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world. Welcome

1:14

back to Pots-A-The-World, I'm Tommy V-Tore. I'm Benroads.

1:16

How you liking these in your, uh... I

1:18

call them I F-Bs, because that's what the

1:20

TV people call them. I actually am

1:23

used to wearing them from when I

1:25

go on TV, but there's something about

1:27

podcasting where I was used to having

1:30

those big old... Big dorky cans. But

1:32

now I'm realizing that we probably look

1:34

really ridiculous wearing them. Yeah. Maybe it'll

1:36

be one of those things like every

1:38

other thing like every ridiculous wearing them.

1:41

Yeah. Maybe it'll be one of those

1:43

things like every other technology. We're 20

1:45

years now. People look like the equivalent

1:47

of a giant desktop computers. You'll have

1:49

a neural- thousands of people subscribe to

1:51

our YouTube on the last episode. Like

1:54

I said then, we're trying to build

1:56

a big YouTube audience for the show

1:58

and for Pots of America. because otherwise

2:00

when people search for content on YouTube

2:02

they find TBUSA and the Daily Wire

2:04

and a bunch of right-wing crap. Logan

2:07

Paul. Logan Paul on Gaza. We want

2:09

them to serve as good quality content.

2:11

And we have a good quality show

2:13

for you today. We're going to talk

2:15

about a bunch of stuff. So President

2:17

Naid Bukayle of El Salvador was in

2:20

Washington. We're going to talk about his

2:22

visit and how he has become Trump's

2:24

partner in their broader assault on due

2:26

process and civil liberties in this country.

2:28

fun one. We're also going to cover

2:30

the recent election in Ecuador. Why disgraced

2:33

former mercenary? I guess he's a current

2:35

mercenary. Eric Prince keeps popping up in

2:37

all these places, including El Salvador in

2:39

Ecuador. Then we'll get into the latest

2:41

on Trump's failed effort to end the

2:44

war in Ukraine, how the administration's talks

2:46

with Iran went over the weekend, and

2:48

the fight over how to define success

2:50

in those talks. Some reports that the

2:52

State Department is not content just destroying

2:55

USAID. they're also going to come for

2:57

state proper. And then finally you'll hear

2:59

about some elections that we can all get

3:01

excited about. And then Ben. Listeners are

3:03

going to hear my interview with Josh

3:05

Rogan. Josh wrote one of the best

3:07

books about the Trump administration's China policy

3:09

in the first term. It's called Chaos

3:11

Under Heaven. So we talk about what

3:13

he learned in reporting that out, all

3:16

the kind of factionalism in the Trump

3:18

administration, how Trump is very susceptible to

3:20

Xi Jinping, who can just call him

3:22

and flatter him. And then I asked

3:24

Josh how annoying he thought you and

3:26

I were when he was a reporter

3:28

covering the Obama years. He definitely

3:30

thought I was annoying at that time. Me

3:32

too. There's no question about that. Josh could

3:34

be a little annoying too. Let's say we

3:36

all were annoying. It's a stressful job. Yeah,

3:38

we all fight. We're younger too. We all

3:40

do our best. But it's exciting stuff. A

3:42

good show, I think. A well-rounded show. I'm

3:45

liking these deep dives too. I'm excited

3:47

to dive deep on these topics. You

3:49

want to dive deep on Mr. Bukit?

3:51

Oh boy. Okay, so on Monday, President

3:54

Trump welcomed the world's lamest dictator, President

3:56

DiBakili Val Salvador, to the White House.

3:58

Here's a little taste. the kind of

4:00

chummy rapport we were forced to

4:02

listen to. He's done a fantastic

4:05

job. Mr. President, it's an honor

4:07

to have you. Thank you. He's

4:09

been incredibly for your country and

4:11

we appreciate working with you because

4:13

you want to stop crime and

4:15

so do we. And it's very,

4:17

very effective, and I want to

4:19

just say I love the people

4:21

of El Salvador and say, they

4:23

have one hell of a president.

4:25

Sometimes they say that we're in

4:27

person thousands. I like to say

4:29

that we actually liberated millions. So,

4:31

you know, like, it's very good.

4:33

Who gave him that line? Do

4:36

you think I can use that?

4:38

Yes. And in fact, Mr. President,

4:40

you have... 350 million people to

4:42

liberate. But to liberate 350 million

4:44

people, you have to put some

4:46

sum. Talked to listen to. El

4:48

Salvador, as listeners probably know, has

4:50

been at the forefront of the

4:52

U.S. political debate over the last

4:54

few weeks because the Trump administration

4:56

sent 283 of Venezuelan men to

4:59

El Salvador to rot in its mega-prison,

5:01

the terrorism confinement center. Among them was

5:03

the Salvadorian man named Kilmoor-Abrago Garcia, whose

5:05

deportation the Trump administration now admits was

5:07

done in error. That's because in 2019,

5:09

a judge ordered that a break of

5:11

Garcia could not be sent to El

5:13

Salvador because he faced threats from a

5:16

local gang. The backstory is years are

5:18

years are years are... earlier, gang members

5:20

literally broke into Mr. Abreco Garcia's family

5:22

home and threatened to kill him unless

5:24

his family paid extortion money or turned

5:26

their son over to a gang to

5:28

become a member. So he fled the

5:30

country at age 16. But because

5:33

this administration is filled with malignant

5:35

idiots, Brego Garcia was deported to

5:37

El Salvador and is now stuck

5:39

in a jail with the exact same

5:41

gang members who threatened him many years

5:43

ago. But rather than use Bocaile's visit

5:45

as an opportunity to fix their mistake

5:48

and atone for their sins and bring

5:50

him home, the Trump team doubled down

5:52

on calling Brego Garcia a terrorist and

5:54

on fighting the court order. Here's a

5:56

clip of Make a Wish Foundation Secretary

5:58

of Secretary of State. Marco Rubio, sentient

6:00

vampire penis Stephen Miller, and President Bukalay speaking

6:03

in the Oval Office. I don't understand what

6:05

the confusion is. This individual is a citizen

6:07

of El Salvador. He was illegally in the

6:10

United States and was returned to his country.

6:12

That's where you deport people back to their

6:14

country of origin. Except for Venezuela, that wasn't

6:16

refusing to take people back or places like

6:19

that. I can tell you this, Mr. President,

6:21

no. The foreign policy of the United States

6:23

is conducted by the President of the United

6:26

States, not by a court. And no court

6:28

in the United States has a right

6:30

to conduct the foreign policy of the

6:32

United States. It's that simple. And the

6:34

story. And that's what the Supreme Court

6:36

held, by the way. That's a part

6:38

of the point. The Supreme Court said

6:40

exactly what Marco said. The no court

6:43

has the authority to compel the foreign

6:45

policy function of the United States. We

6:47

want a case 9-0, and people like

6:49

CNN are portraying it as a loss,

6:51

as usual, because they want foreign terrorists

6:53

in the country who kidnap women and

6:55

children. But President Trump, his policy is

6:57

foreign terrorists that are here illegally to

6:59

get expelled from the country, which, by the

7:02

by the way, is a 90- I'm

7:04

supposed to suggest that I smuggle a

7:06

terrorist in the United States, right? It's

7:08

only how can I smuggle him today?

7:10

How can I return him to the

7:12

United States or whether I do it?

7:14

Of course, I'm not going to do

7:16

it. It's like, I mean, the question

7:18

is preposterous. How can I, as a

7:20

model, a terrorist of the United States?

7:22

I don't have the power to return

7:25

him to the United States. Okay, so

7:27

band, a couple thoughts here first. Just

7:29

despite Rubio's whining there, the courts have

7:31

absolutely made decisions that have impacted or

7:33

constrained US foreign policy. The Supreme

7:35

Court repeatedly ruled that individuals detained

7:37

at Gitmo could challenge their captivity,

7:39

for example. The Hamdan decision said

7:41

the Bush administration's original military commissions

7:43

were illegal. The court recently denied

7:45

the Trump administration's request to block

7:48

a $2 billion foreign aid payment.

7:50

So this happens all the time.

7:52

Happens with Congress, too. It disgusted

7:54

me watching that to see how

7:56

much bouquetlet was enjoying being in

7:58

the center of like the action

8:00

and to know that this two-bit

8:02

autocrat is like helping coordinate an

8:05

assault on civil liberties

8:07

of American citizens which we

8:09

should get into as well. Yes

8:11

I think that scene is really

8:13

important. You guys broke down obviously

8:15

some of the legal questions in

8:17

this case on Pots of America but

8:19

that was such a profoundly

8:22

authoritarian scene both the content of

8:24

what was discussed in the pageantry and

8:26

way was discussed, that I think we

8:28

need to kind of pause and kind

8:30

of fix the camera on it for

8:32

a moment here. Because first of all,

8:34

let's take the language they're using. Notice

8:36

the repeated references to terrorism. This person

8:38

is not a terrorist. There's nobody that

8:40

suggests that this person is a terrorist.

8:42

claimed based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever

8:44

that he might have ties to a

8:46

gang but the repetition of the word

8:49

terrorism is I think a really troubling

8:51

one because if you look at the

8:53

recent history of authoritarianism it's in this

8:55

is in part to blame the United

8:57

States given the war on terror paradigm

8:59

whenever you want to completely delegitimized your

9:02

opponents and be able to do anything

9:04

to them you just call them terrorist

9:06

it's a good dehumanizing thing that's right

9:08

and so they're lying and this is

9:10

what put in use for instance to

9:12

cancel the direct elections of governors in

9:14

Russia. It was the claim of a

9:17

threat of terrorism. So we have seen

9:19

Netanyahu's use of threat of terrorism to

9:21

kill thousands of children in Gaza. And

9:23

so I think we should watch that

9:25

language because it is the language of

9:27

autocrats, and it's the language that they

9:29

use to claim emergency powers, to do

9:31

extraordinary things, and to essentially put themselves

9:33

above any law. And just for what

9:35

it's worth, like the so-called evidence that

9:37

Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13,

9:39

is that he was wearing Chicago bulls gear

9:41

at one point. And then some confidential informant

9:43

said he was a member of the gang

9:45

in a state miles and miles away from where

9:48

he lives currently in New York. He was living

9:50

in Maryland at the time. He's never, actually, I

9:52

don't know that he's even been till one hour.

9:54

Yeah, he and his lawyers said he's never even

9:56

been to this place. So it's absurd. And the

9:59

confidential informant thing too. That's an

10:01

endless reservoir for them to pull on. We don't

10:03

know what they're talking about. They've not presented

10:05

that evidence. That's why you have due process.

10:07

So, the terrorism thing is one piece of

10:09

this. Another is the media. This is

10:11

the kind of casual bullying, and

10:13

there's another point where Trump says, like,

10:15

why didn't you tell me a

10:17

wonderful job I'm doing? He wants to

10:19

live in a place where 90 %

10:21

of his media interactions are people

10:23

telling Mr. Trump what a great job

10:25

he's doing, and then they let

10:27

one person in, like, Caitlyn Collins to

10:29

then yell at her to kind

10:32

of performatively try to humiliate her for

10:34

their supporters. That too, deeply authoritarian.

10:36

We've seen Putin do this. We've seen

10:38

Orban do this. This is part

10:40

of the playbook. Then the Stephen

10:42

Miller exchange after, God, make

10:44

a wish foundation, Secretary of State. It's so

10:46

good. I'm just jealous, and I'm going

10:48

to try. Actually,

10:50

one interesting thing about that Stephen Miller

10:53

clip, I listened to that late

10:55

because I was like

10:57

traveling yesterday. I

11:00

was just deeply alarmed by the

11:02

kind of pugilism of

11:04

his voice. I know, man. many times do

11:06

you think you practiced that in the

11:08

mirror, too? And also, look, we were, and

11:11

I certainly was accused of

11:13

being like a younger person

11:15

who talked a lot. Could

11:18

you imagine calling John Kerry John? Yeah,

11:20

it calls Attorney General Pam. He calls

11:22

him Marco. He calls her Pam. He's

11:25

so empowered. He was showing his

11:27

place in that orbit with his

11:29

language very clearly. He is so

11:31

empowered. He's calling these cabinet secretaries

11:33

by their first name. He sounds

11:35

angry. So that's another takeaway, that

11:37

you have this kind of

11:39

the chief authoritarian advisor seems kind

11:41

of uber -empowered in that room.

11:43

And then the last piece

11:45

is we just have to continually

11:47

call bullshit. There's no difficulty

11:49

whatsoever in getting this guy back.

