Pod Save the World - Ukraine's shocking counteroffensive

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

Tommy and Ben cover the successful Ukrainian military counteroffensive, what it means for Zelensky and Putin and the next phase of the war. They also discuss the rise of a far-right party in Sweden, the latest news about the Queen of England’s funeral, famine in east Africa, Biden and refugees and why Obama yelled at Steph Curry about the moon landing. Then Tommy interviews US Trade Representative Katherine Tai about China, Taiwan, and how to make voters believe free trade will help them. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome back to Pots Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Should we just agree not to talk about the NFL at all this season? I have nothing to talk about. Yeah. The Jets. Sunday didn't exist. Jets would be lucky to win a single game this year.

We got our asses. Our best chance is probably against the Patriots. That hurt. Yeah, that hurt a little bit. Well, I'm sure that we just made the listeners very happy that we're not going to be talking about these dumb sports things. We have a big show today because there's a lot of news out of Ukraine. And we're going to cover this major kind of offensive by the Ukrainian. military that has made enormous gains. We'll talk about what it means for Putin and then why he's

meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who's taken his first trip out of the country since COVID, since it started in Wuhan to go meet with Vladimir Putin as he's getting routed in Eastern Ukraine. Interesting choice. Probably not the context under which Putin wanted to have that meeting. No, no, probably not. We will also discuss some bad news out of Sweden. The latest news on the Queen and why the UN is sounding the alarm about famine in East Africa. Finally, we'll talk Biden and refugees and whether the United States fake the moon landing. Hope you're ready for that. So let that one in there.

Do you have information on that? I got some notes from Trump's basement. And then, Ben, last week we had in this studio, you were traveling, I believe, but I didn't interview with U.S. trade representative, Catherine Tai. We talked about China. We talked about Taiwan. We talked about how to convince voters that trade will actually help them after NAFTA and, you know, TPP flamed out and, you know, all the challenges that pro-free trade people have had.

I also made a bunch of jokes that bombed. So stick around for that. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. Yeah. They come fast and they land hard. That's the part I'm really looking forward to. A lot of thuds.

But before we hear all of that, Ben, the Wilderness is back for season three. Whoa. You ready for this? It is a midterm election. It is a midterm election. So basically, we need every listener of this show to subscribe and download the wilderness because John has been traveling literally all over the country. He's been hosting focus groups with swing voters.

in Atlanta. I think he did one in Vegas. He's done them in California and just trying to figure out like what do these people want to hear about? What do they care about and who are they going to vote for? And it's fascinating. You will listen. You will learn a lot if you listen and subscribe. Like voters and not just Twitter? Not Twitter. Voters who I think they were Biden voters. They might have been Trump Biden and now they're just kind of like, eh, checked on the politics. It's always fascinating because we live in a world of political junkies and I hear people who kind of like don't pay attention. It's 80% of the country, but I think they feel... That's kind of rational. It's not like it's a lot of fun and paying attention to politics.

No, it's not a blast. But turning to global affairs, Ben, it has been a pretty extraordinary couple of days for the Ukrainian military who say they have recaptured 3,500 square miles of territory and liberated 150,000 Ukrainian citizens from Russian control. That's in September. Here's the backstory. So there's been all this talk for weeks about a Ukrainian counterterrorism. offensive against Russian forces in southern Ukraine near the town of Kersone. That made a lot of of strategic sense. We talked about it a few times. Yeah, the LAMBridge, breaking up the Lange. Yeah, we were worried that Russian forces would swing all the way west to Odessa, completely cut off Ukraine from the Black Sea, and that'd be very bad. So what the Ukrainians didn't

talk about publicly, though, was they had another plan, which was to simultaneously launch another counteroffensive several hundred miles northeast of Kerosone in Kharkiv. So what appears to have happened here is the Russians heard about this southern counter-offensive. They redeployed forces from the north to the south in preparation to defend Kerosone and left thinlyman lines in the north and inexperienced fighters who just got routed, just absolutely routed. In fact, you know, Ukrainian forces were pushing so quickly into Russian territory that many Russian units retreated.

They abandoned tons of weapons systems. I saw a video of Russian troops literally jumping out of a moving tank. Did you see this? Yeah. And there are dudes like stealing cars and bicycles, anything they're. could get. Yeah, like shedding their uniforms, just running into the bushes. I don't know that that's going to work long term. But I get it. It seems like the Ukrainian units are still taking territory near Kharkiv and Keroson's that the offens that the offens that the offens are far from over.

There's also reports that Ukraine is taking heavy casualties. So this is not cost-free. You know, the war is not over. But an extraordinary swing in momentum. A couple of thoughts just on things I've seen smart people say, Ben, because as we've disclosed here before, we're not military experts or strategists and never will be. But it does seem like there was some savvy deception by the Ukrainians. Like they emphasized this, this offensive. in the South and then they also went to the north. But it's just, it's notable that Russian intelligence didn't pick up on any of it. Yeah. Remember we thought these guys, the Russians had the entire Ukrainian government wired? Yeah, I mean, there are a couple points to this.

I mean, on that point, you know, there have been these reports that there increased U.S. intelligence sharing to help facilitate what they're doing. And so that may have played a part here. Also, if you look carefully, like Zelensky has created kind of units within you. units. So within the intelligence branch, within the special forces, I think there's like a inner core that is probably, let's just say, pretty vetted. Yeah, pretty tight. But to me, I mean, to focus on the, you hit the military angle, I mean, to focus on the political angle, which we do know something about here, I mean, you know, I was thinking, Tommy, we a few weeks ago had an episode about who's winning the war, you know, and at that point, it was essentially

kind of a stalemate. You could make an argument for Ukraine having denied Putin his core objectives, but then you could make an argument that Russia had this strategy in place that we've talked about a lot, which is you kind of swallow up inch by inch more territory to consolidate eastern and southern Ukraine, and then you just squeeze the hell of the Europeans and try to fracture them by putting them through a nightmarish winter, and you try to get to a point, I guess, where the Ukrainians are negotiating on bad terms to basically lose a bunch of territory, that Russia. Russia depopulates and annexes or recognizes independent republics. And this offensive really flips that strategy inside out.

Instead of it being a war of attrition that's working for Putin, suddenly it looks like a war of attrition that is going against Putin, which both bolsters Ukrainian morale and also may incentivize the West to provide more weapons and to weather a rough winter because this is working. So it doesn't end the war, but it definitely takes. tips of momentum in the direction of the Ukrainian. Yeah, and I think it took six months to get to this being possible. I mean, the Russians have taken huge casualties over the past six months.

