Pod Save the World - World’s worst space race

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

Tommy and Ben discuss the US withdrawal from Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, why billionaires are racing to ride rockets, Xi Jinping’s speech celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, potential updates to American sanctions policy, the financial crisis in Lebanon, a meeting between Saudi and American government officials and more. Then Ben talks to journalist Rana Ayyub about why the Indian government is targeting her over a tweet and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s larger crackdown on free speech. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, please visit crooked.com/podsavetheworld. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome back to Pots Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Roads. Ben, happy fourth. How have the elicit fireworks over on the Venice side of Los Angeles. Oh, my God. It was like, I mean, it went all night over here. Let's just say. Like, you don't get a lot. Like Venice, people need to know that. So when we moved here, once it became summer, like there were just fireworks all the time. And people are like, oh, yeah, that's just what happens in Venice. People just set off fireworks all summer. It's like a thing over here. So. That was a thing last summer, too. And I think it was a thing last summer too.

lot of cities. But yeah, particularly so in Los Angeles, it looked pretty wild. There's some cool aerial views of planes landing, like as the fireworks are going off that looked, you know, I know the problems with fireworks. I have a dog. She goes nuts. I know they're hard on some people, but as a kid, I was obsessed with fireworks and I will always love them. And there's nothing I can do to stop that. Well, they do these like aerial shots of L.A. to just show the fireworks that are happening everywhere, you know, in addition to the massive fireworks show that they have. So, yeah, it's definitely like people take Fourth of July seriously over here. Yeah, they take a real serious.

Speaking of fireworks, we've got a lot of terrific stuff today. Big development in the U.S.'s withdrawal from Afghanistan, some space news, a couple of interesting stories out of China, how the Biden team is reportedly rethinking sanctions policy, and there's a growing financial crisis in Lebanon. Saudi delegation visits D.C., and then we got some fun Olympic news. And then, Ben, you did our interview today. What are folks going to hear? I really implore people to stick around for this interview with Rana Yub, who people have heard on this podcast before.

But the basic gist of it is that Rana, over a tweet about an attack on an older man that appeared to be motivated by religion, is facing all these charges in India. She and some other journalists and opposition figures, clearly the next phase in an escalating crackdown on freedom of expression, she's trapped in this kind of legal authoritarian morass. And she walks us through that and then very powerfully explains why she's refusing to back down. So I really hope people stay and check it out. It's a powerful, motivating, inspiring, infuriating segment. Just a truly, truly brave human being and powerful to hear her speak every time. So definitely stick around for that. And then also, if you want to check out what a day this week, America dissected Dr. Abdul El-Said joins Akila and Gideon to talk through all the latest on COVID.

and then what strategies are working to convince people to get vaccinated. So check out what a day. It drops every weekday, and you can listen and subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so let's start with this update out of Afghanistan because, you know, last Friday, the United States military announced that it had completely withdrawn from Bogram Airfield, which is this massive, massive base in airfield 40 miles north of Kabul that has basically been the anchor of the U.S. war effort for years. according to the Washington Post, the departing American forces didn't tell the Afghan commander

who was supposed to take over the command of the base that they were leaving until they had already left. And the power just went out, water stopped running, and then the U.S. troops were just gone. Pretty shocking, Ben, considering that the base was overrun by looters and still includes a prison that holds about 5,000 prisoners. I think most of them are Taliban. So abandoning Bogram is a big deal symbolically. It's also, again, just a massive facility. It's two huge run. ways, 100 parking spots for fighter jets, a small hospital, and just like tons and tons of stuff that's accumulated over the last 20 years. The Afghan commander said that the U.S. forces had left behind 3.5 million items, like from cars and trucks to water bottles to doorknobs, just everything

in between. This all comes as the Taliban continues to take territory. In northern Afghanistan, Reuters said that a quarter of Afghanistan's districts have fallen to the Taliban in recent weeks. The BBC reported that in recent days more than 1,600 Afghan soldiers actually fled across the border into Tajikistan to escape Taliban fighters so things aren't going well. Ben, you know, the U.S. fully departing from Bagram, I think really hammered home for me that there's just no going back on this decision. Yeah. What do you think the significance is of this withdrawal? And what do you make of this decision by military leaders that's like not tell the Afghan leaders who are supposed to take over? Well, I think, first of all, it can't be underscored enough how much Bagram is the symbolic and operational home of the American War in Afghanistan.

In a way that, I guess, in Iraq, it would have been the green zone. I mean, Bagram is everything runs through there. It's this massive base. When we would go with Obama on kind of these secret visits in the middle of the night, that's where he'd go. And then he would, from there, helicopter into Kabul to meet with the president of Afghanistan, he addressed the nation from. in Bogram. I had to write an address to the nation he gave literally from that military base. And it had the feel of like a city, you know, it had the kind of almost absurdity of how big of a thing the American military can build in the middle of foreign country. Tens and tens and tens of

thousands of people have flown through there, serve there. And when we were debating, Tommy, at the end of the Obama years, whether to remove all troops or to keep some, right? There was no some option that didn't anchor in Bogram. Like Bogram might be the one base we could keep. So I think leaving Bogram is really the end of the American engagement in this war. I mean, that's what it felt like to a lot of us who've been involved with this over the years. And so there was a finality to that. In part because, you know, if you were ever going to return, like, Bogram would be the place that you would, you would want to have kept to do that. In terms of not telling the Afghans, look, it's shitty. I mean, I think it's, it's, I'm sure that here's the reasoning. I'm sure the reasoning is their overwhelming

priority leaving is the security of the people leaving and that there's, if there's any risk of that information getting out and people knowing our troop movements, that that could put them in danger. But that said, when we've been visiting guests in this country for this long, and this is like the hub of everything we do, you know, the coordination around the handover of the biggest base is kind of also a symbol of respect. And investment in the future of Afghanistan. And so I understand, you know, the rationales are always forced protection. What can we do to minimize any risk to our troops? But it was not a good, you know, not a good look, I think, to not coordinate that. And obviously, it also led to the looting and contributes, I think,

to a sense in Afghanistan of like, wait a second, we're really, you know, kind of on our own here, which was inevitable when you decide to remove all troops, but doesn't make it any less difficult to manage from the Afghan perspective. Yeah, I mean, the finality of some of these details. I mean, you know, sort of all these big, heavy trucks that are getting left behind, but the U.S. forces are taking the keys because they don't want them like stripped or sold to, I don't know, whomever or to be used by Taliban forces if somehow they got a whole of them.

But yeah, I mean, there's going to be, I think, more and more and more stories like this that are really just going to hammer home the finality of the. the decision. And, you know, I think we all have to prepare ourselves that's going to be, there's going to be some really tough stuff. I mean, there's going to be districts that fall to the Taliban. There's going to be incidents where the Afghan security forces just either don't fight or get defeated militarily. And I don't know. I don't know what to make of it. I mean, there definitely are like echoes of Iraq in the end of 2011 when the U.S. withdrew from Iraq under Obama and then actually went back in several years later because the security situation deteriorated.

something I'm sure the Biden team's watching. And I saw Jen Taki today talking about a, you know, permanent diplomatic presence in Kabul and all these things they're going to try to do to sort of help the Afghans take on this, the entirety of this fight. But it's going to be tough. Yeah. I mean, and look, I think to be fair to the Biden team, I think the challenge we're seeing our indictment of the 20-year war effort. Oh, absolutely. And what happens when you decide to go to war like this in the first place, not like just a decision to leave? Because as we've talked to about unless America was going to stay with massively more military force than 2,500 or 5,000 troops.

