Pod Save the World - Trump's North Korea summit v.2, Venezuela, international LGBT rights

Episode Date: February 27, 2019

First, Tommy and Ben Rhodes talk about India bombing Pakistan, Trump's second meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, the ongoing turmoil in Venezuela and Netanyahu's latest hard-right turn. Then, Jessica Stern from Outright International joins to discuss her work advocating for human rights for LGBTIQ people globally. 

Welcome back to Pot Save the World. This is Tommy Vitor. Thank you all for tuning in. It has been a wild week in foreign policy news and we are going to try to get to all of it. First, Ben Rhodes and I talk about the following items. Overnight, the Indians hit targets in Pakistan for the first time in decades in counterterrorism missions. We talked about the potential implications and risks of an India-Pakistan fight. we spent a bunch of time previewing Trump's second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. We talked about what a good outcome could look like, but we didn't grade on a curve. We talked about the Trump administration's spin going into it and the potential risks of Trump giving up the store that keep us up at night when we think about this. And then we talked about Venezuela again. I mean, there were the clashes over the weekend at the border that we talked about. But then, you know, on Monday, Vice President Pence met with Juan Guido, who the United States,

is recognized as the president of the country and, you know, the implications of us seemingly pushing the Venezuelan opposition into a more and more confrontational stance with Maduro's government. And then finally, we talked about Israel and Bibi Netanyahu aligning himself with even further right-wing way out their groups than we've previously discussed. And then I have a conversation with a woman named Jessica Stern, who is the executive director of outright international, which is a really influential international gay and lesbian human rights commission. I got the idea to have the conversation because I read about the Trump administration leading an effort to stop the criminalization of homosexuality. And I think we all can agree that

is a noble goal. So I wanted to sort of level set on how things look internationally for gays and lesbians and what that trajectory is like. So incredibly grateful to Jessica for her time. She is an inspiring person doing incredibly important work. And a great example of how anyone listening to the show could get involved in international affairs and foreign policy, you don't have to work in government. You can do it as a citizen. So, without further ado, here is the conversation with Ben Rhodes. Ben, welcome back to the United States. How's it feel? It feels really nice to be back here. It's not that fun to live in a hotel. In a suitcase. I know. It always sounds a lot cooler to travel abroad. And then the time zones make you insane for like two thirds of the days.

Yeah. I'm glad you were there to bracket the blob. I did. I did. They needed to hear from the Obama wing of the foreign policy establishment because their permanence is a, it's not forever. Yeah. You know, it's a guy, I mean, I'll make one comment about this. Please.

I was talking to a journalist, a German guy, and a lot of their tones of the questions, you know, were about why didn't you do more in Syria or why didn't you do more after Gaddafi's moved in Libya? Totally, obviously, fair and important questions. But also then, you know, shouldn't we stay in Syria and shouldn't we stay in Afghanistan? And, you know, the orientation of that conference is we shouldn't be leaving Afghanistan. We shouldn't be leaving Syria. Obama should have gone into Syria against Assad, et cetera.

And I did say to him like, look, even if you think that's right, you know, even if you think that all of these different cases, the interventionist option was correct, there has to be some allowance for the fact that there's just no support for it in the United States. In other words, the only thing that Democratic and Republican voters seem to agree on is that they don't want to do this anymore. They don't want to go into these wars. And so I do think that, and I mean this not in a glib way, that for that establishment to want to be relevant, they can't just act like they're not in a democracy, where the citizenry has learned some lessons from 20 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya. And that is a real problem. Yeah. DC establishment, man. Speaking of massive potential wars, let's start in India or Pakistan or Kashmir.

Yeah. We can dispute it all. So overnight, for the first time in 50 years, an Indian fighter or several Indian fighter jets conducted airstrikes inside Pakistan against what they said was a terrorist training camp. This was apparently in response to a recent suicide bombing that killed at least 40, I believe, Indian soldiers in Kashmir. It was really awful suicide bombing. That attack was conducted by Jashi. Mohamed. which is a terrorist group, but I guess last stage a major attack like this back in 2016, they killed 19 Indian soldiers at that time.

So clearly this is a big issue for the Indian military. So Ben, luckily things have not escalated since I first read these reports on Twitter last night. But like this is the nightmare scenario that we never talk about, right? I mean, two nuclear armed powers that hate each other and that are always on the precipice of some military conflict. Yeah. No, and this is, you know, this is about. At Kashmir, with the disputed territory, both India and Pakistan claim it, India governs a chunk of it, and that has attracted attacks from Pakistan for a long time.

This is the largest single attack against, in terms of Indian casualties that we've seen in a very, very long time. And it evoked a lot of emotion inside of India, and India has an election coming up, right? And so part of the reason this is so volatile is that you have Narenda Modi, the prime minister, of India, who is a Hindu nationalist, kind of comes from the right wing of the spectrum of Indian politics. And he feels like he needs to show that he's going to bloody Pakistan's nose that he's going to respond to this. And there's a lot of passion and frankly anti-Pakistani and anti-Muslim sentiment in India, right? And so the danger, obviously, is that, you know,

in his reaction, that invites response from Pakistan. India is not wrong charging that Pakistan has essentially given these terrorist organizations, you know, free reign. You know, the types of groups that operate in Kashmir tend to operate pretty freely in Pakistan. And so, you know, they want Pakistan to do more to rain these people in. They don't do it. So then the Indians feel like they have to hit them themselves. Again, the danger here is that if this conflict spirals, you know, if there's a tit for tat that escalates, these two countries have nuclear weapons. Nukes. Lots of them. And, you know, this is. the premier nuclear flashpoint in the world. And I think, again, the concern is, you know,

the Obama administration, the Bush administration, have had to get in and mediate these types of disputes in the past. And this would be a test. Can the Trump administration do this? You know, they don't have diplomats in place. They don't have diplomatic process set up to manage a kind of crisis like this. And frankly, they've tended to lean pretty far in the direction of India. Yeah. And so you could see a scenario where they're kind of almost emboldening India to go harder at Pakistan, and then you're really rolling the dice that the Pakistanis won't respond in a way that escalates the war. So this is something to watch. Yeah. I remember people in government that we worked with, we used to talk about dogs that weren't barking,

like major flashpoints in foreign policy that were quiet at the moment. I mean, we, before Obama was even inaugurated, there was a horrific attack in Mumbai when 10 members of Lashkar-I-Taibe, an Islamic terrorist organization targeted a hotel. And that's a whole bunch of series of coordinated attacks, I think, across the city that day. It was really horrifying. Yeah. 175 people died. I mean, it was a major, major incident that Obama was dealing with while he was still in transition.

