Pod Save the World - Venezuela's Stolen Election

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Tommy and Ben discuss Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s attempt to hold on to power after losing Sunday’s election, the political debate over whether the US should sanction Venezuela, and what Vice President Harris should do in the next 100 days to pass the “Commander-in-Chief test.” They also talk about the escalating war between Israel and Hezbollah, Netanyahu’s disgraceful speech to Congress, Kamala Harris’s meeting with Netanyahu, far-right protests in Israel over an investigation into abuse of Palestinian detainees, and reports of a polio outbreak in Gaza. Then they go over evidence of UAE boots on the ground in Sudan, reports of an ambush of Wagner Group fighters in Mali, favorite moments from the Paris Olympics so far, and FOX news outrage over a misconstrued clip from the opening ceremony. Finally, Ben speaks to Phillip Gunson of the International Crisis Group about the situation on the ground in Venezuela following the election. 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 POTSave the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben, how you doing? You're on the road. I'm on the road. We've got a little family vacation here. So, you know, doing the dad thing, which is fun. Ben is in eastern Ukraine with the kids. Yeah, we just figured we'd, you know, do a little Dombos this year. Just kidding. Just kidding. He's somewhere nice. But it's good to see you. We got a big show today, Ben. We've got a lot of Olympics on the TV. Are you guys like knocked out? We're like, you know, neck deep in the Olympics here. I mean, swimming, gymnastics, a question of fencing last night.

Oh, okay. A little fencing. That was good. Those are my favorites, like the sports that you would never otherwise watch. Like every four years, you become an expert on the sport. Oh, I love curling for that reason. Yeah, yeah. Nothing goes better with curling than a couple edibles.

But we'll get to that later in the show. We're going to go deep on the Olympics, Ben. And we've got a lot to cover today. We've got to start with the, Sunday's presidential election in Venezuela and President Maduro's efforts to cling to power, despite all evidence suggesting he lost. We're going to talk about how Vice President Harris should campaign on foreign policy and national security from now until election day. The latest from Israel and Gaza, Ben and I are going to recap BB Netanyahu's speech to a joint

session of Congress from last week. We got some news from Sudan, Mali, and the Olympics, like I mentioned. And then, Ben, you did our interview earlier today. What are folks? going to hear. Yeah, I talked to Philip Gunson, who's with the International Crisis Group. And he's based in Caracas, so he talked to us from Venezuela. And so we talk about like the reaction to the election, the protests that have been taking place, what Maduro's up to, why it's pretty clear that the election was stolen, kind of what the opposition movement is, like who's in it and what they want, and, you know, what the next steps might be both inside of Venezuela but also for the United States and some of the other Latin American governments that have been involved. So deep,

explainer really breaks it down. So I encourage people, anybody who's got any interest in Venezuela, you will be smarter. I was smarter from having done this interview, so it was great. Excellent. Well, I can't wait to hear that. Well, let's lead with sort of the political question about Venezuela, though, because this election happened on Sunday, Maduro declares victory, all available evidence says he lost and he's just trying to steal the election. That evidence includes, you know, public polling, results from a sampling of voting centers, et cetera. As you mentioned, there's protesters in the streets. You've got the usual countries, like the Russia, China, Iran, Cuba's saying, congrats, Nicholas Maduro, you won. But everybody else is like, uh-uh,

this smells fishy. You know, you've got like leftist leaders in Colombia and Chile to like the far right, Javier Mule, and Argentina demanding to see more evidence or basically just saying this is fraudulent. So again, we're going to get into more of these details. But Ben and I wanted to talk about the policy debate that's happening as we speak in Washington as a result of this election. So a little bit of backstory. So last year, the Biden administration agreed to loosen some sanctions on Venezuela's oil and gas sector in exchange for Maduro agreeing to a process that would lead to what were supposed to be free and fair elections that just happened. In April of this year, the Biden administration walked back the sanctions relief, Bezi became clear that this election

was not going to be free and fair after Maduro. banned his strongest opponent from running, among other things. Now, you know, you're seeing the usual suspects in Washington, like the Marco Rubios of the world, attacking Biden's policy and saying that even six months of sanctions relief was appeasement. And they are demanding that everyone go back to like the Trump era, maximum pressure sanctions policy that crushed the Venezuelan economy for four years and failed to dislodge Maduro. So Ben, obviously this outcome did not lead to free and elections. Like this wasn't what anybody wanted. No one wants to see Maduro steal the election. But if you're Venezuela Hawk, right, you currently have Maduro getting criticized from across the spectrum in Latin America.

You've got protesters on the streets saying Maduro is illegitimate. You've got people ripping down statues of Hugo Chavez. Like, isn't that what Marco Rubio wants to see happen? Yeah. I think that the utter and complete failure of Marco Rubio and Donald Trump's Venezuela policy, didn't get enough scrutiny over the years. These are people just to replay the tape who decided to recognize Juan Guaido as the president of Venezuela a few years ago and moved these maximum pressure sanctions. And that accomplished precisely nothing. And by the way, they said a lot of things that were not true. Mike Pompeo famously said there was a plane on the tarmac getting ready to take Maduro out of the country. Mark Rubio was taping these little videos as if he was like a general on

the border with Columbia, like, you know, calling up people to arms. None of that happened. Don't forget John Bolton, suggesting we were going to send troops in. John Bolton, like, appearing in the White House briefing room member with like a list of a number of troops that he was going to put into Venezuela. And that got us nothing. That got us nowhere. Where did that get us? That got Maduro more entrenched in power in Venezuela, more dependent on Russia and China, we're happy to gain more influence in Latin America. Eight million Venezuel Israelis left the country because of the crisis that was brought about by the combination Maduro's policies and the combination of U.S. sanctions. So that brought people to our border,

making our border crisis worse and also is a huge burden on countries like Colombia that have millions of refugees. That was the result of their policy. Now, I think Biden deserves credit for shifting course. And you're right. Look, this problem is not solved. Nicholas Maduro is clearly trying to steal an election. It's pretty clear that there was an overwhelming victory for the opposition. But what this policy did do is it allowed for the opposition to consolidate. It allowed for them to campaign across the country. It broadened the opposition movement. It's increased the pressure on Maduro. It's led to an election that has had not just, you know, the United States calling foul, but leftist leaders like Gabriel Borich of Chile has said

that this election was clearly stolen. You've got Lula in Brazil and Petro and Columbia. also raising concerns about the election. So look, I mean, you could just sanction the country forever and not change anything and have millions of people flooding out of the country and coming to our border, or you can try something different. And this was the right play to make. Now I think the question is how do you make sure that the truth of the election gets out and what happened? How do you continue to support the opposition? How do you maintain that diplomatic front in Latin America to continue to try to squeeze those around Maduro to try to persuade him to relinquish power in some fashion. I don't claim that's easy, but it's definitely better to be doing it like this than to just

throw a bunch of sanctions of people and make a bunch of statements in Washington that have no impact. Yeah, I mean, right now the United States is not the story. And when Hugo Chavez was alive, he always made the U.S. the enemy. We were always a fault, like he was demagoguing the U.S. That's not happening right now. It's protesters on the street that are threatening his clinging to power. And you made a really good point there because Juan Guaido came to be seen as just kind of Washington's stooge down there. It did him no favors. And he basically left. He had to sneak out of the country and the Colombian come up to the U.S.