Even if they had perfect intelligence, it's not entirely clear, given how many casualties they've taken and how they kind of tried to do this war on the cheap that they would have been able to have enough troops in both places to fight off both of these counteroffensives. I mean, the truth is, I mean, look, people are getting a little kind of triumphant on social media, and that always makes me aware. I mean, holding this territory will almost certainly be harder than taking it in this sort of swift defensive. But it's also notable that the Ukrainians cut off a bunch of logistics hubs and that'll make it harder for Russia to resupply their guys. And it took the Russians months and months and months to win the area around Kharkiv in the first place.

So this was like hard fought territory that they just gave up in like a day or two. Yeah. No. And, you know, I think it does a number of things for the Ukrainians. it does disrupt the Russian logistics. I think it also like points out the manpower and morale issues on the Russian side. So just as this is a boost to Ukrainian morale, I mean, clearly these troops, these Russian troops, like it's a mixture of kind of conscripts and people who didn't know why they're being sent there, people that were forced in the Russian military service and occupied eastern Ukraine, some mercenaries, Wagner group types, We've talked about, these are not, like, highly motivated people.

And they've basically been on the fucking front line because it doesn't seem like the Russians are rotating troops in and out that much because they have manpower shortages, which I'll get it in a second. But, like, you're just sitting there, you know, getting shelled, trading artillery back and forth, getting softened up by, you know, U.S. long-range artillery. $15 billion worth of American assistance since the war started. Exactly. And then once you feel like you're in real danger.

like, what are you standing and fighting for? You know, you don't even know why you're there, right? Putin can't even articulate what the reason for this special military operation is. And that's the morale problem. And the manpower problem is, you know, we've talked about how Putin is not taking the step of a kind of full mobilization of Russia, like basically from the American parlance be like reinstuting the draft, right? Like everybody's conscripted in or could be.

You know, presumably you didn't do that because, you know, it's expensive, but it's also risky. It would raise anti-war sentiment if suddenly, you know, people like had to go fighting the fucking war. And so he's got a real dilemma here because the more he expands the mobilization, the more it presents risks at home of opposition. But the more he doesn't, it looks like they may not have enough manpower to hold all this territory that they wanted to. So it does, it exposes a pretty fundamental flaw in Putin's underestimation of the Ukrainians. Yeah, I mean, look, we're seeing a lot of criticism of the military effort from within Russia, which is pretty new. I mean, there are clips of Russian State TV where you have these like hawkish propagandists on this weird Fox News looking set, talking honestly about how bad things are going.

That's, that's rare. You have military bloggers being shockingly critical of the war strategy. And then there's Putin who gave a speech at the grand opening of the world's largest Ferris wheel as his army is getting routed. So he just couldn't look anymore at touch. But you're right. I mean, he needs to decide whether they're going to. to either do a mass or partial mobilization, but basically force people into military service

or some sort of stop loss that forces, that prevents you from leaving the military if you're currently in there and you're a Russian. They're trying to get it done on the cheap. They're trying to do Chechens. They're trying to do it by like hiring, you know, mercenaries through the Wagner group. But you're right.

I mean, like, this is top politics, I think, even for Putin. No, we've, you know, what we've seen, you know, that Ferris wheel, I think, is actually really telling because it was the 800, 50th anniversary of the founding of Moscow, I think. And, you know, the fact that Putin is prioritizing that and presiding over Ferris wheel ribbon cuttings. And actually, I saw a report that that Ferris wheel broke down, but that may have just been kind of wishful fake news. I don't know. But if it did, that's a huge metaphor. But the fact that he's doing that, he sought to try to

project like business as usual, like, oh, there. It was just a special military operation over there. But that's not sustainable, right? They've lost, if the report, are true, like they've got 80,000 killed and wounded. They're losing territory. It's beginning to permeate the society. You know, acting like nothing really big is going on isn't going to work for him. And so he's left with bad choices. Does he mobilize people and present a risk that way? Does he not? And risk losing more territory and looking weak. Does he blame the military for the defeats, even though ultimately I think it's probably Putin's fault by asking them to do things with inadequate resources that they don't understand what they're doing.

And there, you know, it gets dangerous for Putin because the Russian power structure is basically, you know, oligarchs, the military, and the FSB types. And of those three, you know, the oligarchs, you know, they still have a bunch of their money, but life got worse for those guys. The military, if Putin starts scapegoating them, they got to be sitting there thinking, like, we're the ones getting our fucking asses blown off. Yeah, they get killed. And so he could be in a situation where he's starting to lose some of the foundational components of his regime on not projecting his imminent downfall.

But if he's a guy who worries about his own stability and security, you know, he's in a somewhat precarious position. Yeah. And look, I think the smart sort of military strategy might be to retreat a little bit, regroup, reconsolate your forces, but that's maybe untenable politically. But to your point about sort of the other power structures, I mean, it is interesting that not necessarily all oligarchs, But lots of business leaders seem to be falling out of hospital windows or having heart attacks at like 38. It's very, it's mysterious. A lot of weird stuff's going on. Yeah. You know I were texting about this, but we've had a guy fall out the balcony of his hospital room.

We had a guy fall off his yacht near Vladivostok. That's tough. What happens? And these are all kind of, you know, business leaders, some of whom we know criticized the war. but it suggests a level of concern in a way. You know, we don't see what's going on inside Russia very clearly, but if Putin is concerned enough that all these people are dying mysteriously, he must see something he doesn't like, you know.

I mean, I think the thing that worries me that it's worth naming, too, is that if Putin is starting to feel like he's losing the war, the tragic irony of the Ukraine war is that the risk of something awful may go up, the more he feels endangered, either from within or without, chemical weapons use, God forbid, tactical nuclear weapons, you know, we already saw them, you know, cut off the power and electricity and water to the city of Kharki. Yeah, you guys started bombing, like, power substations, that purely civilian infrastructure. Yeah, he may just, there's no way Putin, like, loses this war without creating an utter

dystopia in Ukraine tragically, right? So there's a, there could be a tragic success for the Ukrainians. I think the best case scenario is that they take back as much territory as they can and then push it into a negotiation where they're in a stronger position. But, you know, it's going to, this is, you're right, the triumphalism, I get it. It's huge victory in success, but we're not anywhere near the end of this story, I don't think. Just, just hold a beat on that on Twitter. Don't maybe, maybe don't retweet yourself being right. And then, you know, you're seeing, you're seeing this sort of spill into places like Azerbaijan and Armenia where fighting is kick

back up seemingly in response to Russian weakness. Yeah, if you look there, I mean, Armenia has been traditionally dependent on Russia, Azerbaijan on Turkey. And if you're Azerbaijan, it seemed like there were some attacks along this line of separation. It seemed like the, that the Azeris were responsible. And it may be opportunistic them thinking, well, the Russians are distracted. They're not going to be able to send, you know, a bunch of, you know, provide a bunch of muscle to the Armenians. I hope, I saw the U.S. sent an official over, like, hopefully that, that has calmed down. You know, we don't want to see an escalation there. You know, Armenia doesn't deserve that. You know, so just it's pretty horrifying war last couple years. And then, you know, I mentioned this at the top,

but like in a reminder of who he is and what he cares about, Xi Jinping is making his first trip out of China soon since the, since the COVID pandemic started. He's going to Uzbekistan for meeting with Putin. I mean, Ben, you know, she had a lot of leverage with the Russians before because they were sanctioned. They need to offload a lot of oil and gas and other things and they need, you know, technology and infrastructure. I'm sure she is now licking his chops watching these military setbacks for the Russian side and like dreaming about all the discounted Russian oil and gas that he can now get through. I think they're talking about a new pipeline, potentially through Siberia from Russia directly to China. But yeah, he's definitely getting to.

