Pod Save the World - Why Brexit still sucks

Episode Date: July 6, 2022

Ben and Tommy answer your questions about the Labour Party’s leadership, Brexit and the UK’s refugee policies, “Russification” in Ukraine, Latin America, the risk from and rise of China, Yemen, Sri Lanka, climate change, favorite simple pleasures, pet peeves, favorite places to visit, and book recommendations. Crooked Coffee is now available at crooked.com/coffee! 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 Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. Ben. So we're recording this before the 4th. So I want to say happy 4th. But then everyone's going to listen to it after the 4th. So that's weird. I don't know. You're going to see some fireworks? I mean, hopefully we have another one. Hopefully this isn't the last 4th of July.

Before we cease to be a democracy. America's last birthday? Oh, man. This got dark fast. No, no, no. Yeah. Like, it's always good. The kids are into fireworks. six. Yeah. I mean, I was a big fireworks kid. I was kind of a pyro. Were you really? Yeah, I got in big trouble once for writing my name in something flammable in a spray can and then setting it on fire in the backyard. And then that's pretty cool. Well, it wasn't the best way to hide it for my mom when it just

said Tommy and like burn on the bricks. That would not be my first choice for how to conceal no, my guilt. She was like, who did it? I'm like, Taylor. Definitely John my brother. But we got a great episode today. Here's why we have a great episode. Because a lot of shows do mailbags and they just mail it in. You guys send us really good, topical, smart questions that make these episodes just like any other episode of important issues. Like people want to know about Kier Starmor over in the UK of Labor Leader. They want to know about Brexit.

They want to know about the Russification of eastern Ukraine, refugees, all kinds of great stuff. We have a really great pack show for you. Before we get to some of that stuff, Ben, did you see the breaking news that the Prince of Wales will no longer accept suitcases of cash? I didn't, but I'm hardened to hear that. The Royal Palace said, because apparently this is in the Sunday Times,

that the Prince of Wales will no longer take literal suitcases of cash from the Qatari Prime Minister. Was that a habit before? He took $2.5 million in cash in a suitcase and carrier bags between 2011, 2015. Now, it all apparently went to his charitable fund. And I guess this is just sort of like maybe how some of these Middle Eastern countries make donations. Is there Venmo available?

I don't know. Yeah. A suitcase full of cash is a little dramatic. It's a little sketchy. Like pallets of cash. Yeah. Literally. There's some history there.

We're also recording this on the day the Supreme Court has attempted to begin the process of gutting the country's ability to regulate greenhouse gases. So the ruling could have been worse, but it was still not great. much worse. I mean, like, basically, to have the Supreme Court be an adversary in your capacity to save the world. To save the world. And filled with people who could be on the Supreme Court, like, when my kids are my age, like, just totally unfucking sustainable, you know, to have this court in this form. And also just unprecedented. I mean, I was reading, you know, there are times at a good breakdown of some of this. Like, in Germany, you serve for a 12-year term or until you're 68, and then you're out of there. Yeah.

They retire you. Yeah. That seems like a good plan. Yeah, the term limits at a minimum seems necessary here. I mean, you have a court acting as a legislature, right? And they also, like, if you think about Tommy, Bush v. Gore, right, kind of seismic event in my early days. Basically, the 5-4 conservative majority, in terms. George Bush into the presidency that allows him to appoint

Alito and Roberts, right? Then Obama's denied Merrick Garland. That allows them to shove Kavanaugh in there. And then, oh, I don't know, I don't have to go through this. It's just like, there's not a democratic legitimacy behind what they're doing. You know, there's basically none. I like when people clutch their pearls about the legitimacy of the court and possible reforms and what it might do.

You guys are crazy. No one respects the part. Expanding the court or putting term limits. would be nothing compared to what they've already done to eviscerate the legitimacy of this court. Yeah. If you like slightly dark, maybe half glassful conversations like this, let me recommend a great podcast called Positively Dreadful from our host and our friend, Kurtzziator, Brian Boiler. That's not the kind of name that in the brainstorm meeting, usually it's like, where's the hope and optimism?

No, I loved this from Brian because, you know, we know Brian well. He's a guy who is, like, pretty critical of the Democratic Party sometimes. he can he pushes hard for more but he's like trying to bring people on to change his mind yeah you know make him feel better and so the first episode was with Jamie Raskin the congressman

the second is with Amy Littlefield an abortion access correspondent and journalist from the nation it's a great show it drops on Fridays so listen wherever you get your podcast also if you need a little pick me up then Crooked coffee is now available

at crooked.com slash coffee so delicious I bought some I'm a dark I'm a dark gross guy I'm a dark gross guy too you know I didn't know that didn't know what roast I cared about until we did this little coffee figuring it out project. And they sent us like six or eight different samples of beans and I had to brew them all. I was like, oh, that helped. Yeah.

I mean, I wish I had the touch. I generally don't as a brewer. I'm not a brista. I'm not a priest either. All right. Want to do some questions? Let's do it. So I wonder what your thoughts on this has been.

Christopher John on Twitter says, what opinions of any, do you have about cure Starmer? and how is Everton going to do this season? I'll take the Everton, please. That's my adopted EPL team. Thanks for Roger Bennett from Men and Blazers. They almost got relegated down to a lesser league. That's how it works. Over in the English Premier League, you can be sent down to the minors.

Let's hope that doesn't happen again. Their first game is going to be against Chelsea, which until recently was owned by Russian oligarch, and now is owned by some of the folks who own the Dodgers out here in Los Angeles. So we'll probably get her asses kicked, is my point. that's all I got. What about Keir Starmer? I don't really have strong feelings

about Keir Starmer. Like, I guess my only anxiety is like Boris Johnson is on the ropes like he's never been before and I'm not sure Labor is pushing the advantage as much as I would like them to, but I'm not sure what angles they have. Like they're winning some local elections.

So full disclosure, I've met Kierstromer a couple times. And first of all, I think that what he's done, he's done kind of what you needed to do, which is Labor Party was in a bit of shambles after both Brexit and the Boris Johnson victory and the fights over, you know, Jeremy Corbyn, whatever you were on that fight.

