Pod Save the World - Zawahiri is dead, Pelosi's in Taiwan

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

Tommy and Ben cover the drone strike against Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Speaker Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan, the latest news from Ukraine, including the debate over adding Russia to the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, news about Russian intelligence operations in the US, Trump weighs in on Brittney Griner’s case, excerpts from a wild profile of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, why there’s tensions between Kosovo and Serbia and the first ever international take appreciators. 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 POTC of the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben, we got a little geographic role reversal today. I'm in New York City where I'm not sure where you are. You look like you're in a hotel. I'm in Vancouver, Canada. And I just want to thank all the Canadian worldos for this jewel of a city. It's wonderful place. I don't know why everybody isn't going to Vancouver. It's great. That's all, it's very different from where I am. I stayed near Times Square last night. I'm pretty sure there was a monster truck rally outside my room at about midnight. But, you know, that's okay. It's Times Square, man. And the peep shows are gone, though. Well.

Thanks, Giuliani. I'll take your word for it. There is, Ben, there's a lot of news in the national security world this week. We're going to discuss the operation to kill al-Qaeda leader, Iman al-Zawahiri. That is a very big deal. We'll explain why. Nancy Pelosi just touched down in Taiwan. One we're watching closely, hopefully it doesn't get hairy over there.

Talk about that trip, the Chinese response. The latest news from Ukraine, some hopeful news about grain shipments and calls for the U.S. to add Russia to the state sponsor of terrorism list. And then news about Russian intelligence operations in the U.S. Trump weighs in on Britney Greiner. We'll highlight some excerpts from a pretty wild profile of Saudi leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, one of our favorite people and the economist. Tensions in Kosovo, some lighter stories.

And then, in a historic first, Ben, Crooked Media's chief take officer, Elijah Cohn, is going to join us for the first ever international edition of take appreciators. I know you're excited about it. I'm really excited because that's like probably my favorite PSA segment these days. I'm really excited. It's a very fun one. But first, Ben, episode two of Another Russia. It is out. Jana and Ben dive deep into Boris Nemtsov's political journey as he becomes deputy prime minister of Russia and discovers whether his idealism can trump money, power, and corruption. Unfortunately, I don't think we need a spoiler alert there, Ben. But the show is amazing.

Subscribe to Another Russia wherever we get your podcast. What else can we say? How can we threaten people today? Look, I really, this episode, if you want to know kind of how Russia ended up where it got, today. This episode in the 90s of Jana moving to Moscow with her dad and, you know, going to school there with the Russian elite. Spoiler, she didn't like it. They're driving around and like chauffeur driven Mercedes. Nemtsov tries to take on the oligarchs. Yeltsin's like an old drunk by then. And there's a lot of drama in this in the way in which the oligarchs went after Nemtsov and how that foreshadows both the rise of Putin and what Russia has become. It's a really cool episode. And again, like, I really encourage people to check this podcast out. It tells you an amazing

human story. You'll meet an amazing character in Jana herself, who's remarkably charming and has had this extraordinary life. But also, it's what happened to Russia. So check it out. It's a great show. Check it out. For free, smash that subscribe button. We need you. And you'll meet an incredible person and John Namsova. Smash that subscribe button, another Russia. Check it out. Ben, first story, big, big news on the counterterrorism front this week. On Saturday, the CIA launched a drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed al-Qaeda

leader and founder, Ayman al-Zwhahari. Some background on him for those who don't know. Zwhihri founded al-Qaeda with bin Laden, and he's been the number one guy or the number two guy in the organization for decades. He was by bin Laden side as they planned the 9-11 attacks. He mastermined the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. which killed 17 Navy sailors and injured 37 more. He plotted the Africa embassy bombings in 1998 that killed hundreds of people.

And he has been the leader of Al-Qaeda since the U.S. took him out, took up in Laden back in 2011. So back to the news this weekend, it sounds like what happened is the intelligence community figured out that Zwhahiri's family had decided to relocate to Afghanistan. And then they figured out that Zahari had moved to Kabul to join them and tell folks then spent months figuring out if this was really him. They verify your identity or his identity and pattern of life so they could take him out without a lot of collateral damage, any collateral damage. So this strike on Saturday hit Zwhauri with two Hellfire missiles as he was standing on a balcony. It apparently avoided any collateral damage maybe by using the kind of missile that targets the individual with blades and not explosives, which is pretty gruesome stuff. But if it avoided collateral damage, I guess that's good. This house he was in was reportedly owned by a top aide to Shradin Hakani, who was a senior official in the Taliban government.

And this was like the fanciest neighborhood of Kabul, which raises a lot of questions. We'll get to in a minute. So Ben, the U.S. government has killed so many like Al-Qaeda number three is that it became kind of a not-fuzzy, dark running joke. This is very different. Swahiri was the intellectual leader of al-Qaeda. He's been a voice rallying jihadists to kill Americans for decades, literally.

My understanding from back when we were in government was we had no clue where this guy was. Like maybe we knew a region, but never a city or a neighborhood like this. So pretty impressive intelligence work. Good news for the world. What are your initial thoughts on I'm in Zawahari meeting his maker today? Well, I mean, look, this guy is like a world-class asshole. Like you said, he was kind of like the Bin Laden was the money guy, the inspiration guy, the frontman. Zwhari was kind of the part of the intellectual heft.

I hate to say that, but like he kind of, he was radicalized in Egyptian prisons. and his pairing with bin Laden was kind of the alchemy that led to al-Qaeda. I think Tommy, you know, I was thinking about this, like, he's the last of the core group. I mean, there's nobody left who's not either dead or in U.S. custody from the kind of core group of people that put al-Qaeda together. So, you know, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been so muddled. so problematic, such, you know, unsatisfying outcomes, obviously, inside of those two countries. Yet, if you think about it, you know, we went to war after 9-11 to destroy Al-Qaeda.

I mean, that's why I thought we went to war, a 24-year-old me, New Yorker, who witnessed the attacks. And so I think, you know, taking him out kind of completes the destruction of the group of people that did 9-11. So I think it just bears noting for not just the people who carried out this operation, but for everybody who served post 9-11, that core mission, despite all the problems with the other missions that were stacked on top of that by the Bush administration, you know, that core mission has been in some ways completed. That group of people, that group of terrorists that did 9-11 is not around anymore. and that's a big deal.