He's definitely going to get a discount. Yeah, you got a cut, right. I think, you know, it's interesting, though, that they're both kind of weakened in a way. Like, they met in early February before the Olympics, right? And Putin's encircling Ukraine probably thinks he's about to decapitate that place pretty easily. They announce a no-limits partnership. Yeah, exactly. She's about to host the Olympics, no-limits partnership.

Well, since then, you've not only had the Russian failures in Ukraine, but the zero-COVID policy looks worse and worse inside of China. you've got tens of millions of people sporadically on lockdown, the economy is having trouble. So like these guys who looked like the kind of evil Avengers, you know, when they announced their no limits partnership, are both meeting a little weakened in Central Asia. Yeah, and in Hong Kong, I saw the authorities through a bunch of speech therapists in jail because they decided a children's book they had written was seditious or had seditious continent. So that doesn't strike me as a particularly strong, confident. Yeah, it's like their version of Russian oil executives, you know, disappearing off their yachts near Vladivostok. You know, what are they so worried about?

Yeah, what is so worried about? Well, obviously, we'll watch this closely, but pretty momentous week for the Ukrainians. Unfortunately, there are some right-wing forces popping up in places you would not necessarily expect. Some bad news out of Sweden then where a populist anti-immigrant party called the Sweden Democrats saw a surge of support in Sunday's general election and will likely be a key part. of a new conservative coalition if it takes power. We don't have final results yet, but it seems likely that this conservative coalition will take over from the sort of center-left version that's there now. The Sweden Democrats have neo-Nazi and white supremacist roots, and they used growing fear about gang violence and basically anti-immigrant sentiment to do well in this election and become Sweden's second most powerful political party. The election follows a very familiar pattern, which is these other moderate parties for many, many years, shunned the Sweden Democrats. But then the Sweden Democrats sort of tried to stand some of the edges off some of their policy positions and convinced other more moderate parties to work with them, talk with them, negotiate.

And they ultimately, the right wing folks kind of reshaped the debate around crime and about immigration and co-opted this election. And so, you know, the Sweden Democrats, they support joining NATO. They're not no longer anti-EU. So they're not like right wing across the board like a Victor Orban might be. But their rise, I think, is something we should watch. And also maybe, you know, a precursor to Italy's upcoming elections on September 25th, which is likely to put an ultra-right-wing hustle to the EU pro-Putin government and power. It's not good.

Yeah. I mean, what jumps out to me is if you look at Sweden, you know, the social Democrats, right, the center-left party, there's still like the biggest party. but what's happened is like the center and right has just moved further to the right you know and and so kind of like here right where you had this kind of radicalization on the right ours is a little crazier even in the sweden's but you know you have a dynamic where you know you've got a precarious close balance between right left and center and if the the side of the scale the tips right is just moving more and more to the right

Even though the election wasn't like a huge rebuke of the left, if it's a very close election, you could still end up with a government that is much further to the right than we're accustomed to in Scandinavia. Yeah, not good. Not something you want to see. And, you know, look, it's, you know, unfortunately, part of it is a legacy of the challenge of the European refugee crisis of 2014, 2015, a lot of the wars that have been a wage around the world that have pushed people out. of their homes and into places in Europe. So it's a very challenging long-term issue. Speaking of what used to be part of the European Union event over in the UK, I'm sad to report that the Queen is still dead. Yeah. So there will be several days of memorials and events that culminate in a state funeral on September 19th at Westminster Abbey President Biden's going to attend.

Interesting to see how a proud Irishman like Biden kind of makes it through this. King Charles delivered his first speech to Parliament as king on Monday. I saw the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda said that in the next few years, they will hold a referendum on whether to become a republic, remove the king as the head of state. That's like a three-year time frame. But interesting to see if those discussions kind of kick up in other countries where King Charles technically serves as head of state still. Ben, spend a couple days since we recorded our bonus episode. How you holding up, how the queen is gone?

You know, I'm saturated in the coverage, so I think I have, you know, definitely consumed sufficient content for her majesty. I noticed a couple things that were interesting. First, you know, the queen died in Scotland, and then kind of there was a lying in state in Scotland. But King Charles addressed the Scottish Parliament as one of his first acts. And, like, you can feel them being nervous about. okay, after the queen passes, who was this person with a long history in Scotland, you know, is there a risk of Scottish independence gaining momentum without her there anymore? And so you kind of read that into Charles going up there.

Yeah, you see a couple more of these Commonwealth countries, like, looking to get some distance. You even saw some, like, weird reports. And if you saw Tommy, of, like, people with anti-rural signs getting, like, arrested in the U.S. Yeah, there were some protesters. which not to compare it to, you know, people going missing off of yachts, but there's not a lot of confidence if you're like arresting people with signs, you know. Yeah. So it does feel like for all the pageantry and choreography, which has been remarkable around the Queen's death.

And I think, you know, Charles hitting the right notes and his new role. Obviously this is a guy who's been preparing for this for about 50 years. That doesn't mean he's out of the woods here with either, you know, potential challenges at the United Kingdom from Scottish independence, potential challenges to the Commonwealth, from, you know, people leaving and or people no longer wanting, you know, Charles with the head of state, and, you know, potential challenges to the monarchy within the UK. I don't think that's as evolved as the other ones, but there's, you know, it's going to be like a rough, you know, decade here. I thought you're going to say that the big update was the Queen's dogs, found homes,

She has two corgis, a Cocker Spaniel, and a Doxion, doxend, doxend? Doxen corgi mix, leave all this in. It's called Dorgi. And they found new homes. Prince Andrew gets the two corgis. That sucks for them. Not sure what the other two are now. You don't want the whiff of Epstein on the corgis.

