Pod Save the World - Trump Flirts With Nuclear Annihilation

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Ben and Tommy discuss President Trump’s threat to invade Nigeria to stop a (nonexistent) genocide against Christians and the international community’s total failure to stop an actual genocide happening in Sudan. Also covered: why Trump’s pitch to restart testing of nuclear weapons might be his worst (and scariest) foreign policy idea to date, why FBI Director Kash Patel’s trip to visit his girlfriend is getting slammed by right-wing commentators, the uproar in Israel over a torture investigation, election wins for left-wing candidates in Ireland and the Netherlands, Trump’s overtly racist refugee policy, and the final nail in the royal coffin for Prince Andrew. Then Ben speaks with Sanna Marin, the former Prime Minister of Finland, about the double standards women in leadership face, and her new book Hope in Action: A Memoir About the Courage to Lead.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.

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That's simplysafe.com slash crooked world. There's no safe like SimplySave. Welcome back to Pot of the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben, the vaccine finally got Dick Cheney. Yeah, yeah. I'm just kidding. He died of natural causes.

As far as we know. I mean, he hung on for a long time, given he had like 17 heart procedures. 84 years old, five heart attacks. Yeah. And a chain smoker. Well, you know, also a lot of being eaten from within by your deeds in the world. By your mistakes. Remember what do you had this pacemaker removed or swapped out because there were words you could hack it?

Yeah. It was like a plot line from Homeland or something. Yeah, I think they watched a little too much TV. Yes, I'm guessing that's not how the Al-Qaeda guys are going to get you. Yeah. Look, we don't like Dick Cheney. We don't like his political views. I give him credit for being one of the big.

name Republicans to come out and say he was voting for Kamala Harris and not for Donald Trump. He stepped over the lowest bar possible. Yeah. I don't know. Suntered over it. Yeah. To me, that was a little bit emblematic of the ultimate too late, too little too late category. Oh, yeah.

Because essentially these guys like Cheney, they became never Trumpers at the end. But his dishonesty. I have to Trump shit on him for years, too. The thing is he plowed the ground for Trump, right? His rampant dishonesty and kind of bad faith approach to politics and, you know, when it all costs, blow-through norms, you know, expand the power of presidency. Like, he kind of helped create this monster and then he saw it and he's like, oh, I don't like that. And, you know, I don't know. It's clearly the lowest bar, but he didn't exactly soar over it.

Yeah, and, you know, I'm guessing that Cheney didn't like Trump because, one, Trump was mean to his daughter and two, you know, he opposes all things that neocons stand for, at least pretended to. Pretended to, yeah. Which shows you there's no constituency for Dick Cheney. Like zero, like negative. So I got my coffee and my water today because it's going to be a long night with election return.

So Cheney is primarily known as Bush's VP, but he had a long list of jobs and some political low lights and highlights. Here's a few, Ben. Chief of staff for Gerald Ford. I think that was during his wet era when he was drinking a lot. Yeah. I had an uncle who was a journalist who said Dick Cheney was like a pretty good time at that point. The Joe Biden of the Republican Party.

Yeah, except drunk. He was a member of the House for 10 years representing Wyoming, defense secretary under George H.W. Bush, CEO of Halliburton from 95 to 2000. Sweet gig, if you can get it. Cheney led the VP selection process for George W. Bush, and then ultimately selected himself, which you got to kind of take the hat to that out. I know. To the younger listeners, that was a great moment in politics that you missed. It's crazy. Like, wait, wait. Wait, you picked you?

In 2006, Cheney shot his friend Harry Whittington in the face while on a hunting trip. And they tried to cover it up. That's the best part. Yeah. Didn't they then give the story to, like, the local newspaper where the hunting trip was in Texas? Yeah, it was, this made for, like, weeks of daily show episodes. Yes. It was glorious. That was like I remember where I was, moment. I was in this, like, apartment with my...

Then girlfriend. Anyway, so we don't like love Dick Cheney. No. The one thing about him is he was unrepentant for some of the problems he caused. Here's a clip that we'll highlight that for you all. I say President Obama, you say? I say a president whose policies are doing lasting damage to the United States of America. The Iran nuclear deal.

Terrible deal. It definitely ought to be rejected by the Congress. Should Guantanamo stay open? Yes. Any regrets about going into Iraq? No, it was the right thing to do then. I believed it then and I believed it then. No apologies.

I believe that was 14 years after the invasion? Yeah, yeah. Pretty remarkable. Yeah, anyway. I guess the world looks pretty good from whatever farm in Wyoming he was on. Yeah, interesting. Somehow the lasting damage of policies comment was directed to Obama and not in the mirror. Yeah, not the Iraq war.

Been in a typically classy move, Trump has not yet put out a statement of any kind of about Dick Cheney. Now there's Obama as of this recording, which I will see. Heavy D. Gets one. Yeah, yeah. Which I kind of admire if you can stick to that. Yeah, sure. Why not? Well, because there's something performative about this. Very much so.

I'm not trying to be a jerk or something, but it's like I don't like Dick Cheney. And I don't know, I get why his friends want to say nice things about him, but I don't know why we all have to pretend like he was a selfless public servant to try to advance the democracy. Like, I don't think that's what he did. This is the giant white space that, like, people refuse to just. acknowledge is possible to you as a public figure. Saying nothing is available. You don't have to say you can just say nothing? Yes.

You don't have to glorify these people? Like the old Charlie Kirk thing is like, or you can just say nothing by your tongue. Yeah. Or to wait a few weeks. Yeah. Like, I don't know. Anyway, we got a great show for you guys today. We're not going to talk any more about Dick Cheney.

So kind of dealt with it. Done. Yeah. We're going to cover, we're going to explain why President Trump started threatening to invade Nigeria. That's the thing that happened. You'll be shocked to learn that he doesn't even have the best handle on the facts. We'll also update.

you on the latest from Sudan, where a rebel group called the RSF captured the last city under Sudanese government control in the Darfur region and is committing atrocities at such a massive scale that you can reportedly see the carnage from space. A truly horrifying story. We'll explain why Trump's plan to resume testing nuclear weapons. It's like maybe his dumbest idea ever been? Yes. It's like top five, right? It's concerning. Okay, we'll get to it. We'll explain why FBI director Cash Mattel is very mad online and he's not at all defensive. And if you say that, he might sue you. We'll talk about the controversy

over detainee abuse that is rocking Israel but not for the reasons that you might expect or prefer to expect. The two big elections in the Netherlands and Ireland that might give you a little hope

will explain why America's refugee policy is now just overtly racist not a complicated story. And then finally Prince Andrew gets slapped in the face again. It's a good show today.

Good show today. And then Ben, you did our interview. I did. I talked to Sanamaran the former Prime Minister of Finland, who has a new bookout, Hope and Action. It's a memoir of her time as Prime Minister.

We talked about her view of Russia and the invasion of Ukraine. She obviously brought Finland into NATO. We talk about that decision. Bring that up to date. You know, how is she looking at the situation with Zelensky and looking at the war now? Talk about battling far-right politics. But also, like, really interestingly, you know,

she writes about, we actually told her before the interview that we once had a episode titled Let Santa Mir and Dance. And she liked that. Okay, good. But she went through all these faux scandals that she writes about that basically had to do with her being a woman with a life, you know, under 40, including the famous picture of her dancing that got some people all bent out of shape. But we talked about, like, does that disincentivize normal people from going into politics? Does that discentivize women from going into politics? what is it about our culture that, you know, we particularly put young women through those kinds of, quote-unquote, scandals.

So that was like a really interesting conversation because actually, Tommy, I worry about this a lot. Like, how many normal people look at politics and are like, I don't do that, you know? No, thank you. And so the way she was treated definitely, you know, trends in the wrong direction. But obviously she wants people to get involved. So check it out. It's an especially acute problem for progressive women, just progressives generally. I mean, Donald Trump was videotaped dancing with Jeffrey Epstein.

at a party at Mara Lago, and everyone just seemed to memory hold. Yeah, yeah. Here we are. Anyway, stick around for that great interview. Also, for those of you who are subscribers and members of our friends of the pod community, you get a bonus Q&A that comes from the Pod Save the World Discord. If you want to join and be a part of that discord, go to cricket.com slash friends. All right, Ben, let's talk about Nigeria.

Yeah. Didn't know that we'd start here. Yeah. Nor did I. So Donald Trump is suddenly very, very worried about events in Nigeria. On Friday, he named Nigeria a country of particular concern, which is the designation given to countries that, according to the State Department, have engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom. Then on Saturday, Trump posted the following on truth social. Quote, if the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance in Nigeria.

And we may very well go into that now disgrace country, guns ablazing, to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these. horrible atrocities. Okay. And then here's a clip of Trump talking about Nigeria on Air Force One from Sunday. He envisages a lot of things. So much envisaged. I envisaged many things. So what the hell happened that prompted this, you ask? Well, it turns out, according to NBC news, that Trump saw a report about Nigeria on Fox News.

Of course. Great way to make policy. Great way to go to war. So I have not seen that segment yet. I'm positive. You don't need to see it. Yeah, we know what it was about. You know what it looked like.

So there's this belief among evangelicals that there's been this wave of anti-Christian violence in Nigeria to the point of it being a genocide. I'm sure it was about that. And so that led to these. social media posts from Trump and then this massive scramble within the government to like catch up to whatever he was talking about. I saw one report, Ben, that said staffers at Africom got like an emergency call to come back to the office and they were just scrambling to figure

out military options to respond to a genocide against Christians that's not actually happening. So that's great. So to be clear that like there's a lot of violence in Nigeria. In the northeastern part of Nigeria, there's a terrorist group called Boca Haram that has launched brutal attacks on civilians, including on churches and mosques. Don't confuse and Woko Haram, which did wage war on Twitter in the 2018-2019 period in a pretty brutal fashion. But so that region, northeastern Nigeria, it's predominantly Muslim, and the majority of Boko Haram's

victims are thus Muslims because they live in that community. Yes. Don't take my word for it. Key detail. Yeah. So last month, Massad Balus, who is Tiffany Trump's father-in-law, said the following, people of all religions and of all tribes are dying. We even know that Boko Haram and ISIS are killing more Muslims than Christians.