This is the direction that things were going in Afghanistan in any event. And what's so difficult is that this is so far from what we hoped when we went into Afghanistan, from what was promised when we went into places like Iraq and Afghanistan, this was going to happen unless, again, like America is willing to make a multi-decade commitment at a much higher level than a few thousand troops, which I don't think was politically possible. So, like, as people watch this, I think you can find fault with the Biden decision if you want. You can criticize ways in which they've implemented it. But the overall circumstances, I think, are much more an indictment of this entire policy choices that were made or not made during those 20 years.

Or, frankly, just the limits of what a military can do. Like, the U.S. military can go to a foreign country and it can take some people out. And they took out al-Qaeda. They took out Osama and Laden. But they can't necessarily go to another country and remake its politics. That has not worked. Didn't work in Iraq. Didn't work in Afghanistan.

Didn't work in Libya. It hasn't worked in Yemen. Hasn't worked in Somalia. Didn't work in Vietnam. Like, we have to internalize this lesson that militaries can destroy things. But it's not their mission. They're not built to build things. And unfortunately, like that is a lesson that we're seeing on display in these, you know,

pretty difficult and tragic images out of Afghanistan. Yeah. Yeah. No, like, I agree. I'm not criticizing the Biden folks. I don't think there was the political space. I don't think it was in our security interest to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan. I mean, wars have to end eventually or else it's just I don't even know what it would be. But yeah, just sort of everyone is to prepare ourselves for, I think, you know, the reports out of Afghanistan to be tough for a while. And hopefully, you know, we can do it. We can do diplomatically to help them find better footing.

But, yeah, it's just, it's hard to read. Let's take a little pivot here to space, Ben, because there's lots of space news this week, and that's always fun. So first, a Mars orbiter launched by the United Arab Emirates sent back pictures of discrete auroras on Mars. Do you know what those are? It is a – you've heard of the Aurora Borealis, maybe listeners. And I know what discrete means, but I don't know what a discrete aurora is. So this is – So the northern lights are the Aurora Borealis.

That's the northern hemisphere, right? It's when the sun flings, charged protons and electrons at the Earth, and the Earth's magnetic field deflex them and it makes those lights. Mars has a very different magnetic field than the Earth, and it creates a different-looking aurora phenomenon. And the UAE's Hope spacecraft was able to take pictures of it and send them back, so that's very cool. The second update is more about an intergalactic dick measuring contest between Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, and I guess also Elon Musk. They're all the same sort of thing. So on July 11th, Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson is going to be a passenger on a test suborbital space flight. The first one his company does.

It means the aircraft is going to reach outer space, but not like escape velocity, like a satellite that would allow it to orbit the globe. Bezos is going to take a trip to suborbital space on his blue origin space company ship on July 20th. The Richard Branson moved up his date. He insists he didn't do it on purpose to screw Bezos. And this isn't a competition between two air. again, billionaires, but Bezos's company is also taking shot to Branson because his rocket doesn't go as high in the atmosphere. Anyway, so here's my question for you.

Small hands. Yeah. Where do you land on commercial spaceflight? Are you ready to hop on one of these bad boys? Like, you have all the money in the world, literally. You're one of these fucking billionaires. And do you jump on one of the first space flights just to, like, show up your Forbes 10? compatriots? Let's just think about what else these people could be doing with that money,

you know, here on planet Earth. There's no problems in the world to be solved right now. They could be investing in democracy. They could be investing in the fight against climate change. They could be investing in the fight against homelessness or inequality, the inequality, you know, exacerbated by the policies of companies like Amazon, right? I mean, they could pay more taxes. They could pay some fucking taxes, right? Like instead of like paying zero taxes, right? I mean, I just think there's something so dystopian about a bunch of massive egos

having a dick measuring contest to fly up in the atmosphere and do things that, by the way, are not anywhere near what states can do, right? So it's not like they're advancing some massive good for humanity by learning about the origins of life on Mars. It's like five minutes of weightlessness.

Yes. And they're testing out what it's like to be a passenger. Yeah. I mean, I just don't understand like what social good is developed by that and not, you know, to get tired as, I guess, a socialist spy. But like, there's certain things that, like, governments should do and people should not, should actually not be rich enough to do. Like, like, the space program should be like a communal effort, even a globally communal effort,

like the International Space Station, a pooling of resources to develop knowledge for the good and benefit of humankind, right? Like, this is not that. You know? Yeah. I guess I say, I just agree slightly here because like I think that Elon Musk's company, SpaceX is like doing things that are useful. They're delivering satellites. They're delivering supplies to the space station. They're providing like NASA like services. This is space tourism, which I guess is cool. But like one dude, I think dropped $28 million to get on the first flight. Again, talk about someone who needs to be taxed a little bit more. It's that individual. Well, that's the thing. Like, okay, so SpaceX is an interesting model because it's this kind of public-private partnership and it does try to contribute

view to things. And look, I guess if Richard Branson, who does some good, by the way, does some good stuff, right? Richard Branson has finance like the elders, you know, the Nelson Mandela initiated effort to resolve conflicts. I think there's some good things that he does. Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post. I guess that is constructed. I like the Post. Yeah, I like the Washington Post. I'm a subscriber. So we're dwelling on the negative here. But that said, like, I think you just, it's less on them than more just like, like how does a society? have such rampant inequality that this is even a conversation. Like, it's more the structural thing of like, why did we get here? But then also, I think the space tourism thing, it does open up interesting ethical questions

because on the one hand, wow, yeah, democratizing space. Like, people can go to space. That's great. But, like, it seems like the barrier to entry is $28 million. Like, if they actually have a plan, I guess here's the thing. If Jeff Bezos or Richard Branson can articulate more concretely, how. this is benefiting some kind of public good and how this might be an accessible experience for people who can't spend $28 million, then there might be more to listen to.

But for the time being, like, most human beings have a greater capacity to experience space travel by seeing like a UFO in the sky than hitching a ride on the Bezos mobile. Yeah. I'm cool with, you know, the progress or the technology. just the enormous self-regard that goes along with it is just too much in the absurd competition. Speaking of competition, let's turn to China because last week, President Xi Jinping delivered a speech celebrating 100 years of the Chinese Communist Party. Many analysts viewed this speech as basically, you know, his stump speech.

And that next year they expect him to President Xi to seek a third five-year term as leader, which is a break from his predecessor, Hu Jintao, who served two terms and sort of set that as the expectation for how long one should serve. In his speech, she bragged about crushing dissent in Hong Kong, lifting people out of poverty and basically told the entire international community that China won't list steady criticism. Here's one quote for you, Ben. Quote, the Chinese people will never allow foreign forces to bully oppress or enslave us. Whoever nurses' delusions of doing that will crack their heads and spill blood on the great wall of steel built from the flesh and blood of 1.4 billion Chinese people. Very subtle stuff there. On Taiwan, she said that, quote,

Nobody should underestimate the staunch determination, firm will, and powerful capacity of the Chinese people to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Ben, anything in the speech surprised you? Any big takeaways generally from Xi Jinping in the 100th anniversary event? No. I mean, and like this, like from having kind of plumbed the depths of Xi Jinping ideology in working on my book, I mean, this is the direction that he has been going in for some time. And here's what I think people have to recognize about it. Like, one, like, he is a different figure than we have seen, you know, since Mao, really. I mean, in Deng Xiaoping, very strong leader through Tiananmen Square.

