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Foreign.
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You're listening to American Power. I'm your host, Nat Town, stand up comedian, speechwriter, many other forms of writer. And most likely to elicit follow up questions from my seatmate on the airplane or podcast host, I am joined as always by my panel of experts. Our expert on the military and foreign policy, Chad Scott. Chad, how's it going?
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C
Outstanding today. Super excited for this show. Also interested in Matt's new color of hat. That's a, it's a new one he's got there. So interesting me anxiety with this color
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B
of my checkered shirt which has been quite a topic of conversation in previous podcasts. I introduced a little pink and purple here. I thought that was going to be a real wave. What's the phrase I'm looking for?
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A
All yellow, different shades of plaid. Like why is my hat such a big deal?
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B
Because, because you know, I'm changing things all the time, but it's like, it's like Pepsi changed their logo over here or something.
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A
Okay.
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C
Yeah, yeah.
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And the man speaking to you, of course, the Pepsi of this podcast, as I've just recently described him, a man whose look is so signature that a change in hat color causes ripples throughout Internet. He is our expert on all forms of energy. Renewable oil, global oil markets, gasoline markets. You know him as Mr. Global Matt Randolph. Matt, how's it going?
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I was doing great till you called me Pepsi. I would really like to be known as Coke Zero if that's at all
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possible because wow, that's like Coke Zero changing their logo. It would be devastating to some of us who know what the Coke Zero logo is. How's it going, Matt? Beyond, beyond the perceived slights, just another
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A
unbelievably busy day under a Trump administration. Like, I mean it's. Yeah, never worked so much in my life.
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Thus is the fate of the current events. Tiktoker. There's a lot of current events at the moment and I'm excited to bring to our panel to our show today a special guest. Our guest today is a distinguished non resident fellow for Defense and Security at the Chicago Council on Global affairs and a leading expert on U.S. european defense policy, transatlantic relations and geopolitical risk under President Barack Obama. She served as Principal Director for European and NATO Policy at the Pentagon and as deputy and acting National Security Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden. Under President Biden, she served as Senior Adviser to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and as US Permanent Representative to NATO. Her recent writings include co authoring Beyond Defense what's at stake for NATO in Ankara published by the Chicago Council on Global affairs and as well as Middle Eastern NATO in the Stakes for the Ankara Summit, published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Thank you for bearing with me. Please welcome to the show. Ambassador Julie Smith, Great to be here.
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D
Great to be here.
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B
Thank you so much for being here. Now, I know we have a lot to chat about.
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D
Yes.
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B
And I want to thank you so much for joining us here on the show. I actually wanted to let Chad jump in because I think he had a question he wanted to start with.
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C
Yeah, just again, thank you so much, Ambassador, for joining us here. We just went through the Ankara summit in Turkey. In your recent analysis, the Price of Pragmatism, which was published by Global affairs, you argued that the real measure of success in the Ankara summit isn't simply how NATO spends its money, but what that spending actually produces over the next 12 to 24 months. What should NATO, what should we be watching to determine whether Ankara was truly a success? And what should NATO be doing or producing that would be driving success for the future?
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D
Yeah, well, thank you. A couple of things on that. So the NATO summit that took place in Ankara a couple weeks back, I mean, it was a major achievement. Right. So the Europeans are spending a lot more money and this is something Americans have been asking for for a very long time. And so we have to applaud those changes and the increase in spending. But I guess I have a couple of questions. One is, how is that spending coordinated? Are you going to end up with every nation in Europe large sums of money and dedicating it to more or less the same set of capabilities? So if you can imagine a good old fashioned potluck dinner, you want to make sure you got a good mix of everything at the table. And the concern is that countries will tilt towards the more affordable, cheaper capabilities and that no one's bringing steak to the potluck dinner. That's point one. So are they coordinating all this spending in a way that brings collective strength to the alliance? Number two is, are we at the point where the NATO summit is increasingly just focused on managing us, the United States? Because we're pretty unpredictable right now. We have a president that isn't a big fan of the NATO alliance, doesn't really want to double down on the Article 5, all for one and one for all clause in the NATO treaty. And so my concern is, look, NATO's a big shop. 4,000 people work at NATO. They work on all sorts of things. Emerging tech issues, cyber attacks, attacks, disinformation, climate security, you Name it. But some of that work is starting to take a back seat, and the alliance isn't focusing as much on the future and future challenges. And frankly, I think a lot of allies are just trying to get through these big summits with the US President relatively happy and not announcing that the US Is leaving the alliance.
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B
How do you balance those two concerns? Because they both sound completely legitimate, but the first sounds a little bit like it could be fueled by the paranoia and tendencies of the Trump administration. We talked a bit about this in a previous episode, but there's been a lot of this sort of maligning of NATO by miscategorizing it by saying, oh, we pay for NATO, or we describing it as a line item almost for the United States or as a security force that we provide, just really mischaracterizing what it is. But this is a lot of the narrative among the Trump administration around NATO. So how do you, how do you navigate those criticisms of is everyone paying their fair share? Is, are these things being meted out based on what countries can actually afford or, you know, how, how is that spending going to be equitable? How do you tease that apart from this sort of narrative of the US Is paying for everything and NATO is a bill for us? Because it does sound like it's a. People are afraid of paying into that as well because Trump's so volatile.
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D
Right. So, I mean, the burden sharing issue, again, is a long standing one. And allies have been talking about burden sharing for decades. And we want our European allies and our friends in Canada to spend more on their national defense. And frankly, I'm relieved that we're now we have a new target in the alliance. It used to be you had to spend 2% of your GDP on defense, and now it's 5%. And I'm good with that. But here's the problem. The way in which it's been portrayed to the American public, they're increasingly getting the impression that NATO's a raw deal for the United States. I mean, and it's not. We are in the NATO alliance and we created NATO because we fundamentally understood two words, stronger together. And it's better to tackle Russia, China, all of the challenges out there in the world with allies that are capable and that you exercise and train together rather than trying to go it alone. And so NATO for decades, for 77 years has served US interests. Now, has the burden sharing issue been skewed? Did it need a course correction? Absolutely. And when I was at NATO, we went from 6 allies spending 2% to 23 allies spending 2%. So we too made progress, less progress than what we're seeing now. But the point here is that let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I mean, NATO is an important alliance. I would argue it's one of the most successful military alliances and we need our allies as much as they need us. Yes, we provide the nuclear umbrella. We've provided a lot for their security. But let's not forget on 9 11, you know, we declared Article 5 for the first time in NATO's history and allies helped us and went into Afghanistan for 20 years in terms of joining a counterterrori terrorism mission. So I just want to be careful about messaging this burden sharing point. Yes, they need to do more, but let's not assume that that's the only issue and that we're only focused on the bottom line. And how much cash is everyone spending? I'll give you one example. So let's take Italy. Italy has never made it close to the 2% threshold and now is kind of clawing its way to the 3.55% target. But Italy is a country that has said, look, it's really difficult to increase defense spending in Italy for lots of reasons, but we will contribute in other ways. We will lead NATO missions, we will send our troops into harm's way. So my point. Harm's way, my point here is that NATO allies aren't all about just what they're spending on defense. They do things for us that are important and they contribute in other ways.
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B
And does increasing the 2% to 5% for other nations, I mean, just for the sake of argumentation, does it decrease the US's contribution to NATO? Does our potential GDP change for that at all?