And now he's politically irrelevant in Venezuela. That's what happens when the U.S. wraps its arms fully around someone. When it's more like an organic opposition in the country, you've got a better chance to put pressure on Maduro. Yeah. So I guess what the Republicans want is to just sanction the Venezuelan economy until no one lives in the country anymore. more. Like everyone just migrates north and then they can complain about it on Fox News. Because these sanctions are leading to increase migration and all the things they're worried about happening on the southern border. Yeah, it's like the border itself. They would rather have the

problem than try to solve the problem. They would rather have Nicholas Maduro is a boogeyman in Venezuela that they can rail about and say he's a communist and the, the communists in the US are backing him up and everything. They don't actually want to solve the problem. They just want the appearance of a crisis. It's the same thing they've done with Cuba policy for decades and it's led to nowhere. Yeah. And it's just like obviously like, look, Maduro's a bad guy. He lost this election. He should go. I wish there was some mechanism

to force him to follow the will of the voters. I just don't think American sanctions are going to be it because they haven't been to date. It's also like absolutely maddening Ben to watch Republican idiots like Matt Gates tweet things like, quote, Maduro lost the election in Venezuela badly, then simply

declared victory anyway. He is an illegitimate dictator. Hmm. Nat, who does that sound like to you? Yeah. Yeah. not a lot of self-awareness there. I'll say one thing about Maduro. Chavez was a charismatic guy who won a Democratic election and frankly used a bunch of oral revenues to try to take care of his kind of populist agenda. Maduro has none of that charisma, none of that skill, but he does have that kind of stubborn mindset. I met him once or a couple times. One time with Barack Obama to some of the Americas in 2015, we'd met with the Cubans. We arranged

to meet with him. Tommy was one of the things you would have appreciated as a press person. We had to find a venue that there were no photographs possible because we didn't want to be a photograph for the guy. It's like a dark room. Yeah. No, literally, we were backstage in some dark, you know, backstage area standing, not sitting, talk to this guy for a few minutes, and you just kept telling Obama, like, I'm a revolutionary, I'm a revolutionary, you know. And what he meant by that is like he'll never relinquish power, like he's a true believer, whether that's a posture or not, it doesn't matter. He's not going to go on his own, but essentially, you know, you have to create the conditions where there are enough people around him that he can't sustain his

power. He's relied on kind of a combination of the military and like a, you know, bit of a left-wing base and just some corrupt people that he's taken care of. You've got to peel off and up those people that the House of Cards crumbles. And, and look, Matt Gates, you know, not exactly like a deeply thoughtful. No. Analyst of the situation. I mean, it just showed. you this is about demagoguery and not about solving problems. Yeah, I mean, Maduro, he started his career as a bus driver and he came up in the labor union movement. He was like, I think, early on the Chavez sort of bandwagon and was rewarded and leveled up throughout his career, but no, he's nowhere near the charisma. But also just to prove, Ben, that there's, there are very dumb people on both

sides. I also wanted to flag that the Democratic Socialists of America's international committee put out a statement congratulating Maduro on his win. So I guess, you know, if you're a social list, it's okay to steal elections now and just, you know, I don't know, beat up protesters? Yeah. Sounds like a great policy. It does the left no favors, guys. I mean, we should be standing for small de-democracy and social justice. And that's not what Nicholas Maduro has been building in Venezuela if you have two eyes to

see with, you know. And I worry that that kind of thing undermines good leftist causes around the world and in the hemisphere, you know? So, like, it kind of undermines the populace. positive aspects of that agenda when you refuse to call balls and strikes when you see something like an election stolen Venezuela. Yeah, let's care more about, you know, the policies and principles and not just kind of the the label of the party on the ballot here.

So look, this Venezuela might be an issue in our election. I kind of doubt it, Ben, but there's a hundred days of the election. Normally these elections, the campaigns go on for years. And on the foreign policy side, you do big foreign policy speeches. went on an international trip during the 2008 campaign. That went well for us. Mitt Romney went on one in 2012. Much worse results.

He managed to offend pretty much F. In the UK, only time I've ever liked Boris Johnson was on that trip when he was attacking Mitt Romney. But it's all just a, it's a dog and pony show in service of showing your foreign policy bona fides and passing what reporters always call the commander in chief test, which basically means, does this person look like the commander in chief, which is an entirely subjective determination that has very clear gender and racial biases, but it's like part of the political conversation. So, Ben, the question is, what do we think Harris should do in the next

100 days to demonstrate to voters her foreign policy chops? The good news, as we, you know, talked about last week, is she has quite a head start. She had four years as VP. She was in all the PDB briefings, the high-level security meetings. She was, you know, at the, you know, at the, international summits representing the Biden administrations. He's met with, I think, 150 heads of state, according to her campaign or 150 world leaders. But this is kind of about manufacturing events to the extent you need them in the next couple months to sell that image. Do you have any recommendations for her team in case they're listening? Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. The compressed time schedule means that, like, I don't think there's time to, like, you know, give a series of

speeches and obviously take a foreign trip, like the kinds of things that people normally do. Now, the good news for her, because of her deep experience, right, is that she's been on foreign trips. You know, we talked about it last week. Like, she doesn't need to- 21 countries as VP. Yeah, like Mitt Romney and Obama in 08, like, they wanted to show that they could travel to other countries and meet world leaders and talk about foreign policy. Like, she has done that. And I think that's important for them to remind people and for surrogates to get out. I think they want to show like a deep bench of people that can validate what she's done because she's probably going to mainly be out there talking about the economy and democracy

and abortion and revision for the country. But this is an important thing to do. Now, I think there's what can she do to shore her bona fides and then what can she do to kind of signal where she'll be different? You know, I think she should be talking about her experience and working it into her stump speech and the contrast that she can make about how she stood up for democracy. She stood up for Ukraine. She stood up to, you know, bullies and dictators like Putin. That foreign policy message is very similar to her domestic message, you know. And so I think she can work it in. It's not like a big swerve where you have to say like, and just as we need to promote security and prosperity at home, so must we do abroad. I wrote that transition a lot.

She can kind of seamlessly tie in kind of like the attributes of her leadership at home to what she's doing abroad. I think she should hit certain constituencies that are really important. an obvious one is like there are large diaspora populations of Ukrainians and Eastern Europeans in those swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. I think it'd be important to like do an event with them to highlight the absurdity of Donald Trump's position on Russia and her strong leadership on it. I think it's important like where people haven't necessarily seen her is in front of military audiences. Yeah, I was thinking that too. Yeah. So I think it'd be important for her to visit base communities, you know, military families.

Veterans, like she should definitely kind of be talking to veterans groups, laying out kind of her credentials to be commander in chief, which is a little different than foreign policy itself. But speaking about what they've done for veterans in the Biden administration, which is a lot. The PACT Act expanded tremendous amounts of, you know, supported by people like John Stewart, who got a lot of attention, but extended a lot of additional benefits to veterans who were impacted by kind of toxic sites in Iraq and Afghanistan. some of those kind of military type events, I think would be important. But then I think, you know, the opportunity for her is like she can take the positive of the Biden record, like support for Ukraine

where she has been in the mix. But I think on something like Gaza, you know, she can, you know, start a bit fresh and have different messaging that makes it, yeah, she did the other day where she said, I'm not going to be silent about the Palestinian. She can indicate where she's probably going to have a difference going forward from Joe Biden on Gaza and reach some of those voters. in Michigan. I think she should sit down with them and not necessarily at a big public event, but kind of show a willingness to listen and to kind of reconsider approaches on Gaza and the Palestinian issue in talking to Arab and Muslim American communities in Michigan. I think that would be important thing for her to do. And then I also think she can kind of mobilize people around some of the

issues that don't get a ton of attention in the foreign policy discussion, but do matter to some voters like climate, where she can connect what they're doing on clean energy here to the kind of leadership she'd bring abroad. And I know this is, okay, I'm going to be wonky here, but, you know, we're policy nerds. She's played a key role in the AI policies for this administration. Yeah, she's like the AI czar. She actually is the AI czar, not the border czar, but yeah. She is. And that's going to be a big issue in the next four years. It's going to transform how we live our lives. It's going to transform international security. So I think you can talk about being credentialed to take on the kind of issues of the future, which kind of fits with like this

passing the torch to a new generation, climate and technology. These are the issues that can reshape our lives. So there's a lot to be done here. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think, yeah, I was trying to think of, because it's so compressed, like, what are the top three? And I agree, like the number one, really number one, two and three is the connection that the President of the United States has with the United States military as commander-in-chief. So I agree with you. Like getting to base communities is very important. I do think she, again, has a head start here, B's, I believe she delivered the West Point commencement in like 2023. You're right that they have a great record on veterans issues that they should be talking about more. So I would definitely

highlight that as much as humanly possible in military families as well. And then I do think you'll want to do something that just like somehow shows you're tough on China. Maybe you tie that into combating fentanyl because that's, you know, a critical issue in a lot of these states. You know, you mentioned Israel and Gaza. We'll get to that later. But, you know, she can talk about abortion rights, not just in the United States, but around the globe. I think that's something that she could speak from like really authentically and passionately. You know, you end up rolling out a lot of like big shot national security endorsements and supporters that kind of signal who your team will be going forward. I would like things I would not do. I would not do a big foreign policy framing