Yeah. And so, like, job one for him was kind of reconstituting the party, kind of stabilizing things and defining Boris Johnson negatively, which they've done quite well, but to be honest, to be fair, they've had a lot of help in that project. I guess what I'd say about Kier Strummer is, like, he's the kind of guy, you could tell that, like, Labor turned him in a way because, like, he looked. looks like the prime minister, right? Like he's kind of central casting kind of guy. What's interesting to me about Kirstarmer is if you look at his background, he actually comes from like a working class

family that is the kind of voters that labor has been losing, right? Like, you know, outside of London working class background. And he seems like the kind of guy who, because he became a barrister, you know, he kind of stiffened himself over the years, right? It's like he became, you know, you know, it's like a lot of people that climb up the social ladder in a kind of caste system like the UK, you become less like where you came from as you ascend through educational and professional ranks. And so to me, the irony of Kirstarmer is to take that next step and win back those voters and beat Boris Johnson and the Tories, he's going to actually have to go all the way back to who he was at the beginning of his life. Like he needs to connect with the kind of voters like his parents, right, who've been disaffected from labor,

while kind of holding together this coalition that can excite younger people who might have been more favorable to Jeremy Corbyn, a little uncomfortable with some of the centrism that infuses Kirstarmer. But like, let's face it, it's the UK. Like, Labor doesn't win that often. And I think, you know, as we've been talking about on this podcast, like having a big tent and a politician who not only looks the part, but again, can get back in touch with his own roots. that's the step he needs, the leap he needs to take to become prime minister now that, you know, the parties consolidated, it's under control, it's pointed in a certain direction, Boris Johnson's kind of self-immolated, now you've got to close the deal.

Yeah, I was reading a pretty long, thoughtful profile of Starmor, and it mentioned how in April 2020 he ran on the moral case for socialism, he pledged to raise taxes on the rich, defend the rights of migrants, prevent illegal wars, and implement a Green New Deal. Feels like that's a pretty good agenda to get back to. Yeah, I mean. Yeah. And he, you know, like he's, he's threaded the needle by talking, you know, about law and order and trying to deduct culture wars when they seem counterproductive. But frankly, you know, there's something to that as well.

I mean, like, you got to win elections here. I mean, you got to put this all together. And but you also have to convey that you stand for something, right? and what are the things that you won't compromise? What are the culture wars, frankly, that you will fight, you know? And I think, you know, he's got an opportunity here to do that over the next year or two. Agreed. Let's stick with the UK.

So Colleen on Instagram says, I read that the Brexit agreement regarding Northern Ireland is no longer. Can you explain? Thanks. Let me get, I'll give a little backdrop when we can talk about it. So backdrop here is Brexit happens. The UK leaves the European Union, which means Northern Ireland is out of the European Union too. but Northern Ireland and Ireland share a land border in Ireland is part of the EU. So the EU has a bunch of strict trading rules, especially around food items like milk and eggs. So I have to figure out what do we do about this border.

And no one wants to construct a bunch of border checks or stuff on a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland because of fear that that could reignite sectarian tensions. So what they do is the UK and the EU sign what's called the Northern Ireland Protocols. It basically says all these customs checks happen at Northern Ireland's port. courts. Everyone kind of hates it, I'd say. And now the UK government wants to change the rules so that goods that only go to Northern Ireland don't get checked and go into a so-called green lane and goods that are destined for Ireland or other places in the EU do get checked in this red lane. The European Commission is pissed. They might take legal action. They did take legal action, I think. There could be other retaliation. So I think it's sort of like pending. But I think the latest is that

parliament started the process of passing whatever they need to pass to basically tear up this part of their agreement with the EU. Yeah, I mean, the basic point is that like Brexit, as it was promised by Boris Johnson, is unworkable, you know, because he promised people everything on different sides of different issues, right? And, you know, you can't promise to have a real Brexit instead of like a very soft Brexit. I mean, to go all the way back, people at the beginning of the Brexit process after the referendum, were contemplating a softer Brexit where the UK would stay in a lot of the EU's rules. But Johnson came on with a hard-aligned faction said, no, we want a real meaningful Brexit. Well, how do you do that without having some kind of border and some kind of customs

checks between the EU and the UK? And so they negotiate this deal with the EU on their way out, and now they're breaking the deal already, you know. And to me, it just shows you, like, Like, Brexit doesn't get enough tension. It's not going well. Like the UK economy is lagging behind the European economy. They're tied in these bureaucratic knots. The Good Friday Cords imperiled, or at least, you know, facing this cloud of the uncertainty of Northern Ireland. You have Sinn Féin, right, the ascendant.

The ascendant in Irish politics. So that's the Northern Ireland Party that historically has supported Irish nationalism. So I don't know. I mean, like it bears watching. They're going to be tied up in legal processes with the EU over this, I'm sure. There's no good answer for Northern Ireland. And the question going forward is like how much does Brexit continue to tie up the UK and knots? And does it kind of push Northern Ireland and Scotland further away from England at the core of the UK there?

Yeah. It's not going great. It's not going great. And like this is what everybody predicted. And just because it's a good reminder time we used to say it's like just because the world didn't end like overnight. Right? Like sometimes the Brexit supporters would be like

oh, all the doom and gloom. It's like point me to a benefit. Yeah. Yeah. What's so great? What's going well? All the lies with the NHS getting more money in this and that's just nonsense. Actually, I lied. One more UK question, Ben. You know what? I don't think we've talked about this and it's really important that we do. Ashley on Instagram asks what's going on with

the Rwandan refugees in the UK. I don't understand the context. You want me to start? You want me to start? So, I mean, the basic context, right, is that the U.K. reached this crazy deal where they would send migrants crossing the English Channel trying to get into the U.K. They would send them all the way to Rwanda. Like 4,000 miles away. Yeah, right? And they cut some deal with Rwandans where they gave them basically a pile of money. Yeah, $158 million. Yeah. And to kind of process the migrants there and kind of hold them there. settle them essentially. Hold them there.

Yeah. And it's, so you could be an Afghan, right, who like made their way all the way to the UK border with a credible claim for political asylum and yet find yourself in Rwanda a few days later. Which is one of the smallest and maybe the most densely populated countries in Africa. And competition for land and resources has fueled lots of conflicts in the past, including the 1994 genocide. And it's very unlikely that all these folks the UK sends over to Rwanda will stay there. A lot of them will spill over into the DRC. And this is a horrible idea. Yeah, it's horrible. I mean, and so, I mean, you know, the UN refugee agency criticize a plan. Human Rights Watch

slammed this plan. The UK government is threatening life sentences in prison for people who drive boats across the English Channel with migrants. Apparently Prince Charles was criticizing the plan. He called it appalling privately. And I guess, you know, this is similar. Apparently Israel sent several thousand migrants to Rwanda and Uganda between 2014 and 2017. I didn't realize that. And there was an Australian policy in 2013 where they began sending asylum seekers to

Papua New Guinea in this other tiny atoll because they were worried about smuggling. But like sending people with no connection to Rwanda, no understanding of the language, just to get them out of your hair because it's a political problem for Boris Johnson? Like that is disgusting. Yeah. And Paul Kagame, right, the president, Rwanda, you know, he's won some plot that's in the West for having like a pretty well-functioning government and somewhat developing economy. Things are orally. But they're also very much moving in an autocratic direction in Rwanda.

