What Now? with Trevor Noah - Eddie Fishman: Understanding Iran

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Trevor and Eugene sit down with former State Department official and international sanctions expert Eddie Fishman to unpack the hidden mechanics of global power. Using Iran as a lens, Eddie explains how economic sanctions became one of America's favorite foreign policy tools, why they're often seen as an alternative to war, and what happens when those plans collide with the realities of the world they're meant to change.   Along the way, the trio explore unintended consequences, international hypocrisy, and the stubborn truth that people, countries, and history rarely cooperate with anyone's grand strategy. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is one of the, I think, honestly, tragic lessons of recent history is, you know, the countries that have given up nuclear weapons or that have developed some parts of a nuclear program but then didn't cross the threshold have actually fared a lot worse than the countries that have developed nuclear weapons, right? I mean, this is... Damn, Eddie. That's a crazy paradox when you think about it. Yeah. I think there's an incentive. I mean, if you look at Gaddafi, right? I mean, the Libyans...

That's a crazy paradox when you think about it. Everyone who didn't get a nuke. Look what happened to them. Look what happened. but you don't want them to get a nuke but if you don't get a nuke, you might want to get a nuke jean. It?

Just go on LinkedIn, man. This is What Now with Trevor Noah. A little bit. Like, you know, go shopping for my kids. You go shopping for your kids? In so-ho. Yeah. My wife has like this, there's this like kids store there that we like, we walk to.

You guys go together. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Your children believe. in close democracy. My wife likes to dress my kids in fashionable New York clothes, so we go to a place in Soho. I think it's called Machia.

M-A-K-I-E. And your kids choose what they like? No, no, no, no, no. They don't get to choose. There's no choice. There's no choice. Yeah. But it's hilarious, though.

My kids look like very hip, like, you know, Manhattan, a two-year- and four-year-old. That's so cool. My wife is really into that. She likes dressing them up like, yeah, no? Yes, yeah. You know when wives dress kids up, you're off the hook. That's true. Because she doesn't touch your fashion anymore.

Because there's too much paperwork now. Because she has to worry about herself first and then the kids. That's actually good one. Because now you stop being a representation of her. Remember before you were a proxy. If she was dressed nicely and then you're not, then she's like, come on, this guy is making me look bad. Then she would focus on dressing you up. Now she's got two kids.

Here's the thing though That's true But I have noticed though Since we've had kids I just don't get any new clothes anymore Oh that told you Yeah So I like all my clothes are like

Like five Like it's like this blazer I got when I was like 25 and I've definitely gained like A solid 15 pounds so But before she would have been like If you allow Eugene he'll end your marriage Careful Eugene will expose things that you never wanted to know

She doesn't care Honey how was the podcast I learned everything I now know the truth You don't care about me anymore. Yeah, I was wondering. I was like, where are my new clothes? No, it's over.

It's over. Yeah. The one thing she has gotten me of these really nice socks that are super comfy that I've, like, because I've had to dress that more of all of those book talks and stuff like that. And there's like a hole in one of them.

And I said, can I have a new one? Because I loved it so much. And she was like, yeah, but it's like two months ago, I still haven't gotten it. And I was like, well, Father's Day. She's waiting to give it. That's amazing.

I was like, I need it now. Like, you know, I need it. That's amazing. Need the sock. You know what she should do? She should give you the new socks now and then, but cut out the part that has the whole, then give you the whole filling part on Father's Day. Then you get new socks now, but the part you need to be filled on Father's Day.

Why? I thought that was the problem. No, then you get like an upgrade. Oh, we're recording. We're all good? All right, let's do it. Eddie Fishman, welcome. Good to see you.

Welcome to the podcast. Yeah. And welcome at the best possible time to have. you on because I've asked around and there are a few names that come up more when you when you request the services of somebody who is adept at understanding statecraft I believe it's a cult sanctions the borders geopolitical skirmishes you worked for the state department that's correct right you were instrumental in like I guess like guiding some of the policy around like the U.S.'s sanctions between China and Russia.

So, I mean, I'm sitting next to the perfect person to ask. And because I don't, like, not that I don't trust the internet anymore. I just don't know what to search for these days. It's easier for me to ask an actual expert in person. I thought you're going to say because the internet searches for you instead. No, I don't know what to search for these days. You think of a dog, the next thing you see, dog ads. You're not wrong.

You're not wrong. But everyone has the same question. so I'm going to ask it on behalf of many of us. What is actually happening in Iran? Yeah, it's a great question. Yes. Look, I started my career motivated by trying to come up with a solution to Iran's nuclear program that didn't involve fighting another war in the Middle East.

That's why I honestly joined the government after I graduated college. Iran was building a nuclear program. The U.S. was fighting a war in Afghanistan, another one in Iraq, and both of them were going terribly. And I thought to myself, there has to be a better way to try to non-violently coerce countries that are trying to do things

that we don't want them to do, like seek nuclear weapons or support terrorist groups to stop them from doing that. And that had been the U.S. policy for a long time, right? That's what George W. Bush wanted to do in his second term.

It's what Barack Obama did and famously with the Iran nuclear deal. Look, I think Donald Trump in 2018 during his first term, he made a gamble. He said, if only we had imposed more sanctions on Iran. If we put them in more economic pain,

I could get a deal that was even better than what Obama did, right? And he tried that through this so-called maximum pressure strategy, and it failed. You know, by the time he came back in his second term, so, you know, last year, Iran had enough nuclear material to build 10 bombs,

which is way more than they ever had, you know, before, you know, before we actually had that deal in 2015. And so I think Trump was sort of confronting with this, confronting this massive failure, which was he had tried maximum pressure to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. It hadn't worked. And so he could have theoretically tried a different approach, maybe pivoted to something more like what Obama did with diplomacy. But instead of changing his

goals, he changed his means. He escalated from the use of economic warfare through sanctions and economic pressure to the use of military force. And I think we're now seeing why every president before him had been hesitant to attack Iran. So here's what I hope we get to. to in this conversation. I think one, I'd love us to all be able to actually understand what's going on, not on the ground, but like, you know, behind closed doors with Iran and the US. Two, I would love for us to all understand why you, I guess, sort of shouldn't mess with Iran lightly, right?

Three, I would like us to even understand who sets the rules around who should and shouldn't have things, whether it's nuclear weapons or who decides where a border should or shouldn't be enforced or how you get to enforce that, what attack is, what defense is, and then understanding where America exists in the world now as it pertains to China and Russia, who seem like the other major state players. So let's work from where we are now, right? Everything you laid out makes sense to me, but I'm just going to ask, like, the dumb question that lingers in my head, and that is, why?

is America so opposed to Iran building up enriched uranium? And I'll ask the full question. Sure. Why is America so opposed to it when Iran has constantly said we're not trying to make a nuclear weapon? We just want to enrich to uranium because we have

many other uses for it. We can use it for power plants. We can use it for our energy needs as other countries have. So explain that part to me. Sure. So look, there is this thing called the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. I think it was first agreed to in the 1960s. And basically it regulates which countries can and can't have certain nuclear material. Okay.

And basically the bargain is there are a few countries that legally can have nuclear weapons, right? The United States, China, Russia, the UK, and France. Why? It's, you know, basically who was the most powerful countries after World War II and were able to sort of make themselves permanent members of the UN Security Council? That's a great gig. We should decide, Eugene, who between us gets to own a gun? I'm going to vote for me.

I was going to go more for Afrocom. I don't know. We've got to cut. Oh, man. But look, I mean... You need to non-proliferate. Yeah, I mean, I do think there's something, you know, there, which is, you know, at the sort of peak of the power of these countries. They sort of traded in some of that power in exchange to sort of, you know, legitimize their access to these weapons.

So they made a deal with the rest of the world or with themselves? And what the rest of the world. Okay, okay. The vast majority of countries have signed up. on to this. The bargain that they make is that they will not pursue nuclear weapons, but in exchange, they do have access to nuclear fuel, nuclear material so that they can have nuclear power, which, by the way, we need, right? And I think, in fact, we should have more of now. It's part of the reason that we're not making more progress getting ourselves off of fossil fuels because we haven't built

enough nuclear power. So Iran is a signatory to this nuclear nonproliferation treaty. The problem is that routinely, you know, as part of the, you know, being a signatory, you're inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Routinely, Iran lied about what they were doing. They were enriching uranium to levels that exceeded what they were allowed to do under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They had done research on actually producing nuclear weapons in the 90s. They had former Soviet scientists, by the way, who were probably looking for a job after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As many of them were. Yes, exactly. Who said, hey, I have something that, one really good marketable skill, and I can sell that to Iran. I will put my profile on LinkedIn,

maybe somebody that can hire me. You're hired. That's what one of them is here. It's like, you know, looking for work. He has experience working with extremely volatile materials. We'll not mention which one. Quing, quink. It was a great business.

I mean, it's how North Korea also built up their nuclear program. So basically everyone who is sort of persona non grata in the geopolitical world, they got their scientists from Russia, really. Oh, yeah. Okay. It's like one of their main exports, pretty much. You guys got your scientist. is Vanessa from Germany.

Oh, yeah, the U.S., yeah. Exactly, right? I didn't know that. Yeah, Von Braun. And then, of course, I mean, Einstein, you know, Oppenheimer, a lot of those guys were Jews who, ironically, you know, the Nazis didn't like the Jews. And so they went to the U.S. and then they built nuclear weapons. I mean, it's one of the all-time great, you know, sort of ironies of history, right, that the Nazis picked on the Jews. The Jews went to the U.S., built nuclear weapons and then won World War II.

It feels like a perfect parable in a way. Yeah. It's almost like people in trying. to destroy someone, they then create their own end. Do you get what I'm saying? They go like, we have to stop them, but they're not doing anything. And then they go on to help the other people who then destroy you basically and your empire. Yeah, hubris, man.

I mean, it's as old as the Greek myths and it still plays out. Yes, it is. It plays like a Greek tragedy, yeah, in many ways. It really does. So look, Iran did cheat and they did do a lot of things that suggested they really wanted a nuclear weapon. And just to address one important things, you're saying, why does the U.S. not like what Iran's doing?

the UN, so the entire UN Security Council on multiple times voted to condemn Iran and saying that Iran did have to stop enriching uranium. Got it. Because the whole international community was worried about what Iran was doing. And so that's also, I guess, one of the ironies of Trump's approach is that leading up to the 2015 nuclear deal that Obama and a number of the other world power signed with Iran, international law was on the U.S. side, right? The international law, which is what the UN provides, said that Iran should stop enriching uranium. Well, at this point, you know, the U.S. has been the one that unilaterally pulled out of this deal in 2015, that imposed sanctions, reimposed sanctions on Iran unilaterally. That now has attacked Iran twice in as many years without any international authorization. And so in some ways, for a long period of time, the U.S. was sort of on the right side of international law.

but after Trump pulled out of the 2050 nuclear deal, which you did in 2018, we've sort of been on the wrong side of international law. So correct me if I'm wrong on this because I've never worked in a state department nor do I have any qualifications. I've always felt like America just does what it wants. And then sometimes it's on the right side of international law and there's something. But it's not like America's trying to be on a side. America's just like, listen here, buddy. This is what I'm doing. And if it's on or not on your side of law, then that's your problem.