speech or like wonky. Like it's not worth the time. It's not going to get covered. Don't do it. You can, You can write something. You know, you can, like, you've got less than 100 days here. You don't need to burn a couple days on something like that. As someone who wrote those speeches, you can write an article if you want to do that. Through a blog. Yeah. I mean, and to your point, like, so I chair this organization, National Security Action,

that does a lot of politics for progressives on foreign policy. And we've done a lot of polling. And one of the things we see in the polling is these soft Trump voters in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan, you know, a lot of them are kind of veterans. a lot of them are, you know, kind of older white people, to be blunt, who, you know, feel a lot of cultural affinity for Trump, but also feel a lot of discomfort with how he politicizes the military, how he won't send up to Russia. Like, these are swing voters, and these are places to reach them and putting, if she, you know, sometimes she can do it herself, sometimes getting surrogates in those

communities, talking to those voters. You know, I think that's an important target, you know, And, you know, she's going to, if she can clear that commander-in-chief bar, you know, that matters to those voters a lot. And I think she's very well positioned to do it. And the law enforcement piece helps. I mean, you mentioned fentanyl. That's a really good, you know, one idea, Tommy might be like a lot of governors are doing good work in dealing with fentanyl in their states. You know, people like Josh Shapiro, people like Tim Walts and Minnesota, people like Westmore and Maryland, you know, do some event themed around. stopping the fentanyl across the border and dealing with the whole supply chain of the problem to the kind of domestic policies around opportunity and communities to the border policies. You know, she can kind of take these issues that aren't necessarily always seen as national security issues and show that, you know, she's ready to tackle them. And frankly, her law enforcement background should help with that. Yeah, and they heard two of her VP selection possibilities have military backgrounds. You got Mark Kelly, who was in the Air Force and then an astronaut. Yeah.

But then Tim Walls was in the Army National Guard for like 20 years and has a vast experience to draw from. It's also like your, you know, a vuncular, you know, uncle. I think that's redundant. But you got my point. Yeah. Last thing on this. If Harris gets attacked on Afghanistan, this clip, you know, the attack would be, you know, the withdrawal and how it unfolded at the end. This clip of Trump's former national security advisor, John Bolton, on Newsmax.

of all places could be quite helpful. Let's listen. You know what made us less safe, Ambassador. You know what made us less safe is when Biden pulled us out of Afghanistan. 13 Americans died. And now the Trump's deal. And now the Taliban tells us back off, don't kill al-Qaeda. That's right.

Are you out of your mind? Same thing they would have done under Donald Trump. No. Who cut the deal, Eric? Who cut the deal? Who delivered a deal? Donald Trump delivered a deal, didn't it? No, no.

What would Trump have done? What would Trump have done? He wanted to leave. 2500 people there. Remember, sir, let's know. He did not. He absolutely did not. He did, Eric, you don't know what you're talking about. He wanted everybody out. He cut a deal to do exactly that. He disagrees with you. We don't know what we're talking about. Trump said leave $2,500 there until we have a smooth transition power. Look, he said that after he cut the deal. The deal cut us down to zero. That's what Trump wanted. He wanted everybody out. The record on that is completely clear. Over time, Biden pulled him out.

Well, were Americans still there? No. Read the deal. Eric, have you ever read the deal? Oh, stop. Yeah, I know you got to go before you're embarrassed even further. I'm sorry. I know that was very long.

No, it's worth of keep every minute in there. It's so interesting when these, like, right-wing news outlets have a little bit of truth, kind of like, poke its head through on their air, and they immediately, like, shut it down and kick John Bolton of all people off. Yeah, it's like pouring water on, like, some robot, you know, just totally like just, I mean, the Trump timeline was faster. Trump wanted to get to zero. grow faster than Joe Biden, you know. And but look, I think she can, look, you know, we've praised

aspects of Biden's foreign policy. We've been critical of some of them. I think where they've sometimes had trouble, including on the Afghan evacuation, including on Gaza, is Joe Biden gets very defensive, you know. And they dug in on it being like the greatest evacuation in the history of human history or something like that. That was the wrong, like, she doesn't have to do that. You know, she could even say, like, look, I agreed with. the decision. We can acknowledge that it could have gone better. It's obviously tragic that we lost Americans. It's tragic what's happened to Afghan women. She doesn't have to be as defensive, even though she's been a part of some of these policies. And look, this is another issue,

again, very small thing, but I like what you said about abortion globally. Whenever you can globalize your concerns, I think it resonates more. And so when she talks about women, you know, that gives her a framework to talk with empathy about Afghan women and how we can do more to support them. You know, so there's a variety of ways in which on some of these kind of more turbulent aspects of the Biden foreign policy, she doesn't have to kind of be as dug in in defending every single aspect of it. She can defend the broad strokes, right? We wanted to end the war and terror. We wanted to get out of Afghanistan. But concede a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I mean, but one issue that will definitely come up will be Israel.

And obviously, like, there's a lot going on. Saturday, we saw the deadliest attack in Israel or Israel-occupied territory since October 7th. When a rocket hit a soccer field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, killing 12 children and injuring 30 others. The victims were members of the Druze ethnic and religious minority group. So far, Israel and the White House have blamed Hezbollah for the attack. They've claimed they fired an Iranian-made rocket from Lebanon. Hezbollah denied responsibility, but it doesn't seem to be. all credible. The Israeli Prime Minister, B.B. Netanyahu, was in the U.S. at the time. He cut his

visit short. He returned to Israel saying, quote, our response is coming and it will be severe. Since that time, Israel has hit a number of targets in southern Lebanon on Sunday. And then on Tuesday, a few hours before we started recording here, the IDF conducted an airstrike in Beirut that they said targeted a senior Hezbollah commander. So, Ben, you know, the thing that like every national security expert has been most worried about since October 7th, was the risk of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel spiraling out of control, which would leave Israel fighting a two-front war against, in the case of Hezbollah, a much better armed adversary, and it could draw Iran, like, into the fight directly. The White House, since the strike,

has been playing down concern about this spilling into a broader regional war. But, you know, and also I talked to a couple smart journalists in the region who said to me, basically, like, look, if these were Jewish kids who were killed, Al-Hal would have broken loose, but because these are Syrian Druze victims, the response is likely to be less severe. That sounds very crass because it is, but it's probably right. What's your level of anxiety at the moment about potential escalation between Israel and Hezbollah? I mean, it's very high.

First of all, we should say, Tommy, that, like, Donald Trump, right after October 7, right? He goes on this kind of weird riff where he bashes Biden, he bashes Bebe, and then he says, Hesbla is very smart. They're all very smart. And then being fully self-aware of what he was saying, he said, the press doesn't like when I say things like that. And, you know, like any other presidential candidate

says stuff like that, and it's like an albatross around their neck to the election. We know that gravity doesn't seem to apply to Trump, but let's just put a pin in that. Look, I'm very worried because what's happening here is both sides are like, don't want to back down, right? So Hezbollah didn't go all in with Hamas after October 7, but they, you know, they launched these rockets periodically. That's been enough to displace tens of thousands of Israelis from the north. That's embarrassing

to Nanyahu. So he launches, he strikes back. And there's this kind of tit for tat testing. And neither side seems to want the full war, or else they would have had it by now. But they keep doing things that cause the other side to respond. And it's a big escalation to take an action in Beirut, not just to target a senior commander, but to be hitting things in Beirut or hitting things in the Beka Valley in Lebanon. And look, if this explodes, like this could be a complete catastrophe. This could be a much bigger war that devastates Lebanon, obviously makes northern Israel less secure. And the reason I'm worried about it is that the only way to stop this, it's the same thing with the Houthis, by the way, in Yemen, is for there to be a ceasefire in Gaza. Like, so long as there is a war going on between Israel and Amas, these other groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis will continue to poke and press.