But then the Chinese leaders were the leaders of an autocratic party. But none of them, Hu Jintao, Zhang Zemin, none of them had this kind of cult of personality around them and were able to change the rules to essentially make themselves indistinguishable from the party. like Xi is the party, the party is Xi. There's a kind of cult of personality around him. Like that's a different strain of kind of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, than we've even seen. And it seems to be escalating as things go on. I think the other thing is this kind of determination to reject any foreign criticism whatsoever and to define kind of the most maximalist terms for their approach to Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Let's be clear here, right? China violated an international agreement in Hong Kong. They agreed when their handover took place to Chinese sovereignty that for the next 50 years, there would be one country, two systems, the people of Hong Kong would have their own system. They flagrantly violated that agreement. So this isn't a bunch of foreigners coming in and commenting on their internal affairs. This is a situation where against the wishes of the people of Hong Kong and that agreement and, frankly, just anybody who cares about human rights in the world, they're just crushing dissent there.

And the same thing in Taiwan, like there's been agreed upon U.S. policy, a one China policy, but implicit within that was that Taiwan and mainland China would have to work this out. Them just kind of developing the capacity to crush Taiwan and bend them to their will is not what anybody has signed up for either. So he's asking like the rest of the world to adjust to basically them being able to do whatever they want without any criticism whatsoever. And there's no way that the world. should adjust to that. As we've talked about it, whether that's the U.S. government or foreign

governments, where that's companies doing business in China, where that's civil society, where that's the entertainment industry. Like, he's trying to brush everybody back to just stay out of our business and let us do whatever we want. And I think the danger of that is if you look at what's happening in the Uyghurs and you look at what's happened in Hong Kong, like a government, a regime that has the capacity to do those things tends to do worse things in other places, whether it's within their own territory, whether it's in Taiwan, or whether it ends up being beyond their borders. So, I mean, like, I'm not, I don't want to sign us up for the Cold War. I think if we embrace a kind of national purpose in opposition to China in the same way we did to terrorism, that can lead to dark

places. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be taking very seriously that this is like, you know, this is not the China of even 20 years ago. This is a much more assertive and even aggressive leadership. Yeah. And you can see. freaking out the region. I mean, I saw a couple days ago, or maybe it was today, actually, Japan's deputy prime minister said that the country, Japan might need to defend Taiwan with the United States if the island was invaded because they're sort of seeing this as, you know, that could get to a point where their security is threatened and the existence and survival of Japan is threatened. So there's a lot of, I mean, hearing the Japanese deputy prime minister

say something like that, that explicitly was pretty shocking to me. And I, in a sign, I think of exactly what you just described about how this situation is different. She is different. People are nervous in a way they weren't necessarily before. Yeah, and they're being nervous for good reason. I mean, one of the things after Xi Jinping came to power is the way that the Chinese government had in the past talked about issues like Tibet that they saw as internal affairs. And suddenly the way in which they talked about not just Hong Kong and Taiwan, but even the South China Sea, which extends way beyond any internationally accepted version of China's borders, that began to change too.

And you started to see the Chinese building military structures on distant islands and claiming this whole entire body of water. And so you saw this idea of like their core interests and how they think about their sovereignty extending outward. And that has continued. And if you're sitting in Japan and you're thinking, well, I've seen this guy like basically crushed dissent and, Hong Kong and swallow that up, put a million people in concentration camps. If there's a military invasion of Taiwan that kind of goes really easily, you know, they just kind of roll the planes and tanks into Taiwan and that's it. You know, why wouldn't history suggest that an increasingly nationalist and assertive leadership that is, has total disregard for international opinion,

why wouldn't history suggest that they might not go further? Yeah. Or sort of like, you know, taking over natural resources and things that are not necessarily theirs alone. Yeah, I mean, there's a whole bunch of incremental steps that are before like war with Japan, but you're right. I mean, certainly the history suggests that this threat is growing. Another important, I think, related story out of China is a pattern we're starting to see of the Chinese government going after Chinese technology companies. So on Sunday, the Chinese government ordered the removal of D.D.,

which is basically an app that's Uber in China from its domestic app stores. The government accused DEDD of illegally collecting users personal information in what I called a grave violation of the law and regulation. I guess there were some rumors on Chinese social media sites that D.D. had turned over user data to the U.S. government. And this crackdown comes just days after D.D. IPOed on the New York Stock Exchange raised like $4.5 billion, the most in an IPO of a Chinese company since Alibaba in 2014. Of course, today the stock is way down. Alibaba is another company we've talked about before. They're basically often shorthanded as the Amazon of China. And the Chinese government fined them $2.75 billion back in April.

And then last year, we talked about another incident where Alibaba founder, Jack Ma, criticized Chinese regulators right before a planned IPO of a financial services company. He runs called the Ant Group. That IPO was blocked by the government. Jack Ma disappeared for several months and just sort of popped up recently. in January, I believe, and now he has agreed to allowing the central bank to regulate ant financial. So, Ben, one Bloomberg report I saw estimated that the blocked ant financial IPO meant it lost $70 billion in value in the process, $70 with a B billion.

So again, like the she speech in this story, I think are pieces of the same puzzle, right? Like Jack Ma was this billionaire, powerful person. He criticized the government. slap down disappears for months. Ants financial, this company threatened banks because they lented money in a different way. They get slapped down. They get regulated. Like anyone who's threatening Xi or the Communist Party is getting checked hard.

And I guess my question to you is like, I don't know, we're seeing this behavior, right? We're seeing this like aggressive behavior in Hong Kong. We're now seeing this huge risk to corporations that are trying to do business in China, even Chinese businesses. do you think that's going to wake some of these companies up that we've been talking about, right? Because like the ESPNs of the world, the ABCs, others still seem to be bowing to them and censoring content and things because they want to get to the Chinese market. But it does seem like Xi Jinping is sending the message that like, I could crush your company. I could suck away $70 billion worth of value and there's just nothing you could do about it. I mean, I think the basic premise is, and this is, again, people have to recognize this is somewhat new.