Yeah. And L.E.T. Well, you go with the acronym. Yeah, yeah. The terrorist group, they have long been suspect of having links to the Pakistani government. I mean, part of the challenge here is it ultimately, you know, Indian Pakistan need to have a better approach to dialogue. Sometimes the Indian tactics in Kashmir are very heavy-handed, which obviously feeds resentment,

which obviously is the fuel that these terrorist organizations depend upon. The Pakistani government supports terrorist organizations, and so you have this cycle of violence that is never ending. In the long run, what you need is some India-Pakistan dialogue. The characters in charge in both Indian-Pakistan right now are probably not central casting for that dialogue, nor is the U.S. And again, I think this is a reminder that the world can intrude and we don't have the type of administration that is well suited to be managing this type of tension. I remember I interviewed Michael Morell, former acting director and deputy director of the CIA a year or two ago when he first rolled out his podcast, Intelligence Matters, which is very good.

And I asked him, like, what is the thing that concerns you the most? And he said Pakistan because they still have economic conditions that are leading to joblessness and like this huge bulge of yonels. young men who don't have anything to do or easily radicalize. And those guys go into the military and they rise to the ranks of the government. And suddenly they're in charge of nuclear weapons. And it's a frightening trajectory. Yeah, it's kind of a, it always kind of made me pretty uncomfortable in government because it's almost like a quasi-failed state.

You know, you have this civilian government that has basically no control over the military and very little control over much at all. And it's kind of dysfunctional and their constant corruption scandals and the kind of musical chairs of the same types of characters that keep re-emerging in Pakistan politics. Then you have a military that on the one hand plays a game with these Islamists, including the Taliban,

including the Haqani network that attacked our forces in Afghanistan, including some of these groups that are operating against India. And they have the backsup of nuclear weapons. But at the same time, life is pretty terrible for the average person in Pakistan.

The government's not helping them. So it is this kind of problem without a solution. I think ultimately, though, one of the things we used to tell India is, look, you are becoming, you know, a major power, if not a superpower. You have over a billion people. You have a huge economy. You can be the bigger party here now. You know, in other words, you getting dragged into a conflict with Pakistan can only upset your progress. And you need to kind of rise above the dysfunction in this relationship as the stronger party to try to resolve this in a way that prevents a conflict from, you know, putting at risk everything that is being

built in India. So I don't have a solution, you know, to Pakistan's dysfunction. At the same time, though, I think that India needs to resist the kind of sectarian or religious-based impulse to get pulled into a conflict that, frankly, would only send them off the rails in terms of what they're trying to do, and they kind of need to be the bigger party here in avoiding escalation. Speaking of massive risks of nuclear annihilation, let's turn to North Korea for a minute. So Kim Jong-un took a 60-hour train ride to Vietnam for a second summit with President Trump. Not an Excella. I would love to see what that train looks like and get on that thing. Check it out.

I imagine a bunch of intel services have it pretty well wired, but maybe we can. Yeah. I mean, there were... WikiLeak that does. Well, there were reports in the past about, you know, from like leaked, you. you know, the chef who defected. Right, yeah, yeah. Of, like, the finest French wines are brought in and all this food is shipped in,

and they're women. Grifter's going to grift, I guess. Yeah, it seems like a kind of bad Netflix series. Right. So Kim Jong-un has made it to Vietnam. Trump, I think, is en route as we speak. But before he left, there's a whole bunch of shaping the battlefield and the press. Trump's advisors, who they're downplaying what they hope to get out of the second meeting,

or, you know, the John Bolton, Trump's National Security Advocate. or his camp was spinning that they were worried about their negotiator, being too eager to cut a deal, or even Trump being too eager to cut a deal. So I'm curious, like, what do you think Trump would need to get out of Kim Jong-un in this second summit to make it successful or at least just worth the time? So in my mind, if we're grading this not on a curve for Trump, right?

What we need to see is verifiable progress in rolling back North Korea's nuclear or missile program. That's it. again, I've said, I don't think that we should expect him to eliminate all the nuclear weapons in North Korea. That's not going to happen quickly. However, with this level of diplomatic engagement, with this level of praise of Kim Jong-un, with clearly the kind of fraying of North Korea's international isolation, we should be getting something on the issue we care about, which is the nuclear program. So we'll put aside all the symbolism and talk of peace. Are they letting international inspectors into their facilities?

are they taking steps to roll back pieces of their nuclear program that, again, can be verified by international inspectors? Are they taking steps to dismantle parts of their missile program? If they're not doing that, then the reason we went into these negotiations, we're not making any progress on it. And by the way, it's not enough for North Korea to say, well, there's a building that is really important in our program and we're going to blow it up. But like, no, we need an inventory of what their program is and we need international inspectors, not North Koreans, you know, giving a show to the media. Right. To assess, are they actually taking steps to roll this back? And if they're not doing that, then we're making absolutely no progress against the stated objective of this diplomacy in the first place.

Yeah, you mentioned something important, which is one of the first things we were supposed to try to get was an inventory of all their, how many nuclear weapons they have, all the facilities. Where they are, yeah. Like the missile silos, you know, whatever weapons testing sites. I don't think we've gotten anything. We haven't even gotten that. So what are we going to even check progress against? That's right.

