keep our nation trapped in uncertainty and instability, end quote.

One of those disgraceful means was basically a pay, not basically, it was a scheme to pay off voters financed by an exiled Bolivian oligarch, which is all part of the kind of hybrid war conducted by Russia against Moldova. included election meddling and disinformation campaigns. Sandus said that the state institutions documented 150,000 people being paid to vote. A poll from last month showed 62% of the country wanted to join the EU. So either that polling was way off or the Russian efforts to fuss with the election were pretty effective. And one example of that Russian interference was the following. In the fall of 2023, a bunch of C-list American celebrities, including exhibit, Lindsey Lohan, Dolk Lundgren, and the guy who played Kevin in the office, Brian Baumgarder. We're all unwittingly part of a Russian influence operation by being paid to record videos on

cameo, calling for Sandu to resign. Here's a clip of some of those. A message for Sandu. Hi, Sandu. It's Lindsay Lowhan. Hello, Sandu. Sandu. Hi. The garbage coming to you from Paramount Studios, Sandu. Eric Robertson. Sandu, Aloha.

Martikas, Koss here. Hello, Sandu. This is Michael Madsen. Yo, whatever's Mr. X-Diz. Exhibit is for Sandu. Sandou. Dava IT ski namsandu. Dava IT ski namsandu.

Dava IT ski namsandu. Dava-It-Ski-Nam-Sandu. Daba it's skinnam sandu Daba eat skinem sandu We're working on our... Boy, Michael Madsen sounds a little worse for wear of it. We're working on our language skills. So obviously, you know,

waging revolution with Kevin from the office is very funny. But this story has got to be terrifying for Moldova, given mistakes involved, given how these fights ultimately turned out for Ukraine. I mean, they're just getting squeezed here. That's right. And, you know, Russia has a little piece, Transnistria, in Moldova that they, you know, control, not unlike parts of Georgia. Georgia and Moldova are clearly the two countries that Russia wants to turn into, you know, Belarus, right?

Just vassal states with pro-Russian leaders and probably Russian military. And Moldova is, you know, much more geographically, you know, western. So it would be another foothold for them there. I think what I'm struck by, Tommy, because I actually talk to some people who are covering. this. They're like, this is, it's almost comical the level of corruption, you know, just the money washing around here trying to buy votes. You're like, with the wire transfer stop working. People were just showing up at the airport with like bags of cash. Bags of cash at the airport. And look, you don't need the Nates to know

that that wasn't a polling error. You know, I think this is a 60-plus percent preference for the EU. And frankly, be higher. Some of the voters, as in Georgia, who don't support it or just because they're scared that if they join the EU, they'll get invaded or something. And it just shows a kind of crass force. That's the message Russia. They want it to be known that they're being corrupt. They want it to be known that they're buying votes. They want to make democracy look ridiculous. You know, the cameo thing is a part of that, right? And by the way, like, just never go on came. I don't care what. Whatever happens to me, Tommy, like, this all falls apart. If Trump wins and we're just don't let me do cameo, whatever you do.

Trying to think about the funniest thing you could be doing. I'll give it a minute. So anyway, I just, to me, that's the tragedy here is that the, you know, the Moldovan people are just caught in the middle of this thing, you know, which is ridiculous too. It's just Putin's obsession, you know, this is a former Soviet Republic. This is ours. This, you know, we should control things here. And we're going to be as blunt an instrument as possible. And again, if Trump wins, this is the kind of stuff that Trump is not just going to, he's just not going to give a shit about it all. And, and so I really worry about a place like Moldova in the Trump victory. I can't wait until there's a cameo of you wishing Chinese Taipei a happy birthday. This spelled differently. Yeah, the FT quoted an official who estimated that Russia spent about $100 million on this Moldova election. So basically it didn't even a bucket. Yeah. Yeah.

It's all it is. But meanwhile, it is the Brick Summit. You know, this, we have actually empathized a bit or understood the perspective of some of these global South countries, like a South Africa, India, etc. that Gaza exposes our hypocrisy and that therefore they don't like to be lectured with Ukraine. But you know what? Like this is a fucking thug that you're showing up and kissing the ring in Russia. And, you know, sure, you can call us hypocrites all you want and be right about that. We say one thing about Ukraine and another about Gaza.