Israel will continue to respond. And you just, you know, at some point, the brushfire could catch, you know. And there's like, there's pretty loud factions in Israel pushing that in Yahoo to go harder into Lebanon. I mean, a lot of the reporting early on was that Bibi basically like push back, even people that I think we would feel were the more. reasonable members of the coalition. And then the White House leaned on BB hard not to launch a second front into Lebanon. So like this has been kept contained with a lot of effort to date. Yeah. And if for people wondering like, why would Israel do this? There are people in the Israeli far right, which is, you know, a big chunk of the government who are like, this is the time to disclose

all these accounts, you know, like this is the time to level Gaza. This is the time to try to take out Hezbollah. This is the time to annex the West Bank. That's what all these people want. And because BB's dependent on them, he has to kind of give these people enough of what they want to stay in power. And that can lead to this momentum that can take you into war. And BB is clearly, and then not obviously Hamas is part of it too, but BB's clearly been a huge obstruction to getting a ceasefire in Gaza. And so long as that is the case, this is going to be dangerously teetering on the brink of escalation. And with our election coming up too, that's dangerous time too, because it may be that Bibi might want to embarrass Biden by, you know, escalating

in southern Lebanon. We don't, you know, I wouldn't put anything past the guy. So it's a very dangerous moment. Also, Ben, adding to your little like anxiety checklist is the fact that Turkish President Tai Beridawan said he might send troops into Israel to defend the Palestinian. So that's a fun little one. That's a fun new record. NATO country. From our friends in Turkey. Yeah. But let's turn to Netanyahu's speech before we get some more things out of Gaza. So, Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu was in the U.S. He addressed the joint session of Congress. The smartest thing he did was to schedule it on a Wednesday so that you and I would have a week to cool off.

But I did get to vent with Ali Valshi on Potsave America right after, which was great timing. It was great. I enjoyed that. He's so great. I love that guy and very thoughtful and measured. He actually calmed me down. For those of you who didn't watch the speech, you made the right call. But here's a sampling of what you missed.

Israel has enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza. That's half a million tons of food. And that's more than 3,000 calories for every man, women, and child in Gaza. If there are Palestinians in Gaza who aren't getting enough food, it's not because Israel is blocking it. It's because Hamas is stealing it. The ICC prosecutor accuses Israel of deliberately targeting civilians. What in God's green earth is he talking about? The IDF has dropped millions of flyers, set millions of text messages, made hundreds of thousands of phone calls to get Palestinian civilians out of harm's way.

But at the same time, Hamas does everything in its power to put Palestinian civilians in harm's way. Many anti-Israel protesters, many choose to stand with evil. So these protesters burn American flags even on the 4th of July. And I wish to salute the fraternity brothers at the University of North Carolina who protected the American flag, protected the American flag against these anti-Israel protesters. So Netanyahu got about 50 standing ovations during the speech. That said, 60 lawmakers boycotted, including Nancy Pelosi, who later said the speech was, quote, the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited.

and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress. Amen, Nancy. We love you for many reasons. Vice President Harris did not attend due to a scheduling conflict, but she did meet with Netanyahu one-on-one. More on that in a minute. But then, like, just on the speech itself, I expected this to be terrible because of 2015, but I was genuinely shocked at how bad and hackish and politicized it actually was. It really did sound like a speech that Netanyahu should have given to the Republican National convention. He should have been in Milwaukee a couple days earlier. And then to like see members of the U.S. Congress giving this man a standing ovation as he attacked American citizens for protesting and basically called them terrorist supporters was genuinely disgraceful and insulting and just felt

like an American to have to sit through that. So I don't know, you told me before we started recording that you thought the speech was well crafted and poignant, but I just wondered why you why you had that take. I had to watch the whole thing, and I have to say it was the most shameful and disgraceful speech that I've ever seen delivered to a joint session of Congress. He lied repeatedly, and it's worth pointing out. He claimed that Israel is doing nothing to obstruct food getting into Palestinians and is bragging about their calorie count, when in fact his own government announced a policy of cutting off all food and fuel into Gaza. And, and has continually blocked aid from getting in and has led to famine-like conditions in parts of the Gaza Strip.

He claimed that the IDF drops all these leaflets and doesn't target civilians, while ignoring the fact that the IDF has dropped scores of 2,000-pound bombs on heavily populated civilian areas, leading even Joe Biden, whose policy has been to hug Israel, to say that they're indiscriminately killing civilians. That's something that we can all see with our eyes. that's something that is evident in the rubble that used to be the Gaza Strip. So he was there to gaslight and to obfuscate and to lie, frankly, about what they're doing. And then, you know, just serving up these attacks on protesters, like it's red meat at the RNC, like he's, you know, on the side of the UNC frat bros, like, you know, not exactly the

ally ship that I would be seeking. you know, he said something like the Iranian government is funding the protest outside the capital, kind of, you know, this conspiracy theory trying to delegitimize anybody that might oppose his Gaza policy, not just as an anti-Semite, which is the charge they usually throw everybody, but as some kind of Iranian-backed agent. And to have that be applauded, to have all this be applauded, there's nowhere else where this man could stand up and get 50 standing ovations except the United States Congress. What an embarrassing disgraceful commentary on the U.S. Congress, that there's no place on earth that Bibi Netanyahu could get

that reception except in that chamber. What is that about people? Like, let's wake up here. And the reality is the guy's got 70% disapproval in Israel. Like, he would be protested if he tried to give that speech in Israel. And he'd be called out for lying in Israel. And so, I mean, the only good news, Tommy, is it was completely stepped on by the fact that Biden gave his own speech that night. I love that. I love that. He thought he'd start this big debate here. Like, we're probably the only one still talking about this six days later just so we can

dunk on that speech. So he didn't have any impact. Like, he didn't move the needle here at all. And all he did is show like what a bunch of lap dogs, a bunch of members of Congress are. Yeah, it was really embarrassing. And like, we didn't expect much out of him. But he did not show up and deliver a ceasefire or any good news. He didn't take any accountability for October 7th in the mistakes that were made or anything that's come after.

He didn't show any empathy for the Palestinian people. There was no nuance or like suggestion that, you know, disagreement with Israeli government policies is completely legitimate in that protests or a constitutional right for American citizens. He just like attacked all of everyone who disagreed with him as an enemy as if they were part of Hamas. He used all these morons in the chamber, all these members of Congress as political props. And they were just fine, like, clapping along. And he just, the most cynical part was when he kept calling out the family members of hostages or, you know, members of the IDF who were wounded in combat. And while, like, we all know that this guy is refusing to cut a deal that would get the hostages home

and end the war so that more, you know, know, Israeli citizens aren't killed, as well as, you know, people in Gaza. I mean, the whole thing was just so partisan and cynical and gross. Yeah, a couple things, lots of things I want to say about this. The first is the first like 15 minutes were this kind of bizarre mix of like George W. Bush style, state of the union, you know, like, call up the IDF soldiers, you know, know that you're going to get applause. But then there was this kind of weird, you know, he was like trumpeting the diversity of Israel, you know, he's calling out the fact that they're, you know, Arabs and Muslims fighting in the IDF. Clearly somebody was like, oh, you should do this, it would be smart politics.

But the realities it felt so disingenuous coming from a guy that has empowered a bunch of racists and, you know, literal terrorists in his cabinet, right? So spare me the lectures about diversity from this guy. But then what was interesting time is he couldn't help himself, you know, after the 15 minutes of the soft stuff and the kind of, you know, Bush-style, you know, warmongering, then he pivots the red meat. And you could feel him get more comfortable as he became more and more partisan. Oh, yeah, spitting mad, too. Oh, and the one thing they put out, they said he was going to lay out his plan for the day after. That was in the preview speech. Where was that? He didn't say a single new thing. He said, basically, we have to have security control open-ended in Gaza,

which is precisely the position that the Biden administration has pressuring him to move away from. And so nothing new in this speech whatsoever. To come all the way here and not have a single new thing to say about how you're going to end this war is embarrassing. Real quick, before we go to break, I know it can be very frustrating to see what the world should look like, but feel like every day it's getting farther and farther out of reach. But as Stacey Abrams would say, one piece isn't going to fix the whole puzzle, but that doesn't mean we can't do something somewhere soon. on her new crooked media show, Assembly Required, with Stacey Abrams.