And we cannot, and I implore listeners, if the North Koreans are the ones who are vouching for what they're doing, totally discount it, right? I mean, because they've done this in the past where they take a bunch of reporters to some building and say, this was really important to our program, and then they blow it up in front of everybody. And what the fuck do you know?

about what's in that building. They probably moved everything that was important in that building to some other place, right? This is why their entire international inspections regimes and organizations like the International Atomic Energy Agency that did the Iran inspections that need to be involved here. They also tried to do the Iraq inspections. And if we let them keep going, we might have verified that they didn't have weapons. That's right. That's a good point. 2002, 2003 trip down memory. I've been reading Fiasco by Tom Ricks and it's making me there. You're really diving into Iraq here. Yeah, I feel like everyone else read that book 14 years ago,

so I feel like I'm a little behind the curve, but it's a great book. Yeah, well, and there's a whole library of those books on Iraq that were written that talk about books the blob is. Yeah, forgotten. Yeah, forgot about it. Right, right. So you sort of hint at this, but according to various leaks, the intel of issues still worrying on background to reporters, are worried that Trump could offer to formally end the war on the Korean Peninsula, which has technically been ongoing since the 1953 Armist's agreement.

he could open or offer to open an interest section in North Korea, which is basically a step down from an embassy and let them do the same in Washington. He could offer to pull U.S. troops out of Korea, although the Trump officials are trying to shut the door on that even being a possibility. I mean, when I look at those things, you know, an interest section or more dialogue feels like a good step maybe. But, I mean, how much do you worry about him giving away the store here or maybe the press being distracted by these other things that are not related to the nuclear program? those two things are directly connected, right? Because, like, it's been very clear since Singapore that all Donald Trump really cares about is his ability to create a spectacle and his ability to look like he's winning something, right? So again, the question was always, is this going to diminish North Korea's nuclear program in any way? All these other things are secondary.

Now, I think that these things are much easier to get, right? Because North Korea, what do they not want to do? They don't want to give up their nuclear weapons or their missiles. They don't give a shit whether, you know, we say, in fact, they have wanted to try to pursue a peace treaty, because to them a peace treaty is the first step to removing U.S. troops from South Korea. So part of the reason why there are U.S. troops in South Korea is because, you know, we never signed a peace treaty. Technically, there's this kind of state of war, but every, you know, it's not like we've been fighting a war for the last several decades. But the risk there is that, you know, Trump wants to say, I achieve peace. so on a piece of paper he could sign a commitment to reach a peace treaty.

But number one, that does nothing to address a nuclear program. Number two, that could be the predicate to removing troops from South Korea, even though you haven't dealt with this threat from North Korea. And then leaving North Korea as the stronger party on the Korean Peninsula, right? Huge army, what a couple million man army? Yeah, I mean, which also sends a signal to anybody else in that part of the world who kind of counted on us to the Japanese. Japanese, Taiwan, you know.

And so to me, it's quite likely that Trump goes in for this symbolic stuff. The press, you know, like I'll give you an example. I remember when there were these exchanges of remains, right? The North Koreans gave back U.S. service members who have been lost. The North Koreans brought some remains from the Korean War, or at least they said, I mean, we felt to verify this. And it was like a massive story. And look, it's important.

and I hope for the sake of families that some of those remains are found by DNA to be matches with U.S. service members who were lost. But again, in the scheme of American national security interest in the nuclear program, this is not what Trump said he was getting into this diplomacy to do. And so my worries that the North Koreans are using these symbolic things to play Trump. They want to be legitimized as a nuclear weapon state. And they can give up everything else, accept their nuclear weapons. And Trump is falling right into that trap. Look, the fact that we've

even having this conversation, if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were president, we wouldn't be, like, this would be unacceptable. The Congress would be freaking out. The media would be holding us to a much higher standard. The media holds Trump to a much lower standard on this. And I think there are two other points with making. This man has called Trump the Iran deal of catastrophe. When Iran shipped out 98% of its nuclear material and submitted to inspections, how can people account for the intellectual dishonesty and inconsistency of essentially a bunch of symbolic concessions but nothing substantive with North Korea

and a lot of concessions from us, by the way, because we're legitimizing Kim and the sanctions regime is falling apart. How is that okay? And it makes any sense to be pulling out of the Iran deal. But the other thing is Trump is sending a message to every other country that might be considering whether or not to get nuclear weapons

that you should do that. Because, look, we're opening the door for North Korea to walk into the nuclear club. He's heaping praise on Kim Jong-un. So if you're one of these countries that has been at that, you know, decision point, the lesson you're taking from this is, okay, if I can just get this nuclear weapon, then the United States will welcome me with open arms. And then where you have India and Pakistan replicated all over the world.

Yeah, that's scary. And meanwhile, you know, the Washington Post wrote up this piece this morning about how Trump is back trying to sell people that he's executing a madman theory of foreign policy where, you know, he acts crazy. He sends a bunch of shitty tweets about fire and fury and nuclear annihilation. and somehow that brought Kim Jong-un to the table. I mean, I think it's laughable on its face, but you also point out that Kim and previous North Korean leaders

have always wanted these talks. It benefits them. And by the way, like Kim Jong-un has been kicking his ass at the table ever since he came to the table, right? I mean, we have given a lot up. You know, we have two heads of state summits, total legitimization of Kim Jong-un, you know, this praise for him that I'm sure is playing on a loop

in North Korea on state-run television, the President of the States. Delayed military exercises. I'm sure that the international isolation of North Korea has been lifted, probably the sanctioned regime is fraying, and have gotten literally nothing in return on the nuclear issue, right? So, yeah, maybe the madman stuff had something to do with the beginning of this, but Kim Jong-un then has basically been running circles around Donald Trump at the negotiating table ever since. Yeah. Let's switch gears to Venezuela. So over the weekend, there are very serious clashes at the Venezuelan border as groups trying to get aid into the country, many of them linked with opposition leader Juan Guido. You know, we're having these standoffs on bridges from

Colombia to Venezuela or Brazil to Venezuela. And then on Monday, Mike Pence was in Colombia to meet with Guido, who is now recognized by the United States as the president of Venezuela. And he, Pence told him, quote, we are 100% with you and pledged additional humanitarian aid. So, you know, meanwhile, the opposition, Guido's folks back in Venezuela, they are increasingly calling for military intervention. It feels like we are teetering on the edge of getting drawn into a military confrontation. And even if we're not, like, when I read, we are 100% with you, it reminded me of George H.W. Bush in 1991 telling the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and rise up

against Saddam Hussein, and they took Bush's words to heart, and lo behold, not long after we negotiated a peace deal with Saddam, and his forces went and crushed those people who had risen up. So it's like, we are pushing this to a far more fraught place than I think it may be started in terms of a potential military class. Yeah, no, I think, look, one way to look at this is this administration has driven their car like 100 miles an hour a couple of times and hit a brick wall, right? So they did this big play to recognize Guido, which I think they probably orchestrated, not just the international piece, but I think they probably told Guido, hey, you announce yourself as president, we'll do this.