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D
Yeah, so this is, this is where it's gone off the rails. So the way the President talks about it, he kind of describes it like a country club, like everyone's paying dues and there's like one big pot. And actually that's not at all what we're talking about. So Americans, many presidents have wanted our friends in Europe and Canada to pay more into their own national defense. So that means you buy more capabilities, you invest more in your troops, you invest more in infrastructure. And it's not about paying into the NATO budget. There is a separate NATO budget, but to be honest, it's pretty small compared to the sums we're talking about collectively across the alliance. So if, let's say Germany now is spending more money than one could ever imagine on defense, which is something if you had told Me, five years would be happening. I would have said, you're crazy. But. So they're spending a lot of money. But that doesn't necessarily detract. It means over time, Germany will be prepared to take responsibility for more of Europe's security. But it's not, it's not us pooling into a common budget and that Germany pays more and we pay less. So I think there's a little bit of a disconnect here in terms of how it's portrayed to the public.
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B
Well, that's why I'm asking, because it. A lot of the dialogue or discourse rather, around NATO and from the current administration does make it seem like, oh, you know, we're putting all the money in the piggy bank that NATO is spending, which is a pretty inaccurate way of looking at it. I get, you know, if I had to come up with a better metaphor, it's like it's making sure every country, country has a rainy day. Every country in NATO has a, has emergency fund or something like. Yes, we are more likely to spend money on other people's emergencies if they don't have an emergency fund. Right. So like, yeah, second. Or there's that consequence of it. But it's not literally. These countries are taking more of the pot that we're paying into. That's not a. That's not an.
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D
That's right.
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B
Metaphor when it comes to. Because. But I think that is a lot of how it gets talked about.
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D
Yeah, I think that's right.
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B
Like, they're taking the money that we put into NATO for their things.
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D
Yeah, no, no, it's not a country club. I mean, you just have to think about it differently. We want them to invest more in their own defense, and that will ultimately lift up and, and contribute to the collective security of all allies. But just because country A and country B ends up spending more does not mean that the US Ends up spending less. It just doesn't. That's not what we're talking about.
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C
So what would you like to see NATO spend more on or focus more on? Obviously, we see in Ukraine and a massive need for interceptors that potentially drones. But obviously the U.S. provides a capability across the board, whether it's intelligence all the way up into. Up to our, our nuclear umbrella. There's a lot of heartburn that comes with countries like Germany, for instance, that it's almost an absolute. No, they'll never do it. France has come forward and said, maybe we'll extend our nuclear umbrella as a replacement, but that would require more. More oomph. From them, so to speak, they would have to be bolster their, their arsenal. What would you like to see? NATO, not necessarily to replace the United States, but just in case we have someone like a Donald Trump in office that they can't count on us per se, so they have to go it alone. What do you think would be best for them right now?
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D
Well, the Europeans do have to develop their own capabilities in every category. We want them to be stronger in air defense, in armor, artillery, ammunition, lift, air to air refueling, everything.
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B
Right.
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D
And that will come over time. It's not going to happen within the next one to two years. But I think what's slowing them down right now, and frankly what's slowing us down here in the United States, is we have an issue with speed and scale. It's not like the defense companies out there can flip a light switch and say, oh, you want double the number of patriots? Great, we'll just produce those. That's also not how it works. It takes time to build the manufacturing plants that you need to hire the laborer that's required. And so I guess in terms of my wish list, number one, we need greater defense production on both sides of the pond because the money is there now and so industry has to respond. Number two, I'd like to see the alliance continue its focus on Ukraine. The United States decided to stop providing all security assistance to Ukraine last year when Donald Trump arrived in office. Now, the only thing we do is we allow Europeans to buy American weapons to send to Ukraine. And even that has become difficult because of everything we've used in Iran. Now there's less for Europeans to buy, to give to Ukraine. So I'd like to see the Europeans try to identify other sources of capabilities that they can send to the Ukrainians and, and that may come from places like South Korea and other corners around the world. And lastly, I do worry right now that the alliance isn't really focused on what we call kind of the hybrid tactics. And those are things like cybersecurity or energy security starts to involved in all of that. Climate security, undersea cables being cut, airspace violations, drones falling out of the sky. These are the things that are a little bit harder for the alliance to tackle because at the end of the day, NATO knows what to do when tanks roll across NATO territory. NATO knows less about what to do when it's a cybersecurity attack. Is that an Article 5 situation or not? So I do believe there's plenty of work to go, both in terms of the spending that's happening. In Europe, certainly more coordination. Like I said, speed and scale remain a problem. And then those gray zone challenges. So I would add all of those on the list and don't forget Ukraine, because they do still need our help.
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B
What would better coordination for those, I guess, newer forms of attack look like? Obviously, some of this has just evolved since the Charter was written to not only cyber attacks, but drone warfare for that matter, is a very different. You know, it lands in our previous definitions of war a little bit differently than than when the Charter was written. What would progress in that front look like to you?
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D
So, well, there's two things here. So talking about autonomous systems and drones, I mean, the alliance is trying to ready itself. It's inserting more doctrine about how to use these capabilities in tandem with more conventional capabilities. We're all quickly trying to extract the lessons. Ukraine, we've watched very closely how the Ukrainians and the Russians now have more technical know how than all of us put together. No one has more experience right now in real combat with Russia than the Ukrainians themselves. And they've used technology in just countless innovative ways that we couldn't have imagined, you know, just a few years ago. So NATO is trying to move out not only to acquire those capabilities, but extract the lessons from Ukraine and understand how they could be utilized inside the alliance for future warfare. So that's part one. Part two is on the cyber front. So on cybersecurity, the alliance has actually done quite a bit. If you're attacked, if you, if, let's say the lights go out in the middle of Tallinn in Estonia or some other city in Europe or Canada or the United States, NATO now has a little bit of a playbook in terms of what it can provide. If you need forensics help, you need to know who did it and how. Maybe your systems are all offline. NATO can try to help you with that. Maybe you want to fortify your systems against future attacks. NATO can help with that. So in cybersecurity, I think the alliance has done more. Where it's harder is undersea cables. You know, we've seen ships that have been Chinese or Russian flagged. They drag an anchor and cut a cable that can provide energy or electricity or I mean, all sorts of things underwater to NATO allies, between NATO allies between, say, Finland and Estonia. That's hard for the alliance to figure out. What should they be doing? What should the alliance be doing? Because obviously you're not going to have ships up on the water monitoring every single undersea cable. That would be impossible. But I Think the alliance needs to toy with the idea of trying to think through the risks and consequences of responding to those types of incidents. What kind of signaling can it do to the Russians or the Chinese? Are there asymmetric tactics that NATO can use to send a message? There's a lot that the alliance could be doing in that. But I admit it's tough. It's much more complicated than a tank rolling across a NATO border, where, again, NATO knows what to do.
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A
So, Ambassador, President Trump has argued that NATO should be responsible for helping us get the Strait of Hormuz open. And unfortunately, I heard Marco Rubio sort of mirror those remarks and say, you know, what is the purpose of NATO if they're not doing this? Do you believe that our NATO allies should be, you know, should have an obligation to assist us in this particular instance, given the manner in which we entered this conflict?
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B
Good question.
