Pod Save the World - Trump Is Humiliated by China

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Tommy & Ben discuss China’s summit in Tianjin, which brought together leaders from 20 countries, including India, Iran, Russia, and North Korea, and how it signals a major shift in global alliances. They talk about the schism between Trump and India’s President Narendra Modi and how Trump keeps conceding to China on issues like AI and student visas despite his many empty threats. Also covered: the administration’s illegal airstrike on a Venezuelan boat allegedly carrying drugs, the new for-profit ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza, how the gutting of USAID is hobbling the response to Afghanistan’s devastating earthquake, and Steve Witkoff’s stupendous incompetence in his role as special envoy for….everything. Then, Tommy speaks with journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who covers the West Bank on his Substack, Infinite Jaz. They talk about what life is like for Palestinians there, the far-right’s goal of achieving total annexation of the territory, and the pipe dream of a two-state solution. 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.Donate to  Uplift Afghanistan’s earthquake relief efforts here.

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mattress in under two minutes. I took the Helix quiz. I no longer remember what mattress I was matched up with because I just don't know. I don't name my mattresses, but it's a great super Super comfortable one. It's in our guest room. Everyone loves it. Everyone wants to sleep on that thing. Don't get anything else. I got the Don Lux. Don Lux. I love it. She's a great one. And your personalized mattress is shipped straight to your door free of charge. Go to helixleep.com slash world for 27% offsite wide. That's helixleckesleep.com slash world. This offers exclusive to Pod Save the World listeners. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you Helixleep.com slash world. Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor.

Ben Rhodes. Summer's over. Football is back, Ben. Do you feel like I do? I feel like I'm a little kid still. Like, there's something in my DNA that makes me depressed after Labor Day because summer's over. I kind of feel like I have to go back to school or something, but we live in L.A. We don't even have seasons. The weather doesn't change. We're grown adults. Nothing changes in our lives. Nothing. My kids are back in school. Lizzie went to school today. It was a little emotional in my house this morning. But all as well, I don't know why. She said a cute dress on. We were just a little late in my house this morning. We're little.

We're recording this episode, a day late, recording on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. To accommodate for the holiday, to let everyone enjoy themselves. Thanks. Sorry for any inconvenience. But trust me, the products is better this way. It's worth the wait, guys. We were talking yesterday. It's worth the wait.

Also, Ben, apparently we have an apology to make. Apparently, we have a lot of listeners who listen to both POTSave the World and New Heights, the Kelsey Brothers podcast. So apologies to anyone we offended, and thank you for listening. Please subscribe to Pod Save the World. world on YouTube so that we can grow big and tall in one day book Taylor Swift. Yeah, don't think I don't read those DMs. And, you know, if we hit a certain YouTube subscriber level, I don't know what we have to set it at, Tommy. Maybe I'll grow a beard with Jason Kelsey. Okay. That's good. Could you do a-

I have no hair on my head, but I could do a Jason Kelsey beard. It's a peculiar thing. Will you pop the top at a playoff game in Buffalo? Yes, I would do that as well. Yeah. I'm happy to pop the top. And I will shotgun on a beer with you. Yes. We'll shotgun beers too. I'll shotgun beers all day long. All right, we got a great show today, Ben. We won't marry Taylor Swift, though. No, it's too late.

We should ask her for a date on our podcast. Maybe she's one of those listeners who crosses her. I should have made her a bracelet. The book has been closed on that era, as they say, over there. All right, we got a great show, Ben. We're going to cover the huge geopolitical implications of this summit that Chinese President Xi Jinping just hosted in China. We're going to walk you through what was said, what was announced.

We'll talk about the optics, how the event was just one long, rebuke of the United States and Donald Trump. We'll dig into how Trump is infuriated Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and driven the Indian government closer to the Chinese government. Great work there, everybody. Nice job. And then we're going to take a step back and look at the Trump administration's record on all things China and whether the policy implementation has proven to be as tough as the campaign talk. We're going to cover Tuesday's U.S. military airstrike on a boat in international waters that was allegedly carrying drugs and gang members. It's a huge deal.

It seems a... Predicted here on this podcast. Predicted here, predictable. Seems like there's going to be some real trouble ahead on that front. We're going to update you guys on the latest from Gaza, including the new ethnic cleansing for profit plan that is apparently circulating the White House, according to the Washington Post. We'll cover the horrible earthquake in Afghanistan and how that impact has been compounded by U.S. policy, both, you know, in terms of gutting USAID, but also the refusal to work with the Taliban in any way. And just generally paying no. attention. Yeah, just not caring. There's a similar horrific landslide in Sudan that we'll talk

about a little bit too. And then finally, we're going to walk you guys through some recent, really interesting reporting about how Trump's golf buddy termed Envoy for Everything, Steve Whitkoff, is just kind of a disaster? Yeah, who could have seen that coming? No experience. No experience. I said Mar-Lago golfing and some real estate transactions in Florida. And like a crypto scam business doesn't prepare you for high-stakes international negotiations. Talking with Putin. And then you're going to hear my interview with Jasper Nathaniel.

So everyone should check out Jasper, Substack, Infinite Jazz, J-A-Z. He covers Israel. A great title, right? I'm thinking of starting a substack. We may need the world those to workshop a title for my... We can do a Namestorm. We'll get a whiteboard out. No bad ideas in a name storm.

Okay, yeah, that's great. So Infinite Jazz has taken. That's Jasper. He covers Israel, Palestine. He's got a particular focus on the West Bank. It's a great primer, I think. This conversation is a great primer for anyone. And so it's the substack. For anyone who wants to understand what is life like for Palestinians in the West Bank as compared to settlers, to understand the settler movement, why it's accelerated in recent years. And how settlement construction has all but killed off the two-state solution and hope for the creation of a Palestinian state. It's hard to say, I like. loud. People get upset with you. They think you're being a dumer. But you'll hear in the conversation that like there's a lot of facts on the ground that are pretty tough to unwind at this point. You don't want to deny American politicians as talking points that they can hide behind. That's true. Yeah. That's the most important thing about the two-state solution. What other talking points will Democratic politicians have to justify their blanket support for ethnic cleansing? Well, we have that briefcase that someone bought in 1973, I think. And when you flip it

open, all the dust comes out and you go, who, who, you blow off the talking points and you just read them verbatim. But Ben, also, I just want to tell folks, so I wrapped this interview yesterday with Jasper, and then everyone in the studio started talking about how he was easy on the eyes. So yet another reason to check out

the POTSave the World YouTube. I didn't know that. And subscribe. I would watch. Look, I'm not telling you, but I'm telling you to check it out. But also, please subscribe to POTSafe the World on YouTube. Right-Wing assholes are killing us on YouTube. And when people search for, like, Trump Gaza, they find Ben Shapiro talking about how great everything is, and we would like them to find good, accurate

information about what's actually going on. So, Ben, you remember that feeling in middle school when all your friends have a sleepover and you find out about it, but you're left out? Yeah, it's not fun. That's basically what happened to Donald Trump over labor to weekend. Especially after you tariff them. Yes. Just taking like one candy from your friend every time they can work. So when Trump was busy, not being dead, apparently, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted leaders from 20 countries for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or SCEO summit. The summit was in Tangian China.

It's about 90 miles southeast of Beijing. All the coolest countries were there. All the coolest leaders were there. You had Russian president Vladimir Putin, Iranian president, Masu Pesekian, Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, all the stands. You had fitness influencer and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. He rolled into China just in time to catch Wednesday as military. military parade. With his daughter. With his daughter, which is very interesting. Apparently she's shown up at like 30 public events now. She seems like the 12 year old successor in waiting.

That's a scary gig. Imagine me 12 and being like, you know what I was thinking about, I mean, not to jump ahead here, but imagine wanting to date her. No. I mean, how could any guy, I mean, you know you're going to get killed, right? Yeah. Talk about fuck around to find out. Yeah, yeah. So Kim Jong-un, he showed up for the military parade marking the 80th. anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II. That parade included all kinds of cool military stuff that will make Trump very sad that he missed it, like hypersonic missiles, laser weapons, new underwater drones, you know, it's like real envy there. We just had tanks at our military parade. And then again, Kim Jong-un traveled in a souped-up train car, which will make Joe Biden very sad

that he was not there. So lots of cover. We're going to break into the chunks. First, the substance of what was said and agreed to at the summit, the optics and the messaging and what it sends to the world, then how Trump has destroyed his relationship with Modi and the Indian government and pushed India closer to Russia and China. Then we'll kind of like measure the Trump record, as I said. So I've been just quick and dirty on this. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a regional security organization founded in early 2000s by China and Russia.

It's expanded to about 10 members. Do you think it's fair to say the SEO is like China and Russia's version of like creating a Western alliance like NATO? Or is that too a bunch of a euro-focused way of thinking about it? Well, it's not a collective defense treaty like NATO where you have to come to the defense of the other country. Right. So Article 5. But it's essentially like one of the forums that they have along with the bricks to get their team together to figure out how to work around U.S. sanctions, how to work against U.S. farm policy, how to kind of construct an international order that is not so dominated by the U.S. and Europe. So, you know, yeah, they've made some pretty good use of it over the years.

especially this weekend. And so like you just signaled, like a lot of the focus this weekend was on criticism of the U.S., especially trade policy and tariffs. In his speeches on Monday, she critiqued hegemonism, the Cold War mentality and bullying practices, so all like very clear shots at the U.S. There were a couple policy announcements, some like vague commitment for member states to cooperate on developing AI, talk of setting up a development bank to reduce their dependence on the dollar. We've kind of heard this pitch before. China pledged like $2 billion in grants and loans to, member countries, which is nothing in the grand scheme of thing. We'll see if that bears out. And then she rolled out this like pitch for creating a more just and reasonable global governance system. Five principles include sovereign equality, abiding by international rule of law, practicing multilateralism, advocating the people-centered approach and focusing on taking real

actions. I'm sure Taiwan and China's many neighbors in the South China Sea were swayed by that. There's a new Siberian gas pipeline between China and Russia. There was a communique. that condemned U.S. aggression against Iran but said nothing about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So, Ben, like, we don't know anything about, like, side deals cut by any of these countries, but did any of the speeches or policy announcements jump out at you as, like, particularly significant? Yeah, I mean, first of all, I think people really do need to wake up here. I mean, we're, what, seven months into the Trump administration and this kind of meeting is already happening. I mean, you know, wake up people.

This is what happens when you insult the rest of the world and treat it, like, garbage and demand that they pay terrorists and nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize. This is billions of people being represented by leaders in Beijing at a show of strength by the Chinese Congress party. I think 40% of the world's population or so. I mean, so this is not marginal stuff. No. And so this matters. And this is, I think, the continuation and the acceleration of a movement away from the United States. All of these leaders, you know, say nice, flattering things to Trump to try to get the tariffs down. Maybe they do a little deal under the table for some Trump coins. or whatever the price is of corruption.

But then they go do this. Then they go put their lot elsewhere. And in terms of the policy announcements, I think all of them matter. AI jumps out to me. The Chinese have just about caught up to the United States in the development of artificial intelligence.

We've talked about this a little bit. But the U.S. thought, well, we have these companies. We've got, you know, Open AI, and we've got all these other big tech companies like Meta and Google and Microsoft investing in the app. Your ultimate Sam, your muscle. Elon. Yeah.

