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Can the FBI Survive Trump & Kash Patel?
01:39:21
Tommy & Ben start with Gaza: the UN Human Rights Council’s finding that Israel has committed genocide, and Israel’s ground operation into Gaza City. They discuss how Marco Rubio signaled that Trump has given up on brokering a peace deal in Gaza, and why the Netanyahu government is telling the press that Trump is lying about his knowledge of the IDF airstrike in Qatar. Also covered: Kash Patel’s combative Senate hearing about the rampant dysfunction at the FBI, the global reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk and the dark conspiracy theories that have emerged around it, the long-term harm to the US-South Korea relationship caused by the ICE raid on a Hyundai plant in Georgia, Nepal’s democracy by Discord, Trump’s UK state visit amid Jeffrey Epstein fallout and far-right protests, Trump’s ultimatums to NATO, and Conor McGregor’s aborted bid for the Irish presidency. Then, Tommy speaks to Tom Fletcher, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coord...
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- [00:00]
Tommy Vitor
Pot Save the World is brought to you by Soul Struggling to switch off at night. Sol's out of Office Gummies help you relax, quiet your thoughts and fall asleep naturally. Just the right balance of CBD and THC to ease into a restful night. Sol is a wellness brand that believes feeling good should be fun and easy. Soul specializes in delicious hemp derived THC and CBD products designed to boost your mood and help you unwind. Their best selling out of Office Gummies were designed to provide a mild relaxing buzz, boost your mood and enhance creativity and relaxation. With five different strengths, you can tailor the dose to fit your vibe from a gentle 1.5mg micro dose to their newest 15mg gummy for a more elevated experience. And if you like their out of Office Gummies, try the new out of Office Beverage refreshing alcohol free alternative that's perfect for winding down on the couch or socializing with friends. Sol also has a variety of products specifically designed to help you get a better night's rest, including their top selling Sleepy Gummies, a fan favorite for deep restorative sleep. With wellness at the forefront, you can feel good about what you're putting in your body. All of Sol's products are made from organically farmed USA grown hemp and are vegan, gluten free, low sugar and federally legal. Look, sometimes we all need a little help winding down at the end of a day. Check out Sol. These gummies are a much better for you and better way to take the edge off to fall asleep that will not leave you feeling groggy or hungover or any kind of way the next day. We love Soul here. Give it a shot. Bring on the good vibes and treat yourself to Seoul today. Right now, Seoul is offering my audience 30% off your entire order. Go to getsoul.com and use the code world. That's getsoul.com promo code world for 30% off from the BBC, listen to the Global Story every weekday. Asma Khalid and Tristan Redman help you understand where the world in America meet at a time of rapidly changing world order. Covering the essential news stories from the best international newsroom. The Global Story is available on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor.
- [02:08]
Ben Rhodes
I'm Ben Rhodes.
- [02:09]
Tommy Vitor
Weird week to be in politics slash political media slash to be an American. Ben.
- [02:15]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, it's a bit of an unsettling time to be all of those things.
- [02:18]
Tommy Vitor
To say the least. To say the least yes. It's fun getting texts from all your friends, being like, change up your pattern of life.
- [02:24]
Ben Rhodes
Pol.
- [02:25]
Tommy Vitor
You get that text. I know which friend. Yeah.
- [02:28]
Ben Rhodes
You get the acronym. Yeah, yeah.
- [02:29]
Tommy Vitor
No, it's been really scary. It's been really weird. It's awful on every level. I feel profoundly sad for Charlie Kirk and his family and his friends. And also quite freaked out by this clear crackdown in free speech. See Donald Trump today threatening John Carl at ABC News, being like, yeah, your hate speech doesn't occur.
- [02:47]
Ben Rhodes
Well, no, John Carl Lynch. Yeah, I. What also feels ominous about it too is it feels like there was a, you know, they, Steve Miller probably had a plan on the shelf for the quote, unquote, radical left, which he defines pretty broadly.
- [03:06]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah.
- [03:07]
Ben Rhodes
You know, because his language, I mean, we can talk more about it. But this constant refrain around terrorism, like terrorist network is very deliberately chosen because there's like, legal authorities that come with that. There's all kinds of national security levers that the government can pull if you're something. Not as a law enforcement issue, but it's a terrorism issue.
- [03:28]
Tommy Vitor
Yep. They can spy on you.
- [03:29]
Ben Rhodes
That is frightening.
- [03:30]
Tommy Vitor
They can kill you if you're on a boat coming from Venezuela and presume to be a drug runner. Now, yeah, there's a lot.
- [03:34]
Ben Rhodes
Freeze your money, all these things, a.
- [03:36]
Tommy Vitor
Lot of scary shit happening. But we got a great show for you guys today. We're going to cover the UN Commission's declaration that Israel is committing agenda genocide in Gaza, along with the IDF ground offensive that is starting up now in Gaza City. We'll also cover Secretary of State Marco Rubio's visit to Israel and why it was just pathetic for so many reasons. We'll check in on how things went for FBI Director Kash Patel during his Senate hearings Tuesday. How and why Charlie Kirk's assassination has become this global news story and why it has led to some very dark accusations against the Israeli government. Then we're going to look at how an ICE raid in Georgia has. Has created an international incident with South Korea. The latest on the anti corruption protests in Nepal will preview Trump's second state visit to the UK and why the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein is riding on Air Force One with him, as usual.
- [04:24]
Ben Rhodes
Per usual.
- [04:25]
Tom Fletcher
It also.
- [04:26]
Tommy Vitor
The trip also comes with Trump's latest middle finger to Ukraine. We'll cover why the presidential campaign in Ireland just got a little less terrible. And then, Ben, you're gonna hear my conversation with Tom Fletcher. He is the Undersecretary General for Humanitarian affairs and Emergency Relief Corporate Coordinator at the un we talked about, like, all the hottest hotspots on the globe. We talked about Haiti, he just went to Sudan, he's been to Gaza. We talked about what doing that job, what doing development and assistance is like in the wake of USAID getting destroyed by Elon Musk. So really smart, interesting guy.
- [05:01]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. I'll just say one thing too, Tommy. I've heard anecdotally from people, you know, in the UN system who, like, are world O's or listen to the podcast. We appreciate you. Your jobs are not easy.
- [05:11]
Tommy Vitor
No.
- [05:12]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, the UN jobs are hard in the best of times, but when the UN member states are at each other's throats and they're throwing rocks in the gears of the Security Council, that job is that much harder. And the fact that these people show up every day and work their ass off to try to make the world a little bit better, that is hopeful, right?
- [05:30]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. No, it's funny, we sort of concluded on this note, which is like, look, I talked to him as part of this larger initiative called the Be Hope Podcast initiative, which is tied to the 80th UN General Assembly assembly and the. The final five year push to meet these big international goals to end poverty, reduce inequality, and tackle climate change. And I'll be honest, when I first sort of heard about the initiative, I just felt like, would it be inauthentic for me to have this conversation? Because I feel anything but hope in this moment in the last week has certainly added to that. But at the end, he sort of talked about how, like, look, you know, he walks into his office, he gets the worst briefing in the world every single day, and then you dust yourself off and you get back up and you keep fighting. And how, you know, yes, institutions are flawed, but they're run by people and we're flawed. So we're going to create flawed things, but all we can do is keep kind of like fighting on. Right.
- [06:19]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. And that's what gives you hope, is people going to work and trying to deal with those things in terrible circumstances, you know, that, that, that in and of itself is a hopeful act.
- [06:27]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. And if people listening who are working at the UN feel like we're down on you guys.
- [06:31]
Ben Rhodes
No, we see you.
- [06:32]
Tommy Vitor
We're ashamed of our own.
- [06:33]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, yeah, we see you and we're proud of you and we appreciate you.
- [06:36]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. Also thank you to everybody who listened to the YouTube exclusive episode we released on Saturday. Actually, a ton of people list. That's like one of the best most viewed things we've ever done. We talked about the dysfunctional mess that the FBI has become under Cash Patel and Dan Bongino, his deputy, a pair of podcasters. We talked about Brazil's Supreme Court sentencing former President Jair Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison, and then Russia firing drones at the Polish airspace. So check that out if you want more deeper dives into those subjects. And also Please subscribe to Pod Safe the World on YouTube. As you know, conservative YouTube channels dominate the network. That means that people who search for political news get right wing stuff, just normies looking for information. When you subscribe to Pod Save the World, you help us get factual information from a progressive point of view into the all powerful YouTube algorithm.
- [07:27]
Ben Rhodes
And we're all worshiping all powerful.
- [07:28]
Tommy Vitor
Also for our friends of the POD subscribers, we are going to do a discord Q and A at the end, so stick around for that. All right, Ben, so we're going to start with Israel, Gaza. I'm just going to quickly summarize kind of like the big stories that I felt like were front page today on this issue alone. Then we can like break off the individual pieces. So a UN commission investigating the war in Gaza said that Israel is committing genocide. The IDF has begun this major ground offensive at the Gaza City, an area where there was a famine declared a couple of weeks ago. Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Israel where he announced that he and Trump have basically given up on trying to broker a deal to end the war in Gaza. And as a parting gift for little Marco, Israeli officials told Axios that Trump and his team have been lying about not knowing about the IDF airstrikes in Doha before they happen. So good stuff all around. Does remind me was the famous Bill Clinton line after he met Netanyahu in 1996. Who's a superpower? Yeah.