But this is the kind of shit that this guy's doing in small countries. And actually, these small countries in the global south should remember that because he doesn't value your sovereignty or your humanity. And interestingly, you know, Putin might get upstage at his own. summit based on the interaction between Xi Jinping and Dorendra Modi of India because they've been dealing with these kind of flashpoints on their border in the Himalayas. And it sounds like they cut some sort of agreement right beforehand about how to settle them. So I think a lot of watchers or China watchers are looking to see if they will, you know, shake hands and have a little

love fest. Well, those guys are the leaders of ultimately more important countries other than the fact that, you know, Russia has a lot of nukes, right. A lot of nukes, right. Yeah. Yeah. A couple more quick things for it gets to the interview. So first, last week, Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, made some pretty explosive claims when he said that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and right-wing kind of Manosphere podcast, douche, slash author, Jordan Peterson, were being paid by R.T. I thought you're going to say Aaron Rogers. No. The Russian state-owned media company. The context was a hearing about all the, remember in 2022, all the angry French truckers who, you know, basically drove to Ottawa and parked for three weeks.

because they didn't want to take vaccines. So here's the full quote from Trudeau. Quote, we've recently seen that RT is currently funding bloggers and other YouTube personalities of the rights, such as Jordan Peterson, other names that are well known, Tucker Carlson as well, in order to amplify messages that are destabilizing democracies. Peterson denied the claim. He threatened to sue. Tucker has previously denied allegations of shilling for Russia, especially what he like went over

there and was loving on their metro and the grocery store. But I don't think he's commented that on this story. We did recently learn that RT paid $10 million to some of the biggest dipshits in conservative media to get them to make really bad propaganda. So anything is possible. But this is just really odd. I like that Trudeau is just, you know, I know, like he's having some political. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of Yolo Trudeau, right?

You know, last week we were talking about, you know, him obviously calling out what the Indian government was doing there. I don't think he has no incentive to, you know, lie about this under oath or whatever. in whatever context in their parliamentary procedure he's doing this. And Jordan Peterson is Canadian, isn't he? Right. So I think the reality is that R.R.T. also has these cutouts, right? Like, you know, that's what we've seen in some of these investigations

that there's all these kind of media properties that pay people to do these different things. And, yeah, I'm not at all surprised that those guys might have taken some money from that kitty. But it shows you, again, that what's been interesting, in these recent RT investigations is, again, it's not just the television station RT, right, or even the YouTube content from RT. It's that they're building this kind of far-right network globally and paying people to deliver certain messages. Sometimes they're winning, sometimes they're unwitting. It shows a kind of broader nexus between right-wing media here and Russian propaganda there,

that there's a very blurred line. There's not a clear dividing line between where the Russian propaganda ends in the U.S. right wing media or other Western right wing media. Not at all. There tend to be simpatico these days. But good for Yolo Trudeau. Yeah, release the intel too. I'd love to see more information on this. Also been, so last Friday, the Cuban electrical grid collapsed leaving millions of people without power. And by Sunday, there had been four blackouts and 48 hours. This crisis in Cuba was a long time coming. They have a bunch of Soviet era oil burning power plants that have been online way past their prime and investment in new power generation or renewables has been very slow. Compounding the problem

is that Cuba runs on a deficit of about 80,000 barrels of oil a day, a gap that has traditionally been filled by imports from Venezuela and to a lesser extent Mexico and Russia. But Venezuela cut its exports to Cuba, forcing the government to ration what oil it has, the Cuban government that is. I think Venezuela was exporting more oil and gas because the U.S. relaxed sanctions, right? So anyway, it's been this perfect storm compounded by an actual hurricane that battered the eastern end of Cuba at the end of the weekend. So, Ben, I think one, this is awful, awful for the people of Cuba, awful for anyone who's like, you know, trying to live their life. Imagine you're in a hospital. The power goes out right.