Stacey is joined by organizing experts and progressive leaders to break down the biggest issues in politics right now, crowdsourcing solutions and sharing stories of action that will make you feel less alone and help you motivate your friends and family to make a difference. You can listen to the trailer right now, wherever you get your podcast, and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the first episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams dropping August 15th. Also, the Supreme Court might be a lot of. on break, but the conservative agenda is still going full steam ahead. Project 2025 is a 900-page far-right wish list that lays out a hyper-specific and bone-chillingly fascist roadmap for a second

Trump administration. Over at strict scrutiny, our favorite trio of badass constitutional law professors is breaking down the full 900 pages in a four-part series that they'll drop within your Monday episodes. Melissa Leah and Kate scoured all the fine print for you because lawyers are sick freaks who love that shit. Stay informed about the far-rate agenda and its real-life implications for tens of millions of Americans as we head into this election cycle by listening to strict scrutiny wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. So Vice President Harris skipped the speech itself. She very conveniently had another thing planned, but she did meet with BB one-on-one and delivered remarks afterwards. Here's a clip from that.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people, fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent. So Harris didn't offer any new policy or break from President Biden's policies in any way, but a lot of progressives praised her tone and the empathy she showed for the Palestinian people. Others were less kind. Trump, who met with Netanyahu down at Mar-Lago, called Harris's meeting with him terrible and insulting. And then Trump later said that, quote, any Jewish person that votes for Kamala or a Democrat should immediately have their head examined.

So that was nice. And then Trump also echoed comments made on background by a bunch of Israeli officials that you'd see popping up in the press who said that Harris's comments about the humanitarian situation were exaggerated and that what she said could delay the war. This is a quote from the Times of Israel, quote, is the harm to Palestinian civilians really the problem right now? What is Hamas supposed to think when it hears this, the official asked. I hope it won't lead to regression in the talks because we've made a lot of progress. This is from, you know, some probably Ron Dermar or some, you know, political hack around Bibi Netanyahu, who is a part of the team that is currently dragging out these ceasefire talks and not getting to a deal. So, Ben, what did you make of Harris's comments? And isn't it interesting how what Trump said and what this official from the Netanyahu world said on background seems well coordinated? Yeah.

I thought her comments are great and it conveyed a depth of empathy and, you know, actually caring about Palestinians in a way that, you know, people have been hungry to hear from an American leader of her stature. And look, the reality, she can't kind of totally, you know, separate herself from the policy of the administration that she's vice president in, but she can, through her tone, indicate what she feels and thinks about the issue. And that, I think, suggests that going forward, she would be the kind of president that would put more prioritization on Palestinian suffering and on what she talked about, Palestinian children, Palestinians who are going hungry. And so I think setting a new tone is really important. And it does, I think, foreshadow an approach he's going to take.

And that's why these goons, and I'm sure, yeah, that probably is like Ron Dermer, that's, first of all, let's just call that what it is. It's total bullshit. I mean, there's no ceasefire because Bibi Nanyahu keeps obstructing even his own negotiators. He can't even embrace the policy that has been put forward as an Israeli policy by Joe Biden. That's why there's no ceasefire. There's nothing to with Kamala Harris. So I think she's, she is doing the right thing. And the fact that they're responding like that, I think she can show strength by not kind of, you know, bowing to that kind of pressure. The other thing I'd say about Trump, You know, it is not anti-Semitic, contrary to what some people say, to criticize the policies of the Israeli government.

It is entirely anti-Semitic to suggest that American Jews live in a state of perpetual dual loyalty and somehow, like, you know, have to support blindly whoever the prime minister of Israel is. And that's basically what Trump is saying. And, you know, I think the Jewish community in this country, you know, the vast majority is smart enough to know that. Yeah, absolutely. And on the record comments were even worse. I mean, you know, like, it's barbed Ben-Gavir, Smotris. They were just attacking her, like, you know, by name. That's how you know she did the right thing, right?

Yeah. Yes, absolutely. But, you know, to the, let's go to the situation on the ground in God's the Ben, because, like, again, it's just, it's a nightmare. So some updates from the last week or two, Israeli forces recovered the bodies of five hostages last week. And the IDF continues to conduct. operations that are just constantly displacing civilians.

So these people are just getting pushed around the Gaza strip over and over again. Health officials say 100,000 Gazans may have hepatitis A. And the Gaza Health Ministry declared a polio epidemic. By the way, then, it's worth reading if listeners haven't. Politico had a piece that was by two doctors who had recently been volunteering in Gaza. The headline was, we volunteered at a Gaza hospital. What we saw was unspeakable. And it's just this first person account of what they.

experience and witness, which is just, it's worth reading. Just read it yourself. On Monday, Israeli military police said they're investigating the severe sexual abuse of a Palestinian prisoner at Sedeman base in southern Israel. Nine military reservists are under suspicion after a prisoner was taken to the hospital with injuries so severe to his anus that he was unable to walk. A far right mob, including members of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, broke into this base to protest those reservists potentially being disciplined, chanting, we will not abandon our friends, certainly not for terrorists. Netanyahu condemned this break-in, but Ittmur ben-gavir called the detention of the nine

reservists, quote, nothing less than shameful. Here's a clip from one of the protesters. Soldiers in this country are a consensus. If they touch our soldiers, we'll build a shield wall. The people will rise up against the government, be it left or right or whatever. Nobody can touch our soldiers. There was a member of the Knesset from Netanyahu's Lakud Party was at like some parliamentary meeting and he was asked by another MP if raping a detainee with a nightstick was legitimate. And this guy replied, yes, if he's a member of Hamas, everything is legitimate.

So I think that probably tells you everything you need to know about sort of sentiment around the treatment of Palestinians or Ghazans at the moment. There was also a recent Washington Post piece that detailed the ways that there's these systemic problems across the Israeli penal system overcrowding, abuse, murder, torture, it's worth reading. So, Ben, I guess I'm just sort of like at a loss of what to ask about Gaza at this point. That said, I mean, a massive polio outbreak in the Gaza Strip will not remain there. Like, that is the kind of thing that could spread across the entire Middle East if it's not contained. And there's no way to contain it when you have people living close together with

no clean water. It's just, it's going to spread. Yeah, I think, you know, we have to realize that, first of all, the death toll is probably far higher than what's been counted because of people under the rubble. Second of all, that, you know, the war is not going to end for the people of Gaza when there's a ceasefire. There are children who've lost their parents. There's children who've lost limbs, people who are deeply traumatized and now people that are going to be getting all manner of diseases because of the conditions there. There are people that are malnutritioned. So this is, you know, going to be a huge challenge for years and years to come. This is, I forewarning people, like when they declare a ceasefire, which they will at some point, you know, I assume,

that doesn't mean that this is over in any way, shape, or form. And I think the clip we played, the dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli society has gone on for so long that there's just something broken, that they're literally people protesting against, what, holding people accountable for sodomy? Like, this is where dehumanization leads, and it's not a, it's a very dark place. And so just as the Palestinian people are going to take a long time to repair, like, Israeli society is going to have to repair itself, and that's going to be a generational project, too. Yeah, and that's really, really hard to do when you have leaders like Smotrich or Ben-Gavir or Netanyahu who are leading people down the wrong path.

A couple more things before we get to Ben's interview. So there's new reporting from the Guardian that claims evidence of boots on the ground from the United Arab Emirates in the ongoing civil war in Sudan. There was a 41-page document that reportedly got leaked to the Guardian in the UN Security Council that shows images of Emirati passports allegedly linked to the RSF forces that were discovered in the wreckage of an armored vehicle. The UAE is denying that these were like their intelligence guys and are instead saying they're part of a humanitarian aid group. I do not buy it.

I also think we've kind of lost count now with the number of smoking gun pieces of evidence linking the UAE to the RSF, which are the rebel side of this civil war. There's the government versus the RSF forces. Sudan continues to be one of the world's worst humanitarian catastrophes. According to U.S. officials, it's estimated that up to 100. 50,000 people have been killed and 10 million displaced. There have been widespread reports of rape crimes against humanity and aid organizations have been warning for months of the country is on the brink of famine. So there are some glimmers of hope. There's ceasefire talks happening in Switzerland next month that have been arranged by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Hopefully, hopefully

some kind of progress can be made there. But Ben, I guess I'm wondering, like the more we read about the UAE's role in this. Do you think there's any scenario where we get to a point where there's some sort of consequences, some sort of sanctioned for Emirati officials involved in arming or supporting these groups? Well, yeah, I think it speaks to the fact that, and we've said this before, but like there's no way to solve this. Because, you look, even if you can't negotiate a total deal, you do want to just stop the fighting and get humanitarian access to these places.

and that at a minimum is going to require bringing all these other countries that have been meddling and, you know, principally the UAE as a supporter of the RSF, to just cut it out. They've just got to, they've got to stop doing this. Like, pouring more weapons in or maybe even personnel is manifestly making this worse. And frankly, I find kind of head scratching that why is this in the UAE's interest? You know, if you're sitting on like all that money, all that oral wealth, investing in all that technology, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, like, why do you have to be down there? I'm sure that they want...