Like, I think there's the tendency to think, well, they've always been autocratic. Well, but they tolerated somewhat private companies like Alibaba in China that could generate wealth, having some freedom of action and governance. And they tolerated, to some extent, foreign companies that had different practices. But what we've seen in the last few years is the Chinese government essentially saying, we are the board of every company that operates in China. Yeah. That at the end of the day, if you don't do everything we say, and if we don't,

you don't presumably have access to all your data and essentially have a vote. And they actually mandated that there be a Chinese Communist Party representative on these boards. Then you can't do business here. And oh, by the way, if you're a foreign company, you know, you're going to have to play by our rules too. And look, this is a major shift. And if you're a U.S. business and you're looking at this, you have to be thinking, what is the direction that this is going? Right, because already the Chinese are making no bones about being more intrusive in people who are investing in China or operating in China. The U.S. government is getting more concerned and is starting to try to put restrictions

over whether you can invest in in Jingjing province, where obviously you have the U.S. Genocide taking place, or whether U.S. investments can flow to Chinese surveillance technologies or companies that are dominated by the Chinese military, that's a pretty wide swath of companies here. If you're a U.S. tech company, can you store your data in China and know that it's secure, right? There's so many issues implicated here because the U.S. and Chinese economies are so intermingled. I think the main takeaway we have to wrestle with here is that the Chinese government has kind of demonstrated and drawn lines and said, anybody doing business here is kind of subject to our control. And what U.S. businesses can still

operate in China. Obviously, some are still going to be operating, but like, where do we draw these lines? You know, this word you hear a lot, obviously, decoupling. What do we not want to be subject to that kind of control? What do we have to protect for national security purposes? Are there supply chains that we need to be secure like the pharmaceutical supply chains that allow us to develop vaccines with that dependence on China? The semiconductors, you know, those chips that are so essential to every thing you use from the computer. in your car to your phone that are heavily manufactured in Taiwan, do we need to be building our own semiconductor industry? So this is a wonky issue, but it's kind of one of the defining issues

of the next decade. And the Biden team has prioritized this. And I think what you're going to see is, frankly, less and less U.S. businesses in China in the same way that they have been in the past and this kind of disentangling really of certain supply chains, particularly those involved with technology. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. You know, one way the Biden team has tried to respond to China is through sanctions. And the Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece today, Tuesday, about President Biden's plan to rethink and revamp the way the U.S. uses sanctions in an effort to reduce, you know, economic damage that can harm average people in a lot of countries and try to ensure that these

sanctions are being used in concert with allies and not just unilaterally. So this is part of this broader review. It's supposedly going to be finished near the end of the summer. Ben, you know, I think you could argue that sanctions have been over-use. used by both Democratic and Republican presidents in the Trump era, right? They supercharged the use of sanctions, and they often viewed them seemingly as an end of themselves. And, you know, guys like Mike Pompeo would brag about how U.S. sanctions were going to destroy the economy in Venezuela or Iran or sort of name your boogeyman country. What do you think the result of this review should be?

Like, what do you think the U.S. can or should do to change the way we use sanctions to make it just better, smarter, more effective? I mean, number one, there's just a general over. use, which everybody reaches for sanctions to show that they're doing something that undermines their effectiveness, frankly, undermines like the U.S. being like the dollar being the reserve currency around the world because people are like, America has all this leverage on these sanctions that they just keep overusing. Maybe we should look for alternatives, whether it's Bitcoin or the Chinese currency. That said, when I unpack it, the sanctions I'm most concerned about are the ones where we just kind of pile on sanctions on a country in the whole

hopes that that will change things there. Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, and people can start, you know, adding me about, like, how bad those regimes are. I'm saying, what about the results? Like, what has been achieved? Like, if you look at this sanctions regime, I mean, Cuba is the most extreme example, like 60 years of just punishing these people and grinding them into extreme poverty. And there's no political benefit to it in Cuba.

if your goal was to remove the Cuban Communist Party, they're more entrenched. Same thing with Nicholas Maduro and Venezuela. Same thing with Iran. So I think... No, Ben, in Iran, we got a much, much worse president. We got a worse president, and they resume their nuclear program when we ratchet back up the sanctions. And so... Oh, no, that's bad.

You're right. To me, it's like these comprehensive sanctions regimes that we just throw out a country and leave in place forever, that's the most extreme overuse. And to admit that to ourselves, to admit that this is my whole... thing on Cuba, that the underlying premise of the policy was fundamentally flawed, which is that isolating a country and just sanctioning them into submission will get them to change. I think where sanctions are important and useful is when you really go after individuals or entities who are responsible for bad things. And so that's what we've done in Belarus,

what we've done with Putin Circle, what we've done even with some Chinese officials, I actually think those sanctions would have greater weight if it wasn't like the U.S. is just throwing sanctions out the door constantly, right? So there's a place for sanctions to be this targeted tool of imposing consequences on people, of marking people as bad actors in the international financial system. But we do ourselves a disservice when, you know, we are also, like there was a, like, the Cuban baseball team couldn't travel to a tournament because of sanction. Like, what are we doing here, guys?

Like, yeah. And so the overuse to punish whole populations is where I would focus is. Yeah. A couple more stories before we get to some lighter stuff at the end. So the last time I think we probably talked about Lebanon was shortly after that massive explosion in Beirut last August that killed approximately 200 people and just decimated parts of the capital. Now, today, Lebanon is in the midst of a financial crisis that the World Bank says could be among the worst it is seen in nearly 200 years in terms of the impact on just living standards, people's lives. And Lebanon's currency has lost 90% of its value since 2019. So, you know, there's some great reporting on this recently about residents struggling to find food, medicine, waiting in hours and hours long gasoline lines.

Even the richest people in the country are enduring frequent blackouts in, you know, super hot weather. Shortly after the explosion happened, the government resigned, the cabinet resigned. But I guess it's just still hanging on there as his caretaker government because the political factions in Lebanon can't agree on a new government to take over. So basically you have the same goons with less power. doing less. So it's even worse. Lots of people are leaving the country. I mean, Ben, I know, like, again, Biden's got a ton on his plate. He's got COVID. He's got a billion things. But have you seen any discussions, conversations, anything helpful about what the international community could or should be doing to assist with Lebanon right now and help it from, prevent it from completely collapsing?

I know there had been talk about maybe some sort of loan. Yeah. But that was contingent on, a government change, some reforms, preventing corruption. I just, I don't know where that is at this point. I think that there's always this chicken and egg situation in these circumstances where like the stabilization packages that come from, you know, the IMF or the World Bank or international lending institutions are so onerous. They require, you know, massive rises and prices and, you know, restructuring of the economy that it's no coincidence that nobody wants to be in the new government to recede to that kind of thing. But that said, the international community is also right to say,

well, we don't want to just shove a bunch of money into a bunch of incredibly corrupt people who will spend the money and make no changes to try to improve the circumstance. And so it leads to this kind of stalemate. But here's how I look at this. Like, the situation is so dire. And I think the reality is that Lebanon has had to shoulder the burden

of a lot of shit that, you know, when you look at a million references, Fugies living there. You look at how they've been impacted by the proxy war in their own country, but it's surrounding them. I think that the, the Annie is a little higher on the international community to not just come in with like the traditional package that says, you know, you have to take all this medicine. And I think there has to be a little bit more incentive here and a little more just assistance

to kind of help meet some of the basic needs in the country. obviously should be attached to efforts to try to reduce corruption and establish some kind of technocratic governing entity that can get beyond this mixture of sectarian politics and corruption that's paralyzed country. I'd say that it's not easy. But to me, like that, I think that there should be a little bit more generosity in terms of how the world is looking at this and a concerted effort to try to not win some sectarian competition in the composition next government, but like that.

like, get some people in there who can just kind of have some technocratic expertise to stabilize things, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's been like, what, 10 months, basically, since a near nuclear explosion in the capital of this country. And, God, it's just clearly not nearly enough has been done to help them get back on their feet. Here's an idea for a country that could cut a big check ban, Saudi Arabia. So, according to the Associated Press on Tuesday, the Biden administration hosted a delegation from Saudi Arabia that included one of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman's brothers, I think he's

the deputy defense minister. So these talks were mostly with leaders of the Pentagon. The Saudi delegation also met with Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, a bunch of others at the State Department. Topics reportedly included the war in Yemen and the Iran nuclear deal. This was the highest level Saudi visit since the intelligence community released its report into the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government at the behest of Muhammad bin Salman or MBS. So Ben, I think you and I had a very similar initial reaction to this news, which was not announced. It just sort of was reported out, which is just gross. Yeah. Gross. Shitty, shitty gross people. But I also understand that, you know, we have to work with the Saudis on a bunch

of important stuff. What do you make of this meeting? Too soon has to happen. Like, I don't know, If you're in government and you're just, you know, being pushed into some sort of like real politic mindset, like where does this land? I just look, Tommy, I continue to come down that like I can't, you know, write a book like I just wrote about democracy basically being, receding everywhere, this kind of rising tide of authoritarianism and America's, you know, diminished credibility in speaking up for democracy. I just don't think you can do this and say that, you know, we're back, we're promoting democracy. I, you know, it's hard. I get, look, I'm sure the Biden people might say, hey, Ben, what about Lebanon? You're just talking about this. These Saudis can write big checks for Lebanon.