It's just horrendous. There was a big debate, though, over how much of this is mismanagement by the Cuban government, just kind of like dilapidated stuff, the lack of investment in, energy infrastructure versus kind of the long tail of the impact of the U.S. trade embargo or sanctions. How do you kind of disaggregate it? I come down very firmly on the sanction side here, and this is not to resolve the Cuban government. It is a sclerotic, communist, inept institution when it comes to a lot of things. But the reality is they are under the strictest possible embargo of the United States. And this is a place where the sanctions work because it's such a small market that nobody has an incentive. There's plenty of incentive for people to work

around sanctions to buy Russian oil. The Indian government's going to buy a ton of Russian oil because it's cheap. Yeah. When we were trying to relax the embargo in the Obama years, we couldn't get anybody to invest in Cuba because they just didn't trust that their investments wouldn't get caught in some transitions through the dollar. You cannot get investment into Cuba by design. It is U.S. government policy to prevent anybody from investing in Cuba. The reason they'd drive old cars there. It's not because they like old cars. It's because they can't get new ones. And so we are doing this to Cuba, right? It doesn't mean that there's nothing that the Cuban government's doing wrong. It just means that the U.S. policy is strangling this island and has been for a long time.

And the intent of U.S. policy is to deny any inputs, any investment in their economy that could do things like fix a power grid. And what I worry about is, you know, we relax these sanctions, Trump put them back on, and then dial them up. And then Joe Biden, kept them there. Joe Biden has kept this in place. Make no mistake. This is a Trump Biden policy in Cuba. And what I worry about here is even if you say, well, Ben, I hate the communist government, where this is headed, if we collapse that government, if this is the kind of chaos of like blackouts and hurricanes wiping everything out, we're going to turn this into Haiti, you know. This isn't going to be like, it becomes a Miami democracy tomorrow. Like, we're creating a failed

state. And that is not only humanitarian catastrophe. It's just a disaster. It's causing migration to this country. So I hope, again, if common virus wins, this is an area where just a tiny bit of adjustment in policy can make life a lot better for people on the nice edge of poverty. Not nice edge. They're in poverty in Cuba. Yeah. Well said.

And definitely an area where she should have a lot of space to work. And please, yeah, make a change. But win first. Finally, Ben, over in Dusseldorf, Germany, citizens are mourning the loss of ICE. item number 40 from the menu of a local pizza parlor. So pizza number 40 was very special. Did it have unique toppings? We don't really know. Was it tasty? Again, no idea. But it did come with a special treat, which was a side of cocaine tucked under the pie. Didn't see that one coming up. Apparently, food inspectors noticed something was up back in March

and tipped off narcotics investigators who clocked that number 40 was very, very popular. And that was not flour. When officers went to question the owner, the restaurant. I guess he threw a full bag of Coke out the window. Unfortunately for him, the cops were outside the window and they like caught the bag. And so they put him in jail for a couple days. He got released. He resumed selling number 40, which allowed the investigators to trace the supply and bust a drug ring in West Germany. But Ben, you know what the best part about buying a pizza with a side of cocaine is? You have a pizza left over because you're probably not going to be very hungry for that thing. Yeah, you should take that home for you for your hangovers.

It's basically a diet. It's kind of a hangover. thing. You're like, you know, get the Coke and, you know, you take that home. And you know, when you stop throwing up the next day, you're going to have the cook. What an incredible story. I'd like to see the ingenuity there. What if you accidentally get the number 40? How did that never happen? Well, yeah, yeah, maybe it did. I mean, you know, cocaine bear, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Some high school party used amped. Some high school party got super hamped, man. Okay. Well, that was fun. We went long. But we're going to take a quick break. And then you're going to hear my interview with Casey, Michelle, about kleptocker.

in Washington and how foreign governments are corrupting ours with huge amounts of money. So stick around for that. Our guest today is Casey Michelle, the director of combating kleptocracy program at the Human Rights Foundation. It's a very cool title, by the way. His book is Foreign Agents, How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threatened Democracy Around the World. Casey, great to see you. Tommy, thanks for having me.