11:51

I mean, Trump made a

11:53

whole show in his first term

11:55

of getting back hostages from

11:57

far more difficult circumstances. Salvador

12:00

is a country that we pay

12:02

to imprison these people. If Bukale

12:05

is such a dictator, as he

12:07

himself says, he should have no

12:09

problem putting one person from a

12:11

prison on a plane. It's completely

12:13

absurd, and there was a performance

12:15

to demonstrate how much they don't

12:17

give a shit, to demonstrate their

12:20

disregard for norms, and we should

12:22

see it as a... deeply worrying

12:24

sign, not just about this case,

12:26

and not even just about this

12:28

whole issue of sending people El

12:30

Salvador, but just about how far they

12:33

may be willing to go. Because if

12:35

they're going to go full bouquetlet here,

12:37

we could be looking at a real

12:39

emergency that is already upon us when

12:41

it comes to where America is on

12:43

that authoritarian. playbook. Yeah, and just we're

12:45

getting in bed with a bad dude

12:47

here. Kelly's a bad guy. I was

12:49

talking to a smart Latin America policy

12:51

expert today who reminded me that the

12:53

head of the Salvadoran prison system is

12:56

currently sanctioned by the U.S. government under

12:58

the Magnitsky Act, which means the U.S.

13:00

determined that he's responsible for serious human

13:02

rights violations and or corruption. It's a

13:04

guy named, O. Cyrus Luna, who was

13:06

under investigation under a DOJ task force

13:08

called Task Force Vulcan, awesome name. for

13:10

a task force, I thought. It was

13:12

launched during Trump 1.0 to go after

13:14

MS-13 and what this this task force

13:17

found was collusion between bouquetle and organized

13:19

crime, the same groups that we're now

13:21

calling terrorist organizations that we need to

13:23

stop, and that Luna, the head of

13:25

the the prison system down in El

13:27

Salvador, was leading the conversations about collaboration

13:30

between the bouquetly administration and these gang

13:32

leaders. The deal was basically the gang

13:34

leaders, provide political support. to Bukalay, and

13:36

it's not that they reduced the levels

13:38

of violence, they just hid the bodies

13:41

better when they murdered people. They didn't

13:43

like dangle them in the streets, so

13:45

it terrified the population. They like dismembered

13:47

them and put them somewhere where they

13:49

couldn't be found, so they were just

13:51

disappeared. And no one really knows the full

13:53

extent of the deal between Bukalay and

13:55

these gangs, but it's clear that he's

13:57

very worried about this information getting out

13:59

and... It's something that's like everyone should

14:01

just be aware of. And also, to

14:03

your point about, you know, Bukale's comments

14:06

there, about, oh, I have no power to let

14:08

this man out. Like, the Trump administration is doing

14:10

the same thing. Like, the Supreme Court said the

14:12

US should try to get Abrego Garcia

14:14

back. They didn't say, they're like equivocating

14:17

and fighting about like the word effectuate

14:19

versus facilitate. All the Supreme Court is

14:21

saying, you have to at least try,

14:23

and they're refusing refusing to do that.

14:26

Yeah, and just one thing on

14:28

El Salvador and then on Bukele,

14:30

this person cannot be deported to

14:32

El Salvador. That was the particular

14:34

finding. The one country in the

14:36

world where this person is not

14:38

allowed to be sent by the

14:40

United States as El Salvador because

14:43

of the threat he faces. And

14:45

then Bukele, you know, we've talked

14:47

about him over the years. He has...

14:49

through his massive crackdown and violation

14:51

of human rights, reduced crime levels,

14:54

which has drawn him some popularity.

14:56

But we should have no illusions

14:58

about what kind of person he

15:00

is. In addition to just being

15:02

a brutal autocrat who has essentially

15:05

dissolved any semblance of parliamentary government

15:07

down there, he's been at the

15:09

kind of zeitgeist of a certain

15:11

flavor of right-wing authoritarianism that is

15:13

very Trumpy. So we used to

15:16

talk about his... crypto obsessions, right?

15:18

He was going to be the Bitcoin

15:20

dictator who's going to build a Bitcoin

15:22

city. He was in that crypto space

15:24

hanging out with some of the same

15:26

crypto people that ended up being some

15:28

of the biggest financiers to Trump and

15:30

the Republican Party. He's been in the

15:32

CPAC millio. He comes up to CPAC.

15:34

He gives these talks about ending globalization.

15:36

He sounds like Steve Bannon. He's in

15:39

this kind of right wing international. And

15:41

one of the things that's been interesting

15:43

in watching the Trump administration is how

15:45

much they've kind of extended that down

15:47

into Latin America. We tend to think

15:49

about it as Putin and Orban and

15:51

Netanyahu and then maybe Modi coming into

15:53

it in his own way, Erdogan, but

15:55

Erdogan is not connected to the right

15:58

wing politics in the same way. But

16:00

under Trump, what we're seeing increasingly

16:02

is this kind of, you know,

16:04

between Mele and Argentina, Bukale and

16:06

El Salvador, they're building that network

16:08

down into Latin America. We obviously

16:10

saw that with Bolsonaro and Brazil.

16:12

We're going to talk about Ecuador.

16:14

That has... bad historical echoes because

16:16

you know to those of you

16:18

who followed the history of this

16:20

but you know the United States

16:22

and the Cold War back some

16:25

pretty vicious right-wing governments Pinochet in

16:27

Chile the military dictatorship in Argentina

16:29

and on and on and on

16:31

this is kind of a new

16:33

flavor of that and connected into

16:35

this broader right-wing international and that

16:37

to me is also worrying. Yeah

16:39

me too I mean I think

16:41

this there's no the deal between

16:43

the US and El Salvador that

16:45

governs these detention deal, like it's

16:47

not public. The initial reports were

16:49

that we're paying them about $6

16:51

million. I think for Bouquetlet, the

16:53

benefit is really the attention into

16:55

like being in the center of

16:58

the action and showing people back

17:00

home that he's in the mix.

17:02

But I like the same general

17:04

reaction to this scene as you

17:06

did, which is like the term

17:08

like the cruelty is the point

17:10

has become a very tired cliche.

17:12

Trump 1.0. Yeah, but like I

17:14

did watching that it did feel

17:16

like it did feel like The

17:18

own the lib psychology that animates

17:20

these guys has metastasized into this

17:22

administration-wide delight in being cruel to

17:24

anyone in service of their agenda

17:26

or in service of owning the

17:28

libs. Like we saw this during

17:31

family separation in the first term,

17:33

but that was walked back. But

17:35

now these guys are just, they

17:37

are gleeful about harming an innocent

17:39

person. And that was true for

17:41

Bokelle too. Well, yeah, I think

17:43

if there's a Trump 2.0 version

17:45

of it, it's the the authoritarianism

17:47

is the point. And so lying

17:49

about the Supreme Court demeaning this

17:51

individual as a terrorist, demanding that

17:53

the media tell them how great

17:55

they are, they know what they're

17:57

doing. For sure. And the point

17:59

is to show everybody that there

18:02

are authoritarian who cannot be shamed

18:04

who don't respect the rule of

18:06

law and don't care. And that's

18:08

pretty alarming, especially given they were

18:10

only... three months into this. Yeah,

18:12

it's fucking April 15th. Unfortunately, this

18:14

story gets worse. So Trump and

18:16

Buchay also discussed sending American citizens

18:18

to El Salvador's prisons. We've been

18:20

covering this horrible idea on this

18:22

show for several months now because

18:24

Buchay first floated it during Rubio's

18:26

first trip to El Salvador in

18:28

like January or early February, I

18:30

think. But Trump has clearly gotten

18:33

enamored of this idea. He has

18:35

said he would love to send

18:37

quote, homegrown criminals to foreign prisons.

18:39

And some defense contractors are pitching

18:41

the White House on a plan

18:43

to expand deportations to El Salvador

18:45

from U.S. prisons and to designate

18:47

part of the prison as an

18:49

American territory to avoid legal challenges.

18:51

For those unfamiliar with Prince or

18:54

Blackwater, Blackwater is best known for

18:56

this horrible 2007 incident in Iraq

18:58

where Blackwater mercenaries murdered 17 people

19:00

at a traffic circle in Baghdad. And it

19:02

not only was like a, you know, just

19:04

a horrific mass slaughter, but also... irreparably

19:06

damaged our relationship with the people in

19:09

government of Iraq. So Ben, I mean,

19:11

it's just it's hard to imagine two

19:13

worse ideas than Eric Prince being

19:15

involved in like literally anything, but

19:17

also adding a profit motive to

19:19

this plan of sending human beings

19:21

from this US presence to this nightmare.

19:24

That's exactly right. Connecting the profit

19:26

motive and the kind of privatization

19:28

of these schemes to the

19:30

authoritarianism creates yet another additional

19:32

incentive structure for cruelty, for mistakes, for

19:35

scale, like any profit model. If there's

19:37

a profit model and deporting people, he's

19:39

going to want to deport as many

19:41

people as he can. You want to

19:43

fill up those points to the brim

19:45

when you're sending people down. And let's

19:48

make no illusions about Eric Prince. He

19:50

wants to be the... Progosin of the

19:52

United States except except up until when

19:54

Progosin before the pre-death Yeah, he may

19:56

not want to march on Washington and

19:59

then die But he wants to

20:01

have the Wagner group. He wants

20:03

to have a private intelligence and

20:05

security firm that is kind of

20:07

a quasi-extension of the state that

20:09

is in all these places. Eric

20:11

Prince, since he did that in

20:13

Iraq, he's popped up in places

20:16

like Libya, Yemen, parts of Africa,

20:18

where he's been trying to, you

20:20

know, mercenaries fighting and wars or

20:22

trying to, you know, run security

20:24

for mining interests, tried to become

20:26

the kind of private security force

20:28

in Afghanistan. all very Wagner group

20:30

flavored stuff, right? And on

20:32

this one, he may be hitting

20:35

gold for him because essentially

20:37

if he can say, hey,

20:39

I can put together a

20:41

private security force of people

20:44

that is kind of blessed

20:46

by the administration. questionable legal

20:48

authorities for how they're allowed to

20:51

do deportations. Right, but not subject

20:53

to the idea of the accountability

20:55

in terms of Congress or, you

20:58

know, disclosure laws, etc. That's right.

21:00

And what he could do is he could say,

21:02

I'm working not for, you know, I'm

21:04

working for Burkle, I'm working for, you know,

21:06

the guy we're going to talk about in

21:08

Ecuador, right? And so in that regard, he

21:11

can kind of escape some of the U.S.

21:13

who are then paying our prints, everybody's in

21:15

on the deal, right? And we've seen

21:17

this be... part of how Trump operates

21:19

a second time around. And again, with

21:21

that profit motive, they have every incentive

21:24

to deport as many people as they

21:26

can, because that's probably the manner in

21:28

which they're going to be compensated. And

21:30

all of a sudden, you've got a,

21:33

just like the Wagner group, has been

21:35

the extension of Russian power in Africa.

21:37

You've got the Prince version of it

21:39

being the extension of Trump's interest in

21:42

Latin America. It's a really scary thought.

21:44

It's really scary thought. It's really scary.

21:46

to try to get Obrico Garcia's back.

21:48

This smart Latin American person I was

21:50

talking to today said, he thinks Democrats

21:53

should threaten to take action

21:55

against any government that participates

21:57

in the extraordinary rendition of

21:59

Americans. say to them things are going

22:01

to change in the midterms and if you

22:03

fuck with our citizens we are going to

22:05

seek to prosecute any foreign officials who support

22:07

those illegal actions. I thought that was kind

22:09

of an interesting point to be like you

22:11

can be a friend of America or a

22:13

friend of Trump you decide now but play

22:15

the long game. And then Ben it was

22:17

interesting just last thought on just observing that

22:19

that scene in the Oval Office.

22:22

Bouquetlet is like gotten in bed

22:24

with the Chinese. pretty heavily since

22:26

around 2018. Remember, remember when there

22:28

was a series of small countries

22:30

severing their relationships with Taiwan officially?

22:32

That led to I think, you

22:34

know, like deals with Chinese over

22:36

port construction, land concessions, etc. Like

22:38

not all of those have gone

22:40

forward, but the Salvadoran vice president

22:43

was just in Beijing back last

22:45

year to celebrate their shared views

22:47

on democracy. You didn't hear Trump

22:49

lecturing him about China like we

22:51

do to, you know, Panama. Yeah, because

22:53

I don't think Trump really cares at

22:55

all about that. Just, that's not what

22:57

animates him. What animates him is his

22:59

own power and authoritarian control over things

23:01

and having people that will be partners

23:03

to him in that. And Buchale is

23:05

playing both sides, I'm sure, because that's

23:07

what suits his interest. To your point,

23:09

that's all the more reason for Democrats

23:11

to scrutinize this. And by the way,

23:13

I think they should be doing this

23:15

side point, but Tommy is talking a

23:17

couple of people. who work in democratic

23:19

politics, who are making the good point

23:22

that whatever, whether it's Pukele and

23:24

El Salvador, or whether it's a law

23:26

firm, get them on, what are you doing?