- [08:24]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
- [08:25]
Tommy Vitor
Who the fuck does he think he is? Who's the fucking superpower?
- [08:28]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. Yeah.
- [08:28]
Tommy Vitor
Well said by Bill. So, okay, let's start with you.
- [08:31]
Ben Rhodes
20 years ago. That's what's amazing about 96.
- [08:33]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, 96. So start. Let's start with the UN declaration and the Gaza City offensive. So the UN had previously accused Israel of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But on Tuesday, a UN commission investigating the war said that Israel's actions constituted genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention. That responsibility, quote, lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelon to have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with a specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza. As I mentioned, this comes as the IDF is beginning this major Ground assault in Gaza, which is a city where there's half a million people still sheltering, that there's half a million after the IDF says 350,000 Gazans followed their evacuation orders and left before this latest assault started. But again, like, these are people who've been displaced countless times. Nowhere is really safe. There's no transportation. 90% of shelter has been destroyed. Of the buildings, people are starving. A couple weeks ago, the IDF said they were going to pause the fighting to allow relief into Gazette, and now they're doing this ground operation. So it's terrible. And it was kicked off by massive airstrikes. The Israeli officials, Ben, said their goal is to take out up to 3,000 Hamas combatants still in Gaza City. Maybe this is obvious, but it seems worth noting that 3,000 Hamas fighters do not pose an existential threat to Israel in any way, shape, or form, and that this offensive, though, is likely to lead to countless more civilian casualties and possibly the death of the remaining living Israeli hostages. So the UN and eu, they condemn the assault. The UK and Germany did, too. Trump's given them the green light. So I'll just pause there. I mean, Ben, you and I talked this morning. Like, I feel like I've. I just feel so angry and demoralized that we're, like, still having this conversation nearly two years after October 7th, and that knowing that the United States government, where we pay taxpayer dollars, just wholly backs a genocide. But this is where we are.
- [10:24]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, I mean, to start with the genocide point, I mean, you now have a UN Commission of inquiry that did exhaustive work. These people didn't just show up at work and decide to do this. They. They looked into this. These are serious people. India, South Africa, Australia. So they come from, like, a broad geographic space. I think one of these people chaired the Rwandan genocide tribunals. These are experts that know what they're talking about. You've had the preponderance of genocide scholars come out and say that this is genocide, including Israeli genocide scholars. This is not something that will ever go away. I mean, the world, the experts have determined without a shadow of a doubt that war crimes have taken place. But now the genocide is taking place. That's something that sticks one year, five years, 10 years, 50 years from now. Right. And people can, you know, avoid the conversation here or use terminology like there's a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, as if know, there was an earthquake or something. But at a certain point, you cannot look away from the evidence or the experts. And the multiple, multiple findings now that have been made Around a genocide determination. When you look at this military operation, this is clearly, I mean, they've been into Gaza City how many times now? They've, they've bombed the Gaza Strip into rubble, They've displaced people, you know, time and again. This has the purpose of essentially reoccupying and, and ethnically cleansing, you know, piece by piece, the Gaza Strip. That's not an opinion. That's what the Israelis themselves have said is the goal of the operation, that, that these people are supposed to leave ultimately to like, you know, South Sudan or Libya or something.
- [12:12]
Tommy Vitor
Oh, no, that's unfair. You get an AI token or some shit when you leave.
- [12:15]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, you get, you get like a party bag. Yeah, you get like an AI token or you get to, you know, I don't know, watch the Riviera.
- [12:22]
Tommy Vitor
Maybe a types note from Jared Kushner.
- [12:24]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So there's not a military rationale that would justify doing this. I mean, even that 3,000 number, we know that they have a very liberal definition of who's a Hamas fighter. That's seen in the kind of indiscriminate use of violence. Hamas does not, to your point, pose some threat. That border is fortified, to say the least, in terms of the border between Gaza and Israel. So there's not a military utility beyond the broader project of taking control of the Gaza Strip. And that's contributed to the genocide, finding, destroying a people in Gaza. And I will just say, on the Marco Rubio thing, this guy, he has this kind of tough talk that he does, but everywhere he goes, he just kind of gets pushed around. And Trump seemed to not want this to happen. This is one of the, you know, wars that he said he was going to end, and it's just getting worse and worse and worse. And on the Qatar thing, this is important because in the kind of geopolitical context, the Gulf states, as we've talked about, are really important. Trump cares about the Gulf states a lot, particularly the Saudis and the Emiratis, and Qatar outfitted him with this plane. They're really pissed, as we've talked about, about this strike on Doha, and they had a summit about it. They see this as like an encroachment, not just on Qatar, but on the gcc, the Gulf States Cooperative Council as well. And look, on the question of whether Trump knew or not, somebody's lying. I mean, there's no scenario in which someone is not lying, because you have all these Israelis saying, we told them, and you got Trump saying, we didn't know. So either the US or Israel in some bizarre way, both are lying about this.
- [14:08]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, well, let me sort of give folks more information on that. So let's just drill down on the role our feckless, weak, pathetic Secretary of State is playing in all of this. Because Rubio was in Israel this week. Before this week, Ben, there were all these stories about how Donald Trump was mad at in Yahoo over the Qatar strike.
- [14:27]
Ben Rhodes
And they were kind of Biden esque stories.
- [14:28]
Tommy Vitor
It was just like the Stern phone.
- [14:30]
Ben Rhodes
Background things about it. He's really pissed about it.
- [14:32]
Tommy Vitor
Joe Biden yelled at Netanyahu and then nothing changed. And the coverage though suggested that Rubio might be carrying with him a tough message for Netanyahu on this trip. But instead when Rubio got to Israel, he basically said the US has given up on, on brokering a peace deal. He just sort of started regurgitating the Netanyahu line, that Hamas has to be eliminated, that the hostages need to be returned, that Hamas has to lay down their arms and basically surrender. And everyone involved in this war knows that the only way you're getting those hostages back alive is through a deal and that Hamas will just never be fully eradicated. It's not on the table and it's not us saying this. It's like every national security expert in Israel saying it and that they're saying people are saying there's no military value to continuing the war. And then including the idf, including the idf. They don't want to fight this because they're got the call up all these reserves and the force is exhausted and they're taking casualties. And like this ground, this ground combat in Gaza City is like where a lot of people will get killed. And Rubio also, he did not have any tough words for the cutter strike. He just offered like we're looking forward kind of message. And again, like a little gift to Rubio on this trip. This story pops up in Axios as he's there that cites seven Israeli officials claiming that Trump is lying about not getting notified in advance of the IDF strike in Qatar. The White House said they were informed of the airstrikes like when the missiles were in the air and it was too late. But the Israelis say that Netanyahu called Trump at 8am and the missiles struck at 8:51, which does give you time to wave him off. But Trump didn't. And here are some lines from the story where they just are calling Trump a liar. So this is from an official explaining why Israel went along with Trump's lie. Quote, on our side, it was decided to help them with that for the sake of the US Israel relationship. Another quote, the Americans are putting on a show. We updated them about the attack. Another official said. Another one said what they say publicly should be taken with a grain of salt. A sixth Israeli official said it wasn't the first time the Trump administration, quote, made things up about their conversations with Israel due to political considerations. So Rubio makes this trip, he gives Netanyahu everything he wants, he gets humiliated in front of the world. And then as you said, Ben, I mean, these Gulf Arab countries, they are furious about the Doha strike.
- [16:41]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. And look, I've been in government, there is a version of what the Trump people are briefing out that can happen. Nothing as high profile happened when I was there as bombing Qatar, but occasionally they take a strike, I don't know, in Syria or in Iraq or something. And at a kind of working level, they tell you when the missiles are in the air or something. If Netanyahu called Trump, that's materially different. That's a notification at the top level.
- [17:11]
Tommy Vitor
That's a big deal.
- [17:12]
Ben Rhodes
And that's somebody calling someone else who can say no. Right. If it's like a upper mid level intelligence or military official calling their counterpart, that counterpart can't be like, turn that off. But Trump can do that.
- [17:23]
Tommy Vitor
And he bragged about doing it with Iran.
- [17:25]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
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Tommy Vitor
Remember?
- [17:26]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. And so if he, if he didn't do that, if he didn't say don't do this, then he was notified and didn't stop it. What's also dumb about this is the audience that the Trump people would be concerned about are the Gulf Arabs, Qatar, but also the Saudis and the Emiratis and Bahrain and Oman. And they know, you know what I mean, they're talking to the Israelis too. They're talking to other people. So the idea that they're going to be fooled by some background comments to American media or something. No, the damage has been done here and you can't repair it. Because what the problem is here is it's, and look, I should say some people listening might say, well, how come it was okay for Israel to bomb Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, maybe Tunisia, you know, obviously you know Palestine, but not the gcc. Well, it is just seen as different by the Gulf Arabs because what they see is that Israel's now put them in the crosshairs, that you're not off limits. You're no different in the Gulf than in Iraq or Syria. And that means that not only did they hit Qatar, but who knows, maybe they'd hit something In Saudi, I mean, that would be more extreme, obviously. But that's kind of the message that is sent in the Middle Eastern context, that Israel. Look, the Gulf Arabs have had a security paradigm for a decade or two where Iran is the threat and the rogue actor that everybody's worried about. What you hear in talking to people now, this is not an overstatement, is that Israel is the rogue actor, that we don't know what they're gonna do next. We don't know who they might bomb next year, two years, or three years, that they've gotten too out of control here, and they're crossing these kind of lines. And I think Qatar used that terminology. They crossed this kind of line in the sand. And that's gonna put a strain on the US Gulf relationship. Because these people have options. You know, they have China. We've seen India go in the direction of China and Russia. Like, if the Gulf Arabs do that, that's a big fucking deal. Even if they just hedge a bit more, and they still obviously have a military relationship with the United States or an AI relationship with the United States. So this is not without consequence going forward for the interest of the United States.