But it seems like every time the U.N., you know, like if we think of like weapons of mass destruction, you know, Saddam Hussein, all of that, America went against the U.N., right? But America just did its thing. And then when something else is happening, America will do its thing, but it happens to be on the other side of the law. So am I misunderstanding this or is America just doing what it wants to do? And then sometimes it's for the law and sometimes it's against international law. I think probably in broad breaststrokes, you're right. Although different presidents, I think, take this to, you know, further than others.

And I will say, look, when I was in the U.S. government, in the Obama administration, one of the things I did was I went to other countries, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia. And sabotage their countries. Exactly. Yeah. Say it. I was going to say eat their noodles. You know, we need more people like you in the world, Eugene.

You have goodness in your heart. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, no, you're right. And ate noodles. Yeah. No, no, I'm joking. You can sabotage the person, yeah. Yeah, so basically what we would do, and this was when we were putting pressure on Iran in the early 2010s, we would say, look, if you keep buying oil from Iran, you know, you a Singaporean company, we will cut you off from the U.S. dollar.

We will use this key choke point in the global economy, which is the U.S. dollar, critical for all international business. And so it was, I mean, I didn't use quite the accent that you just used, Trevor, although I probably should have. It would have made me more credible. And we did sort of give these folks sort of binary choices, which was like, look, if you don't stop buying oil from Iran, you're going to lose access to the world's most important currency, the U.S. dollar. What I will say, though, is when you deliver that message to a foreign businessman or diplomat, like, it doesn't usually go over well. They're like, what the hell are you doing here?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so what helped us in those days was to say, look, I'm just here because the U.N., including your own country, has said that Iran shouldn't have a new country. weapon. And guess what? Their oil sales are directly funding their nuclear program. So I'm just here to help you comply with your international obligations. And that may sound like, you know, glib or something like that, but it actually worked. And it made this, it made it much more likely for the person on the other side of the table to be like, look, we are being pressured by the U.S. but truly like this is accurate. It's a lot different if I just said that like, look, the whole international community disagrees

with me. We shouldn't be doing this. But still, you should stop doing business with Iran because I told you so, which is, by the way, that has been what Trump has tried to do with a lot of different countries in recent years, saying, like, if you don't do X or Y, I'm just going to wall up your economy with tariffs or sanctions. And there's no sort of legitimization that helps it go down easier, which also means not only is it like a more awkward conversation, but like from a very practical, like, self-interested perspective, that person on the other side of the table is way less likely to do what you want them to do. I mean, it's the same in like human relations, right? If you try to, persuade your kid to do something that they don't want to do,

they're much more likely to go along with it if they think that it's just. You're on the size of justice, but... They might just end up homeless as well. Where you kick them out. That's my petro dollar. It's to threaten them with homelessness. So you can do what daddy says, eh? Oh.

They grab me, listen to here, buddy. Yeah, you've got to use that accent. It works. It's much more effective. It really, it really works well. Okay, so, okay, so this is providing a lot of clarity. So you had a world where Iran, am I correct in assuming people don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon because it gives them more power? It's not because they think they'll use it, right? It's a great, I mean, I'm glad you brought this up because there's really two perspectives on this.

I think like the less common perspective, although some people have it, is that, you know, the Islamic Republic of Iran, like, they are literally this messianic. regime in which they are so committed to wiping Israel off the face of the earth that even if it means that they would destroy themselves, you know, in the process, that they would go ahead and use that nuclear weapon. I'd say that's a minority opinion. Okay. The more credible opinion amongst sort of national security experts is that Iran is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. So groups like Hezbollah and Hamas that have killed lots of innocent people around the world, including Americans, are on the payroll of Iran. Iran has basically trained and created a lot of these groups.

And so even if Iran wouldn't use a nuclear weapon itself, what happens if it gave some high and rich uranium to Hezbollah? And Hezbollah said that's... Okay, so that's the real cause of concern. Yes. It is nuclear... I mean, it's weird. I mean, I don't know if you guys were in New York in like the 2000s.

But when this issue really came up, it was like mid-2000s. like 2005, 2006, 2007. And the big fear then was that we would have a nuclear 9-11, that the next terrorist group wouldn't just fly a plane into the World Trade Center. Like they would have like a bomb laced with enriched uranium. And it was a legitimate fear, right? Because Iran was hyper-charging its nuclear program and supporting these terrorist groups. Well, this is, okay, this is an interesting question that I have actually then is,

I like your phrasing. Was it a legitimate concern or was it a legitimate fear? because sometimes a fear can be legitimate because you have a fear, and I can say that is a legitimate fear, but was the concern actually legitimate, as in was this based on something that could happen or was it based on the idea that something could happen? Yeah.

Which I know seems like semantics, but you understand what I'm saying? Sometimes people are afraid of something. Okay, here's an example. In America, people are terrified that their kids are going to get kidnapped. Yeah. It just became a campaign in the United States at some point. kids were going missing they were on milk cartons

but as a percentage of the population I've never understood that milk carton thing but anyway but as a percentage of the population it was huge right I mean it was small was tiny it was insignificant not to the parents of those children

and not to their communities but in terms of how it made people feel they started writing laws that said your kid could not go unattended at a park they couldn't like walk home if your child is found like by themselves they'll take the child sometimes away from the parents but they created such a mass hysteria

that now they've undermined the very existence of childhood in my opinion, right? And the freedoms of it. The fear was real, but the thing that the fear was based on wasn't necessarily as real as people thought it was. So in that, was it a real issue

or was the fear the thing that people were focusing on? Yeah. I mean, I think it was a real issue just given the stakes, right? and given that 9-11 did happen, right? It just happened, okay. So we had just experienced a massive, I mean, coordinated terrorist attack, you know, four planes that were hijacked.

Not shook the world. Yeah. Yeah, right. So I do think it was legitimate. And this is one thing that I'm conflicted about. It's also why I think honestly evaluating foreign policy is so difficult. Is that you don't know the counterfactual, right? You don't know, like, well, what would have happened if we had not done this, right?

And so, like, if you look at the track record of U.S. since 9-11. I would say most people, including myself, would say we, like, over, we exaggerated the impact, like, how big of a threat terrorism was. We, like, were scarred by 9-11. It did take away a lot of our freedoms. You know, I remember as a kid, you know, the first time I flew alone, my mom and dad taking me through security and dropping me out to off the gate. And so, like, we have lost a lot of our freedoms. At the same time, we have not had another 9-11 scale terrorist attack in the United States. And so it's, I'm just being honest.

I'm genuinely conflicted on this. Yeah, yeah, because you don't know. Because of government policy. And if you look at Europe, for instance, like there have been these massive terrorist attacks, right? I mean, if you remember in the 2010s in Paris, Paris was a huge one. Yeah, that's right in Paris.

Charlie Abdo and their ones in Brussels. You know, so, yeah. Yeah, it really becomes difficult because on the one hand, you want to live in a world where you don't allow isolated incidents to define how you live your daily life. Right. But on the other hand, you can't ignore them

as if they never happened. Do you know what I mean? So it's like you're in this weird place of like how much do you preemptively act and how much do you not? So it feels like America's in this place where it's going, we do not want to get to the place

where we have to think about preemptively acting or not acting when it comes to uranium or nuclear weapons with Iran. That's right. That's essentially where it is. Just as a side note, does North Korea have nuclear weapons?

Yeah, they've got a full suite of nuclear weapons. Oh, okay. this is interesting. So if they have nuclear weapons, what are they doing with them? Yeah. I mean, so far, they've not used them, right? Thankfully, I think that they feel like they have a sense of impunity. So there's a fear that they could launch some sort of preemptive attack on South Korea. I know South Koreans are generally worried about that. All the time. I don't know if you guys have been there recently, but it's a, you know, Seoul is within, you know, within range of a lot of the

artillery and whatnot from North Korea. So so far, the answer is they haven't used them, but there is a fear that it could embolden North Korea over time to act aggressively. So I think that's the other part that's maybe a little bit more nuanced is even if in Iran or North Korea isn't going to use nuclear weapons, do they feel that by virtue of having nuclear weapons that they can actually push the envelope a lot more below the use of nuclear weapons? Right. Right. So maybe North Korea wouldn't use a nuke against South Korea, but would they feel emboldened to attack South Korea? Because they have a nuke. Because they have a nuke. Right. And like this is one of the, I think, honestly, tragic lessons of recent history is, you know, the countries that have given up nuclear weapons or that have developed nuclear weapons or that have developed nuclear weapons, right?

I mean, this is... Damn, Eddie. It's bad. That's a crazy paradox when you think about it. Yeah. I think there's an incentive. I mean, if you look at Gaddafi, right? I mean, the Libyans... That's a crazy paradox when you think about it. Everyone who didn't get a nuke. Look what happened to them. Look what happened. But you don't want them to get a nuke. But if you don't get a nuke, you might want to get a nuke, Jim.

It... Just going LinkedIn, man. Yeah, but you see, this is what... So this is what I love about... No, but, but, Eddie, this is what I like about your brain and the way you think and the way you write and the way you... I can't believe you did that too. That was funny. No, so I think what I've always enjoyed about your work is that you grapple. Yeah.

Grappling is necessary whenever it comes to issues of state or anything large because it's not simple. We want to act like it's simple, but it's really not simple. Because what you just said is the ultimate paradox. We would, many people would argue that we don't want other countries to have nuclear weapons, let's say, right? We don't want more nuclear weapons out there. But we also cannot deny all the countries that have the nuclear weapons seem like they're living a more chilled life, you know, if you have the nuke. Yeah. Versus if you don't. Yeah. And then the ones you have it aren't also aren't using it. So if you're working in the State Department and you're looking

at this information, at what point does the paradigm shift or does it ever shift? Like, do you have to game these things out and ask yourself if the idea you're working from is correct or incorrect? Yeah. It's a good, I mean, it's a fair question. And there are, I mean, it's an extremely heretical opinion. There are some scholars who believe that nuclear proliferation isn't actually as bad of a thing because it creates more stability, right? I mean, we used to in the U.S. talk about trying to do regime change in North Korea. We don't really talk about that anymore, right? I mean, there's a reason Iran was attacked, but North Korea wasn't, right? And so I think my own view on that is that nuclear proliferation is very dangerous. I mean, if you look even at the history of nuclear incidents, when there's only a very small handful of countries that have nuclear weapons, we've come very close to accidental nuclear war on a number of occasions. Really? Oh, yeah. When?

In the 80s. You know, I think even in the 90s during the Clinton administration, there was actually after the end of the Soviet Union. I think it was Russia during the Yelsohn period. Their radar is picked up that there was an ICBM incoming over the North Pole. Right. Right. And I think he thankfully Yelton was like, this doesn't make any sense. No, it wasn't Yeltsin actually.

It was crazy. No, it wasn't anyone in leadership. Who was it? There was one man who was tasked with doing the thing. Or press the button. Yo. The story went. This is like one of my favorite stories because I remember watching this and being like, wait, what happened?

They saw the ICBM coming. I think it was like over the North Pole somewhere. They were like, it's coming for Russia. Top chain of command all goes. It's coming in. The bomb is coming in. What do we do? What do we do? Counterstrike.

They agree. We are striking back. We're striking back. We're striking back. You know everyone has to now send codes, send codes. All the codes. Get your keys. One, two.