Yes. That this is not specifically targeted at one group or another. Again, Trump's advisor. In central Nigeria, there's clashes between these Muslim andomatic cattle herders and mostly Christian farmers. But that fighting is over scarce land and water resources, not like jihadist ideology. But this idea that there's a genocide against Christians is big among Republicans in Congress. It's big from Ted Cruz talks about it a lot. And then the reaction in Nigeria to all of this has just been like confusion, I think.

Understandably so. The president of Nigeria, Bolotanubu. He's a Muslim guy, but he's married to a Christian woman who's a male. minister. So the idea that he's fomenting a sectarian warfare seems unlikely feels off. The truth is, like, it's really hard to combat terrorist groups, especially in the country like Nigeria that is huge, has lots of ungoverned spaces, among other problems. So, Ben, like, all you can kind of do is laugh at something this crazy. But can you just imagine how freaked out like your average Nigerian was? Like one day you wake up, the president of the United States is threatening to invade you. And also,

like, the country is half Muslims, half Christian. There are sectarian tensions, and this is just going to pour gas on them. Yeah, there's so many things that are crazy about this. I mean, you put your finger on one that really does matter because it's easy to chuckle at, but it's so obvious that he will occasionally just see some segment on Fox or OAN, or he'll, like, have a conversation with some visiting MAGA influencer. And then, like, all of a sudden we're on, like, the cusp of war, or we're terrifying this country, or he's, like, demanding the arrest of some foreign leader.

That is fucking weird. And as he gets older, you know, another thing that we're beginning to, I think, have to talk about a little more, like this impulse control problem could get worse, you know. And there's nobody around him there to say, you know, in Trump Parlin's, sir, maybe we can put that one in the drafts folder, you know. Right. Right. Because Nigeria is the largest country in Africa. Like, he's, he's literally threatening to. 230 million people. He's literally threatening to invade a massive country that does not have this problem. Like Boko Haram has been around for a long time. They're an awful group. They kill indiscriminate of, like, religion. Like, as you said, they killed majority Muslims. There's literally no possible constructive U.S. military engagement that I could imagine whatsoever. Like, so this is kind of either a completely bizarre and disastrous threat if it actually leads to some action, or it's just kind of a bizarre thing to do to just kind of. have threatened to go to war with the largest country in Africa, with a lot of racialized language,

too, you know, like we bad things happening in that part of the world. And, you know, so. Now disgraced country. Nothing, yeah, nothing. Because you watch Fox. Well, and actually, like, to be serious about it, you know, if you want to look at the geopolitics of this, like, Nigeria is a massively important country, right? We talk about competition with China. Like, well, what a great way to just signal that, like, get as far away from the Americans as possible, like, sign up to every belt road initiative you can, Nigerians, because we are not reliable. Like, these things actually. matter in the real world. There's going to be 400 billion people in Nigeria by 2050. They're having

explosive population growth. Like this is a huge, important country. Yeah. Yeah. And he's just now, this will be the thing that they, you know, know, know about Trump. And just one more point on this, because we beat this drum a lot, but this is the man who promised to end forever wars, you know. And the same time that he's like on the verge of regime change war in Venezuela and blowing up boats, he's threatening to invade, you know, guns. a blazing Nigeria, like, does not feel like very ending of the Forever Warish to me. No, no, it does not. And also part of what makes the concern about a fake genocide against Christians in Nigeria

so galling in this moment is that there's an actual genocidal massacre happening as we speak in Sudan that I don't think I've seen them comment on. No, and actually, I'm glad you say that because one of the thing that really bug me about this is like the clear prioritization of Christians, you know. I mean, genocides against other religions are fine. It just feels like, and we'll get to this with the refugees too, like we care about white people and Christians and maybe sometimes Jews if they're Israelis. And we like everybody else is a second class global citizen, right? That's fucking dark.

Yeah, it is really dark. And it is like codified into policy now. Yeah. And so let's talk more about Sudan. So last week we talked about the fall of this city of El Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region. They had been under siege for 18 months, and then finally troops aligned with the Sudanese government just abandoned the city. And they allowed it to be taken by a militia group called the Rapid Support Forces or RSF. So civilians in Elfashir were already in the midst of a famine.

They were eating animal feed to survive. But the violence since the RSF has taken over has been like Rwanda genocide levels of horrific. The humanitarian research lab at Yale, they were looking at Elfashire via satellite imagery. They said they have seen a, quote, explosion of. objects that are the size and shape of dead bodies on the ground and that there is discoloration around those clusters of bodies from all the blood. In other words, you can see the bloodstains from the massacres from space. We also have RSF soldiers posting videos of themselves, executing civilians and then bragging about it. Men and boys are being separated from women

and being summarily executed. The women are being abducted. The World Health Organization said the RSF executed basically everyone they could find at the last remaining working hospital in Elfashire, something like, 500 people just executed. And then maybe most chillingly, Ben, so when El Fasher fell, there were believed to be about 260,000 people left in the city. But according to the Norwegian refugee council, less than 6,000 people have made it to the nearest refugee camp. And those that did had to survive like a 40-mile multi-day journey. And when they got there, they had stories about torture and beatings and witnessing executions as El Fasher fell. And it just really makes you wonder,

like, where are the rest of those people? Save the Children sent us this clip from a staffer in Sudan who has been in touch with folks on the ground in Darfur. Her name is Odette. Nanatumbara, here it is. Our teams responding in Tarwila tell us that many of the families and children coming through Tawila are arriving with nothing. Recent stats from MSF show that out of the 70 children under-f,

screened for malnutrition, 100% of those who were found to be malnourished. Now, these results are deeply worrying, considering that many children as well are witnessing killings lost their family members or were separated from their loved ones. Some now are living alone or with a host family who themselves are struggling to cope. So, you know, ethnic violence is driving a lot of these atrocities. The RSF is predominantly Arab. The Yale Lab said the RSF, quote, appears to be in a systematic and intentional process of ethnically cleansing of indigative non-Arab communities through forced displacement in summary execution. So, Ben, as we noticed last week, the world has ignored this civil war pretty much for years. tragically back in 2005, evangelical Christians were a huge part of the Save Darfur coalition that drew attention to that last genocide. Now I guess they're focused on Nigeria or just they don't care anymore. As discussed, the United States has completely failed to put pressure on the United Arab Emirates

to stop funneling arms to the RSF. In fact, the UAE has increased those shipments over the last few months and now USAID no longer exists to help people who escape. So I guess the question is like, what the hell should the international community do now? Well, I think that the core way to think about what's happening in Sudan is this is the absence of any international order or system, right? Because normally there actually is like a pretty clear playbook about how you'd approach this. Now, remember, this all had roots in the fact that there was like a popular uprising that ousted a war criminal president of Sudan. And that was supposed to create some transition to democracy. Now, what inevitably happened is the regional powers did not want to see a transition to democracy.

Some of them back to the Sudanese military and some of them like the UAE backed this RSF force. But in a normal system, the international community would come in and say, okay, wait a second, like stop arming people in this proxy war, UAE, you know, if we, the U.S. are not going to sell you any more weapons so long as you do that, like exert a little bit of leverage there. You have some kind of UN, you know, security council resolution aimed at kind of promoting. like a process for a ceasefire. You have, you know, international diplomats who go in and negotiate that. And then you'd have mechanisms of international assistance, like USAID, working with others to, like, surge resources to people on the ground. None of those things exist now.

Like, there's no political will to put pressure on countries like the UAE that are funding the arms. There's not really the apparatus of the UN Security Council that can, you know, mount some initiative and set up a diplomatic process to get to a ceasefire. There's far less international assistance to consider. surge in. So what we're doing is we're seeing this is what it's like to not have an international system that works. These are the kinds of things that can happen. And all people seem to be able to do about it is comment on how people aren't commenting on it enough. Yep. Yep. And I do think,

like, talking about the stuff matters because the UAE keeps denying that they're funneling arms to the RSF. Nobody does. It's like well documented. There's a UN panel of experts report. There's tons of press reporting. Like, there's a base in Chad that the UAE was using. The country have found all kinds of weapons from the UK or from China that we know were sold to the UAE and thus they must have given them to the RSF. And, you know, the RSF forces, so the UAE has this relationship with this guy, Hameti, who is the leader of the RSF that dates back a decade because they used RSF guys to fight in Yemen, which is pretty fucking bleak.

The UAE was trying to build a port, as we discussed, you know, last week in Sudan and trying to build a relationship there to sort of extend their power. and they have this strange relationship with Sudan where all the Sudanese gold comes to the UAE. Yes, yeah. These economic interests. But my God, I mean, you think that like a little bit of naming and shaming

like this would go a long way, but so far they're just, they're still in this denial phase. It doesn't seem to matter as much as it did to name and shame because we're in this kind of post-rules world. And yeah, part of the other concerning thing underneath the surface here is like gold is suddenly much more valuable, right?