Yeah, I'm sure they want to be buddies with the people that control all the oil in Sudan, which is a lot of oil, but this is not worth it, you know? And at a minimum, I think the U.S. can be much, much more vocal about this. The way in which the UA denies these things shows that they see the reputational cost of being associated with this. I mean, I think you can ratchet up the messaging on this at a minimum. And then, obviously, like you say, there's all kinds... even if it's not like economic sanctions, there's, we sell a manner of arms to the UAE.

There's ways to kind of put this in a bigger context. And the goal should just be trying to get everyone around the table to just stop this fighting and get humanitarian aid into places where there are desperate, desperate populations. And, you know, you want to enlist the UAE in that effort, you know. And the Saudis being involved, I think, indicates, you know, a potential opening for that to happen. But in meantime, you've got to keep the spotlight on this. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad there is some diplomacy, but I think it needs to be more intensive.

One other quick thing, CNN reported that as many as 80 members of the Wagner group, that Russian mercenary group we used to talk about all the time, had been killed in Mali. These Wagner forces were reportedly killed in an ambush by a local rebel group and an al-Qaeda affiliate. I guess they worked together to go after them. Remember, the Wagner Group has been back in the guys who took over Mali in a military coup back in 2021. They've gained a lot of power in the region as they've driven French forces out of Africa. But man, I mean, being a mercenary in this hell is a risky business. Yeah, I mean, first of all, we haven't checked in on the Wagner Group in a while.

I think I've talked to some pretty smart analysts who basically say what happened after a progosian died in a plane crash, wink, wink, air quotes in Russia, tragic. Is that Wagner Group's kind of been pulled into the Russian state apparatus. So instead of being this kind of, you know, one degree removed mercenary group, they're kind of more directly supervised by either the Kremlin or, you know, the state security apparatus. But then to lose 70 guys, that's like a big contingent, you know, they don't have like tens of thousands of forces down there. That is a massive blow to their manpower, literally on the ground there in places like Mali. It also speaks to the fact of like there's a bit of a dog that caught the car

circumstance here in that like, okay, like, you know, you ousted the French and the Americans from the Sahel where there really are security issues. And now-A-A-Qaeda, Philly. Yeah. It's not like what did they win here? You know, they have such a zero-sum mindset about global politics, that everything is like a game of risk. And so if they can topple some governments that are democracies or that are more aligned with France or the United States, like, that's just a win for them. But okay, now what? The Wagner group's going to have to, someone's going to have to be like patrolling the Sahel.

Like, is that such a upside to them? I mean, that's what this points out to me is like, you know, I know what they, you know, the damage they've done in supporting these coups. But now we see like, well, the prizes, you. You got 70 Wagner Group guys killed in Mali. Yeah, I mean, it's nothing compared to the losses that the Wagner Group took in Ukraine, obviously. But those were lots of, like, conscripted guys from prison. I mean, this seems like real fighters who were trained and equipped.

And it sounds like it might have wiped out all the Wagner Group forces in Mali. And I guess, right, the old business model under Progoshion was like the Wagner Group comes in. They kind of prop up some military junta government and they take control of, like, I don't know, some sort of... Mine's. Mineral mine or something like that. Like, I'm not sure how it works now under Russian leadership. Yeah. And, well, in some of these are not even like resource-rich countries, too.

You know, so it's like they used to do this stuff in places like the DRC or, but, but, you know, yeah, this. It doesn't exactly seem like this is the A-Team, you know, fighting-wise either. If they, they suffer that kind of lost some Turing rebels in Al-Qaeda, you know. Yeah. Finally, let's have some fun. Let's talk about the 2024 Olympics in Paris. So we got badass athletes. We've got these great personal stories.

We've got some manufactured outrage. There was also some sabotage, Ben. There was an attack on fiber optics cables that led to slower internet in some parts of Paris for a while. Before that, there was what was described as a coordinated arson attack on France's high-speed train network. Seems to have been blamed on some sort of far left group, but hopefully that's the extent of it. But back to the competition, what do you guys have been watching your house? Any favorite moments so far? So we've been watching gymnastics.

We are, I have to say, like, I mean, Simone Biles, like my kids are obsessed with her. I'm a Sunni Lee partisan, Lao American. I remember that from last time. Yeah, because, you know, she's a Lao American. I got involved in Laos. She's great. So we've been watching that, loving that. Definitely like, you know, it's just on all day, right?

And so like the swimming, we're into the swimmers. were into, you know, that early phase of Olympics. The opening ceremonies, my kids like the opening ceremonies. You know, they get the river. You got Lady Gaga. That was like a pleasant surprise. I was surprised that the French kind of Latin American takes such a prominent role in their opening ceremony, though. Like that I usually think of the French as kind of resisting American culture.

It was nice to see Lady Gaga like pierced that. I will say for the world, though, content, even my kids, even my kids were like, dad, how did they call South Korea, North Korea? Like, even my kids were like, who's in charge? Like, who could make that mistake, you know? And I think then they, South Sudan, they played the wrong national anthem. So, like, these are pretty basic things. Like, and I was trying to explain my kids.

It's not just, like, calling South Korea by the wrong name. It's like their mortal enemy. It's a big deal. It's like a big international incident, you know? Yeah, that's a big error. Yeah, I don't know. If you haven't had a chance, you should try to find, the end of the women's rugby batch from this morning.

America won the bronze, and it ended with like literally a 95-yard run for whatever they call a touchdown in rugby on like the last play of the game as time expired. It was super badass. Yeah, we watched a lot of gymnastics too. Lizette's, you know, 19 months old, so we're trying to get her into it and to stop demanding that we put on Miss Rachel instead. We were watching some gymnastics and she just kept yelling, fall down.

So I don't know that she totally gets the comment. concept yet. Swimming is a thing that's happening. I can't get into it really. But did you see the story about the Chinese swimmers who got busted for taking anabolic steroids? And they said it was because they ate a hamburger. Yeah. And I was definitely like, you're never more like, I'm never like more patriotic than during the Olympics, you know. So I was like telling my kids that the Chinese swimmers had cheated and they're like, how come they get to cheat, you know? And, you know, like, But they're getting a bit of that, like, you know, Olympics patriotism, which I like. Djangoism.

I will also say, you know, you have a girl, I have two girls like, the Olympics are also like, not only are the women's sports on kind of equal playing field as a man, like often, like it's more interesting to watch women, like gymnastics swimming. So that's been cool, too. That's true in the winter games, too, the ice skating. You mentioned this at the top. We also have a good old-fashioned culture war breaking out because of the opening ceremony. So for those who missed it, the athletes, they traveled by boat down the Sen River in the pouring rain.

They ended up the Eiffel Tower. You had Gaga. You had Celine Dion performing. And in the middle, you basically got dropped into inside the mind of a French mime who dropped acid. Yeah. There was like weird lay-mise shit. There was a headless lady. There was this weird scene where like a blue man with a beard was lying on a platter in front of a bunch of other people.

And that's the part that flipped out. everybody on Fox News, basically. So let's hear a clip of that. It was this moment from the ceremony that invoked the sacred Christian image of the Last Supper. See it there. But it featured drag queens and dancers standing in the place of Jesus and his apostles. Now, some media outlets praise the drag display as a stunning and dazzling display of inclusivity. And First Lady Jill Biden, well, she loved the opening ceremony. So last night was just, I mean, it was spectacular. The rain did not dampen our spirits.

Every step of the way, I was thinking to myself, oh, my God, oh, my God, how are we going to top this? How are we going to top this? How do you top mocking a religion on one of the largest world stages meant to unify the world behind sport and competition? There are 2.4 billion Christians in the world, and the Olympics appears to have chosen mockery. Now let that sink in. So that was Kaylee McEnany, the former Trump

press secretary turned Fox News person. She's getting mad about the scene I described where there's that blue dude on a table. It was apparently an homage to Dionysus, the Greek god of having a good ass time. It was not the last supper. And like she got mad about it, a bunch of, like Elon Musk got mad for some reason.