And nothing happens. The military does not defect from Maduro. So we tried that play. It didn't work. So now they say, okay, we're going to try this play. We're going to position these trucks at the border and try to force the agent in the country to humiliate Maduro, and that doesn't work. And it feels like they're just throwing shit against the wall and hoping that it's going to

crack, there's all kinds of problems at that. First is, by taking this approach, they are leaving no incentive for Maduro to do anything but sit there and fight to the death. Yeah. For sure. Why would this guy, you know, make a deal at this point? And so, and frankly, the same thing, there are shots at the Cubans, incentivize the Cubans to back Maduro. And frankly, frankly, the event is where a military clearly sees more risk in breaking for Maduro at this point and sticking with him, even if, you know, General Rubio is tweeting about every single individual guy who defects, right? And so to me, the danger has always been that we've been raising the expectations of Venezuela in opposition. By recognizing Guaido, by trying to force him this

aid, it only stands to reason at a certain point. The Venezuelan opposition, which is being whipped into a frenzy by Trump, is going to say, you need to come in and do this. You know, you need to intervene militarily. And you're already hearing that. And that's an inevitable orientation for people who keep having their expectations raised and not met. And so I think we have to take very seriously the scenario under which the opposition is increasingly calling for military action. You increasingly hear, you know, Rubio is basically there. It's wild. What are you tweeting is wild. We will defend Colombia in capital letters. Columbia hasn't asked us to defend them militarily, you know, by going into Venezuela. And what authority do you have Marco Rubio? You don't

command anything. No, it's somebody who's in a, you know, feels a, a, positive political feedback loop in South Florida. And so he's just surfing this wave. But it's very dangerous. And, you know, a military intervention in Venezuela, I think, could be catastrophic. Maduro precisely because he's a creep, in addition to the military, he has been arming paramilitary forces now for some time. Yeah. And especially since Trump ratcheted this up, I think there are reports of him kind of emptying the prisons, arming these people. He is digging in for a civil war if it comes to that, right? And so we have to be in mind that as we are breaking this country apart and as we are accelerating the humanitarian crisis through the oil sanctions

and trying to literally collapse this place, that it could just collapse with Maduro still there with the military and the most power, and that could be very dangerous to the opposition. Or again, even if somehow they just dislodge, you know, Maduro, they have a coup. That's not the end of this story. Like there's a risk for ongoing civil violence. The damage that we're doing is going to demand massive reconstruction. You know, there are all kinds of bad actors in that region who might flock to fight the United States if we're there. So this is, I think, a very dangerous game that is being played. Yeah, that's what I want to ask you about. I mean, let's say Maduro hops on a jet and leaves town

tomorrow to some non-extradition country and it's just out of the picture. Cuba. Cuba is only Yeah, it goes to Cuba, right? So like that still leaves a pretty divided, desperate and very well-armed country. I'm trying to think what kind of international presence would be needed to keep the country from descending into violence and making people's lives exponentially worse. And like, again, I'm reading fiasco, which is about, you know, all the terrible planning that went into Iraq. The military leaders at the time, like Abizaid and other descentcom, they wanted to send in a force of like 250,000 to 300,000 U.S. troops to stabilize the country after the invasion. Like, do you think we would be looking at that kind of presence? Obviously, it would have to be international. But, but, you know,

like how do you hold together a country as big and divided as Venezuela after a leadership collapse? You need a massive infusion of assistance and you probably need some significant force that can keep the peace. Again, this is why, so if I was doing this all over again, your best option, and it may be difficult to get, is to try to bring the Venezuelan military, and frankly the Cubans, who are very active players here, into some negotiation to try to dislodge Maduro because you want, let's say Guido does take charge.

If he doesn't have the military underneath him, he controls nothing, really. You don't want to break the Venezuelan military apart. Lesson from Iraq, right? Like, you break the army. There's nobody to keep the peace. Don't send Paul Bremer down there. And then there's looting, right?

And, you know, the looting, you know, can make an already worse, a bad situation worse. So ideal scenario, the Venezuelan military goes along with whatever change takes place. So the Venezuelan military is providing some kind of order. I think they're already making that harder by having this kind of defection strategy, you try to break the military apart, right? If there's kind of a collapse, you're going to need some stabilization force. Now, you'd prefer that to be Venezuelan, but there may need to be in some of these border areas, some regional peacekeeping aspect to it. You wouldn't want, I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't don't think the United States involved in that. You know, our military just inside of South America

is not like a good history and not the worst possible history. So I think, you know, the Iraq example is important. I've been watching the debate play out in the United States. And it's what they did with Iraq, you know, if you're not for everything we're doing here, you're for Saddam Hussein. That is fucking bullshit, okay? Nicholas Maduro is a bad guy. The Venezuelan people will be better off without him. But to say that if you don't go along with this fucking keystone cops play they've been running and this threat of war that you're a socialist in bed with Maduro is the most cynical and disgusting part of American foreign policy that we've seen over the last 30 years. And it's sick that they're getting away with this play again. These guys are

incompetent. They cannot manage their way out of a fucking paper bag. What was the point of that show of the aid on the border? By the way, all that does is under the reason the Red Cross won't go along with it, is they are politicizing foreign aid. That is incredibly irresponsible thing to do to say, it's dangerous. Foreign aid is no longer about just helping people. Foreign aid is about trying to execute a regime change strategy. And look, Maduro's a bad guy. Like, all that is, he should go. Like, the Venezuelan people would better off without him. You are giving him the talking point that he used, that this is a Trojan horse. Because we're not being subtle here. We are saying, we have a regime change policy. We think this other person should be the president of your

country. So we were going to give him a lot of aid and try to embarrass, you know, the president of the country out of that office. You are weaponizing foreign aid in a way that could have long lasting consequences because then other dictators will say, well, I'm going to keep aid out too, right? So all this is to say there is a way to be for the Venezuelan people and to be for humanitarian assistance, before elections, without having to go along with like Elliott Abrams flying down to Latin America where he used to sponsor death squads on U.S. military planes with a bunch of aid that you're trying to use to execute a regime change strategy. This is not working. And more people should call it out. And there's news reports. I can't confirm them that there are armed shipments.