23:28

Like stay after them, you know, what

23:30

are the details of your agreements? Like,

23:32

what are you doing? Because you're suggesting

23:34

the pendulum swing that's going

23:36

to come, you know, we are monitoring what

23:38

is happening. There's a record that

23:40

is being kept of what you are doing.

23:43

And if and when the pendulum swing is

23:45

back in this country, back in this country.

23:47

We're not going to be the wishy-washy Washington

23:49

Democrats. We keep score too. We're going to

23:51

start fucking keeping sure here. We're not going

23:54

to be authoritarian, but we are going to

23:56

correct some things. And I think that's important.

24:06

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Funded in part by San Diego

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Tourism, marketing district assessment funds. So

25:42

Ecuador held elections over the

25:45

weekend. A right winger named

25:47

Daniel Naboa, the incumbent, won

25:49

pretty overwhelmingly. It was about

25:52

56% to 44% over his

25:54

leftist challenger, Louisa Gonzales. Naboa

25:57

ran on cracking down on

25:59

violence. gang crime. Ecuador has an

26:01

astronomical homicide rate at the highest in

26:03

Latin America, which unfortunately is a pretty

26:06

recent phenomenon that is tied to the

26:08

cocaine trade run by transnational gangs. Gonzales,

26:10

the challenger, refused to accept the results.

26:13

She accused Noboa of fraud, though she

26:15

hasn't provided any evidence. The head of

26:17

the organization of American states, which monitored

26:19

the election, said the results were consistent

26:22

with what they had observed. However, Ecuador's

26:24

elections, they have two rounds. And in

26:26

the first round, Naboa only won by

26:29

about 16,000 votes. So the margin in

26:31

the second round being 11 points

26:33

or whatever was quite a surprise.

26:35

So Naboa is young. He's 37,

26:37

I believe he's aired a banana

26:39

fortune. He came to power in

26:41

2023 in the snap election after

26:43

a pretty violent election where a

26:45

candidate was actually murdered. And He has

26:47

since being elected as declared a state

26:49

of emergency and deployed the military to

26:51

try to quell the violence. He wants

26:53

to build more maximum security prisons and

26:55

allow foreign military bases in the country.

26:58

All this obviously draws comparison to Bukal

27:00

and El Salvador along with Javier Mille

27:02

and Argentina. It makes sort of a

27:04

trifect of Trump-friendly leaders in Latin America

27:06

that you were just referencing Ben. I

27:08

think they all attended the inauguration. There's

27:10

someone was telling me today that Naboa

27:12

for whatever reason just doesn't have as

27:14

much juice. in the administration with Rubio

27:17

or with the White House is bouquetly.

27:19

I'm not sure why that is. So

27:21

again, Eric Prince is once again part

27:23

of this story. In March, Naboa announced

27:25

a strategic alliance with Eric Prince. who

27:27

is going to provide Ecuador with like

27:30

some sort of security consulting to the

27:32

government. I was reminded that Eric that

27:34

Rudy Giuliani used to peddle your services

27:36

in Latin America too. The announcement seemed

27:38

time to bump up Niboas images and

27:41

enforcer before the election, but it didn't

27:43

include a lot of details. January was

27:45

I believe the most violent month in

27:47

Ecuador's history, but Nuboa was somehow able

27:49

to convince voters that his approach to crime

27:51

was still effective despite that all happening on

27:53

his watch. But here's what Eric Prince had

27:56

to say about why he was in Ecuador.

27:58

This is from a video post. by Ecuador's

28:00

defense industry. Providing the law

28:03

enforcement and the military, the

28:05

tools and the tactics to

28:07

effectively combat the narco gangs.

28:10

Great intelligence, so that small

28:12

raids, very efficient to put

28:14

the narcos on their back

28:17

heels and make them truly

28:19

afraid of being caught. Two

28:21

simple paths. One, next Sunday,

28:24

the people of Ecuador can

28:26

choose law and order. and

28:28

choose Daniel Oboa, or they

28:31

can choose to make Ecuador to

28:33

look just like Venezuela, a narco

28:35

state, with massive drug processing, with

28:37

all the criminality and socialism and

28:40

despair that comes with that. I

28:42

hope Ecuador chooses law and order,

28:44

and we're here to help to

28:46

combat the gangs and to provide

28:48

the tools for the government to

28:51

restore law and order peace and

28:53

prosperity. Sounds like some kind of banal

28:55

security advice followed by political endorsement. So

28:57

Ben, any thoughts on the implications of

28:59

this election and just like why our

29:01

friends keeps popping up in the worst

29:03

places? Like I think he's essentially a

29:06

grifter, like you heard that video, it

29:08

doesn't sound like he's peddling, like it

29:10

does not like he has real capabilities

29:12

that he's providing, he's probably selling his

29:14

Trump connections generally, but I don't know,

29:16

like the guy seems to be trying

29:18

to privatize authoritarianism, it doesn't

29:20

seem great. a picture coming into focus

29:22

that is concerning, which is, Naboa

29:25

is kind of drafting off the

29:27

Bekali playbook, right? People want security, they're

29:29

fed up with the murder rates, or

29:31

fed up with the cartels. We should

29:33

say, this is a serious fucking problem.

29:35

And part of it is there's kind

29:37

of a whack-a-mole here, right? You know,

29:40

the... The Colombians did a lot of

29:42

work over many years to evict cartels.

29:44

They went to Mexico. Then the Mexicans

29:46

did operations. There's still obviously a lot

29:48

of cartels in Mexico. But some of

29:51

those Mexican cartels moved some of their

29:53

shipments and some of their operations to

29:55

places like Ecuador. So it's a problem.

29:57

And we've also had a lot in America

29:59

left. that has different flavors of

30:01

it. And we've seen a

30:04

kind of more effective governing

30:06

approach in places like Chile,

30:08

right, where Gabriel Boreach's president

30:10

than the leftist government's in

30:12

Ecuador recently. So he's, Nabo

30:15

is taking advantage of a

30:17

bit of a vacuum. That

30:19

said, here's what concerns me.

30:21

You could see a scenario in which

30:23

some of the different instincts and...

30:25

priorities of the Trump administration

30:28

begin to converge in this

30:30

kind of access of authoritarianism

30:32

that they're creating in the

30:34

hemisphere. Military bases in Ecuador,

30:37

what if there's suddenly U.S.

30:39

military presence in Ecuador? What

30:41

if you've got U.S. military or

30:43

intelligence beginning to, as you've pointed

30:45

out, take shots into Mexico at

30:47

cartels? You've got them starting to

30:49

militarize the efforts against drug trafficking?

30:52

but probably also against political opponents,

30:54

let's face it, the Nabo's opponents,

30:56

Bicala's opponents, whomever, in that part

30:58

of Latin America. And at the

31:00

same time, you've got deportation flights

31:02

coming down. And maybe you've got

31:04

prisons and Ecuador, like the Gulag

31:06

that we've seen in El Salvador.

31:08

So suddenly, it's not just one

31:11

prison. You've got kind of a network

31:13

of gulags in Ecuador and El Salvador.

31:15

You've got Eric Prince as a connective

31:17

tissue tissue between it. But you've got

31:20

Eric Prince. It's not hard to see

31:22

what this kind of access of autocrats

31:24

across the Americas could look like in

31:26

terms of a militarized war on the

31:29

cartels, that is kind of a war

31:31

on terror type framework where you can

31:33

do whatever you want, a kind of

31:36

militarized network of deportations and prisons. I

31:38

mean, that's what it looks like

31:40

is happening. And that's scary stuff.

31:42

Yeah, I mean, to your point

31:44

on the problem. We've talked about

31:46

this in the El Salvador context.

31:48

It's almost impossible for us to imagine what

31:50

it's like living in a place with war

31:52

zone like levels of violence. And political leaders

31:55

who can promise security and potentially even deliver

31:57

on it are going to do really well

31:59

and be really... popular and that's a big

32:01

part of Buchayle's standing and polling that shows

32:03

them at like what 80% but then they're

32:06

gonna overreach you know it's a problem is

32:08

it like you could say there's a necessary

32:10

correction government's gonna get tougher these guys are

32:12

gonna take it well beyond the cartels for

32:15

sure to political opponents and deportations and that's

32:17

you know that's where it's yeah it's Noah

32:19

Bullock runs a human rights organization and El

32:21

Salvador pointed out to me in my interview

32:24

with him last week you'll have similar

32:26

levels of support for Bucha as people

32:28

who say they would be afraid to

32:30

say if they didn't support Bukitla, right?

32:32

So like you have to understand the

32:35

context. But to your point earlier, I

32:37

mean, you know, the US used to

32:39

have a military base in Ecuador until

32:41

like 2009. They got pushed out by

32:44

Korea. The Colombian conflict ended. There are

32:46

a lot of the efforts to eradicate

32:48

drugs in the region completely failed or

32:51

have been given up on. So

32:53

there's this massive... excess supply of

32:55

cocaine coming out of places like

32:57

Peru and Colombia and getting trafficked

33:00

to Europe now into Brazil, which

33:02

is growing these local gangs. They're

33:04

going from, you know, sort of

33:07

localized you know, theft to these

33:09

transnational organizations with millions and millions

33:11

of billions of billions of dollars.

33:14

There's a huge inflow of US

33:16

arms. So you're seeing like really

33:18

scary drastic shit happening and approaches

33:21

from people like Pukele and the proposal

33:23

is from Noboa. And I agree with

33:25

you completely that like it's going to

33:27

end horribly and there's a really scary

33:30

like kind of nexus of these

33:32

right-wing leaders that are growing and their

33:34

support with Trump is very weird. But

33:36

yeah, there's like a real, the drug

33:38

problem is massive. Oh yeah, and because

33:41

part of what you have is that

33:43

the cartels, billions and billions and billions

33:45

of dollars of revenue, so they can

33:47

build infrastructure, like Ecuador can be a

33:50

transshipment point into Europe, you know, and

33:52

they're controlling infrastructure down there, right? There's

33:54

a need to be doing more. But

33:57

we've seen approaches, including in Colombia, by

33:59

the way, all of what was done

34:01

in Columbia over the decades was right

34:03

because there were huge human rights abuses

34:05

there. But towards the end there you

34:07

saw this mixture of going after you

34:10

know drug traffickers or going after in

34:12

that case you know the FARC but

34:14

also negotiation also investments you know so

34:16

there's ways to have a more of

34:19

a hybrid model somewhere in between the

34:21

kind of hands-off approach and this kind

34:23

of more scary authoritarianism. Absolutely yeah and

34:25

let's be honest with what what the

34:28

what the crackdown looked like in El

34:30

Salvador. It was just arresting people. Basically,

34:32

like individual commanders were told, like, you

34:34

got to arrest 30 people today, so

34:37

they just swept into village and took

34:39

people at random. All right, so let's

34:41

turn to Russia and Ukraine. So despite

34:43

at least three trips to Moscow by

34:46

Trump's special envoy, the actual Secretary of

34:48

State Steve Wyckoff, that included a face-to-face

34:50

meeting with Putin last week. The war

34:53

in Ukraine is not over. It's not

34:55

even close to over. And to demonstrate

34:57

to Wyckoff and Trump, Putin's commitment to

34:59

peace. weekend, killing at least 35 people

35:02

and entering 100 more. According to CBS

35:04

News, over the course of the war,

35:06

there have been 1,700 Russian attacks on

35:09

schools, 780 attacks on hospitals, and Russia

35:11

has killed 13,000 civilians, Ukrainian civilians. But

35:13

Wyckoff says he doesn't regard Putin as

35:16

a bad guy, so I just wanted

35:18

to remind him. You did give him

35:20

that painting. And he prayed for Trump.

35:22

So that was nice. Ukrainian President Vladimir

35:25

Zelenski sat down with 60 minutes

35:27

for an interview that aired on

35:29

Sunday. In that interview, he invited

35:31

Trump to visit Ukraine, see the

35:33

destruction for himself, and essentially said

35:35

the Trump administration was regurgitating Russian

35:37

propaganda. Trump told reporters that the

35:39

Sunni attack, quote, was a mistake,

35:41

and said it was horrible. But when

35:43

answering questions at the White House on

35:46

Monday during his meeting with Naibukeli, Trump

35:48

was back to blaming Zelenski for the

35:50

war. Have you spoken to President Zelenski,

35:52

Sirabout, is offered to purchase more Patriot

35:54

missile batteries? Oh, I don't know. He's

35:56

always looking to purchase missiles, you know.

35:59

He's against... Listen. When you start

36:01

a war, you gotta know that

36:03

you can win the war, right?