- [19:38]
Tommy Vitor
Well, it's just like it's this constant escalation, right? I mean, Israel's bombed seven countries in a year, and it's included in Doha and in Tehra and in Lebanon repeatedly, and in Syria, even after the fall of Assad. And it's just sort of like there's no governor on this and there's no one seemingly pushing back in any way, shape, or form. I mean, we thought Rubio might in this instance, because Trump really likes getting money and free jets from people in Qatar and the UAE and the Gulf, but I guess not.
- [20:06]
Ben Rhodes
Well, and it also, you know, is a bit of a. Yet another indicator that the Abraham Accords wasn't the peace deal.
- [20:13]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, how about that?
- [20:13]
Ben Rhodes
Because even though obviously Qatar's not in the Abraham Accords and probably be the last country to join such a thing, the Abraham Accords, clearly, and we've said this a million times, didn't resolve the actual conflict, which is with the Palestinians. But more importantly, the Abraham Accords is supposed to be this kind of new paradigm for stability in the region, where the Emiratis as a bit of a proxy, too, for the Saudis. The Saudis didn't come into it, but I don't think the Emiratis would have done it without the Saudis. Bahrain is in it now. Those Gulf states are like. Well, shit, like the Abraham Accords. You know, they're not delivering a new paradigm of stability in this region. If anything, they've given Israel the comfort to bomb, you know, all these countries. And so I'd watch the health of the Abraham Accords going forward too.
- [21:08]
Tommy Vitor
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- [24:03]
Ben Rhodes
That rant of false information does not.
- [24:08]
Tommy Vitor
Bring this country together.
- [24:09]
Ben Rhodes
If you want to work on bringing this country, it's my time, not yours.
- [24:12]
Tommy Vitor
My God. My God.
- [24:14]
Ben Rhodes
If you want to talk about fighting.
- [24:16]
Tommy Vitor
This country, it is I follow you.
- [24:18]
Tom Fletcher
On your social media posts.
- [24:19]
Ben Rhodes
That tears.
- [24:24]
Tommy Vitor
You better try all the division in this country.
- [24:30]
Tom Fletcher
Sir.
- [24:30]
Tommy Vitor
You're committee, sir. You don't tell me my time is over. The people of New Jersey tell me.
- [24:36]
Tom Fletcher
What my time is.
- [24:37]
Tommy Vitor
You can't lecture me. You may be the charge.
- [24:42]
Ben Rhodes
I am not afraid of you, Mr. Chairman.
- [24:44]
Tom Fletcher
Afraid of you.
- [24:46]
Tommy Vitor
Okay, so earlier this week, there was a Fox News story that made it sound like the White House and then senior leaders at the doj, especially Pam Bondi, were fed up with Cash Patel. They lost faith in Patel. Indian Bongino. We had talked Ben, on the show before about how the FBI had named a second deputy director, which is not a thing that happens. The Fox piece noted how under the Vacancies Reform act of 1998, once that new deputy was in place, he could fill in the director's spot in an acting role 90 days after his appointment if Cash Patel were pushed out. So sort of seen as maybe, you know, giving you a sense of where these things were going. But before you get your hopes up, up. Axios reported on Tuesday that Cash Patel's job is safe, that the White House likes him. We don't know if those reports are right or wrong, Ben, but my guess is performances like the one we just listened to at this hearing only helps Cash Patel. I mean, I think Cory Booker played right into exactly what Cash Patel wanted there, which was a big fight that goes viral that someone will show to Trump, like Brett Kavanaugh to show that he's fighting. Patel also called Adam Schiff a coward and a buffoon, which again, is the kind of performative bullshit that Trump loves. So I think we're probably stuck with this fucking guy, but I don't know. What'd you make of it?
- [26:01]
Ben Rhodes
I first just want to say, Tommy, I mean, it's what we all think and you guys talked a bit about this on psa. But look, it is horrific what happened to Charlie Kirk. It is a horrific thing that his wife and children lost a husband and father. I feel bad for people that were his friend. I feel bad for his audience. I feel bad for anybody who's upset.
- [26:21]
Tommy Vitor
By this or just like generally scared.
- [26:23]
Ben Rhodes
I feel rage at the person who did this. Both cuz it's an act of political violence, but also cuz that person, you know, opened up this Pandora's box. I will say though, that for these people like Kash Patel, who've done nothing but pour toxins into the politics and societal health of this country for years, to now be trying to use this to say that they're allowed to call us whatever the fuck they want. They're allowed to say whatever they want about the people they disagree with. But then if we so much as point out what they're doing that we are somehow guilty of incitement is the classic authoritarian playbook. That is what is happening here. They're trying to silence speech. They're trying to make it so you can't even describe accurately what they're doing. You know, and so it's not only hypocrisy, it's dangerous. You're right that there was an audience of one. You know, go up, save your job by picking a fight. The only thing I'd add to that clip though is you hear the Republican chairman banging the gavel as if Booker is the guy who's out of line.
- [27:23]
Tommy Vitor
Look, the FBI director stands up for institution man.
- [27:26]
Ben Rhodes
The FBI director first of all used to be a neutral, nonpartisan official. You wouldn't have any fireworks at FBI hearings. It wasn't like even a cabinet secretary going up there. But it used to be that senators had some Dignity about their institution not being pushed around and steamrolled. And you got the FBI director acting as the chair. Like, this is my time. It's not. It is fucking Booker's time. Like, he has a time allotted. And look, I don't like it when senators use up all their time giving speeches. But they're senators. That's what they do.
- [27:51]
Tommy Vitor
You're like yelling at a judge, though, like, you're not supposed to do it.
- [27:54]
Ben Rhodes
So it's just a window into both the playbook they're trying to run to silence anybody else and say that any speech against them, even just accurate description of what's happening is like, so called incitement. But it's also just yet another sign that this institution that for most of its history, like, privileged its own power above anything else. You know, sometimes to the detriment. Yeah. Is just like, like we're not even in, like a parliamentary democracy where everybody falls in line. We are literally in, like, you know, Russia, where the united Russia policies, like rubber stamping shit in the Duma and like, heckling the opposition.
- [28:29]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. Big Duma hearing today. It's also worth noting, Ben. I mean, we're living in a context where Trump overtly says he wants the FBI and other, like, organs of the government to be used to investigate his political opponents, especially Adam Schiff.
- [28:42]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
- [28:42]
Tommy Vitor
Right. We're going after him for mortgage fraud.
- [28:44]
Ben Rhodes
Who's a senator.
- [28:45]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. So, like, you know, like, that's got to be in their heads in these hearings when they're getting in fights with Cash Patel, the FBI director. Frankly, it's in my head, like, when we talk about these people, they would love to go after us. I don't believe for a second they wouldn't use the FBI to go after critics.
- [28:58]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. Let's pause on this for a second because it crossed my head in the YouTube too. Like, it's interesting. Right.
- [29:04]
Tommy Vitor
Point.
- [29:04]
Ben Rhodes
It's a new thing that you're like, I'm talking about the FBI director.
- [29:07]
Tommy Vitor
Yep.
- [29:07]
Ben Rhodes
You know.
- [29:08]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. And it's also just worth noting, like on the policy, like, NBC News reported that 20% of the FBI's agents have been diverted to work on immigration enforcement. They point out that there was a Baltimore domestic terrorism squad. All of them, it's like 10 people, all of them are reassigned to work on immigration enforcement. And then there's current and FBI officials in the story saying that, like, agents working on public corruption, fraud and espionage are just this no longer priorities. The things you and I have talked about on the show before. But it's like, interesting to see it all in black and white like that. And then, you know, I agree, it definitely was. Patel's performance was for an audience of one, but he has also gotten crosswise with the broader MAGA media movement and base because of his performance, both with the Jeffrey Epstein stuff and then the early days of the Charlie Kirk manhunt. Like, Christopher Ruffo, the guy who brought critical race theory sort of to the fore, said that he wasn't sure if Patel was up for the job. But there was one more moment in this hearing that I think will probably not go over well in that same world, which was Kash. Patel was asked about Jeffrey Epstein and whether he had trafficked other young women to other individuals. And he said, there is no credible information, none, that he trafficked young women to other individuals. So I guess what that means is that Patel doesn't believe that direct testimony from Epstein's victims that they were trafficked to other individuals is credible. Pretty shocking.