No. Do you see someone heckled Andrew? No, I didn't. In a parade, yeah, it was like you're a disgrace or something like that. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, I mean, if the shoe fits. Yeah, I mean, I noticed that the downgrade they gave him at these events is he can't wear his military uniform.

I mean, it's not, who is that fooling? Does anybody think, like... He's like a metal honor winner before us? This guy was really like in the shit, you know? No, no, no, he was not in a trench somewhere. You know who wrote a great piece, Ben? Howard French. Yeah.

Who we've had on the show before. His book, Born in Blackness. Wrote a great piece on Foreign Policy.com about the legacy of colonialism, the British slave trade in the Caribbean, which is something we didn't really touch on on Friday show, because we were more focused on all the other places. Colonialism was terrible. But, you know, he made the point that, well, Queen Elizabeth had no power.

A lot of these terrible things happened before her time. But also, she went around the world kind of selling a system that created all these horrors and never apologized personally for it. I thought it was an interesting piece. Yeah, well, there's an interesting, like, way of framing the slave issue, which is, like, you often hear from kind of defenders of the British Empire that they abolished a slave trade, like long before America emancipated slaves, but they set up the slave trade. So, like, you know, you don't, like, I don't know that you get credit for ending the horrible

thing that you did for, I mean, credit to the people who ended it. And actually, there's a great book called Barry the Chains by Adam Hothschild, which makes the point that, you know, there's this tremendous story of, like, activists and abolitionists inside the UK who kind of forced the issue. But, you know, he's right to raise all of that. And I thought Dan's not know had a pretty interesting take on this last week, but basically that the Commonwealth itself, if we're honest to ourselves, it's not like that real a thing. It's kind of a bridge out of colonialism. Oh, yeah. He described it as a joke. He described as kind of a fake thing that can make everybody feel better about, you know, the fact that the empire is no longer around. And

and so it may be that this, you know, the Commonwealth itself just kind of continues to dilute, you know, itself out of, not out of existence, but into a pretty ceremonial entity. Yeah. Turning to Africa, UN officials are sounding the alarm about the risk of famine in East Africa, where, you know, meteorologists are predicting a fifth straight rainy season with no rain, which obviously means farmers can't grow food, livestock dies off, people can't get water. At the same time, the war in Ukraine is driving up global food prices, as we've talked about earlier. And aid organizations say they just don't have the money to bridge the gap. The UN coordinator for humanitarian affairs said on Tuesday that they need another billion dollars on top of a previous $1.4 billion request to respond to

the drought. Nearly 50 million people in the region are close to starving. It seems clear that, again, these droughts are driven by climate change, which as we discussed, I think, two weeks ago, exacerbated the devastating floods in Pakistan. So this is all a piece of a terrible puzzle. So just something to keep an eye on and also, you know, a place to think about maybe donating some money if you're thinking about end-a-year stuff to do it early. Yeah, if you look at the affected areas, too, it kind of overlaps with the potential food insecurity because of Ukraine. So you have places that are already devastated in their own agricultural sector and subsistence farming that are also kind of the part of the world that would normally be importing a lot of grain. Yeah, these countries buy a lot of Russian and the Ukrainian grain. Yeah.

So, man, you can see some really negative consequences on the horizon. And I do think this question of mitigation against climate change, you know, can't be pushed. And not that it's being pushed off entirely, but the urgency and scale of the response that's going to be needed to prevent really catastrophic human consequences. you know, gets worse every year. Yeah. And it might start creating climate refugees. Well, that's the thing.

Certain places are just going to become kind of unlivable. Yeah. You know, could be millions of people on the move. Yeah, which sort of gets me the next thing I wanted to raise with you, which is, you know, we've talked a lot about refugees and the refugee cap on the number admitted into the country during the Trump administration. Talked about it a bit under Biden because initially they'd kind of lowballed the number. Then they increased the cap to 125,000 refugees into the U.S. in 2022.

They announced the 2023 cap recently. It's the same 125,000. But as of the end of August, the U.S. is only admitted about 20,000 refugees this year, which is not great. Now, that does not include the thousands of people from Afghanistan or Ukraine who came in through sort of like other means legally, you know, et cetera. But come on, guys. Like, let's pick up pay. Yeah, I don't understand this. I mean, they, to much ceremony, you know, well, first of all, you know, there were the reports that Biden was uncomfortable with the original refugee cap, but then they got to the right place. But, you know, you don't get points for the target if you miss it by this much. You also took the political hit. Yeah. You already took the announcement hit. And, you know, I just, and even on the Afghan side, there are a lot of stories about, yes, a lot of people got flown.

here, but a lot of people didn't. A lot of those people who were evacuated got stuck in the UAE or Qatar or they're stuck in Albania. And from what I'm hearing, like those people are not getting in, you know, and I don't know what this is. I don't know if basically the Trump people, I think it's a combination of things. I mean, the Trump people likely hollowed out the infrastructure necessary to create pipelines of refugees in, I would imagine. But it also, frankly, doesn't feel like front burner political priority for this administration either. So I think this is some area where people should be giving a push for us to meet our obligations. And the reality is because they're both obviously compelling needs in Afghanistan, Ukraine, but in other ways too, for all the reasons

we've talked about. But also because, you know, we want other countries to do this. And if we're not doing it, other countries see that. And then they take their foot off the gas. And meanwhile, the number of people displaced is growing exponentially. And you've got climate refugees on the horizon. And the whole world needs to kind of get its shit together here. Yeah. And that's true on this famine issue, too. Because the U.S. is donating a lot of money in other countries.

On the famine, the U.S. has been out in front. Samantha Power has really been sounding the alarm bells on this. So on the famine, it feels like the U.S. is doing a lot in terms of specific resources and warning. But refugees, one where I'd like to see us, you know, push a little harder. Yeah, last issue here before the, for my interview. So Ben, Steph Curry did an interview with Rolling Stone where he said that he once got a stern email from Barack Obama after Steph said the moon landing was faked. I'm sort of first wondering if that email was better or worse than a stern email from

Obama about a David Brooks column. I'm not sure if you have an opinion on that. But Steph apparently felt chasing enough. He hosted an Instagram live with Scott Kelly, the astronauts, kind of clear things up. But I was wondering, I mean, I actually get. this question a lot. It was the moon landing faked. I was wondering if you ever do. In other countries, right? I've gotten this like in other countries. I got it from like Emily Fabro. This is going to be a good test if Emily Fabro listens to Putsi. She does not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Test failed. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, because it is so like improbable, right? You know who they wouldn't tell if we faked it? Me. Yeah, no, I did not get the briefing on the fake moon landing. let me tell you. There's a really good BBC podcast about the moon landing, by the way, that's out there now. Okay. And it deconstructs the, I think it's like 11 minutes or something, however long it took them to get from the spacecraft down to the moon. But look at it this way.