It's cathartic, too, for people who lost family members. It is. I mean, if you were a family member, yeah, exactly. If you're 9-11 family member, a Cole family member, like, you know, this is a measure of justice. It took 20 years, but it is a measure of justice. You know, how important he was and how important Al-Qaeda even is to the global terrorist threat right now, you know, he's somewhat debatable. Clearly, he was the only one who could still. kind of cohere al-Qaeda into an organization. It's already been releasing videos. Yeah, he's doing

videos. He was kind of a well-known figure. So there's nobody who can replace him. I mean, nobody could really replace, but he didn't really replace bin Laden, frankly. I mean, it's not like Al-Qaeda's been on the front burner of the terrorism threat since bin Laden was taken out. But this guy was the person that kind of held the organization together. So I think it just kind of shows the demise of Al-Qaeda. It does raise a bunch of questions about Afghanistan, which we can talk about. Let's get to that. So President Biden announced this operation in a speech last night. He did so from the back balcony of the White House, which I've never really seen that shot before because he's still isolating with COVID. Let's play a clip from President Biden's speech. The United States continues to demonstrate our resolve and our capacity to defend the American people against those who seek to do us harm. You know, we make it clear again tonight that no matter how long it takes, no matter how long it takes, no matter.

where you hide, if you are a threat to our people, the United States will find you and take you out. It did seem like that was the message you wanted to send, Ben, which is, you know, it doesn't matter how long it takes if you conduct operations against Americans, we will find you. Look, I mean, I do think like shout out to all the intelligence folks who worked on this. Shout out to our old colleague, Liz Sherwood Randall, who now coordinates these counterterrorism efforts from the White House. So, Ben, you alluded to this. The fact that Zwaheri was in a house in downtown Kabul and a fancy neighborhoods surrounded by like rich people, government officials, and a place connected to the Haqqani family probably tells you everything you need to know about the Taliban government.

The U.S. officials were briefing, pressing. Pakistani officials knew about his movements too. I would also argue this undercuts like how many years of arguments that the U.S. has to keep hundreds of thousands of troops in some place to conduct counterterrorism missions. I mean, clearly the U.S. departure from Afghanistan kind of smoked Zawahiri out and let to believe that he would be safe in Kabul, but clearly that was not a wise assumption on his part. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. It's a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, there was this question about whether after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, they would not just be creeps and, you know,

horrific leaders of Afghanistan, you know, denying things like the right of girls to go to school. But there was this question of whether or not they would invite back in terrorists and whether they would kind of return to their pre-9-11 habits of providing safe haven. And, you know, I think this demonstrates that at least elements of the Afghan government are doing that, you know. Now, the Haqqqani network has always been the most kind of terrorist or terrorist-adjacent faction fighting with the Taliban. And I should say, Tom, you mentioned we didn't know where Zawahiri was, which is right. We did presume he was in Pakistan. And so clearly what probably happened here, and more will come out, is, you know, he felt safe moving him and his family from Pakistan to Afghanistan, probably at the invitation of some of the Haqani network. And so that's concerning, right, that the Taliban, the Haqani's who control a lot of the security apparatus of the Afghan state now are providing this guy safe.

On the other hand, as you point out, I think it is really important that one of the arguments for. keeping thousands of troops in Afghanistan was that we needed that in order to have a counterterrorism capability. And I think the Biden administration can rightfully say, look, this demonstrates that just having 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 Americans hanging out in Afghanistan is not necessary for us to gather intelligence and to take out a really high-value terrorist target like this. while obviously things have gotten worse for the Afghan people, our capacity to carry out counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan has not been compromised, you know,

as evidenced by the fact that we got somebody that we couldn't get before the withdrawal. One of the most wanted men in the world. Yeah, it's kind of ironic. Like, you know, before the withdrawal, we couldn't find and get this person and after the withdrawal, we could, in part because he thought that he had greater freedom of movement inside of Afghanistan.

So to me, This suggests that, like, we're in a new phase, obviously, of the so-called warrant terror. I think we don't need to have quite as sprawling an enterprise as we have going with drone strikes in multiple countries. But this one is the kind of target that I think nobody would argue with. And I think it demonstrates that, while we're going to have to keep a careful eye on Afghanistan, because this shows that it has become something of a safe haven for some of these creeps, there is a capacity that the U.S. continues to have even without those troops to go after

particularly high-value terrorists like this. Yeah. One, like, one downs. Like, I think this is exactly the kind of counterterrorism operation we want the CIA and others to be conducting. The one downside I have seen here, Ben, is, you know, you and I've talked a bunch of times about how we would like to see the U.S. provides some sort of sanctions relief so that the Afghan people don't starve, especially in the midst of a food crisis that we'll talk about later,

thanks to the war in Ukraine. I think sanctions relief probably becomes nearly impossible to do when the Taliban leadership is harboring the leader of al-Qaeda, something they promised not to do in the Doha agreement that ended the war and got the U.S. out of there. I mean, like, I just politically, I think this becomes incredibly complicated for the Biden administration going forward. It does, although, I mean, I would argue that if you're just looking at the kind of fact case of it, it's not like sanctions stop them from harboring the sky, right? So, like, I still would argue that better to provide the sanctions relief to help the people that are suffering the most of the Afghan people under the sanctions, not the Taliban, right? So I still think that the balance of the case would argue that, like, look, you know, I think the message sent here is that we're not going to, you know, constrain our capacity to go after terrorist targets inside of Afghanistan because the Taliban doesn't want us to. I'm sure that, you know, it's not like we were asking permission for the strike. So I think, you know, we can simultaneously hold two thoughts in our head at the same time. Like we want to do whatever we can to help the Afghan people and these sanctions are not harming the Taliban.

They're harming the Afghan people. And we can continue to have platforms to go after people like this. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I agree with you. But, you know, the politics are dumb sometimes. We just got harder. The politics did just get harder.

Speaking of hard politics, uh, speaker Nancy Pelosi has landed in Taiwan. The international furorer is growing. I think it's gone from a furor to a brouhaha or a dust up maybe. I think we're fully in a bruhaha. Okay, we're in a brouhaha. So Pelosi is, she's on a trip to Asia with the delegation. They went to Singapore or Malaysia. She's supposed to go to Korea and Japan later this week.

But the big news is this visit to Taiwan because it makes her the highest ranking official to visit the island since Newt Gingrich in the late 90s. As we talked about last week, the Chinese are furious about Pelosi's trip because they view Taiwan as their territory. They hate the United States sells Taiwan arms. And Pelosi has been a longstanding vocal critic of Chinese human rights violations of the government for decades. And the Chinese have been threatening a strong response if she goes for weeks. So so far, you know, they are certainly making a show of their anger. We've seen videos of Chinese troop movements in southern China. Taiwan's presidential office said they were hacked or they were hit with the DDoS attack overnight

and their site was down for a little while, which is not a huge deal in practice, but sends a message. And then China announced import bans on 100 plus businesses in Taiwan. There are also reports that the U.S. Navy now has four warships east of Taiwan. So, you know, whether or not there's some big response, like shit got real pretty fast. Ben, the New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, man, you called your mentor. Just kidding. Had an interesting column today about Pelosi's trip. It read like it was helped along by the White House.