- [30:34]
Ben Rhodes
You just can't believe anything this guy says. I mean, there's just no modicum of fidelity to any truth. And having the head of the FBI, the most powerful law enforcement agency in the country, run by someone that you can't trust in any way, shape or form, is pretty disconcerting. I mean, I wanna point out one thing, Tommy. Like, he did this tour to try to burnish his reputation where he compared. He can't take credit for the arrest, really, in the sense that this guy was turned in by his family. Right?
- [31:05]
Tommy Vitor
He tried. Yeah.
- [31:05]
Ben Rhodes
But what he tried to say is, like, well, I insisted that they put out the picture of this guy and that that's how we got him. Because then it's. Well, and then he compared it to Boston. He compared it to Boston Marathon bombing and Luigi, the guy who shot the healthcare executive. He's lost both those cases. They put out pictures of the guy. I know the Luigi picture is how they got him in McDonald's, because someone saw the picture and said, oh, that's the guy. I remember being in the fucking Situation Room when the pictures were out of the two people that were involved in the Boston Marathon bombing. Those two brothers. So he's just relentlessly lying. And on the Epstein stuff, what's scariest about that is, like, his fidelity to MAGA doctrine, which is that Epstein is the center of a cabal, is less important than even, like, just his complete and utter fidelity to Trump. You know, that he's willing. He's probably going farther than Trump would even want him to do, to just pour Cold water on anything having to do with Epstein. That should scare people too, particularly anybody who cares about the trafficking of young girls, which we know happened in the, this case.
- [32:08]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, it's, it's all terrible. So obviously like the, the Charlie Kirk assassination was the backdrop for Patel being up there. And the news of Kirk's assassination has dominated all the headlines and the political debate in the US since. And it has also just been truly global news in a way that I think was surprising to a lot of people. I mean there were statements from heads of state like the Prime Minister of Italy, the French Foreign Ministry, K. Starmer over in the uk. But then there were also lots of statements from far right leaders and far right parties that were a lot darker in many instances. Like the sentiment was closer to what we've seen from Trump, which was blaming the radical left or other kind of like ideological opponents of whomever was giving the statement. And these were often before the shooter had been identified. So you had folks like Viktor Orban in Hungary, the National Rally party in France, AfD in Germany, the German populist sense Sato party. Then there was like right wing candidates in Latin America. It was like truly global. Ben. And then in you had Netanyahu, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gavir and the Dutch far right leader here, Wilders was blaming like radical Islamists for Kirk's assassination, again without offering any evidence about the connection. And as far as we know, there is none. So let's talk about the Israel piece of this in a second because that's a weirder, darker piece of it. But I was wondering, have you been surprised by how big the story has been globally? Like if I like kind of intellectualize it, it's like, okay, all US political issues are now big news, especially in the Trump era. There was just the truly kind of novel, shocking, horrifying element of the video itself and the way that traveled. And then far right parties as we've talked about, are just better coordinated on messaging anyway. And I think every country probably got the sense from Trump that he really wanted to prioritize this. Thus they did too, to curry favor. But I don't know, what did you make of it?
- [34:04]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, there are two things that stood out to me. The first is it felt like cuz some of these people probably barely knew if they knew who Charlie Kirk was. And that's not to diminish Charlie Kirk, it's just he's an American political.
- [34:16]
Tommy Vitor
You don't know everyone, you don't know everybody.
- [34:18]
Ben Rhodes
And it felt a bit like either in the government statements, either. They just felt like, hey, we better do this because we want to be able to show Trump we did it. Or maybe even that they were asking for the statements.
- [34:33]
Tommy Vitor
Do you think there's a chance the White House was calling around saying, like, hey, it'd be good if you put out a statement.
- [34:36]
Ben Rhodes
There was reporting to that effect about. In this country, like, calling around to, like, football and football teams and businesses and stuff, which, again, is. I mean, it's. I. They care about it. It's just notable, you know, that essentially there's this. There's so much focus on.
- [34:56]
Tom Fletcher
It's notable.
- [34:57]
Tommy Vitor
They want to drive a message on this.
- [34:58]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They want an amplification of this. Right now, the global far right thing is more interesting in a way, because I think that's a couple of things happening there. One is there is a true solidarity there. Right. And it's not my kind of solidarity, but Kirk was an organizer, and there's been a lot of global organizing on the far right. He hasn't been as involved in that as Bannon has and some of the CPAC people, but I'm sure he has cross pollinated with some of these folks. And so some of them genuinely feel a connection and a solidarity there. I also think, though, on top of it, there's a global far right strategy to try to cast the left as the absolute worst version of itself, Right? So, like, one of the American innovations is. And we've seen this in the Kirk circumstance, you find the worst thing about the, like, you find the worst tweet by somebody who may be nobody, may be like, literally just an ordinary person, and you try to make that the whole left. What was interesting here is you saw the kind of global far right trying to cast the entire global center left as this act of political violence and then pile on top of that, Islamists and radical left and trying to delegitimize opposition, frankly, to the far right. And so we should see that as both solidarity and a strategy. Yeah.
- [36:18]
Tommy Vitor
I mean, Saul sent around a tweet this morning that was an image of Rick Grinnell speaking at CPAC Paraguay. So it's just like, yeah, there's a lot of. There's a lot of infrastructure.
- [36:28]
Ben Rhodes
Was that Grinnell? I thought that was just like making fun of the fact that CPAC Paraguay exists, but I bet that was Grinnell.
- [36:33]
Tommy Vitor
I think it was him. I'm looking at a photo. I know that face.
- [36:36]
Ben Rhodes
We're clearly not. Not in the game here, guys. These guys are so deeply organized. That they're. I mean, no offense to Paraguay, like, but, like, that's really, like, going everywhere.
- [36:46]
Tommy Vitor
It's not your first spin off.
- [36:47]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. I mean, we've not done a live podcast in Paraguay. Not ruling it out, but yeah, they're more organized.
- [36:56]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, they're better funded too.
- [36:58]
Tom Fletcher
Also.
- [36:58]
Ben Rhodes
It makes it easier.
- [36:59]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot easier. So also, but this, the darker piece of this is within just hours of Charlie Kirk's assassination, there were thousands of tweets blaming Israel or just blaming the Jews. And to be clear, there is zero evidence to back up those claims. Frankly, there's every reason to think that it's an insane charge and just like the latest anti Semitic conspiracy theory. But it's worth covering because, first of all, like, Netanyahu very aggressively injected himself into the story by doing interviews in the US in ways that have not gone over very well in the far right. And also because this kind of like, right wing chatter bubbled up to the point where Netanyahu was asked to if Israel was behind Kirk's assassination during an interview with Newsmax. And so the, the sort of genesis was a lot of these tweets referenced. This August tweet from Harrison H. Smith is an Infowars host that said, quote, I'm not going to name names, but I was told by someone close to Charlie Kirk that Charlie thinks Israel will kill him if he turns against them, end quote. And then, like, no surprise, Candace Owens gets involved. We've talked about Candace on the show before. She's a far right podcaster and kind of the. The Cash Patel of transvestigations. You know, she's like, really digging into.
- [38:06]
Ben Rhodes
The first lady of France. Yeah, yeah.
- [38:07]
Tommy Vitor
And so, you know, Candace said, you, like, hold my space laser. And then did this whole episode on Monday attacking Netanyahu and suggesting he was to blame for Charlie Kirk's death. And I listened to all of it. A lot of it was really unhinged. A lot of it was hard to follow. But the gist is she seemed to think that the hedge fund guy, Bill Ackman, staged some sort of intervention with Charlie Kirk in the Hamptons about his views on Israel, that it was tantamount to a threat. And here's just like a clip from the episode that came out Monday to give you a sense of the madness.
- [38:39]
Ad
An intervention was staged by Bill Ackman because Charlie's thoughts, Charlie's rational thoughts about Israel were a. No, no, he declined to go to Israel for. I would, I would describe this as like, you know, re. Education camp. You know, we've seen it. You made an, uh. Oh, but we can help you. You know, we just need you to come out to Auschwitz and take a picture. Charlie said no to Bibi. Does all of this mean that Bibi Netanyahu and that this somehow proves that Israel was involved in the assassination of Charlie Kirk? No, we have no evidence of that. You're not going to gaslight us and tell us to shut up or call us anti Semitic for pointing out the fact that. That Charlie was having a change of heart about the tactics that Israel was using in America and that he felt when he had left that meeting that he had effectively been blackmailed.
- [39:36]
Tommy Vitor
Okay, so Bill Ackman, who is best known for writing insufferable op ed link tweets and then attacking college students for their views on Gaza, posted insanely long rebuttal and now we're off to the races. But on top of that, Ben, it wasn't just Candace talking about Tucker Carlson joined Vice President J.D. vance Monday when Vance hosted Charlie Kirk's radio show. Guest hosted. And Tucker took this swipe at Netanyahu as well. Let's listen. I don't think it's helpful to. For people to jump in, particularly foreign heads of state, to say, this is what, you know, he lived for my cause or whatever. That's disgusting. Actually, don't do that. That turns everybody off. You don't help your own cause by doing that. And it's also literally untrue. So he didn't name Netanyahu there, but it was obvious he was talking about. So, Ben, my concern, if I were Netanyahu, is like this. The charge, as crazy as it sounds, builds off of months of criticism in kind of MAGA media about the Iran strikes and also alleged Mossad ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Even Charlie Kirk himself was sort of like making the Epstein point.