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D
So a couple of things to say about that. Number one, if you want your allies to join you in some sort of intervention or mission, you have to go first to the allies and explain what it is you're trying to do and explicitly lay out what you need and what requirements exist. And that's not what happened with Iran. Israel in the United States went to war with Iran. And then the President said he was, in essence, issuing a, quote, loyalty test. And he said repeatedly, we don't really need Europe, but this is just a test that I want them to pass. And I think our allies, I don't think, think I know that Our allies were bewildered and shocked by those statements. Wait, you didn't consult us on what you're doing. You actually don't need us. And yet we failed because we didn't come to your aid. Now, on the other hand, I will argue that having the Strait of Hormuz closed, as we all know, has a huge impact on Europe. And in many ways, in those first few weeks of the war, they felt it faster than we did. And so they have an interest in getting the straight open. And so there were groups of countries that were meeting in London and Paris trying to figure out, look, what's on offer in Europe. We have mine clearance. We have a relationship with the Iranians, diplomatic relations where the United States doesn't have those relationships. And so, rightly, they've tried to think through, okay, when the smoke clears, what could we Europeans offer to help maintain an open strait? But we're not there. And in fact, right now, we're headed in a completely different direction. And I guess the last thing I would say is that this isn't a NATO mission. This is NATO is there to protect the territory of the Euro Atlantic area. It's not really designed for a mission in the Strait of Hormuz. I do believe a handful of countries that have strong navies in Europe might lend a hand at some point, but in my mind, this hasn't unfolded in any conventional way that would actually trigger a positive response. Months from our closest partners and allies. If you're looking for capable allies, look no further than Europe. They, while they don't always spend as much as we want on defense, they actually are extraordinarily capable. And they do have things to offer. But you have to go to them, you have to sit down, you have to have a conversation, you have to consult them. And I think the way in which this has all gone down is just honestly moving our friends in the opposite direction. They're rolling their eyes, they're frustrated, and at least in the case of Spain, they denied the US the use of its airspace over Spanish territory. Now, that didn't have a huge operational impact, but still it was a signal that obviously upset the President tremendously.
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C
Yeah. And you. So you brought up something kind of within this confusion or this expectation that the United States has that's causing confusion within the alliance. We also see things like, like Greenland coming out where Trump is expressing, the United States should basically just own Greenland and we'll take it by whatever means necessary. Sometimes it's just a business deal. Sometimes it even has military rhetoric. Some of the discussion we've talked about earlier when we were talking to you was getting Europe to move. During your Bloomberg interview back in April, you argued that uncertainty surrounding American commitments, usually with the, the Article 5, but also with Greenland, with Iran comments, those can embolden Putin and potentially even Xi Ping. Where is the line between healthy pressure on allies to carry more of the burden and rhetoric that actually weakens deterrence against Russia? Or where are we actually weakening our deterrence against Russia here? Because we're going way too far when it comes to some of the more ridiculous ask from Trump, like Greenland. I mean, I feel like we're emboldening them. What are your thoughts in that realm?
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D
Well, look, Greenland was really a turning point in our relationship with Europe, and I'm glad you raised it. You just cannot underestimate the impact that Greenland has had on the transatlantic relationship. For the largest and most powerful ally in NATO to talk about getting the territory of another NATO ally is unprecedented. And I can't remember an episode in NATO's history where things have really been this dark. It scared the living daylights out of our European allies to contemplate would they fight US Forces in Greenland if it came to that. And they had to have those discussions. Now Greenland came and went and I think a lot of Americans say, oh yeah, I remember that. It's now in the rear view mirror. It's not for Europe, I'll tell you, without a doubt they remember Greenland. And it sent a chill down the spines of our friends in Europe. And it does have an impact. It raises questions about our predictability, our reliability. Of course, they all expected Donald Trump to come back in and hammer them on defense spending and they were ready to move and they did. And so instead of taking the win, the Trump administration could have had champagne toast and said, we got him there. This is great, let's celebrate that. No, then we, we turn to this d darker chapter on Greenland and that has just set us off on a completely different world. And I mean, now we're, we're in a world where they have to imagine going up against U. S. Force forces to defend the territory of Greenland against some sort of U. S. Invasion. So it has not left their memory. It will be there for a very long time. And what I had have really seen in spades is that there is an enormous trust deficit now with Europe. And that does have an impact on our ability to work together in a crisis for Europe to share intelligence with us and us to share intelligence with our closest allies. And Putin must be sitting in Moscow and Xi over in Beijing and celebrating this moment where the transatlantic partners are really coming apart. They really didn't have to lift a finger. We in essence kind of did it for them. And that's the great challeng tragedy, I think, of the current state of the transatlantic relationship.
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B
I don't want to speak for, I don't want to, I don't want to do the thing where I say no one realizes this and then be exposed as the only one who hasn't realized it. But I do feel that in the, no, I mean in left side, left leaning political discourse in the U.S. greenland was kind of treated like a joke. At least after it happened, it became another hilarious Trump gaffe. Maybe not quite to that extent, but I think to some degree Trump's, you know, we, we know this. Trump's strategy is to overwhelm the news cycle, it's to overwhelm our institutions, not only the media rhetoric. So I think to some extent the defense to get to that is that we have learned to deal with Bluster. We've learned not to react proportionately to every threat because most of them fizzle out in the first 24 hour to 48 hours. And that exhausting of our, not only, you know, institutional resources, but emotional, intellectual resources of we have to respond to this new crisis has, you know, really was really exhausting. In the first Trump term, we learned that he really controlled the news that way. And I think as a result, a lot of people have learned to not take him seriously when it comes to things that sound like cartoon villains, plans, oh, he's going to take over Greenland. Why? Because he wants to, to be mean. And I think literally as a result of that, I don't think a lot of, of or again, maybe it's my ignorance, but I don't hear a lot of liberals talking about how severe of a threat that was to our allies in Europe because we all thought on some level that it was just him looking for attention again. But of course, yeah, if you have
- [28:05]
D
to be asked, yeah.
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B
So how do we, how do we. Okay, you know, this isn't the fault of people not realizing how serious this is, but how does the U.S. i'm just like noting the disconnect because even I was kind of surprised by that. Yeah, even I, yeah, like on the master of this. But I know everything. This was my one oversight that's happened ever. But I'm being very big by admitting this. And but for the lesser than me, how would we, how would the US like, how do we rebuild trust within our, in our allies? Is there anything we can do while Trump is president? And even let's say we get someone a little more even keeled or hopefully 100% more even keeled in all office in a few years, what does the road to a functional NATO look like? And I don't just mean like a new charter. I mean, like what you're describing is a. Not exactly emotional, but it is like a safety issue. It's a. How do we rebuild trust is different from how do we create another agreement. Right. Like, how do we really rebuild trust in that agreement?