You know what I mean? It felt like there was some input there. Friedman called the trip, utterly reckless, dangerous, and irresponsible. That's a quote. He argues the trip is risking a conflict with Taiwan while the war in Ukraine is very much up in the air. and that that timing is particularly insane. Friedman reports that Biden personally told Chinese President Xi Jinping that if China helped Russia with their war effort in Ukraine, China would lose access to both the U.S. and European Union export markets. And the peace notes that so far China

has not provided military aid to the Russians. So the insinuation there being, I guess, that the White House thinks Pelosi's trip could provoke them into helping Russia in some way. The Washington Post reported that the White House actively tried to dissuade Pelosi but stopped short of having Biden ask her not to go. So Ben, I guess I just go back to our conversation last week. Like, I don't want the Chinese government telling members of Congress where to go and when. I still don't see any real upside in this trip for Taiwan or for the United States. I see a lot of potential downside risk. But what do you, like now this thing's happening. She's in a hotel and in Taiwan somewhere. Like, what do you make of it? So I was in a taxi here in Vancouver and I asked my cab

driver about, no, I'm sorry. You got down a little time. You had me for a minute. Yeah, yeah. You have you. The world is flat. You know, I, here's the thing. I'm the zag a little bit, man. He's a nice guy. Go, zag away. I'm going to zag.

I, a zag from, you know, you and I tend to, like, be in violent agreement about a lot of things. I, I kind of support the trip. I don't know. Like, I, I, I, because here's the thing. I don't, look, I don't, the, the, the decision to go at the outset, we can debate. But I think that the, if you look across the, if you look across the, human rights spectrum, right? The way that the Chinese have silenced criticism of their human rights record, the way that they have intimidated people from meeting with the Dalai Lama, the way that

they've tried to get countries to kind of cut all ties with Taiwan, the way that they've bullied airlines into like changing the name of Taiwan on their maps from Taiwan to Chinese Taipei or something, right? I'm pretty uncomfortable with that, you know? And, and, and, and, and And so once this became a thing, again, I think you could probably roll back the tape and say, like, was this the right time for her to decide to go, et cetera. But once they made this a big thing, I think that if she had kind of canceled her trip, it would have definitely fed the perception that Chinese kind of bullying and blustering can dissuade people from commenting on Hong Kong, on Tibet, on Taiwan, and get countries to

to not engage with the Taiwanese. And like I said last time, like if the Taiwanese were cool with this, and I presume that they were. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, it's an interesting question, right? Because they're the ones facing the risk, not us, right? Well, if there's a war, if World War III starts, I'm wrong. So like, I will be, if no one will know. Yeah, if next week we're on the podcast and there's a military conflict, like, I'm wrong.

But if this is cyber attacks and some military exercises and a lot of like, demarsha's. You know, so what? Like, that's what they do to try to dissuade people from engaging the Taiwanese or speaking out on human rights. And on the Ukraine point, you know, if China's, I just don't believe, like, I want to invert the Tom Fried argument. Like, I don't really believe that, like, somehow China was on, like, the precipice of

being helpful in Ukraine and a Nancy Pelosi visit, like, tip the scales on this. I think it's not they're being helpful. They were not being harmful and they weren't like selling drones to the Russians. Yeah. Now, look, I don't know. I've seen no intelligence. I don't know. So I see, like, I think you can argue this one both the ways. I do think it's worth just, like, noting the fact that the playbook that they've used for years is to intimidate people out of saying things or traveling places.

And that makes me pretty uncomfortable. Like, why can't she fucking travel to Taiwan? Like, she's the speaker of the house, you know? Yeah, certainly trying to pick this fight. They wanted to make this a thing. they wanted to intimidate her, they wanted to bully her, the U.S. government. So, you know, and to a certain extent, me concern trolling back with them is playing into their narrative, and that's obviously not good.

No, but you're, look, you're, you're probably, I mean, you're right to raise it, and every, all the critics are, like, Peter Barn. Like, if people want a good, like, argued case for why this is pointless, check out the Binard thing. He talks to Taiwan experts who also think that this trip doesn't really get anything for Taiwan. So I think the counter argument is like, it's not like this really advances the ball that far down the field for the Taiwanese in any way. And so why provoke the fight when it's not necessary

and it's not really doing much? That's, to me, totally fair and probably, you know, a lot is true in that argument. I just don't like this idea that we're supposed to accept that because they are going to be assesles about something, we shouldn't do certain things. I think that's a kind of a problematic argument. Yeah, it's not great.

I saw a bunch of Republicans senators release a statement supporting Pelosi's trip, like 25 or 26 of them. Which always makes me question my judgment. Well, I know. I just love that these guys are pretending that they're really backing Pelosi. They just want to drive a wedge between Pelosi and the White House. And look, I don't know, maybe that's smart politics. So we talked a little bit about Ukraine. So let's go to that.

I mean, some news out of Ukraine this week. First, been some rare good news out of Ukraine. A ship carrying grain left the Ukrainian port of Odessa on Monday, which is the first such shipment since the Russian invasion. Sixteen more ships are planning to follow suit soon. Russia and Ukraine, as we've discussed, supply about a quarter of the world's wheat. They're major exporters of a bunch of other key crops, especially to poorer countries in the Middle East in Africa. And the lack of grain exports due to the war will mean that people in continents far away from the war itself starve to death. The UN says 50 million people in 45 countries are near family.

And these shipments don't solve that problem, but they are a start. And again, remember that this shipment happened because of a diplomatic deal brokered by the UN and Turkey that we were worried had already fallen apart because Russia immediately bombed a Ukrainian port after signing the deal. So that's some good news. Here's a few awful updates. Dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war held by Russian forces in the Denezegregion were killed in missile strike. Russia tried to blame Ukraine. They said this was the result of a Haimars rocket strike. it doesn't make any sense.

Ukraine denied that. A bunch of analysts that made what I found to be an extremely compelling case that it's far more likely that Russia murdered these prisoners themselves and then tried to blame it on the Ukrainians just the latest in a series of war crimes. A former Putin advisor who actually resigned over the war and left the country

is reportedly in an intensive care unit in a European hospital suffering from a neurological disorder. Keep an eye on that one. And lastly, there's this big debate over whether the U.S. government should label Russia a state state sponsor of terror. Ben, what do you make of this state sponsor of terror or SST list debate? Do you think it would matter? Good idea, bad idea. I see that it's bipartisan.