Like, if that happened today, like, I think there'd be people like, really, do I believe we can do that? In 1969, like, that must have seemed insane to people around the world. Like if you were in like, you know, I don't know, some developing country, the idea that there's a capacity to land on the moon feels pretty. Trust me, I believe it happened. I'm just saying like you can see the seeds of doubt out there. You ever seen it? It was a Buzz Aldrin, I think, who punched a moon landing denier in the face at some event.

Yeah, well, imagine if you went all the way to the fucking moon and then some guys like denying. Some goober gets in your face. If I was Buzz Alder and I'd give him a swing. Yeah, I mean, listen, what I'd say like, the U.S. government has done some bad things. And it's covered up a lot of things. But I think what you need to keep in mind when you hear people talking about vast government conspiracies, whether it's faking the moon landing or 9-11 being an inside job,

is that no one can keep a secret. I mean, seriously, look around right now. Snowden, WikiLeaks, Trump's basement has like 100 classified documents. You think if the moon landing was fake, Don Jr. would be bragging about it at some bachelorette party in Mar-a-Lago or like given a speech at a wedding, you know, like this would be out. Well, yeah, I mean, not to pick at a scab, Tommy, but this is what I would come to say to people about Benghazi, you know, because the conspiracy theory was that.

Scab picked. Basically, this, you know, awful tragic, you know, attack happens that kills for Americans. The conspiracy theory is that, like, we all got together and decided to blame this on a video as if that video kind of didn't exist or something and we just constructed a cover story. and I try to explain to people, like putting aside the grotesque motivation that assigns to us, getting people from every agency, the State Department, the FBI, the CIA, etc., to all buy into a conspiracy theory together and not have that, like, you know, get out is, like, insane and beyond the scope of how the U.S. government functions. And the moon landing, like, trust me, it wasn't just pick a scab, like, in order for that

have been a conspiracy theory, not only would you have had to have like kind of fake astronauts, but like all those people in Michigan control, like all of the hundreds, thousands of people that worked on the moon landing, every single one of those people would have had to be in on the deal. Trust me, that is impossible. Like the idea that not one of those people would go out and say, yeah, actually, you know, I was a paid, whatever, you know. No, and I also think like America, you know, we're pretty good at like a massive, scientific endeavor that is well funded as that thing was. Sure. Well, and also all the alien stuff

starting to come out through Congress through the military and other stuff. Yeah, the aliens are coming out. Well, you really did. You kicked me right in the teeth on this Benghazi. The other thing was the Innocence of Muslims' video that inflamed all of the Middle East. Well, I mean, there's other footage of a bunch of protesters going over the wall in like Sudan and Cairo and all these other places. Yeah, Tunis. Yeah. These were all things that happened. And so then to expand the conspiracy theory, like, did the U.S. government gin up, like, violence at our own embassies and Tunis and cartoon? Again, this is not to, you know, Benghazi trauma. You took us to a dark place. What are you doing here? But it's just to point up the absurdity of assigning the U.S.

government the capacity to carry out a massive conspiracy. No one's that competent. Yeah. Yeah. I do love that the Q&ON people have decided that some random dude is JFK Jr., who's still alive and just sort of waiting to live. lead them. It's part of their sickness. Yeah. Yeah. There's a, there's a deep and abiding sickness. I remember I was, this is very analog memory, but you know, I did, I was involved with the 9-11 commission and I had a blog back in 2005, six, or I was a blogger on this nerdy national security site. And I wrote this kind of snarky blog about 9-11 truthers, like who thought it was an inside job. and, you know, I was like debunking some of their theories that, you know, the World Trade Center is dynamited and a missile at the Pentagon.

And I kind of made fun of them. You know, I think I referred to people living in their parents' basement and stuff. And it was my first experience of getting, like, bombarded with... Oh, really? It was like pre-social media, so I was getting emailed because my email linked to my obscure blog. And I had, like, hundreds and hundreds of emails. I'm like, whoa, there's something weird out there. Like, Americans' interest in conspiracy theory is greater than I think we know.

Someone recently did a long piece on loose change, the, quote-unquote, documentary, the conspiracy theory film that kind of set off or set in motion all the 9-11 conspiracy theories. It's fascinating the way it evolved and who did it. And also some of the earliest buyers of this film, because people were buying like VHS tapes, one of them with Joe Rogan. So no surprise there. Doing his own research. But yeah, no, right. But this was kind of like a pre-internet viral spread of this stuff. That stuff was happening.

And, you know, I bet you you could also probably draw a line from people who are deep into that to people who are now into Q&N because people kind of jump from one conspiracy theory to the next. For sure. So it's very satisfying to think you've found like the kind of the keystone that puts together the whole thing and makes the whole system make sense instead of just random, awful chaos that resulted in people getting killed or whatever it is. Yeah, Oliver Stone's JFK is it like you watch that and you're like, well, if I. If I chose to believe this, a lot of stuff would make sense, actually. You know, like conspiracy theories explain things that are unexplainable. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Well, conspiracy theories suck. And when we come back, you will hear my interview with Ambassador Catherine Tai, the USTR. We're going to talk all about trade. We're going to talk about China, talk about Taiwan. So stick around. And some jokes will not land. How about that? So I'm so excited to welcome to the show in studio, Ambassador Catherine

Thai, the United States Trade Representative. Welcome to Crooked Media Global HQ. Thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here. You got a very warm welcome from Pundit, John Lubbitt's dog. So I just wanted to state that for listeners, just so everyone knows. I think you can tell a lot about a person by how they're greeted by a dog. And in this case, 10 out of 10.

So first question is really, it's a hard one. What does the United States Trade Representative do? Are you like a fantasy football GM? could you trade Timothy Shalomei for Daniel Radcliffe straight up? Is that how it works? That's a great question. Not quite. Not quite.

The United States Trade Representative, it is a mouthful. But I think if you, and I do this a lot, just look at the title of this job, U.S. Trade Representative. It is my job in every U.S.T.R. who has come before me to represent the interests of the United States in trade. So what that traditionally means is that as the USTR, I travel all around the world. I am showing up at meetings of the G20 in Bali later this month, APEC in Bangkok, the WTO in Geneva. And it is my job in those forms to represent the interests of the United States. I think that as we are approaching trade under President Biden's direction to make it relevant to the needs and interests of regular Americans, ordinary working people, we've reoriented our perspective at USTR. Part of my job, one of the most important parts and one of the parts that I like the most is bringing the U.S. back to U.S.T.R.