- [40:37]
Ben Rhodes
He's kind of Epstein curious on that.
- [40:38]
Tommy Vitor
Yes. And then it strikes me like, as a genuine political problem for Netanyahu because Netanyahu, as we've discussed starting about a decade ago, decided to push all of his chips in with the Republican Party and give the finger to the Democratic Party. And now there is this growing section of the. The MAGA base that is anti Israel in all these kind of bizarre and unpredictable ways.
- [41:01]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, I mean, there's. There's a crazy piece of this, and then there's like the more consequential piece that you just talked about. I want to start with a crazy piece which is, look, this is. This is a crazy conspiracy theory. And Kenneth Owens can do the. I'm just asking questions, saying there's just we should name. There's not a shred of evidence for this. And it reeks of the kind of conspiracy theory that gets thrown on Jewish people. What was interesting to me is that you pointed this out to me early. You were like, I think there's gonna be a problem with this conspiracy theory. And I didn't know what it was. What I found really interesting, Tommy, is I just wanted to understand what these people thought, you know. So I found that. What's that guy's name?
- [41:41]
Tommy Vitor
Infowarska. Yeah. Harrison something.
- [41:42]
Ben Rhodes
So I found that and I watched.
- [41:44]
Tommy Vitor
I want to say Harrison Butler, but.
- [41:45]
Ben Rhodes
I know that's all something.
- [41:47]
Tommy Vitor
Cheese kicker.
- [41:47]
Ben Rhodes
I was on X a lot last week because of this sensation. And so I watched that clip and then as happens then that leads you to. Then I watched some seven minute segment that Megyn Kelly and Charlie Kirk did together where they were talking about how it's dangerous to criticize Israel or something.
- [42:06]
Tommy Vitor
Your algorithm is gone. Yes.
- [42:08]
Ben Rhodes
So what was interesting, fascinating is just because I'd spent 30 minutes on a rabbit hole of just, just trying to understand what the theory was, I'm still like, if I open X, I'm getting meanlined conspiracy theory stuff about Israel killed Charlie Kirk. The power and speed with which that. And I'm trying to like palate cleanse my algorithm. I'm like clicking on nets content, you know, like I'm just, please just get me back into sports and Democrats and whatever.
- [42:33]
Tommy Vitor
I've had the same experience.
- [42:34]
Ben Rhodes
It's crazy how fast. And so if I'm getting that, if you're like a pilled MAGA person who's already like listening to Kendis Owens, your whole fucking feed is probably just full of this stuff. So it's not going away and it's just a sign about the power of that algorithm to spread conspiracy theory. The more consequential point is everybody's focused on the MAGA civil war on Epstein. I think just as if not more interesting is the MAGA civil war on foreign policy. And I don't just say Israel policy, say foreign policy.
- [43:06]
Tommy Vitor
Tucker talked a lot about that.
- [43:07]
Ben Rhodes
And Tucker is interesting in this regard. We've been hard on Tucker on certain things, but he's interesting in the sense that he's pushing this. Right. They were against. The Tucker wing of MAGA was against bombing Iran. The Tucker wing of MAGA has turned on Israel. The Tucker wing of MAGA is kind of more out there on being non interventionist Wouldn't surprise me if they're not crazy about going into Venezuela if that happens.
- [43:31]
Tommy Vitor
I was reading something recently that Tucker kind of led the charge to spike Mike Pompeo from getting what was thought to be a Secretary of Defense job, but then he got spiked from any role in Trump 2.0 because he's such a hawk.
- [43:42]
Ben Rhodes
So this is super consequential. Now, just to focus on the Israel part. If Israel loses maga and they've already lost the Democratic Party, they're fucked. I mean, and this is my cautionary note to the triumphalist pro Israel crowd is like, well, look at, they took out the Hezbollah guys at the pagers, and then they've dealt all these blows. But if the outcome is three years from now, you're totally isolated, you've got a genocide hung around your neck for the rest of time, you've lost the Democratic Party, which is going in the direction of Zoran Mamdani, and now you've lost maga. That's a very dangerous place for Netanyahu to be leading them. Charlie Kirk was interesting because he bridged those wings, because I've watched a lot of Charlie Kirk clips in the last week, and you could feel him. It's not that he was moving entirely to one side. It's that he could talk to both sides of this divide, uniquely. But I think this is something to watch going forward. And Israel is the place where it's playing out most acutely and it can get ugly with conspiracy theory. But this is a bigger question about where the Republican Party's going on foreign policy.
- [44:43]
Tommy Vitor
It really is. And look, you know, there's zero evidence to back up this claim. Frankly, I think it would be, like, politically suicidal for Bibi Netanyahu to kill someone who is a top ally. Like, just think about it for one second.
- [44:56]
Ben Rhodes
It was stupid of him to, to throw himself in the middle. It's not about him.
- [44:59]
Tommy Vitor
It's stupid for him to jump into the conversation. But also, like, you know, when you, when you try to, like, patiently explain to someone why Israel would never do this, and this is so crazy, and they'll be like, well, didn't they just bomb seven countries in a year? And didn't they just blow up a meeting in, in Doha? And don't they assassinate, maybe try to.
- [45:16]
Ben Rhodes
Blow up Greta Thunberg's boat?
- [45:18]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, they bomb the flotilla. And you're like, well, yeah, but forget about all that. Right? Like, like, there, there is. I, I think the root of the kind of Candace Owens critique is anti semitism But I think there is the thing we were talking about earlier, which is this like rogue actor country with no guardrails piece of this that is going to feed into conspiracy theories like this.
- [45:40]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's gonna be a bumpy ride here on this stuff in, in the maga movement because those people will go to antisemeter, you know, and, and that's the worst kind. It's the far right, anti Semitism that has done the most damage in history. You know, you don't need to know that much about history to know that.
- [46:00]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, some real scary shit. We're gonna take a quick break, but before we do, we need your help. Specifically about 12 minutes of your help. So we're doing something interesting. We're asking you, our loyal listeners and friends of the Pod, what you want out of Crooked's Friends of the Pod subscription program. Do you want more exclusive content? Do you want better merch? Do you want fewer emails? Do you want more ad free shows? This is your chance to tell us everything. What you love, what you hate, what you pretend to love but secretly hate. Take the survey@crooked.com survey.
- [46:36]
Ben Rhodes
Positive the world.
- [46:36]
Tommy Vitor
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- [48:37]
Tommy Vitor
All right, but so one thing we have not covered on this show yet was was this huge diplomatic disaster between the US And South Korea after ICE raided a factory in Georgia and then shackled and deported hundreds of Korean workers. So on Friday last week, over 300 South Korean nationals plus 14 workers from other countries were welcomed back into Korea after being detained in an immigration raid at this Georgia Plan Open Co owned by Hyundai. So according to South Korean the South Korean president's office, one of the returnees was actually pregnant while dealing with this whole ordeal, which is like a horrible, you know, detail. But Korean media and politicians across the political spectrum were furious. They were shocked at what happened. The South Korean president called the situation bewildering and the government vowed to conduct a quote, thorough review to see if the workers rights have been violated during and after the raid. And for example, one of the workers said they'd not been read the rights and that ICE agents had mocked them. I mean, I'm sure all the cruelty you see on a daily basis from ICE would not these people would not have escaped that before this plane took off and like took these Korean workers home. Who, by the way, are essential to building a factory that is supposed to employ lots of Americans. Trump apparently offered to let them stay in the US but only one of them took them up on it, understandably. And then in a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump, like, I think, seemed to acknowledge what a massive mistake this was. He wrote that he did not want to Quote, frighten off or disincentivize investment into America by outside countries or companies. And then also the, the, the South Korean government said that the Deputy Secretary of State expressed deep regret over the incident. So, Ben, I think, I think Trump really realizes that, like ice him here and made a huge problem. And it sounds like the construction of this plant is now going to be delayed by years, maybe like significantly delayed. And if you're a Korean business or really a business anywhere in the world, like, why would you want to invest in or work in the US if you're going to get treated like this?
- [50:36]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, there's, this is a big story, not just because of the human element of how horrible it was for these people and not just because of the U.S. south Korea relationship. First of all, this is actually not unusual. It may sound strange to people, but like, yeah, if you, you often have people come like this and build up the factories and, and I mean, this was part of the CHIPS act, right? It was like Taiwanese coming here and helping us set up factories so we could do this. So Trump's whole strategy of like trying to shake countries down for investment doesn't work if people are afraid to come here. I mean, it just shows you that ICE is more afraid of not meeting like Stephen Miller's quotas than they are of, like, you know, causing a major international incident like this. This is what happens when you create an unaccountable militia in your country.
- [51:22]
Tommy Vitor
Right.
- [51:23]
Ben Rhodes
But I heard something else, Tommy, that I thought was really interesting today. I was talking to a friend of mine who works in AI and they said that the concern now among some AI companies that there's a massive brain drain of Americans that are like, fuck, I have a very marketable skill, but I don't want to live here. This place is going dark. Nevermind foreigners that we depend on to work in high tech industries. Right, who are afraid of coming here now. And H1B visas, even if they fix that, the point is that we've only seven months in and we could create a situation where Americans are leaving because they don't want to be. Frankly, a lot of the high skilled workers are the kind of people that are a little uncomfortable with what Trump's doing. And then foreigners won't want to invest because they don't want to send teams in to build Factories and foreign H1B visas or foreign students don't want to come here because look at how they've been treated. This could have massive consequences for the American economy, particularly in the most important industries, the places where you want foreign investment, the places where you want high skilled or sometimes foreign workers too. So this is not like a side story that's just about how awful this was for South Korea. That is really important. But it also is a huge flaw in the entire Trump strategy of trying to, quote, unquote, bring back manufacturing.