Lindsay Graham and Senator Blumenthal are calling for it, and so is President Zelensky. Yeah, so this is my like Zag day, I guess, because I-Zagway. Yeah, I've been pretty like, you know, obviously supportive of Zelensky and the Ukrainian government's positions on most things. I don't get this. So there's this symbolic thing and then the substantive thing. Symbolically, they seem, the Ukrainians and a lot of the people calling for this feel like designating Russia as kind of a terrorist state is just an important message to send, because it kind of delegitimizes, I guess, in some respects, any, well, everything about the Putin government. That said, I think that's why you have war crimes designations, you know?

Right, yeah. What they're, because the definition of terrorism is violence at civilians to have a political effect. And so sure, you can mount an argument that that's what they're doing. But I think, you know, this is an armed conflict and Russia's engaged in war crimes. And I think calling them war criminals and opening war crimes investigations and suggesting that you're going to spend so long as these people are alive who are carrying out these war crimes, we're going to pursue them. and they're not going to be safe if they travel places where they could be arrested. You know, that to me de-legitimizes what Russia is doing militarily because what they're doing

militarily is committing war crimes when they kill prisoners of war in a missile strike or shelling or when they target a maternity ward. There's substantive impact of designated them the state sponsor of terrorism that does carry with it some sanctions that are immediately triggered. And this list, by the way, this list has become so politicized already. If you look who's on, it's North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Cuba. That's who's on the list. Cuba is not—

The Cuba context is where we've talked about this a few times. Yeah, but like, even North Korea, like, Pakistan doesn't make the list. Like, we just talked about Zawarie. We just talked about Zawahiri, like, who's living in Pakistan. And then Kabul. With them knowing about it. And then he's in Kabul. and so this list doesn't seem to have anything to do with who's actually a state sponsor of terrorism.

It seems to be a list of countries that we really don't like for different reasons. And it does carry with it sanctions, including immediate sanctions on other countries that do any kind of transactions with a state sponsor of terrorism. The problem here, if you look at the Biden administration's position, which I support in not issuing this designation yet, is that you talked about. about grain, right? Samantha Powers on the show made a big argument about how the Russians claim that the reason that there's a food crisis in the world is because we've sanctioned their grain exports, when in fact we have not. We've carved that out. Well, a state sponsor of

terrorism thing would sanction countries that are buying Russian grain, you know. So are we prepared to do that? Do we want the political kind of effect of calling the state sponsor terrorism? creating all manner of bureaucratic headaches about how do you exempt, like, grain transactions from those sanctions. This, to me, just feels like it doesn't really move the needle that much in terms of pressure on Russia, given all the sanctions we already have on them. And I just don't understand why this is such a focus, to be honest. Yeah, it feels like an easy thing you can demagogue politically, frankly. I mean, look, I mean, the U.S. announced, I think, this week that we're sending another 550 million in aid to Ukraine that brings the total up to 8 billion. So like we're doing a lot.

There's tons of sanctions on them. Ben, I want to read you one headline. Can I say one other thing, Tommy? But sorry, I just curious. If the point is that anybody that willingly targets civilians in military operations is a terrorist, are we prepared to follow that logic? Is Saudi Arabia are going to be labeled the state sponsor of terrorism because of what they've done in Yemen? Or just designate individuals? Yeah, I just don't, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think it's the right approach. I just want to read you a headline that you're going to hate because you seem like you're in a pretty good mood today. This from the New York Times.

Using nuclear reactors for cover, Russians lob rockets at Ukrainians. This is like a nightmare fuel. It's not Chernobyl. It's a different nuclear reactor that Russian troops have turned into a base because they know that Ukrainian troops can't fire back because they'll risk a nuclear meltdown. So how does that make you feel? How's your vacation now? It's a little concerned, Tommy. It doesn't feel good out there.

I mean, like, the thing in what we talked about already, like potential war in Taiwan, like a fascist war criminal engaged in a brutal war in Ukraine. Like, there's a lot going on out there. Yeah, it doesn't feel great. Okay. Speaking of Russia, Ben, this was a, there was a fascinating indictment unsealed last week that I thought was interesting because it detailed efforts by Russian spies to recruit like fringe political groups in the U.S. and spread their propaganda. The groups aren't named in the indictment, but the Wall Street Journal reported that the, They include the African People's Socialist Congress and a group in California that advocates for the state succeeding from the union. The evidence in this indictment includes an email from the Russian guy they indicted to his handlers in the FSB that forward along a bunch of news articles and said, you ask for turmoil.

Well, there you go. As a dissu de Messey said last week on Ponte of America, the E&E mail stands for evidence. So I wouldn't send notes like that. Basically, the FSB pushed these groups to spread their propaganda. they paid for protests. They tried to coordinate their activity and then they boost it in, you know, Russian media outlets. So Ben, I don't know, like a few years ago, I feel like we would have just made fun of this and scoffed at how like pathetic these FSB influence operations are. Now, I don't know, you see how quickly like the lunatic fringe gets to the Oval Office,

you know, I get the overstocked up com guy briefing the president with the MyPillow guy on the coup plan. So I don't know, maybe we should take it all a little more seriously. Yeah, I think, I mean, one of the unknowables in the last decade of American politics is how much of the insanity has been a design of Russian trolls, juiced by Russian trolls. I mean, I think the reality is we have deep problems and dysfunctions in American democracy, mainly on the far right. And so there are all these little fires burning around the country, particularly online. And Russia comes and just pours gasoline on it. I'd love to know, for instance, how much Russia has used Q&N, you know? Yeah.

Because what's obvious is that they do have a strategy, a kind of chaos theory strategy, where anything that so's division, anything that drives people insane, therefore. So anti-vax movements, Q&ONON, like Antifa conspiracy theories, any fringe group right and left. but, you know, I think their favorite flavors on the right, they're just kind of coming in, sprinkling some gasoline on it, you know? And I think people should just be mindful of that. And look, it doesn't, I don't have to be like a, like a internet expert, you know, code reader to know when I am getting trolled by somebody who doesn't seem like a real human being, you know. Egg avatar, super long handle, yeah. Exactly. If that's happening to us, like it's happening to a lot of

That's right. Yeah, yeah. Staying in Russia, the Brittany Griner case is back in the news. I think she's in a Russian court today. Brittany Griner is the WMBA star who has been held in a Russian prison for months and is the subject, reportedly, of a prisoner swap between the U.S. and the Russian government that's been proposed. That's not been accepted. Last week, Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, talked with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov about a possible deal. Ben Donald Trump decided to weigh in on Britney Griner's case on some shitty podcast. Trump was surprisingly focused on these issues when he was in the White House when he was president, Ben. I mean, he, I think he liked the instant deliverable. I think he liked the spectacle and immediacy of success in these cases. And he helped bring home an American pastor who was detained in Turkey as well as ASAP Rocky. He threatened a trade war with Sweden to bring home rapper ASAP Rocky. So, you know, I assume he was really helpful and constructive when talking about Britney Griner. Let's hear a clip.