But what the Chinese have done is they have a tremendous amount of talent because they actually have STEM education in their country. They've been prioritizing this for many years. They've been pouring money into AI. They've figured out how to do AI with less computing power. We'll talk about the Navidia chips in a minute. And why this matters is, number one, the Chinese could basically achieve parity, could achieve AI.

That's when artificial intelligence like tips over into superintelligence on basically the same timeline as the US. But just as importantly, is China going to become the supplier of AI or is the U.S.? Who is going to be selling AI products to the rest of the world? Right. That's really, really important because that's important in terms of economic opportunity, but it's also important in terms of geopolitical influence, because if you're the AI supplier, don't think that that doesn't come with some backdoors and strings attached and... Or right, and just think about the data that it would be trained on, right?

If you think ESPN's getting slapped around for, you know, not putting the 9-dash line on the scurts. or whatever, like a waddle that AIs are trained on China's vision of the world and territory and, you know, Taiwan and Hong Kong and everything else. That's right. Exactly. So that's one big announcement jumps out because I think that's real. I think that the Chinese are going to be willing to export their AI quickly. They're focused on things like robotics and industrial efficiency that is frankly more useful to countries than, you know, chatting with your companion, which is what Americans send to do with it. Tell me I'm great. Yeah. A.I. Second thing is, remember all the geniuses like J.D. Vance and David Sacks? I do. I do. That guy we covered, what was his name? The Vake? Ramoswam. Remember he was, what happened to that guy? Yeah, I went on his bus. He was running for

governor or senator? Well, you remember their theory was that we were going to peel Putin away from China because he's white, basically, and he wants to be a part of the West. Well, this cements the reality that China and Russia are completely intertwined. Geopolitically, infrastructure-wise, economically, technologically, Russia is relying on China. So that play is over. And remember, that was a big part of the Trump foreign policy. And it's a complete and utter failure. And then I think this stuff about the dollar matters because what these countries are figuring out how to do, they're not necessarily replacing the dollars or world's reserve currency. They are figuring out how to increasingly sanctions proof their economy. Russia has been able to

completely withstand these sanctions. They don't give a shit when we threaten more sanctions. That has no meaning to them. The Chinese are saying. sanction-proofing their economy, and that matters because if they do invade or blockade Taiwan, we're not to be able to impose much of a cost on them. And then, yeah, $2 billion as much, but already China through the Belt Road initiative has made all these countries come dependent on them for loans, for investments for infrastructure. So what we are seeing is the cost of having a complete fucking autocratic fascist lunatic as president of the United States, who's insulted the whole world. And so now they're making parallel technology supply chains,

economic supply chains, resource supply chains. And Xi Jinping does not seem in the slightest bit intimidated by Donald Trump, quite the opposite. No, no, yeah. Two billion is not a lot, but it's also happening as we destroy USAID. So there's context here. Yeah, so like the optics in the visuals of this event were not subtle. It was Xi Jinping was center stage. He is the conductor of this global orchestra that the U.S. is not a part of.

And he coordinated this series of middle fingers to Trump and the U.S. policy. That includes shots at Trump's tariffs, hence the language about bullying practices and protectionism. You had Putin just like swanning around the summit, you know, this convicted war criminal. But he was telling his usual lies about the origin of the war in Ukraine. He is, as you said, making a mockery of U.S. sanctions just through his, you know, presence. Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they recreated the Trump Putin photo from the Alaska summit where they hung out in the presidential limo, Although Modi, when he tweeted out a photo of it, had a camera inside the car. So they kind of like one-uped it.

And then Putin and Modi literally held hands as they walked into one of the meetings. Not something I'd want to do. With the handholding, like, I don't want to touch anyone. With Putin? Well, Putin, it's kind of a slippery hand. You could have some. Oh, right. And there could be some sort of isotope or something that kills you six days later.

Then there was like Putin, Modi, she were kind of yucking it up together in a bunch of B-roll. Yeah. They're a new thruple. It's a great B-roll from this thing. Great B-roll. And then if you look at the Modi Twitter feed, again, he's just pushing all these images out. So they're not hiding anything. There's no, like, kind of delicate dance.

It's like, here I am. And then you got Iran was there. Kim Jong-un rolls in on his train. So those guys add to the kind of like rogues gallery vibe of the event. But both those countries are key arms suppliers for Russia that have been critical to his ability to sustain the war in Ukraine. Remember, North Korea has been a source of. artillery shells. Iran gives Putin drones. So it's very significant that they're there militarily. And then

Trump, then, got asked about all of this on Wednesday. He was doing a bilat with the president of Poland. Here's his answer. I was very surprised. I watched the speech last night. President, she's a friend of mine. But I thought that the United States should have been mentioned last night during that speech because we helped China. When they did what they did, I thought it was a beautiful ceremony. I thought it was very, very impressive. But I understood the reason they were, were doing it and they were hoping I was watching and I was watching. My relationship with all of them is very good. We're going to find out how good it is over the next week or two. So I'm not owned. I'm not owned per usual. We'll find out in a week or two.

So, Ben, again, just to check ourselves, like the SCO summit, all summit, it's like stage managed propaganda, right? Like, that's part of the point. These guys being together, it doesn't mean they agree on everything or with each other or coordinating. Or like India and Pakistan are part of this event. Like they don't agree on a lot of stuff. So we don't want to overreact. But like you, I did feel like there was something different about this event. The timing, the anger over the terrorists, Modi kind of really leaning into his relationship with the Chinese and U.S. competitors and with Russia. It just seemed different to me.

Yeah. First of all, Trump probably is jealous and got in the phone with Pete Heggseth because he probably wished that the U.S. troops in the parade goose stepped as well as the Chinese troops. They were stepping. But let's put the fascism aside for just a moment here. On the Ukraine point, you know, Kim Jong-un met with Putin reaffirmed his support for the war in Ukraine. He basically got a big reaffirmation of support for his Ukraine policy. Now, compare that to NATO, where they basically have to beg Trump and call him daddy and nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize. And he still doesn't provide arms to Ukraine.

There's no security guarantee. He humiliates Zelensky, right? Trump, you know, basically treats Zelensky like a piece of garbage when he comes to the Oval Office. And then Putin goes, and he's got a bunch of really powerful people validating him. So the message on the war in Ukraine is that this guy, Putin actually has a stronger alliance behind him than Zelensky does right now. And that's a real thing. This Modi piece is hugely important.

Successive U.S. administrations for decades have basically invested in a strategic relationship with India, a defense relationship, a commercial relationship, a economic relationship, but technological relationship in the hopes that this very big swing country of well over a billion people, a massive market, you know, obviously hugely strategically located on the Indian Ocean there, would tilt in the direction of what used to be the world's democracies, the U.S. and Europe. Well, this was Modi, like not being shy at all in response to Trump treating him like garbage. I mean, this is just a rule of human behavior. Some people think foreign policy is really complicated.

Sometimes it's not. if you treat someone like shit, they're going to cozy up to your adversaries. And there's Modi signaling, hey, I'm actually moving in the direction of this team, not your team. And that is a massive tectonic shift if that is something that is actually going to go forward. And we'll explain why, because it's way dumber than you think. Yeah, it is. It couldn't be dumber. And so we have to take this very seriously.

And the other problem, and this is why we really encourage you to continue to join us every week, is the U.S. political and media ecosystem does not seem to be able to hold Trump accountable for any of this. You know, if this kind of thing had happened when Barack Obama was president, Joe Biden was president, or a Normie Republican, there would be like a freak out about, you know, how we've squandered our leadership in the world. Fox News, Chiron. Fox News would be going to be playing this B-roll in a loop, right? But for whatever reason, like just, you know, Trump's utter failure on Ukraine diplomacy, utter failure geopolitically. his tough talk with China and no follow-through. Like, he just doesn't stick to him

because nobody has any expectation for him. But we're going to look back 20 years now and be like, wow, that's pretty amazing that this guy came in and basically, in a few months, you know, seeded all semblance of U.S. leadership. Whatever you think of U.S. leadership, the one thing that's clear is the rest of the world

is no longer on board with it. Yeah, before we get the Modi thing, did you see that there was like a hot mic moment that someone kind of clipped and shared on Twitter this morning. It was like CCTV in Beijing. They captured Putin and Xi talking and they were talking about living to be 150 because you can get like synthetic organs or organ transplants. And it's like I've often wondered what she and Putin might talk about. And this perfectly tracks. Apparently it's the same thing that people are talking about like the tech bro's at first camp at

Burning Man. But I just say that the other thing I just want to say is that Trump always says this stuff like she like she does not like him none of those people like him like like like and pathetic about the fact that these people are literally coming together with the express purpose of trying to humiliate trump and he's still like they like me she likes me i like them like guess what kim jungen doesn't like you nirondra modi doesn't like you shishimpin doesn't like iranians don't like yeah i mean like they don't like trump and it's kind of very strange that because he's constantly surrounded by sycophants that he assumes that these other world leaders feel the same way about him that like, you know, Stephen Miller does.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. So, as you mentioned, like the unraveling of the Trump-Mody relationship, the U.S. India relationship is fascinating and really, really important. And just for context, like every president for decades has invested a lot of time and attention into the U.S. India relationship because it's been obvious for decades that India was going to be an economic powerhouse.

Like, it was true for Clinton, Bush. Obama and Trump. And Trump and Modi, they did seem to get particularly close. They had sort of a shared, you know, populist authoritarian. Yes, exactly. Trump spoke at that Howdy Modi rally in Texas. Remember that? It's like huge rally in Houston in 2019. And Trump was just on stage the whole time, just hanging out. Moody endorsed Trump in 2020. But in recent weeks, like whatever goodwill had been built up seems to have just gone away. Over the weekend, the New York Times, like a detailed the backstory of that unraveling. A lot of it stems from Trump trying to take credit for a ceasefire deal between India and Pakistan. So listeners probably remember back in May, we covered this. There was a brief but very serious armed conflict between Indian and Pakistan. It included airstrikes by the Indian military deep into Pakistani territory. Pakistan attacked Indian military bases.

There was like a drone battle. It was like really serious, scary stuff. But after four days, India and Pakistan's military heads, they like got on the phone. They brokered a ceasefire. But right as they're deciding to announce it, Trump front runs the announcement and takes credit for it. And that claim was bullshit, but the Pakistanians were like, whatever. They loved it. Yeah.

We're like, we'll play along. Because it made them like this equal partner to the Indians. Exactly. They looked like America was on their side. Exactly. And so, like, you know, the Pakistani's even put forward Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. But, like, you know, this was obviously a non-starter for Modi for reasons. We'll get to in a second.

But clearly, like, someone on Trump's team must have told him, hey, India's, like, not happy about you taking credit for this ceasefire, but it didn't slow him down. And according to the Times, it got to the point where Trump even called Modi directly and on the phone suggested that India should nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize, which like geopolitics aside, Ben, it's just insane. Like imagine on a human level, there's two people on this phone call. Both of them know that Trump absolutely did not broker this ceasefire, let alone like fully resolve the conflict between India and Pakistan. But, Trump is pushing Modi to give him the Nobel Peace Prize or nominate him.