Ah, you got it wrong. One, two. Ah, on three. No, wait. Are you going to say three and then we do it? One, two. No, wait, okay, okay. Say three, then.

Okay. Why not say four then? Okay, okay. One, two, three. Four. Yeah, now we got it. You see, I don't know why they do that. So anyway.

So what happened then? was the chain of command brings it down. It gets down to one man who's in his bunker and the job is to launch and then he went doesn't make sense. He just of his own volition went He was like it doesn't make sense.

He went rogue under there. The guy said it doesn't make sense. He disobeyed an order. My man, the biggest order. To launch. The biggest order. And I forget what his reasoning was. It was something along the lines of him

not understanding why there was only one or why they were launching the way they were. He just was like, doesn't make sense. Something is not right. And then he didn't launch. And then after the point when it would have been too late,

they realized that it was a satellite or a malfunctional or something was causing the reading. And it was not an intercontinental. There was no bomb coming in at all. And then they phoned him back and they're like, ah! And he's like, I didn't launch.

And then they were stuck because now they had to choose between punishing him for disobeying instructions or applaud him. for saving the world, arguably. He saved the world. Yes, he did.

Give that guy the Nobel Peace Prize. He should get us. Absolutely. He should. But then they didn't punish him to the full extent. For disobeying an order, obviously. Yeah, but they disappeared him. And he's like a folk hero in Russia, but they just disappeared him.

But not like to a gulag. He just, they were like, just go away. Thank you, but go away. Wow. Like a witness protection program. Yeah, in a way, in a way. That's wild. But I don't know there was like,

multiple times. Oh, yeah. But I mean, to like that whole story, like imagine, and that's only when you have two countries that have large nuclear arsenals. By the way, China now is in the process of making that three countries. But then imagine if that was 10 countries or 20, right? I mean, the risk goes up exponentially, the more players you have in this really awful game. When did the world ever become scared of the damage that a nuclear bomb can do?

Was it Hiroshima? where people, do you think Hiroshima is actually a demonstration of what these weapons can be? You think it was necessary for it to happen for people to go, these things are real? Because I think had that not happened, we would think maybe this is not real. I'm with you, by the way,

and I think this is another sort of broad lesson of statecraft. I was mentioning one is sort of counterfactuals are important, and you have to ask yourself, like, honestly, like, what would have happened had we not done X? Right. Another one is, you know, unfortunately, for weapons to be taken seriously, oftentimes they have to be used.

You make the example of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which for sure, I mean, you would not, I mean, I don't think anyone believed the power of these weapons. You know, there's a very closely guarded U.S. national secret before these attacks. I think it's actually relevant for today, too, because, you know, the straight of Hormuz, right?

Even going back to when I was in government, whenever you would sort of war game what happens with a war against Iran, you'd be worried that they would close the Strait of Hormuz. Wouldn't this be so bad? That was in the war games. Oh, for sure. I mean, because it's like the key maritime choke point. Okay, so it's the most logical thing that they would do.

Yes. Although, I think one of the suppositions that military planner strategists had for many years was that for Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, they would have to use these sea mines, right? There's sort of the floating mines that just blow up if you hit them. They've got thousands of them. And the sort of the logic was, well, sea mines don't discriminate if you're a tanker carrying Saudi oil versus Iranian oil.

Yeah, like the landmines in Mozambique. Right, yeah. They don't discriminate. And so this would be just as bad for Iran as it would be for all the other countries in the Gulf because Iran also depends on the straight of form moves to sell its own oil. So everyone was like, well, maybe they wouldn't do this because it would be like economically suicidal for themselves. Yeah.

But what they did in February and March of this year, after the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, they didn't use sea mines. They just used these drones and missiles that cost like $20,000, $30,000 a pop. They struck like a dozen or so ships, not even that many. And just for scale, before the war, you had like 150 ships going through the straight on a daily basis. All they struck was like a dozen ships. And that was enough then to get like the crews of these ships to be like, hell no, I'm not sailing through that straight, right? And this is like at a cost of like less than a couple hundred thousand dollars if you added up. And so what they did was they completely confounded expectations.

They showed that they could close the straight, A, at very low cost, and B, in a selective manner, right? In a manner where they could sell their oil. They could say like, your oil's good, your oil's bad, like your ship isn't going through. But like we're going to sell all of our oil. That was the surprise. But now that the world has seen that, that is like a killer, killer economic weapon. And like you can't unsee it, right? That's just like a fact from here on out.

And you know what? Also it exposed, the average person like myself, I do not understand how oil gets from one place to another in a steady stream. So when the straight of Hummus was closed, because in my head I imagine this, oil gets drilled, refined, just taken into a tanker, then the tanker makes its way. And then when the tanker reaches outside,

they're like, oh, we've got more that are coming, then they send another one. But actually they go out in almost like a straight line like this. Then it becomes a pipeline, but of ships. Oh, wow. If the straight closes doesn't mean the oil does not reach, like it could take months before a country gets affected. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. The convoy, the caravan, as it were, gets disrupted.

So we own, that's why we only notice that it's delayed. The impact is delayed because the last ship's already left them all their way. Yeah. So just to give him his props, Stanislav Petrov. Oh. We should, we should have a world. Stanislav Petrov day. We'll have soup in the...

Yeah, he was a Russian lieutenant. passed away in 2017, I believe but this man was literally No way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was the one. Wow. He was a full on, he was the commander of the Soviet military protocol.

Oh, no, he disobeyed the orders. Yeah. Against Soviet military protocol. And this was shortly after they had been an attack on a plane, I guess. But he suspected of false alarm, decided to wait for confirmation that never came. That never came.

Wow. I think you just. He just leapfrogged for me, Yuri Gagarin. He's up there now because he saved lives. He didn't go up a rocket and go hang out in space. So basically what he did was, just everyone has the full story correctly. What he actually did was he got the message from the nuclear guys to be like, yo, the nukes coming in, we've got to fight.

And then he just didn't tell his superiors because he's like, if they know, we're going to war. Oh, wow. That's actually what he did. And then he said no. That's amazing. That's a hero. What's his name? Petrov.

Yeah. that's that's that's that's the person we we mostly owe you there might not be life on earth if it weren't for this guy Stanislav petrov but is that unspoken heroes yeah until today huh because you just okay Stanisla petrov we just say his name you just ruined his cover in Miami now is going ah ah ah ha to find the you castles this domino effect or is it just a myth any that if one country launches another one launches another one will launch, another one launch, and there won't be life on Earth? Yeah, I mean, I think that it's more relevant in terms of, like, the U.S. and Russia,

just because we have these massive arsenals, that there's this concern that once, if Russia were to think that they were incoming nuclear ICBMs, if they didn't strike back before those ICBMs landed. Intercontinental ballistic missile, right? Exactly. Yeah, so these are missiles that, you know, within 15, 20 minutes can go from the U.S. to a target in Russia. As we called them in South Africa, express missiles, not local or station missiles. He's a long-distance missiles.

For New Yorkers, it's also the same thing on the subway. It's express line. Yeah, there's express missiles and then there's one-stop missiles. Yeah. I mean, I think the concern is that if you didn't strike back and it was a big enough strike, it could wipe out your ability to retaliate. And so, yeah. I mean, the whole thing is confounded now, too, because you also have nuclear submarine.

And so you've got these guys on subs. that theoretically, even if your entire country was destroyed, they could fire back. They're constantly just circling the globe, right? They're like hiding from each other. It's a game of hide and seek. There's nuclear submarines everywhere in the world all the time, just hiding, waiting to get a call to shoot a nuke.

That's another propaganda myth that keeps going around, that nuclear submarines, you would think they're just nuclear-powered submarines patrolling. But they're actually nuclear bombs. Well, they're both. Some of them. Some of them. Some nukes, Eugene. Not all this guy has.

Hashtag all nukes. Eh, some nukes, Eugene. Some nukes are better than others. Eugene is a nukator. But this, okay, this to me feels like a, it just feels precarious. It feels like we're living in a world where we are one madman or one wrong decision away from everyone being embroiled in a nuclear apocalypse or in a war that didn't even need to start. Yeah.

I mean, I think that's, that is reality. And I think maybe just another point. I mean, one of the things that's often guided my own decisions in life, like what to do is trying to demystify things. What are, you know, topics or, you know, industries that I think are interesting that I want to learn about. Yeah. And when I was in college, I really wanted to demystify, like, how national security decisions

are made. Part of the reason I went into government, too. I'm like, I will say to the majority of people who haven't sat in the situation room to see how these decisions are made, even in an administration where I really respected the leadership and the Obama administration, it was highly professional. Like, these are human beings, right? Like, they have good days, they have bad days, they're tired, they get sick.

You know, like, people, like, it's not for the fate of heart. I think maybe when you start realizing, like, the amount that can go wrong. And in some ways, it's a miracle that more doesn't go wrong. We'll be right back after the short break. Let's talk a little bit about the church. choke points of it all. You know, you famously wrote about choke points and I think it was one of the most in-depth looks at how you can run the world with a new type of weapon. For a long time, people thought the best weapon to win a war with was one that, you know, made someone bleed.

And then over time, people started realizing, no, the real weapon you want to use is one that bleeds their wallets. You know, the U.S. seems like it's in that place or it has been in that place for a long time. And now we're starting to see either the cracks of that system or the beginning of a new system on America's side. Let's break it down into two parts. One, what do people misunderstand about the petro dollar? Because a lot of people talk about the petro dollar now. Everyone's like, oh, the petro dollar, the petro dollar and Iran and China's buying oil using the yuan. What do you think people misunderstand about the petro dollar? So the petro dollar is just sort of one part of the broader dollar system.

I mean, it's an important part because if you just think about what a currency is, right? It's used for payments. It's used for prices. So we call it a unit of account. Like if I'm going to sell you something, what price am I going to do it in? And it's also used for investments, right? When you think about payments, you know, something like 15% of global trade is just oil. It's by far the most traded good in the world.

Not even just come out. The most traded thing. Good. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's wild when you think about the scale. The fact that, you know, the most traded good in the world is priced in dollars and largely paid for in dollars means that there's more demand for dollars around the world. It's not the only factor about why the dollar is such an important currency. I mean, I think arguably now just as important is the fact that, you know, our stock market in the U.S.

is something like 80% of global equity market capitalization. What? So if you add up. all the stock markets of the world, like U.S. stock markets 80%. Oh, yeah. I mean, you've got you know a couple of companies in the U.S. that are bigger than most other countries.

Damn, I don't know what was that big though. Yeah. So I mean, and our bond market's the biggest. So generally, if you, no matter where you are in the world, if you're generating wealth, if you're a country, if you're an individual, if you're a company, you're generally investing it in the U.S. But look, what this all boils down to is that when money crosses borders.

And the sort of the best metric we have for that is what's called foreign exchange transactions. It's when you take one currency and exchange it for another. By far, the biggest sort of market of them all, $7 trillion a day just gets swapped in foreign exchange markets, 90% of those transactions have the dollar on one side or the other. No way. So like, I mean, you know, basically trying to travel the world without, or trying to do business across borders without access to the dollar is like trying to travel without a passport. You just can't do it, you know? So the issue with the petrol, dollar would be, well, if China successfully takes this 15% of the trade that happens in the world

and changes it from the dollar to the RMB, that could be sort of the first crack in this overall edifice that underpins the dollar. The dollar's central role in the global economy is absolutely imperative for our way of life in the United States. We run these giant budget deficits every single year because we can just borrow money overseas, and that's because there's basically infinite demand for U.S. treasuries, our government debt. But then to your point, Trevor, when it comes to economic warfare, which, by the way, has become the central way that countries compete with each other today, unlike nuclear weapons, you actually can use economic weapons. The key economic weapon that the United States has is the dollar.