I think Donald Trump Jr. did. Harrison Butker, the chief's kicker, got all worked about it. I mean, I like, guys, you're trying so hard to be pissed. Yeah, I mean, there was a kind of cool queer vibe, you know, to the, to the whole show. Like, Paris is this dynamic envelope pushing place. You know, like, like, what I hate about these people in these kinds of dustups is that like, everybody likes Paris. This is part of Paris, right?

Like, it's always been people pushing the envelope. The headless Marie Antoinette, I thought that was super cool. like there's a heavy metal, some French heavy metal band playing where with like a, like a beheaded Marie Antoinette. They lost me at the French rapper. I got to be honest with you. There were moments of this thing. I was like, how long is this? What is happening?

It was awesome. And it was also the diversity of Paris was on display. Like they, they, you know, they're black, brown and white people. Like, but this is, you can't, you can't say you like Paris, which everybody says. And, and then say you don't like this part of it. Because this is like the DNA of what makes that city so. cool, you know, and so groundbreaking. So I thought it was great. And in fact, these people were triggered, like, get over yourself. So, you know, so you don't agree with the, like, pretensions of the French guy

that planned the opening ceremonies. Just, just like some of it and choose not to like others. Just leave us out. Yeah, change the channel. It's changed the channel. It's fine. Also, like, you know, if you're surprised that the French aren't embracing the last supper, but if you're surprised that the French aren't embracing all parts of public Christianity. You might want to Google a little bit about French history and customs. But yeah, I mean, mostly like, shut the fuck up. This was days ago. Why are you people still whining about this? Just watch people do things. Can we just have the Olympics and feel good about it? Come on. Have a good time. Okay, we're going to take a quick break and we come back. You will hear Ben's interview with Philip Gunson about all the things

happening down in Venezuela after their election. So stay tuned for that. Okay, as we've talked about, Venezuela has erupted in protest after Nicholas Maduro claimed victory, dubiously claimed victory, we believe, in this Sunday's election, claiming to win 51% of the vote, despite polls and lead up showing more than double that support for the opposition. We are very pleased to be joined from Caracas by Philip Gunson, who's the Andy's Project Director at the International Crisis Group. Thanks for joining us. You're very welcome. Thank you. So I want to just kind of give a basic update for people, including people who might not have been following this that closely. But before we get into the politics, just what is the environment like there now on the ground?

What can you tell us about what the days have been like since the election, what the protests are like how big they are? Yeah, today, as we speak, it's fairly quiet. There are, I should say, peaceful demonstrations, opposition demonstrations going on in different parts of the country that Maria Corina Machao, the opposition leader, called for yesterday. Yesterday, of course, was a lot more tense. There were big demonstrations on the streets, not just here in Caracas, but in different towns and cities around Venezuela. And interestingly, they're quite different

from the sorts of mass demonstrations that we've seen in previous years because of the class composition of them. I mean, these are demonstrators who were coming from the poor barrios. Here in Caracas, there are masses of people just surged onto the streets,

clearly very angry. Spontaneously, this was not politically organized. And, of course, they were fairly violently put down. But it's interesting because it marks a new phase. In the past, you know, we've seen for months at a time on occasions, very big rallies in cities put down with tear gas and plastic bullets by National Guard and National Police. But the composition of those demonstrations has been fairly solidly middle-class. And the Barrios have not really risen up in protest against the government.

So this is new, and it presents a new kind of challenge for Maduro and the people around him. So in terms of the election itself, you know, we mentioned that Maduro's claimed victory with a little over 50% of the vote. The opposition says that they have proof that they secured some 70% of the vote. Just practically speaking, what happens now? What is the, is there any process to adjudicate this? Or is it just kind of a test of strength in kind of in the streets and in the institutions going forward? Well, there are processes. I mean, you know, election law and regulations provide for challenges to election results.

But in Venezuela, there are no neutral arbiters. All the relevant institutions are in the hands of the government. The electoral authority is controlled by the government. The Supreme Court is controlled by the government, the public prosecutor's office, you know, and so on. Even the ombudsman is basically just a government loyalist. So there isn't anywhere to go, I mean, except to the court of public opinion. What the opposition has done is that it's taken advantage of an interesting aspect of the Venezuelan electoral system. This is an electronic voting system, but it does produce a paper trail too.

The problem is the government clearly didn't want the result checked. for one thing, very strenuous efforts were made to stop opposition witnesses and polling station workers from getting hold of those paper tallys, I should say. So what the opposition is left with right now is they managed to get hold, they say, of over 73% of the vote tally. And they have since loaded those onto what they call a robust and kind of bulletproof website where those results, in theory, at least, are available for any. to check if they insert a Venezuelan, the number of a Venezuelan ID card or the name or location of a polling station. The government, of course, has blocked that, blocked access to it. But that is what the international community, as well as the Venezuelan opposition are calling for. I'm going to say the international community. I mean, predominantly, of course, Western countries, the United States,

Venezuela's Latin American neighbors, the European Union, and, you know, multilaterals and human rights organizations are saying very simple. If you say, you know, to the government, if you say the Maduro won, it's very easy. You've got the, you've got the, you know, you have the means to produce the proof that this happened. So as to what happens now, of course, that's the big open question. So, you know, Maduro, uh, been in power since 2013 successor to Hugo Chavez, uh, lacking his charisma and, and, and in his timing in some ways, uh, in terms of oral wealth. But he's weathered a lot. You know, he's weathered sanctions.

He's weathered economic shocks. He's weathered, you know, the international community you described, much of it recognizing a different figure as president for a period of time, in part, you know, drawing on his own kind of stubbornness and some institutional support in the military and other places, but also drawing in support from Russia and China. But the opposition is probably less well known to folks. Maria Corina Machado and Eduardo Gonzalez have been the leaders. You mentioned something interesting, which is the opposition in the past had drawn a lot of support from kind of the middle class,

but you referenced kind of support from some of the poorer districts. How would you just describe to people who haven't followed this closely who the opposition is right now and kind of what their strategy is? I guess their near-term strategy is to kind of de-legitimize Maduro's claim of victory. but beyond that, what do you see their strategy as? Yeah, who the opposition is a complicated question to answer. In fact, we tried in crisis group to come up with some graphic that would explain who they are and how they relate to one another, and we failed.

I mean, it's extremely complicated because on the ballot on Sunday, there were 10 candidates, including Maduro and Gonzalez. A lot of the other candidates who basically, you know, made no impression whatsoever. I mean, their percentage support is within the range of statistical error. So these were not major candidates. But most of them claimed to be opposition. All of them claimed except in order to be opposition in one way or another.

But a lot of them are really kind of fake opposition. They're just opposition parties and figures that are, you know, subsidized by the government, promoted by the government, nor just to divide the real opposition, confuse voters and so on. This was really a two-horse race. between Ebonne Gonzalez, who is not a professional politician, he's a retired diplomat, 74 years old, never fought a political campaign in his life until now. He's always been a kind of backroom boy since he retired in terms of his role within the opposition as an advisor on international relations.

But at the relevant time, when, you know, Maria Corina Machao, who had emerged from the opposition primary back in October with a massive victory at which he won 93% of the vote, over two million votes cast for her in the primary. This was clearly the most popular figure in the opposition. And I'll come to her in a minute. But she was banned by the government. The government said, no way you're going to register your candidate. So you're, you know, you're too radical.

You've called for an foreign intervention in the past and so on. And we're not going to let you step. So Marie Curia was barred. She for a long time said, I'm the candidate, and that's that, you know. But then towards the end of the process when the candidacies had to be registered back in March, she and the parties came ultimately after a lot of debate, a lot of discussion, to a consensus around the figure of Edmondo Gonzalez, and miraculously managed to persuade the government to allow them to register his candidacy.