It's just like it's an insane thing to do just on a human level. So Modi says no, fast forward to last week. Things are now so bad that Trump has slapped a 50% tariff on India. And on Labor Day weekend, Trump was complaining that our relationship with India is, quote, totally one-sided disaster. So, you know, Modi, while Modi was hanging out in China, Trump was just whining about him on Twitter. And in parallel, Xi Jinping saw this growing fissure between the U.S. and India. he decided to start some quiet outreach to the Indian government. Bloomberg News reported that she sent India a letter that was received well that led to more dialogue and visits and a thawing of tensions that have been quite bad since this violent border dispute back in 2020, which we covered at the time too.

It was like these guys fighting at high altitude, like 20 Indian soldiers died. Remember there were reports of them hitting each other with like baseball baths and shit? Yeah, it wasn't good. It was crazy. Anyway, so it was like a very deep wound that was difficult to heal between these two countries. It took five years, but Donald Trump made it happen. So thanks for that. So, Ben, do you just want to give some context and help explain to listeners why Trump claiming that he brokered the ceasefire was so enraging to Modi?

And then just like the broader stakes of this, of this rupture? Yeah. So you have to remember, right? I mean, India and Pakistan are, you know, dating back to the partition of India, which led to over a million deaths as Muslims moved to Pakistan and Hindus moved to India. They've basically been enemies ever since then. and Kashmir has been the flashpoint. They both claim this territory as their own, and they've never been able to resolve it, and they fought multiple wars over it.

And they all kind of follow a similar pattern where there's a flurr up. There's an exchange of violence for a period of days, sometimes weeks, and then they kind of peters out, because especially since they both obtained nuclear weapons in the 90s, you know, you don't want to go too far over the precipice here. So there's a deeply unresolved issue here of Kashmir and deep antagonism, between India and Pakistan that is kind of central to their national identities as well. This is not just like a, you know, a side dispute. This is kind of core to their identities.

And it's not just the leaders. Like, I remember you and I were both watching Indian TV during this period. And the bloodlust for war on every channel was, it's kind of shocking. It's like Fox News pre-Iraq war on steroids. Well, and you'll remember because there was a pretty horrific terrorist attack on a bunch of Indian tourists in cash. And so there was a horrible terrorist attack that precipitated the hostilities that then kind of of reached the point where they were going to deescalate. And literally it doesn't seem like anything happened other than like Mark or Rubio lobbying in

the routine phone calls at any U.S. I mean, if Joe Biden was president, if Barack Obama was president, if Bill Clinton was president, if George Bush was president, the U.S. was done the exact same thing and would not have taken any credit. because to do that would be to humiliate India because India is the bigger and stronger power. So for them, they're the ones climbing down, which was the right thing to do. But they're the ones climbing down without having like, quote unquote, defeated Pakistan. And so for Trump to come in, it makes India, which is a very proud country of over a billion people, feel humiliated if it's like they're in the same way class as Pakistan and the U.S. told them to stop it and Trump should get a Nobel Peace Prize.

It is absolutely humiliating to most. that Trump did that. It was a big issue in Indian politics. It was a big issue in the Indian media, like you said, like the people that usually like Modi, the kind of maga of India, they were pissed about it. And the more Trump talked about it, the Pakistanis were basically trolling India when they're nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. So Trump doesn't even understand that this isn't just an inconvenience to Modi. This is like totally humiliating. It totally offends the national sensibility. Whatever you think, by the way, I don't like this kind of antagonism. that they have for Pakistan and vice versa, but it is what it is. And so he completely stepped in it

and purely because of his ego and vanity and because of something that everybody knows isn't true, he didn't broker anything. Like there's no agreement. There's not a piece of paper. There's nothing that the U.S. did other than make the routine diplomatic phone calls. But because the whole world has to play along with this Nobel Peace Prize fiction, he's putting at risk a relationship with a country of well over a billion people. The other thing I'd say is, Tommy, I was in meetings with Modi in the late Obama years, this is a man with a deep, deep skepticism of China. He's worried about China. They're a big neighbor.

They have a bigger economy. He's been trying to catch up to their economy and hasn't been able to do it. They've had these border disputes. His natural inclination is actually to get closer to the U.S., to get closer to Europe, to get closer to the Gulf Arabs. And we're literally shoving him in the direction of China. That's how big of his self-owned this is. And again, like, it's amazing that.

that this is kind of a secondary story that, you know, basically pissing off like a hugely strategic country. One political point I want to make in front of the pod Rokane has made this point, Indian Americans have been trending conservative, right? A lot of these people bought into the Trump Modi bromance. They kind of like the Hindu nationalism and they kind of want to be a part of some MAGA adjacent space here. Well, I hope you have some buyer's remorse. if you thought that Trump had some sincere desire to improve U.S. Indian relations because he doesn't. So again, there's not a straight politics show, but every vote matters. And I would hope that there are people in the Indian American community going to their Trump curious or Trump supporting family and saying, what the fuck? This is a wrong bet, guys.

It was a wrong bet. And also, like, Trump has been much harder on India than most other countries. Like, why are we sanctioning India or secondary sanctions? on India over buying Russian oil, but not the Chinese. The Chinese buy a lot more oil from the Russians and the Indians do. So none of it makes any sense. And like the stakes, as you mentioned are huge men. I mean, like India has got nukes. The U.S. wants to deepen this partnership with India. Like we want to sell them weapons, for example, and have them not buy them from the Russians. This put that this at that is at jeopardy now. I think 40% of generic drugs are manufactured in India. So it's like huge ties between the two economies. And I think like figuring out how Trump resolves. this trade dispute is hard. It's hard to see the path forward because Trump wants expanded access to U.S. agricultural products, especially like dairy, soybeans, corn, and wheat. But this is another massive political problem for Modi because something like 40 percent of jobs in India are tied to agriculture. So that's hundreds of millions of people. And Indian farms are tiny. It's like, you know, one one hundredth of the size of the average U.S. farm. And so that means that Indian

farmers, they don't have the scale or like the technology that U.S. farms do to drive down costs. And so if Trump forces cheap U.S. ag products into India and Indian farmers are put out of business, Modi won't just lose an election. Like he might get driven out of the country. You know what I mean? Like there would be a populist uprising. And also the Indians won't let in genetically modified food crops, which is like most U.S. corn and soybeans.

So that's a big hurdle. And then on top of that, like to add to the list of irritants, Ben, Trump invited Pakistan's army chief of staff to the White House. The Indians didn't love that. They named this random gober Sergio Gore to be the U.S. ambassador to India. He was doing like personnel, which is just like, it's confusing. Apparently Trump was planning to go to India in the near future. Now he's not.

The crackdown on foreign visas was a big deal for India because I think one in four foreign students in the U.S. are from India. So there's just like a lot of ways where we're poking. at these guys. Yeah, one other problem for us, too, is it the U.S., because we have such shitty STEM education because it's been defunded by Republicans for years and now we're getting with the Department of Education, we're wholly dependent on Indian and Chinese foreign students to sustain our technology base, our AI, things like that. So that could hurt us, too. And look, one thing I want to say about this is, like, I'm no fan of Modi. Trump, I think, assumed because these other guys are like strong, man, autocratic nationalists like him, that they'd get along. The thing I've always been

worried about as nationalists or ultimately nationalists, whether you're Modi or Bebe or Putin or she, if you're a hardcore nationalist, you're not going to bend to Donald Trump's will because you actually believe in the nationalism. And I think another mistake that Trump has made is the people that do kiss his ass and nominate him for Nobel Peace Prizes are the leaders of like small countries that can't stand up to the U.S. And so they're like, if you're the leader of Azerbaijan or Armenia, or Pakistan. You're like, well, I'll nominate the government. But guess what?

Leaders of big countries don't need to do that. And so what Trump is realizing is, you know, nationalism trumps, like, shared autocratic tendencies, you know. And Modi is always going to bend in the direction of Indian nationalism. He's not going to make these concessions to Trump that, like, some small country would make. Right. And he probably feels like he tried, right? there's like how many Trump towers now in India? Like they've done all the bribing.

Yeah, I think they had a vank over there. Like they've done all these things. Come on. Help it up. So Ben, we've been talking about how the world's kind of like revolved around China and Chinese president Xi Jinping for the last few days. So we wanted to do a big picture check in on like the U.S. China relationship because there is this bipartisan consensus in D.C.

That U.S. competition with China is like the most important issue going forward. And then Trump spent, you know, the majority of the campaign. accusing Joe Biden of being soft on China, pledging to get tough. And so, you know, we wanted to just sort of like check in on how that's going. In the first few months, it, you know, things look pretty dicey. Remember that, you know, in mid-April, I think the U.S. tariff rate on China was almost 150 percent after there was these escalating kind of tit-for-tat tariffs with the Chinese. But then Trump tacoed, there was that meeting in Geneva where they all sort of agreed to hit pause for a while. And in that moment, I think Xi Jinping realized that, like, Trump mostly just wants a deal.

He wants de-escalation and was not willing to watch the markets crash. But there's more examples than just that. So in July, the Trump administration refused to allow the president of Taiwan to fly through the U.S. on a trip to South America. That was not the best signal for China Hawks who want the U.S. to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion. It's also been – I can't think of a single comment from Trump about, like, Hong Kong or human rights or the U.GERS or – right? And so that is, like, not something I expected. but it is a concession. Which Marco Rubio used to be the number one leader on.

So I guess Little Marco checked his principles. Little Marco went quiet. And then in August, Trump announced that the U.S. would allow Nvidia to sell its H-20 chip in China in exchange for the U.S. getting 15% of the sales revenue. That reversed a decision that the administration had made in like a couple months earlier to block the sale of that specific chip because these chips are powerful tools for training, advanced artificial intelligence. in large language models. So the revenue that we would get from 15% of these H20 sales is like de minimis when you consider like the size of our debt. But allowing China access to these chips is a big deal in the AI race.

And just for context, and we can dig into this deeper. But the H20 chip is not like the cutting edge chip. That's kind of this Blackwell series. And it's weaker in raw compute to the H100 series, which is kind of the next one up. But it is pretty powerful. Yeah. And it's much better than what China could get from non-U.S. sources. So it was a big concession. And then just to make things more confusing, I think the Chinese

refuse the 820 chip, citing some security concerns. Now they're hoping they get like a downgraded version of the Blackwell top tier chip. So whatever. We'll get into it in a minute. And then a bunch of Trump's most ardent supporters are furious because like a week or two ago, Trump revoked a previous decision to revoke like half a million visas for Chinese students. And instead we'll let 600,000 Chinese students come and study in the U.S. over the next couple of years. So, Ben, throw any other data points into the mix here. But when you sum all that up, like, it's pretty accommodating. Accommodating. These are actual concessions, you know. And look, I, if you compare it to Biden, for instance, he's softened the policy in a number of areas, right? On Taiwan, Biden was more

forward-leaning in arms sales to Taiwan. You know, we're careful. canceling defense dialogues. Constantly saying we would go to war. By the way, I'm not even agreeing with all these things, you know? Right. By the one was more out there on Taiwan. It's just funny the thing back. We covered it like four times.

Biden was just, you're this careful policy. You're damn right. I go to war. Carefully ambiguous policy honed over decades. And I'm like, fuck yeah. Anyway. I'm the guy. But anyway, put that aside.