So it was some sort of covert action. Like, who knows? It wouldn't surprise me in any way if it was backed. But you're right. I mean, you're seeing the media do this and you're seeing Democrats do it too, right? Like Bernie was on some cable show and they got asked is Maduro a dictator. And he didn't want to use those words. He doesn't like Maduro. Clearly, like he doesn't think he's a good leader of the country. But then you see like Senator Bob Medendez, the Democrat from New Jersey saying, I can't believe Bernie wouldn't call him a dictator. It's like we get wrapped around the axel in terminology. It reminds me of when dumb Ted Cruz and the Republicans would say Obama needs to say radical Islamic terror,

as if those words would make the whole ISIS problem go away. I mean, we just again and again, we get caught up in silly definitional stuff that ignores the actual problem or real policy. And I'd say like, why is the focus on Bernie and not on Trump? Like one of those people as president, right? Is what Trump is what he is doing working? The media, why are we talking? Yes, Bernie should have called him dictator. I think Bernie realizes that he came out later and basically called him a dictator.

But the reality is, why is this a problem for Democrats? The problem is in Venezuela. The problem is what will help the Venezuelan people. And the reality is things have gotten worse for the Venezuelan people because of what Trump has done. The broad-based sanctions, the escalation of the conflict there, like things are actually a bad situation is getting worse. And Maduro likes this conflict. The oxygen a dictator, like Maduro depends on, is it's me versus the American Empire.

Like, that's how he rallies his supporters. And again, like, even if their coup strategy works. So, like, maybe there were weapons on that plane. Maybe they are trying to pay off people in the Venezuelan military to just toss Maduro overboard. Like, the place is no better the next day. Like, you need to have something to build back up. And that, you know, that totally seems to be locking as well. So it's kind of depressing to see the same pattern play out where a Republican president, you know, makes somebody the boogeyman of all time. Meanwhile, he's praising a dictator in Kim Jong-un who's worse than Maduro. And this is somehow like a rhetorical problem for Democrats and not like an actual problem of, wait a second, let's take a step back and think about is this working in Venezuela? This is a good use of time, resources.

Anything else? Agreed. And something we should all watch very closely, because if Trump doesn't like caravans, again, this will lead to a massive migration flow, probably north. Last topic I wanted to ask you about is Israel. And I wanted to read you a paragraph from the New York Times about our dear friend, Beebe Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. So this is quote from New York Times. Mr. Netanyahu, his future imperiled by prosecutors and political challengers alike has enraged Jewish leaders in Israel in the United States by striking a bargain with a racist anti-Arab party whose ideology was likened by one influential rabbi to Naziism.

Did not see that one coming. So that's the end of the quote. The gist of what happened is Netanyahu cut a deal with an extremist party called Jewish power. They have previously called for violence against Palestinians, the expulsion of Arabs from Israel and occupied territories. I think they're opposed to interracial marriage or even sex. And what BB did is, you know, help put these guys squarely into the next likely governing coalition. you know, his step has been condemned by J Street, the American Jewish Committee, and APEC,

who are people who almost never criticized Netanyahu. And, you know, again, Bibi did this because he's a craven political hack and he needs even small parties to tip the balance of power to him in a parliamentary system. But also, you know, he's worried that he might get indicted and wants a coalition that can protect him from legal jeopardy. So, you know. Sound for mine. Yeah, I mean, say, right.

So, like, you know, again, we've talked about Netanyahu a lot on the show. I wouldn't have brought this up if this wasn't such a remarkable step, but this really does seem like a desperate move by him. Yeah, but totally in character. I mean, every time he gets closer to the election, he moves dramatically to the right. He's never chosen to move to the center to build a coalition. He always taxed right. And so, you know, one of the things that, I mean, look, on the one end, it's good that APAC and the AJC and these groups called this out. These people are so deplorable. that kind of forced this reckoning. But Tommy, the last election, Netanyahu literally was going out on election day and talking about

the Arabs are voting in droves. You must come to the polls. There will not be a Palestinian state on my watch. Like all kinds of campaign literature associated with him, very demeaning to Arabs, passing laws through the Knesset that essentially make Arabs citizens of Israel's second-class citizens, right? this is like Trump and the Republican Party. It's like the people who looked up in 2015 and were like shocked. How could Trump be a frontrunner in the Republican Party when actually that was the natural

direction of things? Netanyahu's been going in this direction for a long time. This is a pretty natural continuation of where he's been moving for 10 years. What did APEC do after he said that the Arabs are voting in droves and there will not be a Palestinian state on my watch and all these things? Like they welcomed him with open arms, right? And so again, to me, it's good that people are drawing a line, but people shouldn't see this as some dramatically new thing from Netanyahu. This is kind of who he is.

And he always moves to the right around election time. His coalitions have gotten steadily more and more right wing. And so this is the natural next step of that. And it's just a particularly ugly manifestation of it. I hope again, and we've talked about this on this podcast a lot in the context of the Palestinians. but it's also in the context of Israel and its own democracy. You know, people, what has been happening there in recent years with the nationality law and some of the ties between BB and the kind of control that Sheld Nadelson has in the media on BB's behalf,

very similar to our democracy, but I'm not singling out Israel. There's the same trends are happening in the United States and other parts of the West. So this is not a case of signaling on Israel, it's saying that actually Israel, like a lot of other Western countries, is dealing with similar challenges of the rise of right-wing populism and authoritarianism and efforts to control the media and efforts to segmentize minorities. So in a way, again, this is actually a part of a trend that goes beyond Israel. But I think and hope that people will not restrict their scrutiny just to this one party. Because sometimes people feel like, well, I condemned, you know, the Jewish-fascist party here.