- [52:46]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, look, we talked a couple episodes ago about how Trump has infuriated the entire Indian government because he's demanding a Nobel Peace Prize for brokering a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, when, in fact, he didn't really play any role. And it has caused this huge political problem for Modi in India, which is driven into the arms of China. And then the Washington Post reported on Monday that, you know, this combination of Trump, like, humiliating Modi and then singling out India for buying Russian oil has led to, like, real nationalism in India and this younger generation of Indians to really dislike the U.S. and turn away from the U.S. and so, like, there has been this distrust that has, you know, come up in Indian politics over and over again over the years that, like, ultimately you can't really trust the US to be on your side. And that's once again emerging because Trump was just a dick to Modi. And to your point about workers, I mean, I think one in four student visas in the US Are Indians, and we're cracking down on them.
- [53:51]
Ben Rhodes
And the problem with this kind of thing too is you don't get it back. You know, I mean, four years of Trump, which is the best case scenario if, like, we're able to hold the line at term limits, investment goes elsewhere, foreign students start to go elsewhere, high skilled workers start to go elsewhere, like Americans start to go elsewhere. And it's not like one election even fixes that. It's like people just move on and people are moving on from the United States. And we are very early in this second Trump term and we're already here. And so this is going to. Whether it's tourism, whether it's investment, whether it's foreign students, whether it's a finite number of highly skilled people in industries like AI, this is going to hurt all Americans in terms of our economic health and growth and vitality.
- [54:43]
Tommy Vitor
Meanwhile, the US Is selling all these advanced AI chips all over the place to places like the uae.
- [54:49]
Ben Rhodes
So that then if you are. I mean, this is.
- [54:50]
Tommy Vitor
Well, so the UAE can, you know, reportedly there's a great report in the New York Times about this that everyone should read, but apparently it sounds like the US decided to basically 5x the number of advanced Nvidia chips We're going to sell to the United Arab Emirates. Right. At the same time that the UAE put like billions of dollars into Trump's crypto company.
- [55:08]
Ben Rhodes
So this is exactly the point too, though. But people should read that too, because we talked about that at the time. The corruption was very clear. But thank God for good investigative journalism. So confirms what we know, that this was totally corrupt. Quid pro quo. That said, though, to connect these dots, the UAE is going to throw a lot of money at this. The Saudis are going to throw a lot of money at this. They're going to get the computing power now because the. The restrictions have been lifted on that. If you are an American or anybody else who's an AI expert who's one of the. Because there's only like a few thousand people that are really cutting edge, they're going to pay top dollar there. You're going to go there because would you rather, if you're an Indian engineer, would you rather come work for an American AI company and worry about ICE picking you up or take the generous offer to go to pay no taxes.
- [55:51]
Tommy Vitor
And live in Dubai in a tower?
- [55:53]
Ben Rhodes
Sounds pretty good, right?
- [55:54]
Tommy Vitor
It sounds pretty good to me.
- [55:54]
Ben Rhodes
It's a little hot, but, you know.
- [55:55]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, it gets a little warm. Yeah. You don't leave the house anyway. All right, Ben, a couple more things. So last week, we covered this massive Gen Z protest that swept Nepal's government out of power and, like, torched the parliament towards the Supreme Court, the President's house, and left the country in chaos. The death toll from the protests reportedly rose to 72 people over the weekend. So it's really bad. These protests started because of a ban on social media, but they quickly grew to encompass this broader set of grievances about corruption and this despised kind of elite ruling class. The protests themselves simmered down after Nepal's army, which is quite popular among the general population, stepped in. And because they're the only institution left, the army met with the protesters to figure out next steps. Nepal has had 14 governments representing three parties since the monarchy was abolished in 2008. And the hope among some Nepalese was that the monarchy would return. But instead of a return to royalty, this Gen Z protest group decided to elect an interim government in the most Gen Z way possible, which is by Discord poll. So for those of you who aren't familiar or friends of the pod subscribers, please subscribe crooked.com friendsthepod Discord is a chat platform popular with gamers. On Friday, they dissolved the parliament and they. They picked A woman named Sushila Karki, this retired first female chief justice of Nepal Supreme Court. She has a reputation as an anti corruption crusader. She's now going to lead this caretaker government until elections in March of next year. The ambassador of India, China and United States were present at this swearing in. So you know a lot of the other political parties believe this process was unconstitutional.
- [57:26]
Ben Rhodes
Sure was.
- [57:27]
Tommy Vitor
Sure was that it happened on Discord and over the weekend she stressed that her appointment was temporary. So we'll see. So Ben, just you know a truly like wild story. I feel like it's not over. I mean my hope is that this actually leads to a new government, a more responsive government and not another flare up of violence or a military crackdown. But I guess we'll see.
- [57:48]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, I think this, I mean this was a long time coming because the social media ban was because they were using social media to complain about how lavishly corrupt these people were. We talked about that a bit. First of all on the Discord side I guess handle me with Claire or Sharkulant, two of our best Discord questioners were not and this is why people should subscribe.
- [58:09]
Tommy Vitor
That's right.
- [58:09]
Ben Rhodes
Very good questions and extra segments.
- [58:11]
Tommy Vitor
Excellent questions.
- [58:12]
Ben Rhodes
I would have voted for one of them. But that said look, it just shows how Gen Z first of all they self identified as Gen Z. This is not just like external people coming in and saying no no no, we're calling this a Gen Z protest. They're like we are Gen Z, we're the young people and this country's totally fucking corrupt and we're sick of the same clique of people like dividing up the spoils while we're all screwed. And it's good to see Gen Z take some agency. The Gen Z people also said the people that were more in the leadership roles of these protests we did not intend to burn down all these government buildings. They actually can suggested that maybe there's some outside agitators that came in which happens sometimes when these protests take place. But it's kind of innovative. I mean part of me was like well they elected the leader on Discord. What I also found interesting though is that if you don't think that there is kind of contagion to these things.
- [58:58]
Tommy Vitor
Right.
- [58:59]
Ben Rhodes
This woman that is in the caretaker role is very much like in Bangladesh which is in the same region. Muhammad Yunus stepped in as a caretaker leader of Bangladesh after a similar kind of student led protest movement ousted that corrupt establishment. And so this is kind of like a template now in this region where You've got these young people, driven social media driven protests. Like, you got the removal of the leader and you've got these kind of interim trusted people. Like, you find the one person who's more technocratic and anti corruption in the political elite and have them as a bridge. Let's hope it is a bridge to something that is more durable and has democratic legitimacy. I just have this vibe, Tommy, that this is not the last one.
- [59:43]
Tommy Vitor
No, definitely.
- [59:44]
Ben Rhodes
It's not like an Arab Spring exactly. But there's just a lot of corruption out there right now.
- [59:49]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, no, I think courage begets contagious. Yeah. And look, I agree with you. There's sort of a template. I hope the template leaves behind the burning shit down part of people. And it's awful. There's all these stories about how there's not enough burn wards in Nepal because there's actually a ton of burn victims there because. Anyway. But yeah, fascinating story. We're gonna keep watching it. All right, Ben. So our President is heading to the uk, I think probably as we speak, or as of when you guys are listening to this, he's going for a second state visit. So listeners probably remember that Oval Office meeting with Keir Starmer, when Keir Starmer, like, dramatically handed Trump a letter from King Charles, which he dramatically opened, that included an invite. It was obviously not a subtle way to kind of butter Trump up in the moment, but now all involved have to pay the piper. And as the BBC noted, like repeat state visits like this are unprecedented in the UK for a non royal. And the politics here are tricky because as we've discussed, King Charles is clearly a lib. He cares about like biodiversity and the environment and shit.
- [60:51]
Tom Fletcher
He's.
- [60:51]
Ben Rhodes
He's a world though. He's one of us.
- [60:52]
Tommy Vitor
Trump is widely hated in the UK and Starmer's in a tough spot at the moment. And so, so, you know, in terms of the itinerary, like, I think Buckingham palace is being renovated or something. So they're doing most of this outside London at Windsor palace, which is conveniently.
- [61:07]
Ben Rhodes
Far away from royal correspondent. Windsor Castle.
- [61:10]
Tommy Vitor
Windsor Castle, thank you. Conveniently far away from the planned protests and the visit itself, it's like long on pomp and circumstance. It's short on substance. Like, there's no number 10 visit, although he will meet with Starmer at Checkers, but there's no address to Parliament, which Obama did when we were there. There will be lots of like marching troops and horses and I think carriages and flyovers. Yeah. And I think the idea is to, like, Give Trump more like horses and carriages than Macron got during the French state visit. But, you know, things are going to be weird for a bunch of reasons. The first Ben is last week Peter Mendelsohn, who is the UK's ambassador to the United States and like a long time, kind of like Politico, was fired over his association with Jeffrey Epstein. It's a relationship that was known about for many decades. But it got real awkward after Jeffrey Epstein's birthday book was published. And in it Mandelson called Epstein his best pal. I think he had like 10 pages of material or something. And then Starmer initially defended.