He's an absolute one of the worst in the world, and he's going to be given his freedom because a potentially spoiled person goes into Russia loaded up with drugs. That's Trump talking about Russian arms dealer Victor Boot, who is indeed a notorious arms dealer nicknamed the Merchant of Death, currently serving a 25-year sentence in a U.S. prison. Trump later said, I assumed she admitted it without too much force because it is what it is. I don't know what he means by that. It doesn't seem like the best read on the fairness of the Russian court system or the way confessions are gotten by these goons.

But, gee, Ben, I wonder what changed here. I wonder how he's turned so hard against these prisoner swaps all of a sudden. You know, given his kind of pure tentacle stance on drugs, I'm just not sure whether he's seen a clip of his son on OAN recently. Like Don Jr. looks like he's sampled a little bit more than, you know, a little bit of cannabis and a vape more than a vape cartridge, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, what's so disgusting about this is you, you were absolutely right in the way you frame this. He was obsessed with kind of lifting up this issue. I think it's in

part because like during the Obama administration, people like him and other Republicans would use any hostage to kind of paint Obama as weak. And so Trump like really made this some focal point of his entire foreign policy, and he invited the families of Obama-era hostages to speak at the Republican Convention on the South Lawn member. Yeah, I remember that. That's dark. And to me, what it shows is whether you were somebody who has a loved one who is being held hostage, whether you are Brittany Griner herself, or remember, you know, he demagogued

and attacked Kim Jong-un for literally killing an American hostage. that guy becomes his best friend. Like, not that we need to revisit the reality that Donald Trump doesn't give a shit about you, but I think this just demonstrates his entire approach to this issue is complete and utter bullshit. Like, his track record on this issue wasn't really any better than any other American president. It's a shitty issue for any American president. Either you have people remaining in prison or you have to do very difficult things like

engage in prisoner swaps to get them out. It's just hard. And he's just, you know, pulling back the crime. curtain to show that he doesn't give a shit about hostages. He doesn't give a shit about their families. Clearly doesn't give a shit about Bernie Garner. He has no problem with the fact that there's a fascist running Russia who's not only holding Britney Griner but is like killing and discriminately people in Ukraine. I mean, it's just, you know, that and the the LIV, you know, Saudi Bonesaw, you know, golf tournament at his club tells you a lot. Well, not.

If you needed to know anything more about Donald Trump, you know, you learned it last week. Yeah, look, I think, yeah, he will politicize anything, anyone. Look, I want Bernie Griner home. I want Paul Whalen home. I am not thrilled about Victor Boot going free. He's an evil person, but those are the hard choices you make as president. There's no easy option here. But you mentioned the live golf tour event.

Trump spent the weekend hosting the Saudi-owned live golf tour at his course in Bedminster. It is kind of amazing that Trump was getting protested all weekend by the families of the victims of the 9-11 attacks while Biden was overseeing an operation to kill one of the guys. who planned 9-11, but I digress. Perfect. The economist wrote a long, fascinating profile of Muhammad bin Salman, the crown prince and de facto leader of Saudi Arabia. Here are a few of the choice excerpts and allegations in the piece.

One, a friend recounted hearing MBS called Little Saddam, I guess by his extended family. It also talks about MBS's partying, saying that, you know, far from a strict Islamic lifestyle, there's also cocaine, alcohol, hookers at parties. the piece says MBS is extremely violent he's known to smash things, trashed the palace he locked a minister in a bathroom for 10 hours more than once MBS allegedly beat his wife so badly

she had to seek medical treatment and he once sprayed the ceiling with bullets during an argument with, wait for it, his mother, his mother, shooting the ceiling up. Again, so Ben, you know, this is the guy who was welcomed, called a reformer, welcome to Silicon Valley, welcome to Hollywood

by, you know, bold-faced names. And now was in 2018, after he had already imprisoned and tortured members of his own family. So good stuff. This is who's cutting your live golf tour check and who is handing Jared Kushner $2 billion for his little investment fund. Yeah, I mean, this guy's a complete and utter sociopath, right? Like beating his wife to seek medical treatment, like firing guns in the presence of his

mother, like locking his ministers in bathrooms. Like how much evidence do we need that this is not a guy that we should be putting our chips on, right? Whether you're the president of the United States flying over their fist bump him or whether you're just like some eager, amoral hedge fund person or whether you're like some columnist looking for a hot take on like the reform agenda in the Middle East. Or going to Davos in the desert. Davos, yeah, yeah. Like you just just do not engage this person. This is he might kill you. And by the way, like this is not like again, to return to the whole real politic like there are, we've dealt with autocratic regimes in the past.

This guy is like next level, right? Like this is like a really frightening bad person who like on his personal direction like chops up journalist and like intimidates his mom by firing like machine guns. That's a crazy anecdote. Look what the fuck is going on, you know? And just think about this. Like keep these anecdotes in your head the next time you read some take about how there's so much to be gained from engaging MBS or actually maybe elements of his reform agenda are

pretty good or. you know, Phil Mickelson needs like a career reboot, you know, like, it's just none of it's worth it. None of it is worth it. And it makes, it's a sign of our own corruption more so than this guys that everybody from the President of the United States to leading columnists to like Titans of Industry to Justin Bieber, like need to be on the take from this guy. Yeah. Like he thinks that we are so weak that all we will see is.

his money. And the sad thing is there are too many people that are proving him right. And honestly, this is why this climate bill that we hope will pass soon is miraculous, because it will incentivize all this renewable energy, but also prioritize domestic production. So we don't have to go hat in hand to little Saddam, this sociopath with a trillion dollars over in Saudi Arabia. The only reason this guy's important is because there happens to be some shit under the ground that he rules, right? Dead dinosaurs. The noted climate hawk Joe Manchin, thankfully, has stepped up to the plate. We love, we've always loved Joe Manchin. I take back everything I said.