Which makes sense at a time when the world looks like it's falling apart, people turn to gold. The problem with that is as gold gets more valuable, we see this kind of return to this resource plunder kind of foreign policy from some people. And look, the U.S. has been one of them in the past. And I do worry that in addition to showing what happens when there's no functioning international system, we're kind of seeing the beginnings of what could be some pretty bloody efforts. We've already seen the DRC, similar kind of resource wars. you know, that has a potential to, uh, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, a little bit of sense of what people are trying to do about it. So Chris Van Hollen and Sarah

Jacobs, Senator Chris Van Hollen, Congresswoman Jacobs, the dangers to build a halt U.S. Weapons exports the UAE until they stop supporting the RSF. That's not going to go anywhere under Trump, but like, good on them. The right approach. Yeah. Senator Jim Rish, a Republican has, wants to designate the RSF, a terrorist group. I don't know if that's the right approach, but it would cause them some real problems. better than like inventing fictional terrorist groups to blow boats out of the water in the, you know, Caribbean. Yeah, that's a good point. And also if Sudan gets partitioned, then basically the RSF controls the West and the Sudanese militia calls the East. I mean, that could, you know, create a new context. There were talks. There were, you know, held but another group called the Quad. It was the U.S., the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. That didn't do much because, again, a lot of those countries treat Sudan like a proxy for their battles.

One thing we did want to just highlight quickly, Ben, both of us saw this particularly. ghoulish article in the Jewish insider that accused mostly progressives calling out the atrocities by the RSF. It accused them of selective Sudan outrage. Again, like, so it's like so ridiculous. I don't even know where to be in. Like so the point of the article is basically like, what about the Sudanese government? Why aren't you calling them out to they have Muslim brother brotherhood kind of influences or something. And I just found it so galling because I guarantee you, like there's no fans of the Sudanese government out there of the Sudanese military. But for years, they kind of what about as a muta always hear from people defending the war in Gaza was that liberals

were hypocrites because they're not talking about the atrocities in Sudan. And now Jewish insider is attacking critics of the militia group that's conducting a genocide. And again, like the RSF is, both sides are bad, but they're particularly evil. Like they grew out of the Janjaweed militias that conducted the last genocide. And the difference now is instead of being on horseback, they have, like, brand new military equipment from the UAE that they're using a slaughter people. Yeah, and if your whole argument is constantly what aboutism,

like that's a tell that you don't really want to defend things on facts. And look, the paradigm here, it's not subtle. It's like, for a long time, the what aboutism was, oh, progressives, like, why do you care about Gaza and you don't care about Sudan? Which is a way of avoiding the facts of Gaza and to say, well, there are even more people being killed here. never mind the fact that people cared about Gaza because it was U.S. weapons doing the killing.

And then now all of a sudden people start talking a lot about Sudan and they're talking about the RSF. But, you know, the UAE is an Abraham Accords country. It's like a, you know, country that like has been the most stalwart supporter of Israel in the Arab world. And so now we're like going to defend them. It just, you know what, like what the RSF doing is like grotesque atrocity. it's supported by the UAE, that's why people are talking about it, you know. Frankly, it looked like the conflict in Sudan as terrible as had been was nearing an end, and the Sudanese military was winning.

Again, not because they're all good guys, but like I'd rather the conflict come to an end. And frankly, it probably makes sense that the corrupt military of the country is a more legitimate actor than like a rogue militia that did some like fighting in Yemen. You know, like, so it's not saying they're good. It's just saying that it makes kind of sense that the RSF is not going to be governing Sudan. So this stuff drives me nuts because it just shows you how everything becomes a proxy for some other thing that is about selective outrage and what aboutism. And no, it is not wrong to single out the RSF and the UE for scrutiny in this context. Yeah. And those who have a problem with that are literally defending the indefensible.

So, yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay, so the other big question kind of out there in either right now, Ben, about the Trump administration's foreign policy is whether the United States is about to start testing nuclear weapons again. Yes. This started, of course, because of a truth social post. So last week, Trump posted the following, quote, because of other countries testing programs, I've instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.

Don't tell them that the Department of Energy. Yeah, they don't manage a nuclear stockpile, but small detail. Details, details, it's only nukes. So this statement was seemingly in response to Russian president of Vladimir Putin, who last week announced that Russia had tested an underwater nuclear drone that can create a tsunami and take out a coastal city, so he says, as well as a nuclear powered cruise missile that flew for over 15 hours. But critically, both of those cases involve Russia testing the delivery system for a nuclear weapon, not the nuclear weapon itself.

It's a nuclear detonation. And that distinction is a really big deal because the U.S. hasn't tested a nuclear weapon since 1992. In 1996, we signed, along with many other countries, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty or CTBT. Before that treaty, the world's nuclear powers carried out over 2,000 nuclear tests. But since the CTBT, there have only been 10 total nuclear tests, two by India, two by Pakistan, and then six by Trump's buddies over in North Korea. So this is a good thing for a lot of reasons to state the obvious, like, militarily, the status quo benefits the United States because the U.S. conducted a little over half of the 2000

in nuclear tests, which means we have more data about nuclear detonations than any other country, and we can use that information to create computer models to test our nuclear arsenal with computers. The Russians are next with about 700 tests. China has only done 45 tests. So if the world starts testing nukes again, it would really, really, really benefit China, which is the middle of a massive buildup of its nuclear arsenal, and I'm sure would love nothing more than more data to refine those nukes as they go. It's also, I mean, again, to state the obvious was really bad to fill the atmosphere with

nuclear radiation all the time. But judging then by this exchange, Trump had with 60 minutes as Nora O'Donnell, it's not clear that he understands the distinction or really the issue at all. Let's watch. Less than an hour before your meeting with President Xi, you posted on social media that you instructed the, quote, Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons immediately. Right. Immediately. What did you mean? Well, we have more nuclear weapons than any other country. I think we should do something about denuclearization and I did actually discuss that with both President Putin and

President Xi we have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world a hundred and fifty times Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons and China will have a lot they have some they have quite a bit so why do we need to test our nuclear weapons well because you have to see how they work you know you do have to and the reason I'm saying testing is because Russia announced that they were going to be doing a test. If you notice North Korea is testing constantly. Other countries are testing. We're the only country that doesn't test. And I want to be, I don't want to be the only country that doesn't test. Are you saying that after more than 30 years, the United States is going

to start detonating nuclear weapons? I'm saying that we're going to test nuclear weapons, like other countries do, yes. But the only country that's testing nuclear weapons is North Korea. China and Russia. Russia's testing nuclear weapons. So my understanding. And China's testing them too. you just don't know about it. That would be certainly very newsworthy. My understanding is what Russia did recently was test essentially the delivery systems for nuclear weapons, essentially missiles, which we can do that, but not with nuclear weapons. Russia's testing and China's testing, but they don't talk about it.

That's wrong. Okay, so Trump's team kind of scramble to clean this up, the energy secretary and the head of the U.S. Strategic Command, both seem to walk the statements back, but you never know with Trump. Ben, I've lots of thoughts on why this is so dumb, but please, go off. Well, first of all, if there were tests of nuclear weapons, right, like secret tests, we would know about it. Like, you can't hide. Pretty easy to pick that up. You cannot hide the detonation of nuclear device.

So just in case anybody was wondering, there wasn't some big reveal there about the Chinese. Like, I just, we would be able to tell if someone detonated a nuclear device. This is completely... That's like a collection priority number 1A. Yeah, you can see that kind of thing. There's satellites, right? Now, this would be terrible. CTBT has been one of the most effective international treaties in post-World War II era.

Frankly, we tried to get it ratified in the Senate and the Obama years and didn't go anywhere because Republicans wouldn't ratify the treaty, but we basically act as if we're in line with the treaty. But the reason why is it doesn't take a genius. Like, if you start breaking again the norm of nuclear testing, A, that's potentially environmentally catastrophic. But also, you're just kind of loosening the norms on nukes in ways that then other countries start testing. Believe me, if the U.S. starts testing nuclear weapons, the Chinese and Russians will do that. We're back at peak Cold War. Other countries that are like nuclear curious. India and Pakistan.

Yeah, might start saying, like, we got to start testing or we, if we don't have nuclear weapons, we have to get them. But the thing that really worries me about this, Tommy, is that, look, we've done on this podcast, like World War Watch, it's concerning. There's already big war in Europe. There's been big war in the Middle East. now we've got like the fascistic president in this country you look out at this collection of goons in the world and it's trump and it's she and it's Putin and it's Modi and whoever is holding the button on the Pakistani nuclear stockpile and we know we're going to go through some like bumpy times here we know this there's not going to be a soft landing out of this period in history the thing that we can't survive is if this suddenly gets linked up all this conflict and ego and nationalism and narcissism and old men and toxicism and toxicism. if all that becomes a nuclear question, like we're fucked, you know? Like anything else, we can survive an economic collapse.

We can the AI, like, shuts down the power grid or, like, there's a crucial. You can even survive the east wing. Yeah, we can even survive the east wing being knocked down. We can even survive Dick Cheney passing away, right? But this is just the one thing that needs to stay off limits. Like, please, just keep this one on the other side of the lock and key here, because you start bringing back nuclear weapons with this current crowd

that's running this collection of countries and it just, you're just suddenly starting to play like much higher stakes. Yeah. And like it's, you can't overstate how much this doesn't make sense just like militarily.

Like the weapons, Putin tested, weren't new. And they're not game changers in any way. Like apparently even Russian researchers are skeptical that this like tsunami underwater drone thing will work. And like,

even if it did, a tsunami drone is not more threatening to our security than a Russian nuclear sub with 16 ballistic missiles that each carry a half a dozen warheads. That's a little more of a threat to us. And the nuclear cruise missile, apparently the U.S. was testing nuclear cruise missile technology in the 1960s.