Right. But let's look at this pattern of behavior. And ask, is Netanyahu really the small D democratic leader that we've been giving him the credit for being? Yeah, it's easy to condemn the party that openly advocates violence. I believe one of the members was prevented from entering the United States because he had ties to terrorist groups. But other members of BB's coalition support the expulsion of the Palestinian people from Palestinian territories. The full annexation of the West Bank, right? So yes, this party is worse.

but we should have a conversation about why there have already been pretty significant coalition members who want to fully annexed the West Bank. And how can you have members of Congress in the United States saying that simultaneously they support Bibi's government and a two-state solution? And they're just ignoring the reality that that coalition, not only does Bibi say that he won't support a Palestinian state on his watch, She's got coalition members even before this one who wanted to annex the West Bank. Yeah. It was refreshing to hear Senator Elizabeth Warren say that she was as concerned about the trajectory of the... It was. Like Good Party as we probably are.

I think she was refreshing in general because she had really substantive answers on nuclear weapons, really candid answers on Israel, had a worldview. I didn't know the thing about her brother in his military history. I was really impressed by that interview and by her speech. She's laying out, as she's doing on the economic side, ideas that people are being forced to respond to. And it's moving. You could even hear our former boss, Tom Donlon, you know, on no first use of nuclear weapons. You know, she's definitely stirring the debate, and that's great.

Yeah, a lot of people decide to run for president, and then they get briefed up real fast. She has been, like, studying issues and developing a coherent worldview her entire life and then decide to run for president. And now knows what she wants to do, and that's really refreshing. It really does show. Well, that's all I got. Yeah. No, no, so I will say I had a funny piece of feedback from somebody. Okay, good.

So I love listening to you guys. I mean, you drive me crazy because you sound like you think you know everything, but I still listen. So I do want to just say, for that individual listener out there, like, we, it's foreign policy. Like, I'm the first to admit and wrote a several hundred-page book, probably too long a book, about essentially that you can't know the answers to all these things. Yeah. But what I do want to say is that, in this ties to the North Korea and Venezuela, Venezuela, what your intentions are and who the people are in charge does matter a lot, right?

So while I couldn't sit here and claim that I could fix Venezuela tomorrow if I was president in the United States, you know, I saw the economist editor for, I think, Mexico City tweet out in response to Rubio and L.A. Abrams, like, the people in charge of this policy, like, that's actually relevant here, right? So if people ask me, like, don't you share the, you know, the view that Maduro should go, yes. Don't you share the view that there should be diplomas with North Korea? Yes, entirely. And I wish those policies could succeed. But as I'm looking at L.A. Abrams and Marco Rubio, how can I not think that my worst fears about what their actual intentions are in Venezuela? How can I not think that that's the case? When I look at North Korea, you know, when you look at

Trump, how can you think that he's actually going about this in a thoughtful way? And so this is part of what's so hard. Yes, these issues are hard. But the problem is, that Trump and the people work for them, they just seem to have both the worst intentions in many cases and a lack of the kind of rigor that, you know, say Tom Dillon talked to you about last week. Yeah. I mean, look, we spent eight years with Barack Obama trying to account for and in some cases make amends for some of the major mistakes the United States has made across the world

over many generations. And I'm sure we made some too. We made many. We made shitload. But like, you know, that involved talking about the Iraq war, it involved talking about helping sponsor and lead a coup in Iran. It involved being forthright about all the terrible things the United States did in Latin America. And when you take Elliot Abrams, who was in charge of some of those terrible things in Latin America and put them in charge of the Venezuela policy, I don't think you can hear anything else but the messenger.

My analogy was it's like putting Paul Wolfowitz or Don Rumsfeld in charge of Iraq reconstruction. Like, it's all you're going to see. Yeah. And if, again, if I'm proven wrong and this works and, you know, six months from now, Juan Guider, is President of Venezuela, and there's not a collapse in the civil violence. And great. Yeah, I'd love to be wrong. But I'm afraid that what they're doing is making that less likely, not more likely.

Yeah, me too. Well, until next time. And if something big and interesting comes out of the North Korea summit, we'll do a bonus episode because we don't want to wait a week to talk about it. No, it's that exciting. It's too interesting. All right. How are we going?

All right, too. And now for my conversation with Jessica Stern from Outright International. Jessica, last week the Trump administration announced that they're starting an effort to end the criminalization of homosexuality around the world. And I saw that report and I thought that is a really interesting and noble goal. And so I guess, you know, that made me think, you know, setting aside this administration and who they have running the effort, I wanted to see how big of a task this is. Because, you know, I think that certainly the United States has a checkered history in terms of LGBT rights. but your organization, outright action international, is like the leading international LGBT human rights organization

dedicated to improving people's lives around the world. So I am so grateful for you getting on the phone with me today to talk through this. Well, thank you so much for having me on, Tommy. I really appreciate it. Me too. So, okay, I started my research and, you know, you guys have a great website. And, you know, frankly, I was pretty surprised to learn that in least 72 countries, same-sex relations between consenting adults remains illegal with penalties,

from corporal punishment to imprisonment to even death. I believe that means one in three people live in a country where they can be arrested for being who they are, loving who they love. Would you say, like, over the past two decades or three decades or so, has that number increased or decreased? Has the trajectory been bad or good in terms of LGBT rights? Well, that is a really great question. And I don't do this work because it's easy. I do it because I'm an optimist. because it needs to get done.

You know, the trajectory has been complicated. In about 2012, the government of Malawi took a very unusual step of examining its sodomy law and deciding, wait, there was a problem. The sodomy law, which criminalized homosexuality between men, was discriminatory because it didn't include women. And so Malawi was an example of one of the rare countries to actually expand its criminalization of homosexuality in the last 10 years. So in the name of gender equality, they also criminalize sex between women. But Malalia is an outlier. The trend in the last 10 years has been

increasingly towards decriminalization. And in just the last few years since 2016, we've seen at least six countries decriminalize homosexuality, which is really great. And it feels right now like progress is actually accelerating. So we've had the decriminalization of homosexuality in small island states like Belize in 2016, which happened as a result of the Supreme Court. And then in huge countries like India, where over 1.3 billion people live with its heroic Supreme Court decision in September. So the trajectory is good, but progress is certainly uneven, you know, to realize that nearly half the countries in the world still criminalize homosexuality and countless more criminalized versions of transgenderism is still mind-boggling and totally unacceptable.