This is a fantastic book. I just want to start at the beginning. Because I imagine when people hear about, you know, a foreign country trying to influence policy in Washington, I imagine they think about an embassy, an ambassador, maybe a consulate in a major city like Los Angeles. That's where, you know, the foreign ministry employees work. They seek out meetings at the White House or State Department. There's sometimes a military attache. Sometimes there's an intelligence arm to coordinate with the government. But as you, as you've reported on, these countries are also spending millions and millions of dollars on.

on lobbyists and lobbying. Why? What can those, you know, hired guns do that your ambassador can? Yeah, that's a, yeah, that's a great question. And look, at this point, here we are talking in the middle of 2024. This is now a multi-billion dollar industry that a lot of folks haven't paid any attention to until very, very recently right here in the United States. Because you're exactly right, Tommy. I think a lot of folks do think for country-to-country government-to-government relations, folks do and should be relying on diplomatic channels. But what we've seen increasingly, the United States of America is that foreign government after foreign government, especially the dictators around the world and the authoritarian regimes are turning not just to diplomatic

channels, but to Americans on the ground, American lobbying firms, American PR firms, American consultancies, even increasingly things like think tanks and universities and maybe most especially former members of Congress as well to open brand new doors, open brand new channels for them that are not publicly recognized. The public is not necessarily aware of what these networks are actually doing, how they're operating, who is being involved. Because at the end of the day, what these foreign governments have realized is that all too often, these Americans that are part of the American foreign lobbying industry all have a price

that these foreign governments and especially these foreign dictators who have effectively bottomless pockets are more than willing to meet. And for really pennies on the dollar, for some of the most despotic, kleptocratic regimes around the world, they can buy whichever lobbying firm they want. They can buy whichever PR firm, law firm, consultancy, or again, as I mentioned a moment ago, even former members of Congress, heck, even current members of Congress, as we saw most recently, with figures like Bob Menendez. This has been going on for years, and it now is a multi-billion dollar industry in Washington and around the country.

You know, one category I think I didn't hear you mention, and I'm curious, if that was just because there's so many people to grease these days and it's hard to keep track of all of them or if you view it differently is former four-star generals who might get paid to consult or maybe just come and do a speech someplace. How do you view them? 100%. There is a section toward the end of the book on former generals, former military officers and military officials. And this is really a brand new element of the foreign lobbying complex in and of itself. The book details the broader history of the industry going all the way back to the 1930s when Mussolini's regime and the Soviets in Moscow and especially the Nazis in Berlin

found allies on the ground in Washington that ended up building up the first iterations of the foreign lobbying industry. And we saw year after year, decade after decade this industry grow and expand and bring in new elements. But it really isn't until the last few years that as you just mentioned, it is former members, senior members of the American military that are retiring or taking sabbaticals or hiatuses and not, you know, going off and writing their memoirs or going off and acting as professors at, you know, that army or navy or whatever it might be, but instead signing up as active lobbyists and consultancies for other governments elsewhere. And again, these aren't the treaty allies, the democratic allies of the United States.

The country that's really pioneered this, the regime that has really pioneered this, is the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf. Again, a very anti-democratic, very authoritarian regime. but pocketing hundreds of former American military officers. We still don't know much about those contracts. We still don't know much about what those former military officers are doing, but they are absolutely one of the newest prongs of this industry itself. I wanted to go a little ways back, not fully back to 1930s, although that part is fascinating.

But I didn't realize until reading your stuff that Bob Dole was a real trailblazer when it comes to taking foreign money. How did he lead the charge here? Yeah, Bob Dole, again, for a lot of folks who remember, remember Bob Dole, they think of his 1996 presidential campaign when he lost to Bill Clinton. You know, they think of his long and storied career in the Senate. You know, he's really the... His stint on the real world?

Well, sure. And there were maybe some Viagra commercials tossed in there as well that folks may remember. But what I think a lot of folks either have forgotten or didn't know in the first place, and certainly I wasn't that aware until I put this book together is that when Bob Dole retired in the late 90s and early 2000s, you know, again, he didn't go off to his to his esteableness. or some, you know, whatever, professorship or, you know, signed here somewhere, he ended up signing up as a foreign lobbyist, as quite literally and legally a foreign agent. He used his stature and his reputation in Washington to sell that to the highest bidders abroad. Again,

he's not working on behalf of American clients or, you know, whoever it might be in the United States of America. He ended up working with a number of American Democratic allies, places like Taiwan, places like Kosovo. But he also worked with. some very authoritarian regimes in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo, and then most notoriously for him and most damagingly for the rest of us. He also acted as the go-to lobbyist for one of the most notorious Russian oligarchs, a guy named Oleg Deripaska, who was then, and remains to this day, one of Vladimir Putin's key allies. Bob Dole was his man in Washington, really providing an anchor for Russian influence operations, trying to get Deripaska and his