But on the chips, for instance, the Biden administration built over years, this kind of net of what are called export controls, restrict certain investments or technologies from going into China. And it was all designed to kind of preserve this lead for the United States on AI so that we be the first to develop the cutting edge language models, that that would allow us to kind of figure out what this technology can do before the Chinese have it, and that that would also make us the most likely supplier to the rest of the world, like I was saying earlier. So, look, he's not only allowed things to continue to happen that he said he would stop, like foreign students. And look, I'm glad that their foreign students come here, right?

But he's made like very substantive concessions to Xi Jinping, right? For no reason, seemingly. Well, the only substantive reason is Xi Jinping, I think, was ready for this trade war, unlike the first time around. And that one of the weapons that he realized he has, and, you know, because he's developed it, is this monopoly of critical minerals. Right. And so she was like, all right, you want to tariff me? I'm going to turn off these absolutely these central components for your military industrial base, for your technology base, and Trump folded like a tent when he did that. It also seems to me like the tech guys, like the Navidia guy,

like whoever else got to Trump and we're like, hey, we need these students here. Because so people understand it just go deep on the chip thing for a second. The Chinese over the last decade or two have made a huge bet that they're going to reorient their economy around technology, particularly AI and quantum computing, which is the next thing coming down the line, and clean and energy. And they actually allowed for a lot of hits to Chinese growth and a real estate bubble. They kind of took a lot of pain to kind of reinvest in these spaces. Now, when it comes to AI, you need several things. You need capital, and the Chinese have that. The government plows money into this. In this country, it's like private capital. And China, it's a government. So they've got that.

You need talent. China probably has more talent because they've literally, in the same way that they, like, train athletes to win gold medals. They've been like training engineers to service their AI. They got a lot of people. The one area where the U.S. had a, and data, you need data, obviously, to train these language models to feed into these language models. Chinese obviously have a lot of data. They got data for days.

They got data for days. They got a billion people and they collect everything on everybody. So they've got plenty of data. So they've got data. They've got capital. They've got talent. The one area where they've been behind is they don't have the computing power that the U.S. has.

The chips, the data centers, all those things. Now, they were finding workarounds on that. They were figuring out ways to kind of take open source models like Facebook and their stupidity decided to release their Lama large language model so everybody could see it. Well, the Chinese... That's how you got deep-seek was out like a few months later, right? But to give them the compute power is to essentially say, sure, like, well, it's like giving steroids to someone who's like running right behind you, you know?

It's a bizarre concession to make. and I just don't understand why you would do it other than I think Trump is kind of in bed with these AI guys. I don't know what is going on underneath the table. Sure, there's 15% revenue to the U.S. Treasury. God knows what kind of crypto investments are happening. I don't know. This is, yeah, I don't know. Apparently they made like, what, $5 billion this week on their new crypto launch?

So this is, but this guy, you know, Trump goes in demagogues China and talks tough about it in like Ohio. and J.D. Vance talks about like a civilizational struggle. And Steve Bannon, like, beats his chest for seven hours on the war room podcast. And then Trump just gives the Chinese everything they want. Yep. Yeah. It's not good. So bad grade so far, Mr. Trump. Yeah. Okay, we're going to take a quick break.

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All right, Ben, as we predicted, the global war on terror and the war on drugs have officially merged. On Tuesday, Trump just kind of casually announced during an unrelated thing about the Space Force that the U.S. military had carried out an airstrike on a boat that he said had departed Venezuela and was carrying drugs in 11, quote unquote, trend day Aragua, narco-terrorists. The White House even released a little snuff film of the airstrike on Twitter that you could all watch. The Times said that whatever was fired at them was either from an attack helicopter or a Reaper drone. Our listeners probably will not be surprised that we've gotten to this point. We've covered this from the beginning, like on day one of Trump 2.0, the administration released

an executive order saying drug cartels could be designated as foreign terrorist organizations. Then in February, the State Department designated a trend of Aragua as a terrorist group. The New York Times reported that Trump signed a secret directive telling the U.S. military to use deadly force against cartels. They deem to be terrorist groups. And then Treasury, the Treasury Department, designated a group called Cartel of the Sun as a terrorist group and said it was headed by Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro and other senior Venezuelan officials. So they've been kind of like constructing this legal framework, like such as it is, for months now, legal and air quotes. But either way, like militarizing the war on drugs like this is a huge deal for a bunch

of reasons. I mean, first of all, it just goes without saying Congress has not authorized military action against Venezuela, important to mention. It doesn't matter if you call them a terrorist group. This is just not how you deal with drug traffickers. Like, normally, the Coast Guard would interdict the ship. You would arrest the people on it or at least interview them. And what Trump authorized here was a summary execution for a criminal violation. And then, you know, just, again, broader context, like the U.S. has moved all these naval assets. to the southern Caribbean. That includes like amphibious assault ships, thousands of sailors, thousands of Marines, which has Nicholas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, sounding the alarm

about a possible invasion. And, you know, I've talked to some experts this morning then who said that like, it's also freaking out a bunch of other countries in the Caribbean. Because remember, not long ago, Trump was talking about taking back the Panama Canal or whatever. And so, you know, this kind of rhetoric is going to color how every leader in Central and South America views this major troop deployment, especially when you consider the broader history of U.S. intervention in Latin America. So here's a clip of Trump talking about this airstrike today, again, during that bilateral meeting with the president of Poland. On the boat, you had massive amounts of drugs. We have tapes of them speaking. It was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill

a lot of people. And everybody fully understands that. In fact, you see it. You see the bags of drugs all over the boat. And they were hit, obviously. They won't be doing it again. And I think, a lot of other people won't be doing it again when they watch that tape. They're going to say, let's not do this. We have to protect our country. And we're going to. Venezuela has been a very bad actor. So, Ben, you know, clearly he's excited to talk about this. He announced it Tuesday, talked about it again Wednesday in this press conference. My fear is that Trump is going to love the kind of media and political reaction to this first air strike and demand more. And before long, we will be talking about air strikes in countries directly.

Yeah, I have concerns because I feel like this is the merger. You're the one who coined the phrase that I really like of this is the war on terror meets the war on drugs. I'd add a third component. It's a war on terror meets the war on drugs meets the kind of American fascist immigration policy. Because if you remember, Trend de Aragua and the Venezuelan government was like the basis for the Alien enemies act being used to deport people to El Salvadorian. They're directing this gang. And in fact, actually, the courts have found against this because basically the legal theory for those who don't remember was that the U.S. is at war with Venezuela. And so therefore, we can deport Venezuelans because we're at war with them.

It's an invasion, yeah. Well, now we're actually kind of beginning to go to war with them, you know. So I don't know, you know, how much that factors into the decision-making here, but it does seem like there's a big target on Venezuela in particular, and Maduro in particular, kind of like reminiscent of like, you know, an OG. American military intervention when we went into Panama to like arrest Noriega for drug trafficking. Now, Venezuela is a much bigger country. Maduro's created like a, it claims a militia of over four million people that are ready to fight. Which he says, yeah, you deployed them. So he says, look, I do just kind of worry that Trump wants a kind of state of war to exist in this hemisphere as part of the legal justification for his immigration policies too. Interesting, yeah. Maybe I've got a bit of

I think that's – Stephen Miller's probably right there, yeah. Stephen Miller would probably go there, right? So that's something to watch. Do they kind of begin to bring their immigration policy into this kind of state of war? Then you worry about, like in the war on terror, once the U.S. starts, like, blowing things up, we tend not to stop. You know, this is highly unlikely this is the last boat we blow up, right? And we'll end up blowing up boats that are not – you know, we'll end up killing civilians. Well, that's the thing.

Intelligence gets things wrong all the time. Like what happens when we blow up a boat full of innocent fishing? Yeah. Now, keep in mind, too, this is a dumb fucking way to fight drug. Yes. Look, so long as Americans want drugs, people are going to find ways to get drugs here and sell them. I mean, maybe Trump could call up his buddy Elon Musk and ask him where he gets his drugs. Because, like, there's plenty of fucking drugs in this country.

Yeah. And blowing up individual boats. He's just drone burning, man. Exactly. Like, I mean, blowing up individual boats is not going to, like, stop drugs from coming to this country. It's just not. Any more than the war on drugs did. When you can make billions of dollars selling drugs in America, you're going to find ways to get drugs here, right? I mean, we've learned that for decades. This isn't going to work. It's just a stunt, but it's a stunt

that risk militarizing the region. And then the last piece is, yeah, this slippery slope idea that the more we're militarizing our relationship and hemisphere, and by the way, this boat wasn't coming to the U.S. apparently was going to like Trinidad or something. But the more you're militarizing it, the more, you know, maybe militarizing a conflict of Venezuela or the regime change war against Maduro or taking the Panama Canal or suddenly you're taking shots in Mexico. You know, like this thing could grow across the hemisphere in ways that are really dangerous and scary and bad for individual people and will do nothing for drug trafficking and we'll do a lot to strengthen Trump as an authoritarian leader in this country. And just it's worth

saying like in the past, you know, the U.S. has done a ton of work with countries in Latin America to do drug interdiction, but we've cut off cooperation with countries when they did things like this, when they like shot down planes that were suspected of drug running. Now we are just releasing snuff videos of drone strikes on boats. And where does that end? Because you know how many boats are moving around with drugs? I mean, it's a scary thing to think about. It really is. It really is. So one we will be watching. Also, Ben, you know, so we talk a lot about Israel and the West Bank later in the show. So we're going to go a little shorter on. Gaza today, but it doesn't mean a lot hasn't happened since we last recorded.

The first update that was just we're sharing with you guys is the Washington Post had a long story over the weekend. It was a report on a 38-page document that lays out the actual plan for the U.S. ethnic cleansing and take over of the Gaza Strip to make it the quote-unquote Riviera of the Middle East, as Trump famously said, whatever, how many months ago. This is called the, it's the Gaza Reconstruction, economic acceleration and transformation trust or great trust. It calls for Gaza.

I know it's so fucking dark. It calls for Gaza to be put in a trustee ship administered by the U.S. for about 10 years or minimum of 10 years. During that 10 year period, Palestinians would have two choices. A, you quote, unquote, voluntarily depart for another country, TBD. We can talk about where those countries are in a bit. You get a cash gift of five grand and four years of rent subsidies. Or you get to be confined in a, quote, restricted, secured zone.

So basically, this is like ethnic cleansing with a cash stipend. But to make it more like tech dushy and dystopian, people who own land in Gaza would be given a, quote, digital token to be used to finance a new life elsewhere or eventually redeemed for an apartment in one of six to eight new AI powered smart cities. AI powered smart cities. So the plan proposes like this gets so much worse. There's like a road circling Gaza called the MBS Highway, Muhammad bin Salman Highway. there's an Elon... Which I don't think he's agreed to. I don't think he wants that.