They've had political opponents of Kagames have turned up down. in other countries. So it's not like human rights environment in Rwanda is not all that could be. No. It's just like it's the most cynical possible way to look tough on, you know, not having an open border. There's another way, even if you're going to be anti-migrant, anti-immigration, which you shouldn't be. But like this, this is a pretty extreme manifestation of it. And, you know, pretty different than the treatment of Ukrainian refugees. Yeah, as Boris Johnson is out there, like Mr. Ukrainian advocate.

Wonder what the difference is between two sets. And Afghan. Like, what about the Afghans that the UK fought a war there for, you know, for a long time? DJ Paddy's on Instagram said, Yes. Can you please talk about the Russification of eastern Ukraine? Absolutely. Happy to.

I mean, the gist is basically the process of erasing Ukrainian identity and language and culture and forcing residents to accept Russian rule. Yeah. Yeah. And what's interesting about this is that like Putin's pretext for moving into Lahanska and Dynetsk in the Donbos region of eastern Ukraine back in 2014 was that there were these Russian-speaking, kind of Russian-oriented populations there who, you know, were separatist or wanted to be with Russia and didn't want to be under Ukrainian, quote-unquote, Nazis. There's a really interesting article in The New Yorker by Ed Caesar about a Ukrainian refugee fan. family, people should check it out. What's interesting about this family is it shows a generational split where the older parents are from these, you know, from like Karkev, for instance, which is one of

the biggest, it's the second biggest city in Ukraine and it's near the border with Russia. It's not in the Donbos, but it's right near the border. And the older generation was pro-Russian. They spoke Russian. They were nostalgic in some ways for the Soviet days. But the Russian invasion, and they Asian and rucification of eastern Ukraine has turned them against Russia, you know? And so a lot of these people that were like on this border area of the Soviet Union who had some sympathy for Russia have been turned against it. And what Putin is doing is he's clearing out these areas. He's literally depopulating them, destroying the cities and towns as they were. And what I would look for in terms of Russification is moving people in in Mariopal, for instance,

after Russia occupied it. They literally were changing the names of the city to Russia. And they were getting rid of Ukrainian street signs, just seeking to kind of erase any. Handing out Russian passports, introducing the rubble, distributing new textbooks for kids, new bureaucratic offices,

like marriage licenses. Yeah. It's like really like some evil bureaucratic shit. And seemingly planned, right? Yeah. Like they have a game plan to just turn the areas of Ukraine under their control into Russia, which is, again, why these peace talks might be very complicated because what do you do about that if you're Ukraine?

Like, you know, Murielp'll, it'd be like if, you know, a foreign country conquered, you know, Los Angeles and changed the language and the history curriculum. Right. And then suddenly we're supposed to negotiate. Yeah. Canada just takes like Oregon from us or Washington. And something says, you have to speak French, you know. Christopher Miller, friend of the pod, had a great piece in this. And, you know, a lot of people quoted the Ukrainian Parliament's Commissioner for Human Rights a couple months ago saying that 1.3 million Ukrainians, including 223,000 children,

have been forcibly deported to Russia. So this is... That's just staggering. It's like genocide numbers. This is like World War II level like, you know, repopulation. Stalinist stuff. So that was a dark one. This one mixes light and dark. Yorkie Dad 1984 on Twitter.

What is Tommy's AG recipe? Blend in a smoothie or just water. I'll give you that one. And also, along with everything else, what the actual fuck and what do you think is possible? Do you think it's possible the United States could follow Latin America and a leftward reaction in our case to the Christian nationalist in Maga era? All right.

This is not a freebie ad. My AG recipe is my breakfast bin. Half a banana. Water, ice, protein powder, peanut butter. Age 1, you blend it up. It's delicious. That's a freebie for the age 1 people. That's a freebie.

That's pretty good. Leftward reaction to the Maga era, maybe. But we have the electoral college in the Senate and that's just going to make it harder. But like, what do you think? Yeah, it makes it harder. I mean... We got a bomb after Bush. I guess, yeah, like, what I'd say is the thing that we don't know yet is who might come out of nowhere here, right?

I mean, like, not to get PSA on, you know, but like I... Like, there's something that's going to come next. Like, and I don't know when that's going to come, Tommy. Like, it was that two years, six years, whatever it is. But, like, we've got now, like, an 80-year-old Democratic president, you know, Trump is. 70, whatever. We know we got the MAGO right, Democratic Party sorting itself out. And I do think at some point, like a left-wing populist backlash to everything. If you look at other places, that can happen, right? Because we're dealing with kind of the mix of Christian nationalism and

late-stage capitalism here. So, but it depends on who that person is. You know, Bernie took a whack at it. And the question is, can someone else who's probably younger get traction? I don't know. Yeah, I don't either. Hopeful. Yeah, but it's interesting to watch it happen in other countries. It's because it suggests that maybe that's something that can mobilize people. But I guess the other thing I'd say about those Latin American countries is that, in like Chile, for instance, student movements kind of preceded that. Yeah, big ones.

So like Borich himself, who's now president, started as like a student activist mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, right? And was called a sellout by the far left because he started. Yeah, because anyone in politics, right? But the question here is, like, will young people mobilize? at a level that creates that generational change in leadership. I hope so, actually. That would be pretty good if it did happen. There's a great breach profile in the New Yorker recently.

John Lee Anderson. Yeah, John Lee Anderson. It was awesome. Yeah, really good. People should check that out. I mean, again, if you can connect the dots, you know, you interact a bunch with young people, Tommy. Love a good young person.