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D
Yeah, well, first of all, I don't blame anybody if they're not tracking every little detail tied to NATO or Greenland. I mean, there's a lot to keep up with and I think a lot of us feel overwhelmed by the breaking news that seems to come in every 30 seconds. And I'm called the NATO nerd for a reason. And so I guess it's my job to know all the details about the NATO alliance. But I will say that the President mentioned Greenland again when he was at the Ankara summit. He arrived in Turkey on the first day in Ankara and he did a press avail and he started listing all these grievances he has against our European allies, that some are still not spending enough. They didn't show up for us in Iran. And then he goes on and talks about Greenland. Now, not everyone was watching this press avail. People tune out and you know, the Ankara summit wasn't on the top of everybody's mind here. I appreciate that. But for the Europeans to hear the word Greenland again, it was, it was a trigger and they're worried that it's going to come back because a couple months ago at the beginning of the year, he said, no, no, I'm not going to invade green. It's all, it's all good. And it died down a little bit. But Europe's worry is this is something that's going to come back and he is going to try to get that territory. But your question about where we go, you know, in the future, let's say there's a change and we have someone else come in in 2029 that really wants to work to recover from this very dark chapter in the transatlantic relationship. What's interesting is when President Biden came back after Trump's first term, he had this slogan, he kind around the world and said, we're back, meaning this is in a US Administration that's recommitted to our shared values, to our shared mission, to the relationship, our shared history, international organizations. We love alliances, we respect our allies. And it resonated. And I think the world wanted to believe that the United States was back. But this time, 100%, I guarantee you that if any future US president said we're back, you just see shrugged shoulders and our allies rolling their eyes, whether they're in Europe, Asia, the Middle east or elsewhere. So there will be no going back. I don't think our allies are ready to return to the status quo. And I don't even think many Americans are ready to go back to the system that we created after World War II. So that begs the question, what comes next? If we're turning the page on 80 years of working hand in glove with our European allies in a system that was constructed for different era. Where do we go from here? And I think this is the exam question. Across the United States right now, many national security circles are debating this question. Many of us are traveling back and forth, speaking with our allies to say, what will we focus on in the future? How could we Rebuild. Should we work on AI preserving Western standards and values? Should we lock arms and talk about China? Are there global health concerns you want to talk about? And I think the jury's still out. And I think this is going to be one of the hardest questions for future administration to take on in terms of the rebuilding exercise. You know, what are we rebuilding? What do they want us to rebuild? I mean, I'll tell you one of the things I've heard from allies is, look, all we have to do is de risk from you. We used to talk about de risking from China, but now we really have to de risk from the United States and not rely on you guys as much. And I don't think that's a great strategy. I mean, if Europeans want to be more independent, dependent from the United States, less reliant on us, fine. But I don't want to see us run in different directions because in all honesty, for whatever the North Koreans, Iranians, Chinese or Russians or someone else is going to throw at us, we're still back to that tagline. You know, we are stronger when we work together. And so we should continue to find ways to do that. But I can't answer your question yet. I think it's, it's going to be tough and we're probably going to need a couple years to sort this out.
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B
You know, and to be clear, you're saying basically impossible under Trump into the current administration and with.
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D
Yeah, yeah.
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B
And whatever follows that I don't and I'm just paraphrasing, correct me if I'm wrong starts yeah, so whatever follows that. So it's basically damage control from anyone who, with an ambassadorial position for the next few years. And then we don't actually all like that guy. And then we got, we got to do a lot of, like, I do this all the time, but for the, for the audio listener, I'm tugging at my collar, looking at someone over my shoulder untrust, trustworthily. But not only that, we are not, we're not rolling back the clock. Like you said, there's no resetting to where we were with NATO. So, so you're saying it's essentially impossible to do anything but damage control while Trump is in power. And then after that, essentially we need to look for a new status quo that would involve good faith relationship with Naito.
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D
It can't be built on words. It'll have to be built on action. We can't just say, hey, we love you guys and remember all the great stuff we did together. And you know, truth Be told. We had peaks and valleys with our. I mean, we had the Iraq war. We've had a lot of ups and downs with our allies. But this is one of the darker chapters, without a doubt. And I think, frankly, it signals a major shift in change. And so we do have to construct something new, but we have to do it through actions that will signal to our closest allies that we can be trusted again. And that's not going to be easy. It's not going to be.
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B
Are those actions military? Is that investment? Like, what do we do to be anything?
- [35:00]
D
It could be anything. It could be policies, it could be new initiatives, it could be investing in new types of tools or initiatives. It could be launching something together. I mean, it could take many, many different shapes and sizes. But we. It just can't be rhetorical. Like, you know, trust us, things are going to be okay. You know, I think they're going to say, we've seen this movie before. You know, we, we just don't know. We don't know if you guys, whoever you are, sitting oval office in 29, whether or not you're going to be around in four years and then what comes next. You've got this up and down. You love us, you hate us. You know, we can't handle the unpredictability. The one thing we always had going for us was the consistency and the reliability of the United States through your political cycles. And now it's so unpredictable. We literally don't know what to expect from one year to the next next.
- [35:54]
B
So essentially, we need to demonstrate the behavior of a reliable and safe ally for a amount of time that is beyond rhetoric, but actually behavior. But it's not demonstrative. It's. We essentially need to practice good allyship and diplomacy. Yes, actively. Until as we gradually use our actions to rebuild trust.
- [36:13]
C
That's.
- [36:14]
D
Yeah, that's.
- [36:15]
A
Yeah.
- [36:16]
B
Thank you for explaining. Matt, did you have a question? Sorry, yeah.
- [36:20]
A
So, you know, this wasn't a prepared question, but today Donald Trump slapped 50% tariffs on Canada on a broad range of goods. And I'm curious about this because I. This feels like amateur hour to me, but I'm also not an expert in this kind of stuff. It just feels like, are there any communications that occur prior to this stuff happening? Or does. Or does one of our NATO allies just get slapped with this out of nowhere? And wouldn't this ultimately result in us just going back to them basically with hat in hand at a later day saying, how do we repair this relationship? Because it's obvious he just wants something else. And he's trying to use leverage and power of the United States economy over our allies, which doesn't feel right to me. It, it feels, it doesn't feel like a partnership. Right. What are your thoughts on that?
- [37:18]
D
Yeah, and this is what you hear from our allies a lot of the time is they say, we feel like you're using the tools that you used to use against your adversaries. You like to use export controls and sanctions and tariffs to exert pressure and use those tools as punitive measures when you are unhappy about something with an adversary. But now we get hit with them. As much as your adversaries were right there on par last April when Trump first rolled out all of these new tariffs, you couldn't really tell the difference. You looked at the list of countries and it was hard to distinguish ally from adversary. Kind of everybody was getting hit all the time. And now Canada feels certainly like it's in that boat. I mean, Carney has had a really rough ride with President Trump. It, it hasn't been easy. He's been repeatedly told that we consider Canada to be the 51st state and somehow they should just join the United States. But he's feeling the heat. And now with this new layer that's coming out, I just, I, I don't know how you recover from this. And what I will tell you is if you talk to a lot of businesses that work with the Canadians and in feeling this, I'll give you an example. The F35 produced by Lockheed Martin. This is a company that was Preparing to sell 88 F35s to Canada. A huge investment that would mean years of cooperation between the United States and Canada because it's not just selling them the jets, it's the maintenance and sustainment that comes with that. Over many years, this would have been a huge new chapter in our defense relationship. And because of all this friction, friction at the end of the day, Carney decides to do a split by and he says, I'll still take 44 F35s, but now I'm going to go with the Saab Swedish company that produces the Gripens different jet. And I will do that because of the way in which you're treating me and because I have to hedge a little bit. I don't know what kind of relationship I'm going to have with the United States going forward. Maybe you're going to sell me these jets, but then you're going to put. Everyone has this idea of kill switch so that Trump, if he's upset he can just make all of these weapons inoperable. And so you see those types of decisions over and over and over again. I'll give you a second example which really makes my heart sink. So in Denmark, couple of guys have created an app. Danes download this on their phone and they go through the stores and they scan with their phone all the products and the QR codes and the app will tell you to what degree that product was made in the United States so that you can avoid buying it. Now Denmark, I would note, was one of the most pro American countries in Europe for as long as I have been working over the last 30 years or so. And for me to imagine Danes trying to avoid US components in a television or a lamp or whatever they might be purchasing or a food product, I mean, really tells you all you need to know about how our allies are feeling about us. So these actions like this announcement against Canada, they have devastating long term effects and it's making the leaders in those countries think twice about working with us. It will have ramifications for U.S. investment and sales abroad, irrespective of what, what industry you're in. So this is really hurting the bott of our own companies. It's not just inflicting pain. We do a lot of business with our friends in Canada and our friends in Europe and the chickens are coming home to roost. And I think mopping up from this is going to be a bear. You know, just to mix metaphors a
- [41:35]
B
little bit, what's, that's really,
- [41:39]
A
what's really mind boggling to me though is the things that he has the most grievances with are the things, the agreements that he came up with and celebrated. Yeah. In the past. That's what he complains about the most, is his own policy. I, I, yeah, this is no one telling him like, dude, this is your deal. Like you did this, like, is that not a thing?