All the expletives thrown in his way. He's my hero. Ben, some troubling news out of the Balkans this week where tensions between Serbia and Kosovo escalated to the point where the NATO peacekeeping force in the area felt compelled to issue a statement. Never a good thing when the NATO peacekeeping force weighs in. The quick backstory for those who don't know, Serbia and, Kosovo fought a brutal war in the late 90s. It only ended after NATO got involved and did a lot of

bombing. Kosovo declared its independence in 2008, but Serbia still insists that Kosovo is part of their territory. The conflict is also sectarian. Serbia is majority Orthodox Christian. Kosovo is majority Muslim. The latest tensions came after Kosovo told ethnic Serbs living in its northern region that they had to get license plates issued by Kosovo, and they would put in place additional border checks for Serbian nationals visiting Kosovo. Listeners might be thinking, that sounds like a dumb little thing to fight about. You're not wrong, but remember that these little bureaucratic issues can quickly become proxies for a much larger, deeper conflict.

I mean, think of all the times. We've talked about customs checks in Northern Ireland, you know, starting conflict, for example. Apparently, some ethnic Serb protesters in response to these new, you know, license plate rules, et cetera, set up roadblocks, authorities in Kosovo, closed down border crossings. that led for calls from calm from everybody, the U.S. EU, the others, the NATO peacekeeping force that I mentioned before that's been in Kosovo's in 99 can hopefully calm things down and prevent anyone from doing something stupid. So, Ben, I mean, there's a long, long, long backstory to this

one. But, you know, I guess my question for you is basically, how worried are you about this conflict escalating anything else you think, you know, listeners need to know about the history? And how did Rick Grinnell fuck this up so badly, Trump's former ambassador? I was told by Rick Rennel noted peacemaker towards end the Trump administration, the Balkan envoy, if I recall, that historic peace was achieved because of some relatively obscure and minor economic agreements that he... You really screwed the pooch. Yeah, I mean, I guess Rick didn't bring peace to the Balkans in our time. And Mike Pompeo cut this deal with the Taliban that led to them welcoming I'm in Zawahari back to the country. Well, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, like the-Ther diplomacy, huh? Yeah, tough for the Trump era diplomacy. Look, I think what's really at stake here, I mean, the core of this whole thing is that Kosovo, which is recognized by the U.S. and a handful of other governments, but obviously not Serbia and a bunch of other governments, is de facto independent. I mean, like, there's not some world in which we're going to be talking a decade from now where, like, Serbia is governing Kosovo, right? And so any step that the Kosovo government takes towards greater control, bureaucratic and administrative control over its own borders has the potential to be a flare up, a dust up. I think in terms of things to watch and things that might be concerning is Russia has a lot of influence in Serbia.

They obviously hated the NATO intervention on behalf of Kosovo back in the 90s. and they're looking to kind of cause trouble inside of the borders of Europe in any way they can. And so, you know, not to see a Russian hand behind everything, but I do think it bears watching as to whether or not this is a pot that Russia may want to stir just to cause problems. Like we've seen them all they, like it's not unlike what they do online, right? There's not some objective. I don't think they believe that Serbia is going to kind of conquer Kosovo again. But I do think that if they can cause or fuel or add fuel to the fire of any problem, any flare-up in Europe, in the West, they're going to do it. And so I'd be definitely looking at that.

And I would definitely not be sending in Rick Rinell, who seems to be taking the pro-Russia line, pro-hard line Serbia line. That's not the way to solve this either. I think Kosovo has had the support of NATO. It doesn't mean that everything they do is right. means that like, you know, saying to them, like, you have to go back to being governed by Serbia, nobody thinks that is in the cards here. So if you could de-escalate this and kind of keep external pressure from Russia out, like all to the good, but this is something to watch. And you might see other flare-ups in the Balkans where Russia has some influence and may want to be

pulling levers. Yeah, I mean, the Russian foreign ministry accused Kosovo of issuing these new license plate laws to discriminate against Serbs. So they are clearly stirring the pot. I mean, interestingly, that Kosovo supports Ukraine. Ukraine is not recognized Kosovo's independence. They might want to do that. It would be a shine of solidarity. But look, big, big picture.

Don't send a Twitter troll like Rick Rennell to do your work. Yeah, to be your piece. Send someone with some experience. A couple more quick things, Ben. Just a quick shout out first to the prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, who is showing incredible leadership by asking men to ditch their neckties at work to stay cooler and reduce air conditioning bills and energy usage. I have not worn a tie regularly in about a decade, about a decade, I think, but I do want to thank Spain for their leadership.

We could wipe out the scourge of ties from all societies. I met that guy a few weeks ago. Obama was in Spain briefly and seemed like a great guy, familiar with the pod. Oh, really? Okay. Yes. So another reason to be a big fan. Wow. I didn't even. know that when I wanted us to give him a random thing. And I, like, I feel like an idiot, Tommy. Like, I put on a tie to do my MSNBC hits. And it's literally the only, like, five minutes a week that I put on a tie. And I'm always like, this is like, it's time to move on from this.

Didn't Obama, remember Obama tried to get rid of ties? I think you did try, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I just remember, you know, you would be like hour 16 at work and your neck would be like red and raw and chafing because, like, you were literally strangling yourself. with this stupid tie thing. Yeah. I hate ties.

Dress shirt that I got, you know, three for the price of one at Jose Banks or whatever I did. You were a banks guy. Yeah, look, I was a broke guy. I lived with two other adult males in their 30s. POSA of the World is brought to you by Athletic Greens. It is now easier than ever to start your day off right with 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food sourcing superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens in a single scoop of AG1. AG1 is NSF certified for sport, which is the gold standard for professional athletes who have to adhere to strict rules regarding supplements and nutritional products.

If it's good enough for them, love it. It's good enough for me. Yeah, it is good enough for you. I love AG1. He loves it. I've been putting it in my morning smoothies. And the guys in Adonis. Years. Honestly, I did it this morning.

It doesn't taste super healthy. It's a really nice addition. This is not like weak rats. It's not some gross thing that you taste bad and therefore makes you feel like it's good for you. Curl his hair, give him a slingshot. Looking at David. over here. It's got a mild tropical taste that I look forward to in the morning. Sometimes I hit on Tommy doing the shitteriness of coffee. Here's the deal with AG1. What's the deal?