So they'll cut you off from the dollar. So then explain to me why the U.S. didn't use that for Iran? I don't understand why the U.S. didn't cut Iran off or were they not able to cut Iran off? Because what's happening right now, it seems messy. And the whole world is paying for it. Everywhere from South Africa through to Australia, people are paying more for their petrol. People are going to pay more for their gas. They're paying more for the average good that's happening in America as well. You're seeing gas, I mean, some places is crazy at $9, $6 generally.

like it feels like it's messy. When you run those games, I'm assuming not all of them are like war games. Are there other scenarios that the U.S. could have pursued? Look, I mean, we did pursue economic warfare against Iran. That was the strategy that originated in the second term of George W. Bush. It was actually kind of interesting. His Undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, the guy who oversaw all the sanctions programs, he had a heard Bush make this comment where Bush was like, sanctions have no utility against Iran, they're never going to work. And he sort of took that as a personal challenge. And one day, he was actually sitting in a hotel in Bahrain flipping through the financial times when he came

across an article about a Swiss bank that had cut ties with Iran of its own volition. And kind of a light bulb went off with him where he was like, hold on a second. Like maybe I don't need to persuade other governments to shun Iran. I could literally just go to bankers. Institutions, yeah. Bankers in London or Singapore or Frankfurt or wherever and persuade them not to do business with Iran of their own volition. And if they don't agree, you know, I could threaten to cut them off from the U.S. dollar. This was a strategy that the U.S. started in the second Bush administration in 2006. This guy, Stuart Levy, was reappointed by Obama, sort of quaint in 2026 America that a Republican would stay on into a Democratic administration.

Yeah, exactly. And he pursued that strategy, handed it off to his successors in the Obama administration. And that was the key to getting the Iran nuclear deal, right? It was putting Iran under financial and economic pressure that then got them to the table for the 2015 deal. And, you know, I think Trump didn't, it wasn't that he thought that the economic pressure wasn't working.

It was that he thought, if you only put more pressure on Iran, you'd get an even better deal. Right. Didn't work. And so he tried to use military force instead. I think the irony of the current situation, though, is that what Iran is doing

is they're basically taking a leaf from the U.S. playbook. They're saying, well, hold on, the U.S. has used its key choke point, which is the dollar to try to pressure us. And so the way for us to fight back is to say, well, what choke point do we have? We have the Strait of Hormuz,

the most important energy choke point in the world. 20% of global oil flowed through this narrow waterway every day. That's just oil. We're not even talking about sulfur. Yeah, helium. Yeah, all the things that you need to grow crops around the world. We're talking about fertilizers. And, I mean, they really, are they in a more powerful position

than the world's thoughts? Much more. Yeah. I think that's one of the, like, what we're seeing right now coming out of the war is that Iran may emerge from this war decimated, militarily and economically, but strengthened strategically. Because they've shown the world that they can use this choke point to incredible effect. Yeah. And something I, you know, it used to be that the U.S. could, you know, like I said, I used to go to places like Singapore and Japan. And you said, well, look, if you keep doing business with Iran, we'll cut you off from the dollar.

Right. Well, now what happens if Iran says to the Japanese? well, unless you lift your sanctions on us, we won't allow your ships to go through the straight of hormones. And that's what they're doing. I mean, they're cutting deals on a bilateral basis with other countries saying, your ship can go through, your ship can't.

But you have to pay me a tolls. Yeah, totally. So, I mean, I think what we've seen, because you're asking like what era has happened. I mean, the whole thesis of my book, joke points, is that we're living in an age of economic warfare. I think for the first 15 or so years or 20 years of that period,

We were kind of in this unipolar world where it was like the U.S. had all these economic weapons, but other countries didn't. Well, now we have China with rare earth elements where they completely shocked the United States last year by cutting off our access. We have Iran with the straight-of-hor move. Because you need those for everything,

phones, computers, cars, everything, right? They literally, they imposed an embargo on rare earth elements in April of last year on the U.S. And within weeks, Ford had to shut down its factory that makes it explore SUV. They just didn't have enough of these minerals. Within weeks. Within weeks.

Literally, they're factory closed. And so, I mean, other countries have choke points too. We're in an economic arms race right now where every country in the world is saying, well, what are the choke points that we have that we could use against our rivals? And then what are the choke points that our rivals have over us that make us vulnerable? That is what's happening right now. Okay. Now, at the risk of sounding like the joker, why can't we all just get along?

I don't understand why we're... I was hoping you don't say why it's so serious. I was like, what? Travel is a serious issue, right? We've used words like embargo. No, yeah, but I'm saying, okay, so hear me out. Hear me out on this. Hear me out on this.

Hear me out on this. This could be a very naive perspective and a very naive point of view. But it seems like we live in a world where there is, for the most part, mutually assured destruction now. You cannot just blow everything up everywhere. I mean, even looking at Russia and Ukraine.

for all intents and purposes, Russia could blow up Ukraine, right? I mean, they could use a nuclear weapon. That's what I mean. So they have nukes. They're not using the nukes. They could also blow up all of Ukraine, technically. They have the capability, but they do not do it.

Do you know why they do not do it? I think it would be the fastest way to unify the entire world against them. Okay. And I also mean they're close. But I mean, with nuclear weapons, too, it's like they're, it's like if you nuke New Jersey, I think New York is going to get the nuclear fallout. Okay, so they're close enough.

Oh, yeah, I mean, they're right next door to Ukraine. Right. So then they sort of can't use the nukes on Ukraine. And they also can't blow up all of Ukraine because then people will come for them. And then the world also can't blow up Russia because I guess the world just doesn't do that. It feels like, I don't know, I don't know why. It feels like there's a lot of unnecessary posturing going on. and things being blown up for no reason or maybe the wrong reasons.

Definitely the wrong reasons. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't understand why. Sorry. No, no, no, go. I think it is necessary because if you look at the countries that have nuclear weapons, they have strong men that really get challenged during elections.

Okay. So if you have a person that says, I'm the only person who can control this guard dog, I'm the one that listens to, I'm the one who feeds it. Do you really, really, really every four years want to change the person who's in charge of that guard dog? America, if you look at all of the countries that have nuclear weapons is the only country that does that and it just looks like the guy who's controlling the guard dog is going, do you think this is a good idea of changing me every four years?

I think that's why he was able to make a comeback, right? I think he subscribed to the strong men agenda. Maybe America should just elect its nuclear president separately. You should be like a Supreme Court thing maybe for like 10, 15 years. You just have one nuclear president. NBA commissioner, yeah. You have nuclear president and you have president

president. You can have like a reality TV star as president and then just like an extremely boring lawyer as like a nuclear. Yeah, you have like a Jerome Powell of nuclear weapons. It's not bad idea. Yeah, and you go like you are just in charge of nukes. That's all you do. The war can, people can fight the war, but I'm the president of nukes.

Yeah, because is there a country that has nuclear weapons that has had free and fed democratic elections? Germany, running over four years all the time. Germany and France do they have? Do they have? Do Germany not have nukes? No, Germany does not have nukes. Ah, of course. How could I forget? The France have nukes. Yeah. And India has nukes.

India illegally has dukes. Yeah. But not part of the NPT. I don't see Modi going, Nainra Modi going anywhere anytime soon. No, he seems like he's in there. So let's count all the countries. Do this for me. Yeah, who does have nukes? USA. And then out of all of them, show us which ones are most likely to be out of power or just came into power.

So there are five, according to this treaty we talked about the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. There are five countries that can have nukes. Okay. So the can have? U.S., Russia, China. France, UK. Okay. There are a few countries that have nukes.

They develop them outside of the bounds of international law. So technically illegal nuclear programs. Okay, got it. India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea. Huh. Okay, so that's interesting. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Before you go on.

I want to know about these countries who are illegally developing nukes. Can you explain this to me? Like, how did that happen? I mean, a lot of countries have sought to illegally develop nukes, including Iran, right? The question is how they've been able to be stopped. You've confused me here. Eddie, forgive me. You know, I play video games and I tell jokes.

So Eddie, you've thrown my brain off. You've thrown me off. What's the name? Petrov or something? Yeah. Tell us about Petrov. Tell us love. Dennis Love. So.

So this is, okay. You've confused me here. You've confused me. We are saying that Iran is being bombed and has been sanctioned because it is illegally enriching uranium. Yeah. Because it didn't agree to it in the terms of the... So what it agreed to in the terms of its contract,

it hasn't adhered to, it keeps failing the inspections, right? Okay, but it doesn't have nuclear weapons. But then we are saying that India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, and North Korea do have nuclear weapons, and they develop those nuclear weapons illegally because they... They're not signatories to them. Or none of them signed, yeah.

So if you don't sign, nothing can happen to you. I mean... Why doesn't it... No, the international community... to be clear, has tried to stop all four of those countries from developing nuclear weapons. But to our point earlier, once they cross the threshold, what are you going to do about? Yeah. So then everyone should, no, no, now I'm on not, let me put it this way. I understand where Iran is coming from. Not as a leadership and not as a, I do not see the incentive to not have nuclear

weapons is what I'm saying. Do you understand? No, the incentive value. I cannot understand. Because you've just shown me four countries that have nukes and now no one can do anything about it. And I'm like, well, then why wouldn't I get a nuke? Look, I think it particularly, and to Eugene's point, particularly country, authoritarian countries, there's clearly an incentive, right? Because you're worried that some other country may come and say, you know, you're illegitimate. We're going to overthrow you. Right.

So, yeah. I mean, again, if you look at countries that have either given up their nukes or, you know, like Libya was sort of the classic case in the early 2000s, Gaddafi cut a deal with the U.S. to give up his nuclear weapons. Boy, oh, boy, did he pay the price? You know? So, I mean, look, I think, Trevor, you're on to something here. There's a reason why authoritarian regimes have pursued nuclear weapons. And I think this also gets us to another reason why there's fear about Iran getting a nuke, right?

So let's say Iran did successfully get a nuclear weapon. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, all these other countries in the region, Turkey, who view themselves as potentially a rival to Iran, they're going to get nukes. So you wind up getting sort of a cascade of nuclear proliferation. Okay, so now I understand what you're saying. You're saying the secondary effects of people getting nukes might be more dangerous than the primary ones in that more people having nukes means more opportunities for something to go wrong with a nuke. Not even people necessarily launching them. So if everyone has a nuke and something goes wrong with a nuke or a nuclear facility or something, then people are just, it's just because there were just more nukes out there. It's the same way if there are more guns in a society, it is more likely that someone will get shot.

Even if it's a child finding their dad's gun in like a closet or something. I think it's actually an incredibly good analogy. Right. You look at the U.S., like, are all these guns everywhere? Right. It's probably why we have such a ridiculous high rate of gun findings. And it doesn't mean that all guns are bad. It doesn't mean that all gun owners are bad, but it means that there's a higher likelihood that something will go wrong with a gun.