influence network spread around the United States of America, and then, of Of course, Dole is making millions of dollars from these arrangements. But I will say just as a final thing, you know, Dole is still this kind of revered figure, kind of a throwback to bipartisanship in Washington. And I think, and I've said this elsewhere, I think a lot of folks in Washington looked at him and said, look, if someone like Bob Dole can be a foreign agent, be a foreign lobbyist, and get paid this much money, then why can't the rest of us as well? Well, I think that's such an interesting and important point, because I think there's a lot of,

and I've done it myself, like kind of what happened to shame? How did that stop being a motivator in U.S. politics, especially in the Trump era where it's sort of anything goes. No lie is too great. It doesn't matter. There's no such thing as a scandal anymore. But, you know, one of the ways that we were, we the United States were supposed to deal with, manage, maybe curtail foreign influence and foreign lobbying is through asking people to register as foreign agents under a law called Farah. Judging by your book and your writing, you don't think it's been the most effective law. Can you explain why? Sure. So this Farah is a shorthand for it. That's the acronym for the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which is where the book Foreign Agents gets its title. This is a piece of legislation goes, again, all the way back to the 1930s when folks in Congress realized that Mussolini's regime and the Soviets were targeting Americans across the country and using these lobbyists on the ground to do their bidding and open doors for the fascists and for the communists, the totalitarian regimes of the era. And their response was passing this, what is on paper a very progressive, a very pro-transparency piece of legislation. Again, called the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

It doesn't make any of this illegal. It doesn't ban any foreign lobbying. But what the legislators thought, and again, this is a very quaint notion given that we're talking, here we are shortly before the election, this idea that if we can bring transparency to this sector, if we can shine a light on who these lobbyists are, who they're representing and what they're doing, If we can require them to disclose that information, then we, the American public, can shame them into no longer working with whether it's the Nazis or Mussolini or the Soviets or whatever authoritarian or totalitarian regime is out there. Again, this was the theory of the case. This is why they require now all foreign lobbies to disclose what they're doing to the Department of Justice, which then shares that information with us.

it has proven itself that notion of shame preventing this, it has proven itself a failure time and again. We don't have enough time in the day to list all of the examples of all the authoritarian regimes that are feasting on all of these lobbyists in Washington and elsewhere around the country. Look, it still has its advantages. I wouldn't have been able to write the book with all of these without all the transparency, without all of the filings that are available to any American who has a computer. You can go on the Department of Justice website, but there are plenty of shortcomings that we still absolutely need to do something about. And you also write about how, I mean, again, there's just so much money watching,

a wash through Washington. There are universities, there are think tanks, they have all been co-opted to advance the foreign policy interests of other countries, often dictatorships. Can you talk about, you know, some of the biggest spenders in those spaces and, you know, maybe organizations that we should look at through a different lens or a more critical eye, knowing what you know about where their money comes from? Sure. So again, you mentioned think tanks a moment ago. And I think for a lot of folks who know what a think tank is or who potentially even work at the think tank, you know, these are very key organizations for crafting American policy, often staffed by former government officials or even potentially future administration officials. These are the ones that are drafting. The white papers drafting the policy recommendations that, you know, overworked and overtired legislators can then implement and sign into it to policy. But what a lot of folks don't. realize, and which hopefully this book and this conversation helps shine a light on, is that these

think tanks are not just funded by, you know, open-hearted donors or even necessarily other Americans. Unfortunately, in recent years, we have seen foreign regime after foreign regime send millions of dollars to American think tanks in Washington and elsewhere. And again, these aren't the canadas or the Ireland or the New Zealand's of the world. That would be an issue into itself. But again, these are places like Saudi Arabia, places like Kazakhstan, places like Azerbaijan or places like the UAE, which have no basic rights provisions and protections for their populations to speak of. These are absolutely authoritarian regimes that are using their bottomless pockets to bankroll policy papers and even specific officials. They want to see staffing up future administrations. They are sending millions, in some cases, tens of millions of dollars to American think tanks to pay for these kinds of policy recommendations.

And again, these aren't no-name institutions. These are some institutions that I absolutely respect and some that do wonderful work, but that nonetheless take all of this money from these foreign regimes, places like the Brookings Institution, places like the Center for American Progress, places like the Atlantic Council, you know, you name it across the ideological spectrum. These organizations have unfortunately opened their doors to all of this foreign financing coming in. And that also goes for the university sector as well. It's millions more.