We got to talk to them and get them. I get that. But at a certain point, like, you just have to say, like, because this guy's, MBS's brother, very close advisor, like this is basically the closest thing to having MBS, you know, in the country. Yeah. I wouldn't do it. And if you have to talk to him, you can talk to him. You can send someone, you know, a diplomat to Riyadh.

Like, it just conveys a sense of a gradual normalization of the Saudi government and governing family. Let's give them mind. This is a group of people that violated the most basic human right possible, the right to be alive in a third country with an opinion, you know. And at the same time that we're saying. we all have to sanction Belarus over diverting an airliner to silence a critic, to have the people that silence a critic in Washington, it just undercuts that message.

And I'm sympathetic to how hard this is, but I just think at a certain point, give yourself the clarity of saying, like, you know what, we're for democracy and there's just a higher threshold for who we engage because we recognize it sends a message to the world. So, again, I'm sure they're doing, you know, that they're trying to get. get them to end the war in Yemen and to contribute on Lebanon and what have you. But frankly, they should be doing that anyway. They shouldn't be doing that as a favor to us. And they can't do the war in Yemen without us. I think, like, you know, drawing some lines with these folks is ultimately going to be more effective in the long run anyway, even if it creates a lot of problems in the

short run. Yeah, maybe do this one via Skype. I don't know. What do I know? I've been out of government in a long time. A couple Olympic things to close out. If you can't announce the meeting, it's a bit of a tell that maybe, you know, like, yeah, yeah, that kind of jumped out of me too. Okay, some Olympic stuff, Olympic rab bag here. So one story that caught my eye, Bloomberg had the piece about how unbelievably difficult it is for a lot of the athletes to get to Japan for the games this year because of

COVID restrictions in airline schedules generally. Did you see this? So the athletes from Fiji had to fly on a cargo plane that normally. transport seafood. That was the only way they could get there. Some teams had to fly literally thousands of miles in the wrong direction because the cities where they would normally connect won't allow them in because their countries have high COVID cases. There have been some incidents of athletes testing positive for coronavirus after they get to Japan. So just really rough on these athletes. It sucks. We feel for them. Also, maybe just as exhausting as the game's been

is the impending conversation about efforts to censor protests at the Olympics. So the rules are a little, they're hard to follow this year. The U.S. Olympic Committee said it will not punish protests or speech at the Olympics as long as it's not attacking or targeting a group. The IOC says you can express your views before or after competition, but not during events, not during victory ceremonies, or at the Olympic Village. So you really don't have freedom to protest. already we are seeing right-wing idiots making up reasons to be mad.

Today it was our old friend Rick Grinnell and a bunch of his buddies trying to claim that some members of the U.S. women's soccer team turned away from a veteran who was playing the national anthem on a harmonica, I believe. It turns out the women on the U.S. soccer team turned to face the American flag, which is what I assume Rick Cornell wants. Yeah, yeah. This is just the perfect example, right, of how. These are right-wing trolls who want to be mad about something, and there's no facts can change that. Any thoughts on how we all can prevent these assholes from politicizing the sports we love and just, you know, like tune them out, these bad faith criticisms, et cetera? No. I don't either.

I got nothing. Well, I guess what I've got is it like, can we just be like fucking into our athletes? Like, you know, we want this when the U.S. women's team won the soccer World Cup. And it's like, I thought the patriotic thing used to be like rooting for your people and being excited when they win, not like demanding that they align complete with, look, there are going be some athletes who win who don't agree with my politics. Like, I'll be glad, like, that America won some competition. Like, like, the idea that, you know, you're going to apply this kind of Rick Grinnell test

to athletes who, by the way, like, and I thought a lot of. by this time. I like the creative athletes and creative people like they're they're not like by and large maga types because the kind of like free thinking and innovation and creativity that it takes to excel as an athlete in a lot of sports and certainly as a creator like doesn't lend itself to being like you know some maga disciple like just fucking deal with that. I mean it's like it's like these people are still mad that they weren't like athletes in high school or something and and they're like they're taking it out on the world.

Like, just leave us alone. I mean, this is a different one, but like, their search for this is what is so insane. Like, I saw some controversy in Fox recently, like, Macy Gray had said, we need, like, a new flag or something. I haven't thought about Macy Gray in about 15 years, you know, but, like, they'll just take any athlete, like, yeah, they're not like, I mean, it's kind of fascistic. Like, these athletes are not, like, robotically, you know, genuflecting before the flag sufficiently so we will cancel them. Like, it's kind of very un-American. It is un-American.

I mean, I'm glad the U.S. Olympic Committee changed its rules to allow for protests. It's obviously the American thing to do. I think the IOC is stupid. Obviously, the substance abuse rules are ridiculous. The fact that testing positive for marijuana can get you thrown at the Olympics is possibly the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But, yeah, it is just a good reminder that there's going to be a bunch of right-wingerers who want to politicize sports, who want to tell mostly black athletes

how or when they can say what they want to say and that they are trolls, they don't care about the facts, I think we're probably going to have to, I don't think we can shout them down to you might have to tune them out and just support these athletes when they need us because,

you know, Fox and Friends is going to try to waste your time and pull you into a conversation that's about their version of America and accepting all the things they believe and it's just not how the country works. Well, and ask yourself why these protests are happening in the first place.

Like the Olympics have been going on for a long time. Like there's a reason. There's more protest now because there's more to be upset about. There's more injustice. There's more inequality. There's more racial injustice. And athletes are reflective of the society in that regard. I do think, Tommy, it's, like, important that we get the back of the athletes that they get kind of canceled by the right.

Because, you know, as much as I would like these things to be resolved through kind of like just the competition of democracy, the reality is the right is going to try to impose an economic cost on athletes who, express themselves and deny them, following, deny them, sponsorship deals. And frankly, I think it's important, as was done with like Megan Rapino, that the rest of us lift up that athlete and say, no, actually.

Like, you have an audience. You have people who have your back. Because then that allows other athletes to be confident that they're not going to lose their whole career by saying what they think. So it may sound like on appetizing that it's kind of a capitalist way of supporting athletes. But I do think it's just we need to send a signal

that people can't get canceled for protesting. Yeah, I agree for just talking about what you believe. Okay, in a more fun vein, Ben, I just went through the entire list on the team USA.org website today and just pulled out three athletes just for fun. I'm going to tell you about them, and we all can just find them and root for them whenever they come on the TV. I know nothing about their beliefs. They just seem cool to me.