Yeah, I don't think he wants that at all. There's also an Elon Musk's smart manufacturing zone. Again, Mr. Musk is, I think, on the outs. But so initial financing of the plan... And update the slide deck. Yeah, guys, update your slide deck. It's not that hard to do PowerPoint these days. But so the initial financing of this plan comes from the trust taking ownership

of the about 30% of Gaza that is publicly owned and then using that as collateral. So again, it's like just a land grab. And then the plan claims the scheme would see a... a Forex return over 10 years through all this investment. But again, like ethnic cleansing for profit. So the security piece would come from Israel and Western contractors. They'd provide security for about a decade, at which point local police that are trained during that time would take over, that trust, the great trust would also govern Gaza during

that period. We think this plan was talked about in a White House meeting last week that included Jared Kushner and Tony Blair, whose think tank has been connected to this proposal. The report comes, this report in the post comes as Israel is preparing another major assault on Gaza City. That's the place where the famine is the worst. And as part of that assault, Ben, Israel has announced that they're going to end humanitarian pauses that we're supposed to allow a flood of aid into Gaza City to save people who are starving to death. So I guess Netanyahu is back to a policy of starving kids to death. No one tell Barry Weiss and the team over at the free press.

maybe they have some pre-existent conditions. We could dredge up quickly. But Ben, also on Monday, the International Association of Genocide Scholars said publicly that Israel is meeting the legal conditions for genocide in Gaza. So 86% of the group's 500 members voted for the resolution. So, Ben, like big picture. Obviously, Gaza reconstruction is like a massive generational challenge. Like no one is arguing with that.

90% of structures, housing stock is destroyed. The entire area is littered with unexploded ordinance that will have. have to be cleared. There's bodies trapped over endless piles of rubble. There is no infrastructure, there's no water, right? Like, there's nothing. You have to rebuild it all. And Netanyahu has refused to engage on any of that reconstruction or how Gaza would be governed after the war. But like, Jared, Kush, Tony Blair, digital, token, AI, douche mumbo-jumbo. It's like, this is one of the most dystopian documents I've ever heard of. It is. And I do want to, I want to talk about genocide thing for a minute here because look a majority of genocide scholars are at a determination

of genocide. It's not really a debate anymore among experts. If you're not American or Israeli, too, like you overwhelmingly believe a genocide is happening. I went back and decided to look at the last Trump administration's determination of genocide. You may remember that they made a determination that there was a genocide happening against the Uyghurs, right? It's an interesting thing to consider because nobody ever suggested that the Chinese Communist Party was trying to kill every Uyghur. They weren't. They were sending the re-education camps. It was horrible what they were doing.

The reason that Mike Pompeo made this determination is he said, quote, we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uyghurs by the Chinese party state. And again, not by killing them, but through, quote, the eventual erasure of a vulnerable ethnic and religious minority group. how is this not the erasure of a group? They lived in Gaza, a substantial amount of them were killed, starved, wounded, all of their homes were destroyed almost, and now you're saying that they have to leave. That was ethnic cleansing. That is the erasure of a group, right? And so people need to realize that just because, I mean, this is genocide by PowerPoint,

you know, presentation, right, when you're talking about literally ethnically cleansing the Gaza strip. That's what's happening. And it is this kind of spooky dystopian convergence of AI and crypto and this idea that money can solve any problem and get these people out of the way and this kind of new Abraham Accords order, right? You know, the Gulf Arabs, by the way, aren't even signed on to this because they know politically it's dangerous for them. So you basically got a bunch of people like, you know, from Tony Blair to Jared Kushner kind of speaking for the future participation of these Gulf Arabs because they're the ones with the money. But it's all these awful forces that have converged in the Trump administration with absolutely no regard.

Who are the Palestinian voices that are participating in these discussions, right? I mean, you're literally having conversations about the future of a whole people without them. They're not asking for digital tokens. They're not asking to live in AI cities. They're asking to, like, live in their homes, you know? And Jared Kushner's role here, tells you a lot, too, because this guy's been kind of on the margins, but he's been vacuuming money all across this region. He's getting a kickback from the Saudis and the Amarades and the cutteries or like sort of the sovereign wealth funds or investment companies tied to those governments. That's right. And the last thing I just say about this is when Trump floated the Gaza Riviera thing,

we everybody kind of chuckled. This is a reminder that this Trump administration, they tend to end up doing the crazy things that they say they're going to do. And that announcement also gave the political space to every right winger in Israel to come out in support of the full ethnic cleansing of Gaza, which is something they had not done before that. That's right. So, I mean, there's a direct line from Trump making that comment to Trump posting that weird AI thing with like statues of Elon Musk to this PowerPoint presentation. And so like take this very seriously. This is the actual plan of what they want to do in Gaza over the objection of any Palestinians and over the objection of pretty much every. country in the world other than the United States in Israel. And I was watching. And Tony Blair, I guess, whoever he seems to. What is he doing? I don't understand what he's doing here. I was watching

something. It was Jeremy Diamond at CNN. It's done some really great coverage of Gaza and all things are happening in Israel. He had a piece yesterday and he just somehow got footage of this mom like fleeing with her two kids and it was like a little boy. She was like holding a little boy's hand And then the little girl was running ahead. And she had one of those mini mouse backpacks. Yeah. And the girl was so little that it like was almost dragging on the ground. And I just saw that.

I just like could not not think about my two kids and being a mom in Gaza City. And you're just like there's literally nowhere for you to go. Everywhere is getting bombed. Everywhere is occupied. You've been told to relocate countless times at this point. There is a fucking full on famine. Right. And we were told that Netanyahu cared and he was going to allow all this aid into Gaza City to turn it back.

And, you know, like all these American officials and members of Congress seemingly believed him. And now they're just turning off those humanitarian causes. And again, going back to this starvation policy. Yeah, all these Democrats senators like, you know, Cory Booker posing for photographs with Netanyahu as recently as like a few weeks ago. And the only other thing I'd say about the kid thing is I was thinking about this Tommy, too, is that imagine the trauma that. parents are going to have for the rest of their lives, imagine how you'd feel if you couldn't keep your child safe, you know? It's your whole reason for existence.

It's your whole reason for existence is to protect this child, then you can't. What that does to people psychologically. I mean, it's not the kind of thing that goes away with a crypto coin or something. No, no, your Bitcoin bullshit. I mean, yeah, the deprivation, look, we're so focused on killing and starvation, but the deprivation that we don't talk about for Palestinian communities, like these kids haven't gone to school, Just the trauma. I mean...

Kids haven't seen a dentist or a doctor. Just bottomless trauma that they'll be dealing with for the rest of their lives. And to think you can move them around like pieces on a game board to South Sudan. To Libya, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Indonesia, Somaliland. All places where there have been wars. I mean, these are all, most of these places have been hot war zones in the last decade. It's just, it's the most morally bankrupt. So you're moving them to another war zone.

And by the way, Steve Wickhoff's out there saying that he thinks the war is going to end by the end of this year. this Gaza City offensive is not even scheduled to be done by the end of this year. And meanwhile, Bibi Netanyahu is like calling up all these reservists. And by the way, you're building the largest, if you do build the Gaza Riviera, you're building the largest terrorist target in the world. I just, I literally, that was my, my head went right to that too. Like the ISIS recruiters, the Hamas recruiters, the Hezbollah recruiters, this plan is what they've dreamed of. Yeah.

This confirms every single argument. Well, I don't want, I mean, it doesn't make them right, but like, this is literally like a cartoonish version of like a white supremacist colonial superstructure. Like, I don't know what else you call this, you know. It's just horrible. POTD The World is brought to by Built. Nobody wants to pay rent, but if you have to, built makes it worth it. Built is revolutionizing how millions think about paying rent by rewarding their members with points and exclusive benefits around their neighborhood every single month. By paying rent through Built, you earn flexible points that can be redeemed towards hundreds of hotels and airlines, a future rent payment.

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Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas and any other officials into the U.S. for the UN General Assembly, which starts next week. The State Department's going even further by denying visitor visas to almost all holders of Palestinian passports. So again, you're not allowed to participate in any talks about the future of your country. It's insane. Trump had some thoughts about Israel during an interview with the daily collar that were worth noting. He said, quote, Israel was the strongest lobby I've ever seen. They had total control over Congress. And now they don't. He also said, quote, they're going to have to get that war over with, but it is hurting Israel. There's no question about it. They may be winning the war, but they're not winning the world of public relations, you know,

and it is hurting them. End quote. So per usual, Ben, Trump says stuff about the Israel lobby controlling Washington that would get all of us labeled an anti-Semite by Jonathan Greenblatt and all these fuckers. Where's Jonathan Greenblatt? They don't say a word about this. Hey, Jonathan Greenblatt, why don't you go on TV and have a viral moment yelling about Donald Trump's comments on the Israel lobby? Maybe what would help?

And by the way, one more thing on this because it always drives me not. It's not a public relations problem. It's an actions problem. It's a kid's getting killed problem. I hate it when people are like, oh, Israel's got a real PR problem. No, they have a problem that they've been, they've killed tens of thousands of children. The problem is not a good PR strategy. And starving them to death.

That's the problem. Yeah, it's a policy problem. And then last Thursday, Ben, an Israeli air strike hit the Houthi government meeting Yemen, killing cabinet members and the prime minister Ahmed al-Rahawi. The Wall Street Journal reports that Al-Rahui's role was largely administrative with little political authority. The leader of the Houthis is actually so alive and kicking. And the military arm was unaffected by the strike, but it did set off this big conversation about whether the Israeli government had assassinated the prime minister of a sovereign nation. And we know that the president of Iran barely survived

in Israeli air strike during the 12-day war. So this is now a trend. Yeah, I mean, first of all, this isn't going to, like, wipe out the Houthis. I mean, you're not going to militarily wipe these people out. Like, they live in Yemen. They're a substantial number of people. And, yeah, it's just, you know, the people that, like, get off on this stuff think it's great.

But, like, you're just going to go around killing people in this region. indefinitely in every country forever. I mean, that's not a, you know, that's not security. It reminds you of like our kind of failed al-Qaeda policies. Yeah. Every six months, the al-Qaeda number three would get killed and everyone talk about how influential that person is and then the group just metastasizes. I know we're going along with two more things we should talk about.

So it's just been a horrible week for natural disasters in Darfur, Sudan, a landslide, had a whole village killing at least a thousand people. And there's been some just devastating news and images out of Afghanistan where there was a 6.0 magnitude earthquake. It hit the eastern part of the country. Kuna province, which borders Pakistan, was hit hardest. But like entire villages, structures made with mud bricks were just flattened. And this is a very remote mountainous area. These landslides were blocking roads. There's no equipment. There's a shortage of helicopters that has made rescue efforts difficult, if not impossible. So the official number of dead as of this recording on Wednesday morning is over 1,400 people with 3,000

injured, but those numbers are going to go up because there's just tons of villages and communities that haven't been reached yet, let alone like kind of been accounted for. So we reached out to Alaha Omar, executive director of the uplift Afghanistan Fund, who's been working on relief efforts there. Here's what she had to say. This earthquake is definitely not happening in isolation. Afghanistan is in its fourth year of drought. Crops are failing and hunger is widespread. At the same time, we've witnessed this recently. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been forcibly returned from Iran and Pakistan, swelling the number of displaced families.