I love a good guy. Hi-five them. Hello, youths. Hello, youths. But if someone can connect the dots between, climate change, economic inequality and social liberalism

and weed legalization, all these things. Thank you. It's sitting there for somebody. I hope someone comes along and takes it. I do too. Ben, this is a really interesting, big question from J.J. Johan on Instagram. What are the biggest ways

international politics have changed since you were in the White House? There's a lot of answers to this. I mean, massive war in Europe. That's like an obvious like obviously but I think what one one thought to ruminate on I don't know that we understood The lingering impact of the global financial crisis like the fact that we're still dealing with it Places never recovered yeah economy's never recovered politics when populists yeah and the rise of right-wing nationalism and populism I think that's notable

I think that the Biden administration today is dealing with The way American social media companies broke local media and institutions all around the world. Yeah. That's a great answer because the way people consume information has transformed international politics because it's transformed the domestic politics of every country, right? I would throw in there, which ties into your financial crisis point, you know, even through the Obama years, there was something of like a habitual deference to the United

States to like, you know, what's the agenda at the G20 and, you know, what's, what's the plan for the next big climate change conference? There was still a kind of a deference to the U.S. And I think that that had taken a huge hit after Iraq in the financial crisis, but it was still kind of there through the Obama years. My sense is that just collapsed under Trump. Russia and China used to at least pretend to be stakeholders in like a system that had America at its center. And now Russia and China not only don't pretend, they are openly attacking and hostile to any American-led order. So they kind of, you know, because of the financial crisis, because of social media, because of a lot of things, the deference to American leadership and just the role

that Russia and China played trying to upend it is much more acute than even a few years ago at the end of the Obama presidency. Yeah, I mean, I've written down China's just way more assertive. Way more aggressive, way more assertive. There's certainly not like a helpful actor during most of our time, but on some things that, you know, here and there, like certain sanctions and this and that. Did you see that, like, Tony Blinken gave a speech about China a few weeks ago, and today the Chinese came out with, like, an 80-page rebuttal or something? There was just full of shit talk.

Like, that kind of stuff didn't happen. Yeah, that's a modern iteration. I think India becoming disconcertingly less democratic is a big trend. That's a big trend. I also was sort of thinking about this and remarking upon how many things have not changed. Like, there's about to be an election in Israel and B.B.N. Yahoo. It's power. Merkel just retired.

Yeah. Boris Johnson's still a pain in our ass. Putin's still kicking around. We still haven't pivoted to Asia. We've been trying to pivot. It's so hard. It's like Zoolander. We're just not turning.

I would say, like, I watch all these announcements of like the tens and tens of thousands of troops that will be stationed now in Europe as part of this new NATO plan. And while that all makes sense, like, that is not a pivot to Asia. And the Chinese have to like that. And so people are wondering, like, why would the Chinese go along with this crazy war in Ukraine? and like pretty good for them to have the American military kind of focus on Europe. Yeah, there was a time when there was talk of NATO focusing more on China. That's not going to happen.

You're not going to. Whatever they say, that's not happening. Yeah. I focused on one thing. Okay, we had some good China questions. So why don't we, I'll combine to. So Shannon on Instagram asks, do you think people are right to be afraid of the rise of China? And then Mandric 14 on Instagram says, why did China crack down on streamers and influencers?

You want to start with these? well yeah i'll take on the fearing the rise of china like i i i don't inherently fear it and like you know the idea that the u.s shouldn't call the like we shouldn't it was clearly dangerous for the us to be a hegemon like we were because we did shit like invade a rock right we did crazy shit um and and i think the idea of having different countries emerge and play you know large roles in in geopolitics and in the global economy that's that's all good, right? What bothers me is just the Chinese political system at home and abroad over the last, well, since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, has just become much, much more aggressive. And so

what concerns me is less China itself, right, because like Trump would describe it almost as like a racialized problem. Oh, absolutely. China rising. It's their system. I don't like their system. So I like the kind of techno-dispopian authoritarian total control of information, the capacity to use technologies for extreme forms of surveillance, the organization of big data with artificial intelligence to kind of control people. I don't like that if it's coming from like a big corporation and I don't like if it's kind of like a big communist party either. Especially when it manifests in like the treatment of the Uyghurs and the genocide. Yeah. Although I mean we should be honest, like I think the right wing in the. the United States, they are particularly focused on China's views towards religion.

Yeah. I mean, that's a big piece of it. That's a big piece of it. And I think what you've seen increasingly, too, is that like the rise of China, it can be very different things. It could be the positive view could be like a China that is investing in other countries, helping to build infrastructure, that other countries are lifting people out of poverty, following playbooks that they develop, you know, not that dissimilar from what China did,

that China is contributing constructively to solving problems like climate change. The problem is that when you look at how China is throwing its weight around in some countries now, it's putting those countries into debt traps, it's building coal plants, it's, you know, helping corrupt autocratic governments stay in power. And so it's nothing inherent about China as a country, but this version of the Chinese Communist Party seems to be moving the direction of the less positive way the China could rise. Yeah. What about the streamers crackdown? What did you make of that?

I mean, I think we have a global war over culture and speech, right? And the Chinese want to control as it's interesting that as culture has emerged, you know, as the middle class emerges, consumers emerge and pop culture explodes inside of a country. And so China has its own internet and has its own influencers and has its own streaming content and Tencent and all these platforms. And the Chinese Communist Party wants to make sure that it controls that and that people get too powerful. They get kind of whack them old down by the Chinese Communist Party. And it's going to be a fascinating test case to see if they can continue to do. do that. I mean, I think inevitably they're going to have problems. You know, like people,

I don't know, maybe it's the inherent, like, American in me, but like, I have to think at a certain point, people get a little tired of like the party line on everything. I mean, you certainly saw it during some of these COVID crackdowns. That's right. You know what I mean? I mean, people were in the streets screaming at cops like shit that will get you thrown away for life in China. So at some point, you're right. I mean, there's desperation. I mean, I think this is probably a related question and answer, Ben, which is Aide Stormo when Instagram says, what's up with all the defense spending, Dembski batting, is Ukraine or just question mark, question mark, question mark. I'd say Ukraine, China, a defense industry structure that makes it impossible to kill stupid programs and projects

because they spread out the jobs and production of these things all over the country in districts, and you get all this NIMBY stuff from elected officials. Yeah, and I think I'd add to that just the Democratic Party's like inherent defensiveness. Like there's so much waste in the defense budget. It's like hundreds of billions of dollars too high. One thing we talked about in the past, like the modernization of the nuclear weapons stockpile that's going to cost a trillion dollars, right? And what happens is like they send up the budget to Congress and the Biden administration is already increasing that budget. And then Congress adds even more money.