And if you pull back why are these regimes doing it? It's because they want to either launder their reputation, being seen as being generous, big-pocketed donors, or most especially to access folks either in Washington or in universities that they think will play or should play a role in future administrations. I mean, it's in many ways, very similar, if not identical to what domestic donors, big-pocketed billionaires or corporations in the United States of America do. It's also what these regimes are doing. Yeah, it's pretty gross. And I think you made the important point there that it is across the ideological spectrum. All of this is just kind of a setup to Trump who, I mean, it just tell me if you disagree, but he seems like the most easily bribable person in the history of the presidency. During the Trump administration, there were all these stories about, you know, usually Gulf autocrats booking 60 rooms for a month at some Trump hotel and, you know, usually the one in Washington and that was a way to get money into his pocket. But now, if you're the, you're the, Saudi government, for example, you can buy a couple million shares of DJT stock, which is trading on the NASDAQ and basically directly invest in the IPO of Donald Trump, the political entity.

That comes on top of the $2 billion they gave to Jared Kushner to invest on their behalf, despite him having no experience, by the way. Jared's also opening hotels in Albania, right? So there's all these different forums that you have Trump launching a cryptocurrency. There's the watches, the gold coins. I mean, it's literally. endless. I mean, how do you rank or how do you think about how Trump has changed the kind of foreign influence game? There is no comparison between Donald Trump and any previous president, Republican or Democrat, in terms of selling access to him, to his family, and of course, to his administration, and selling out American policy in the process. If he wins again in November, if he's back in the

White House, everything in terms of American foreign policy will be for sale to the highest bidder. And of course, that is all too often going to go to the autocrats and the dictators that have access to as much money as they want because they control the levers of power and control access to all of their domestic treasuries and domestic funds. You know, you could go through the laundry list of countries that we saw in the first Trump administration that took full advantage of that, whether it's the Saudis or the Qataris, whether it's the Algerians or the Kuwaitis, whether it's the Malaysians or of course the Russians and the Chinese as well. I mean, it is a laundry list of regime. of related oligarchic proxies that bankrolled either the Trump organization or Trump properties

or Trump investments to say nothing of all those others that were in Trump's orbit, his inner circle, Jared Kushner, Tom Barrick, Paul Manafort, all of those that open the doors to foreign access and foreign benefactors along the way as well. I mean, this is just a long wind of way of me saying there is no one in American history like Donald Trump. He is an absolute threat to any remaining sanctity, any remaining really domestic oversight of American foreign policy at the end of the day. And I have no doubt that if there's a second Trump administration, everything we saw in the first administration, which was beyond anything we've ever seen in U.S. history, that's only going to accelerate. That's only going to expand as Trump and his hangers on and his family and his associates

realize just how much money they can make by selling American foreign policy to the highest bidder. Yeah, I mean, remember when we pretended to care about the emoluments clause and that was a thing. I mean, no one gives the shit anymore. Look, Democrats have not been great on this. You mentioned Bob Menendez with his gold bars, but also the Biden administration, I think, campaigned on combating foreign influence, but then the record in office has been pretty lackl lesser so far. Why is that? And what can we do? This sounds so egregious. It sounds so offensive to literally anyone to imagine a foreign country buying influence in the U.S. It feels like there's got to be some sort of legislative fix, right? Yeah, there is. There are. I'll talk. on those in a in a moment, but just to highlight what you just said, this is absolutely a cross-partisan bipartisan issue. The reason it has taken so long to tackle so many of these networks is because it's unfortunately not just Republicans, not just Trump, that have been opening the doors to these foreign influence networks through all of these different mechanisms of, you know, hidden financial sources and illicit financial streams. You know, we mentioned Bob Menendez a moment ago, one of the longstanding and up until very recently leading Democrats in the Senate.

recently convicted acting as an agent for the Egyptian government. We have an ongoing case out of the House of Representatives. Henry Quayar, another Democrat out of the state of Texas, accused of acting as a foreign agent for the government of Azerbaijan. Look, I'm talking to you today from beautiful New York City, where our dear beloved mayor, Eric Adams, also a Democrat recently indicted for soliciting and accepting, effectively, bribes from a foreign national, a foreign official in the country of Turkey. I mean, these are...