36:05

You don't start a war against

36:07

somebody that's 20 times your size,

36:09

and then hope that people give

36:11

you some missiles. If we didn't

36:13

give them what we gave, remember

36:15

I gave them javelins. That's how

36:17

they won their first big battle

36:19

with the tanks that got stuck

36:21

in the mud. and they took

36:23

him out with javelins. They have

36:25

an expression that Obama at the

36:27

time, Obama gave them sheets and

36:29

Trump gave them javelins. And most

36:31

importantly, you have millions of people

36:34

dead. Millions of people dead because

36:36

of three people. I would say

36:38

three people. Let's say Putin, who

36:40

had no idea what the hell

36:43

he was doing, number two, and

36:45

Zalinsky. All I can do is

36:47

try and stop, but that's all

36:50

I want to do. I want

36:52

to stop the killing. Interesting, how

36:54

we started by blaming Zelenski for

36:57

starting the war. For starting a

36:59

war with a bigger country. Which

37:01

is just a flatly untrue and same

37:03

thing. And then at the end, he

37:05

comes around, he comes around, he comes

37:07

around, having, flatly untrue, and same thing.

37:10

And then he comes around having, like,

37:12

like, he comes around, having, like, like,

37:14

Zelenski, blow, Biden's blow Biden, and saying,

37:16

like, like, like, like. The first is,

37:18

how and when Democrats can finally

37:20

try to create a political cost for Trump for

37:23

failing to live up to his promise to end

37:25

the war in Ukraine? I remember he said he

37:27

would do it in 24 hours. I think most voters

37:29

view that as like Trumpian hyperbole, but now

37:31

it has been several months and the war

37:34

is not any better. And second, I just

37:36

wanted to highlight some things from this long

37:38

interview with the Wall Street Journal that Steve

37:40

Woodcough did. So in it we learned that

37:42

Wiccough has been meeting with foreign leaders alone.

37:45

including Putin, including the Iranian foreign

37:47

minister. He said he prepares for those

37:49

meetings by calling, by meeting with the

37:51

CIA and getting a briefing. Good. And

37:53

then calling Jared Kushner, less good. But

37:55

he denigrates the State Department as sort

37:57

of like, why would I need their experience?

38:00

And to be even the kind of

38:02

Wyckoff as this guy who kind of

38:04

seems like a mark, let's be honest,

38:06

he's pretty gullible, but who also has

38:08

this huge overlap with Trump in his

38:10

financial interests when it comes to the

38:13

crypto business, meeting with Putin one-on-one, like

38:15

it seems like a huge opportunity for

38:17

corruption. Yes, and you know, Wyckoff's experience

38:19

is from basically being a super-rich Florida

38:21

guy that hangs out and plays... Golf

38:23

and probably does business deals with Trump.

38:26

It's not like he has some deep

38:28

experience in You know geopolitics other than

38:30

like taking money from different corrupt actors

38:32

around the world Although one thing actually

38:34

Josh Rogan told me that I didn't

38:37

know you'll hear later is that Wiccov

38:39

actually had this existing relationship with Russia

38:41

through a rich guy who Yeah, exactly

38:43

as much a real estate deal. So

38:45

it's interesting that there is a bit

38:47

of an oligarchy Highway from Wicov to

38:50

the Russians Well, yeah, and again, the

38:52

one-on-one nature, that almost never happens in

38:54

foreign policy, in part, because you usually

38:56

want someone in the meeting who can

38:58

read out other people in the meeting,

39:00

because you would think that the U.S.

39:03

government would need to follow up on

39:05

things. But this is a total personalization

39:07

of foreign policy. It's as if everything

39:09

just runs from Trump through a personal

39:11

envoy or an adversary in Whitkov to

39:14

a... corrupt autocrat like a Putin, right?

39:16

Or like the Iranian farm minister, whomever

39:18

it is. And the US government is

39:20

kind of just sidelined from that process.

39:22

There's infinite potential for corruption there, whether

39:24

there are business deals, business interests. The

39:27

way this would work in the kind

39:29

of corrupt world that the United States

39:31

has now joined is it could also

39:33

be a, why is he called Jared

39:35

Kushner? Well, maybe it's like, hey, could

39:38

you make an investment in this thing

39:40

or in this fund? There could be

39:42

other associates, right? And again. We don't

39:44

know this, you know, so let's be

39:46

clear. But this is kind of how

39:48

the world works. You know, you have

39:51

some other things that you'd like somebody

39:53

to do. Help me out here on

39:55

this or like, hey, my buddy has

39:57

this business here investing that. That's how

39:59

Putin does a lot of business. Right.

40:01

And so the corruption thing is a

40:04

huge, huge risk. I think the other

40:06

thing that I'd say about, you know,

40:08

the Russians just humiliating Trump in some

40:10

ways, you know, 30 days ceasefire, we

40:12

don't hear much about that anymore. You

40:15

know, where did that go? Ending the

40:17

war. And instead, he's, you know, blaming

40:19

Zelenski. And the reality is one of

40:21

the things that Trump doesn't understand on

40:23

Russia or China. is that these are

40:25

people that take a very long view

40:28

of history, right? So the Chinese, as

40:30

I was saying last week, you know,

40:32

some terrorists for a couple years, it's

40:34

nothing to these people. They think in

40:36

terms of 100 year increments. They see

40:39

those terrorists as like the opium wars

40:41

from the 19th century or something. And

40:43

Putin, whatever you think about is Ukraine

40:45

policy, and I hate it, it's rooted

40:47

in like a multi hundred year version

40:49

of history, right? And so who cares

40:52

if he has some tensions with Trump,

40:54

seem to understand that. One lesson, and

40:56

I asked you this time, you're like,

40:58

I don't, why is Zlenski doing 60

41:00

minutes? You know, like, what, what, like,

41:03

I love, I love 60 minutes, but

41:05

you know, you know, Trump is suing

41:07

them, Trump hates it. Like, the kind

41:09

of people that watch 60 minutes to

41:11

support Ukraine don't need any more convincing.

41:13

I don't know, would you be advising

41:16

Zonzi to kind of maybe stay out

41:18

of that kind of media for now?

41:20

It surprised me too. I mean, I

41:22

don't know that there is any media

41:24

that would be beneficial with Trump. Yeah.

41:26

Right. I mean, maybe you could go

41:29

on a war-room pandemic with Steve Bannon.

41:31

Well, maybe it's just less is more

41:33

in this case, you know. Yeah, no,

41:35

but I had a similar reaction. It

41:37

seemed... designed in a lab to piss

41:40

Trump. Yeah, exactly. You know, for what

41:42

it's worth, European leaders are calling the

41:44

Sunni attack a war crime. They've been

41:46

telling people not to attend the Victory

41:48

Day celebrations in Russia to commemorate the

41:50

80th anniversary of the defeat of the

41:53

Nazis. I think it's worth watching if

41:55

the US sends an emissary. I suspect

41:57

they will. Probably be fucking straight advanced.

41:59

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also, Wyckoff,

42:01

like, was apparently reportedly going to host.

42:04

Putin's personal envoy at his home for

42:06

dinner until like the CIA and everybody

42:08

else is like, no, no, no, don't

42:10

do that. So bring these guys into

42:12

your home. But yeah, this like also

42:14

the last thing that sort of out

42:17

there is this minerals deal is still

42:19

being negotiated. It does seem like the

42:21

terms of it keep getting ratcheted up

42:23

kind of like extortion meter every time

42:25

we hear about it. So. You make

42:27

that, I mean, it is worth noting,

42:30

can you imagine the amount of listening

42:32

devices attached to see what got at

42:34

this point? You know, like, he just

42:36

doesn't seem like the kind of guy

42:38

who's mindful of that? Yeah, he looks

42:41

like, what are those sharks, what are

42:43

those calls? Like, Amore, eel, or whatever

42:45

things, like, stick to you as you

42:47

swim around, just like, Russian listening devices.

42:49

Well, speaking with Steve, over the Wycka,

42:51

met in Oman, with the Iranian foreign

42:54

minister, Abbasa, Abbas Arashi, Arashi, Arashi, Initially,

42:56

this is advertised as only indirect talks.

42:58

So it's interesting that there are direct

43:00

talks between the US and Iran for

43:02

that long. There were also two hours

43:05

of indirect talks that were facilitated by

43:07

the Omanis. There was supposed to be

43:09

another round of talks this weekend. It's

43:11

not clear if those are going to

43:13

be in Rome or Oman again. There's

43:15

some discrepancy in the reporting on that.

43:18

However, what the US wants out of

43:20

the talks is getting muddled. On Monday,

43:22

Steve Whitcop was on Fox News talking

43:24

about the terms of the deal. Here's

43:26

what he had to say. The president

43:28

means what he says, which is they

43:31

cannot have a bomb. The conversation with

43:33

the Iranians will be much about two

43:35

critical points. One, enrichment. As you mentioned,

43:37

they do not need to enrich past

43:39

3.67%. In some circumstances, 60%. That cannot

43:42

be. And you do not need to

43:44

run. as they claim a civil nuclear

43:46

program where you're enriching past 3.67%. So

43:48

this is going to be much about

43:50

verification on the enrichment program and then

43:52

ultimately verification on weaponization. That includes missiles,

43:55

the type of missiles that they have

43:57

stockpiled there, and it includes the trigger

43:59

for... bomb. So it seemed like in that

44:01

clip, Wycoff was saying maybe there's a

44:03

deal where they can enrich up to

44:06

3.67 percent. Then on Tuesday, Wycoff tweeted,

44:08

quote, a deal with Iran will only

44:10

be completed if it is a Trump

44:13

deal. Any final arrangements must set a

44:15

framework for peace, stability and prosperity in

44:17

the Middle East, meaning that Iran must

44:20

stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and

44:22

weaponization program. So that to me read

44:24

like quite a walkback of saying you

44:26

could do 3.67% in the Oval Office

44:29

on Monday. Just sounded kind of pissed

44:31

off about the whole thing. Here's

44:33

a clip. Iran wants to deal with

44:35

us, but they don't know how. They

44:38

really don't know how. We had a

44:40

meeting with them on Saturday. We have

44:42

another meeting scheduled next Saturday. I said,

44:44

that's a long time. That's a long

44:47

time. So I think that might be

44:49

tapping us along. But. Iran has to

44:51

get rid of the concept of a

44:53

nuclear weapon. They cannot have a nuclear

44:56

weapon. He can't have a nuclear weapon.

44:58

Nobody can have anybody having nuclear weapons,

45:00

you know. You can't have nuclear weapons.

45:03

And I think they're tapping us along

45:05

because they were so used to dealing

45:07

with stupid people in this country. I

45:09

want them to be a rich, great

45:11

nation. The only thing is, one thing,

45:13

simple. It's really simple. They can't have

45:15

a nuclear weapon. And they got to

45:17

go fast. Because they're fairly close to

45:19

having one. And they're not going to

45:21

have one. And if we have to

45:23

do something very harsh, we'll do it.

45:25

One of my favorite things on this

45:27

show is to... Structure segments to trigger

45:30

you and it's working again I'm not

45:32

gonna rant like last time, but Maybe

45:34

you don't sober don't make promises. You

45:36

can't keep so Ben We should talk

45:38

about Steve Wicos walk back there in

45:40

Trump's tone. It's interesting though seeing the

45:42

public jockeying to try to define the

45:44

terms of what a deal could look

45:46

like it started last week or two

45:48

weeks whenever the fuck that Yahoo was

45:50

in the Oval Office where Netanyahu was

45:52

trying to say they have to follow

45:54

the Libya model which is the maximalist

45:56

position you can take on denuclear one

45:58

that ends with Gaddafi. ends with

46:00

a bull in your head and

46:02

a drainage pipe. Former Secretary of

46:04

State Mike Pompeo, you know, took

46:06

a similarly maximalist position on Fox

46:08

News saying that Iran must fully

46:10

verifiably eliminate their nuclear weapons program

46:12

for there to be any agreement.

46:14

Again, you have no say, you

46:16

don't work in administration, but whatever.

46:18

There are, there's also shocking about

46:20

what additional issues should be covered

46:22

by a deal, like Iran's ballistic

46:24

missile program, support for proxy forces

46:26

in the region like Hezbollah. Every

46:29

Iran expert I've ever talked to says

46:31

that Iran would never agree to give up

46:33

all of what it views as

46:35

its security architecture at once,

46:37

that being nuclear enrichment, ballistic

46:39

missiles, and support for the

46:41

proxy forces in the region.