Truly, truly. So I imagine, you know, we're talking to places in different continents, but is there a common thread you see that explains maybe how intolerance gets baked into a legal system or culture? Is there anything that's similar across the planet? Well, one of the throughlines is colonial era sodomy laws. so of the 71 or so laws criminalizing homosexuality, over 50 of them are actually the residue of colonial laws, so the British, the French, and beyond. And I was actually just reading a decision from Guyana from last year. And what the issue was was that transgender women had been arbitrarily arrested and prosecuted

for so-called cross-dressing. and when these women wanted to challenge their criminalization and their conviction, they not only had to take their case to court and round up the money and go through all the things that you would ordinarily have to do, but they actually had to challenge the colonial basis for the laws. In other words, it is so hard in the Caribbean to challenge any law that was established in the Caribbean that first they had to establish the constitutionality of the claims before they could go. in depth. And so I would say like the number one issue that's the three line is, is the colonial legacy. And then probably the second thing I would say is fundamentalist views coming from religion that really misunderstand homosexuality and see those of us who are gay and lesbian or more genderly diverse as somehow anti-family and anti-faith. And of course, we know that's not true, but there seem to be a lot of people out there who think that. Yeah. Before we go to more hopeful,

optimistic discussions. I wanted to dig into one troubling example, which is Chechnya. The government cracked down hard on gay men in particular in ways that one Russian rights group described as using the same tactics as they would against terrorist groups, which is just shocking. I think as of January 2, gay men had been killed. Many more had been tortured or imprisoned and makeshift prisons. What led the Chechen government to undertake this brutal crackdown? Well, I don't think any of us have a really good answer for what led the Chechenyan government to undertake this crackdown. I mean, certainly it has been one way that Kadyrov has curried favor with Putin, who has used LGBT people as a punching bag.

And so I guess I would say, you know, we've been politically disposable. But at the same time, there's just incredibly high levels of homophobia in Chechnya and society. And so, you know, as you may have read in some Survivor's accounts, that, you know, after they've been released from Chechnya and authorities, they've actually had to flee Chechnya because their family said, you know, now that you're exposed as who you are, we're going to kill you for bringing shame on our family. So, you know, Chechnya is a tragic case, and, you know, the situation is ongoing. There's been mass detentions, mass torture, and the killings of quite a number of people.

But one thing that I actually do see as a bit of a silver lining is the amount of international. outcry. You know, this is not a situation that people saw and did nothing about. This is a situation that galvanized international organizations, heads of state. I mean, probably if I asked, you know, my mom or my stepfather about this, they could tell you that something bad happened to gay men in Chechnya. And, you know, we have a lot of examples of that. You know, there was a letter by five or six special rapporteurs from the UN system documenting the, round up and condemning the rights violations. The Council of Europe took action. It actually issued a resolution in the Parliamentary Assembly, also condemning the acts of violence in Chechnya.

And then probably at least five or six countries have publicly made a commitment to granting asylum to any of the LGBT people that needed to flee Chechnya. So it's one of these complex situations where there's grotesque violence on the ground for the most affected communities. But at the same time, like a really strong mobilization from the international community saying, this is absolutely not acceptable. And we're going to do whatever we can to prevent it from happening again. Yeah. So you mentioned the international outcry. I mean, what international institutions or organizations are actually doing good work to push countries to change these draconian laws? Say that NGOs are some of the international.

organizations doing the best work. And, you know, clearly I'm biased because I work for one, but, you know, you only have one life to live, or at least that's what I believe. And so, you know, you want to spend it where you think you can have the most impact. But there has been an incredible growth of international organizations dedicated to LGBTIQ rights in recent years. And going alongside of that, there's been an expansion of the mandate of mainstream human rights organizations to increasingly recognize LGBTIQ rights violations. And, you know, you know, You know, I just sort of like sing everyone's praises because the reason that we know about Chechnya is not because of happenstance. It's because organizations sounded the alarm and said this is happening and we demand a response.

So, you know, mass mobilization by civil society has been crucial. I think in terms of institutional power, the UN has really upped its game in recent years. I know that this is a foreign policy show. So contrary to what certain U.S. presidents would say, the U.N. actually is a resourceful institution. Yes. You know, we've actually turned to the U.N. for safety, for condemnation, for protection on a number of issues. And, you know, the U.N. is so big. You could talk about any number of the parts of the institution. But, you know, we've seen persistent comments from the Human Rights Council in the context of three resolutions condemning discrimination and violence on the basis of sexual orientation and gender rights.

identity. We see LGBTI rights come up constantly in the Universal Periodic Review. We actually have been able to maintain a reference to sexual orientation and gender identity and a resolution at the General Assembly. And the High Commissioner for Human Rights, both Prince Zaid, the last High Commissioner, and the current High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, have been really strong allies on LGBTIQ rights. So the UN has been very important. But it's not just happening at the international. level. I think the other standout institutions are the European mechanisms and inter-American mechanisms. I think the World Bank is a place that's, you know, trying to figure out how to do more. They created an LGBTI focal point in the past year, and that's incredibly

important because obviously if you can get major international development banks to take this agenda seriously, well, then, frankly, governments are going to listen. Yeah. One report that your organization did talked about progress being made on LGBTQ rights, in the Middle East, North Africa. Are there some standout examples that you're really proud of in terms of progress made recently? Yeah, I'm so glad you asked about that. So outright issued a report with our co-author, the Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality, an organization based in Lebanon in October.