And a cheap date. too. I can upgrade on a plane. Get some points, man. Like, what are we doing? Look, I don't want to ever advise these guys, but I think some of them are selling themselves a little cheap, Eric Adams included. But this has absolutely been a bipartisan, cross-partisan issue. Now, look, there are some legislative fixes for things like the Foreign Agent's Registration Act. There's got to be more enforcement. There's got to be more funding. There's got to be more investigations. It can't be only a criminal statute. There's got to be civil elements of it as well. So you don't have to prove willful intent of breaking the law. You can also just slap a fine on

some of these firms that aren't complying. I mean, look, you got to support some of the legislation as well that is calling for transparency for things like think tanks and other nonprofits. You know, when Joe Biden was a candidate, he ran quite literally in his campaign plank on banning foreign lobbying. That was always going to be an uphill climb, but he's had his hands full and he doesn't seem like he's making much progress on that whatsoever. I will say the good news, and I don't want to sound like too much of a partisan here, but I've been working in the, you know, foreign influence foreign lobbying space for a while now. And I will say I've never, thankfully, seeing Kamala Harris's name pop up in any of these networks, which is absolutely a breath of fresh

air, given how deep-seated and again, cross-partisan, so many of these networks are. So hopefully if she is elected, that'll be something of a fresh start. And we can see renewed momentum on tackling some of these issues. I mean, last question on this. You know, when it comes to campaign finance reform or federal election laws, the like the uphill battle comes from Congress, lawmakers not wanting to fix a system they benefit from, but also now the courts that are basically just removed any kind of restrictions. There might be, are there similar legal challenges when it comes to trying to get foreign money out of U.S. politics, or is that cleaner? Tommy, you might have a better memory on this than I do, but I seem to recall President Obama after the Citizens United

decision back in 2010 saying something to the effect of not only is this decision going to open the floodgates for domestic donations, domestic funding, of, you know, of American elections, but it's also going to open the door for foreign funding as well. And I think it's taken a little bit of time, but I think he's absolutely been proven correct on that. You know, these are not isolated spaces. These are not isolated spheres where you can disentangle concerns about domestic donations, domestic funding, deep-pocketed corporations in the United States, or, of course, billionaires, folks like Elon Musk.

And then on the other hand, foreign regimes that have access to just as much, if not more money, there's absolutely an overlap. There's absolutely an enmeshing of the personnel, of the policy outcomes, and of course the implications for the rest of us. You know, our democracy has been, or elements of our democracy have been for sale for some time. And it is increasingly evident that foreign regimes around the world have not only realized that, but continue to take advantage of that and spread the good word for them that they can buy any firm, they can buy, it seems, any politician that they'd want. And unfortunately, we haven't seen nearly as much progress as we need to in terms of patching up some of these policies. And until we do, we are in for a long road to hoe. And it's going to be difficult to get ourselves out of this morass anytime soon.

Yeah, I think that Obama made those comments at the State of the Union directly to some of the justices who were there. And they all were deeply offended. And the civility police across Washington clutched their pearls and said, how dare he offend the honor of these great, great people? And, you know, yeah, I think time proved him to be the right one there. Yes, I would say so if I remember again correctly, I think Sam Alito was there, spotted-mouthing, no it won't, which, look, let that be the latest disagreement I have with his policies. Yeah, not my favorite guy. Casey, again, the book is foreign agents, how American lobbyists and lawmakers threaten democracy around the world. This is so, so interesting. I think, and we just covered the tip of the iceberg, so everyone should check out the book. It's also just so important because I think there, so much of the policing of speech.

around certain issues, especially in the Middle East, happens from think tanks and papers and, you know, the FDs of the world to sort of tell you what you can and cannot say. That's another sort of right-wing hawkish think tank that's always trying to get us to bomb Iran. So thank you for digging into this. I know it would be a lot easier for you to go, you know, sit at Brookings and get paid by the UAE rather than go after them. But this is important work. Yeah, thanks so much, Tom. And who knows? Maybe I'll be there someday after Democratic reforms in the UAE, but I'm not going to hold my breath anytime. Yeah, fingers crossed. Well, thank you again.