Even before this earthquake, 22 million Afghans already needed humanitarian aid. And the hard truth is the international community, including the U.S., has sharply reduced aid to Afghanistan. U.S. assistance has dropped from nearly 3.8 billion in 2022 to 767 million today. What that means is hundreds of clinics have closed, medical airlifts are grounded, and food programs are cut back. For women and girls in particular, this is devastating, because without female medical staff, they often can't get access to care at all. The shortage of female doctors and nurses means many are going untreated. Amid this devastation, what inspires me most is how Afghans themselves are leading the response. In a country often defined by conflict, what I'm seeing is compassion,

solidarity, and extraordinary courage. So we're going to put a, a, uh, a, uh, we're going to put a, a link to the uplift Afghanistan website and the show notes. If you want to check out what the work they're doing, maybe contribute financially or some other way. But Ben, it's just, it's so gutted to see a natural disaster like this and then no, it is compounded by U.S. policy decisions, like gutting USAID or just the utter refusal to figure out a way to work with the Taliban. Yeah, I mean, normally USAID would be like the tip of the spear and disaster response. So what you're hearing from Malaha in that clip is that there are people that are going to do or people that are not going to get aid because of the decision to gut U.S. assistance,

to gut U.S.AID, and to basically ignore Afghanistan after the collapse four years ago. And, you know, given our fingerprints all over Afghanistan, that's just a complete moral failing. I will say uplift Afghanistan is one of the groups that is able to work with people who are on the ground. So if people do want to support, that's a good mechanism to do that because they know the people that are, that they're there. Yeah, and that's going to be the hardest part, right, like finding someone on the ground to work with. And the Sudan piece of this is also just so bad.

I mean, they're like years into the Civil War. You have hundreds of thousands of people who have, like, escaped to the Darfur region to these camps, like literally like 300, 400,000 people in a camp. And then there are these horrible landslides and monsoons and no aid is getting to them to begin with. So there's already a famine. There was a massive cholera epidemic.

There's no medical care. I mean, it's just like, it's just so unfair. what happens to the most, you know, the people in the worst position. And again, when USAID gets cut by big balls and Elon Musk and people laugh at Democrats having a press conference from any of USAID and they see it as a political issue, these are deaths, these are preventable deaths. You can prevent a mudslide on an earthquake, but you can make sure that there's resources for people who are dealing with it.

People in complications are always more vulnerable. So we remember there's going to be a long tail to what Elon Musk and Doge did. Yep. But final topic. So as listeners know, Trump promised to solve the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. It is now September 3rd. The war is now worse than ever for Ukrainians. The White House, like they threw together this Alaska summit with Putin, the big meeting with Trump and Zelensky and the Europeans. They promised all this follow up, like a bilateral meeting between Russia and Ukraine and maybe a trilateral meeting with Russia and Ukraine and the U.S. We were told we'd see details of a security guarantee

for Ukraine. And here we are weeks later, Ben, and like literally none of that has happened. So what is going on? Obviously, a lot of this stems from bad strategy. It stems from Donald Trump only caring about headlines and not follow up or substance. But it's also increasingly clear that Steve Whitkoff, Trump's golf buddy turned envoy for everything. It's just kind of an idiot. So we gave Whitkoff a bunch of credit and the benefit of the doubt early on when Trump got the Gaza ceasefire over the finish line. But things have gone downhill everywhere since. Politico and Reuters did some deep reporting on the impact of Whitko. incompetence that was worth highlighting. So a lot of the challenges stem from process. So apparently Wikov takes meetings with Putin or other leaders one-on-one, at least once he used Putin's translator and didn't bring his own, which is insane. At least once Wichkhov didn't bring a standard State Department note taker to his meeting with Putin. And that led to huge problems because back in August, you had Wikov telling Trump, telling European leaders that Putin was prepared to withdraw from parts of Ukraine and offer major concessions to end the war. Specifically,

Quickly, Whitkoff had told him that Putin said if he got to keep the Netsk in Lujans provinces, he would withdraw from Zaporizia and Kerasan, which would have been like a kind of shocking major concession. But then apparently a day later, Marco Rubio had to call those leaders back and do cleanup and say, actually, Putin just said he wouldn't demand that the West formerly recognized Zaporizia and Kerasian as a Russian territory didn't offer to withdraw troops. There's a big change. And that confusion, I think, led to the Rush to Alaska Summit and, you know, all we've seen since.

And then Politico talked with 13 people, both U.S. officials and foreign officials, who have dealt with Wiccoff. And here's some of what they reported. One, Wiccoff won't meet with or consult with experts and he doesn't have a lot of stuff to help him. And the staff he has often doesn't know where he is or what he's doing because he just camps out in the West Wing while his team is at the State Department kind of like wondering what's going on. He apparently pops in and out of meetings like goes out of the high profile stuff and then, quote, fucks off to his life again, end quote, meaning he's not engaged. in like the day-to-day grinding work of diplomacy. And it also means in practice other U.S. government officials don't know where he is, don't know what he said, don't know what he heard from Putin at a key meeting. And then they say, well, Wikoff reportedly doesn't read his briefings daily, doesn't even check his government email sometimes some days. And the story said that even the Russians have gotten annoyed at Wiccoff at times because he's unable to accurately convey Putin's messages in views to Trump.

Though I would note that the Russians specifically chose Wikov to be their guy and iced out. Keith Kellogg, who was supposed to be the envoy in charge of ending this war. So, Ben, of course, like, the only thing that matters at the end of the day is results. If Wikov gets good deals over the Finnish line, I will praise him. But it's pretty disconcerting to read this and know that this guy is not just trying to end the war in Ukraine. He's also in charge of Gaza and all these other big projects. It's pretty extraordinary when you consider the fact that he's sitting alone with Putin in a room. And Vladimir Putin is someone who probably has more whatever you think of Vladimir Putin.

and I don't think much of him as human. Probably has more diplomatic experience than anybody in the world. And Steve Wikoff's experience is like, you know, some real estate properties in Florida, you know. I mean, you can chuckle about it, but the, I mean, the common thread of, I think, our whole conversation today is these guys, these Trump guys kind of created a bit of an illusion of competence because they came in and they moved so fast and they did so much stuff. and people had to kind of kiss up to them. And there was that kind of short-term ceasefire in Gaza because BB was giving Trump a little gift on the way in. But actually, if you pull the camera back,

what you see is just stupendous incompetence and lack of qualification. And it's not hard for Steve Whitkoff to grab an expert, you know, take your pick from the State Department, from the Defense Department, from the CIA. Like there's a lot of people in the U.S. government. And by the way, they don't even have to be like, you know, our kind of experts.

I'm sure there's some MAGA adjacent experts. The fact that this guy is so casual about conflicts as serious as the war in Ukraine or in Gaza, and just because he, you know, lathers Trump up and talks him at the Nobel Peace Prize and plays golf with him at Marlago, he's managing these accounts. It's truly extraordinary incompetence. And you made the right point, too. Like, Kellogg was appointed the envoy. The Russians literally selected.

Wickoff was supposed to be the Middle East envoy. And the Russians literally selected him. and Iced out Kellogg, and he's, Kellogg's only allowed to talk to the Ukrainians. And if you can't even pass messages back and forth accurately, I mean, that's like the lowest common denominator of what a diplomat does. The last thing that's just worth pointing out is that Steve Whitkoff's son is in this crypto business with Eric Trump and Don Jr. What is it, World Liberty, Financial, and so he's all, you know, that's part of what's

going on too here, is like the Whitkoff families. Why else you need to meet a loan? Yeah, exactly. You can talk about stuff like that, right? You can have a little crypto conversation, you know. A little sidebar. bar. Yeah, I mean, it like, to your point about the experts, like, you don't have to do what they say. No, just it's like, you should meet with them. You should hear them out. Yeah. It's like, apparently

RFK Jr. Not only did he not listen to like the vaccine experts, he refused to even have conversations with them. Yeah. He wouldn't talk to the people at the CDC. It's like, you also, you see J.D. Vance kind of lost his mind about this story on Twitter, like, wrote an op-ed, which does tell you that like, what cost feelings matter to Trump. So there's some real sensitivity there. But like, I don't know, man. Get your shit together. Yeah. I mean, just pick an envoys for the Mara Lago membership rules is probably not the best way to staff of government.

No, no. It is where we are. It is where we are. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. And when you come back, you're going to hear my interview with Jasper Nathaniel about life for Palestinians and the West Bank and the death of the two-state solution. Stick around for that. Positive of the world is brought to you by Sundays. Sundays is fresh dog food made from a short list of human great ingredients.

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He writes about Israel and Palestine with a particular focus on the West Bank, which is going to be the focus of our conversation today. Jasper, good to see you. Thanks, Tommy. Great to be here. So for nearly two years, there was October 7th in the subsequent military campaign in Gaza, and that has gotten the most media attention. and frankly, focus on this show, I think, understandably.

But what has been happening in the West Bank, I think, is incredibly important in terms of any hope for a future Palestinian state. So I'm excited to dig into the details with you today. But I think we could just start with some basics for folks who are coming at this new. Can you describe the status of the West Bank under international law? And then what it means when, you know, U or I or when people hear someone refer to the West Bank as an Area A or Area B or Area C, what are those demarc? occasions mean? Yeah. So the West Bank is, it is legally under a military occupation. You know,

Israel is obviously the military. They're the occupier or the occupying force. The Palestinian people are the occupied. And that's important because that that actually has to adhere to the Geneva Convention and Hague and all sorts of laws. And what those laws amount to basically, the military occupations, laws are that the occupier is a temporary occupier. They are not allowed to put any roots down. They cannot transfer their population there. They can't build their own infrastructure there. Everything that the occupying force is doing has to be for either the well-being of the occupied people or for Israel's security. And so, you know, to state the obvious, they've gone, Israel has gone far above and beyond, beyond those laws, what they're allowed to do. And that is why, like,

the settlement movement is fundamentally illegal because the settlement movement is about building Israeli villages and homes in a place that is not theirs and where they are legally not allowed to do that. The areas A, B, and C that you mentioned, this was a later development, after or during the Oslo's Accord 2 in the mid-90s. So basically that, this is a really important thing because this is something you see people getting wrong all the time on Twitter and everywhere else. Nothing changed about who owns the West Bank.

It still is Palestinian land under a temporary military occupation. What the Oslo Accords 2 did was it divided up the West Bank into these three different areas for who would have, basically administrative and security governance responsibilities over them. And so the vast majority of it is something like 66%, maybe, is area C, which is under full Israeli administrative control and security control. Area B is Palestinian Authority administrative control, technically split Israeli and Palestinian security control.

and then area A is technically supposed to be all Palestinian administrative and security control. I think an important thing to keep in mind here, Tommy, is that, I mean, there is certainly, like, a correlation between where the Palestinians live and, like, what area it is. But for the most part, the military, the Israeli military goes wherever they want. Right. You know, they go into area A, B, C, it makes no difference to them. And, you know, that is sort of like the theme throughout the entire history of the West. Bank is, you know, they come to some agreement, they negotiate something, and then the,

the settlers or the military in the West Bank just, you know, act like the rules don't apply to them pretty much instantly. Right. And then, you know, another big picture question, like, can you just describe in broad strokes, kind of the difference in quality of life if you're an Israeli living on an Israeli settlement or if you're a Palestinian living in a Palestinian community? And then the kind of difference for the two groups when it comes to rights, especially freedom of movement. Well, I think the word for it is apartheid. I mean, there's there's two sets of laws and two sets of everything, basically. So just to give you like one example, Israel controls all the water in the West Bank. Most of it is from the Jordan River, but there's different springs and

other bodies of water. Israel has systematically created dams and reservoirs and basically rerouted all the water away from Palestinian villages. And, you know, into settlements. The roads, I mean, it's the same thing. Like all the sort of direct, easy access highways are for Israeli only. I mean, you literally cannot go with Palestinian plates. Everything is just more inconvenient for the Palestinians. There's literally two sets of a different criminal justice system. The Palestinians there are subject to military law, which, as many people may know, doesn't actually require having charges against somebody. So you can just arrest somebody under what's called administrative detention.