How many Stanislavs are we going to have, right? I mean, you're going to have one in every country, right? Right. And given the stakes, right, with nuclear exchange, it's potentially existential for humanity, or at least for certainly for individual countries or cities, right? You know, nuclear proliferation are things about things? I like how you've also phrased it. It's not a nuclear war.

It's a nuclear war. It's a nuclear war after the thing. Yeah, there's nothing. There's nothing. Basically, nuclear war, Eugene, is like a double block on WhatsApp. That's what it is. I was going to say, it's like it's a typical fat under the same duvet. It's when you block me and then I block you and then it's finished now.

Yeah, I was going to use the fat. you're going to go with farts yeah because there's a couple farts all together at the same time another duvay and then no one knows who did what but the cropped thing has happened and then there but there they can still be more conflict afterwards have ever cropped at anyone

no my daughter taught me that term I didn't know what does it even mean you know what crop dusting is enlighten me when people are chilling at a park bench do you really want to give a state department person more weapons you never know a way but need this information

this is true yeah yeah this is helpful when people are chilling in a park and then you just walk past but you fart and then you go okay yeah it's the only way to do it right you don't want to linger behind you and you're not wrong eddie then you just crop dust it yeah wait what is the alternative it's like

no there's too much there's not it's one who fart and hang out really and then everyone is doing each other going once a lot dust it now there's three spider men's going crop dust it if I ruled the country

that would be my my number one law everyone who farts you have to stand there where you farted. Now you sound like Saddam Hussein's son. Until the smell has dissipated. No, no, no, no, just so that because look, there's nothing wrong with farting. No, there's absolutely nothing wrong.

We've also got to get rid of that in society. Yes. So just stand there so that there's no blame that goes around. Stand there and put your hand up. Yeah, exactly. So if you see someone standing someone and they've got their hand up, you know that they farted. And you know, the person who's guilty in a group of three or four people

that farts and doesn't acknowledge the fart is the one that did it. Because people who go, what's that? Are the ones who know they didn't do anything? I disagree. I disagree. Some people are very good at acting. Wait, wait, wait.

I've seen some people. Some people. Some people, some people fought. Yeah. I've seen some people. And they're the ones to go, hmm, what is that? And then other people go,

and then they act like, that's the oldest trick in the book. It's the oldest trick in the book. I'm sure there's even, I'm sure in history somewhere people have done this on a state level. What you do is you have a nuclear incident or you have something

that goes wrong with like a chemical weapon and then what you do is you go guys someone released a chemical weapon are you seeing this and then everyone starts and they go like you were the first to discover it but you're the ones who actually dealt it or you were developing a virus in a lab and then it's a trick it's a

leaked and then people were dying and you're like what is that? Yeah it's a trick. Whoever smelt it dealt it yes and whoever denied it Friday. Let me ask you this generated your LinkedIn is going to be ruined after this Dude, my career's over now. But we'll solve the world.

I'll tell you that, Eddie. We'll solve the world. Okay, let me ask you about like some of the thinking that goes into the State Department or how world leaders try and remedy a conflict, right? Okay. Donald Trump has chosen a specific way with his people. It seems like, and this is only by reports, it seems like many of his people internally said, do not do this.

They're like, yo man, don't do this. And then he was like pressured by Israel and they said no, there's an imminent attack. So let's start with the first part. How does the American government or any government for that matter determine when something can be called defense versus attack? Yeah. Because when they go like it's a preemptive strike, I understand the logic behind some of it. So if you're in the Wild West and someone's about to draw, I assume you cannot wait for them to draw before you fire because the time that it takes, You're dead. I get that. I get that. Okay. So I understand the logic in striking preemptively to a certain extent, but then sometimes I go, how far can you take that back? Is it when the person has got their hands by their side? Is it after they've whistled? Is it that?

Good whistling. Or is it the pacing? Is it after the 10 paces? Is it when they walk out of the saloon? Is it when they ride into town? Is it when you meet them in the wild west before we get to town? how far back can you go before you say that this is now attack versus like defense? Yeah. I mean, I think the honest truth is semantic and it doesn't really matter. I mean, the president is the commander in chief. He or she can decide when to use military force. And there's really not much of a check on that, unfortunately. I mean, to your question, though, I mean, Donald Trump has tried to portray the strike on Iran as preemptive, right, that they were about to get a nuclear weapon. And what I would say is, I mean, unless there is some classified intelligence that has not been either leaked or declassified, which I consider pretty unlikely, because you would think that if there was a smoking gun, there would be a significant incentive for the White House to say, hey, well, look at this. I do not believe that there was a preemptive reason to strike Iran.

You could say that they already did have 10 bombs worth of nuclear material. so uranium enriched to a point where you could turn it into a bomb within a week or so. What I would say, those, even now, despite this giant attack by the United States and Israel in June of 2025, Operation Midnight Hammer, that took out a lot of their nuclear facilities, plus the war that has happened in February, March, April, May of this year, they still have. Iran still has that, you know, a thousand pounds of Heinrich uranium. Even after the bunker busters and all of the jazz? They still got it. It's what I think Trump calls a nuclear.

clear dust. It is buried under this town called Isfahan in the middle of Iran, and we haven't done anything about it. Yeah, but this is, okay, again, maybe I'm naive. But if Iran had 10 bombs worth of uranium, did not make one bomb, never mind 10, they did not make a bomb, and then they get attacked, and you said in a week they could make a bomb. First, threatened? Threatened, did not make a bomb. Attacked did not make a bomb. So, so. You said, in a week, they could make a bomb. So, threatened, threatened. still do not make a bomb, then should we not assume that they do not want to make a bomb? Or is that foolish? So I think one other challenge, and look, I think it's hard not to – sometimes we don't

appreciate that societies can be complex, right? And we oftentimes anthropomorphize other countries and say, like, Iran did this, or that, right? I think the truth is, within Iran, you've had different factions. You have different people who said we should have a nuclear bomb, others who said we should at least have the capability to build one quickly if we need. need it. Actually, Ayatollah Khomeini, the senior, the one who was killed a couple months ago in an Israeli strike, he actually had put out a fatwa, sort of this dictum saying that we should never have nuclear weapons. And so one theory, one sort of hypothesis is that the sort of aging

supreme leader, I think it was 86 when he was killed and had terminal cancer. So he probably didn't have much long to live, even had Israel not often. I think there's this theory that he sort of didn't want to actually have nuclear weapons, but a lot of these sort of hard-line younger young guns in Iran and the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, did want nukes. And so I think another sort of double irony here is that in sort of taking out the Hamini senior, they've now created the monster that they- You've radicalized the whole movement. You've handed over power to people who are even more hard-lined than him.

And I think, look, I mean, we all, Eugene, you live in New York, but we all- No, it lives in South Africa. No. Okay. You're here hanging out with us. There are a lot of, look, there are a lot of... We all live in New York. There's a lot of, you know, the Iranian diaspora, you know, they're here. And I think there was a lot of hope in that community.

Yeah, a lot of people hope for that. Earlier this year that, you know, this could be it. You could finally get changed. Because I think it's important to note, like, the Islamic Republic of Iran, like, you're bad guys. Yeah. They killed tens of thousands of innocent protesters earlier this year. We would all be better off. Principally Iranians.

if they were gone, right? I think there was high hopes that, you know, there was change coming. When Hamani was sort of going to die from natural causes, you have an internal debate about succession, you might get a more liberal government. Well, guess what? The U.S. and Israel took care of their succession problem for them, handed it over from Kamani Sr. to Kamani Jr., who seems to be a puppet of these hardline IRGC generals. And so I do think that it seemed like Ayatollah Hamini Sr., you know, deceased.

now did not actually want to cross the nuclear threshold. Right. But it's clear that they did want to have the capability to weaponize, and now there's an even greater incentive for them to do so. Don't press anything. We've got more. What now after this? When, you know, and I'm obviously only asking you from the U.S. perspective, because

you worked in the government. I'm not focusing on the U.S., but like, when a president or their trusted confidants or trying to figure out how to solve some of these most pressing issues. Are there ever stories or have you ever encountered moments where a president tried to go the opposite way to the direction America seems to have always gone? So, and again, I'm using broad language, forgive me. But it seems like America's idea of how to solve an issue has often been sending the bombs and things will get fixed.

So how do we fix Saddam Hussein? we blow things up. And it's done and it's like, oh, no, no, now you've got ISIS. And it's like, okay, that's not what we wanted. And it's like, all right, how do you fix Gaddafi? Okay, you blow up Libya. It's sorted and it's like, no, now you've got like one of the worst slave trades in Africa and a hotbed of extremism.

Time and time again, it feels like, you know, even Iran itself, it seems like America is dealing with its previous sins in helping to oust a leader that it didn't like, who for all intents and purposes seemed like a good leader for the people, maybe, maybe not the most perfect leader, but way better than the leaders that came afterwards. You see what I mean? Like how, how, at what, like,

is there a point where an American leader goes, let's try something completely different? And if they have thought that has it worked or has it not worked? Yeah, I mean, there have certainly been examples. I would argue that the original approach toward Iran, which was to not use military force, to use economic pressure, to cut them off from this choke point.

that is the U.S. dollar originated during George W. Bush's term. I think it was, frankly, George W. Bush being a little bit humbled after seeing what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. Because I think there was sort of the beginning of his term, and after 9-11, particularly, a bit of a sort of rah-rah attitude toward the use of military force. You know, the U.S. kind of felt omnipotent. And then it became pretty clear after a couple years of those wars that they weren't going very well, even against these quite small countries.

And so then when a country right next to Iraq, that was multiple times bigger than Iraq, more powerful than Iraq, namely Iran, was actually developing nuclear weapons. That wasn't something that Saddam Hussein even was developing, which made it even more ironic. George W. Bush did decide to try to use nonviolent pressure against Iran. Right. That was the baton he passed to President Obama. There have been other decisions. I mean, look, one of the decisions that I think Obama took most heat over was the Syria red line.

If you remember when he came out. Oh, yes, there's a red line in the sand. Yeah, there's a line in the sand. Assad uses chemical weapons, we will attack, we will strike. And I think, you know, basically his whole administration was gearing up, ready to bomb Syria and sort of basically living up to Obama's redline. And then Obama sort of went for a walk in the backyard of the White House and said, you know what, I don't want to do this. And so there have been moments in history when, you know, presidents have sort of chosen to go the opposite way of their advisors for good and for ill.

And I think to your point, I mean, we'll see when the sort of definitive history is written on Trump's decision to attack Iran. But it does seem, if you can trust, some of the early reports, that Trump was sort of a lonely voice in terms of wanting to strike Iran in February of this year. And unfortunately, his voice is the one that actually mattered. Has there ever been a case of the U.S.? Because you see, you showed us or you just described two possible outcomes, but they seem to be. you know, completely diametrically opposed. One is like, go in and blow the thing up or ignore it completely. Have there been any instances where the US has tried

to bring the other person in? And what I mean by this is like, I'm sure you've seen this because of the world you've been in. Many people will argue that part of the reason the world has the Russia that it has today

is because the US did a terrible job of bringing Russia into the fold post-World War II. in and around NATO, the Cold War. The Americans just didn't do a good job of being like, hey, join us. Actually, you're part of this G, you know what I mean? You're part of the G20. You're part of this.