46:43

And that was before they and

46:45

Hezbollah were severely weakened by the Israelis

46:48

after October 7th. But where do you

46:50

land... First of all, I'd love to

46:52

hear our triggered you are. And second,

46:54

where do you land on... what is

46:56

achievable in this deal? What's a good

46:59

outcome? Yeah, well I'm unbelievably triggered as

47:01

someone who speaks Iran deal because, first

47:03

of all, what Steve Wigoff said on Fox

47:05

News was the Iran deal. That was

47:07

Obama's deal. Emanently reasonable. Essentially, the Iranians

47:10

had to agree to like much less

47:12

levels of enrichment, you know, only up

47:14

to like 3.75 percent. They also had

47:16

to agree to ship all their nuclear

47:18

fuel out of the country, so they

47:20

couldn't build a stockpile of fuel that

47:23

you need for a bomb. They had

47:25

to agree to intense verification of not

47:27

just their nuclear facilities, but their uranium

47:29

mines and mills, like where do you

47:31

get from the raw materials to the

47:33

centrifuges, all these things put under a verification

47:35

regime, and they had to get rid of

47:38

any plutonium capacity so that there's not a

47:40

separate way for them to build a bomb.

47:42

verification around weaponization. When we talk about that,

47:44

it's how do you take nuclear fuel and

47:47

kind of miniaturize it in a warhead that

47:49

can go on a missile, right? Steve Wyckoff

47:51

just described the Iran deal, which I think

47:53

was a good deal at the time, and

47:55

I think would be great to have again,

47:58

you know, and you know, they you can

48:00

sense their insecurity in saying, well, it

48:02

has to be a Trump deal. Because

48:04

we didn't call it the Obama deal.

48:06

Like this is so narcissistic. You know,

48:08

it's just trying to solve a problem

48:10

through an arms control deal. And I

48:12

think that is achievable. I think the

48:14

Iranians would do that in exchange for

48:16

sanctions relief. And it's probably on the

48:18

table. And Whitgoth probably met with Arachi

48:20

was like, well, this seems like a

48:22

deal that would get this problem off

48:24

the table. It's the same reason we

48:26

made we made it. But then the

48:28

other thing that is familiar to me,

48:30

Tommy, is I saw over the last

48:32

few days the same fucking people. Starting

48:35

with Nettinao, but also all these like

48:37

flunkies who have, literally, these guys, people

48:39

like I talk about the render, there

48:41

is a whole class of people in

48:43

Washington that as far as I can

48:45

tell doesn't do a single fucking thing,

48:47

except. argue against Iran nuclear deals and

48:50

they've been doing it for like 15

48:52

years, you know. I mean, I don't

48:54

even want to name them because it's

48:56

not even worth shining a light on

48:58

it. But then they all essentially say,

49:00

oh, you're capitulating, you have to get

49:02

rid of every bolt and screw of

49:05

the program, no enrichment, blah, blah, blah.

49:07

And then Wytkov veers wildly in the

49:09

other direction, and says, no enrichment

49:11

whatsoever, that's essentially saying you cannot

49:13

have a nuclear program. Yeah, right.

49:16

So, I mean, essentially, nowhere near

49:18

the scale that you need to weaponize,

49:20

which is why we were okay with it,

49:22

right? Sure, in an ideal world, we'd like

49:24

them to have nothing. But you're in a

49:26

negotiation. And so the other couple things- But

49:28

you need 90% enrich uranium to make a

49:31

weapon. And that's the real concern. It says

49:33

highly, like I think the Iranians are now

49:35

sitting on a pretty big stockpile of 60%

49:37

enriched uranium, which means the breakout time to

49:39

enrich it to 90% so that it's nuclear,

49:41

its weapons grade is tight. It's very tight.

49:44

And here's the thing on the missiles. Because

49:46

the other two things that, and you always

49:48

said you want in deals, you're one of

49:50

the one deal, no enrichment, but no ballistic

49:52

missiles, no ballistic missiles, and no support for

49:54

these No support for proxies is eventually saying

49:57

we get to determine your foreign policy. I

49:59

wish that... that they didn't support certain proxy

50:01

groups, they're not going to agree to that.

50:03

They'll never agree to that. Maybe if you

50:06

looked at every single sanction that's on them,

50:08

they might entertain something, but we're not going

50:10

to do that, they're not going to do

50:12

that. But probably not, right? Because they think

50:14

that Hezbollah is a check for them against

50:17

the Israelis. Now, I don't know if what's

50:19

happened since October. and it's people in Iraq,

50:21

it's a hootie relationship. The ballistic missiles, which

50:23

also came up constantly in the Obama administration,

50:25

we said what Wickoff said, which is we're

50:28

interested in the nexus between these missiles and

50:30

a potential warhead. Some people said you have

50:32

to get rid of the whole ballistic missile

50:34

program. Sure, that would be great. Iranians aren't

50:37

going to do that. They don't want to

50:39

get into like other types of arms control.

50:41

I would also add. We just learned in

50:43

the latest backs and forth between Israel and

50:45

Iran that we can shoot down those blissos.

50:48

Yes. You know, I mean, not all of

50:50

them, but like the point is the threat

50:52

from the blissos is actually not as much

50:54

as it had been inflated over the years.

50:56

All this is to say, I think the

50:59

original approach is the rational one. It's probably

51:01

the deal that's available. Trump doesn't know any

51:03

of this stuff? Like, you know, he didn't

51:05

mention enrichment. Part of what drove me nuts

51:07

is I don't think Trump has any idea

51:10

what's in these things. And so I bet

51:12

what happened is Wykoff told me a good

51:14

conversation, that Netanyahu may have called them, or

51:16

some proxies for Netanyahu, call them, call them,

51:19

and say, what are you doing? And so

51:21

what are you doing? If you're in the

51:23

other, maybe have called them, or some proxies

51:25

for Netanyahu, call them, or some proxies for

51:27

Netanyahu, or some proxies for Netanyahu, or something

51:30

else. Like get something over the finish line,

51:32

then talk about it. Like Mark Arubio did

51:34

the interview, he has no idea what the

51:36

fuck is going on, so he can't fuck

51:38

it up what he's doing in the interviews

51:41

because he doesn't know. Yeah, and like I

51:43

guess they're concerned about losing the base or

51:45

losing the right wing on this issue, but

51:47

like they come around, they're gonna do whatever

51:49

you say. It's not 2015, you know? He's

51:52

like North Korea numbers. Yeah. It's the Republicans,

51:54

I don't get it. Okay. We're going to

51:56

take a quick break break break break break.

51:58

They're going to tell you know. They're going

52:01

to tell you know. They're going to tell

52:03

you know. They're going to tell you. They're

52:05

going to tell you. They're going to tell

52:07

you. They're going to do whatever. They're going

52:09

to do whatever. They're going to do whatever.

52:12

They're going to do whatever. They're going to

52:14

do whatever. They're going to do whatever. They're

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56:01

a little long, so we'll move

56:03

on to another big story, which

56:05

is the State Department getting gutted.

56:07

So there's reports in Politico, the

56:10

report in the Washington Post, that

56:12

say the White House Office of

56:14

Management and Budget is proposed gutting

56:16

funding for the Department of State

56:18

and what remains of USAID by

56:20

almost half, about 48%. So the

56:22

budget would go from $54 billion

56:24

to $28 billion, roughly. Some specifics

56:27

about the cuts and what they

56:29

would entail. Global health funding would

56:31

be cut by 55% humanitarian assistance

56:33

would go down by 54%. About

56:35

90% of funding for international organizations

56:37

would be hit, so no money

56:39

for NATO, the UN, or international

56:41

peacekeeping missions. The administration is also

56:44

looking at closing down dozens of

56:46

diplomatic outposts, including embassies in South

56:48

Africa and the Sahel, consulates in

56:50

Europe, and several embassies in Oceania.

56:52

Where the hell is Oceania? Yeah,

56:54

they're also going to get rid

56:56

of the Fulbright Scholarship, it's just

56:58

the Pacific region. Who the else

57:01

has ocean? It's probably some weird

57:03

State Department jargon. Yeah, and a

57:05

bunch of our listeners are going

57:07

to mock us. It's also like

57:09

we said, Indo-Pacific, after we invented

57:11

a terminology to suit our geopolitical

57:13

interests. Yeah, they're also going to

57:15

get rid of the Fulbright scholarship,

57:18

or this is the plan. So

57:20

meanwhile, the State Department is also

57:22

working in parallel on their own

57:24

downsizing plan, which could involve... and

57:26

closing a bunch of additional consulates

57:28

and facilities. It's not clear if

57:30

Marco Rubio... has or will fight

57:32

these cuts, or if anyone cares

57:35

if he tries. But apparently, Rubio

57:37

has until today, Tuesday, to respond

57:39

to this White House proposal. Either

57:41

way, it's not a done deal,

57:43

necessarily. There's a spokeswoman from OMB

57:45

said no final funding decisions have

57:47

been made. There's also the matter

57:49

of Congress weighing in and whether

57:52

they would allow cuts this deep

57:54

in the past. Congress has rejected

57:56

White House budget proposals, but this

57:58

is an Arab on how much

58:00

Ketamine-Elon Musk has done, and Congress

58:02

doesn't really have a say. So

58:04

Ben, you know, the point is,

58:06

even if this budget is not

58:09

approved, it's a pretty clear signal

58:11

that we're retreating from the world.

58:13

It's hard to wrap your mind around

58:15

cuts this deep, but like, what's your

58:17

sense of the impact that it would

58:19

have besides like seeding half of

58:22

the planets of the Chinese? First

58:24

of all, you know, the Rubio piece

58:26

of this, he wasn't behind this. They

58:28

had some kind of Project 2025 type

58:30

guys working on this memo. Pete Morocco,

58:33

yeah, yeah, it was this kind of

58:35

blend of doge in Project 2025, which

58:37

is pretty on brand for the Trump

58:39

administration. And, you know, Rubio getting a

58:42

chance to comment. It's kind of like,

58:44

you know, a little Marco, if you

58:46

go clean your room, your allowance might

58:49

only get cut by a half instead

58:51

of, you know, you know, three quarters,

58:53

three quarters' three quarters, professionalization of the

58:55

State Department. So you've already seen people

58:58

fired, you've seen people resigning. There's a,

59:00

the director general of the Foreign Service,

59:02

this may sound kind of wanky, but

59:04

basically the person that helps oversee promotions

59:06

for people in the Foreign Service and

59:09

who becomes an ambassador and who goes

59:11

where, they elevated somebody who's like wildly

59:13

unqualified for that job, probably because they're

59:15

just a younger person. I think it's

59:17

one of these Franklin fellows or something,

59:20

you know. So the point is. Losing

59:22

the resource of the foreign service, you

59:24

know, if we're basically going to look

59:26

up and the only people left are

59:28

like MAGA people or people are just

59:30

kind of hanging on for retirement, that's

59:32

all our relationships around the world. That's

59:34

all of our built up expertise around

59:36

the world. Like young talents. And it's

59:38

also not something you can kind of

59:41

get back. That's one thing. This may seem

59:43

small, but it really matters to me and

59:45

it's not small. They're basically talking about getting

59:47

rid of all exchange programs. Fulbright is the

59:50

most prominent one, but all exchange programs. This

59:52

is a massive shift in how America engages

59:54

the world. This isn't just like Americans not

59:56

going abroad on Fulbright's. This is how we

59:59

brought people to... this country on either short-term

1:00:01

or long-term exchange programs who generally over the

1:00:03

course of last several decades became prime ministers

1:00:05

farm ministers CEOs like they're gonna go someplace

1:00:07

else you know they're gonna go to China

1:00:09

they're gonna go to Europe or they're gonna

1:00:12

go to Europe or they're gonna go I

1:00:14

don't know increasingly to places like Brazil or

1:00:16

Turkey they're just gonna go other places and

1:00:18

it's the United States kind of divorcing the

1:00:20

world saying like we're out we're done here

1:00:22

we're literally closing down embassies down embassies and

1:00:25

it's saying that the cut to USIDI did,

1:00:27

the dismantlement of USEDI was just the beginning.

1:00:29

And we're essentially just taking ourselves off the

1:00:31

field, disengaging the world, you know, we already,

1:00:33

by the way, like this is not unrelated from the

1:00:35

fact that we're in a few drops in tourism,

1:00:37

like we are closing up shop here as like

1:00:39

an open society. And I think it's a bigger

1:00:42

deal than people, I mean I get why, there's

1:00:44

still a lot of stuff going on here, but

1:00:46

essentially like having the budget of the budget of

1:00:48

the state department of the state department and getting

1:00:50

rid of the state department and getting rid of

1:00:52

the state department and getting rid of anything, I

1:00:54

mean, This is the last vestige of soft power,

1:00:57

you know, AID, international broadcasting, democracy funding,

1:00:59

international exchanges, like, just methodically saying,

1:01:01

like, we're done around the world

1:01:03

unless it's through the military. And

1:01:05

that's scary. And it just, you

1:01:08

know, again, really does, I joke

1:01:10

about it, but why anyone as

1:01:12

Secretary of State, why would you want

1:01:14

to go along with this? And especially

1:01:16

like in this moment when... The only thing

1:01:18

that is a bipartisan consensus in Washington

1:01:20

is the need to combat the rise

1:01:23

of China. And we're just like cutting

1:01:25

off our nose to spite our face.