- [62:07]
Ben Rhodes
What's with these guys too pal.
- [62:09]
Tommy Vitor
Best pal dude. Kind of weird, the whole thing. It's so gross. And then Starmer initially was defending Peter Mandelson in, in Parliament, but then Bloomberg published, they got a hold of like Jeffrey Epstein's entire Yahoo account or something like that.
- [62:22]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
- [62:23]
Tommy Vitor
And they had all these damning emails between Peter Mandelson and Epstein that demonstrated that not only did they maintain contact after Epstein had been convicted of being a sex offender, he offered his full throated support. Here's one quote. I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened. I can still barely understand it. It just could not happen in Britain. Brutal. So those emails come out. Starmer says, no way, you're out. It fires Peter Menelson and then also don't forget that Prince Andrew is a close Epstein associate. So that's kind of been the backdrop of all this. And as we talked about, what like two weeks ago, three weeks ago, like, Starmer's in a very bad place politically. We covered the. Was that last week the resignation of his deputy prime minister? Yeah, it was Angela. Last week.
- [63:08]
Ben Rhodes
Boy, it seems like a year ago.
- [63:09]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, seems like a life time ago. Then they did this whole Cabinet reshuffle that made no sense. Like, if you're going to fire your cabinet, get some new people in there, don't just like reshuffle them. What's the politics of that? But more broadly, like, labor is losing to Nigel Farage's Reform UK party in the polls. Farage is close buddies with Trump, so there's every incentive there to like create problems. There were massive anti immigrant protests in London over the weekend that kind of add to the feeling that the far right is ascendant in the UK as it is in many other places in Europe. Europe. And those protests were organized by an extremist named Toby Robinson, who was actually to the right of Nigel Farage.
- [63:44]
Ben Rhodes
Oh, yeah.
- [63:44]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, and Elon Musk video conferenced into the thing to, like, decry the woke mind virus and call for a dissolution of Parliament, a new election. So he's real helpful as always. 26 cops were injured. I think the protest was like a hundred thousand people plus. So it was big. And there was a smaller counter protest. So, Ben, tough week for our buddies in the uk.
- [64:05]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, There's a lot there.
- [64:07]
Tommy Vitor
Exporting our problems.
- [64:08]
Ben Rhodes
Oh, my God. I mean, first of all, the Tommy Robinson thing is truly scary because this was like, Unite the Kingdom, I think it was called. And it really reminded me of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. It was the same kind of vibe. It felt very white supremacist vibe. You know, Tommy Robinson, straight up white supremacist, soccer hooligan. And look, it's scary. Like, I know people in London who are, you know, black and brown. Like, it felt unsafe, you know, to have. It literally felt like Charlottesville. I mean, you know, maybe they aren't carrying torches and chanting, whatever.
- [64:42]
Tommy Vitor
We will not Jews will not replace us. Was the famous.
- [64:44]
Ben Rhodes
But. But this just is not a good sign. But turning to this state visit, this is something so bizarre because it's all predicated on bullshit. And I should add, if people interested, I have a piece coming out in the New York Times, probably, like, overnight on Wednesday to Thursday about this. But. So I won't, you know, I'll reserve some takes for that. But I'll just say everybody knows that Trump is widely disliked, if not loathed, in the UK. Like, his approval rating is like, under 20%.
- [65:18]
Tommy Vitor
It's like 15% or something.
- [65:19]
Ben Rhodes
15%, right. So everybody knows that they don't like him. Yes, they're renovating Buckingham palace, but also the reason they're not doing shit in London is there'll probably be big protests in London and embarrassing things like big pictures of Jeffrey Epstein with Trump. And so convenient to have it out on the countryside. Windsor's in the countryside. Checkers is in the countryside. And it's like, we're just gonna. Trump gets what he wants, which is all this protocol, right? All this footsie with the Royal family and the carriage rides and the. The Churchill memorabilia or whatever, the shit that they're gonna trot out. But that doesn't mean they actually like him. So it's something very odd about it. It's like, Keir Starmer needs to do this because he wants to keep a lower tariff and he wants Trump to not completely sell out Ukraine. So we're gonna act like we like.
- [66:07]
Tommy Vitor
This guy gonna bend the knee.
- [66:08]
Ben Rhodes
The world's gonna. It's like they're acting basically like an American law firm or something, you know, like we're just gonna flatter him. Or like Texios. It's more like Texios. We're just gonna fire this guy and pretend like what's happening is not really happening. And I get it, but I also don't know that that's like a durable strategy.
- [66:26]
Tommy Vitor
It didn't get you much. Right. Because the delivery, the gift, the first time was this state visit. But what is Trump gonna demand during this visit? Right. Like, you can't give him another state visit.
- [66:38]
Ben Rhodes
I don't know, man. I mean, he'll come up with something. There's always another ask. He has. Right. And the tariffs could come back in a year. And I think that my advice to Keir Starmer, as someone who sincerely would like. I mean, he's very much in the position. Biden was like, he will be remembered by whether or not Nigel Farage is the next prime minister, you know, and just being cautious doesn't feel like it's enough. Like there needs to be more vision, more action, more engagement. He was very quiet about the far right. He didn't say much about this rally. Probably cuz he doesn't want to provoke Trump or Elon Musk or something. Right, right. Well, at some point, you got to get in the. The fight with these guys, you know, because if you just seed the terrain, they're going to fill that space. I mean, I, you know, I think it was. You tell me, Tommy, like, about Alistair and Rory, you know, the rest of his politics, commenting that for a party that has, like four people in Parliament, they're just like, dominating the discourse in that country. And part of that's because Keir Starmer is going to get in labor generally. He's got to get more in the mix.
- [67:39]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah.
- [67:39]
Ben Rhodes
And not just be on defense.
- [67:40]
Tommy Vitor
Right, Exactly.
- [67:41]
Ben Rhodes
There's just.
- [67:42]
Tommy Vitor
There's no clear affirmative agenda. The people don't seem inspired by labor reform. UK has four MPs. Four.
- [67:50]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
- [67:51]
Tommy Vitor
And Farage is able to kind of dominate the headlines and make news whenever he wants.
- [67:55]
Ben Rhodes
And Tommy Robinson's out there. Elon Musk, too. Like, it's just. It feels like an awful and very familiar stew. But please, British people, like, don't. Don't follow us. Trust me, it's not anywhere you want to be.
- [68:07]
Tommy Vitor
It ain't good over here. Also, to your point about Ukraine, Ben, I mean, it's worth noting that Trump, like, kicked off the week sticking it to Ukraine again, because on Saturday, Trump posted this truth social note, this letter, where he said letter to all NATO nations and the world. So basically this letter, it's a, it's a social media post because he calls it a letter. Trump essentially issued an ultimatum where he said he would issue, quote, major sanctions on Russia if or when NATO did the same and when, quote, all NATO nations stopped buying oil from Russia, Russia. Trump also suggested that NATO put 50 to 100% tariffs on China. Now, I know NATO doesn't tariff things, right? Saying NATO member countries, but again, that's a crazy idea that all these NATO countries are going to put 100% tariff on China. So, Ben, it's worth noting what a screw you that is to Starmer and all of Europe in advance of this trip and that we're like a month and a day from the Alaska summit and there's no ceasefire, there's no clarity on what potential security guarantee for Ukraine could look like. Russia is now firing drones into Poland and Romania and Romania to NATO countries.
- [69:19]
Ben Rhodes
Which suggests that this is maybe not an accident.
- [69:21]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. And Trump's, you know, suggestions every once in a while, he's asked like, you know, do anything about this. And he's like, oh, in two weeks we'll figure it out. Well, like any suggestion that he might get tough on Putin now has devolved to this Europe has to go first kind of excuse.
- [69:36]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, he talks about Ukraine now as a guy who a month ago was saying he was gonna solve it in the summit, like this observer or something, like he's a guest on the all in pod or something. And look the lesson, and we'll come back to this in another pod, but these European leaders, I'm invested in a lot of the things that they want to achieve here. So I say this with like, rooting for them. This isn't working. I mean, yes, you've prevented the absolute worst case of Trump completely cutting off Ukraine and completely embracing Putin. But that weird truth social post, it's the textbook case of why capitulating to Trump isn't worth it. He feels like he extracted the 5% defense spending pledge out of NATO. So they all got together and said they're gonna spend 5% defense, which is.
- [70:26]
Tommy Vitor
An absurd question, which they won't.
- [70:28]
Ben Rhodes
They won't. We don't spend that. But now he's like, he likes this idea of like, I can say, do this Europe and they do it. So he's like, well, now you gotta put it, stop buying Russian oil. And by the way, put 100% tariff on China, which would, like, break a bunch of their economies. And until you say no to him, he's just gonna keep asking more. And meanwhile, by not saying no to him on anything, you don't look like a strong leader. The far right is putting themselves forward as strong leaders and we need some leadership out of your Europe and not just this kind of like carefully managing Trump to avoid worse outcomes. Like, at a certain point, you gotta have your own positions.