- [41:57]
D
Yeah, I mean, you're right, this is, this is, in Canada's case, it's just unbelievable because in his first term he was the one that crafted the big trade agreement between Mexico, Canada and the United States. Right. And so this he, he will take some of his signature achievements in another administration, apparently in another, and then just decide they're worthless. And then we wonder why our allies don't trust us. At the end of the day, this is part of the reason, because they think they have a deal and they think they can finally rely on the United States because there's something on paper and it's signed by the President only To wake up a few years later and that document's been put right through the shredder.
- [42:41]
C
Well, Ambassador, I just want to kind of respect your time a bit here, but I do want to share pivot for a last question or two.
- [42:50]
D
Sure.
- [42:50]
C
On something that's a bit more practical, a bit more real, specifically Ukraine. Obviously, when we talk about NATO, there's a lot of pontificating, a lot of policy, but they're actually fighting a very real war. I firmly believe Russia will ultimately fail to achieve Vladimir Putin's stated goals in Ukraine, although feel free to challenge that, by all means. But we've spent years talking about helping Ukraine. Ukraine, it seems like, though, under the Trump administration. And when you look from a European perspective at broader American policy, the wild shift between Biden to Trump, that we just can't define what our success would be. What does success for NATO look like at this moment when this war eventually ends? All wars eventually do end. Is it simply that Ukraine survives as a sovereign state, or is there a broader strategic objective that the alliance wants Ukraine to retake Donbass reason, region or even Crimea? Are those things that NATO wants as goals, or are we just trying to end this war, hopefully find a way to secure Ukraine and then allow Russia to almost take a victory lap on claiming Crimea and parts of the Donbass?
- [44:02]
D
Well, the answer to that is one that depends entirely on the person you're asking. There are countries in Europe that are absolutely determined to see an outcome where Ukraine is able to retake and control all of its former territory going into Crimea and beyond, into the Donbas, you name it. There are others that are saying that feels unrealistic. A victory should be an end to this war where Ukraine has control over its own sovereign territory, perhaps without bits of the Donbas or Crimea. But the war comes to an end, Ukraine survives. And that's going to have to be the good enough solution. But where everyone agrees is that NATO will not dictate the terms under which Ukraine goes to the negotiating table. That's for President Zelensky to decide. And we will not develop at Naito the idea or the scope of a victory Zelensky has to determine. I mean, there was a time when Zelensky said, we're going to ensure that we can take back every inch of Ukrainian territory. There were other moments where he seemed to, in a very subtle way, acknowledge that Crimea might be out of reach. Now, now, different situation. They're challenging the Russians in Crimea, essentially. Now, Crimea has declared a state of emergency because the Ukrainians have targeted most of the land bridges into that peninsula and created a really difficult situation for the Russians. So now we're back to the frame of, well, maybe they could get back everything. But this will all have to be determined not at NATO headquarters in Brussels, but by President Zelensky and his team in Kiev. But I will say NATO has a deep appreciation that Ukraine is essentially fighting on behalf of the west and of, on behalf of NATO allies. I mean, they are preventing the Russians from going further. Our biggest fear when the war started at NATO was that perhaps Ukrainians wouldn't be able to hold the line and Russia would succeed in seizing Ukraine and then go further. And thankfully that hasn't come to pass because of the incredible courage of the Ukrainian forces, but, but also their ingenuity and innovation in using new technology. So there is an element of gratitude across the NATO alliance and appreciation for what Ukraine is doing right now and for Zelensky's leadership. But it's kind of anybody's guess how this is going to go. It does seem right now though, that Ukraine has the upper hand.
- [46:47]
B
Thank you for explaining.
- [46:49]
D
Sure.
- [46:50]
A
I'm excited about that, by the way.
- [46:52]
B
Sorry I spoke over you about what was that?
- [46:54]
A
I was just saying I'm excited about that, by the way.
- [46:56]
D
I am too. You and me both. You and me both. Yeah.
- [47:00]
B
It is really surprising. I mean, I'm no expert on, on foreign policy or the military, but it is one of the remarkable, like surprises in modern political history that, you know, I mean, I thought what happened in Crimea was going to happen again and, and it's like shows what I do, but it's kind of fascinating to see the tied to there. Okay, so two things I don't know.
- [47:23]
C
So just one. One quick final and then we'll let you go. Thank you so much for your time. But sure. One, what. What are you most concerned about in the NATO alliance? What keeps you up at night and what are you most optimistic about going forward?
- [47:39]
D
I worry about a scenario where the guns go quiet in Ukraine. Putin's under enormous pressure at home and he decides to start something new with the NATO all. And that would be described in my mind as a hot peace where there is peace in Ukraine. But he kind of turns the dial up on those hybrid actions that we talked about earlier and suddenly he's challenging the NATO alliance in many uncomfortable ways and something horrible happens. Maybe there's loss of life and the US opts out and doesn't respond, in which case, case at that point, Article 5, an attack on one is an attack on all kind of goes by the wayside, you know, so that's, that's the scenario that stresses me out. And there's this interesting point in time over the next two or three years where you have US Disengagement. We're kind of backing away from Europe. Europeans are frantically trying to spend more on defense, but they're not there yet and they can't provide for their own security. And we have a US President that is at best, what's the best word for that? Uncertain about how he would respond to an Article 5 contingency. And so I wonder whether or not Putin could potentially try something in terms of optimism. I will say it is unbelievable what Europeans are doing right now in terms of providing for their own defense. I have never entered in my life seen European countries move out so quickly on spending more for their own defense. And frankly, they should have done it 30 years ago. And I'm glad it's happening. I don't like the way in which it's unfolding, but I think between the current US President and the war in Ukraine, many allies have started to see, yes, we need to invest in their own security. We cannot make the U.S. provide for our security indefinitely. We have to take more responsibility. And I think ultimately, ultimately, if NATO survives, that will lead to a stronger, more capable, better balanced alliance that can withstand the test of time. And so that's what gives me more optimism these days when I'm feeling pessimistic.