And to really reverse the trend, it's not just like trimming. fat. It's not just like, oh, let's kill this one bloated weapon system. It's saying like, no, we're like core principles here. Like, we can find hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts in this budget and have basically no impact on the capacity of the military to keep this country safe because it is so inflated, right? I mean, it's next in like the next 10 countries combined spent on defense. Yeah, it's staggering amount of money. Alan on Instagram writes, what should we be hoping for in the Israeli elections? Um, sort of a couple parts.

One, no BB Net in Yahoo. Yep. That's the priority. That's one, two, three, four, five. And then I think, like, number six would just maybe some certainty in the outcome.

These poor folks have gone through, like, how many, like half a dozen kind of no outcome elections? Yeah. Well, actually, it was more like three, I think. I think they've had five,

I think they've had, this would be five elections. Yeah, they've just had a hard time forming governments in keeping them. You know, I think you want the least ultra right-wing nationalist government you can get, whether that's Lapeed or whoever that is, you want like a bit of a revitalized and consolidated Israeli left so that you have like not BB, not some other

crazy right-wing nationalist government, and you have some stable center that can, I don't know, at least not do crazy shit. I mean, and Peter Beinard and I talked about this on last week's episode. I mean, you have Biden going to visit Israel at a time when there will be no government. It'll be a caretaker prime minister. And it's so complicated because like, I don't know, maybe, maybe Obama got the pushback he did in the criticism in Israel that he did in a larger part due to racism than I know more than just liberalism. But like you and I probably want Biden to go to Israel and push them on investigation of the murder of Sherea Blocla, the Al Jazeera journalist who was killed in May. We probably want him to push them on settlement construction in general, sort of like pushing for

talks with the PA. But there's always a question of, okay, well, that create a backlash and will everyone just want the leadership to stick it to Biden as part of their campaign? Yeah. I mean, it's not unlike dealing with the Republican Party in this country, though. Like, the idea that if you stand up for what you believe in, we might be even crazier, always makes people uncomfortable. That's a fair point. That's a fairer. And I, and I get, but that's how you kind of couch it in principle. Like, I, I get not pushing like, look, there's not like no Palestinian statehood on the horizon, like talks that the PA's not, aren't going to go anywhere. But like the U.S. can take a position on the killing of a journalist,

right? The U.S. can take a position. American, too. Yeah, an American journal. The U.S. can take a position on settler violence, right? I mean, things that you would say in any country, right? And if that is, you know, Like, if we can't do that because we're, we seem constantly worried about the, the backlash from everybody. And yet the trends are moving in the wrong direction anyway. And not just in Israel, like in a lot of, in this country. No, you're right. You're right.

Ben, this is a good question. Lordess on Twitter asks, can you explain the war in Yemen when and how it started in U.S. position? Gracias. You want to do this one? You sort of spun the gamut of living through this. Yeah. being in government and then outside of government. Yeah.

So I, so basically what happened is inside Yemen had this political crisis post-Arab Spring, like a lot of places, where their kind of corrupt aging autocrat was ousted. There's a period of some political instability. Out of that period of political instability in kind of 2014, 15. What was that guy's name again? The president? Hadi. Oh, Sala. Sala.

Yeah. Because Ben and I shared an office together in the basement of the West Wing, John Brennan. who then the Homeland Security Advisor, later the CIA director, would always talk to President Sala. And it's funny to hear John's readouts because, like, Sala would be drunk half the time. And John would scream in Arabic. Things like, the eyes of the world are upon you. Yeah, yeah. It was just not like a very, wasn't an idea of political situation.

It was tough. And so what happened is the Houthi movement, which is kind of a distinct faction, religious sect inside of Yemen, that is somewhat aligned with Iran. They started to gain a lot of traction inside of Yemen, and they were kind of advancing their position and moving into the capital, and the Saudis were freaking out about this, you know? And this is right at the time that King Abdullah dies,

and Muhammad bin Salman ascends to this position at the time deputy crown prince, but really the power behind the throne, because his father, the king, is, let's just say, he makes Joe Biden look like a pretty virile young man, you know. And so the MBS, who is also a defense minister, decides that they're going to draw a line and stand up to Iranian interference and blah, blah, blah. Now, to be clear, the Houthis are a distinct movement inside of Yemen. They live there. They're not like Iranians who came into Yemen, right?

And we always saw it at the time that they were overstating the degree to which the Iranians were kind of calling the shots. Yeah. There were like weapon shipments that were interdicted things, right? Like there was some support, but it's like there was a bit of a chicken or the egg debate sometimes. Yes. Well, they called out the Houthis for being supported by Iran, the more Iran seemed to want to support them. Well, and then what happened is so the Saudis decide they're going to draw the line and they're going to go on offense and they're going to go to war, literally, against the Houthis. They're going to invade Yemen to attack the Houthis and push them back.

And this was Mahan bin Salman. People should remember, like this was MBS's kind of first big play. He was a defense minister. This was his thing. And we in the Obama administration were not supportive of this. Like we had been trying to encourage them to open up a diplomatic channel with the Iranians, to reduce tensions, have a political process inside of Yemen. Obama made a mistake in my view. And I think, you know, pretty largely held view since. in we weren't like gung ho behind this thing, but we did agree to provide pretty fundamental support in terms of the Saudi military kind of depends on the American military for logistics and, you know, how are you refueling planes and how are you targeting things? And very quickly, it went terribly wrong in the sense that the Saudi campaign was kind of indiscriminate. There were civilian casualties. They weren't really like achieving any objectives and fighting the Houthis back. It was just kind of adding to the violence in Yemen. And the Obama administration started imposed restrictions on certain weapons systems that could be delivered. And we were trying to push this

into a political process. But then Trump gets elected. And then, you know, all constraints are off. It escalates even more. The Saudis and the Emirates are in lead. The point being is it created a humanitarian catastrophe in which millions of people are put at risk of malnourishment and famine. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in this fighting. The Houthis have not been dislodged in any way she performed. So the strategic objective of dislodging the Houthis has failed. The other strategic objective of like pushing back Iranian influence is failed. It's caused a humanitarian catastrophe.

It's not gone well. No. It's a moral strategic disaster. Yeah. And it's been part of this like, proxy war with Iran all across the region too, which is not gone well. Starting with everyone putting their hands on the orb. Oh, that was the middle.