1:01:27

We're cutting off all the development. We're

1:01:29

cutting out firing diplomats. One other thing

1:01:31

that would drive me nuts and you too,

1:01:33

Tommy. Marco Rubio. member back in Benghazi

1:01:35

days was mister like we have to increase

1:01:37

funding for secured diplomatic security right that's through

1:01:40

the state department right like the security at

1:01:42

our embassies and facilities around the world member

1:01:44

we used to care about that you know

1:01:47

what it's fun I'm glad you mentioned that

1:01:49

because you know what was not discussed in

1:01:51

the fucking signal gate text about bombing the

1:01:53

Houthis any efforts to protect US personnel in

1:01:56

the region to make sure they were safe

1:01:58

anything to buttress embassy security or keep it

1:02:00

up, or even in military installation. Just shows

1:02:02

how disingenuous that whole line of argument was

1:02:05

for years. Yeah, and it was also just

1:02:07

like the most surface-level debate about whether the

1:02:09

Obama country have ever seen. But don't worry

1:02:11

about the State Department, they have their eye

1:02:14

on the ball because a cable went out

1:02:16

last Friday to embassies around the world

1:02:18

encouraging employees to rat on each other

1:02:20

if they hear about instances of anti-Christian

1:02:22

bias. Because that's a really matters. It

1:02:25

really matters. Yeah, that's who's getting cut down

1:02:27

one thing that I didn't just broke right

1:02:29

before we walked in then I didn't really

1:02:31

know where to slot in the show was

1:02:34

just looking at Pete Exes buddy. Okay, so

1:02:36

Reuters reported that one of Secretary of Defense

1:02:38

Pete Hexes top advisors a guy named Dan

1:02:40

Caldwell Was escorted from the Pentagon on Tuesday

1:02:43

after being identified in a leak investigation He's

1:02:45

been put on administrative leave for an unauthorized

1:02:47

disclosure. It's not clear what the leak was,

1:02:49

who it was to, but apparently there was

1:02:52

a memo on March 21st signed by

1:02:54

Pete Hexeth's chief of staff requesting an

1:02:56

investigation into some leak of sensitive communications

1:02:58

or information. It's worth noting then that

1:03:00

in Jeffrey Goldberg's story about the signal

1:03:02

gate chats in the Atlantic, Caldwell was

1:03:05

named in the Hootie PC Small Group

1:03:07

chat as the defense point of contact,

1:03:09

but I don't know that we know

1:03:11

more than that at the moment. Yeah,

1:03:13

we know that this guy is a

1:03:15

classic Hexethian operative. You know, he was, you

1:03:18

know, came from one of these astroturf

1:03:20

organizations, you know, the concerned veterans

1:03:22

of America, the kind of places

1:03:24

where Ptex is like getting drunk

1:03:27

and stuff. I'd really like to

1:03:29

know what this is because... for

1:03:31

the Trump administration to take it seriously.

1:03:33

I mean, it must have been

1:03:36

a pretty big fucking leak, right?

1:03:38

I mean, these people do not

1:03:40

seem that concerned around operational security.

1:03:42

So this is one where we

1:03:44

might be talking about it again

1:03:47

next week. You always keep an

1:03:49

eye on this one. All right, we're

1:03:51

gonna do, we're gonna close out

1:03:53

this episode with little hope. A

1:03:56

little silver lining of Trump being

1:03:58

a human wrecking ball. So and

1:04:00

that is the effect that he's having

1:04:02

on upcoming elections in Canada and Australia.

1:04:04

It's an anti- Trump effect, if you

1:04:07

will. So both countries have been under

1:04:09

liberal leadership. Polls months ago were showing

1:04:11

strong leads for the conservative opposition leaders

1:04:13

who railed against wokeness and kind of

1:04:15

sounded like many trumps. But thanks to

1:04:17

Trump being a belligerent asshole, conservative candidates

1:04:20

are doing everything they can to distance

1:04:22

themselves from Trump now and are getting

1:04:24

hammered in the polls. A couple examples

1:04:26

a few months ago. Polls in Canada

1:04:28

had the Conservative Party up by as much as

1:04:30

25 points. In Conservative leader Pierre

1:04:33

Polyev was expected to become the next

1:04:35

Prime Minister, then Trump started threatening to

1:04:37

annex Canada and to crush its economy

1:04:39

with tariffs. And as of today, the

1:04:42

Liberals have an 87% probability of winning

1:04:44

a majority according to the CBC. And

1:04:46

Kearny heavily wins in opinion polls. Prime

1:04:48

Minister Kearny is heavily winning in opinion

1:04:51

polls about when they ask who's going

1:04:53

to stand up to Trump best. So

1:04:55

that's good. In Australia, there's an election

1:04:58

taking place on May 3rd. Similar story

1:05:00

months ago the current prime minister and

1:05:02

labor leader Anthony Albanese he looked quite

1:05:04

vulnerable to a conservative opposition leader named

1:05:06

Peter Dutton who had been in a

1:05:08

lead for about six months But the

1:05:10

latest poll showed them going from neck

1:05:12

and neck to an actual lead for

1:05:15

labor after all the negative sentiment around

1:05:17

the 10% tariffs on Australia Announced by

1:05:19

the Trump administration and then just sort

1:05:21

of like the general dumb fuckery of

1:05:23

the Doge cuts and more. Yeah, so

1:05:25

obviously anything can happen between now and

1:05:27

the elections themselves, but it's kind of

1:05:29

nice to know that other countries are

1:05:31

kind of, they see through the

1:05:34

maggables. Yeah, yeah, it's not a cult.

1:05:36

Well, because, first of all, in many

1:05:38

cases, you know, they're. I think the

1:05:41

Canadians and Australians are

1:05:43

very responsible people on

1:05:45

balance. They're also not living, I'm

1:05:47

sure they've right wing media, they're

1:05:49

living in reality land, right? So

1:05:51

they don't have like their voters

1:05:54

locked in a Fox News dome

1:05:56

with like Steve Bannon piping in,

1:05:58

right? So they can go. Like,

1:06:00

one mega point here that we really should

1:06:02

watch and come back to is Trump may

1:06:04

be breaking the back of the momentum for

1:06:07

the far right around the globe. Because these

1:06:09

two elections had taken place a year ago,

1:06:11

like the Polyev would have won

1:06:13

probably overwhelmingly in Canada, or helpfully

1:06:15

at least, and Albanese was going

1:06:18

to lose to a pretty magga

1:06:20

type conservative party in Australia. That's

1:06:22

the first point. Second point is

1:06:24

they've also both done really well. Like

1:06:26

Mark Kearney. came out, you know, elbows up,

1:06:28

like he's been like striking the right

1:06:30

tone, the stride mix of like competence

1:06:33

and strength, a bit of a formula

1:06:35

for how you fight back against Trump.

1:06:37

You know, and albinase is taking some

1:06:40

steps to address some of the issues,

1:06:42

they were dragging them down, including issues

1:06:44

of inflation in Australia. So we see

1:06:47

good playbooks for center-left people to both

1:06:49

fight back against Trump and put something...

1:06:51

for that is different. And so, you

1:06:54

know, that to me, those two things,

1:06:56

like the kind of global backlash to

1:06:58

Trump and like a certain kind

1:07:00

of playbook for the Senate left

1:07:02

leaders, these are real hopeful signs

1:07:05

in both places. Yeah, I mean,

1:07:07

it's sort of interesting, like in

1:07:09

countries where There's just opinion polls,

1:07:11

but not an election to kind of,

1:07:13

you know, put the rubber to the

1:07:15

road. You're seeing the AFD pull ahead

1:07:18

of the CDU, a CSU, Uncle Merkel's

1:07:20

party for the first time, I think,

1:07:22

ever. In France, you were seeing the

1:07:24

far right in Marine Le Penz party

1:07:27

pulling ahead. But once... candidates can run

1:07:29

against those parties' relationships with Trump. It'd

1:07:31

be like, I will be the one

1:07:33

who is standing up to this malignant

1:07:36

narcissist. It's no longer seen as

1:07:38

a benefit to be a candidate

1:07:40

that can ingratiate yourself with America.

1:07:43

It's just a totally different dynamic.

1:07:45

It's shifted the paradigm, you know,

1:07:48

and it's both that they don't

1:07:50

want the people that seem like they

1:07:52

are cozy with Trump, but also

1:07:54

they just don't want... a politics

1:07:56

like Trump. So even when Polly

1:07:58

have distances himself from Trump. and says

1:08:00

mean things about Trump, it doesn't matter

1:08:02

because he presents as kind of Trump

1:08:04

light. And that's a trap that it's

1:08:06

hard for them to get out of.

1:08:08

And that's a healthy shift in the

1:08:10

global political dynamic that Bayer is watching.

1:08:12

Fingers for you guys. Yeah, please. Yeah,

1:08:14

we love you Canada. We love you

1:08:16

Canada. Please. No more right wingers. We

1:08:19

can't do it. Finally bad. Oh, by

1:08:21

the way. August probably in danger too.

1:08:23

I think, yeah, but we'll come back

1:08:25

to that later too. Come back to

1:08:27

that one. All right, so finally then,

1:08:29

sometimes there's a headline that's so good,

1:08:31

you don't really have to write a

1:08:33

joke on it. This one is courtesy

1:08:35

of the New Zealand Herald. Queensland

1:08:38

surgeon fined for sharing photo

1:08:40

of patient swastika tattooed penis.

1:08:42

Hmm. There's nothing good about that.

1:08:45

You know, like I just, I

1:08:47

mean, swastika tattooed bad, but also.

1:08:49

It's kind of a kind of

1:08:51

punishment kind of punishment to

1:08:54

that person for getting it

1:08:56

in the first place like

1:08:58

I don't know man. Yeah, that's a

1:09:00

penis tattoo suspect. So there's an

1:09:02

orthopedic expert isn't that one of

1:09:05

those, you know? There's an orthopedic

1:09:07

surgeon in New Zealand. He got

1:09:09

fined $10,000 for taking a photo

1:09:11

of an unconscious man's anti-Semitic dong

1:09:13

and sharing it with some doctor

1:09:16

buddies on a WhatsApp. So this

1:09:18

headline was from a few weeks

1:09:20

ago where they announced the punishment.

1:09:22

I disagree with this punishment. The

1:09:24

incident itself happened back in 2019

1:09:26

when the doctor was treating a

1:09:28

man in a coma after suffering

1:09:31

injuries from a homemade pipe bomb.

1:09:33

Sometimes it's the ones you most

1:09:35

expect then. I think I speak

1:09:38

for everyone when I want to

1:09:40

know the font size of the swastika. And

1:09:42

who did the tattooing in the first place?

1:09:44

Like do you think grow or not a

1:09:46

show or Nazi? you're probably not working with

1:09:48

a lot of material down there. I'm going

1:09:50

to imagine that the tattoo couldn't possibly be

1:09:52

that big. Because if you're the kind of

1:09:54

person that wants to do that on your

1:09:56

dong, you're probably not working with a lot

1:09:58

of material down there. And then also,

1:10:01

like, I just think, you know,

1:10:03

once you've done that, you know,

1:10:05

I think you sacrificed your privacy,

1:10:07

right? So, if the doctor wants

1:10:09

to docs your dong, like, like,

1:10:11

it's, you know, I don't think

1:10:14

there's anything wrong with that. As

1:10:16

I was digging deeper into this

1:10:18

story, I found there was a

1:10:20

program where you can get extremist

1:10:22

tattoos removed at no cost. It

1:10:24

seems like a good idea. Are

1:10:26

there exceptions though to the body

1:10:29

part? No, I don't think so.

1:10:31

I think it's sort of a

1:10:33

body part agnostic. Okay. Well, that's it

1:10:35

for us in the new section. We're

1:10:37

going to take a quick break and

1:10:39

we come back. You're going to hear

1:10:41

my interview with Josh Rogan. We talk

1:10:43

all about his reporting about the Trump

1:10:45

administration's handling of US China policy, the

1:10:47

personalities in the White House who are

1:10:49

calling the shots, and lots more. So

1:10:51

stick around for that. This

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1:12:29

My guest today is the lead

1:12:31

global security analyst

1:12:33

for Washington Post intelligence.