And we're like, you know what, we don't need this? Because we have ICBMs. And what those do is they go into space and they come back down at Mach 20. Really fast, yeah. And they're really hard to take out because they have multiple warheads and decoys and shit. And so, like, neither of these weapons changes

the strategic calculus of mutually assured destruction that is behind our theory. But part of what is concerning about this to take it seriously is the reason Putin is designing all these new delivery systems is because he has this paranoia about U.S. missile defense, right? And so he's tried to figure out these different ways, like underwater missiles and tsunamis and all the rest of it. This is kind of Putin's kind of mad response to U.S. missile defense. By the way, U.S. missile defense is also pretty fucking crazy.

And kind of bullshit. Because it's bullshit. We know it doesn't work anywhere near 100% of the time. More like 50%. You and I actually were chatting about House of Dynamite, this new Netflix movie, that in which the U.S. missile defense misses an incoming nuclear weapon, and they basically say, well, it's 50-50 chance. And actually, the Department of War put out a statement,

and being like, it is 100%. And that's bullshit, right? But if people start trying to figure out how to win nuclear wars, right, whether it's Putin developing new delivery systems or the U.S. building a Golden Dome member Trump is going to build that. Like, that scares the shit out of me because mutually assured, as long as there are nuclear weapons, like the only fallback against them being used is mutually sure destruction. If these guys start competing and testing things to try to figure out how to like beat the other guy's defenses,

what are you suggesting? You're suggesting the nuclear war could be fought and that should be off the table. Or could be one. Yeah, I mean, that's the scary thing, right? Like Project 2025, those guys want to go back to come. kind of like the scariest Cold War days when we are trying to win the race to produce the most nukes. What is it with these fucking guys? It's nuts, man. And again, I was talking to this, to an expert last week, because I just called around to be like, like, am I missing something here?

Nope. This person said that a nuclear cruise missile, like the one that they, the Russians allegedly tested, would be much easier to intercept. Again, than an ICBM going Mach 20. We have cruise missile defenses. In part because, like you said, like, we had this missile defense system that like, I feel like the, the success. rate was like 60% in the most possible favorable conditions favorable conditions possible. Which doesn't like, but again, 50% 60% that doesn't do much for you when we're talking about like nuclear annihilation. No. Like 100%. Yeah. So anyway, like this makes this is crazy. Reving testing back up would take years. It would cost billions. People in Nevada would lose our minds. Yeah, where the fuck are you going to test this stuff? This is all nuts. And it's such bad politics. I just can't believe he, but he's like, he's such an arrogant prick. Like he knows he's screwed up, but he's like not willing. to back down to Noro Donald there

in the face of like incontrovertible facts. Well, and even says things when he tries to sound like the normal, rational person, like, you know, it's crazy that we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world 150 times. It somehow seems more unsettling just having him say those words out loud

because you know he's the person who literally has the sole authority to launch American nuclear weapons, you know, like it's just all up to this guy, you know? I mean, it should make people think about why we don't consider that a little bit more when we vote, You know, Trump doesn't seem the kind of character

that would have gotten in the Cold War when a nuclear war seemed like it's something that could actually happen. So, like, maybe this will sober people up. I mean, we've talked about him threatening to invade Nigeria, start nuclear weapons testing. Like, this is, like, at a certain point, his, again, his aging and his impulse control

and his sycophantic circle, who is saying no to this guy? And that should be, you know, on nuclear weapons testing or invading Nigeria, like there should be people there, like, bring back the committee to save America or whatever there was, like, just who will actually say no to this guy? Yeah, where yet, Jim Mattis.

Yeah, I know. Normally Trump's comments on nuclear weapons are referring to it as the other N-word at rallies because that gets a little titter out of people. So that's all cool. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As seasons change and days grow darker sooner, it can be a tough time for many. I feel this one. This November BetterHelp is encouraging everyone to reach out.

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slash crooked world. Okay. So nuclear annihilation, it's a bit heavy. So let's lighten things up for a bit and talk about our buddy Cash Patel. One of those yes men. One of those yes men, one of our favorite yes men. So Ben, you guys probably know Ben and I are not the biggest fans of FPI director Cash Patel. He is absolutely unequivocally not qualified to do the job. He clearly got the job because he wrote a book that had a literal enemies list. And then he's shown that he's willing to go after the people Trump hates. And a book where Trump is like a wizard, right? Yeah, there's a kid's book too. Yeah. Yeah, there's a wizard. It's the worst. Anyway, so this week, Cash has been big mad after getting his ass kicked up and down social media. So at issue is Cash's

use of the FBI's government jet. Now, to be fair, Cash Patel, the FBI director, is required by law to use government aircraft when you travel because you have to have to have. access to like secure comms equipment at all times. But there is no law requiring that the FBI director fly to see his girlfriend sing the national anthem at some low rent real American freestyle wrestling event at Penn State, nor does the law require that you give her a ride home to the city of Nashville where you don't actually live, which is what he did. It also does not require you to post photos of all this stuff on fucking social media, you stupid goober. So the story blew up when a former FBI agent who turned into this right-wing influencer type, tweeted about Cash's trip. But again, it wasn't

some state secret. Like, you can track the FBI director's flight schedule using online tracking services. And again, Cash reposted photos of himself with his girlfriend at the events. You didn't have to be like an FBI agent to figure this out. However, that did not stop Cash Patel from flipping out and blaming others for his stupidity. Bloomberg News reported that Patel forced out an official overseeing aviation operations at the FBI. And he posted this Bill Ackman length tweet about it all, declaring that he will not be distracted

by quote, uninformed internet anarchists. What? And he pretended that people were going after his girlfriend, not him and was like trying to act like how beyond the pale that was. So this is verbatim Ben.

The disgusting baseless attacks against Alexis, that's his girlfriend. A true patriot and the woman I'm proud to call my partner in life are beyond pathetic. She is a rock solid conservative and a country music sensation who has done more for this nation

than most will intend. lifetimes. I'll never forget in your wedding vows when you're like, Anna's a true patriot. Ten lifetimes. A true patriot. Isn't this woman like 26 years old too or something? Yes, she's very young. That may be the wrong age. No, I think she's 26. It's also very important to note here that she is absolutely not a country music sensation. This clip will explain why. Okay, so finally, Ben, what makes this whole mess just too perfect is this clip from 2023 of Cash Patel offering his thoughts on former FBI director Christopher Ray's use of government planes. Let's watch. I'm not saying take all their funding. I'm not to defund everything guy.

I'm just saying Chris Ray doesn't need a government funded G5 jet to go to vacation. Maybe we ground that plane. 15,000 every time it takes off. Just a thought. Minimum. Maybe we ground that plane, Ben. There is a podcast clip for everything, isn't there, Tommy? It's remarkable. I mean, look, the one thing I'd add is this guy also seems to spend like a tremendous amount of time online. Oh, yeah. You know, he's so traitor. And part of his constant tough guy defense is like, I'm so busy catching bad guys that I don't have time to worry about you fucking trolls.

But all he's doing is clearly sitting on his fucking phone at the FBI headquarters between private jet rides to see his girlfriend, shitty country singer who's only getting gigs because she's dating the FBI director. Catching bad guys and baddies, yeah. I mean, if this isn't a grift, I don't know what is. Right? I mean, this guy's just living a fucking fantasy camp of FBI director.

You know, he's like, he's training and like, you know, Quantico with the agents and posting like social media picks of him looking like a tough guy. He's like, you know, going to see his, you know, Charlie Kirk and Valhalla and some weird the cryptic things. That's really under-discussed. I'll see you in Bahala, brother. What?

What is, we're just living through this act. And guess what? Here's the thing I would say, there are real-life criminals that Casper Tell is not catching. Like his boss? When he's on the private jet ride to like the Penn State wrestling match that he's going to attend, like, there's white-collar criminals, there's crypto scammers, there's money launderers, there's international terrorist organizations. There are these narco traffickers that they're always telling us about. Is cash on the case? Or is he just dunking on like some Midas touch.

bought that triggered him online, you know? Well, this is the best part, Ben. It's not, it's not like the lefties that are getting him so mad. He is getting killed by, like, Info Wars. I watched this long segment of this dude just going so hard at cash, but we couldn't clip it because he uses the F slur over and over again. It was, like, crazy. But it's like the far right is going nuts on Patel on this, which is why he's getting so

mad. Because look at that podcast clip. He pissed on their legs about the Epstein files about ending corruptions. about ending corruption the FBI about all these things. And like, you know, now he's clearly not delivering the goods for those guys. No. And by the way, now, now Cash Patel has made it to services like Flight Aware can no longer track his flight. So he took his G5 and went home.

Yeah, G5 went dark, you know. I'm sure we'll find you another way, you moron. Yeah, because we'll see you at the fucking wrestling match that you flew to, you know. It's not... Glad you're having a good time, Cash. Enjoy the plane. Well, and you can't... I mean, one more thing about this, too, because this is a lot of the snowflakes in the Trump administration are like this.

You can't, like, simultaneously be this, like, hyper public person, you know? You're in a position of Senate confirmed responsibility. You're online all the time. You're, like, showing up at events. And then want total privacy. And your girlfriend's a mega influencer. Like, she's not some private, like, citizen. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She's like trying to be a country star. She tweets all day about mega shit. Like, I'm not going after her, but, like, don't act like this person is not out there, too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she's just trying to take her country back, Tommy. Yep, she wants her country back. Okay, that was cathartic. Okay, back to some really bleak shit. So this story comes out of Israel. So, Ben, last summer, listeners probably remember this horrific story of the abuse of a Palestinian prisoner at the Sadaetimon Military Detention Center that just exploded into the media. So the details of the abuse are, like, truly awful. This guy was brutally clubbed and kicked and beaten for about 15 full minutes. He was shocked with a taser.

and his resulting injuries were life-threatening and required surgery, including a severe injury to his rectum after being raped with a foreign object. Like, that's what these monsters did to him in the span of 15 minutes. And the injuries were so bad that this guy needed to get medical treatment outside of this detention facility, which got it on the radar screen of Israeli military police that they launched an investigation. So after this investigation was launched, five Israeli reservists were charged with assault. and in response to those charges, there was this, like, massive right-wing backlash and freak out. Like, the worst right-wing political leaders were stoking this. And protesters even stormed the detention facility. I think two detention facilities to try to, like, stop the prosecution.