- [50:02]
B
I, I, if you have just a minute, do you mind if I tag a follow up question onto that?
- [50:05]
D
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [50:06]
B
Well, I'm just curious. We spend more on the military than any of our allies, than basically any other country. Our incredible percentage of our GDP is spent on the military. And as a result of the forever wars, it's resulted in a basically generation with a lower standard of living than the previous generation. For the first time in a long time in America, none of us want war, obviously. And America, by having such a high military budget and such an advanced military, has effectively become responsible, at least in our, in our eyes, for protecting smaller nations that don't. Is there a future for a more equitable NATO that would allow America to have a slightly more balanced or significantly more balanced domestic or not just domestic budget, but, but budget which would allow us to spend more domestically on quality of life, education, arts, things like that?
- [50:54]
D
Yeah, I mean, look, I'm fairly hawkish on the US Defense budget. I think we need to have a strong defense budget. I am not with Donald Trump. I'm not suggesting 1.5 trillion and, you know, sums that make your eyes water, but I think you can do it in a thoughtful way and try and find ways to use these autonomous systems that are, you know, just systems that are much more affordable, they can be made more easily. We're not talking about constructing F35s. We're talking about inexpensive autonomous systems that are attritable now. They won't replace the jets that you also need. But I think, think we're going to see an interesting evolution in the US Military where these autonomous systems are going to be brought online and be used more in tandem with conventional weapons systems in ways that I hope will allow us to find occasionally some savings. So we have to be smart about it, and it can't come at the expense of the other domestic requirements and needs that we have that are very real here in the United States and desperately need to be addressed. But I certainly would not find myself in the camp of folks that are saying, okay, just zero out the defense budget. I think there's a lot happening in the world that should give us pause. There are many crises and conflicts that can continue to unfold. And I still believe, despite our warts, that, and particularly what's unfolded over the last year and a half, that we continue to have a unique role to play in the world doesn't mean we have to take control or responsibility for everything and provide for everyone. But we do have a unique ability to build coalitions, bring countries together. I mean, for the first three years of the war in Ukraine, it was the US that was bringing 50 countries together to ensure that all of us were providing security assistance to Ukraine, not just the United States. And that remains our superpower, getting everybody to step up and join us. But we do that often by putting our offer out there first. So I hope we can return to that superpower without breaking the bank and ensuring that our people at home, you know, don't have what they need. We must ensure that we can address the severe affordability crisis that's unfolding and all the rest. So finding that balance will be the challenge, of course, for the next U.S. president. And I hope we can find kind of a smart way to spend on defense that won't come at the expense of our domestic challenges.
- [53:35]
B
Well, thanks for explaining and I do hope that we regain our ability to do, to lead in diplomacy. That would be a superpower that we really should, should invest in.
- [53:42]
D
Indeed.
- [53:43]
B
Ambassador, thank you so much for joining us.
- [53:45]
D
Sure. Happy to do it.
- [53:46]
B
I really appreciate you and want to Respect your time. So feel free to get on out of here. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. I really do feel I personally have a better understanding of the situation right now. It's given me a lot to think about going forward. Chad or Matt, is there anything else you'd like to say before our guest leaves us?
- [54:03]
C
No, just, again, thank you so much for your time. Just love your brilliant analysis and have fun down at the lake.
- [54:10]
D
Thank you. Thank you. Great doing this with you guys.
- [54:13]
A
I learned a lot from you tonight and I really appreciate that and I will share that.
- [54:18]
D
Excellent. Thank you.
- [54:19]
B
Ambassador Julie Smith, thank you so much for joining us here on American Power.
- [54:23]
D
All right, talk to you. Take care.
- [54:26]
B
And that was our conversation with Ambassador Julie Smith. Chad, how'd you feel about it?
- [54:31]
C
Yeah, just brilliant analysis. That's what's so great about bringing experts like her on. It's, it's really, really comforting to hear that there is optimism from someone like that. She, she sees the political world of this like I was a guy on the ground, I helped NATO countries deal with what Ukraine is dealing with, with a Russian threat. More from a tactical point of view. Yeah, I have an education in the strategic point of view. But to actually have someone with her expertise, her experience come on and say, yeah, there's some problems, the US has warts, the is in kind of a dark place right now, but there is optimism going forward. That's always good. And I think the American people need to hear that because so often when we have a leader like Trump where it's just the hammer of negative constantly being banged into us, we constantly just hear about how NATO sucks, Canada sucks, everything sucks, and I'm the only one, I'm the savior of the world. And even on the GOP side, we see them rolling their eyes now at some of the things he's saying. But to hear that there are those out there who have walked the walk, say, hey, this is a dark time, but I think we're going to get through it and I think Europe is going to be better for it for
- [55:54]
B
sure, as well as, you know, potentially. Hopefully the personality has managed to last a long time. But ultimately the, the long term flaw or weakness in grievance based politics is that the group of people who share the grievance with the leader is increasingly small as they eventually realize he's nothing like them. And so I think, you know, domestically, that kind of the kind of reactions that we have, you know, like you said, he's even getting laughed at a little Bit on the right, but it can. Even if you. If you roll your eyes at that stuff, like we said, it can be actually hard to escape that narrative. So it is. It is interesting to hear about this stuff from just a different framework, regardless of where you are politically positioned in America, because our thoughts are so necessarily reactive to the current administration that it's actually kind of hard to. That's what I say with Greenland. Like, I actually downplayed that mentally because I didn't realize how. I mean, of course it would be a serious threat, but we are so ingrained in, like you said, this, like, constant hammer of negativity that I was like, yeah, sure, he's going to invade Greenland. It can be hard to see what's proportionate outside of this. So it really helped me. Yeah. See things. See things from, like, the. The international political perspective. Matt, what did you think? Any thoughts?
- [57:07]
A
I. I thought it was great. I thought it was fantastic. I've. I don't know the last time I sat and learned so much from somebody. Of course, I'm not like Chad, I'm not educated on NATO, but, man, I learned. I learned a ton in that. It's mostly about the way the money's allocated and, you know, the way all that works. Donald Trump made us all believe that we're just giving all these NATO nations all this money. Nothing could be further from the truth. It sounds.
- [57:34]
B
I knew that wasn't true, but I needed it explained to me how it works so I could see the difference. You know, I understood it wasn't a piggy bank, but I was like, what is the. What is the grievance here?
- [57:43]
A
Yeah, we're spending money within our own country, basically, and U. S. Businesses are, you know, making money off of our defense spending and a portion of that meets NATO obligations. Like, Right.
- [57:55]
D
That.
- [57:56]
A
That's. It's as simple as that. How I didn't know that before is beyond me, but I didn't. That's Chad's fault. He should have told me that I didn't know that. That
- [58:05]
B
I don't listen to this podcast.