And what we wanted to do was the report is called Activism and Resilience. And, you know, when you just kind of scan the headlines and you read about LGBT issues in the Middle East, in North Africa, it seems like the only stories you hear are stories of tragedy. You know, you hear about mass arrests in Egypt under so-called debauchery laws after, you know, a couple of kids unfurled a rainbow flag at a rock concert, where you hear about ISIS committing, you know, horrific acts, pushing men they perceive to be gay off rooftops. And all of that is true. That absolutely exist. But at the same time, there's just like persistent creativity by LGBTIQ community members. And so there's just so much to showcase. But, you know, we look specifically at progress in four

countries, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco. And, you know, the kind of activism that's flourishing is so diverse and so good. So I guess some of my standout examples would be, you know, there's this incredible queer feminist film festival in Tunisia, which just shows that people are finding ways to use art, to assert their identities, to help people to imagine a better life for themselves, literally, to be able to visualize it. Also in Tunisia, there's been a presidential commission that actually recently recommended the repeal of their sodomy law, which is huge. And then, you know, when my colleague was writing this report and he got to Lebanon, I thought I knew Lebanon pretty well. But he created like a database of organizations in Lebanon working on LGBTIQ rights.

And it was like I couldn't even keep up. There were so many organizations that have taken this work on. So I don't know. When I look across the region, I just see like a flourishing of activism. And that gives me a lot of hope. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, although you guys did do one other report. that talks about the state of LGBTIQI organizing globally and how hard some countries make it for these

organizations to register and begin work. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because it's an interesting challenge that you're dealing with. Yeah. So, you know, we started our conversation asking, like, what's the legal trend on homosexuality and transgender rights? And, you know, I think one of the biggest legal trends is that we're going to see more of this new category of laws. So if you think that the old laws criminalized homosexual, sexual conduct, and the old laws criminalized impersonation and cross-dressing, you know, and those are laws that criminalize behavior and identity. The new categories of laws criminalize activism. And so outright published this report where we set out to answer this question, where can LGBTIQ groups legally register around

the world. And it might sound like a little wonky or it might sound like something that, you know, maybe you take for granted. I mean, if you live in the U.S., you can think of hundreds of organizations, you know, at the blink of an eye. But legal registration is the first step towards progress. And that's because no legal change, no cultural change ever happens without LGBT organizations insisting and pushing and trying again and again. And so we just set out to find out, like, how hard is it? And the data was pretty shocking, actually. So in 55 countries around the world, there are LGBTIQ organizations.

They're smart and creative and ethical and brilliance, and they do wonderful, important work. But, you know, they can't register. So they're working, but they're finding ways around the registration issue. And that's really deeply problematic because it means they can't rent an office space. or they can't open a bank account, or it's really hard for them to receive grant funding. And, of course, these are all the things that produce stability and movements. And then the other thing that we found that was just like mind-bogglingly disturbing is that there are 30 countries in the world where there's not even one LGBTIQ organization.

And that basically means that if you're, you know, a queer person in one of those countries, you're basically walking around with a target on your back. Yeah. My last question for you, I mean, this is obviously a global challenge that you guys are taking on. And I've cruised the outright action international website and it doesn't appear to be staffed by tens of thousands of people. Like, how are you guys able to organize in so many different countries? Like, what approaches do you take to scale your work? And most importantly, how can people who are listening help you out if they are so inclined? What a great question, Tommy. Okay, well, I will first answer your first question before I get to your second. So basically, we scale our work by drinking a lot of coffee. So the first thing your listeners can do is they could send us coffee.

We don't sleep a lot. And we work around the clock. Okay. Only partially kidding. But we actually scale our work by just being very strategic and very effective in what we do. We're 20 people globally. We're sprinkled across seven countries around the world, everywhere from Singapore to Belize, Jamaica, and the Philippines, beyond.

And so what we do to scale our work is, first, we work at the international level. So we do a lot of work at the UN. We do a lot of work with the regional systems. And that's because you can be a little voice and have a very big impact if you change international laws. So I was talking a little bit about the India decision before. Well, when you read the decision that decriminalized homosexuality in, you know, the world's largest country, you find that it's sprinkled with references to the UN. And so how do you produce results like that? Well, you work at the UN.

You make sure the UN sees you. So advocacy is the first category. Then the second is we produce a lot of data, like the two reports we're talking about. And why do we do that? Well, because if there's no credible record of our rights being violated, then there aren't going to be policy solutions. It's pretty simple. Right, right, right. And then the third thing we do is a lot of capacity building and resourcing grassroots

organizations globally. And this is pretty basic. It's just like if you're the only gay in the village or whatever the equivalent is, if you're from this like one small LGBTQ organization and you're not respected by the other groups, you have no funding, you can't get legally registered. And so the other organizations don't take you seriously. Then having a friend that's going to help you. through trainings, through resourcing, is really going to accelerate your growth.

And so that's been an incredibly effective way for us to make change. And as for how people can help, well, I assume that your listeners are sprinkled everywhere. They are. So I guess they could do one of three things. First, they could go on our website and check us out, join our email list so they can get involved. Second, they could contact us and say, you know, here's the skill that I have to offer. here's how I want to help. We're always taking volunteers. We take everything from like pro bono legal assistance to we work in partnership with artists. Like if you have a skill or a resource, we want to know about it.

And then the third thing, of course, is really basic, but essential. You know, we also love donations. And we love donations because, as I said, you know, we're small but mighty. And, you know, this work is not popular. It's never been popular. You know, governments don't really care about LGBTIQ rights. And, you know, when Trump says America first, a lot of people think, well, I'm going to respond by investing all of my resources domestically. And, you know, the truth is the best response to America first is to think globally. And so, you know, individuals can make a huge difference across all these categories. Amen. Well, Jessica, thank you for the time you gave me today and the incredible work you guys are doing.

It is really, it is impressive and it's inspiring. And it's always fun on the show to talk to people who served in government or elected officials. But one does not have to work in government to work in foreign policy or change things internationally. So you guys are a hell of a good example of how people can get involved in their own lives. Thanks so much, Tommy. I'm really thrilled to be on your show. And I have a great respect for any show that tries to help people think about and understand foreign policy. So thank you so much for what you're doing.

Well, thank you. And I look forward to talking again soon. Wonderful. Bye, Tommy. Thank you all for listening to POTS Save the World. Again, we may do a bonus episode if there's big news coming out of this North Korea summit. TBD could be a nothing burger. You never know with this guy. But stay tuned.

Thanks for listening.