Right-wing leaders were calling, like, the IDF lawyers were saying they were on the side of Hamas. You know, it's just sort of like the worst politics. So fast forward about a month later, a video of the assault was leaked to Channel 12 news in Israel. and you can see in the video like this detainee gets taken aside. He's surrounded by soldiers. They hold up riot shields to block what they're doing from view. And then 15 minutes later, they literally drag this man back to the other detainees and he can't even walk. It's like awful.

So fast forward to last week on Friday, on Friday, the IDF military advocate general, major general, Yifat Tomeril Shalmi. She resigned taking responsibility for leaking the video. And then on Sunday, she was arrested, but only after this like, surgery. range period of time where she kind of disappeared on the beach. Do you see all this? Yeah. Like they found her car on the beach. I did.

Yeah. No one could hear from her. There was a weird cryptic note. And there's, everyone seems to think like, people thought she might have killed herself. Um, at a minimum she seems to have tossed her cell phone into the ocean. So, uh, I'm not sure that's going to work, by the way. Yeah. Usually those things are backed up in the cloud.

Yeah. It's such a thing. Tough. Anyway, now she's being prosecuted both for leaking the video, but also for lying about it. So just stepping back. It's important to note that the reaction to all of this in, Israel is primarily anger about the leak itself. Yeah.

Not the underlying activities. So the Israeli defense minister Israel Katz accused Tomor Yerl Sharmi of spreading blood libel. And Bibi Netanyahu said the leak, quote, caused enormous reputational damage to Israel, to the IDF and to our soldiers. He didn't say the soldiers' actions caused the damage to the reputation. He said the leak did. Katz also said the next person in that role must, quote, not initiate or take part in blood libel that will defame IDF soldiers harm their honor.

and expose them to persecution throughout the world. So I guess they just get a pass if they do stuff like this in the future. It's also important to note that this detention facility was notorious for detaining abuses and human rights groups accuse Tomri Yol Shalmi of turning a blind eye to those abuses over the course of the war until this one incident finally kind of became public. And also been just like as long as we're talking about coverups, the Washington Post reported that the state department's inspector general said the IDF has committed so many potential violations of U.S. human rights,

law in Gaza, that it will take multiple years to review them all, assuming they even try. So just an incredibly dark story about, you know, kind of like the lingering worst abuses of the war in Gaza. There's just something deeply sick about government and society where the crime is leaking the evidence of the criminal activity and not the absolute brutal dehumanization of somebody in your custody, you know, I mean, this, we see this pattern. time and again, too, that there's this effort to kind of obfuscate any examination of facts. You know, it's either we don't, like, you wonder why there's still no international journalist allowed into Gaza, right?

How many, how many weeks ago was the, quote unquote, ceasefire? And they still won't even let people in just to see the aftermath of the destruction of Gaza. This kind of any information leaking out of this prison system gets, like, brutally, suppressed. The next thing that happens when people talk about this is they'll probably say, like, what about Sudan? You know, anything, right, to just get the conversation off of this. And it does kind of speak to something that has always been a talking point that drove me insane in the Biden years, right? I mean, Trump doesn't even bother with it anymore. But used to you all the time from the Biden State Department when some horrible thing would happen and would leak out, well, Israel must do

an investigation. They're not going to investigate misconduct by the IDF. In fact, they're going to punish the people that reveal the misconduct by the IDF or whistleblowers, right? I just don't know how much more evidence people need. Yeah, and like I was trying to think about Abu Ghraib and some of the incidents of like detainee abuse or or abuse of POWs in the U.S. And like, I don't know. It hasn't been this bad. Like I don't remember a right-wing faction like storming the courthouse or storming Fort Bragg. But clearly, like, I think a lot of militaries like, you know, circle the wagons like this and protect their people at all costs.

What was bad? Yeah. What was bad about ours in Abu Ghraib and some of the others is that we tend to just kind of punish the low-level guys and action. In some cases, women in Abu Ghraib. But nobody else up the chain has to be responsible for creating the environment. But, yeah, this feels like a systemic effort to create a... culture of complete impunity for whatever people do in prisons or in warfare. And that's a recipe for like consistent war crimes. Yeah. And it just so focused on, I mean, this detainee was released back into Gaza without providing testimony. And the individual is described by the times

of Israel as basically like a Hamas police officer. He was not like yaya sin war. Yeah, he wasn't like paragliding on October 7th. Yeah, which like again wouldn't make it okay. Yeah, wouldn't make it okay. which sort of like shows you how random and seemingly widespread this violence was. And it seems like the military advocate general and a couple of her colleagues are in serious legal jeopardy because not just because they leaked this video, but because as soon as the video was leaked, there were all these calls to do a leak investigation. And then her office was tasked with doing it. So they basically faked a leak investigation and pretended they couldn't find the culprit because it was them. And they swear it some like sworn affidavit. So they lied, the obstructed justice.

Like it's a huge mess. and people are going to meet some serious trouble. Wow. You should run a tight shop like Pete Hagseth with them. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Just signal it out. All right, we're going to take a quick break.

But before we do, this is your last chance to get tickets at CricketCon in D.C. There's only about 50 tickets left. CricketCon is the event we're doing where other angry, hopeful, and otherwise exhausted people can get together and talk about the better future we're all fighting for. Our guests include Jen Saki, you know her, Ben Rhodes, Tim Miller, Mark Elias, Governor Andy Bashir, Senator Brian Schatz. a lot of great folks. I'm not going to name them all because then they get mad of you. You're just going to leave someone out. Too many great ones. If you can't make it, you can listen in and watch the content after on our YouTube channels and on our podcast feeds and on crookedcon.com. We're going to share the foreign policy panel we do on this feed. So enjoy that. Also, follow our socials if you want content throughout the day. Make sure to go to crookedcon.com to get tickets before they sell out for real. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-on-one one way. website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the necessary tools to claim your domain, build a professional website, expand your brand,

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some hopes and rare good news for fans of democracy and progressive politics. So let's start in Ireland where Catherine Connolly just won a landslide election to become Ireland's next president. This is a largely ceremonial role, but she does have to sign every bill before it becomes a law or refer to the Supreme Court to assess its constitutionality. So there is some power there. It was also a weird election. One of the top candidates decided not to run for health reasons. Another pulled out like 19 days before the election itself because of a corruption scandal. But the result was a clear effew to the establishment.

And Connolly's unabashedly lefty views on issues like Gaza have drawn comparisons to Bernie Sanders. And then over in the Netherlands. Oh, don't forget our buddy Connor McGregor, right? Yeah, he thought about running for a while, but he pulled out, right? He pulled out, yeah, yeah. What an idiot. Why do you want to run for president? Be the T-shock, did?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or clean up that cocaine problem. Okay. And then in the Netherlands, there was a 38-year-old centrist named Rob Yetten, who was part of the D66 party. He beat out a far right-wing populist name here to Vilders and his party for freedom. This was a very, very close race. It was basically decided by people, Dutch folks living abroad. But Dutch political analysts say that Yetten's optimistic, forward-looking message ultimately was more appealing to voters than Vilder's nativism and racism and Islamophobia. and he is on track to be the youngest and first openly gay prime minister in Dutch history.

The government formation process is a total mess because there's like a million parties and it'll take them a while to sort it all out. But hopefully this race can help others figure out a path to defeat these far right right wing populists. Ben, any big takeaways from these races from you? I think the Ireland one is interesting only insofar as like Ireland, despite its relatively small size, has kind of begun. I mean, you saw this most acutely on Gaza, but they've become. become a bit more of a spotlighted country speaking out on other things around the world. And they have this kind of weird credibility as like a European country that was colonized for hundreds of years and as people that are just pretty fucking awesome, if you know, Irish people. And as people that

are a little neutral, like they're like that big NATO country. So that's interesting. Is Ireland continues to be this kind of voice for the underdog in geopolitics and she'll do that. I think the Netherlands thing is really hopeful. Like, Gert Wilders has kind of been driving the train of Dutch politics recently. It's formed his party in 2006, the party for freedom. He's been around forever. He's been around forever. And he kind of broke through, like, Farage is breaking through in the UK now in the last election.

And it just kind of feel like something is stirring out there a bit with, like, younger, more unabashed parties, like, that are less afraid of taking on the far right. They're not tentative. they're not like the Democrats in this country like checking like 900 focus groups before they like go on a podcast you know I mean hopefully when we record you know we're recording this on Tuesday

hopefully tomorrow morning like we'll have had Zora and Mamdani went here and you know we obviously want to win the governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia but it does kind of feel like you know maybe I mean the Dutch thing is a little

too early to tell here but like it's the far right the establishment now And is there a younger, like if parties, if these center-left parties and left parties can just get fucking younger and less afraid of themselves, can we run... With less baggage. Yeah, with less baggage, can we just run as like authentic people who are outsiders and fighting against a far-right establishment? That is the message. Hopefully you could take away from all three elections, Ireland, the Netherlands, and assuming it goes well, the Mamdani one in particular. If Keir Starmor and the Labor Party in the UK

can take on like 13 years' worth of baggage in like a year or 10 months, certainly some of these far-right parties can own some of the events happening around the world. Absolutely, you know. And the fact that you don't really have solutions. Like, I mean, that guy, Gere Wilders has just been blaming immigrants for everything for 20 years.