Come on, you're part of this. You actually have a McDonald's, let's do this thing. You know what I mean? So on Russia, I mean, it's something that's an issue near and dear to my heart. I actually sort of was a very interested in Russian history, Russian literature. My great grandparents emigrated to the United States from the former Russian Empire. Oh, wow.

And, you know, spent a summer when I was in college. living in Russia, sort of before our relationship has gone sideways. I've now, by the way, been sanctioned by Russia so I can never go back, unfortunately. Which, by the way, I appreciate that. When I was sanctioned in 2022, a lot of people sent me these like congratulatory notes. No, no, no, no. Anyone losing a piece of their home? Yeah, man. I was like, hold on a second. Like, this is upsetting. You know, it's like weird when a place where you've had friends, where you've spent good times. It's taken away from you. It's taken away from you. So, look, I do think that U.S. policy toward Russia in the 90s, could.

have been significantly better, right? We could have given Russia more of a bear hug than we did, right? If you look at, you sort of juxtapose Russia with some of the other former communist countries like Poland or Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, I mean, all of those countries have generally become successful free societies, you know, liberal democracies, even Hungary, right, where we're sort of going in the wrong direction for a long time. They now got rid of Orban, and they're sort of back in the fold. I do. think we could have done a better job in the 1990s. But look, I think there's also an element of just bad luck and historical contingency. You know, sort of the main successful Russian politician

that a lot of people thought was going to succeed Boris Yeltsin, who, you know, sort of famously kind of a drunk, not a particularly effective leader, was this guy, Boris Nemtsov. He was very handsome sort of reformer. And Yeltsin, when he was sort of like, you know, very clearly, very sick and dying, he was like, who can I put in as my successor that's just not going to, like, prosecute my family for corruption and, like, take away our resources. And so he elevated this relatively unknown deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin, into sort of the Kremlin to be his sort of handpicked successor. And so Putin inherited the presidency from Yeltsin.

He eventually won. you know, an election, but he inherited the presidency at the end of 1999 from Yeltsin because Yeltsin was like, this is sort of, you know, the most innocuous successor. But like, if you think about it, had that not happened, right? If you had just had a free and fair election and before Putin had come in and sort of that role, you probably would have gotten a guy like Nemtsov. The other thing I'll say, too, just to give, you know, some folks in the U.S. government a little bit of credit here, because I do think we could have done better policies and I can talk about

those. But, you know, we did bring Russia. You said, you mentioned the G20. You know, we have this G7, which is sort of like the close club of U.S. Allies. We did make that the G8, right? We brought them into the G8. And we brought Russia into the World Trade Organization. And actually, I, part of the reason I was sanctioned by Russia, in 2014, when Russia first invaded Ukraine and annex Crimea, I was the Russia sanctions lead at the State Department. So I was the one designing the sanctions and negotiating them with the EU and the G7. to try to put sanctions on Russia back in 2014. And I remember at the State Department,

a lot of my colleagues were very against sanctioning Russia. And I think it was because they had just got Russia into the World Trade Organization like 18 months before. And many of them, like career diplomats, had spent like a decade of their lives on the ground in Russia, like working with them to like make sure that their laws were right, and you know, getting in place

so they could join the World Trade Organization. And then like 18 months after like the big project of their careers had culminated, we're like, actually we're sanctioning Russia. And so there was a lot of like blood, sweat and tears poured out by U.S. diplomats to try to bring Russia into the fold. But yeah, I mean, I think unfortunately history just didn't go our way. One of the things I've always wondered for people who work in your position or any position adjacent to it in a government is how much of yourself you have to keep and how much of your patriotism has to take over. Because I can only imagine it's a really complicated situation, right? On the one hand, you have your views as a human

being. On the other hand, the country has its views and because you are of the country, you're meant to adopt some of, if not all of those views. But at times, your country is doing something wrong. How do you then find the gap between yourself and the country without being seen? You know, because people will be quick to say, you're a traitor or you know, it's treas. But it's like, yeah, but countries can do things wrong as in like administrations. And we've seen people who will fight against their own country or like from within the ranks. They will, there'll be a certain level of dissent, not physical fight.

But they'll go, no, I don't think this is right. We must change this. And when it is changed, we'll go, oh, thank you for changing it. But if it doesn't get changed, that person will get punished for trying to change it. How do you grapple with that? Yeah. Look, I think each individual has their own perspective, their own moral compass. I think it's interesting because for me, I think I would have a lot of trouble serving in an administration whose policies I disagreed with.

Frankly, just to be totally candid, you know, I was a career diplomat at the State Department. I could have theoretically stayed and worked through the first Trump administration. And I decided not to, in large part, because I really did believe that what Russia was doing in Ukraine was morally objectionable, morally abhorrent. They were literally conquering their neighboring territory or neighboring country, right? Which is not something that I think many of us ever expected to see again in our lifetime, right? Something like that had not happened since World War II, right? An actual military conquest occurring on European soil. and then you had Trump elected in 2016

with the Russian government actively assisting. I'm not saying that Trump was colluding. But certainly, I mean, you know, the Russian government did put its thumb on the scale. And then you had, I think, in the beginning of the first Trump administration, a real effort to say, well, maybe we should just excuse all of Russia's sins, we should, you know,

let them have Ukraine. And that was not something I wanted to be a part of. And so that was a big reason why I decided to leave the government. At the same time, when I look at friends and colleagues who have stayed around, I'm extremely grateful, right? I'm grateful. Because they were bullwark in many ways. And it's not even that.

You know, because I think a lot of them, like, you know, it's hard. I think during Trump's first term, you did see, you know, and Trump gets mad about this, right? That he was sort of the deep state was fighting against him. But, I mean, even if you're not necessarily a bulwark, Like, I think having intelligent people in the room who have some experience, who can sort of, you know, the very least put their views out there, I think is so important. Yeah. And look, I think in that one of the things that has done Trump, a disservice in his second term, is he does not have a high caliber of cabinet or advisors around him.

He has a lot of people who really should not be anywhere near making decisions. There are a few people there, I think, are quite, they're good, they're credible. but it's a much, much lower caliber than you had in this first term. And I think that's part of the reason you've had, frankly, a less successful policy. How do you think we find the balance between having expertise and getting stuck in an old way of doing things? I asked this because I remember hearing one story about how when the Trump administration came into power first time around, he just told people around him to make calls. He was just like almost on like a childlike level.

Yeah, like, you know what's best. Go ahead. Not even. He was like, what's happening in South Africa? All right, Eugene, aren't you, phone South Africa. And then it was like, Rudy Giuliani, isn't that Italian phone Italy? And like literally, I'm saying it in a very comical way, but apparently it was close to this. He just went, hey, man, do you know, you know something.

I said, didn't you go there once? Phone them. You phone them. And people were just using like their normal phones. No way. That's how the story like sort of first leaked out is that people were conducting state business. On the, what do they call,

unsecured devices? People were just phoning. But, and this is completely a story that I've heard so I cannot fact check it or verify it. But apparently that was one of the reasons that the like the Saudis and the, I think the Emirates were able to even like get to the table. No, get to the table having a conversation

was because Jared Kushner just didn't like know this stuff and he was like, why don't you want to talk to them? And they were like, what are you talking about? We're not going to. And he's like, why don't you talk to him? And then he was like, yeah, I'll phone him and you just talk to him.

And then the one person just talked to the other one on the phone and they made progress that they otherwise would have never made if it had been contained within like the diplomatic channels of old. Yeah, the static, you know, even things like which country you phone first. Yeah. I remember hearing many world leaders were frustrated with Biden's administration because they felt like there was no reaching out.

There was no communication. There was no. And then Biden's team would say, no, we're very, we're choosing very carefully who we will call first. Protocol. Because it's protocol, right? Which country we reach out to first. Apparently, bro, as soon as Trump came into power, WhatsApp.

Every country was phoned. Like, and when I say every country, I mean, Every, if you knew a country, the person, their job was just to phone someone there and just ask someone who asks someone who asks someone who asks someone. And then you would even like phone Trump's phone directly. It was. Yeah. It was in many ways chaotic. I don't deny this.

But it did give us an insight into the fact that some of the ways that we do things are a little so stiff, you know, and stayed that like it holds us back. So how do you know what I mean? How do we find that balance between the diplomatic process? protocols versus new ways to maybe make progress with countries that we disagree with. I couldn't agree more. I think that in the process of writing choke points, I spoke to 30 or 40 people who were in the first Trump administration. Yeah.

And one thing I heard consistently was a feeling that it was actually exciting because there was a tolerance of risk. There was allowing people to sort of freelance a little bit more than you did. You know, in the Obama administration, it was extremely sort of, you know, orderly. And you had a meeting that then the process. The process was followed to a T. And so I do think there's something to that, right? And I think particularly also with diplomacy, like, it is helpful, frankly, to build rapport with other people to have a relationship where people can just pick up the phone and call you.

I mean, in my own experience, a lot of the progress I personally made was through personal relationships, that trusting relationships. So I think there's something there. I think when it comes to expertise, though, I don't think there's really a substitute for it. Like, I do think you do want people in the room who at least know something about the country you're talking to or about, right? You understand their history, you know some people there, their culture,

maybe you've spent time there. And certainly, like, when you're talking about the uses of power, economic warfare, you should probably understand, like, well, what might happen if we're going to sanction the Central Bank of Russia? Right, okay. Could that cause a financial crisis in Germany? What would that mean for us, right?

Like, what would happen if you attack Iran? Would they cut off access to the Strait of Hormuz? Could they do that? What would that do to oil prices? What would that do to fertilizer? How about could we have a famine in part of Africa? Right. Because, like, and those are subjects that you need some level of knowledge.

I think at the same time, like, I don't, having some sort of an ossified class of experts, I also think is not good either. Like, I think you should have people changing seats at, at the table. I think Biden, President Biden, by and large, took a lot of the senior people from the Obama administration and just, like, shuffled their chairs. And I don't think that did him much service, frankly. I think, like, having some of those people back for sure, right, very good people, but also injecting some new ideas, some fresh perspectives, I think is really important. In a way, I think of it, it's sort of like football in a way, is you have some football team,

soccer, some teams where the coach moves every single player on the pitch like a chess board and the team can become so stiff that they can't respond dynamically to changes in the game plan. And then you have other coaches who don't have a game plan and then that's chaos. But then you have coaches who go, I spend all my time picking the right players and putting them in the right positions and then I trust that when it's game time, everyone will know what they need to do. And in a way, it's like, I feel like that could be like a perfect balance is you find

experts because they've taken the time to become experts in these fields but you also give them a little latitude to say hey go out there make friends make decisions move the ball like switch things because I just think we take for granted how much the small

interpersonal relations shape the big geopolitical relations you know yeah the big picture one of the saddest stories I ever saw was the story of how the Israel-Palestine negotiations essentially didn't come together and then did

just because Clinton forced the two leaders to be in the same room. Really? They didn't even want to talk to each other. It was like straight up like I don't want to talk to them and they don't want to talk to me we're enemies, this is this. And Clinton said, you're going to sit in the same room. And he did it arguably for selfish reasons, but in a good way. He was like, I'm going to solve this issue. You're going to sit in the same room. and he was like neither of you wants me as your enemy we're going to sit in this room and we're going to go

and they refused to speak to each other for a long time they just didn't speak to each other they didn't speak to each other they didn't speak to each other and they would have meals and everyone would meet up and then one day one day the story goes one of them just turns to the other and was like how's your family literally Palestinian leader Israeli yeah one of them just turned to the other

and said how's your family and the conversation evolved and the conversation and then the next time they spoke more and the next and they never spoke about the actual issues each time, each subsequent meeting, and then one day, one said to the other, do you actually want to get into, do you want to discuss this? And that's when they made the most inroads.