1:12:36

He was also a

1:12:38

columnist of the post and

1:12:40

the author of the excellent book,

1:12:42

Chaos Under Heaven, Trump, She, and

1:12:44

the Battle for the 21st Century.

1:12:47

Josh Roger, good to see you.

1:12:49

Oh, great to be with you,

1:12:51

Tommy. Good to see, Tommy. Good

1:12:53

to see you again. So I

1:12:56

read your book, Chaos Under Heaven,

1:12:58

because I heard Steve Bannon. of

1:13:00

all people call it the best

1:13:02

book written about Trump in China.

1:13:04

Then I bought the book, I

1:13:06

read the book, and what I

1:13:09

found was hardly a flattering picture

1:13:11

of Trump in China, hardly a

1:13:13

flattering picture of Steve Annan, by

1:13:15

the way. But let's talk about

1:13:17

the book. So you have, you,

1:13:19

you paint this picture in the

1:13:21

first term of these factions. There's

1:13:23

kind of like a hardline anti-China

1:13:25

faction. There was a Wall Street

1:13:27

click. There was an erratic Trump

1:13:29

who seems easily swayed by flattery

1:13:31

or, you know, personal requests from

1:13:33

Xi Jin Ping. Trump 1.0 and then

1:13:35

maybe what differences you see this time? Sure,

1:13:38

well, you know, as you pointed out, in the

1:13:40

first Trump term there were about six factions,

1:13:42

but the most important ones were

1:13:44

the hardliners, that's people like Mike

1:13:46

Pence, John Bolton and Mike Pompeo,

1:13:48

then there were the Superhawks, the

1:13:50

economic nationalists, these are people like

1:13:52

Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, then

1:13:54

there was the Wall Street click,

1:13:56

there were guys like Steve Mnuchin

1:13:58

and Gary Cohn. And they fought

1:14:00

over and over again, and Trump lauded

1:14:03

over them, like in a, you know,

1:14:05

in a Colosseum, and, you know, different

1:14:07

factions won at different times. But the

1:14:10

most important revelation from that book that

1:14:12

applies, I think, to Trump, too, is

1:14:14

that Donald Trump is not part of

1:14:17

any of those factions. In his heart,

1:14:19

he is not even anti-China. He is

1:14:21

not a hawk. He's not a hard

1:14:24

liner. He's not for the Wall Street guys.

1:14:26

He wants a deal. And he thinks

1:14:28

that the US and China have to be

1:14:30

friends with each other, and that only he

1:14:32

and Xi Jinping can pull that off. And

1:14:34

that is the one thing that sort of

1:14:37

pulls forward to where we are now, even

1:14:39

as we're in a trade war with China,

1:14:41

that Trump started on a whim. You know

1:14:43

without any clear plan whatsoever to get

1:14:45

through it and one that she think

1:14:47

doesn't seem to be backing down from

1:14:49

Even in this moment. I'm 100% sure

1:14:51

that Donald Trump sees the end of

1:14:53

this as a deal Not as the

1:14:55

US versus China not as a Cold

1:14:57

War not as some sort of you know, competition

1:15:00

for the global world order or whatever

1:15:02

it was, just as a way to

1:15:04

get Gijingpain to get to the table

1:15:06

so that they can strike a deal,

1:15:08

so that we'll have better trade as

1:15:11

far as Trump is concerned, but that

1:15:13

the US and China will avoid the

1:15:15

Cold War. That's his goal. The problem

1:15:17

is that all the people who work

1:15:20

for him don't necessarily think that at

1:15:22

all. And that's where the chaos is.

1:15:24

And never ending chaos, because as the

1:15:26

teams fight each other, and they fight

1:15:29

each other, rarely does it translate into

1:15:31

something that advances American interests and values.

1:15:33

But you know that's that's where we

1:15:36

are that's that's the kind of case

1:15:38

that we're looking at. Yeah I didn't look

1:15:40

at the that was a very well articulated

1:15:42

and why like the last few months

1:15:44

have been kind of confusing because obviously

1:15:46

Trump ran. against China, you know, he

1:15:48

focused on it a lot at rallies,

1:15:50

you were going to fight back on

1:15:52

China, they're cheating us, we're going to

1:15:54

get him, Biden was weak, yada yada

1:15:56

yada, but it also, it seemed like

1:15:58

he was coming in. eager to get deals

1:16:01

with she on a bunch of issues.

1:16:03

Taiwan, fentanyl, TikTok. I mean, it sounds

1:16:05

like they almost got it over the

1:16:08

finish line on TikTok. But in practice,

1:16:10

as you noted, like there's been this

1:16:12

massive tariff campaign in trade war that

1:16:15

was put in place way faster. than

1:16:17

the first term. In your book, you

1:16:19

document kind of the process that led

1:16:22

to tariffs on China in the first

1:16:24

term. That took like what, 16, 18

1:16:26

months or something like that? Yeah. So

1:16:29

what's the disconnect here? Why are we

1:16:31

moving so much faster this time when it

1:16:33

seemed like he wanted a deal on

1:16:35

all these areas? You know, it's like,

1:16:37

Tommy, it's like any big movie that

1:16:39

becomes a sequel. Like in the second

1:16:42

one, the explosions have to be bigger,

1:16:44

the plot holes are much bigger, you

1:16:46

know, you know, you know oddity of the

1:16:48

Trump first administration is just times

1:16:50

a thousand so now we just have okay well instead

1:16:52

of having a bunch of investigations that lead

1:16:54

to a bunch of trade actions let's just

1:16:56

go right to the trade war and skip

1:16:59

all that nonsense and see what happens and

1:17:01

maybe get sorted out in the court or it

1:17:03

doesn't but there's two things going on

1:17:05

inside the Trump administration that I think

1:17:07

are really interesting one is you know

1:17:09

you've got this battle between you know

1:17:11

what we call the restrainers and the you

1:17:13

know the primists in the in the in

1:17:16

the maga movement it's split and they're at

1:17:18

war with each other and in the middle

1:17:20

you have these people called the prioritizers that

1:17:22

the people were like oh well we should

1:17:25

care about China but we shouldn't care about

1:17:27

Ukraine so that's how it's shaping up you

1:17:29

have these three camps but essentially the restrainers

1:17:31

and the prioritizers are ganging up on the

1:17:34

primuses and they're and they're getting rid of

1:17:36

them and they're using weapons to do it

1:17:38

and they're using weapons to do it. White House

1:17:40

and tell Trump, well, all of these NSC

1:17:42

Asia officials are, you know, anti- Trump, even

1:17:45

though that's not true. And so the China

1:17:47

issue has been come completely subsumed right

1:17:49

now, right at this moment, by this, you

1:17:51

know, fratricide that's going on inside the

1:17:53

White House and inside the administration.

1:17:55

So Laura Loomer goes into the

1:17:57

White House, speaks with President President.

1:18:00

Trump, all of a sudden the head guy who's

1:18:02

in charge of China, you know,

1:18:04

national security and technology with regard

1:18:06

to China, he gets fired. And

1:18:08

he's, and then she accuses Alex

1:18:10

Wong, who I think you may know, you know, who is

1:18:12

a, you know, a Republican patriot happens

1:18:15

to be Chinese, and she accuses him of

1:18:17

being a Chinese spy and tries to get

1:18:19

him fired. So even if you're a China

1:18:21

hawk, even if the people in the MAG

1:18:23

movement think they're China hawks, get rid

1:18:25

of the other China hawks to just

1:18:27

to win their internal war against the

1:18:29

people who they think are like traditional

1:18:32

Republicans or establishment people or Neocons or

1:18:34

whatever. So you have to understand that

1:18:36

this is a this war is going

1:18:38

to go on and on and on

1:18:40

until the end of the administration and

1:18:42

even the most you know knowledgeable China

1:18:44

officials could be gone tomorrow for any

1:18:46

reason because somebody tweeted something that isn't

1:18:48

even true. And then when you when

1:18:50

you think about what Trump's doing well

1:18:52

Okay, now we're going to have a trade

1:18:55

war with only China as if that doesn't

1:18:57

affect all of the rest of the world.

1:18:59

And when the two biggest economies in the

1:19:01

world have a trade war, every other

1:19:03

country is affected. And the Chinese have

1:19:06

a very determined plan to take a

1:19:08

bunch of our allies and even our

1:19:10

partners and move them over to the

1:19:12

Chinese side of the equation. We don't

1:19:14

see if they have any plan at

1:19:16

all. So on the economic side, people

1:19:18

like Navarro and are warring with people

1:19:20

like Scott Bessin. Howard Lutnik, and you

1:19:22

can't even call these guys China hawks or

1:19:24

China doves because they're not even thinking that

1:19:27

way. They're just at war with each other over

1:19:29

the policy in trying to figure out what Donald

1:19:31

Trump wants them to do and what Donald Trump

1:19:33

wants them to do is a moving target. And

1:19:35

so that's a layer of chaos at the professional

1:19:38

level, and then a layer of chaos at the

1:19:40

political level. And what that amounts to is my

1:19:42

books called Chaos Under Heaven. I guess I will

1:19:44

have to write this equal because now we've got

1:19:46

chaos inside the inside the building. Yeah, we're gonna

1:19:48

do you write that sequel. I want to ask you about

1:19:50

the Chinese plan in a minute But I mean one more

1:19:53

question on the personnel. I mean it used to used to

1:19:55

bother me when people would be like who's your who's Obama's

1:19:57

China's are and it's like I don't know man. It's kind

1:19:59

of a big relation There's like the military piece

1:20:01

the economic piece there's trade there's opponents

1:20:03

right so it's like a little reductive

1:20:06

But is there is there a person

1:20:08

who you think is kind of like

1:20:10

the the Prime Minister of the policy or

1:20:12

like the kind of leading voice in terms

1:20:14

of influencing Trump right well I mean we're

1:20:17

taping this on a certain day in time

1:20:19

and by the time it goes on the

1:20:21

internet even if that's an hour from now

1:20:23

everything's gonna change So I'm gonna give you

1:20:26

my analysis of the moment at the moment

1:20:28

The most important people in the

1:20:30

China policy are Scott Bessent, Howard

1:20:33

Lutnik, Peter Navarro, and James and Greer

1:20:35

are trade representative in that order. Now

1:20:37

if you had asked me that a

1:20:39

week ago, I would have said, Peter,

1:20:42

Navarro, Howard Lutnik, James and Greer,

1:20:44

and Scott Bessen. So just in

1:20:46

that week, it totally shifted because

1:20:48

the policy totally shifted. And it's

1:20:50

definitely going to shift again. And

1:20:52

none of these, I mean Peter,

1:20:54

I guess you could call them

1:20:56

a China. things about our relationship with

1:20:58

China that make no sense at all on

1:21:00

a regular basis and he's a sectarian commerce

1:21:02

that's kind of a crazy thing to think

1:21:04

about and what are our allies supposed to

1:21:06

think what are what's China supposed to think

1:21:08

who are they supposed to listen to they have

1:21:10

the same question as you is like who speaks

1:21:13

for the president and then JD Vance and his

1:21:15

and his sort of you know, bro'lagarchy, the

1:21:17

technocracy on all the Peter Thiel,

1:21:19

and you know, they have their

1:21:21

own sort of China, sort of

1:21:24

gang, and then, of course, you

1:21:26

have Elon Musk, and who has

1:21:28

an amazingly large interest in China

1:21:30

and is uniquely willing to interject

1:21:33

himself into all of these relationships.

1:21:35

pontificating about Taiwan's future and, you

1:21:37

know, pontificating about the future of

1:21:40

the US-Russia relationship. So he just

1:21:42

has no problem getting in there

1:21:44

and using his position as sort

1:21:46

of like under boss to shift the

1:21:49

policy one way or the other. So one

1:21:51

problem is that we don't have a lack of

1:21:53

a China's R, but we don't have a China's

1:21:55

R, but you can say that about any issue

1:21:57

because if you look at the Russia issue or

1:21:59

you look... of the Middle East, everyone's

1:22:01

just following what the president says and

1:22:03

tweets and that's just the world that

1:22:06

we're living in, at least for the

1:22:08

next couple of years. Yeah, and on like from

1:22:10

the China side of the ledger, I mean, I would

1:22:12

bet that the Chinese believe that they

1:22:14

can absorb more... political and economic pain

1:22:17

than Trump can. The Chinese Communist Party

1:22:19

probably correctly believes that they're going to

1:22:21

be around a lot longer than the

1:22:24

Trump administration or even maybe the mega

1:22:26

movement. They have some clear points of

1:22:28

leverage, right? They're choking off rare earth

1:22:30

exports. If they really need to fuck

1:22:33

with us, they could dump US treasuries

1:22:35

and create some serious economic problems. I

1:22:37

mean, what is your read on China's

1:22:40

response so far and how... How that

1:22:42

signals how hard she will fight? Yeah, no,

1:22:44

I mean the thing that people need to understand

1:22:46

out there is that this is not a Democracy.