So we all are told to purchase these like multivitamins that are made out of like gelatinous goo that you buy at CVS and someone's like, oh yeah, that's good for you. Right. I don't know that I believe that. We don't believe that. AG1 is made from real things in the world, superfoods. And it's put together a little powder that you throw in your smoothie and it tastes better. It's just better. It's better than multivitamin. It's a recommend. It's a recommendation. It's a recommended by professional athletes and they have over 7,000 five-star reviews. This high nutritional value comes in its most convenient format. Athletic Greens wants you to know it's not just for athletes, it's for anyone that

believes if you start strong, it's easier to finish that way. All right. Sports mental clarity, sports alertness, it's completely adaptable to your lifestyle, whether you're keto, paleo, vegan, dairy-free, or gluten-free. It's time to reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition. Just one scoop and a cup of water every day. That's it. no need for a million different pills or supplements like your grandma used to take.

To make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit Athletic Greens.com slash world. Again, that's athletic greens.com slash world to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance. All right, well, that's it for the news. Instead of a guest this week, because we're all on the road and we're all kind of a mess, we are going to do something very special, very different.

we are going to welcome on our chief take officer Elijah Cohen for a special Worldo edition of Take Appreciators. Elijah, explain to them how this works because the Worldos might not know what Take Appreciators is. Yes, happy to. Welcome to the first ever edition of the Worldo Take Appreciators. This is how the game works. I'm going to share some takes with you all. The producers have seen these takes.

Tommy and Ben have not. They will react and then they will rate them on a scale of one to four. four Politicos with four Politicos being the worst. Tommy and Ben, are you ready? Born ready. Born ready. I've been ready my whole life. And by the way, Ben, don't hesitate to go with a full playbook.

A full playbook. If you think it's more than four. Okay. I'll try not to be too liberal with that, but yeah. Okay. All right. So I actually had a Zwhalheri story to start, but we kind of covered that in the A block. Don't worry.

I have backup. So I'm going to jump ahead to number two. This is an op-ed that came out yesterday. It's a little bit of backstory. It's that Sweden and Finland are trying to join NATO. And Congress is about to vote on that, which brings us to this piece from a publication called National Interest. It is titled, Why I Won't Vote to Add Sweden and Finland to NATO.

Here's a quote from it. America's greatest foreign adversary doesn't loom over Europe. It looms in Asia. I am, of course, talking about the best of course. People's Republic of China. And when it comes to Chinese imperialism, the American people should know the truth. The United States is not ready to resist it. Expanding American security commitments in Europe would only make the problem worse,

and America less safe. Guys, who wrote it? So I'm such a loser that I'm fully aware that Josh Hawley wrote that piece. Me too. Yeah, yeah. Fist up to the interaction. Noted fist-up, insurrectionist, fascist-adjacent, tight-shirt-wearing, masculine projecting Josh Hawley, so masculine that he's not man enough, apparently, to defend Finland.

And also so stupid that he somehow thinks that Finland and Sweden joining NATO will somehow harm our capacity to stand up to China. that doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't we want a bigger team in NATO to be able to do? I don't understand anything about this. I'm going to go with three politicals just because I don't want to give Josh Hawley the satisfaction of a full playbook and because as I understand the take appreciator methodology,

you know, it's just kind of dumb. It's not like an offensively bad take for the sake of being one. But I don't know, Tommy, you're more experienced at this. No, Ben, look, you read my mind. I mean, I just sort of feel like Josh Holly is kind of fisting common sense and reason here with this take. And to me, to me, it's just classic, stupid, blow-dried, idiotic trolling from Josh Holly. I'm going to give him two politicos. I've so little respect for the guy.

I barely even think of him anywhere. He's just jogging around the Capitol running away from insurrectionists all day long. Yeah. I would note, Tommy, as you pointed out, a lot of Republicans actually said they were behind Pelosi going to Taiwan to show strength against. China, you guys know who was notably absent from that group of Republican senators. Who? Josh Hawley, himself. Josh Hawley.

Yeah. That's not very man of him. Yeah. Man up, Josh. Yeah. All right. On to the next one. This is from a publication that we love, the New York Post.

Okay. It's a couple of weeks old, but I really wanted to bring it in front of you guys. It's an op-ad from Biden's trip to the Middle East. Here's the title. Mr. President, your weakness is making the Middle East more dangerous. All right. So first, I need to do a little bit of setup. This piece makes the argument that Iran talked a big game about enriching uranium under Trump,

but the country never crossed the key threshold of enriching it to 60% until Biden was in office. And then it makes this take. Here's a quote. Today, President Biden is piggybacking. on the Trump team's success in keeping America out of any new wars in the Middle East and setting new foundations for peace. Sadly, Biden's decision to empower the Islamic Republic of Iran

through appeasement increases the odds that the American people will have a new conflict on their hands. You guys want to guess who wrote this? Oh, my God. New York Post. Guest writer for the New York Post. Guest writer. Okay, I'm going to guess Mike Pompeo.

Wow, Tommy, right off the bat. Oh, man. Oh, I was going to go. I shouldn't let Ben answer first. No, I was going to go Mark Dubitz. I didn't think Mike Pompeo was so pathetic that he's like writing for the New York Post. What? Okay.

Here are my issues with this. One, there's no piggybacking on not starting wars. That's not how the world works. The clock starts over freshly. Two, picking this 60% enrichment threshold is such an arbitrary like, you know, point along the way to decide, oh, now pulling out of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal is bad. No, you moron. The problem was being managed by the Iran nuclear deal.

You blew it up. Your president blew it up. Against your wishes, by the way, right? My understanding is that Mike Pompeo and all the Committee to Save America goons were briefing the press. They didn't want to pull out of the Iran deal because they knew it made us safer than the current situation. Now, do I wish Biden was getting back into the JCPO way? Absolutely. I think they're making a huge mistake by not doing so.

But it ain't because anything Trump or Mike Pompeo did for politicos. Oh, oh, oh. So here's what I'm going to say. I'm going to say, to add to that, there's such internal inconsistency and logic and stupidity and disingenuousness to the argument, which is why it is classic Mike Pompeo. Because he can't decide. He's simultaneously saying that Joe Biden is piggybacking on the Trump policy, which I think we were somewhat critical of Joe Biden on this podcast for doing some of that, right? like hugging the Abraham Accords, keeping the sanctions instead of going back to JCPOA, and then saying he's appeasing Iran. Like, like, what is the evidence that he's supplying for any of this, right? Like, like, and this is the message to the Biden people, like, you don't get credit from the

Mike Pompeo's of the world for being hard on Iran and not going back in the JCPOA, right? Like Mike Pompeo lit this match. They started enriching more, by the way, under Trump. It's just like the physics of time. The only reason they reach 60% now is because you fucking lost Mike Pompeo because Donald Trump lost. If you'd been there, it would have happened under you.