So that means that I now spend almost as much time traveling the United States as I do traveling outside of the U.S. And the point is to bring myself, USTR, our office to the American people, to the places where they live and work, to where they raise their families and engage with workers, engage with the small family farmers, engage with the folks at the community center, and talk to them about trade. In part, it's to proselytize a bit about a small agency that's really important that not a lot of people know about. But a large part of it is to broaden out our understanding of whose interests we're representing on the world stage. Because if we don't push ourselves and get out of Washington, then we've necessarily limited those people who already know who we are, know how to find us, and know how to talk to us. So I think that's, This is actually a really important part of our work, which is under President Biden's direction, to make sure that the U.S. trade representative is representing the interests of all of America.

You were in Iowa recently, right? Yes, I was at the Iowa State Fair. Nice. You're running for president. I'm just kidding. No, thank you. I think you should rethink this trading of citizens' idea. Like, we could get Steve Miller on the chopping block, right, for a lot of people anywhere. Really.

Like, I just wanted you to think about it. You were confirmed by a vote of 98 to 0 in the Senate. Yes. How is that possible? Is that possible? Did you have to Marco Rubio some Bitcoin? How did you get to 90 to 0 in 2021? No one gets a clean slate like that.

You know, it's a lot of work. It's hard work, but it's important work. And I think that, you know, in terms of that record, I'm tremendously proud of it because I've spent a lot of time building my relationships in the Congress with the members there. I have talked to Marco Rubio. He and I had a call before my confirmation, and we share interests with respect to making the American economy more competitive and certainly in taking on the challenges that we see from China. Marco Rubio is also, and you might not know this, a very vocal advocate for the producers of seasonal fruits and vegetables in Florida. I can see that.

That is something that he raised with me and something that we continue to track closely because those are American producers that he's representing. All right. Here's some less dumb questions, hopefully. So President Trump put a bunch of tariffs on Chinese imports when he was president. A lot of people, I think myself included, if we're being honest, accuse him of starting a trade war. I believe those tariffs are still in place after several years of President Biden being in office, the so-called Section 301 tariffs. why are they still in place? Does that mean that President Biden is continuing the trade war? Like, how should we think about this? So I think that what a lot of people remember from the previous years is a lot of the drama and the rhetoric that accompanied trade actions.

But I think what it's really important to do for us, especially in terms of trade policymaking and American economic policy, is to focus on why those tariffs went down in the first place. I think with respect to the steel and aluminum tariffs, these China. China tariffs, they were imposed in response to a legitimate concern economically and competitively. So you phrased the issue of the China tariffs. You served in the Obama administration. Hot rolled steel? Is that a thing we talk about? That is absolutely.

I remember that. My brain is bringing back little dumb tickets. Your trade lingo is coming back. Excellent. That's right. You may recall that during the Obama years, much as we did during the George W. Bush years. We had a series of dialogues going on with China. The strategic economic dialogue, strategic and economic dialogue, the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade, that was, yes. Hillary Clinton loved

having to go to those meetings. I mean, there's so many memos that get produced over the course of the year. And that was our strategy for engaging China in a dialogue track. At the same time at USTR, we were developing enforcement cases. that we were bringing at the World Trade Organization. And that was a large part of my job the last time I served at USTR. This dual-track approach of engagement and enforcement, over time, I think what we found was diminishing returns. Got it. By the mid-2010s, even during President Obama's time, I think that across the board in the interagency and also with Congress,

there's just a sense of running out of tools, running out of leverage for having that conversation with China about where it is that our economies are not interacting in healthy ways, where it is where we felt like competition opportunities, economic opportunities weren't flowing to our stakeholders the way that we expect and the way in a very open economy, we feel like our opportunities, are available to most of our partners. So the tariffs that went down in 2018 on Chinese imports were in response to a Section 301 investigation that was focused on intellectual property rights abuses, forced tech transfer practices that have been a problem for all non-Chinese operators and innovators who have been trying to do business with China in China. Force tech transfer is one of my favorite government euphemisms, by the way. Second only to hard landing, which is crashing your plane or helicopter.

Anyway, sorry. Okay. Stealing, right? I mean, just like stealing technology, stealing weapons, Raytheon, et cetera, et cetera. I think that's right. Although, you know, I think that there are some gray areas, you know, you are a producer. You want to produce in China. And the response is, sure, you can set up business here and you can operate here.

But, you know, you're going to need a partner here. Right, a local subsidiary. That's right. And then, you know, you're going to need to share your trade secrets or you're going to need to share your, you know, your secret sauce. And I think that that's part of what we have felt has been unfair. We don't do that, certainly. So those tariffs went down to remedy an unfair trade practice. And I think that that's what we need to keep our focus on, which is what is the problem that we have with China.

Forced tech transfer, intellectual property rights abuses is definitely a little. legitimate longstanding problem that we still need to continue to address. But, you know, I think that from our perspective, that's part of the problem. The problem with China is larger and goes to our economic systems and goes to an incredible ability that China has to identify and target sectors where it wants to dominate, not just in its own market, but internationally. And I think that that's where we as the United States and other partner countries see those practices that Beijing is putting forward are having negative and harmful impacts on our ability to grow our industries and to compete. And these tariffs are a component that has been laid down to try to address that.

I think in terms of the Biden administration's view, we're going to need a cross-disciplinary approach if we're going to be successful in boosting our ability to compete and to thrive. Sure. And I want to ask you a little more about this China piece. I agree with everything you're saying. But, you know, economists say terrorists make products more expensive for American consumers, and that is contributing to inflation. I was a philosophy major, so I don't know if that's correct. And I have no opinion on the subject. But are they wrong?

Like, you have a complicated job. How do you respond to these people who think, like, I just want cheaper stuff? I'm sick of paying, you know, so much for whatever goods. Look, I think that inflation is a serious concern. And all of us are consumers in this economy. and we're feeling the pinch one way or the other. But I think that in terms of when we are looking at our economic policies vis-a-vis China, we've got to keep our eye on the ball.

We need to up our game. We need to bring a more sophisticated set of tools. And I think we really need to think through how we bring a thoughtful approach that has got to be more strategic and has got to be effective in delivering results for our economy and the opportunity for our people to compete. So along those lines, I mean, I was reading a CNBC report that said China's response to Speaker Pelosi's visit to Taiwan recently. When they completely flipped out, they held war games all around the island. They launched missiles over it.