You know, like, there's not a new... He's no new ideas on for... Yeah. And that was kind of the message against him. Like, look, we could talk about, like, actually fixing the economy or you can blame muscle people. Like, what's going to work?

Unfortunately, though, Ben, we do still have a right-wing populists in charge of our country? Shit. Along those lines. Trump has announced that he has decided to limit the number of refugees that will be admitted to the U.S. over the next year to 7,500 people, only 7,500 people, and that white South Africans, known as Afrikaners, who are French and Dutch descendants, are going to get priority.

7,500 is the lowest allotment of refugees in our nation's history. It's literally half of what Trump took in, or the limit Trump set in the first term. Biden set his target at 125,000 refugees. Of course, Trump also ignored a law that required him to consult with Congress on these matters. I'm sure Speaker Johnson is drafting a very harsh letter as we speak. So, Ben, it's just like the policy is just, it's so overtly racist and despicable. It's not surprising, you know, Trump paused refugee admissions back in January. So all these people are in limbo in the vetting process.

He's been pushing to get white South Africans to come to the United States for a long, ever since he saw some Tucker Carlson, you know, the segment on a white genocide of South African farmers in like 2019, but it is still disgusting. And just it also, it's kind of like, it really jumps out to me that there is not more outrage or clear condemnation of what is just like unequivocally a racist policy. Yes. Yes. Well, that's the thing. I mean, it's useful in that it just reminds you of how at core, if you peel back all the layers of Trumpism, there is just like a core of racism that is fundamental to the whole project. It's big. in it's not secondary, right?

This is the birther president. This is like the Stephen Miller boss, right? Like this is actually their worldview manifested in saying we're not going to take anybody but white South Africans, literally the people who did apartheid and were worried about them out of everything in the world. The other thing that bothers me about this is it's a moral abomination to slam the door on refugees. It's also going to make it harder.

it's going to incentivize other countries to stop taking refugees. It's going to leave all these people in this limbo. It's going to kind of break the international system that requires countries to take refugees in. I know that you can look at polls and refugees, support for refugees, polls like low. But in part, it's because nobody's been willing to defend these programs for like 10 years. Because actually, if you also look at polls, people tend to like the refugees in their communities. They're these hugely successful groups, the Vietnamese here in California. are a good example of people that have built extraordinary communities in this country

or refugees. But also importantly, Tommy, if your concern is, and this is an argument I've not heard people make, if you're concerned about, you know, immigration or the border, right, is this kind of sense it's out of control? Like there are all these people, tens of thousands of people crossing the border. We didn't know who they were. We didn't know, you know, where they were going. There is actually no more orderly process for admitting people in the United States than the

refugee. And like their vetting is so strong. They are vetted like crazy. They have to wait in line, like talk about coming through the front door, like you're applying for these slots. And so actually, if we ever could get back to in discussion about an actual legal immigration system that worked that had a very secure border that did not just let people to, like, cross the border with no process, a key part of that actually, I think, should be, like, a big refugee program because that's how you could get, like, an orderly process to admit a certain number of people who've been vetted and all the rest of it. So it's kind of a dumb thing to take aim at like the most rigorous part of the immigration system. It's just... I know that's not what...

They just don't want any black and brown people here and they want more white people here. So I'm not expecting them to do this, but someday I hope we can get back to that. Yeah, it would be nice. And you're right. You've got to make a case. Okay, Ben, our final story allows us to say, one last fuck you to the worst Duke since David, Prince Andrew. Last week, the palace announced that it has, quote, initiated a formal process to remove the title titles and honors of Prince Andrew,

a punishment the New York Times calls unheard of in the annals. Our buddy, Mark Land, they really enjoyed writing this one. He sure did. A great reporter. A couple weeks ago, we talked about how Prince Andrew

was giving up his Duke of York title, but King Charles went even further, and now Andrew will be losing his Prince title too. I didn't even know that was possible. I thought if you're like the son of Aquania or whatever. He will now be known as only Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. Maybe you can do like a cool thing, like the former prince,

you know, the other one, the symbol. Anyway, Andrew will also get the boot from the Royal Lodge, the 30-room mansion he's been crashing in with his ex-wife. You'll now have to slum it at Sandringham Estate, a 20,000-acre property north of London owned by the royal family. So the controversy is mostly about Jeffrey Epstein, the disgrace pedophile and New York financier who once said he was Donald Trump's closest friend. What of Epstein's victims, a woman named Virginia Joufrey, published a memoir recently that includes details about being trafficked to Prince Andrew. disgustingly, she writes that Andrew told her that his daughters were, quote, just a little younger than you on the evening of their first sexual encounter. She was 17.

Andrew has previously said, he has no recollection of meeting Jufre, but he settled a lawsuit with her that included like a $10 million payout. So like, good luck square in that circle. Andrew's demise, it really started in 2019 when he did an interview with the BBC about all this that was an unmitigated disaster. a guy named Charlie Proctor, the editor of the Royal Central website, like one of the Royal Watcher journalists, described it on Twitter as, quote,

a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami triggering a nuclear explosion, level bad. It's pretty bad interview. It was pretty bad interview. Who did the prep for that one? I don't know. Andrew also lied about when he cut ties the magic of Andrew. Andrew also lied when he has a joke just for you and like two people,

when he cut ties with Epstein. So, like Prince Andrew said, he cut ties with Epstein and then all these emails came out that showed him emailing with Epstein like a year later. So he's just full of shit. So Ben, my favorite part of the coverage of all this is that the stories seem to note that Andrew will no longer be attending royal family Christmas celebrations. I don't know if that's like a special specific thing. Massive dunk on the guy. I guess. This is the public component. But I don't know. Like you were saying like this is the definition. I think of of too little too late. I guess better late than never. No, it's better like than never. I mean, look, I read these world watcher that I am. I like dissected. the coverage of this, including I was reading the British press, and a few things jumped out to me. Like, number one, the palace was all over these stories. So, like, details like this, like, he's not

even going to be invited to the fucking Christmas parties. That loser can't come to Thanksgiving. Yeah, yeah. You could just tell that, like, King Charles authorized, like, a shiving of his brother. He was done. Like, it was scorched earth in the media. Like, every detail, every single thing that's being taken away from this guy was stressed.

Because apparently the queen liked Andrew, right? Like, he was referred to as, like, her favorite son? You got a sense that. after the queen died, like the gloves came off a little bit because it's just been, you know, one battle after another for Andrew since then. So that was good. The other thing is, like, to your point, actually, I was reading about this, usually you would take an act of parliament

to remove the prince title. King Charles, man, that one for norms. We got another norm buster over here. But he's kind of flexing his muscles here a little bit. So that confused me. Because, like, when we talked about this last week, we repeated that line because it was reported that would take an act of parliament. Did he just say no it doesn't?

I'm the king? Yeah, I read the spin, and it was basically like, I didn't want the parliament to waste a minute on this motherfucker. Oh. That was basically the line. So I'm just doing this. I'm just pulling the plug. So that struck me to.

It also struck me that, like, the core unit that remains, right, of Charles and William. That's basically it. And you could add, like, Kate to that. Camilla is, like, a little questionable, right? These people have been through some crazy shit. they like Diana and the divorce and Charles with the tampon and all that then Diana's death and the aftermath of that and how badly that was handled then Harry like flying the coop you know like then the crazy book from Harry about like fist fights of his brother and a spare like this this this this these two book Charles and William must get in a room and be like we are like literally the last piece of this institution that and you know I'm not saying they're emerging clean from all this I'm just saying I'm just saying they're emerging clean from all this I'm just saying that, like, this has been a lot of shit, you know. Yeah, and they just decided to unload on Andrew.

Well, they did, but. And I will say this in their defense. Like, Ehud Barak, also in that book. Like, I don't see a lot of defrocking of that guy. Oh, no, absolutely. It's great. Donald Trump buddies with Epstein. He's sitting pretty in the White House.

So I'll say one thing for the Brits. Like, they're taking out the trash with Epstein. Remember they... And they fired Peter Manelson. They fired Peter Manlinson, yeah. Who, like, weirdly emailed Epstein that, like, he would never be treated like this in the UK? Well, maybe Peter Mandelson was wrong because they're

fucking, they're dealing with their Epstein mess. God, it's good. Get him out of there. What a dickhead. What do you think, what does he do alone in the, whatever, the rooms he's in now? Yeah. Kind of weird. There's big questions about what he does for money, too, because he's unemployable. Because I remember Fergie when I was kid, his ex-wife, but like, it's kind of weird

that he was shacking up with his ex-wife. Yeah, I guess he's got a 30-room house. You can divide that pretty easily. She got the boot, too. They made it clear in the spin that she's not getting anything. Like, no allowance from the kids. King or nothing. No corgis. Yeah. I read that Andrew has leached about 14 million

public dollars over the past four decades, so pretty good gig if you can get it. I guess I don't know what he'll do now. Again, I said this was mostly about Epstein because I think it is, but also it recently came out that Prince Andrew have been meeting with this Chinese spy basically

affiliated with the Chinese government and sort of compromise the family that way. So he's just a disaster. You can only imagine what this dude does behind closed doors. Yeah. He'll just have to summer with Alan Dershowitz and Martha's Vineyard and get into fights with local vendors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. The Epstein alumni, you know, reunions.

Epstein alum reunion, that's so funny. Maybe we could do it on the island. Yeah. You know, we could just kind of lock them there when they're done. Go back to his happy space. It's like you guys live here now. Yeah. I met, you know, I met Princess Beatrice, which was a very, very, very nice person.