That's when they made the most, yeah, until that suicide bombing that happened, it looked like there was a path to a two-state solution. It looked like there was a moment in time where Israel, Palestine wasn't going to be what it is today. But the biggest breakthrough for me came in the fact that two human beings, interpersonal relation, two human beings

saw each other as human beings and no longer as like a country's name and because of that they began the journey. And like it got ripped away from the world, I argue. But I even think about that

when we use like words like the Russians. Yeah, totally. I'm a little sad sometimes because I go, I have nothing against Russians. I've been to Russia. I went there for the World Cup.

I've met Russians everywhere in the world. Russian people forget what they've given us in the world, like, you know, art and ballet and math and like lots of things. But as human beings, oh man, Russians are some of my favorite people I've ever, ever, ever met. But then we say the Russians as shorthand for the Russian government. Yes. And I think what we do is we create the perfect propaganda for the Russian government to use on its citizens to say,

look, the whole world hates us. Yep. And it's like, no, no, no. Actually, we have nothing against the Russians. We have an issue with Vladimir Putin's government. Does that make sense? And I sometimes like, that's why people are like, hey, congrats. You got banned from Russia.

And they're happy for you because they don't realize that you knew human beings there. Totally. They think that you're cut off from the government, but you didn't lose the government. You lost humans. You lost friends. You lost family members. You lost your history. You lost your culture.

And that's the thing that I think we forget sometimes when we're having these like geopolitical disputes in the world is even when people like the Iranians, man, I know people from Iran. some of the most fun you'll ever like amazing human beings you don't know what I mean but we then go the Iranians and it's like no bra I wish we were more specific

about like the country and that administration in particular the same way no American wants to be tarnished by the bush years they call them the bush years in particular if you say to an American oh man what you guys were doing in Iraq

they're like ah yeah the bush years then you're like ah the American years Americans would be like no no those were the bush years because they want to separate themselves and America from that moment. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Like, I don't know.

I feel like there's like, there's like a world where we could try and like stitch the interpersonal just a little bit more. It almost feels like the propaganda machine needed a villain all the time. Oh, definitely. So I think when you look at the, I love, I love reading about the Vietnam War. When you look at the Vietnam War, there was no really, there was not really a villain that, the Americans can look at in Vietnam. There was no name in Vietnam that people could say. Vietnam started becoming synonymous with the war that never ended,

but there was no human being. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You couldn't find the person. Right? But then when Iraq happened, then there was Saddam Hussein. There was branding. Yeah. When 9-11 happened, there was Osama bin Laden, you know,

and obviously Africa becomes synonymous with dictatorships. So, but when you point the camera or the lens back at America and go, you could be going through a dictatorship yourself or Europe and you go, the same what idiomine used to do to people not wanting to be voted out elections that are prolonged interference and whatsoever then it becomes difficult for people to to kind of ingest in their own country because it has become synonymous to something that happens over there yeah yeah it becomes it becomes apart from the thing i i even wonder actually maybe maybe you're best position to speak to this

do you ever wonder if no no no no no did you ever work in a state department you can take you've worked in departments like not at the states Department stores. Department stores. The vegetable department. Many departments, this guy. Traffic department. Hey, Eugene, many departments, not the state department.

Do you ever wonder if America's propaganda has been too good? And what I mean by that is, is it possible that America's propaganda was so good? At a time when I argue it needed to be, every country, uses propaganda. So no judgment. This is just us looking at it as objectively as possible. Is it possible that America's propaganda was so good that it bred a generation of people who now had a complete inability to create new ideas of other countries because of the propaganda that they'd been fed? And I'll tell you where I bring this from. When you look at the Cold War and Russia and the U.S., it is fascinating to me that

after, you know, World War II, the two nuclear bombs are dropped by the United States. The Allied forces panic, go, what the hell has happened here? We didn't, as you said, it was a secret. We didn't know you guys had this bomb. What the hell is this? America goes, calm down. We've got the bomb. We'll protect you.

The world's like, we're not comfortable with this. This is scary, right? Everyone starts to panic. Russia then says, America has this bomb and we don't like that they're the only ones who have it. Maybe we should also try and make one. they then posture as if they sort of have a weapon, but they don't. America then says Russia has a bomb. They then start acting like Russia has a bomb.

Russia then goes like, yeah, yeah, we might have a bomb. America acts more like Russia has a bomb. And then they push Russia to have a bomb. And I'm not saying they forced Russia. You know what I mean? I'm not simplifying it to that extent. But it feels like the idea that you, can have of another country can be so powerful that even subsequent generations who didn't realize

that it was propaganda, you know, watching cartoons like Popeye or Superman or any of these, when you get into government, you're like, I don't trust the Russians. Why don't you trust them? Yeah, but why don't you trust them? The KGB. Because from the time you were a kid, you were taught not to trust the Russians as a whole. And I'm not saying you should just trust Russia, the country or the administration. But do you ever wonder if like that propaganda is so powerful?

that it has limited America's ability to see beyond its own propaganda that it created. Yeah, I mean, I think also, you know, the United States, despite the fact that we are and have been for a long time, the world's most powerful country, we underwrite all of these international institutions. We've had sort of embassies all over the world. Our pop culture, as you say, is all over the world. Yeah. We are relatively geographically isolated. And the vast majority of Americans don't travel overseas. They don't live in cities like New York, where, you have plenty of friends who are Russian or Iran. Anyone can walk by, yeah. Yeah, so it's very easy to caricature other people from other countries.

And I think that oftentimes does us a disservice in foreign policy. Yeah, because it just limits your ability to, like, I don't know how you negotiate with somebody if you don't see somebody to negotiate with is what I mean. How do you even begin that conversation? What do you, you know, you just give them a broad label and then you bomb away and then you hope for the best. Yeah, treat them like Uber East delivery guys. Take your goods and wish them well. That is definitely one way to think of it. Is that what you do? You should invite them in and you know. Oh, really? Eddie, tell the buyer. Eddie's like, I'm sure you were wondering who the second set of fries were for.

You were a really unfriendly guy, YouTube. Can you believe he does that with the Uber Eats guy? If I was a diplomat, this would be a dim machine. That would be like, that's rough, man. But look, I mean, honestly, you know, I wrote a book about economic warfare and been traveling the world talking about it. And honestly, it's something I never expected. One of the countries where there's the most interest in economic warfare and choke points where I've been going routinely over the last year plus is Canada. Because the Canadians are like, what is going on in the United States? Wow.

Hitting us with these massive tariffs. Why are you threatening to make us the 51st state? and I go there and people are there looking at us and sort of to your point of like, you know, Bush era America and they're like, are you the enemy? And oftentimes the message I have there is like, hold on, no, like we are still effectively the same, you know, cultural. And ultimately, I am still very bullish on U.S.-Canadian relations

over the long term. But, you know, even very cosmopolitan, powerful people in Canada are like reassessing whether they can trust the United States. And I think that's because, you know, if you're in a place and all you really do is consume another country by virtue of what their political leader is saying, which, by the way, is now how a lot of the world is consuming the United States. Right. It's no longer, you know, Michael Jordan and the backstreet boys or wherever, you know, like in the 90s, right? It's like Donald Trump. It's like Donald Trump, like is like the, you know, like the avatar of the United States. I think it has changed a lot of perceptions. I mean, even, I don't know if you've had this experience. Like when I've been to Europe in the last. couple years, or sorry, I guess the last year and a half since Trump came back, like a lot of my friends, like, will be having dinner in Berlin or something and they'll be like, are you

okay? And I'm like, just like they're just like, their only notion of American life right now is like seeing what's on the TV, which looks so chaotic. And like, little do they know, like, you can walk around the West Village or Soho or Brooklyn and be like, hold on. Cleveland, Ohio. Yeah, anywhere. Like, Oklahoma or you name it. Like, you know.

Yeah. And like maybe in a way, that's also troubling and that like your society can be taking a really dark turn when on like an individual level and like a family level you don't really experience it yeah um but yeah it's uh it it is sort of like a mind-bending experience when you see how even people who are very culturally similar to you who are your friends and other countries are perceiving the united states in this moment who you'd expect to know better in fact yeah so you can imagine what the other people think it almost makes me wonder just hearing you say that if america was seeing america doing what a America's doing, what would it do to America?

Yeah. Like literally, if America was witnessing the United States doing what it's doing now, would it impose sanctions on it? Would it invade it? Would it push for a regime change? You know, that's an interesting way to think of it because if your allies are saying to you, you are not yourself, it's almost the same as your friends calling you in for an intervention to be like, hey, you know, you don't.

not the person we knew you to be. Yeah. No, I think that's right. And look, I mean, in some ways, Donald Trump, at least when it comes to economic warfare, is part of a consistent trend where every U.S. president in the 21st century, from Bush to Obama to Trump's first term, to Joe Biden, to Trump, second term, has imposed sanctions at twice the rate of their predecessor. Really? So you've seen an exponential...

rise in the use of economic warfare across party line. So in one sense, we should appreciate that he is sort of part of this trend. On the other hand, you know, previous presidents, including Trump during his first term, when they were using economic warfare, it was against Russia and Iran and North Korea and China. It was a small group of countries that, for better or for worse, a lot of Americans viewed as sort of these pariah states. Yeah. Right. Trump, during his second term, has waged economic warfare not just against those countries, but against Canada, against Mexico,

against India, against Japan, against the entire world. At some point, threatening Lesotho. Right. I mean, who does that? Right. He did, right? I mean, they got hit with tariff

on Liberation Day. They've already been surrounded by South Africa, guys. I mean, what are... Yeah. Talk about a choke point, right? That's a real choke point. They're surrounding us.

Yeah. No, so I mean, like, that... Yeah. I mean, that's not normal behavior. And I think it does have really long-term consequences for the United States. Because if you go, we sort of loop back to our conversation about the dollar, like, after we impose sanctions on Russia in 2014, and I was involved in this, it was actually in 2014. Before we had any sanctions or export controls or tariffs on China, that Xi Jinping said, hold on a second. If this can happen to Russia, it can happen to us.