I should, to be fair. Here's a good question. Shoshboa on Instagram says, why isn't anyone paying attention to what's happening in Sri Lanka? That is a good question. It is pretty dire. I mean, we're recording this on June 30th. Their economy is on the verge of total collapse.

People are spending, literally spending days in line trying to get kerosene or cooking gas, can't always get it. they can't get basic food. There's been political violence. There's been massive protests. The government, I think yesterday they did before, said that for the next two weeks that they're going to shut down schools and they're only going to give fuel supplies to services like essential ones, like hospitals, trains, buses, et cetera.

So this is really like the culmination of massive economic mismanagement, the pandemic, and then a bunch of terrorist attacks that just destroy the tourism industry. But, I mean, it's a pretty staggering example of a country that had a vibrant middle class who were all now just being, like, thrown into poverty incredibly quickly. And the political instability is not gone anywhere. You have this ruling family that is just dug in, you know, sort of papering over concessions. But I don't know where this goes. I mean, basically they're being propped up by eight from India and some other donors. Yeah.

And on the question, I mean, I think that the harsh and somewhat uncomfortable reality, is like, to some extent, geography, right? Yeah. In that if this was happening in, you know, along Europe's borders or right in the middle of, you know, East Asia or, you know, was in the Middle East, you know, like we'd be all over this, right? We'd be paying a lot of attention to it. I mean, Obama used to make this point a lot about even the Middle East relative to

Africa because Obama obviously cared a lot about Africa. Like there was a war in the Congo that killed, you know, millions of people. that didn't register. And that's not right. I think that Sri Lanka is so far away. And it's not kind of in the middle of like a region, you know, because it's kind of off in South Asia that I think people don't like incorporate into how they think about, you know, the parts of the world they follow. And I think that's wrong by the way, because I think that Sri Lanka is, you know, has an incredibly vibrant, talented population. But I, you know, this has been the case for a while. Like, this was a case in 2009 when you and I were in the White House and you had just a brutal, brutal massacre

the Tamils to end that civil war. And that didn't really register much internationally. So hopefully like, yeah, I think there's a bit of a default to India on some of these things too, which again, reinforces an idea of kind of spheres of influence, which isn't great. But hopefully people can can keep an eye on this. You know, it leads to a bigger, broader question of, like, how and when and why wars get covered. I mean, I think there's a clear bias in terms of geography and race, frankly. Yeah. You know, and, like, the amount of mind share.

And economic interests. In economic interests and sort of spheres of influence. But, like, you know, the amount of coverage of the Middle East peace process is disproportionate to all these other issues that are out there in the world that could flare up. I also remember hearing a lot of people at the beginning of sort of the Ukraine conflict being like, why? are people reporting on this so much and not reporting on the civil war in Ethiopia? You know, like the media is terrible. They're hopeless. And there's a piece of it that is just kind of logistics.

You know what I mean? Like the Ukrainian government was welcoming and journalists was putting them up, was taking the front lines and betting them with their military. In Ethiopia, like, you couldn't get into the country. You couldn't get into Eritrea. It was incredibly dangerous to the places where the fighting was. So like that kind of, those sort of like very simple kind of common sense things often sometimes play into the coverage.

I'm not saying there isn't bias, you know, in terms of, like, what a bureau chief in the U.S. is interested in. Like, clearly, like, the Ukraine story is viewed as, like, the really hot story. And I don't know that the Ethiopia story ever was, you know, like some really amazing reporters were there and, like, doing brave, like, Nimabagir was, like, doing incredible journalism to get there. But, you know, it's complicated. Yeah, I mean, some of it, some of it's legit and some of it's very uncomfortably

Western-centric. and racialized. The legit piece is like if you in Ukraine this could become like World War III. For sure. Like so unlike. And there's nooks. Yeah, exactly. If there was a war anywhere else in most other places at the world at least, you actually wouldn't have the potential, you know, NATO and Russia could get in a conflict over Ukraine that could cause a nuclear war. That's, that's big, that's big news. And one was threatened. Yeah. And it was threatened. So like there's some very real reasons for Ukraine to get the attention as. I think, but then there are other things like, even like a humanitarian catastrophe like Syria, let's face it, was like a bigger story because

it also fed a refugee crisis into the West, you know, then like, again, to use the example of the DRC of Congo, millions of people were killed there. Like more people were killed there than in Syria. And there were masses of refugees. And, but they didn't come, very few of them, came all the way into the West. Yeah, it took a lot of time, yeah. Yeah, so it just, like, they're, we have to, you know, like, that, that's part of the structural wiring of the media and the U.S. and Europe. That's right.

Stubage on Instagram says, Young World, though, wanting to understand the world politics better. Where did you start? Well, this pot will help. I mean, there are some, like, back episodes that are very evergreen. Like Mark Lippert, former U.S. ambassador to North Korea. Oh, you're going to the catalog. Way to be, well, like, if you want, like, primers on, like, stuff like that, or, like, you know, who's that amazing assistant secretary ambassador, Johnny Carson? Yeah, yeah.

Like, I did one with him about his career. Like, I don't know, you could, there's some old stuff that, like, won't feel old that will be helpful. I would also just say, like, pick a couple of news outlets, find some free ones and read them. Like, Al Jazeera English, the BBC. the New York Times International section. Like, you're going to learn a lot from those things. Yeah, I guess for me personally, like, you know, I was obviously much younger, but like the BBC was an interesting starting place

because they were so global. So global. I used to love. I used it for this show all the time. Yeah, but I'd listen to BBC radio and it's some guy in Zimbabwe. Their podcasts are great, too. Their podcasts are really good. So check out the BBC is like a portal.

Yeah, BBC World Service. Yeah, BBC World Service is a great portal. I think also, like, to me, finding like, you know, a good New Yorker piece. You know, like you mentioned John the Anderson. Like, if you read like a John the Anderson piece in the New Yorker, like, say the one we're talking about Borich in Chile, you won't just get like a profile of that guy. You'll get kind of like a flavor of the left in Latin America, the history of Latin America.

And so to me, like, that kind of feature-length journalism and, you know, pick your flavor. What was the Joan Didian book you gave me where she's in, like, Argentina? Well, there's Salvador. The book she had Salvador. She had a couple others too, like, but like I, to me, like, to use a word, like, reportage, but like, you know, like, I always love that. I have to say, you know, it's like the most neolib, um, plug I could make. Uh-huh. You're voting for Macron?