And you just tell the judge this is a security threat. It would be a security threat to even reveal the evidence that we have against them. And then they get to just lock that person up with no due process. Israelis, on the other hand, to the extent that settlers are ever arrested, which is very, very, very rare, they are under Israeli civil law. So just everything is different. All the laws are different. of quality of life, I mean, I'll say it was bad. It's been bad for decades for the Palestinians. I mean,

they are living with a military that has set up checkpoints to make their lives difficult. And, you know, they need to get permits to get to the hospital in Ramallah from Jericho or whatever. So just everything's a pain in the ass. But basically the sort of cruelty of all of it got turned way up in 2023, both when the new government, the new Nanyahu. government came in and then also after October 7th, obviously. Yeah. And that new government's got some really odious right-wing figures in it, like this guy, Basilos Motritch, we should dig into in a minute.

But so I think that context is really important just in terms of helping people understand what we're talking about when people talk about a two-state solution or the creation of a Palestinian state because the West Bank, the territory, the physical territory in the West Bank would be the core of a Palestinian state. And over time, Israeli settlements have carved up the West Bank in a way that is often referred to as a slow motion annexation. And at this point in time, those settlements make creating anything resembling what we would think of as a contiguous state, basically impossible. Can you give us sort of like explain how we got to this point? Because I think it is hard for people who hear this constant talk of a Palestinian state to reckon that with like the reality of what.

the West Bank looks like and the role that, you know, Smotrich and other kind of right-wing settler movement leaders have played in that process. Yeah. So I think the right way to think about it is that the settlement movement as an entity, as a movement, is actually, I mean, it's independent from the Israeli military. It is not technically, you know, like a branch of the Israeli government. and for years, the settlement ideology was not necessarily perfectly in line with the Israeli government or with Israeli military. And so you see these videos from maybe even 10 years ago, 10, 20 years ago, of the military going in and dismantling an illegal outposts that settlers had built, which is basically when they just decide to build a new settlement without getting authorization from the government.

And so a lot of the, the settlers, Smotritch included actually, were sort of like running around the hills of the West Bank, just building outposts and kind of being chased around by the Israeli government to some extent who, you know, at various points like wanted to maintain order at the very least. Whereas the settlement movement has just a sort of one, you know, one focus. and that is on annexing the entire West Bank, ethnically cleansing the entire West Bank. That's an fucking insane concept, by the way. Just we should pause that. Like, imagine, like, you get with a group of your buddies, what do you grab a couple, like, tents and stakes,

and you just run to a community where you don't live or you have no foundation and you just build some sort of, like, ad hoc community on the top of the hill. That is, I think that would sound insane to most people. Yes, and I think that that's a really important point to, like, pause on for a minute, because that is actually the biggest change in the last two years, is that the, maybe I'll just take a step back and explain sort of the Smotrich takeover and then it'll lead into that.

So basically, like, the military occupation of the West Bank in a weird way has provided some insulation between the Palestinian people and the most extremist right-wing Israelis and the settlers in particular. And what I mean by that is it's not to say that the Israeli military in the West Bank has ever been a benevolent force. In fact, I think it's been just the opposite for pretty much as long as it's been there. But the military has lawyers. And these lawyers, you know, ostensibly on some level, have to adhere to international law. And people might hear that and laugh be like, yeah, what does Israel care about international law these days?

But the fact is there were these sort of bureaucratic procedures that the military was going through for decades to prove that it was sort of like within the guidelines of Geneva and the Hague. So in that sense, these guys like Smotrich who are running around the hills trying to build these little outposts, they were constantly in violation of international law. And so the military would often chase them around basically and try to stop them because they had their own way of, you know, building illegal settlements. in alignment with the way the government was doing it. So Smokic understands from a young age that actually like his dreams of taking over the entire West Bank, which they called Judea and Samaria, because it's the, it's the, you know, the old kingdom of, the kingdoms of Israel from the Old Testament days. So it has this real like biblical value to them. He understood that actually the military occupation is the biggest thing in the way of us.

being able to take over the entire West Bank, more so than the Palestinians who are actually living there. And so what happens in February 2023, and this is a part that I think most people don't know about because everybody knows that after October 7th, the violence got much worse there. And I think it's understandable why. But what happened before that, basically, was after Netanyahu, you know, has to build this coalition with these far right leaders to, you know, have a majority governing coalition, Smotrich and Ben Gavir, I think people know a lot of these names by now. They're two of the guys that just instantly become ministers.

Smotrich is the finance minister, which obviously, you know, that's like the Treasury Secretary in America. But the other thing that happens is Smotrich works out a deal with the defense minister, who at the time was Yoav Ghant. And it's pretty murky exactly how this happened, but it was almost certainly, you know, Nenya who sort of like gifted this to Smokic on a promise that he, he would, like, behave in some, in some different ways. And so Smotritch becomes literally an additional minister in the ministry of defense.

He's not, no, you know, Smutrich is a civilian. He wasn't even allowed into the Israeli military because he was a terror supporter. But he suddenly is just given this arbitrary role as additional minister in the ministry of defense. And what he then does is he basically builds a entire shadow government, inside of the military that sort of begins routing all of the decisions around building settlements, around demolishing Palestinian villages, around infrastructure, and it routes it away from those military lawyers who had been a pain of the ass to him for all these years, and just sends him straight to these settler ideologues like himself.

And so after that happens, basically all of the guardrails that had been on the settlement movement because of the military occupation and these nominal laws they had to adhere to are just gone. And so the reason this is so significant is because technically and legally, the West Bank is still under a military occupation, but it has effectively just been taken over by settler ideologues who have no respect whatsoever for the international law. And so that is even before October 7th why you saw this crazy acceleration in settlement building and why soldiers suddenly became emboldened and were becoming more violent.

And then basically October 7th happens and Samo Church immediately, immediately begins framing what happened, you know, the Hamas attack as no different from what the Palestinians and the West Bank would have done. There's this quote from him where he says, you know, the Nazis in Gaza the same Nazis in the West Bank. They want to throw us into the same sea. So he's immediately trying to collapse the distinction between Hamas. and the Palestinian Authority and Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. So then that allows him to basically use the security justification to supercharge everything that he's already been doing.

And so that sort of like fundamental bureaucratic change in the way the West Bank is governed from the military to Smotrich paired with this new justification, you know, after October 7th, security, that is what has allowed things to just go absolutely, the settlers to go absolutely wild in the West Bank to, you know, these like unprecedented land grabs, 60 Palestinian villages being chased off their land, over a thousand people murdered in the last two years. So that's the sort of backdrop in how that all happened. Yeah. And these like kind of individuals who are fringe players, right, like Smotrich was from the religious Zionism party, Ben Gavir was from the Jewish power party, parties that were so far right and so extremist and so

willing to adopt violent tactics to further their political ends, that they were seen as sort of out of bounds in the Israeli political system for a long time. But Netanyahu needed them to get back into power in 2022. And Israel has a proportional representation system, which meant, you know, his like Hood Party didn't have enough seats in the Knesset to get to the 50% threshold that you needed to form a government. So he goes in league with all these right wing nuts. And now those guys basically have him by the balls. Right. So anyone listening thinking like, well, you know, isn't isn't Netanyahu the one really in control of this? Like, well, kind of.

Like, he put together this coalition. But, you know, if Smotrich or Ben Gavir kind of pull the plug on it, then he's thrown out of power. And, you know, we won't belabor all of it. But he's also got a bunch of legal troubles coming down the pike that he wants to avoid accountability for by staying the prime minister. I think it's also worth mentioning that, you know, Netanyahu has pretty much always supported the settlement movement.

He's not, it's not his own, like, his life's mission to, to take over the West Bank, as it is, a Smotrich or a Ben-Gavir or a number of other ministers, actually. But he has rubber stamped virtually everything they've done. And, you know, right now they're talking about some sort of a formal declaration of sovereignty. So, like, I just, I don't want to let Nanyahu off the hook, like, you know, the inmates are running the asylum or something. Because on some level, like, yes, the government has been taken over by these right-wing fanatics who have this incredible power and pretty much veto power on everything when it comes to the war in Gaza. But, you know, Netanyahu is, is, he's more, he's a politician. He has, you know, international diplomacy concerns. And, you know, his corruption

trial, obviously. But I think that he's pretty much, like, in favor of ethnically cleansing the West Bank. He just has these other sort of considerations as well. Yeah. His, his passion project has always been bombing Iran, you know, like, you look, we all have things we love and there's things you do for work. And I think bombing Iran was, you know, the thing he loves. But you've written about how, you know, because of this context on the ground that we just talked through in terms of the West Bank getting carved up. And frankly, because of the state of Israeli and Palestinian public opinion after October 7th, talk of a two-state solution is almost akin to climate denial. Can you make that case for us?

Yeah. So basically, like, for the purposes of this argument, we're going to put aside your view of what happened in 1914. on the sort of legitimacy of the Jewish state or the Zionist project. And even what happened in 1967, like, forget all the different competing historical narratives. And just look it today. So basically, the strategy that the settlers have had is one of what they call facts on the ground. And what facts on the ground, what they're referring to is, you know, we can change laws. We can have new politicians come in.

We can do this and that. But ultimately, it's going to be what is actually. happening on the ground. That is going to be what drives policy or what drives the sort of diplomatic situation more than anything else. And so even if there have been laws preventing, you know, these illegal outposts from going up and settlement expansion, they've still done it. And, you know, they have now over 100 settlements, somewhere between 500,000 and 750,000 settlers. They've cut up the West Bank into, you know, it's basically a sea of Israeli territory with a little like, dots of Palestinian villages. They're now basically severing it in half with the, the E1 build and

cutting off East Jerusalem. So the point is, like, they're literally just, there is not a Palestinian state. Like, there couldn't be one. I mean, yes, there could be a sort of theoretical Palestinian state or they could be recognized by the UN. But I think when most people talk about a two-state solution, they're talking about a Palestinian state next to a Jewish state of Israel. And my question to these people is, where is this Palestinian state that you're talking about? And the only real answer is basically you've got to get the settlers out. And that's the part that I think is like climate denial. I think when people hear settlers, they might picture like, you know, guys on the Oregon Trail or something.

like we're talking about three quarters of a million, heavily, heavily armed, well-organized, people who have built entire cities in the West Bank. And they have, you know, not for nothing, they have the full backing of the Israeli government. So this idea that you're going to get the settlers to leave the West Bank, I mean, it would take a massive war to get them out. And frankly, if there ever was a war, I mean, the Israeli government would be backing them. I don't know how there would ever be a, a, uh, civil war to get them out because that's just not where the country is. So the point is like,

I think it's nice to, you know, imagine these two states side by side. I happen to think that for a long time, politicians who are sort of, you know, very pro-Israel, but want to maintain a sort of, like a look of being also for Palestinian humanity and self-determination and these things, I think the two-state solution is just the sort of like thing they fall back on to maintain that they do support Palestinians. And I think that it's completely disingenuous. And it allows them to not have to answer the difficult questions about what are you going to do about the fact that there is no Palestinian state? There's 750,000 settlers there. They have the full backing of the government. They have tens of thousands of guns. Like, what are you going to do about all those things? And when you just talk about

a two state solution, you get to skip all those questions. And so, you know, my feeling is, for any politician who wants to, you know, claims that they are pro-Palestine, or at least like for Palestinian humanity, which I think is hopefully a, you know, democratic position. Like, we can't let them just say I'm for two-state solution anymore because that to me is just it's a move to obfuscate the reality of what's actually happening. Yeah, look, I think there's probably different categories. I think for some, it's just like decades of political muscle memory in the thing that you are all for.