So here's one. Lex Gillette. He's from North Carolina. He got me with the name. He's competing. Got me with the name. Badass name. competing in the long jump in the Paralympic Games.

He is the best totally blind long jumper and triple jumper in the history of the U.S. Paralympics. He's the current world record holder in the long jump where he jumped 22 feet, 22 feet. Fucking incredible. Here's another one to remember, another name to remember. Vashti Cunningham. She is from Las Vegas, Nevada. She competed in Rio in 2016.

And that's her one time in the Olympics. you might have heard of her dad who was Randall Cunningham. Oh, an absolutely badass NFL quarterback. Yeah, the family is just obscenely athletic. She's competing in the high jump, if I forgot to say that, from Bishop Corbin High School in Las Vegas. So that is the name I will watch. Last one, Anita Alvarez.

I did alphabetically bend. She was the first one I saw. She's from Kenmore, New York, competing as a synchronized swimmer. her bio on the Team USA site includes the fact that she stepped on Michelle Obama's foot during a White House visit. So we wanted to give her a shout out and let her know that I'm sure Michelle was cool with that. Anita, we are rooting for you here on Ponce of the World. So tweeted us.

We want to hear more about you. And if folks out there have any athletes, they want to nominate, I want to all Team USA today. But if there's athletes from around the world, they want to talk about, nominate to get talked about, let us know. And just remind yourself that one of the cool things about learning all these athletes, stories is like they come from all these different places that you don't know you learn about places you learn about different experiences or people having the country it's one of the things that knits together like a sense of national identity because these people like America like are made up of incredible differences which is very cool and then globally you learn this story of these

athletes like I want to know that I want someone to make the documentary about the Fiji team that had to fly on the cargo plane you know like yeah it's just a great way to learn about your fellow human beings you know that's why I love the analytics totally Lexington Jolette, Vashti Cunningham, Anita Alvarez, Ponce of the World stamp of approval. Blind, I mean, to be, to excel at something like that, you know, without your eyesight, like, you know. Yeah, so I was reading about him. I guess, you know, he started to have sort of deterioration in his, in his eyes at about age eight, had ten surgeries that over time became fully blind and just sort of like learned to compete, practice, train in all these events by sort of, I think having a parent sort of like coach you with sound about where to run and how to, you know, sort of correct yourself if you veer off course.

It's just an unbelievable thing to adapt to be able to do and ultimately jump 22 feet in the air. Just astounding. So anyway, excited about the Olympics. I can't wait to watch the games. And when we come back from this break, we'll have Ben's interview with Rana Ayub about efforts by the Indian government to silence her to silence dissent generally. So stick around for that. Well, we are very pleased to be joined again by my friend Rana Ayyub, who's an Indian journalist and a Washington Post Global Opinions writer and one of the most tenacious and incredible journalists I've met.

Rana, thanks so much for joining us again. Always a pleasure to be talking to your Ben and to be on the show back again. Yeah. So a lot happened, obviously, in India, but with you as well. And so I really wanted to just start by bringing our listeners up to date with the charges you are facing, really just over a tweet. So could you kind of give us just the background of basically what's happened to the last couple of weeks, why you are facing these charges and what they are? Well, Ben, it's been like the most dramatic three weeks for me. So around the 14th of June, there was this video of a hate crime against a Muslim man.

And we are familiar with hate crimes happening against Muslims in India. So there appeared a video on social media where a Muslim man was being beaten up and his beard was chopped. And a couple of hours later, another video was posted in with this man apparently did a Facebook live and he said he was made to chant the Hindu slogan, glory to Lord Ram, Jashir Ram. So everybody spoke about it. the Indian Express, Times of India, Republic, Times now, every Indian news channel, every publication, every journalist that existed in the country, I saw it. I also tweeted saying, you know, this is humiliating and this just numbed me that, you know, an old man has been attacked in this way.

And the next, and of course, the entire Twitter was outraged. Every was outraged because, you know, you see an elderly man being beaten mercilessly. and he himself is saying that he was made to chant religious slogans and the hate crime. So we all tweeted about it. Next day, the state police put out a tweet saying that we have arrested people. I mean, this is not the version of the story. To be on the safer side, a lot of us deleted that tweet. Although the mainstream media news channels, a lot of publications still have that tweet on, still have those stories on.

Because every publication in India spoke about it. But a first information report, we were booked, I along with two other journalists, with a politician, with a social activist, and a news publication, and Twitter, were booked for promoting communal enmity and creating a riot-like situation and basically upsetting the harmony of the nation. And I'm like, hang on, what does it even mean? One, we deleted the tweet. We also said that, you know, there's a,

the victim has said, you have to hear his story. And please investigate the case thoroughly, like any other journalist would have said. And the next day, I had to, there was huge, I was in television channels all day. Although they were many accused, the one picture, one person whose picture went down throughout the day on multiple news channels was mine. And my father, who has had two brainstrokes, was dementia. And, you know, he was watching and he broke down. He said, what's happening to my daughter? So my lawyer said, and everybody started clamoring on social media,

saying, arrest these people, these journalists, especially me, they have been trying to defame India on an international level. These are people, like somebody from the right wing in India specifically wrote, this is the woman who wrote the Time magazine cover. This is the woman who went on BBC and CNN. She must be arrested for defaming in India, all sorts, God knows what. And I, as a precautionary measure, I approached the Bombay High Court and got bail. I was asked to switch off my phone.

And it felt like I was censoring my own voice, but there was nothing wrong. I did not promote. I'm somebody who's been doing relief work for migrants and laborers between last year and this year. I broke my spine doing that. So to be accused of promoting communal inemnity. And so I have recorded my statement before the cops today. and when I was exiting the police station, the media, the way they hounded me saying,

what do you feel about your tweet? I was made to feel like, hang on, am I a criminal? What does it even mean? And the people who were questioning me, the news publication, themselves tweeted about the same incident, and they are yet to delete that tweet. So I'm just trying to look at the privilege of being a mainstream media publication

who are not publishing critical stories. While this was happening, I received multiple summons from central government agencies who I cannot disclose now because it's still under investigation. The summons were sent to me, the summons were sent to my sister, the summons were sent to my father who was a 75-year-old man who does not remember half of the things. And when I appeared before the agencies yesterday for five hours,

the questions that were asked to me were, why do you only work for international media? Who owns Washington Post? And I said, hang on, just Google. and you will know who wants Washington Post. I'm joining Substack, so I was asked who gave me the job offer, did Substack approach me or I approached Substack?

I was asked to provide emails of my email and of my email exchange, of my exchanges with Substact. I was asked if Washington Post deliberately was trying to create discontent in India, was trying to malign Marendra Modi's image. I was asked, why did I write the Time magazine cover? And I'm trying to understand

since when did journalism become a crime? And these are agencies which are supposed to deal with criminals. And here am I being asked questions about my journalism. So this is so crazy. So basically, just to summarize, there's a very prominent attack on this elderly man. Lots of people are tweeting about it. You're one of them. You and a couple of other journalists and three Congress politicians are basically charged

with kind of inciting intercommunal violence just because you tweeted about this attack. And you're the focus of this, and I'll get back to that. But what risk are you facing? I mean, what is, what do these charges carry with it? What do you think that, well, yeah, just like what is the extent of the risk that you currently face for just being a journalist who tweeted? I face probably depending on how the investigation goes. There could be a jail sentence for three to six years, depending on how the investigation goes

and depending on whether they find my answer is satisfactory or not. The moment I left the police station today, I got a call. I have a very frantic call from my sister. She said, why am I getting notices? And I said, what have you done? She said, I don't know why am I getting notices? And that completely, you know, I have to now, I'm running from pillar to post to fight multiple cases.