No, the economists, like, you pick up the economists, it's like the BBC and that they have a section on every part of the world. That's true. Now, it has a point of view, and you have to know what its point of view is. Its point of view is open markets, open democracy, global globalization, some which is very good, some which is not had a good run in the last 30 years. But I do think it's probably expensive. Like it does, just things that give you that full lay of the land are good. Yeah, if you're young enough to be at school, just steal it from the library. No one will care.

No one will notice. They're not being the fucking economist. Yeah. I mean, you know, there are bits and pieces there. But like, you know, shop around. There's a lot of, there's a lot of content out there. Ben, Leanne on Twitter wants to know, what are your simplest pleasures and biggest pet peeves? Not the obvious big infuriating or amazing stuff, just normal everyday things.

My simplest pleasures and biggest pet peeves? I mean, my simplest pleasure living here in Los Angeles is going running on the actual beach. That's cool. Because I live in Venice. So like I run down and I run on the, like I wrecked my shoes and I just kind of run on the sand by the water. It shows how much you've grown. By the way, a decade ago you would have just had cigarette. that was through my

through the White House years that was my only simple pleasure it was only only it was the only time I was physically outside of a building like was like literally ripping butts with Cody Keenan the only time

I could get outside I you know like a like so the running like a stiff pretty stiff drink at around 6 o'clock when you really need it continues to be simple pleasure

it's funny when you get older I like the extent to which like reading a book becomes simple pleasure. Yeah, I know. I know. I nap like twice a year because I just suck at it but when you get one in,

that's sweet. A nap is kind of a delight. Related one. My dog in the morning is extra cuddly and cute and I'm really, I'm pretty into her. I watch it. A lot of football. I like edibles.

I like a good glass wine, not expensive glass. I think if you listen to this show, you know, we kind of, we're enthusiasts of edibles. Yeah. Cooking, actually. I like cooking too.

I really like cooking. Like really grown to enjoy it. Yeah, it's cathartic. You got an hour, you get something done, then you eat it. What are your pet peeves? Getting seated really close to people at restaurants. Oh, I hate that. Even like pre-COVID when you can't hear.

And they're listening, you think that they can hear your conversation. Like, inevitably, you're next to a bad date or something. Yeah. That's a good one. This is not about anyone on this show or at this company, but I have a podcast that I listen to all the time that I really like. and one of the hosts, it is an epidemic in podcasting of answering the question

you just asked before the person can where you like answer for them. Oh, you asked a question and you answered? Yeah, yeah, that's really annoying. That's the thing. Also, just in the podcast world, the horrendous, like, searchability of shows because I'm always looking for like great interviews

on things we're going to talk about that week. Unless you have like a really specific search term, you can never find what you want, ever. Yeah. Apple. Why is it so hard? I've noticed that, too. I don't know, man.

Like, it never just gives you something you want. Help me out. Yeah. It's always crap. What other pet peeves? I'll tell you basically the way in which money is ruining college sports. Oh, yeah. I say it because it was announced day that, like, UCLA and USC want to join the Big Ten.

Oh. Which. What? Yeah. For World Those, I apologize for this for a moment, but like, this is basically California colleges joining a Midwestern league because there's more money in it for them. Well, in the NIL deals. I mean, like, the NI deal means name image and likeness.

It means that if you're a college kid, you can sign a deal with someone to pay you to, like, endorse their thing. But I support that. I think these kids should get paid. But I'm hearing about, like, quarterbacks getting $10 million NIL deals to go to, like, Florida State or something. Yeah. That's just a shitload of money.

Yeah. So that's, I don't know why that popped. my head. I don't know. Like pet peeves. What about people who reply? Reply, always reply. Unnecessary reply alls. That's brutal. That's a big one. Yeah. Necessary reply all this is a big one. From, uh, from globally renowned authors. Uh, no, I was going to say like when you tweet something, like you read about like Donald Trump, um, literally trying to storm the capital himself on January 6th. And you say like, this is unbelievable. And someone replies like, do you really not believe this? Are you really surprised? Like, do you just, are you just

the guy that logs on to fucking tell everyone they shouldn't be surprised by stuff because I hate you. Yeah. I yeah, pep in general is like the extreme negativity of people towards other individual human beings when it's not necessary. Cynicism as wisdom drives me nuts. Cynicism's wisdom, yeah. Jerry wants to know on Twitter. Jerry seems like a positive guy. Politics excluded. What are your, what is your favorite European country visited for the scenery, culture, and food? There are no wrong answers. I told you was positive. What about what do you? I mean, I'm like a real, say France Homer at the moment, just because I just had such a good time there. I was thinking about, we did a pod tour in Stockholm and Sweden. It was a really cool, really cool city. Then I was also

thinking about Ben. In 2009, I think, or 2010, I got sent to Lake Geneva for the P5 plus one. Oh, yeah, I remember that. The Iran talks, the allies with the Iranians. And it was at this villa in Lake Geneva looking over this, like this stunning, stunning home that I'm sure the CIA had wired to the fucking gills, looking down in this lake, the Lake Sheena, which is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, that's pretty legit. So, yeah, I'm a, you know, I lived in France. I'm a bit of a France home or two.

I guess, like, and I'd say for food, and I know this is dicey, but I do lean French on the food. We. There's great things about Italy, Italian food, obviously, but I lean in the French direction. I think in terms of scenery, like I love a good, very distinct city. And I'll set Paris aside because you are our different friends. Barcelona, Amsterdam, like, those are places that are not like anywhere else. Amsterdam is awesome. Amsterdam is fucking awesome.

No, not a Barcelona, but like Amsterdam is just crazy. Yeah. I'm on a canal again. Yeah, this is great. I'm rounding your corner. Whoa, look at that. You know, like there's a beautiful canal. I also like culturally, I always like the vibe in Berlin.

Okay. You know, like, it felt like there's just always a lot going on there. I went there by myself once. I ended up walking around. I remember looking at my phone. I was like nine miles. And it was just some real dark tourism. Well, it doesn't have the beauty, right?

Like that's why. Checkpoint Charlie. Okay. Yeah, it doesn't have like the natural beauty of like an Amsterdam or Barcelona park because it was destroyed for a lot of reasons. I will say that I, in dark horse, Tallinn, the Estonian capital, cool little city. But I need to spend more time. If there's a place I want to spend more time in Europe, it's in the Balkans.