So it was in 2014, a long time ago that China started trying to build alternative. payment systems to the dollar so that they could, you know, buy oil in R&B or, you know, clear their trade through programs that didn't, you know, go through the West. Oh, damn. But it wasn't like Canada was doing that or Japan or South Korea or France, right? It was like countries that saw themselves as potentially allied with Russia or, you know, they might do something similar to Russia, right? I don't think anyone in France is right now thinking about an imperialist war in the, in sort of the way that, you know, Russia has invaded Ukraine, you know, so they don't see themselves, like, potentially the Russians. But now you do have, like, that shadow of a doubt all around the world,

including in, like, the UK, you know, including in countries that are like our very close allies who are thinking, how do we build security against America? Damn. How do you create our unchokable points? Yeah. I mean, look, Canada, I mean, to the choke points, I mean, Canada is a petro state, right? I mean, they're their vast majority. of their exports are oil and gas. To your point about the convoys, right? Canada sells their oil largely via pipelines. And those pipelines are fixed infrastructure,

and they only go one direction. They go south. They sell all their oil and gas in the United States. And for a long time, that's been a very profitable business. They've got a very large market for their energy. Well, right now, they're like, hold on. What happens if the U.S. sanctions us or puts tariffs on us? And so they're investing billions of dollars to build pipelines to the coasts.

so they can sell their oil and gas to China to Europe so that they can't be just dependent on the United States. You know, what I'm hearing you say in this conversation is, it's so interesting how history will repeat itself, but essentially in trying to create a stranglehold on like every country and every leader and every moment, it feels like the U.S. has done the exact opposites. You know, like an overbearing parent that tries to control every single aspect of their child's life.

Now their child has a secret phone and has secret friends and has a secret life. It feels like that's sort of what's happening to the U.S. now is now Canada is going, oh, can I build my own pipeline? Can I make new friends? China's pay. Yeah. And then Brazil is going, can we sell, you know, food to China. And China's going, can we buy food from these people? It seems like it has in some ways created the thing in the same way that you said with the Germans,

the beginning of this conversation, they were like, oh, we're going to go after all of these people. And those people, because they went after, went to America and created the machinery that then took down the German, do you get what I'm saying? 100%. Wow. This has been fascinating. This is, I mean, because it's ongoing. Yeah. I mean, like, there's not, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, and then they lived happily ever after. That's what I mean. No. No. It's just, we're just there. There are two processes right now that I sort of see as, like what's fundamentally reshaping the global economic system, the whole international order. Yeah.

You have an economic arms race in which countries are looking what the United States has done with choke points, with the dollar, with semiconductors, you know, that we've put an embargo on to China and saying, well, what are the choke points we have that we can weaponize? Because economic warfare, it's a good way to compete, right? Compared with nuclear weapons, which you're never going to use, you actually can use choke points. And so they're doing that. And then the other thing they're doing is this scramble for economic security. It's what are the choke points that make us vulnerable to China, you know,

the China could use against us. And that's why right now in the U.S., we're investing tens of billions of dollars in our domestic critical minerals industry because we don't want to be vulnerable to this China, Chinese choke point on rare earths. But also now to the United States, where we mentioned Canada, we mentioned China with the payment system. I mean, Europe, you know, they're now thinking, can they build alternative to cloud services? You know, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, they dominate the global internet. They build all the infrastructure that the internet runs through.

And Europe wants their own now. They want something that they can rely on. Exactly. And so I think these two processes, the way I see it, are just going to keep playing out until we have a fundamentally reshaped global economy. Yeah. Until globalization is something that we learn about in the history books. It's just a moment in time as opposed to the way things are.

Exactly. I think that's what's happening right now. And there are different ways that could go, right? We don't know what the end point is, but I'm pretty confident that those two forces, this economic arms race and the scramble for economic security, are going to continue to play out until we have a fundamentally new global economic order. Then Eddie, you're just going to keep coming back, my friend. We're just going to keep having you back on the podcast, and we're just going to follow it step

by step. This has been riveting. Thank you. Like, really, this has been your insight, the way you share things, the way you grapple with them. The way you explain? Yeah, the way you explain. Can I tell you keep doing that? because I think we take for granted

how many news stories people consume on a surface level, but we never actually get an understanding of and I think you do a really good job with that. So thank you very much for joining us. That's my pleasure. I enjoyed hanging out with you guys. This was lots of fun, man.

Good to see you. You're the man. You too. See you in the department. This segment is brought to you by Verizon. So, Joe. Most iconic World Cup moment ever.

What has to be in the list? There's so many. But as a Messi fan, as someone who has been given so much joy by Messi, I think 20-20 World Cup, seeing football finally give back to Messi, something he has wanted for so long

and winning that World Cup. Let me know when I should put up my violin, please. Look, let me know when I should put it. Look, this man had come so close in 20. Yeah, but it's not like 18 at the most iconic moment. It was seeing him No, Joe, come on.

Come on. Messi, okay. I'll throw one at wait. Let me first go. Messi has been hunting for this World Cup for forever. This is just his story. Imagine you've been sliding into a guy's DM.

Ask people. You've been sliding and sliding and sliding and sliding. And finally she says high back. That's what it felt like. Yeah, for you. No one else cares about your DMs. That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying no one cares about Messi's win.

I'm just saying as an iconic moment. I'll throw one at you that I think is more iconic. Roberto Baggio missing his penalty. That was iconic but it was also very traumatic. For me, it's the first moment. It was the first moment that I realized how high the highs in soccer can be and how low the laws can be. You know what you was crazy about the barjo thing for me

is how it connected us in a world that didn't even have social media. Yes. Right? No one had social media. I was in school. Yes. And kids were talking to each other. You know, we called it the barjo from now.

If you kicked the ball and you missed the crossball, people, you called yourself Badgeo when you did it. It was. You would kick and you'd be like, Banjo! Imagine being one of the greatest attacking players of your time. The best player in the world at the time. And then after one action, defines you. Become becoming the verb for missing a ball. It also, he was a player of the tournament.

He had dragged Italy again, kicking and screaming to the final. He had fans over. But Madonna had a crush on him. Maradonna. Madonna. Oh, Madonna. I thought of say Maradona. No, no.

The material girl herself. She had been photographed time and again. You're lying. We're wearing his jersey at concerts, out jogging. So you know you're really, you've really made it when the material girl is objectifying. She hasn't worn that shirt since. Yes. And then to go from that.

She hasn't worn that shirt since. So I can give you. That's up there. That's okay, okay. Here's another one that I think could be the greatest, the most iconic moment. Louis Suarez handball against Ghana South Africa 2010 World Cup Yeah I can see why you picked that

Home World Cup but No forget home world cup Forget South Africa I know I'm biased take South Africa I'm biased take South Africa now Picture the moment Ghana is on the cusp of doing what no African team has ever done before

Reach the semi-final Reaching the semi-final of the World Cup The whole world is now Like we were all supporting Ghana Yes. Right? If we're honest, the whole world. Yes, but from Uruguay.

Yeah, it was Uruguay on their own. Against the world, yeah. It was Uruguay and then the world was supposed. Because Ghana was like a Cinderella team, right? So you had some Africans. Also, this is an African World Cup. Yeah, it was the, and it was Africa's, like Shakira said, it's time for Africa. It's time for Africa, yes.

Right? It was time for Africa. Ghana's in this cup. Ghana is the only remaining country. They are about to go through. A header comes in, bound for the net. And then the hand, not of the goalkeeper. Yes.

the hand of Suarez. The hand of Suarez. And brother, the craziest thing was I loved Louis Suarez. He didn't pretend, yes. That's another thing. He didn't lie. He just put his hand up,

knock the ball out. I'm taking one for the team. Takes the red card. Yes. Do you think he knew his goalkeeper had a chance of saving it? No, no. The goalkeeper was beaten. No, no, I'm saying the penalty.

Oh, I think the thing is, if you're in the 93rd minute and your country is on the verge of going out of the World Cup, and the keeper is beaten and the ball is goal bound, you're going like, you know what, I'm taking my chances and I'm hoping, I'm hoping. Because the thing is, if I stop it now, at least it doesn't go in.

And he's an instinct player. Yeah, he played the advantages. Suarez is an instinct player. I think that's part of what made him great. I think most other players would have hesitated, and I think that's the thing you're saying. He was unapologetic. He didn't hesitate, and he knew the punishment that was coming,

and he went like, you know what, I'm going to gum and risk it. I wonder if he's ever been to Africa ever since. No, he's public enemy number one. He can't. He is the entire Africa. He can't. Because what happened was?

Soros connected us in a way that no leader ever could. He didn't just connect Africa. He connected the diaspora. That's what I'm saying. Everyone in the world. We all came together against Louis Soros. And the crazy thing is like, I still love him. He still what.

I loved him from Liverpool. I love him as a player. He was at Barcelona. So he's like, he's this lovable. You love him when he's on your team, especially. That's the best way to put it. Yeah, you'll always love him. If Swarres did that for your team.

He's like Dremont Green if he was a bit more talented. I don't know who this is a slam. No. Who was a bit more talented? If Dremont Green had the talent all shots of carry. Fired. I don't know where Dremont Green is, but shots have been fired from Uganda all the way to Dremont Green. No, because what makes it even worse is so Swarys gambles.

Yeah. And then he wins. Yeah, he did win. Because the penalty, you know, again. Yeah. As Samuajian almost does it bag here. You know, he hits a crossbar. The penalty doesn't go in.

So Ghana, the game goes into extra time. Ghana is eliminated in the penalties. But what made Swarres even more of a villain is once Asamo Gian misses the penalty. The way celebrates. They cut to him on the sidelines celebrating like crazy while the entire Africa was going through this trauma. You know what it also left me with is like everyone has, everyone says sportsmanship. But I always wonder, if you do something. that is part of the game

and you're willing to take the punishment, is that not part of the game? It is. Because it's not like Swarer shot someone. No, he didn't. And the thing is he was greeted in Uruguay as a national hero, obviously. But we also talked from when we're young

that crime doesn't pay or the villain doesn't win. We're told like Hollywood teaches us this, fairy tales teach us this. And in this one moment, all that was turned upside down because Swares actually did win. crime actually did pay

Swares missed the semifinal which means they actually it's part of this on why they lost to Holland because Holland made the final in Spain. Swarres would have been the difference but at least... He probably would have been the difference. Yes, but you could see in that moment when Africa

when you talk to Africans about that moment you can see them having flashbacks. I think... My friend, we are all we're still... People are still in therapy. That was our greatest hope, that moment. But maybe that's why we should be grateful to Swares. Right? As Africans, we've always needed things that connect us as people. We're always looking for moments that bring us together as a nation, right? South Africans have never felt more African than in that moment. Yes. Right? Which is what

we need more than ever. So in many ways, I would argue, Suarez might have robbed Ghana, but what he gives in Africa, long time, yes. Long term thinking. No, he united Africa. As you said, more than anyone, but also the funny thing about that. Louis Suarez, the Nelson Mandela of Africa. No, the funny thing about that moment, the funny thing, Nelson Mandela is funny. The funny thing about that moment is in that particular World Cup, Superior Shabara had scored the goal that made... Shabala's goal felt like the moon landing for Africa,

like one small kick for man, one giant kick for mankind, yes. And then Suarez brought us back down to Earth. Same World Cup, two very contrasting emotions. And I think if you're talking about bringing together a continent or bring... Shabala gave us the delirium and then Suarez gave us

like the depth of... Despair. Despair. True despair. But man, he gave us one of the greatest moments of all time. What a moment to pick as an Africa. As an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Verizon is bringing once-in-a-lifetime experiences to their customers,

including free tickets to matches and pitch-side access during gameplay. If you're not with Verizon, no sweat. Stop by a Verizon store to get in on the action and learn about their offers for new customers. What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaziamen, and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random Other Stuff by Ryan Hardoof. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now.