- [58:08]
C
I told you guys this last. Even when we're recording now, to be fair. So here's the thing. Last. So last episode, I kind of brought it up, but that. But to be fair, it. It hits so much harder and makes so much more sense when you have someone like. Like Ambassador Smith to explain it. Like, I can sit here in my chair and tell you guys, this is what happens, and people be like, who's this. This guy? He just like, I was I was like a, he was like a trigger puller and that taught Ukrainians how to kill Russians in Europe. Great to hear from him, from an actual ambassador. That makes a huge difference and it makes a huge difference even for me. So just to have her on, so, so gracious for her to bring beyond. And I just was, it was a great conversation and I think, I think we can definitely hope for have her on and I do know that we potentially have some other really great guests coming on later in the coming weeks as well. So.
- [59:04]
D
Yeah.
- [59:05]
C
What do you, what were you thoughts, Matt? What did you think, Smith?
- [59:07]
B
I thought it was really interesting and like I said, elucidating for, you know, kind of getting out of the internal dome of US Political discourse. I think it was interesting to me. One, one little note was when she said, you know, warts and all in spite of the last 1.5 years, and I was like, oh, I could, I could name some earlier warts. Personally, I would, I don't know if I would think they were warts so much as legions, but, but one thing I did wish I could have asked her was a little bit about, you know, how is our relationship with Israel affecting our relationship with Naito. But I understand that's like less at her purview and I didn't want to that's such a big issue. You know, I think personally us following Israel is destabilizing a lot of trust in the world, like, for obvious reasons. But I also know that that's not specifically, you know, our actions in Gaza, our actions in Iran are not specifically under the purview of NATO. So, so I didn't want to distract in our limited amount of time to talk about that, but I thought it was really interesting to talk about. I mean, effectively, how can trust be rebuilt? And for her to say effectively can't be under Trump. And also we're never going back. It has to be a new, which isn't a terrible thing. It has to be a new modern agreement, new modern relationship that works for the 21st century. And I thought that was interesting because I think even among a lot of liberals, there's this thought of, well, how do we get back to the good America? How do we get back to the way we used to act? And the answer is it's we don't. We, we, we build a new America, we build a new relationship with the world. So I thought that was a really interesting way of looking at it and, and makes a lot of sense to me. Any other thoughts on the interview? Before we move on.
- [60:39]
C
Well, I just, just to kind of piggyback real quick on what you were saying is a question I really wanted to ask her and we just were respecting your time. Was transitioning into what is being called the NATO 3.0, this almost euro led NATO. And I think think that that is kind of the way ahead and it might actually solve a bit of the problem. Well it's supposed to solve a bit of the problem that you have Nat, with the defense versus domestic spending which I think we all have. I would prefer even as a product of defense to spend more on education, to spend more on social welfare programs. But if Europe takes more control of their own defense, there is a bit of, of a, an ability, maybe not a willingness but definitely an ability for the United States to step back and God forbid, maybe reduce our defense budget some because we could do that and still be okay. And so that's, that's kind of what I think the hope is. It's just not going to happen because that is if there's a more powerful lobby than apac, it is the defense lobby. They will get their money, they will get their budget whether it's necessary or not. Not. That's a, that's a several show thing. But yeah, I did enjoy the time with her.
- [61:54]
B
So yeah, I mean that's something I'd like to unpack a little more. I was getting at the last question which is she's like I'm very hawkish on this personally. I'm less so. I'm not an ambassador so I'm not going to speak as an expert. But I do think that we do a little bit of this circular reasoning where we go well, because the US Is the biggest military power, we have this responsibility to take care of other countries which is why we have the responsibility to spend so much on our military, which means we have to take care of these other countries. And I do think that diplomacy obviously needs to be a big part of how we de escalate that. But a more equitable treaty or a treaty in which we are not the bully, a treaty in which we are not, not that we always have been in NATO, but under Trump, especially a treaty in which we are behaving more like an ally and not like the top status like ally in quotes that still gets to call shots because we are, you know, we have this big military, I do think a world in which we are able to de escalate a bit that way and or at least stop seeing ourselves as the world police. I think that you know, that would result in a better America. We were able to do that for a long time because we were so prosperous that people didn't recognize the effects of not spending domestically. And unfortunately, it took people really feeling the hurt to recognize that. And you know, people are still blaming it on the wrong things in many cases. Cases. But I think a NATO 3.0 in which Europe is more equitably at the table strikes me as, you know, a step forward. And like you said, defense contractors, I mean, that's why we run this show. The most expensive things in the world are energy in the military. And that's, that's where all our, that's how our power is flexed. But I will say I have a slightly 4% more optimistic take than you, which is. I, I don't think that that is an a. Indefinitely and impossibly unbreakable power, Power grip. I think, I think that that control, obviously it's the most money in the world and what it's being spent on, but I just don't, I refuse to be defeatist about it. I want to see a world in which we don't spend that much on defense and live a more prosperous future.
- [63:57]
C
Yeah, I hope you're right.
- [63:58]
B
Yeah, I mean, I'm being optimistic. I'm, I'm well aware of that fact. Like the, like we said, this is a, this are the most expensive things and these are the things that we use to wield power global, globally and domestically. I want to talk, speaking of optimism, about our final segment on the show, which we use to highlight something, if not positive, less negative than the rest of the news and something that really interested us in the week, and we call it the least worst part of my week. Would either of you guys like to go first?
- [64:28]
A
Robert Peters of Tipton, Indiana has been delivering pizza to the people in Tipton for 31 years. That's a long time. And his car broke down. So what did the community do? They bought him a new one. Can you imagine having a pizza delivery guy that is so star spangled awesome that your town literally buys him a new car because his old junker, they've been driving for 30 years, broke down delivering pizza. That's exactly what happened. One of his customers, customers who had, he had been delivering pizza to this guy for over 20 years, found out his car broke down and started to go fund me for Mr. Peters. And they raised enough money to, to buy him. It's a used car, but like a 2018 or something. Malibu. They even raised enough money to put insurance on it and give him a 500 gas card so he could continue delivering pizza for the good folks in Tipton, Indiana. And I think you guys in Tipton are great for doing that, because it's just all about community. Obviously, in that town in Indiana, if it wasn't, that kind of stuff wouldn't happen. I really love those kind of stories.
- [65:36]
B
Way to go, Tipton. We should have a social safety net. But you made up for it.
- [65:41]
A
That's right.
- [65:42]
B
People working the Same job for 31 years should be able to afford a car. However, that's not the reality. And you guys made up for it with Community. And I think. I think that's awesome, too. Chad, you got one?
- [65:51]
C
I guess I have a question.
- [65:52]
B
Oh, yeah, go ahead.
- [65:52]
C
Before I get to mine, I do have a. And again, people have tipped in. That's. That's. That's incredible. However, like, my question is, I think he. If I read the story right, he worked for Pizza Hut. Like, come on, Pizza Hut.
- [66:06]
B
Just.
- [66:07]
C
Just buy him a car, man. Like, we, like, you're like the sec. I think the second largest pizza company behind Domino's now, like, bro's been delivering pizza for you for 31 years. Clearly has made. You could have gotten him a car. Like, cool. On the people of Tipton. And just for my own, I Googled. Not again. This is googled information. There's no. There's no reporting that said Pizza Hut even donated to the GoFundMe, so.
- [66:35]
A
Exactly.
- [66:36]
C
Come on now. That's a bit. That's a bit not to put a damper on it. Again, the focus is on the people.
- [66:41]
B
No, that's why I say we have no social safety net. Like, there's all sorts of things. Jobs should have better security. Security and better resources for their employees. But that's what Community is, you know, great at.