And I'm like, it's not that I don't know what will be the outcome of it. But one thing is for sure, for the next few days, weeks, I won't be able to do any journalism because you are we have fight the case against you have sent summons to my father. I have to appear on his behalf because he's suffering from dementia. I have no idea ever. It's a very uncertain future Ben. I really don't know. I really don't know if I could be jailed. I really don't know if I will not be jailed. I really don't know what the price my family will have to pay. I really don't know what's the price that I will have to pay. I don't know how probably I'll be maligned in multiple publications. Probably there will be leaks to media. I have no idea.

But the attempt and the intent certainly seems to be intimidation. And that seems to be working. Well, you know, it's – and this seems connected in a way, although you never know exactly why things happen. But you did publish this Time magazine cover about, you know, the Modi government's kind of failure to prepare for and respond to this wave of COVID. tell people, because I noticed this on Twitter myself, but what the kind of response to that piece was from, you know, the kind of pro-Mody media, trolls and the apparatus in India,

and how that might be connected to the pressure you're under now. So when I published the Time magazine cover, and subsequently I wrote this piece for Washington Post, and then I was appearing on CNN and BBC on multiple shows, there was a Twitter train on how I was working for the CIA Now, I am just trying to understand how bizarre that is, that how the CIA is trying to destabilize India using journalists like me and also naming other publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post and the BBC,

accusing every international publication of discrediting Modi and maligning his image for his mismanagement of COVID-19. Or somebody who's a very pro-government lackey, Mr. Mohandah Spy, He goes on one of India's leading news channel, Times Now, and calls me by name a vulture journalist for printing pictures of crematoriums on the cover of Time magazine. And he calls and Times Now does an entire one-hour show and how international media, whether it is New York Times, World Street Journal, Limog, the Australian, everybody seems to have an agenda. And as somebody who has often been vocal of my criticism of Narendra Modi, I seem to have been picked up for this task that, you know, and it's not the first time somebody who's written a Time Magazine cover has been picked up. Artishti, who wrote a Time magazine cover called On Modi,

which was called Divider in Chief, I remember, he said on Twitter that his OCI card, his residency card to India was revoked. Now that's reasons known best to show. him, but he says it was censorship. In my case, I know there's nothing that they have done related, but everything seems to have started with Twitter trolls saying, investigate Rana, you, tagging various agencies saying, please send summons to her. And then ironically, the summons come to me. So I wonder if these Twitter trolls, these right-winger, are literally running the narrative. And I am clearly paying the price of my reportage during the second wave of the Delta variant,

because me and multiple other journalists who are being stellar reporting, I think some of a lot of ground journalists have been putting India and India story that the world needs to know. And I spoke about the undercounting of deaths, that the way deaths in India were being, I spoke on your show as well on the podcast. I went to the Christianaman for show. I went on BBC. I went on multiple every news channel. And I spoke about what I saw on the ground.

Now, that's what journalists need to do. They need to speak truth to power. I have done nothing. I have written a cover which was widely read. So it is not something that I have reported on previous regimes also in the Congress regime before Narendra Modi was in power. I have criticized earlier regimes also. That is my job as a journalist. I'm not here to be somebody's cheerleader. I'm here as a true patriot of this country. My job demands that I speak for people of this country, not for those who govern me. So I thought I was speaking for the people of this country. I was giving them a voice. I was being a voice for the voiceless. Never did I think that there would be a backlash of this nature. I mean, it's interesting to me too because, you know, Narendra Modi uses Twitter to great

effect, as does his following. And yet here he is kind of trying to make Twitter an enemy and control it. Narendra Modi courts positive coverage for. from Time magazine. So what's very interesting about this kind of blend of someone who kind of got elected in a democracy and wants to use the organs of the media to suit himself while controlling them, it feels like a much more, particularly with Twitter where he's kind of essentially aiming to be able to determine what's on the platform and what's not.

It feels like he's trying to turn these, you know, what are usually seen as democracy. democratic institutions, the media, into kind of an authoritarian mouthpiece in a way. Absolutely. I mean, I am not, I'm not the least bit sympathetic towards Twitter because I'm like, you guys have been enabling dreams all over the world. So I have no sympathy for Twitter for that matter. But I do believe that what is happening, what is what the government's reaction to Twitter is basically an attack on free speech. Now, Indians were really celebrating and the world was celebrating when Twitter suspended the account of Donald Trump. So if Twitter flags the tweets of BJP ministers, of ministers in the government who are publishing fake news and Twitter labels it as manipulated media, that should not be labeled a crime. That is not a crime. And a fact-checking website in India called Alt News published an entire narrative on how the ruling party published fake videos, which are later shared on Twitter.

There was an offensive against Altnews for doing this fact check and labeling them as kind of enablers of the opposition, enablers of Twitter and running a foreign agenda. So it seems like the government is trying to hit too many targets with the same stone. It's trying to target Twitter. It's trying to target journalists who have been dissenters. Mr. Modi needs to decide for himself. He speaks at the G7 summit, talks about freedom of speech, freedom of expression, talks about not censoring internet, not censoring, talking about democratic values. But here, on the other hand, you are punishing people for one tweet selectively. You are sending summons to journalists.

I need to understand what kind of free speech is this. And why should I? I am telling, I know for a fact, Ben, that I'm giving this interview. And when this is published, there's going to be a backlash. I'll be accused of some kind of, but I'm speaking. I know there will be a backlash and I've still chosen to speak to you today because my silence has far too long been seen as my complicity. My silence is not my complicity.

I have been trying to cooperate with the law. I respect the law of the land, which is why I've been silent for the last three weeks. But I had to speak out in the Washington Post and I have to speak to you because my silence is being construed as somebody who has taken responsibility. for actually maligning Modi, somebody who's actually spreading communal disarmony in the country. My silence is enabling fake news in the country about this entire case. My silence is making sure that I come across as an accused rather than a victim. So I am breaking my silence and I know there will be consequences.

I know that there could be possible consequences from the government. There could be consequences from the investigating agency. there could be consequences from my family. But that's what journalism is about. We do not, we do not, and we cannot be silenced by intimidation. And if these people who are trying to silence me believe that they can intimidate me, then I would not be doing the journalism all this while that I'm doing. It's a choice that I've made.

How do you make that choice? I'm sure a lot of people listening around on the one end, you're just, you're operating like a journalist and a democracy. You have done anything different than any journalists in any, and any democracy would do. You report on things. Sometimes you comment on things, have opinions about things, none of which are outside of like really the normal discourse in most democracies. And yet it feels like the whole world is changing around you.