And by the way, like he forgets that T. Lam, like, there were missiles fired at U.S. troops by Iran. They injured a bunch of U.S. troops. Like, it's not like, like, things were not like hunky dory with the Iranians. They weren't like on their back foot in the Trump years. Everything about this is bullshit and disingenuous and political.

self-aggrandizing. I'd give it three Politicos except anything Mike Pompeo says and does probably merits four Politico. So I'm going to join you in four videos. Not a full playbook. He doesn't deserve it. He's not important enough to be a full playbook. He's a four-politico guy. Yeah, Ben, you put in some context I can't believe I forgot there, which is that Trump and Mike Pompeo did start a war with Iran. They killed Kassim Soleimani, the head of the IRC. Iran then fired gigantic missiles back that injured hundreds of U.S. troops, gave them traumatic brain injuries. Luckily, no one was killed, but it was literally only because of luck. Yes. Garbage op-ed. Now I'm pissed off, Elijah. Thank you. No problem. You did ask for the segment, so yeah. I did. I love the section.

Specifically requested it. Yeah. This is how I have fun. This is like what I would want to do for fun. Yeah, me too. All right. Well, like I said, this is a backup one. It's from this last one. It's from a publication that I had never heard of before called 1945. Are you guys familiar with the publication 1945? No. Interesting. I'm not. I don't think so.

The national interest, I have to admit, I am. But 1945, big year, but I'm not sure. Well, this one's really more about the taker than the publication. Okay. So this piece is titled Joe Biden's foreign policy boils down to one word, weakness. This is a great title for this. The article makes a few arguments, but it spends a lot of energy talking about hostage and prisoner exchanges.

It obviously references the Britney Greiner situation, as well as several other prisoner exchanges, some from other administrations. It makes the argument that China has made the Pelosi visit to Taiwan, a quote-unquote hostage situation. And here is a take and a quote. Instead of incentivizing hostage-taking by trading prisoners, the correct response is harsh action, either military or economic, depending on the circumstances against those who engage in such atrocities. Deal making is congenial for terrorists and authoritarian's severe punishment is not anyone want to guess who wrote it.

Man. I'm going to throw out there because I don't know. Is it that a Brian guy that was like Trump's national security advisor? It was not, but it is a former Trump admin guy. Who was like the ASEB Rocky guy, you know? I was going to guess Michael Anton, the guy who wrote that like 9-11, cosplay, we would have stormed the cockpit thing. Flight 93.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it is not, nor is it Mark Wahlberg. He would have prevented 9-11, as we all know. Yes. This person is arguing that we should go to war to free Britney Griner, basically. Yeah, that's going to be a lot of wars. It's a really smart. It's very apt for this person, I would say.

John Bolton? Correct. Oh, oh, oh. I talked my way in her through the war door. Good for you, Ben. So John Bolton is, is, is, is, is, is, is, like, 1994? Like, I didn't even, like, oh. I mean, it's a taste so stupid, it got rejected from more notable publications.

Yeah, he couldn't even get in the New York Post. Is that, is that, like, you know, what is going on here? The funny thing about Bolton is, like, Donald Trump described it better than anyone else. Like, the guys never met a war he didn't want to get involved in or start, you know? I mean, that's what this is a recipe for. He's what he wants to start a war with Russia right now over hostages. He wants to start a war with countless countries. It's a lot of wars.

We've won a war to free every American. You also, you can't start, I mean, we're at war with, we were at war with al-Qaeda and the Taliban for a long time and they still have hostages. That's not a recipe for success because you can't always kill your way out of these problems. I was on an airplane recently. You guys, West Wing fans, like Elijah, is that... I've definitely seen it all. I haven't watched it a long time. So, like, I was on, it's on airplane.

So I was watching, like, an early episode, and there's, like, an American who's, like, hostage somewhere, right? or maybe Americans killed, I don't know, something. And like Martin Sheen like goes into a rant and he smokes cigarettes and he's yelling about like in Rome like the Roman Empire would come kill everybody that took a Roman hostage and why can't he do that? It's a little John Bolton and Martin Sheen. I didn't realize it. Yeah.

You know, we went out to, we grabbed dinner last night and me, Love it and John. And we were as I mentioned before in New York. And I wanted to when the waiter came to take our order. I almost sit up and said to him, sir, I know you're working in Manhattan. I just wanted to be the first to inform you that the U.S. has conducted an operation to Kiliman al-Zuahri in homage to the famous scene in the newsroom written by Lovitz mentor, Aaron Sorkin, but I didn't do it. Everybody should Google that. It's the worst scene I've ever seen.

The newsroom, Bin Laden, death, just Google that. I have one question about the rules of Laja per the 1945 venue. if a take appears in the woods and nobody hears it, does it exist? You know? Good question. Because I'm going to give this one. This was like in like, this is like a comment on Fox. I might give this four Politicos, but I think I have to downgrade it to two Politico's because of the 1945 venue.

Okay. I agree with that, honestly. Like I said, I had a good one from a guy. I know that you guys hate on Swahiri, but we kind of. already went through that dynamic. Yeah. So this was a backup. But I understand that.

It's sad for John Bolton to get downgraded to 1945. To go from being the man who was in the room or whatever that book was called to 1945. Yeah, he's basically just writing a diary at this point. I mean, I'm going to give this one political go because it's the least surprising thing that John Bolton wants to go to war for another reason. By the way, Ben, he's also out, given Pelosi and out of boy, he's part of the chorus of Republicans cheering her trip, you know, which, you know, hey, look.

It's complicated. If I agree with John Bolton, I always need to re-examine my assumptions. I think you made some good points. Elijah, that's a fantastic take appreciators. That was a lot of fun, guys. Thank you for bringing this. I'm so glad I got to do this. This genius to POTSave the World.

I think that's all we got for today. See you guys next week in person, I hope. Where's your New York show? No, we're just here for the TV hit tonight and then fly back tomorrow morning. And then back in L.A., baby. TV hit is... Colbert tonight. Colbert.

You guys are like, that's big time. It's very... I know you've done it before, but it's still cool. It's honestly, literally shocking that they invite us on. I have no idea how that happens or why anyone would want to have us. I think what happens is when you host a talk show for a living and you can invite guests on who you know you can just like wind up and they won't shut up for eight minutes and they make your life a little easier. Like, maybe that's why we're allowed. No, don't sell yourself short.

Just shut up about it. The nicest guy. The nicest guy. Yeah. Just incredibly nice guy. All right. Well, that's all I got. All right. Good to see you guys.

Good to see you. I'll be back in America next week. All right. USA. Please say hi to Trudeau for us. I will. There's, you know, I've seen some Trudeau signage pro and con here. Nice.

It's interesting. It's fun. Yeah. 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.

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.