But whose money accordion match out? Well, she has been rather a lone wolf, in a sense, in opposition. circle since she went into politics formally. I mean, she's been quite popular, but in terms of her ability to translate popularity into actual support for a candidacy, that hadn't happened until now. But so what made the difference? What really made the difference was that the opposition coalition has always been divided between, roughly speaking, moderates and radicals. The moderates are those who believe in electoral participation and in negotiations. And the radicals say, this is a dictatorship. You know, there's no point standing for election. Manula's never going to

negotiate his exit. The only language they understand is, you know, the language of power. So put people on the streets, call for foreign intervention and so on. They've swung between those two, the opposition coalition, swung between those two extremes. Maria Corina had always been critical of both sides. So by the, by the, by the time we get to the primaries at the end of last year, she's really the only opposition figure still standing with any kind of credibility. And she is feisty, and she is a good public speaker, and she's been intransigent. And people saw her, despite her political ban, as being the only figure really offering a chance for change. So, you know, Maduro's gamble was, the opposition

won't come together because we banned her. So that was Maduro's gamble. So that was Maduro's calculation. And as we've seen, it failed. You know, Maduro's obviously cast himself as a leftist. In the past, you know, particularly in the origins of the Chavez movement, there was kind of this left-right divide. The opposition tend to be politically to the right. Would you still characterize it that way, or is this kind of a big tent over people who are just fed up with autocracy? Or is there still that kind of left-right divide in the society? It's always been a bit of a

a bit of a false argument to suggest that this is an ideological struggle. I mean, that's what Maduro wants it to be, right? You know, he wants to frame it that way. Well, that's right. I mean, Maduro claims that, you know, opposition to him is basically all orchestrated from abroad, and it's a right-wing plot, and they just simply want to overthrow him because he's the man of the people. He's the worker president and so on.

and, you know, the right can't stand that their privileges have been taken away. You know, there was some, you know, validity to that argument when Chavez first took power. The problem is, I mean, you know, Al-Chavers, of course, came to power democratically. He was elected democratically by a large majority in 1998. But in power, he, you know, as autocratic leaders tend to do, even those elected democratically, started to dismantle all the checks and balances. even those checks and balances provided for in the 1999 Constitution, which he introduced via a constituent assembly, which was dominated by his supporters.

But those kinds of checks and balances, the separation of powers, any kind of free press, and anything really that would constitute a check on his power was very, you know, very irritating to him. And he set about trying to dismantle it. And in 2007, he tried actually to formally change the constitution that he brought in as recently as 1999 in order to make it more autocratic, more, as he would put it, socialist. But if we fast forward, I mean, you know, the opposition coalition, because it's increasingly become an issue of, you know, democracy against autocracy, the opposition coalition is a very big tent. It's a very broad coalition that has people in it on the, really literally on the, on the far left and the quite conservative right. And the issue here and the reason why Chavism, or the movement that Chavez created,

the ruling and the ruling socialist party have lost an enormous amount of support in the areas, in the barriers and in rural areas where obviously the poorer parts of the country where they bought into this idea that, you know, socialism and Chavez's version of socialism was going to be great for them because it meant handouts and it meant, you know, big welfare programs. And while the oil price was high, that was good. But under Maduro, of course, the economy has literally crashed. I mean, it's gone, it's lost 75 to 80 percent of GDP over the time that Maduro has been in power.

Because not only had Chavez spent all the money in typical popular. fashion. But the oil price collapsed very soon after Maduro came to power. And he refused to reform the economy for several years, maintained this very much, you know, top-down economy, command economy with price controls, exchange controls, which is just destroying private business. And all the publicly run enterprises that Chavez had mainly expropriated or set up were not just not making money. They were hemorrhaging money terribly. So, poverty became rampant. And by 2015, just two years after Maduro came to power, there was already a severe humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.

So to come back to your point about ideology, I mean, this is really not about left-right. I mean, it's unfortunate that Maria Corina, who is on the political right, you know, stars herself an economic liberal and is quite socially conservative, it talks about burying socialism. You know, she's the most prominent opposition leader, but she's not representative, I don't think, really, of the broader opposition. And I don't think that support for her is based primarily on her kind of right-wing stance. It's primarily based on people's desperate need for change and the idea that she is the one who can deliver. And so one last question here that has been such a useful deep dive into what's

happening inside Venezuela. Obviously, external parties, including the United States and Venezuela's neighbors, you know, are watching this closely. The Biden administration, and I think in a smart shift from kind of the maximum pressure sanctions forward policy of the Trump administration had kind of helped broker this election taking place in exchange for the relaxation of some sanctions, has tried to hold together a coalition of neighbors, including Colombia, which has enormous, I mean, there are 8 million Venezuelans outside of the country now. Many of them, millions in Colombia and neighboring countries a lot in the United States. So there are serious consequences for the hemisphere as well.

What are the options available to policymakers in the U.S. here? Sanctions haven't worked, really, in dislodging Maduro. They seem to have worked in helping get an election, but not in getting him to abide by the results of the election so far. What do you see as the conversations in Washington and Bogota and other important capitals in the days ahead? Yes. I mean, I agree with you that, I mean, I think that the Biden administration has taken an intelligent approach to this. They've tried to use the sanctions regime that they inherited from Donald Trump to produce change by saying to Mandu, look, we're perfectly prepared to dismantle sanctions, but we need to see from you,

you know, a return to democracy or at least significant advances in that direction. I think you have to acknowledge that although you could say that this hasn't worked in the sense that, as you say, Maduro has not respected the result of this election, we wouldn't even be in this situation if it hadn't been for those, that insistence by the Biden administration, people will remember perhaps that back in October, the opposition and the government of Maduro signed what known as the Barbados agreements, which in theory, you know, guaranteed a basic minimum of conditions for the 2024 election, conditions which the government then proceeded to violate. But at the same time, I think if it hadn't been for that,

then the candidacy of Edmundo Gonzalez would probably never have been registered. And we wouldn't be in a position today to say that he actually appears to have won the election, and Maduro stole it, and this takes us into a different dimension. Now, what exactly is going to be possible to do from here on is, you know, a huge question. Maduro is digging himself ever deeper as we speak. You know, he's accusing the opposition of conspiring, of hacking the election system, of causing the demonstrations yesterday, which I don't think was the case at all. And so right now, there doesn't seem to be much of a path forward in terms of,

of returning to negotiations. Now, that said, the US, Colombia and Brazil, who all are clearly extremely skeptical about the results and have said so publicly, have stopped short of saying they don't recognize them. And what they're saying instead is, well, go ahead, you know, show that you want, give us the proper results. But, and I think that that's important in the sense that they're trying to keep the door open. They all have, you know, lines into Maduro. So it looks like where we're headed here is that those three countries and others that have said we're waiting for the full results will ultimately have to say, look, Maduro stole it. And Maduro is not a legitimate president. And his isolation will continue. The countries that have said outright, like Chile, for example, has said, this is not a credible result. And their diplomats have been expelled, along with many others, especially from countries in Latin America. The Venezuelan government has cut air links to Panama and the Dominican Republic, which are two of the main routes. It seems to me that, I mean, there are two points I've made just to wind up.

One is that there can't be any kind of transition back to some form of democratic rule, institutional rule, without full-scale negotiations between the two sides, because no opposition government obviously can take power without the green light. from Maduro, who controls the military, the Supreme Court, and all the things you mentioned before, it's impossible to govern this country, you know, against the will of Maduro and his allies. But likewise, the country looks pretty ungovernable right now by Chavismo, because they've lost most of their support. That's one thing. And the other thing is that that that kind of negotiation, it seems to me, full-scale negotiations, you've never seen hitherto, can only take place in the aftermath or in the midst of a crisis of the kind that we're seeing right now.

Well, look, that's a great summary. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll keep our eye on this. And everybody should check out the reports that you've participated in for the International Crisis Group, you know, just a tremendous organization that's helped us unpack a lot of crises around the world. So thanks for joining us and we'll look forward to following your work. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thanks again to Philip Gunzett for joining the show. Ben, thanks for clocking in from your vacation here. I'm off next week. You're off off. So folks, no. I'm off. I'm going to be with a lot of family and two little kids for the week, but excited to be back after that. You're going to be hot. We don't have to

disclose your location, but let's just say it's going to be. Yeah, I'm going to be someplace very sweaty. Yeah, the climate is going to be an issue. But it will, you know, I'll sweat it out and survive. And I'll miss you guys. First time flying with two kids? First time flying with two of them. I'm absolutely terrified. Welcome to the jungle man.

It's a long flight and then multi-hour drive. It seems like... Get some CBD or something, yeah. Something, something stronger. All right, buddy. See you soon. Travel safe. See it.

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