1:22:49

It's not a market economy. China is

1:22:51

a socialist country and so they can

1:22:53

do whatever the government wants and they

1:22:55

can shift massive amounts of resources Toward

1:22:58

whatever effort they want to and they

1:23:00

don't have to think about the suffering.

1:23:02

It's like how come Putin can fight

1:23:04

a war where he's losing seven to

1:23:06

one forever? It's because he doesn't

1:23:08

care about the suffering and money isn't

1:23:11

real because He controls the state and all

1:23:13

of its industries and all of the oligarchs.

1:23:15

That's how it is in China. So of

1:23:17

course they can last longer than us. Of

1:23:19

course they can suffer more than us. And

1:23:22

of course the Xi Jing Ping is taking

1:23:24

a hard line because he knows that what

1:23:26

we're doing is not just about China. We're

1:23:28

burning our relationships with countries all over the

1:23:30

world. That plays the China's benefit. We're pushing

1:23:33

all these countries right into China's waiting arms.

1:23:35

Meanwhile, if we think about... what we're trying

1:23:37

to do, what the Trump administration is

1:23:39

trying to do, which is like an

1:23:41

industrial policy, like let's take the administration

1:23:43

at its word for just one second,

1:23:45

they're trying to shift manufacturing back to the

1:23:47

United States, they're trying to reorder how trade

1:23:50

happens, whether you like that or not, I think it's

1:23:52

kind of not going to happen and not a great

1:23:54

idea, but even if you're for that, they haven't

1:23:56

done the planning, they haven't invested in the

1:23:58

ways that would actually... make that happen. They're

1:24:01

not, they haven't, you know, they're trying

1:24:03

to come up with 90 deals in

1:24:05

90 days, so they should have done

1:24:07

that beforehand. Whereas China has a

1:24:09

multi-trillion dollar effort to bolster research

1:24:11

and innovation, manufacturing in the high

1:24:13

end, putting a billion people to

1:24:16

work, and building the infrastructure of

1:24:18

the future and of the future

1:24:20

technologies, and we're, what? you know destroying

1:24:22

a generation of innovation and research at

1:24:24

our universities for why so because we

1:24:27

don't the Trump doesn't like their DEA

1:24:29

I programs or whatever it is right

1:24:31

so it's it's it's it's kind of

1:24:33

you can't overestimate the the amount of

1:24:36

planning that China's now that doesn't mean

1:24:38

that they're ten feet tall it doesn't

1:24:40

mean that they do everything right sometimes

1:24:42

their planning goes horribly wrong but in

1:24:44

terms of fighting a war over trade

1:24:47

and technology they at least have a plan

1:24:49

and it's pretty clear we don't Because

1:24:51

our plan changes every day and the

1:24:53

people at the top of the administration

1:24:55

have no idea what it is, they

1:24:58

can't articulate it, they can't even tell

1:25:00

us what it is. And so, yeah,

1:25:02

I would say that's bad. You know,

1:25:04

you want to at least have a

1:25:06

plan versus a country that not only

1:25:08

has a plan, but has, you know,

1:25:11

more, five times more people than us.

1:25:13

And, you know, it's not a real

1:25:15

economy with real money and the

1:25:17

government can do whatever it wants

1:25:19

all the time. Yeah, and to your

1:25:21

point on them not being 10 feet

1:25:24

tall, I mean they do have some

1:25:26

real risks, right? There's like pretty high

1:25:28

levels of regional government debt. They have

1:25:30

a property bubble that is leading to

1:25:32

a massive decrease in real estate investment.

1:25:34

They have a, their population has plateaued

1:25:36

and seems to be decreasing, which will

1:25:38

cause some serious long-term problems for the

1:25:40

country. But it seems like Xi Jin

1:25:42

Ping has sort of set this up

1:25:44

where he can take all these pre-existing

1:25:46

problems and say, oh, this is all

1:25:49

Trump's fault. This is all the trade

1:25:51

deal and stoke nationalism. And it's not

1:25:53

that he really needs a lot of

1:25:55

political running room, but it's certainly beneficial

1:25:57

for him if he can get his

1:25:59

people pissed. off at the US and

1:26:01

not at him. Right. And not only that,

1:26:03

you're right, not only that, what they're

1:26:05

doing is they're building all

1:26:07

of the capabilities to never have

1:26:10

to worry about us ever again. So

1:26:12

we can cut off their technology for

1:26:14

now, but once they build their own

1:26:16

capabilities, we won't be able to

1:26:19

do that. And maybe they were

1:26:21

going to do that anyway. Maybe

1:26:23

we were heading towards some sort

1:26:25

of decoupling that was inevitable. But

1:26:27

again, maybe we should do it

1:26:29

in inevitable. as we decouple. And

1:26:31

what else is the Trump administration

1:26:33

doing? They're going to tariff semiconductors,

1:26:35

but then destroy the Biden administration's

1:26:38

chips program, which was all about

1:26:40

on-shore semiconductor manufacturing. It doesn't really

1:26:42

make a lot of sense when you

1:26:44

say it out loud. And so, yeah, I mean,

1:26:46

I think China does have its big problems,

1:26:48

and Xi Jinping does have to respond to

1:26:51

certain constituencies. He doesn't have to get elected,

1:26:53

but there are other power centers in Beijing

1:26:55

that he has to. Somewhat answered to so

1:26:58

what that means is eventually there will be

1:27:00

a negotiation and I think that negotiation

1:27:02

will lead to a deal and what

1:27:04

every both sides are doing is they're

1:27:06

you know they're they're filling their quivers

1:27:08

with arrows and carrots and sticks and

1:27:10

getting ready for that negotiation and I

1:27:13

just think the Chinese happened to be

1:27:15

doing it more competently than we are right

1:27:17

now and I'm not I don't think that's a

1:27:19

good thing because I'm for us and not them.

1:27:21

Yeah I'm an American last question on China

1:27:23

so it. So it does seem like Trump.

1:27:25

The one area where there's a

1:27:28

lot of clarity is he doesn't

1:27:30

seem to care much about human

1:27:32

rights. I mean, he infamously told

1:27:35

Shijin paying that throwing, you know,

1:27:37

a million-plus Uyghurs into these re-education

1:27:39

camps to be tortured or killed

1:27:42

or, you know, what have you,

1:27:44

was the right thing to do.

1:27:46

Was the right thing to do?

1:27:49

Was the right thing to do?

1:27:51

I'm less clear on defending Taiwan.

1:27:54

You know when I asked I

1:27:56

interviewed Trump for the book and

1:27:58

he said well were too We're 8,000

1:28:00

miles away and China's two feet away.

1:28:02

And if they attack, there's really nothing we

1:28:04

can do about it. That's what he

1:28:07

said. And there's a kernel of truth

1:28:09

to that. I don't think under the

1:28:11

current situation or the current plans, we

1:28:13

could defend Taiwan from an invasion. But

1:28:16

that's a separate issue. The point is that

1:28:18

he didn't really seem like he would

1:28:20

try. He didn't say that. But from all

1:28:22

the people that I know who've worked

1:28:24

for President Trump, who have talked to

1:28:26

have talked to. thing is like the worst

1:28:28

part of it because what if he trades

1:28:30

something about Taiwan for something else that he

1:28:32

wants which may not even be in the

1:28:35

US interest it might be you know it

1:28:37

could be tick-tock it could be you know

1:28:39

Trump Hotel Shanghai God only knows so for

1:28:41

Taiwan that's an existential problem and they're

1:28:43

trying their best to prove to Trump that they're

1:28:45

a good ally and you know he just all

1:28:48

he did was sort of tell them like you

1:28:50

better give us the semiconductors or you know we're

1:28:52

gonna cut you off so this is a pretty

1:28:54

a dire situation for Taiwan. And this

1:28:56

is a part of Trump's overall frame,

1:28:58

which is that he only cares about

1:29:00

big countries. He doesn't care about

1:29:03

little countries. He envisions a world

1:29:05

where it's basically divided into spheres

1:29:07

of influence, where Russia runs its

1:29:09

neighborhood, China runs its neighborhood, and

1:29:11

we run Greenland to Tierra del Fuego.

1:29:14

That's why he's doing all of this

1:29:16

Greenland stuff in Panama Canal. You'll hear

1:29:18

this in the magga world a lot,

1:29:20

the new Monroe doctrine, right? It's like,

1:29:23

it's pretending that the world can be

1:29:25

divided by oceans, that we don't live

1:29:27

in a world that's interconnected the way

1:29:30

that everybody knows that it is. And, you

1:29:32

know, Monroe, that was like, again, this is

1:29:34

18th century logic applied to the 21st

1:29:36

century. It's kind of crazy, but that's

1:29:38

what Trump thinks. You know, let China

1:29:41

run Asia. Let, you know. Russia run Europe

1:29:43

and if the Europeans want to run their

1:29:45

little corner of it fine, but we're not

1:29:47

going to help them. And then we get,

1:29:49

you know, Greenland to Argentina. And I don't

1:29:51

think that's going to happen. I don't think

1:29:53

that the world works that way. But again,

1:29:55

when you're analyzing the Trump

1:29:57

administration, it's good to understand.

1:30:00

what they're thinking, you know, blinker it as

1:30:02

it may be. Yeah, no, I think you're

1:30:04

right. I has to think like, there was

1:30:06

a long time where people try to sort

1:30:08

of see through what they were saying. It's

1:30:10

like, no, I think we just probably take

1:30:12

it literally. I think he means a lot

1:30:14

of the stuff. When he says he wants

1:30:17

Greenland, I think you want Greenland. Yeah, it

1:30:19

doesn't mean it's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna

1:30:21

ever, ever, that would ever happen ever happen.

1:30:23

Act on it. It's interesting given how much

1:30:25

we talked about COVID for years and years

1:30:27

and years in the origin of COVID and

1:30:29

you know whether it emerged from a cave

1:30:31

from a bat naturally or whether it was

1:30:34

a lab leak it's funny that to me

1:30:36

that Trump has just completely dropped the conversation

1:30:38

like I haven't heard and talk about the

1:30:40

quote-unquote China virus or blame the Chinese for

1:30:42

COVID in a very long time and I'm

1:30:44

wondering if you have a theory for why

1:30:46

that is or if maybe I'm just not

1:30:49

listening closely enough. No, I mean, CIA director

1:30:51

John Radcliffe, one of the very first things

1:30:53

he did was to reveal an assessment that

1:30:55

had actually been completed in the Biden administration

1:30:57

that with a low measure of confidence for

1:30:59

sure that it came from the, that it

1:31:01

emerged from an accident from the lab. And

1:31:03

he didn't have to do that with one

1:31:06

of the first things that he did. And,

1:31:08

you know, there's no doubt that the issue

1:31:10

of the origin of the coronavirus became highly

1:31:12

politicized for a lot of... understandable reasons because

1:31:14

when Donald Trump said it came from the

1:31:16

lab most people were like oh that that

1:31:18

must not be true and Anyway here we

1:31:20

are five years later. We still don't know

1:31:23

and I've only and if you read my

1:31:25

book You know that I lay out a

1:31:27

bunch of evidence as to why it might

1:31:29

have come from the lab and my argument

1:31:31

has always been we should check out the

1:31:33

lab and we should investigate it and it

1:31:35

still hasn't happened so I think there is

1:31:38

a plenty of evidence that the labs might

1:31:40

have been involved in fact in most senior

1:31:42

officials that I talked to people that you

1:31:44

and I know very well told me that

1:31:46

yeah they think it probably came from the

1:31:48

lab. You know I just mean it's weird

1:31:50

that Trump has dropped it as a rhetorical

1:31:52

cudgel. I think I'll come back to it

1:31:55

and I don't think it's going anywhere. Yeah

1:31:57

and I'm with you I'm like at this

1:31:59

point of agnostic I'm like I don't know

1:32:01

I just want someone to tell me I

1:32:03

found the the body of circumstantial evidence that

1:32:05

you outlined in your book to be quite

1:32:07

compelling early on I was convinced by all

1:32:09

the experts and scientists who told me that

1:32:12

was impossible and that it must have sort

1:32:14

of emerged naturally. And now I'm just like,

1:32:16

I don't fucking know, someone just tell me,

1:32:18

I don't want to fight about it. Well,

1:32:20

here's the insight that I think you're searching

1:32:22

for. Trump is being nice in his rhetoric

1:32:24

to China because he's getting ready for the

1:32:27

China because he's getting ready for the deal.

1:32:29

And Trump administration officials have told me that

1:32:31

he wants everybody not to say bad things

1:32:33