I haven't really crushed like Croatia and Slovenia. I want to go there. So give us a shout at Balkan World's. I remember I mentioned that I did a study abroad program in Italy. I remember we went everywhere. There was this one town called, to your point about like kind of quaint or like distinct towns. There was a town called Sisi. It was over the top of a hell of.

Not the dictator. No, St. Francis of Sisi. And it was like a small. monk or monastery at the top of this beautiful hill and Tuscanee. And it was sort of this part of the Renaissance where you know, there's sort of like the early, early period where they don't know what the hell they're doing. And then there's

the later period where you go to the Vatican and it's just like, it doesn't say religion to me. It's just like power and like gody and money and you know, massive structures. And it was sort of this middle period of Renaissance painting where it was, I don't know, it just felt very

sincerely held. Yeah. I mean it's your episode, like my honeymoon was Prague and Vienna. And there's like a Prague, Vienna, Budapest. Prague's incredible. That's cool, too. Yeah, fuck, there's so many places. I like them all.

I like them all too. I like Europe. I like Europe. Let's face it. Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome. Books. What books are you reading?

Any wrecks? So I just read like a massive book, which is tied to like a project I'm working on, which I'll plug when I'm done plugging my last book. But I just read a book called These Truths by Jill Lepore. Okay. Oh,

yeah. It's a single-bting history of the United States. It's long. But if you read her stuff in the New Yorker, it flows actually

shockingly well for a very long book. So I just read that. I just read a, you know, I've been making my way through Graham Green as my escapist fiction,

right? So the power and the glory of the comedian's a heart of the matter. But it's like, you know, it's like a, there's the lacaree flavor

of, like, espionage and grizzled people. you know, beaten down in exotic circumstances. Like Graham Green has that in spades as well. Yeah, but what about you? You know, I just, I'm reading LaCarris now.

I mentioned, I think I mentioned that white nationalism book earlier. People asked what, I mentioned a AI book once on the pot. It's called Life 3.0. It's pretty interesting. I'm sort of like I put it down to read something ostensibly less intense on vacation. Yeah. I failed. Yeah.

But I'm kind of excited to like dig into some of these. Macari once from now. I need, yeah, I'll need some newer fiction. I need a good nut fiction. Ben, Julia wants to know, if you could have an Emily in Paris spin-off, i.e. Ben in X. Where are you going? I guess what this means is

you are living in a city, you don't really know what's going on, you barely speak the language, you're having a much of trists and you work in social media. So, I'm probably going to like completely miss the mark on like the, but like, and I'm not just saying,

like there's this place called Luang Perbong and Laos, right? Where it's, I can't describe to you this place. It's like, it's up the Mekong River. It's the ancient Buddhist capital of Laos. It's full of these like old Buddhist temples and French kind of colonial buildings surrounded by like water, waterfalls and everything.

And then if you go up the river, they're like these little backpackery type hotels. And I was always kind of like, if my life completely obliterated. You've got to get off the grid. And I had to get off the grid. I would open up like a backpacker kind of hotel on the river, you know,

and be that kind of half sober, like proprietor. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Who's like, hangs out at his own place all day, like hangs out at like the, the wood tabled place on the river,

like drinking like beer, Lao out of bottles all day. Do you write for a local paper? Yeah, you know, you write like, mystery fiction on like, you write for like the local English language paper and you like hang out with the backpackers and see what drugs they brought up the river, you know?

And you see George Smiley once every five years. Exactly. Like, it's kind of like that you're like a minor character in the La Carre. Now, that's not like the Emily and Paris vibe, I think is more like, it's got to be more like, upscale, right?

Yeah, and you just, you know, there's no actual conflict in your life besides, like, should I date, like, the hot chef or the other guy? Then I would just go to, like, to be in the spirit of that, I'd go to, like, Florence, you know. That'd be great. Yeah, like, let's just take it to Florida. The cities I wrote down, just to try to be different because we had a Europe question earlier, where, well, this one is, Istanbul, somewhere in Chile or Bangkok. Those would be some good off the grid.

Bangkok is a good one. Southeast Asia in general is my number one option for, like, if I could. just disappear into a region, it'd be Southeast Asia. Yeah. I should have asked this one earlier because I tried to progress from serious to less serious, but this is a good question. Baby Moonman wants to know from Instagram, progress on international climate talks goals, question mark.

Well, baby Moon Man, I think that like, so first of all, we have some problems on the horizon here because Glasgow didn't go all that well, right? and Joe Manchin spiked hundreds of billions of dollars in climate spending and the Supreme Court just got at our regulations. So we're kind of fucked. And then the upcoming cop is in Egypt. What? Yeah. Which is not next year's, or this year's cop is in Egypt, which I don't see as an ideal venue.

I think the Emirates are on deck maybe. What was? Is this FIFA? Yeah, like everything is kind of fucked right now. I think that like the obviously you need to phase out coal. you need to be in addition to methane and stopping the construction new coal plants. But like this issue about mobilizing climate finance to deal with like mitigating the effects of climate as well as the transition, I don't like it. I don't like it when like corporations pledge to do things that they don't back up with concrete data or people just pronounce that there's trillions of dollars in climate finance.

but the big butt, if governments are not going to be able to do this, you know, a lot of the action around these summits is going to have to be, unfortunately, like, in the private sector, in the activism sector, like, because I'm not that hopeful that world governments are going to get, like, an epiphany on coal and all these other things the next year or two. Yeah, we're going to bank on climate tech a little bit too much. Exactly. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Well, I think that's all we got. I mean, I hope everyone had a Great, July 4th. Sorry again to the Prince of Wales for not being able to accept the literal suitcases of cash from your friends in Qatar.

But, you know, you'll find a new benefactor. What's your favorite kind of like holiday weekend-y holiday? So not like Christmas or, you know, Thanksgiving, but like, you know, in the kind of... I love July 4th. You're July 4th guy. Love it. Because I love fireworks. I love the beach.

And I love that it's early summer. Yeah. And I've always, you always kind of associated with summer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just the best. You're not a present-day kind of guy.

No, I don't know what else we got. Halloween, I don't give a shit. There's like minor holidays at this point. Thanksgiving's fun. I don't know. I like Thanksgiving. That's a good one. Fourth of July is up there.

Thanksgiving's great because you can sort of binge eat and there's no concern that anyone will see you in anything but a sweater for very long time. That's true. All right. Talk to you guys next week. Have your athletic greens. Pots of 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 slash crooked media.