Has led the Biden administration to recalibrate their thinking around tariffs on China and whether to scrap them. Curious if that's accurate and whether it's, you know, fair for sort of like a layperson like, me to conclude that maybe in this context, the way you guys are thinking about or talking about tariffs almost sounds like sanction-like. It sounds like sort of a way to maybe punish Chinese activities that aren't necessarily trade-related. Is that wrong? How do you think about it? No, I appreciate this question. So first, with respect to recalibration on the part of the Biden administration, I can only speak for myself and my agency. The fact of the matter is that we have been in the weeds looking at the China economic trade competition challenge that we've been

facing for a couple decades now. And I don't think that anything that has happened in recent weeks changes any of our diagnosis or any of our thinking about where we need to go. In terms of tariffs of sanctions, this is great because it's right in my wheelhouse and right in USTR's wheelhouse. Tariffs are, you know, fundamentally a revenue tool. And on the Hill, the two committees of jurisdiction are Ways and Means, Senate Finance, those are the two mega economic policy making committees.

And trade is in their jurisdiction because historically, tariffs are a revenue tool. So, you know, I think that as a tool it can be used for different purposes. You're right. Sometimes we impose tariffs as sanctions. Quite often we impose tariffs to level the playing field. The Department of Commerce administers some programs called anti-dumping, countervailing duty, authorities where we're looking at competition with other countries and where we see that production is unfairly advantaged with state support or goods are being sold into the United States at below cost. we go through a rule of law process, and the remedy is to impose a tariff at the border to try to even out the unfair advantages that have gone into the trade in those products. So tariffs can be punishing tools. Tariffs can be enforcement and leveling tools.

And I think at the end of the day, it is important to consider that it is just a tool. And increasingly in the competition with China, I think that we are appreciating that the tariffs have to be paired with other types of tools. And I'll give you a couple examples in terms of accomplishments from the Biden administration. The Chips Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the infrastructure law, these types of investments in America itself, in our industries and our workers, very much is a part of our strategy overall for, boosting our own well-being, but also is a component of how we see we can level the playing field and play an active defense with respect to these harmful policies that come from China. Sure. Last China question. I mean, it's weird for me to sit here and hear the conversation about China and Taiwan to go not from sort of an if they invade or if they try to take over the

island, but a when conversation. You hear people talking. about the U.S.-China trade relationship, and they almost talk about giving up on negotiations because they say, look, they're never going to stop subsidizing state-owned industries. They're never going to stop with the IP theft. The Chips Act passed bipartisanly and pretty overwhelmingly. And it's like the only thing that brings Republicans and Democrats together is this kind of a little bit intense for my liking, cold warish-sounding rhetoric around China. And I'm just curious what you make of that. I mean, my understanding is both your parents or Taiwanese immigrants.

You actually speak Mandarin. You spent time in China. Like, you know the people, you know the culture. I think that's an incredibly important thing for someone who's negotiating. I'm curious, like, how you view this sentiment and this sense that there's this Thucydides trap kind of inevitable conflict coming and it's going to be bad. Yeah. Well, I think that, number one, I strongly believe that nothing is predestined. and the results that we see are direct correlation with the effort that we put in.

At the end of the day, the people in Taiwan, the people in China, their governments are comprised of human beings. You know, each society and economy and political unit has their own politics, has their own history. And I think it is really important for us as the United States because we are still the big guy on the world stage. It is changing. There are other big folks that are growing and joining our ranks in terms of economic size. Sure. But we still matter, and it matters for us. And to your point about the rhetoric being concerning, it matters for us to engage with our partners, to cut through the noise. And what that means is I know that politics has a lot of drama, has a lot of emotion. necessarily as part of it. But in terms of policymaking, economic policymaking, in terms of foreign policy, I think it is absolutely important that we keep our eye on the ball and we focus on where the problems are and also where the opportunities are because you seldom find a challenge

without an opportunity that comes with it. Sure. So speaking of problems and opportunities, the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, which included some really great provision to incentivize the purchase of electric vehicles, specifically had a tax credit of up to $7,500 in it for the purchase of EVs made in the U.S. Amazing idea. Love it. Thrill to see that past. It seems to have greatly pissed off folks in South Korea, leaders in South Korea, because major Korean manufacturers like Hyundai or Kia, they don't currently have operational electric car plants here in the U.S. So consumers can't get a tax credit for buying those vehicles, but they have invested a ton of money and will likely create, I think, tens of thousands of jobs.

Some of the battery companies create tens of thousand jobs here in the U.S. It's my understanding that part of your agenda when you are here in Los Angeles is to meet with your counterpart, maybe to smooth things over. How's that going? You guys grab a drink? So you did a great job of summing up where the tension is. And, you know, also identifying that the Inflation Reduction Act is a game changer with respect to the United States investments in clean technology and making us a player on the world stage.

in this area. But you're absolutely right. It's not without controversy. And it does impact some of our most important relationships in the international trade arena. I actually met with the South Korean Trade Minister today is Thursday. Yesterday in Washington before we convened again here in L.A. as part of the Indo-Pacific economic framework. We are talking about this. We are very sensitive to South Korea's concerns. And again, I think that an aspect of the strength of the relationship that we have as allies and partners is that we are able to engage honestly, which is really important, and also intensively to talk through, again, where the challenges are and where the opportunities might be. Are we worried of some sort of reciprocal tariffs or something maybe in

response to this that maybe make it more expensive to purchase American EVs in South Korea? Well, I certainly hope not. Yeah. But again, we're actively talking to the Koreans. Sure, sure. So you were out here for meetings on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework or IPF. IPEF. Ipef.

Here's my question. What do we got to do to get these things in better names? I remember the TPP. Can't we just call it like, make us all rich, give us jobs, agenda, framework? Well, I mean, I think that that branding genius is a real innovation. Yeah, there's not a lot of genius in this building, unfortunately, when you walked in it up to the quotient. But naming aside, what does this framework do? What are you guys trying to get done? Sure. Well, first of all, thank you for raising the TPP also. First point is the IPEF is not the TPP.

Sure. And most critically, I think that we are bringing innovations to this framework. in large part to bring innovation, which everybody loves, right? We're all chasing innovation in technology, chasing innovation in the economy. We also need innovation in our trade policy. And the Indo-Pacific economic framework, we've made clear it's not a traditional trade agreement, which the TPP is. We are engaging across four pillars. Trade is one pillar, but it's not the only one. That's to demonstrate that meaningful U.S. economic engagement with our trading partners isn't

limited to strictly what we think of as trade. So there are four pillars. There's trade, supply chains, decarbonization infrastructure, and then good governance, tax, anti-corruption. It's all about creating an environment where we can work together with our trading partners to pursue the goals of. sustainability, resilience, and creating a prosperity that we can make sure is inclusive. The reason why we're focused on these themes is because we are living in a world and a world

economy that is going through a lot of changes. We've gone through a lot of changes since just five to seven years ago. And we are in desperate need of new approaches to address the new challenges that we have. So let me just sketch out a little bit. Sure. Some of the inflection points that I think that are really important to demonstrate these changes. In 2016, there were two votes that kind of rocked the world. One of them happened here, and that was the election of Donald Trump, who has very, very strong and clear and vocal views on trade. Whatever Obama did was bad. Well, let me put it this way. He really focused on rebalancing two of our largest trading relationships, the one with Mexico and the one with China.