But how do you get that motivation to speak out and to keep going? I mean, and to take take those risks. Where does that come from? I don't know, Ben. Honestly, some days I do break down. Like today, I was at the police station. I was dealing with my mom calling me saying, your dad wants a video,

call you to check if you're okay because you're going to the cop because you were sitting at the investigation agency yesterday before I flew to Delhi. My sister is calling saying, listen, I received us notice. My brother is calling because my lawyers back in Bombay are calling. And I'm like,

you know what, is it really worth it? Let me just lead a comfortable life. Let me just take a fellowship and go somewhere and just disappear. But then there are people who write emails to me saying the series of hope in me. And I see me. me and other many unsung journalists, local media, who might be censored by gatekeepers as

the ray of hope in a country, the world's largest democracy, which is trying to retain freedom of speech in the country, which is trying to retain a semblance of freedom of expression in the country. Running away is not the solution. Running away, I mean, I have a, I have a responsibility to this profession. I just cannot run away when it gets difficult. If I choose, when I get all the awards and I feel I bask in the glory of it. When I'm when I'm when I'm when I'm appreciated I bask in the glory. So yes, these are tough times and have to face it. There are people random strangers and Instagram and Twitter and who send out tweets to me saying I want to name my daughter after you. And that feels like instantly in that moment you're like how do you let these

people down? They trust you. They trust you to speak true to power. How do you let them down? There are people in this country and it's not just about my community which I have often accused of including by the investigating agencies, if I report certain things because I'm a Muslim. No, I do not. Yes, I happen to be a part of the community. Yes, this is my lived experience. And nobody can deny my lived experience,

but I also speak for the marginalized. I want to be the voice of the voiceless. And this is not a journalism that I started yesterday. I've been doing this journalism for the last 14 years. So yes, I don't know what keeps me going, Ben, but there's nothing better that I think that I can do in life. Yeah. It's just to do what I do is to write and report.

And I don't know if anything else do in life. I don't have any other skills that, I guess. But I think there are people in this country who really want me to do this. And I think I'm doing it for them. This is the government might consider it anti-national, but I consider it the highest form of patriotism. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think so.

And knowing you, I mean, you know, it's, you have an incredible kind of spirit that just motivates you forward. You know, one of the complicated things I was going to ask you, what can people do who, you know, feel a sense of solidarity with you? What would you like journalists to be doing to support you in India and around the world? The complicated thing, right, is it, as in lots of cases where there's an authoritarian bent to things, the support you get from out of the country is cast as nefarious as, you know, undermining of India when it's not. It's just people who want to support journalism everywhere, want to support the idea of the truth everywhere, want to support people who are giving voice to the voiceless everywhere. So how do you balance that? What do you say to people who want to express solidarity, want to support you, recognizing that any support that you get from out of the country can be, you know, distorted there?

I mean, what would you say to people about the ways in which they can support press freedom in India and, and, you know, you know, just distorted there? And Ron, you have been this difficult moment. Right. I think, Ben, anybody who speaks the unpopular truth anywhere in the world, I mean, they will be labeled, they will be given labels, they will be called agents of a certain regime, they will be called, they will be accused of destabilizing. But I believe that the unpopular truth has to be spoken time and again, because it's, the unpopular truth needs to amplify it.

I find myself complicit in not speaking enough sometimes for fellow journalists across the world, whether they're in Philippines or whether they're in Turkey, these are journalists who we need to speak more often about. Probably I don't speak as much about them as I should be. I have found myself complicit of not probably speaking louder for my colleagues in India as I should have, although I've tried my best. I think it's not just about me, Ben.

I think everybody in the world should be considered for press freedom in the country because if the world's largest democracy goes down under, then ripples will be filled by the way. world. It's not something that only India will have to suffer. It will have consequences for the world. So I think every journalist in the country, everybody who believes in freedom of expression, freedom of free speech should speak not just for me, but also every journalist in the country who's trying to do their respective job. Should speak for journalists all over the world who is trying to do their respective jobs in the face of immense pressure. And that's the least we can do.

I know we will always be, I will be demonized. I know I, I know. I, I know a part of a section of people will always see me as the villain, but I'm not here to be popular. I mean, nobody wants to be. I'm not here. Like, I always say this. I don't want to be popular. Yes, I know I'm going to be demonized for this. I'm going to be demonized for this. I'm giving another interview to another international publication, but that's how it is. That's how truth is. Truth is not glamorous. Truth is not good looking. Truth is how it should be. Yeah. Well, you know, it's a convenient way to silence people. It's just, You can't do. I mean, you know, I hope you know that all that, all that trolling, all that,

that hate is more reflection of the people that do it and has no reflection on you whatsoever, Rana. Absolutely. Well, look, thanks so much for keeping us updated. We will keep our attention on this. I will say that this does feel like kind of ground zero for press freedom in the world. as you say, the world's largest democracy is so precious to democracy globally. And I should say to people, you know, given the risk you're willing to take, I think that that makes all of us, should make all of us consider in this country

and other countries, people listen to this podcast around the world. You know, we can do better by press freedom and democracy too. But thanks so much, Ron, for joining us. Any last words you want to leave us with here? We'll be watching your case and keeping in touch, of course. I just want to tell the world that I cannot be silenced. So anybody who is trying to intimidate me, anybody who is trying to pressurize me, anybody who thinks that all these mind games will kind of silence me.

No, I'm not going to be silenced. I'm starting a new gig beginning 15th of July. I'm going to be on the ground. I'm going to be reporting. I'm going to speak for the people. So nothing that I do will ever stop. And I stand with the people of this country. And I stand for free speech.

And I always will. And where can people follow your work? I'll be, the Washington Post, obviously. Yes. I'll be starting, I'll be starting my own substack from the 15th of July where people can find me, where people can find my reports.

I'll be starting investigations, long-form reportage, interviews. 15th of July, besides Washington Post, people can find me on substack. That's my entry. Which is why I was also asked by the investigating agency, what is substack? So for all those who are watching, that's where I will be from the 15th of July. Yeah. And Substack is something that allows people to have a voice wherever they are. Absolutely.

So people should definitely check that out. Okay. Well, thanks so much, Rana, and we'll be in touch and we'll keep our attention on this. Thank you so much for having me, Ben, as always. Thanks again to Rana for joining the show. Thanks to all the people who lit off fireworks before 11 p.m. I'm a little less psyched with all the people who lit them up after 11 p.m. you know, preferably don't do it near a, a Tinder box of a palm tree. So a couple of videos

those, not good. We'll too dry out here, Ben. My grandfather, who was like, you know, like in New York, Jewish, hard living, fun guy, he had like a saying in life that, and he was talking about two in the morning, which is much later than 11 p.m. But he was always like, if you can't get it done by two in the morning, you shouldn't be out anymore, you know. You can adjust that a little earlier. You're probably adjusted it to midnight, but it's a pretty good rule to live by. There's a certain point where if, like, you have not achieved the goal of the evening, whether it involved fireworks or ingesting substances or whatever it is, you know, falling in love to put it gently, like, it's time to go home, you know. And so if the people in Venice who were putting off fireworks at

three o'clock in the morning, if you hadn't gotten that done by midnight, like, you should probably just not do it. You hadn't gotten your fill of explosions. Yeah. Words to live by. 2 a.m. I like that. That's it for the show this week.

Talk to you guys next week. Pod Save the World is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez. Our producer is Jordan Waller. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Kyle Seiglin is our sound engineer. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Yale Freed, and Phoebe Bradford, who film and share our episodes as videos each week.