- [66:51]
A
Slight correction. Slight correction for Chad. Don't ask me how I know this. I'm full of useless information. But the largest pizza franchise in the United States is actually Hunt Brothers.
- [67:00]
C
Oh, really?
- [67:03]
A
Hunt Brothers. Hunt Brothers is a pizza franchise that sells cooked slices of pizza and. And pizzas in convenience stores. And these two brothers, the Hunt Brothers, decided they wanted to start a pizza franchise where they didn't have to cook it. They' they didn't have to serve it. They didn't have to do nothing. So they sell the convenience stores, the ovens and the ingredients, and they are billionaires. And that is now the largest pizza franchise in the United States. And most people never even heard of it because they don't recognize the name when they're buying a slice at the convenience store. Oh, bigger than Domino's, Let me just say.
- [67:37]
C
Probably all eating it.
- [67:38]
B
Mamma mia. Mamma mia. What have you done to my culture? Good God, that. That's so depressing.
- [67:45]
C
Why I know the most.
- [67:46]
A
I have no idea.
- [67:47]
B
The most popular sushi in the world is from seven eleven. It's like, I don't need. I don't want that information. I don't.
- [67:52]
A
It's actually good pizza. It's actually good pizza. They cook it there.
- [67:56]
B
You can't tell me that. I'm sorry. I just don't. Maybe it is, but I will. My body will not accept that information.
- [68:01]
A
Okay. It's not New York pizza. I can tell you that. For Oklahoma. It's pretty good, though.
- [68:05]
B
Oh, yeah? Yeah. I mean, well, if we're introducing relative standards. Yeah, I bet it'd be great. A bowling alley, too. I think you can buy individual slices. The bowling alley. Still hunt. Hunt brothers are probably behind that, now that I think about it. Well, I got. I've got a story or. Chad, do you have a story? We haven't. We haven't gone to you yet.
- [68:23]
C
Yeah, I can do mine real quick.
- [68:25]
A
Story, Chad.
- [68:26]
C
Mine's another people helping other people story. Like, Matt's here, so. But mine is the people of South Korea have implored their government and the government listened to. To renew their funding for UNICEF's Syria Resilience for Children plus partnership. So what this is, is the countries generally will come forward and provide help for children around the world through this. This program. Syria is one of those where it's extraordinarily problematic to get aid to because of the war zone. So they are in dire need and in the way of Trump dismantling USAID and a lot of these government programs that used to help things like UNICEF and these other programs that help children. A lot of other countries have stepped up, and South Korea is one of them. So every little bit helps. They. They estimate that this is going to help at least 400,000 vulnerable children and women in Syria. And especially hard. It's not just Syria, but it's in that kind of impacted area of Syria with the refugees. So just wanted to highlight. That is really great. Good job, people of South Korea, United States, you are the Pizza Hut in this conversation. Not helping a damn anybody because your boss is a dick. So. Oh, thank you. What you got, Matt?
- [69:53]
B
That's good. I feel. I feel like yours is way more meaningful than mine. I was like, oh, okay. Well, children are safe. No I. I actually had a really interesting experience just yesterday, just over the weekend. The first ever New York occurrence of Gonzo Fest was this past weekend. Gonzo Fest was a festival established in 2010 in honor of Hunter S. Thompson, the great writer and political activist. And I had the honor this past weekend of being the first ever stand up comedian or comedian of any form to be asked to perform at Gonzo Fest. It's normally artists and panels and politicians and a lot of musicians, poets, and they've never had comedy before. But felt that I was philosophically in line enough with Hunter's mission to, to book me. And I feel very honored for that. And I would say that it was especially meaningful to me because I think Hunter S. Thompson is someone who gets kind of written off as dorm room poster fodder at this point by some people. I think he's very. A countercultural icon who then people who want to roll their eyes at counterculture then roll their eyes at. But I found his writing as a young writer especially, especially to be really important to me and informative in developing my voice as specifically as an anti fascist like this was someone who saw through the relationship between corporatism and fascism, you know, 70 or 50 years ago and, and really, or even earlier and really, really understood the direction that America was going. And this is a little depressing. So I'm, I feel a little bad for including it my least worse. But I want to highly recommend that people read his writing Writing Beyond Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which is excellent but is, is a very small percentage of his writing. Read Fear Loathing on the campaign trail. But specifically I would encourage you to read the essay that he wrote one week after 911 which was published in ESPN or ESPN the Magazine. I think it's called When War Drums Roll. And it is, it was massively influential to me as someone who witnessed the events and as someone who felt like the national, national discourse was really not speaking to the truth of it. And it's refreshingly clear and if you read it today, it is an eerie prediction of where America will be 25 years after it was written. So as much as it sounds like a little negative, it was a really important part of my week to see that so many people this festival was events all day, all weekend. Going into 4 in the morning they were, were packed out. So many people are still hearing and inspired by these words and creating art and creating art of resistance and creating political organizations against fascism and inspiring anti fascist media as a result of their love for this one person and the work that he put out in the world. And you know, whether or not he's your favorite person, I highly recommend that you do read When War Drums Roll and check out the works of Hunter S. Thompson and look out the. The check out for the next Gonzo Fest. So again, that was my least worst part of my week was being the first comedian ever to perform in Gonzo Fest and seeing how many people are still sticking to that spirit of counterculture and are dedicated to fighting fascism.
- [72:59]
C
That's a. I really, I really like. I like Hunter S. Thompson. His. His fear and Loathing on a campaign trail. I didn't. I haven't read all the stuff you've more well read into him than I am. But this notion that we are just participants in a machinery essentially of elections, like we almost don't necessarily have control, I buy. I really found that to be very profound. But also I liked how he rounded it out where he talked about how the machinery can be broken down by quote, unquote, staring at it, which I took to mean by being a part of it. So when we see corporations and Matt talked about this previously in one of our episodes where corporations and this corporatism, they. We have Citizens United allowing them in this most recent Supreme Court. I can't remember what the actual name was, but the most recent Supreme Court, basically the funding of money. I. Even with that kind of hopelessness and, and stuff, I. It was really great to have Hunters Thompson talk about how when you engage and. And stare at the ritual machinery of the campaign trail, it starts to show. And then you can start to be the. The breakdown of it. You can get in there and start breaking it down. So it's a great. It is. It's very. Even though it's from 1972, it's very apt for today is probably more so today now than it was back then. So it's good stuff.
- [74:24]
B
Yeah. And a lot of that writing is like deeply negative and critical, but it's never quite hopeless. Like, he. He is kind of someone to say this is all bullshit, but like you said, he's a participant. Like, he believed that it should be observed. He believed that the political discourse should be participated in. And I think that's, you know, it's worth acknowledging. It's worth reading. Yep. Well, you heard us listeners take a handful of pills and a fifth of whiskey and cut that out and then listen to. Listen to some Hunter S. Thompson audiobooks and just nod off for a while after the episode. Of course, you can cut that out or you leave it in. We'll find out. Don't check what the pills are first. My name is Nat Tausen. You've been listening to American power. Thank you for listening. This has been our episode with ambassador Julie Smith. We'll be back next week with with another episode for Chad Scott and Mr. Global. Matt Randolph. I'm your host, Nat Town. And this has been American Power from find out media. Remember, power corrupts, but American power corrupts Americanly.