Right. In 2016, we also saw the Brexit referendum in the UK. In both cases, I think they're quite different, but in both cases, I think that you could roughly understand them as being an expression of some sentiment that is pushing back against. the forces of what we might call globalization or the version of globalization that we have had so far. So that was in 2016. In 2020, we're still living with COVID and we're still struggling with it. But the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, which obviously dates back to 2019, but locked all of us down since 2020, has impacted all of our lives, has been a public health crisis, but has also created economic crises. And the supply chain disruptions that have expanded as a result of the pandemic, I think,

has really opened everybody's eyes to how fragile the world economy is in this version of globalization. We are interconnected in ways that are really push forward this idea of, you know, a globe that is reliant on each other. But I think that what we've really done in this version of globalization is we've created incentives for our firms and our companies to chase efficiency, to maximize efficiency, which means minimize your costs and maximize your revenues. And what that means is that it's sort of unfettered liberalization has led us to concentrations in production, complexities in our supply chains that turn out to be not very resilient. we're still bouncing back from all the disruptions that we're experiencing. So the pandemic is an important point to. Then I'll fast forward to earlier this year in February when President Putin decided to march across the border to Ukraine and invade Ukraine. Under the premises of this version of globalization that we have built, that should never have happened.

Because our assumption has been the more countries trade with each other. Right. They don't fight. the more prosperity and therefore the more peace. The silly McDonald's theory of the case, which two countries with the McDonald's have never gone to war, right? And, you know, I think it's not without its merit, but it's not an absolute truth. A little bit short term.

Well, the fact of the matter is, I think that, you know, if you listen to President Putin's explanation for why he invaded Ukraine, it wasn't an economic decision. No. It's not an economically rational decision. No. That decision shrank the economic pie for. Russia, for Ukraine, and frankly, for all of us. So I think that in this moment in 2022, as we're gathering these, including us, 14 countries

that are part of the Indo-Pacific region, our focus is on what can we do together now to bring a 21st century set of innovations to address the challenges we are facing now in the 21st century. And that goes to resilience, that goes to sustainability for not just our people, but also our planet, and that point about an inclusive prosperity. I really like that climate change is a pillar of this whole new process. I think that's very important and something we should put a pin in. I mean, we talked about TPP for a second. Look, you know, just for listeners who don't know, this was a similar attempt at a trade agreement with 12 Pacific Rim countries. Obama got a fast track authority vote, which meant he was very, very

close to getting a full Senate vote on it, and then Mitch McConnell blocked that vote in, like, August of 2016, and it went down. But then the 2016 election happens, and Donald Trump comes out against TPP and Hillary Clinton come out against TPP, which to me said, here's a lesson that a lot of voters think trade is politically toxic. They hate it. They think they look at parts of the country, states, industries that they feel like were ravaged by free trade agreements. How do you convince them when you go to Iowa or wherever else that actually free trade can be beneficial to them, given that history of NAFTA and everything else? Yes. There's a there's a trust issue that we have to address. There is an approach that we need to bring that is different. And there are outcomes that we need to achieve that are different. And I think that this is at the core of what President Biden has asked us to deliver, which is a worker center trade policy. It's a really quite genius turn of phrase because, I don't think anybody has put those words together in that combination before.

And it's really meant to be a course correction that for a very long time, certainly in perception, but I would argue also in terms of how we've implemented and formulated our trade policies, that those with the most access and influence in our trade policy making have been our biggest economic stakeholders, are big companies, they're the most well-resourced and the savviest. And I think that, you know, there's a certain logic that allows for that to make sense, which is they're big companies, their American companies, policies that make them better off will make America better off and their workers in our communities. It's a little bit of the trickle-down theory applied to international economics.

Absolutely. And I think that over time we found that it just isn't trickling down. And that's why I particularly enjoy every time President Biden says that his vision is to build the American economy from the bottom up and the middle out, because that is in direct contradiction to the theory of trickle down. It's that in order to grow our economy, you've got to grow it from its humble roots from the regular people and the communities. And I think that that is the guiding principle. for how we are pursuing our trade policies. That means we are doing different things.

We are bringing innovation. We are proposing novel combinations of countries, novel frameworks. And there are a lot of skeptics out there because change is uncomfortable. But whether or not we put in the effort to innovate, change is happening all around us for all the reasons that you've just described. And you and I talked a little bit about the passing of Queen Elizabeth second. before the mics went on. That's right. You know, we found out when we were in the room during this ministerial,

the Australians and the New Zealanders still have the queen as they're ahead of state. You know, we took a moment to absorb the news. And I think for me, it reinforces this notion that change is happening, whether or not you want it to. And we've got to keep up. Absolutely. Have you considered hiring Jared Kushner to run any of these programs because apparently is a book out where he suggests that he was the genius behind all of the trade agreements and everything else they did. So I think he's looking for a job. I've not met Jared Kushner.

He managed to ring $2 billion out of the Saudis for an investment fund, but he's never done any investing. Must be a pretty good negotiator. I've also not read his book, but I have friends who have read his book. That's terrible. They should not have them. Do you have a favorite Dark Brandon meme? should we make one? Your staff is looking at me like, where is this going?

What is happening here? I have seen some dark brand and memes, and I am aware of this phenomenon, and I quite enjoy it. That's probably the best answer we got. Ambassador Tai, thank you so much for coming, and thank you for educating all of us about USTR, everything you're working on.

Appreciate it. Thank you so much, Tommy, for this opportunity. Thank you, Ambassador Ty, for doing the show. She was really feeling your humor Yeah, yeah Yeah You know Ben hasn't heard it yet

But he knows You can tell Those things were hidden But we'll get her We'll get her back Some day in the studio Yeah I'll see what I can do

Probably not much And my best To those corgis Yeah It's not the corgis Right Like I just urge people To not blame the corgis

They're just dogs They had nothing to do With Jeffrey Epstein Talk about Conservancy theories Like you know Nothing about Except for that fuckers

kind of makes you believe them all. All those theories are true about that. I believe every single one of that. That's a problem. Yeah. It's like a real Q-N-on-A-N-Anyway, minus the nuclear codes. Yeah. The Storm is coming. Pot Say the World is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Haley Muse. Saul Rubin is our associate producer.

It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Segglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Phoebe Bradford, Milo Kim, and Amelia Montuth to upload our episodes and videos at YouTube.com Crooked Media.