It's also sort of like the hopeful version of a very bleak situation is you sort of hope that through this process of negotiations, there can be some sort of swaps of territory on each side that will lead to the creation of borders. And, you know, a Palestinian state, that probably, let's be honest, probably was never envisioned as having a military right or having the sort of full sets of rights or power that the Israeli government would have. But that could exist as something independent and on its own. And then I think there probably is a category of people like you just described who are just kind of defaulting to saying there for a two-state solution to avoid having to answer questions about or entertain, frankly, the much harder reality that you are describing, which has gotten exponentially worse, not only since October 7th, but in the past few weeks, there was this announcement of the E1 settlement, which you mentioned just now, which essentially will carve the West Bank fully into four pieces in not. allow it to connect it anyway. Yeah. And, you know, again, it's just like, you know, you mentioned the outpost thing before, or you mentioned, like, anybody who imagined just like you and a group of friends running into some town that wasn't yours and just setting up a tent. And like, that is now policy. Like, they have it down to a system where basically these settlers will set their, set their sites on a

particular Palestinian village that they think is vulnerable. A lot of the time it's the Bedouin communities, shepherding villages. And, you know, these places are unarmed. They do not have any weapons. They have no way to defend themselves. And they go and they build an illegal settlement right next to the village. And then they do these nightly pogroms. These are the videos you see of them going in and setting cars on fire, you know, smashing windows, going into homes, occasionally shooting and killing people. And that is now government policy to be able to do that. And that. And and use that as a way to drive the Palestinians off the land. So, like, that, what I just described is so far from a two-state solution.

I mean, it's the opposite. It's quite literally a policy of violent ethnic cleansing. And so I just, like, I want to know who, like, who are the people in Israel even that would be, you know, driving this thing forward? No, I think it's fair. And I'm sure their listeners is probably screaming at the phone right now reminding me that religious fanatics running into communities. they're not from and setting up outposts is also how this country was formed. And yes, of course,

you are right. But it's probably why the United States supports the settler project. You've also written, though, about how just like the evil way's bureaucracy is being leveraged in the West Bank, including like laws governing archaeological practices in the preservation of antiquities that is being used to further solidify Israel's hold on the West Bank. Can you explain that? Yeah. Okay. So there's, there's two different routes that the, um, the sort of pro annexation block in Israel, the settlers and whatnot,

two different routes that they take for, um, this, you know, silent annexation. One of them is from inside of the West Bank, basically chipping away at Palestinian authority control, um,

chipping away at, you know, degrading their finances and basically just like, softening the Palestinian authority, uh, literally the PA, but also just like their authority or ability, to govern across the entire West Bank.

So with archaeology, what they've done is they passed, it was actually an executive decision about a year ago or a year and a half ago that just suddenly said archaeology sites in the West Bank, Israel now controls not just the ones in area C, but also the ones in area B. Those are also ours to govern now. The entire West Bank is basically an archaeology site. I mean, this is one of the most historically rich places on Earth.

There have been dozens of civilizations that have been there. The ancient Israelites were one of them. There are many others. There were Islamic ones. There were pagan ones. There were, you know, Samaritans before there even were Jews. And so when you just, you pass this sort of like narrow, it sounds like this narrow antiquities all like, okay, they just took, you know, took control of these archaeological sites in area B. We're talking about entire towns that are now not able to build homes, that are now not able to access their, you know, water resources.

or they just can't do anything. All they're basically like archaeology has been used as a zoning tool. So, so then the second way that they're going about this annexation is not chipping away at the Palestinian Authority, but actually chipping away at the military occupation, like I mentioned. And what that looks like is basically trying to take Israel's laws, like the laws that governs civil life in Israel and make them the law in the West Bank to, And so this big thing that's happening right now, which is being framed by, I think, like, people who just don't know any better, but also just ingenuous people as a fight over archaeology is actually a fight over dismantling the military occupation and just absorbing the West Bank. And so what's happening is basically there is a governing body in the West Bank called the Israeli civil administration.

This is technically part of the Defense Department, and it is the body that oversees like administrative things. the West Bank, including overseeing archaeological sites, all these zoning laws. This new law that is sort of matriculating through the Knesset right now would take control of archaeological sites away from the Israeli civil administration and give them to the Israeli antiquities authority. So again, on paper, it's like, what's the big deal? Authority over archaeological sites transfers from one department to another. The big deal is that now the Israeli federal...

government suddenly takes control of huge swaths of the West Bank. And that is just like, again, you know, you're chipping away at the military occupation. And the way they think of it is they're trying to erase the green line that separates Israel from its occupied territories so that the settlers can just be considered citizens like everybody else. Israeli law governs the West Bank like it does in Israel. And archaeology, frankly, it's always been a very strong weapon for Israel to displace and oppress Palestinians. But now they've really sharpened it into a tool that they're using to just further sort of erase the green line and bludgeon the Palestinians. Yeah, it's the steady erosion.

One last question for you. So we've talked on this show before about your great reporting about a 16-year-old Palestinian-American boy named Muhammad Zahir, Ibrahim, who has been in prison for six months for allegedly, I think, throwing rocks on an empty street. I'm not sure how that a crime in any way. Can you tell us a little bit about this case and if there's any updates? Yeah. So Muhammad Zahir Ibrahim, he's a Palestinian American. He is first cousins with Syphola Musilat, who is beaten to death in July. Their moms are sisters, so literally first cousins. Basically in February, him and a couple of kids were out being kids and like threw some rocks on just on an empty street. There was nothing going on.

there. And that later that night, the Israeli military basically burst into each of their homes, masked and bound the kids, and took them to Israeli military detention. They were then interrogated, and I've seen the interrogation videos. They are trying to get them to say that they were throwing rocks at cars or throwing rocks at people, but there's no evidence that they were, and nobody said that they were. But anyway, like I said before, you don't actually need a charge. So they have not been able to charge Muhammad

with throwing a rock at somebody or even at a car or property, but they still just said, we're going to keep him anyway. So he's been held for six months in, he was in Magidio, which is a Israeli military detention center, famous for torture, for starvation.

By the way, the Israeli prison system is overseen by Ben Gavir, who just, openly brags about starving them, taking their beds away, sticking eight or 12 prisoners in a four-person cell. This kid weighed 100 pounds. He's down to his lawyer. Last time she was able to speak to him, which was months ago, says he's below 70 pounds now. He's contracted scabies. He has not been able to speak with his parents once in six months. And I think it's pretty clear that Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, probably any number of people could just make a phone call and say,

hey, you got the 16-year-old kid in there. He's an American. You have no charges on him. You have no evidence that he did anything wrong. Just let him go home. His parents are worried. No one even notice. His parents are worried that he's going to die. And like the thing is you don't even have to hold anybody accountable, which pains me to say it because like there are so many people who need to be held accountable for Israel's crimes and for the crimes of the settlers. Like in the case of Syphola, they need to arrest the people who beat him to death. But in this case, you don't even have to do that. You just have to quietly let him out. And it is just beyond me how a 16-year-old American being imprisoned, tortured, starved in a place where just last month, somebody his age

died, just dropped dead mysteriously. They have not returned the bus. They have not returned the body yet. Why, there's not a bigger push to get this kid out. I mean, right now he's supposed to be in Florida. He was supposed to be in Florida this summer working at the family ice cream shop with his cousin. His cousin's now dead. He's in prison. And it's just, it hasn't broken through. And so, you know, if I may, I'm guessing that there are a lot of people in Washington who listen to this show. And I just want to, like, you know, give a potential political layup for, any of you. You could rescue an American teenager from prison, from a dungeon, essentially, who's being starved to death. You could make a phone call and probably get this kid out. And I think people would be really happy about that. I mean, we've all seen the polling that,

you know, more and more people are supporting Palestine and are becoming critical of Israel. This is just such an easy one. Just get this kid out. You can even go take a picture with him after. And it's just like, you know, I say it's beyond me why it hasn't happened, but it's obvious why it hasn't happened because, you know, Palestinian Americans are not considered real Americans. Our government just does not care about them. And so, yeah. Yeah, and it's a horrifying case. You brought it to my attention through your reporting. I know that, you know, Congressman Greg Lansman and some other Democrats who were in Israel had raised it with Ambassador Huckabee and with the Israeli government. I had hoped that that might lead to. something prying loose in this case. I don't know what needs to happen. It needs to be 500, you know, every single, you know, Democratic elected official in the country calling. Does it need to be one Republican calling Huckabee in pushing for this? I'm not sure what we need to have happen here. I think that it basically needs to become enough of a nuisance for them that they just decide to make the call, whether that is because, you know, every Democratic lawmaker in the

country is calling the embassy every single day, or if it's because we actually get like some of the, I hate to say it, but like a Marjorie Tower Green or one of these like America Firsters to call Huckabee and they would already have his ear. But it basically needs to become like, okay, we got to just deal with this thing because it's a problem for us. And, you know, credit to landsmen and, you know, Senator Merckley and Van Hollen actually just met with his family last week when they or in Ramallah. But it just, there has not been a sustained push to get him out, like there, like, frankly, like there was to get the Israeli-American hostages out of Gaza, which we heard about every single day on the news. And we know that, you know, both Biden and Trump, we're putting

enormous resources towards trying to get them home. And it's just not happening here. And I think that, listen, this kid could die. This kid could die. A lot of kids have died in prison there. And then we would have an American kid who died in Israeli prison. I think that every American politician should want to be on the side of getting him out. Yes, absolutely. So hopefully people are listening and might lob in a call to Marco Rubio State Department or Huckabee's office or whatever. Call your representative and demand that they call the embassy and they call the State Department and say that you have to push to get Mohamed Zahir, Ibrahim out. I have more information about it on my substack, which you can call.

Yeah. Well, everyone should check out Jasper's Substack, Infinite Jazz, J-A-Z. it's excellent, excellent coverage of Israel, Palestine, the West Bank, all kinds of fascinating things. Jasper, thank you for doing the show. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Tommy. Take care.

Thanks again to Jasper and Nathaniel for doing the show. And thank you guys for enduring us coming out a little late this week. But I promise you, our brains are in a better place is Wednesday. It's worth the wait, guys. It's worth the way. You're welcome. Potsy of the World is a crooked media production. Our senior producer is Alona Minkowski.

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