Thanks, Tommy. Thanks again to Casey Michelle for doing the show and talk to you guys next week. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more. Consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com slash friends. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media

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Pod Save the World is a crooked media production. Our producer is Alona Mankovsky. Our associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor, and Ben Rhodes. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick, and engineered by Vesely's Photopoulos. Audio support by Kyle Seglon and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming.

Matt DeGroote is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Phoebe Bradford, William Jones, Hiro Pahlaviv, and Molly Lobel, you upload our episodes at videos to YouTube.com slash pod save the world. Before you go, Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost is here to talk about what makes him hopeful about our future in the face of climate change. This is part of the Anti-Doom initiative by Crooked Ideas. I'm Priyanka Arabindi and here is my chat with Congressman Frost.

Let's start really simple. So much of what we see in our world and in the conversation around climate can be really intense. Sometimes it feels like we're hopeless. What stands counter to that narrative for you? Yeah, we're really appreciate the question. I mean, I believe that for one of the first times, the climate movement is just much stronger than big oil, much stronger than the polluters, and the climate movement is the largest that it's ever been in our country's history. I think it's really good. But it's kind of a double-edged sword. Part of the reason I think it's so big now is because so many people are being impacted directly by the climate crisis. And so it's no longer just about like polar bears and ice caps in a faraway place that you'll never go to. But it's like here. And it's now and people are feeling it. And so I think there's just so many people, especially young people, on the streets at Capitol Hill, even in their city councils, pushing for really good climate policy.

And that gives me a ton of hope for the future of this country. And in terms of the climate crisis, the future of humanity. And we know that cross-party lines, the majority of the country is worried about the climate and they want something to happen. But they're not really talking about it. I think people struggle with how to talk about it. when you are approaching constituents in your district, how do you frame the stakes and how do you frame this as an issue that everyone can kind of get behind? Both fortunately, unfortunately,

it's becoming much easier to talk about the climate crisis, especially in the state of Florida. Right. And I know some people listening might go, well, yeah, hurricanes are a fact of life. But what we're seeing is we're getting more hurricanes that are creating more devastation, killing more people, and displacing more people than ever before. Why? Because our emissions are warming, and destroying our atmosphere, warming the planet, the coastal waters of Florida, the temperature of a hot tub, and that warm water is literally fuel gasoline to go straight into these hurricanes. That's why they're popping out of nowhere. They're not weak hurricanes. They're super strong, and they're creating so much devastation. And you know what I'll tell you is I've had conservative

people come up to me and say, we need to do something about this, right? It's hurting my business. It's hurting this. It's hurting that. So it's really front and center. people now, which unfortunately and fortunately makes it easier to talk about. I want to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act. It's, you know, the most significant action that Congress has ever taken on climate, but the word climate itself doesn't show up in the title. So can you break this down for us? What does this legislation do regarding climate?

And how should we be thinking about it? See, the Inflation Reduction Act is the most resources that any country has dedicated towards combating the climate crisis, not in the history. of our country in the history of the world. Right. In the history of humanity. This is the biggest piece of legislation ever passed, sign into law. First off, it put forth a ton of different tax credits and incentives to push us as consumers to make better decisions for the climate, to make sure people are stepping away from fossil fuels, stepping away from regular automobiles, and really buying, and specifically American electric vehicles. Not just that, but it's also put so much money

into renewable and green energy and energy that's clean for our environment and clean for our atmosphere and our planet. It helps us preserve humanity, but it's also creating good paying jobs. And in many cases, good paying union jobs across this country. Something we always say is the Inflation Reduction Act is like the down payment on the Green New Deal, right? This is like the thing we really needed to get started. And we have a lot more to do, but what a huge accomplishment because of the climate movement. And what do you say to people who think it's too late to do anything for the planet and kind of think of this as a lost cause? The good thing here is the science tells us it's not a lost cause yet.

We can still move rapidly to cut back on our missions, to get to green energy, build this new green economy for our country, be a leader for the world. From where I sit in Congress, we have a group of people who want to do something, and we have a group of people whose platform is it doesn't exist or it does exist, but these things are too. expensive. And when people need to realize is the cost of not doing anything is far greater than the cost of taking action right now. For our anti-Doom initiative to work, we need more people to know that a better future is possible. Learn more at crooked ideas.org and to make sure that your voice is heard on everything that you care about, please, please vote.