Which one is she? The daughter of Andrew and, you know, so I feel bad for, like, the two. But they're still rural, so they get to keep their turtles. Yeah, good luck with that, dad. Okay, we are going to take a quick break. When we come back, you're going to hear Ben's interview with former prime minister, Sona Marin, to stick around for that. Positive of the World is brought to you by American Giant.

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Get 20% off your first order when you use the promo code world at American dash giant.com. It's 20% off when you use the promo code world at American dash giant.com. Okay, I'm very pleased to welcome Sana Marin to this show. She served as Prime Minister of Finland from 2019 to 2023. So COVID, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finland joining NATO. Like lots of things happen, lots of things to talk about. And her new book is entitled Hope and Action, a Memoir about the Courage to Lead. It is out this week.

I encourage everybody to pick it up. It's an extraordinary story about an extraordinary time. Prime Minister, welcome to the show. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. So I want to get into all the geopolitics with Russia, with, you know, the democracy versus authoritarianism issues that you dealt with. But I have to say, one of the reasons why people should read the book is it's also just an incredible window into like what it's like for a person at a relatively young age. you were 34 years old when you became prime minister to go through the kind of strangeness of

ascending to the heights of politics to be dealing with double standards that women leaders have to face and I wanted to start by asking you about this line that really jumped out to me our political system struggled to acknowledge that politicians are also human and and you obviously had in you know listeners to the show remember We followed the story about, you know, you dancing. But what I was struck by in reading this is you are clearly balancing, like, wanting to still be human. Be a mom, be a friend with the responsibilities of politics. And I guess the question I wanted to ask you to start is just, do you feel like that's getting harder because of either social media, because of polarization?

How concerned are you that maybe normal people might not want to go into politics because it looks so strange from the outside in? Well, first of all, I have to say that politicians are just human beings. They are people. And I have to have the privilege to work with a lot of politicians, of course, in the European Council, with my colleagues in Europe, but also otherwise. And when I have worked with these people, I can say that they are just generally normal human beings. But we are not viewed politicians this way. And of course, social media platforms and also the new cycle that is always spitting up and chasing for polarizing stories because they sell more. And negative news actually sells better than positive news.

This all comes to the situation where politicians are quite scrutinized. They're constantly watched. people have cameras with their phones everywhere. So of course, politicians are under a lot of pressure. And especially the younger generation and women and people from minority groups that are scrutinized otherwise as well are acknowledging this fact. And they are wondering that is this a platform where they can run, where they can participate, where they can actually take action? And that's real pity because we need people from all gender, different backgrounds, different age groups, to participate in our democratic systems or otherwise our democracies will fall and collapse.

So, of course, I worry about the fact that we are not always witnessing politicians as humans with all of their sides. I think we should more welcome people to join and participate and not drive them away with these unrealistic expectations or perspectives. Yeah, I wouldn't ask one more question about this because I actually, work with you know the Obama Foundation has networks of young people many of whom are in politics and in Europe in particular one of the things I've noticed and I've talked to we talked to just in our durn about this but that that young women in politics in particular have to deal with a lot of stuff online and some of it can be kind of scary right do you think that there ways to provide kind of support? Are there extra steps that can be taken to just kind of ease

that burden on people? Or do you have tips for people about how to manage what it's like, you know, if you're you're starting out, you're getting elected to parliament, you're getting elected to city government, and this is all new to you? You know, what would you say, particularly to a young female politician about how to deal with the strangeness of, of, of, of, you know, what would you say, with the strangeness of these times? Well, even though I'm quite young and I became the prime minister with only 34 years old, so I was young then and I'm still relatively young compared to many politicians, but still when I started in politics 20 years ago, when I was 20,

I didn't have to deal with the social media that young people have to deal with today or everybody has to deal with today. So even though it was never easy, I think it was much more easier earlier when we didn't have to face that hostile and violent environment where people have to live nowadays. And especially, as I said before, young people, women, people from different minority groups, different ethnic groups, they have to face a lot of hostility coming to their homes from different platforms. And this is scary. And I think how we should deal with this is not actually putting this on the burden of individuals, but actually we should look this as a societal problem and a societal issue and acknowledge this as a violence against people like any kind of violence is. So we need legislation changes. We need protective measures.

Social media platforms should take more action to combat these phenomena. and we shouldn't let people to deal with this alone because it is too much burden for any individual to deal with this kind of hostility that is out there. And of course me and also the leaders that were in our government. We were a coalition government led by five parties, actually five women, four was were under 40 years old. So we know exactly how it is to meet that kind of hate speech.

and usually also very sexualized hate speech and violence that is usually targeted against women. So, of course, it is scary for individuals. It is an environment where nobody feels protected and safe if we don't take that responsibility as communities, as societies, as a group and not put this on the burden of individuals. Yeah. No, I just think it's so important because you want people to go into politics. if people, there's a barrier to entry, we're just not going to have as good people in it. Moving us into some of the geopolitics a little bit,

but I wanted to ask kind of one more question about this, because I was struck in reading your, you know, you have this kind of extraordinary story of dealing with the Russian invasion in particular, and then you have this chapter on all these kind of fake scandals. It reminded me of when I was working for Barack Obama in the White House, And I think he got scrutiny. Obviously, he's a man, but as a black man, he got extra scrutiny.

And so there's a famous scandal where he wore a tan suit. And what people... I remember that, actually. And I was always wondering, what on earth is the scandal about tan suit? I just didn't get it. As a Finnish citizen, I didn't know what it was about. Well, as an American citizen, I don't get it, but I don't get a lot of things about our politics. But what I remembered about that day is we were dealing with the height of the ISIS crisis, right?

And I remember the strangeness of he's simultaneously dealing with the rise of ISIS and the need to put together this global coalition against ISIS and responding to this tan suit scandal. And in your book, this comes across. Like you were, I think you were at the Munich Security Conference, right, when that story broke. What was it like just juggling? Like, on the one hand, you have this incredibly weighty issues that you're dealing with that are like existential for Finland. And the other end, you're dealing with this kind of nonsense. I mean, how was that experience of juggling? Because you write about it well in the book,

but for people who are trying to bring to the book, tell us a little bit about what that was like. Well, of course, every politician that works on a high level meets some kind of scandals or some kind of media scrutiny. It varies on the person. But I also wanted to include these scandals of mine to the book to show people what kind of scandals I personally have to deal with and what those scandals might tell about our societies.

So I put it in one chapter, and my scandals has maybe interesting tone to it, because it's not actually political scandals, nothing to do with corruption, nothing to do with misuse of power or public money or anything such sorts. My scandals are named the Blazor scandal, where I showed too much skin on a cover shoot, Here, nothing actually showed, but that was one scandal. Then there was the breakfast scandal and a phone scandal where I didn't have two work phones with me on a night out, but actually only one the one that I usually used.

And then there was the famous dancing scandal. So all of my scandals are in a context of moral side or watching me, am I performing correctly as a person. And I think that those scandals also tell something about our societies and how we treat women. And I think the reason why so many related and wanted to support is actually that many women are viewed in their everyday lives similarly. And we are not viewing and watching women that they are full persons, that they have the right and that they're entitled to have 100% of their lives. at the same time they can be leaders and professionals and very powerful and very tough. And at the same time, they can also be mothers and daughters and friends to their friends and to their closed ones and they can have that funny quirky side at their free time.

And still, they can be extremely professional and good at their jobs. And I think that it is important to understand that this is a structural issue. And one example is that I don't think that ever any man has been asked, how can you lead your company or a country or whatever when you have a small child at home? Or how can you be at work today to be professional when just yesterday you went to a football game, drank a beer with your friends, how is that possible? How does that work? But women are met in these circumstances many times and they are viewed, I think, very narrowly. And I think it's also important to say to women out there that you're entitled, you have the right to be fully yourselves, and you can be many things at the same time.

And that doesn't lower your value at all as individuals and as professionals. Yeah. Well, you clearly did manage the job part very well. I want to ask about Russia. One of the things I thought was really interesting is you kind of bring in the unique history that Finland has had with Russia. You obviously have the longest land border with Russia of any NATO country now. And you also had this experience in the Cold War of kind of being in a different category where you had to kind of almost self-censor about the Soviet Union. And you write about how all of that informed your decision to bring Finland into NATO. And I just want to ask you a bit about what was your reaction to the Russian invasion?

and how did Finland's unique history and its long border kind of informed that decision to pull your country out of neutrality and into NATO membership? Well, we had a long history and policy to be military non-aligned, and there were, of course, historical reasons behind of this. But actually, the same reasons were also behind our decision of joining NATO. The most important thing for Finnish citizens has been always to stay independent, stay secure and safe as a country, to have the right to decide by ourselves.

And up till that point when Russia attacked Ukraine with full-scale invasion, 2003, the war started already 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea, but in 22, when Russia went to Ukraine with full force, the reason and the logic behind Finland joining NATO and applying NATO, membership then was the exact same. We saw that not only in the history books, but actually today, we have that kind of aggression neighbor that starts full-scale invasion of war in Europe today. So we were seeking security, we were seeking to be more safe. And at that moment, it became real, that only way to secure ourselves were to apply NATO membership. But the logic and reasoning was exactly set the same behind that to make sure that Finland and Finnish citizens are safe. And that was

the way to handle that at that point. And I want to ask a couple more questions about this because it's obviously been such a strange couple of years with the transition here to President Trump. But I want to ask first about President Zelensky. I think you write pretty powerfully about going there relatively early in the war, you know, shortly after the Butcha massacre, meeting with President Zelensky, kind of sensing the weight that was on his shoulders. You're younger, so is he, you're a neighbor. And I've always felt like he had particularly close relationships with, you know, the Baltic countries, Finland, countries that similarly knew what it was like to be, you know, sharing a border with Russia. What did you learn about President Zelenski?

as a leader, and how do you, it seems like the burden on him has only gotten higher, right? He's had to manage Donald Trump, you know, dressing him down in the Oval Office, you know, manage these questions of peace negotiations and trying to get U.S. support. How do you explain to people the kind of, as someone who's sat with him, what's the weight on his shoulders and how would you describe for people how he's managed that? Well, I would only say that President Zelensky is extremely tough and talented leader that has come true so much like his whole nation has first COVID-19 that everybody met and that was a big global crisis that we had to deal with and face. And just after that, when things were going easier, the full-scale invasion towards Ukraine, that was a burden for any leader. and he has handled it, I think, very, very talented.

And Ukraine is still in this situation. And Finland, like Nordic countries, Baltic countries, Poland, countries with that closeness to the Russian border can really feel their pain. And that's why we have shown support like rest of Europe and like US has, but we can really feel the pain of the people because we also have and share that kind of history. Finnish citizens, they have the collective memory of. our wars with Soviet Union and the pain and the hardship of lost lives land.

We had to accommodate huge amount of Finnish citizens after the wars because we lost so much land. And then we had the very difficult history also with Russia when we always had to watch what our aggressive Eastern neighbor is doing, how it might affect us. So we know exactly how hard the situation is. And now we have to show true solidarity to Ukraine because that is the only way also to keep all of Europe safe. Ukraine is the only country in Europe that has experience of the modern warfare. And there's so much we need to learn from Ukraine because Russia will be there. It will stay there and it will have that kind of aggressive attitude against Europe also in the future.

So we have to learn from this war and the only way. to learn is to look what Ukraine has endured and how they have coped. And they have really shown so much skill like President Zelensky personally has also during this war that unfortunately still lasts. Yeah, I mean, you've been pretty outspoken about the need to provide more support. And, you know, recently we saw some additional sanctions on Russian oil companies. but, you know, we still have not seen the provision of additional advanced weapons to Ukraine. You know, there was this question about whether to provide longer range rockets that the U.S. is still not done. You've also said in your book that the Europeans must strengthen their military forces and capabilities quickly now,

especially given that the U.S. is taking a bit of a step back. I mean, what more would you like to see now in terms of support for Ukraine? And are there times when you were in office even when you felt like the U.S. could have been doing more, what's been missing in terms of the support that the Ukrainians need? Well, I think that we all could have done more and we should have done more. The little we get and the slower we give it to Ukraine, the little we give and the slower that we are giving it to Ukraine, the longer this war will continue. So, of course, we all should do more and we could do more. If we look at the percentage, how little actually European countries and countries in general are using money to support Ukraine, the amount isn't something that is huge. We could do so much more.

And what Ukraine needs now, they need decisive decisions on the financial, supporting their financial situation, especially using the frozen assets. of Russia to support Ukraine. And there are ways. And I'm really sad that the European Council couldn't do the decision in its last meeting. I only hope that they will reach this decision in their December's meeting. So using the frozen assets in a way that Ukraine could lend money to use that as a collateral. That would be one concrete example, how to support Ukraine financially, because they need money to continue in their different.

spending themselves. They need military equipment and they need it fast. And also there, of course, we as Europe could do more, but also US, because US is the greatest military force that we have in the globe. So, of course, we need US to help. And then the sanctions, we need more heavier sanctions and we need to make sure that the sanction cannot be circled. Because there is a big problem also with the circulation of the sanctions. And this isn't any new news. We have known this for a long time. But now it is time to take real action and not only discuss about these problems that we have witnessed for a long time. So of course, there are so many things that we could do. And also Europe needs to face the fact that we cannot rely that the US will always

come to our aid. We have to be able to take care of ourselves and keep European citizens safe. think that if there is something that I truly also agree with the current administration, and the message that has been sent to Europe is that Europe needs to take care of itself. We need to boost our military capabilities. We need to make sure that we can defend ourselves and that we can also this way be better partners in NATO. So we have to also take responsibility. Finland has always taking responsibility in its own security.

And when others didn't always invest in their defense systems, Finland did, and we maintained our military capabilities, making sure that there is still mandatory military service. We invested heavily throughout the decades with our own capabilities because we knew what kind of neighbor we have, and we couldn't rely that somebody else will take care of our problems. We have to take care of our own problems. when we meet them. And of course, work together with others. And that's why we joined NATO. We wanted

to make sure that we are not alone. And we can also support others because we, as democratic countries are on the right side and on the same side. Yeah. Another thing I want to ask you about is obviously the conflict with Russia in its own way is part of this larger conflict about the direction of politics. I would kind of count Russia as a far right nationalist system, albeit a unique one. because it's very expansionist. You were governing as a social Democrat at a time when you're also engaging far-right leaders. You had to deal with Victor Orbán

and we see across Europe and France and Germany, but also in Finland, you write about not going into a coalition with a far-right party there. It feels like everybody's aware of this danger from the rise of far-right politics. In Europe, it presents unique challenges, too, because it makes it harder for Europeans

to act collectively if there are these far-right parties that want to kind of spoil things in Brussels. What's your advice essentially about what social Democrats can do to both better prevail against far-right parties inside their countries, but also kind of beat back this global tide of far-right politics? Well, I see that there's actually two wars going on in the world if we would want to use this kind of wording. There is the challenging of the rules-based international order. Altruitarian leaders, authoritarian countries are actually questioning and challenging the whole international rule-based order that we built after the Second World War together,

try to build some kind of rules that everybody obeys so that are not only the strong and powerful rule with force. And this is being challenged. So we need, as a democratic country, to understand that there is this wider battle of values going on and the war in Ukraine or conflicts elsewhere are only part of this story. And then there is also war within our democracies. There are more and more actors within our democracies and also outside forces like Russia influencing in our democratic system and in our elections.

And this is something that we have seen in Europe more and more. that there are actually Russian money, Russian influence, Russian misinformation used in our democratic elections, trying to boost those pro-Russian forces into power and gain that kind of far-right extremist way of thinking and get those actors and parties to governing. So we are living in a very difficult moment. And I know that many citizens watching, for example, nowadays, election discussion debates are quite confused because we don't anymore see the platforms

where we can even share the facts. It's very polarized and there is so much misinformation and also so polarizing and aggressive takes on things that many middle ground voters and people that, are just normal people are wondering what is going on. And I think this is a challenge where social Democrats or liberals or moderate forces should really focus on and bring back to the facts and value real information and try to have some kind of middle ground rational discussion about the things that really worries about people. And many times,

where also the far right winds. The people's worries are genuine. They are real. It's about housing, prices of everyday living, high inflation, energy costs. Can they support themselves, their families? What is the situation with their education systems or social welfare or social health care or different kinds of services? These are normal everyday problems that we need to tackle and face and not dismiss the people worries. that they have, but give real solutions and not give the so good solutions that the far

right many times has, like blaming the immigrants or blaming somebody else coming from outside. That doesn't help anybody, but we really need to tackle with the people's everyday worries and take those seriously. Yeah, well, one last question I wanted to ask you, which is, you know, you were 34 in your prime minister, so you were historically young in that job. you're historically young to be a former prime minister. You had a successful term. I mean, your party didn't stay in government, but you know, you increased the vote share. So it wasn't like a necessarily negative verdict on you. So now you're younger than I am, that's for sure.

And you're working, I know, at the Tony Blair Institute on some of these issues like Ukraine and Moldova. But what might we expect from you in the future? Is finished by? politics over or European politics or some other international role. Like, how are you thinking about your next chapter? Are you just kind of taking it one step at a time here? Well, even though I have would say resigned the parliament quite early on, I'm now 30. So I'm still quite young when we compare to many politicians, but I've been in politics for 20 years. Like I said before, right now I'm not seeking any position in politics. I'm really happy that I can, work the ways that I do now. So I work with Tony Blurin. His Institute for Global Change. We work

approximately 40 countries globally helping governments and leaders with their strategy, with their policy and also the delivery of the things that they want to do in their countries. And now I have been writing my book, Hope in Action, intensively for one and a half years. And finally, it's here. So I'm very excited also to meet the people and discuss about also the hope that is there so we can all make our part in making the world better and I'm still working on the same matters

human rights, climate, gender equality rule based international order and geopolitics and I still have passion for these issues but right now I don't have the passion to have that kind of political position but maybe in the future I would never never say never. Now I'm also focusing just being my mom

because I have a seven-year-old daughter, and it's so nice to spend time with her more that I didn't have the time when I was prime minister, so I'm also focusing on the little things in life and enjoying that. Well, that's good. I have an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old daughter, and that is a full-time and fun. Well, look, everybody should check out hope and action.

It's funny, actually, I mentioned the Obama Foundation earlier. The framework that the foundation uses with leaders is called Hope to Action. so you actually skipped right to hope inaction. So that's what we want to see, more hope in action. But the book is extraordinary. It takes you inside your kind of personal story. It takes people inside these huge events like COVID and the invasion of Ukraine. So everybody should check it out.

I want to wish you the best with the book and appreciate spending this time with you. Well, thank you so much for having me. It was my pleasure. Thanks again to Sonam Rin for joining the show. Talk to you guys next week. Oh, see you a CricketCon, Ben. Yeah. See, oh, yeah.

You know, I'm very excited about CrookedCon. That'll be very fun. We'll also have some bonus content from CricketCon for you guys, so look for that in your feet. Get a taste of the vibe. Potsie of the World is a crooked media production. Our senior producer is Alona Minkowski. Our associate producer is Michael Goldsmith.

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