- [71:02]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. And we're at a pretty bad outcome. Finally, Ben, pour one out for every coked up asshole who has dreamed of being president, because in this case, we're pouring one out. Some Irish whiskey for UFC fighter Conor McGregor, who has announced he will not be running in the Irish presidential election next month. McGregor blamed the process for getting on the ballot. He said it was too hard. You have to get, get. If you're an Irish presidential hopeful, you need to get endorsements from a set number of members of the Irish Parliament or these kind of local authorities. But it probably did not help that McGregor was polling at about 7% that he recently lost a case, a civil case, for sexual assault. He clearly has a drug habit and in 2019, pleaded guilty to assault after he sucker punched a man in his 50s who refused to take a shot of whiskey with him at a bar. Other than that, seems like a great guy. Great guy.
- [71:50]
Ben Rhodes
I will say, if we're looking for bright spots. Right. Hope the Irish people, man, just rise to the occasion on just about everything. I mean, we'll test whether our friend Mike o' Neill is listening to this far, but across the board, they've been out there on Israel, Palestine, they don't want Conor McGregor around. They're fun to hang out with. This is a great rebuke of Conor McGregor from the. The people of Ireland and just shows that, like, there's just not much there there to a lot of these kind of MAGA type influencers, if you can say no to them, you know?
- [72:26]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, I think McGregor was kind of just planning to run on Anti Immigrant.
- [72:31]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. And I'm buddies with Trump, right. Because he was at like, you know, when Trump goes to UFC fights.
- [72:35]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, he'll be there. It's also interesting we should dig into this one sometime in the future. Like the countries that have managed to avoid kind of the far right populist kind of stew. Yeah, there's some interesting examples. Ireland's definitely one of them.
- [72:47]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, it is interesting. Like, tell us Irish people we'll dig deeper and we may need to come live there.
- [72:54]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, please get me a visa. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When you come back, you'll hear my interview with Tom Fletcher about providing humanitarian relief to some of the toughest hotspots in the world. That includes Haiti, Sudan, Gaza, and much more. So stick around for the that po. The world is brought to you by American Giant. Every day we learn about a new tariff. It's impossible to figure out how much something's going to cost, but prices are going up and up and up and now there's inflation, Trump's ruining the world and the Chinese are having a big party over there in Beijing and we just look stupid. Globalized fast fashion. Though they've complicated clothing production by sourcing inexpensive, expensive components around the world to whoever can assemble them the cheapest. As a result, consumers now face increased prices. American Giant is about keeping things simple and keeping it close to home. They aren't affected by terrorists because their product has never left the US Buying from American Giant supports American manufacturers. On top of that, they just make great clothes. I got some good sweatpants from American Giant. I got a great comfy sweatshirt from American Giant. Yeah, they're, they're like thick and plush and durable and I've washed them 100 times now and they are still holding up great and look like I just bought them yesterday. And so you know, the clothes are comfortable and looking good and also you feel good about it. Being manufactured in the US and supporting local communities. Mega corporations obsessed with profit are churning out cheap apparel from poor quality materials. Choosing American Giant means taking a stand for hard working people, local communities and quality clothes through American ingenuity and innovation. They went against the current to do better. They believe in a new kind of conscious buying because small changes can add up to something big. Support American made tariff free clothing with American Giant. Get 20% off your first order when you use promo code world@american-giant.com that's 20% off when you use the code world@american-g.
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- [75:22]
Tommy Vitor
I would like to welcome Tom Fletcher to the show. He is the United nations nation's Undersecretary General for Humanitarian affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. Thank you for joining me today. And also, do you guys, when you do titles at the un, do you get paid by the word? How does this work?
- [75:37]
Tom Fletcher
Sorry, that's a bit of a mouthful. Basically, the aid chief is the kind of shorter way of doing that. You know, once my title in my previous job, Private Secretary for Foreign affairs to the Prime Minister, was mistranslated as the intimate typist for the Prime Minister's affairs overseas. And so every in China and to this day they still sit me next to the President because they think I write the love letters for the Prime Minister.
- [76:00]
Tommy Vitor
That's, that's an incredible story. Okay, well, look, I'm glad we are laughing and it's been a lot of fun just chatting with you before we started recording because we are having this conversation as part of an initiative called Be Hope. We're going to try to find some hope in the world. I have to be honest, I'm feeling pretty bleak at the moment. It's been a weird week in US politics, a horrible week in US politics and a challenging year to say the least. And also I want to ask you about some of the hotspots that you have been to, that you've worked to get assistance into. So let's start with Haiti. I believe you recently got back from a three day trip to Haiti. As listeners know, I mean, Haiti has been plagued by gang violence, there's a hunger crisis, there has been severe political instability for years now. What did you see in Haiti and what do you think Haiti needs from the international community?
- [76:45]
Tom Fletcher
I mean, Haiti is unrelentingly grand and I've got the, you know, the worst set of visas in the world, really. That's, you know, when you go to U.S. customs and they say, have you been to the following countries? I've been to all of them in 10 months in the job. I've been to Haiti, I've been to Gaza, Afghanistan, Syria. I was in Myanmar after the earthquake, you know, so I've been in Darfur. So I see some pretty rough places. And Haiti is really, really grim. And, and the site I went to for displaced people, squalid. You can't imagine the conditions that people are living in there. And everyone is utterly terrified. You wouldn't choose to live somewhere like that unless you were leaving somewhere really, really bad. And to get there, they've had to go through the checkpoints. They've been abducted, they've been shaken down for money. The gangs, the armed groups are in control of so much of the country. But I tell you one thing that I found really shocking was that I visited this center for survivors of sexual violence. Amazing place where they're doing amazing work to support these incredibly courageous survivors. And the women there told me two things. One, that they're preemptively taking contraception before they go to the checkpoints because they're assuming that they'll get gang raped. And secondly, they said we need this center like we need the pharmacy and the supermarket and the Cornish shop.
- [78:07]
Tommy Vitor
Shop.
- [78:08]
Tom Fletcher
You know, every area needs a center for survivors of sexual violence because there are so many of us. So these are brutal conditions.
- [78:16]
Tommy Vitor
My God. Yeah. I think I saw a statement from maybe UNICEF recently about the gangs that said that I think maybe half of the people in these gangs are actually minors, are children who have been co opted and forced to either fight or be couriers or otherwise participants. So it's just it that the, the scope of this problem is just enormous.
- [78:37]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
- [78:37]
Tom Fletcher
And that, you know, that's the, the challenge we face everywhere is that effectively we're seeing these cycles of generational violence and hatred. You know, this stuff doesn't go away without politics, without diplomacy, without humanitarian work. It sort of sits in the system and then comes back in different ways. Say the same thing for Israel, Gaza, you can say the same thing for the violence that we're seeing every day in, in Darfur. This will perpetuate itself through cycles unless we can find a way to break that vicious cycle.
- [79:07]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. And why, you know, Eric Prince, the former head of Blackwater, going down to Haiti to sell people some drones is not a moral or just solution to a very serious gang problem. You've mentioned Sudan a couple times. Every day there's just another sort of brutal story or headline. I mean, there was a landslide that killed over a thousand people. The New York Times just published this piece about how, how desperate people in the Darfur region, in Western Darfur are now eating animal feed to survive. Even the Trump State Department is called Sudan the world's worst humanitarian crisis. What do you think people need to know about what's happening in Sudan? And again, I mean, what is the international community doing? What more should it be doing?
- [79:48]
Tom Fletcher
Yeah, and I think you can add cholera to that list as well. And you know, massive starvation. So Sudan's the big one, you know, 30 million people in need. It's the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world. It's why I went there in my first week in the job and went into Darfur to see the effort there, to talk to people there. So we need the politics to get fixed, and that will probably need some sort of regional solution, but it certainly needs the engagement of the US and others. And it's one of the areas where the US is actually pretty engaged in trying to stop that conflict. We need the funding back. I mean, Sudan, we're under 20% funded, even with a massively prioritized appeal that we have. We're on the ground, and our guys are incredibly brave. They'll go anywhere, talk to anyone, do anything to get those convoys moving. But they're running huge risks. Sudan is one of those places where we're losing a load of colleagues to the violence. It's another place, by the way, where the sexual violence is utterly terrifying. And again, you sit down, you meet the survivors of that, and they just tell you the most horrific stories of being passed around by these militias. And yet they're still somehow carrying on. And, you know, if you're looking for hope, sometimes you find it in the bleakest places.
- [81:01]
Tommy Vitor
One key element is the role the UAE seems to be playing in Sudan. I mean, there's been a number of investigations into the way the UAE has helped arm the rsf, the Rapid Support forces, which is one half of the civil war. The other half is the government. I've read reports that the UAE is providing advanced weapons, ammunition, armored vehicles. More recently, Sudanese officials accused the UAE of recruiting foreign mercenaries to fight in Sudan, including fighters from Colombia and Khartoum. Even accused the UAE of being complicit in genocide at the icj, which is. You know, it's hard to wrap your mind around that sentence. What role do you think the UAE is playing in perpetuating this conflict? And can the UN do anything to pressure them to stop?
- [81:45]
Tom Fletcher
I spend a lot of time talking to colleagues in the uae, but also across the region about how we stop this conflict, because it's not just a Sudanese conflict. There are these regional dimensions to it. I'm pretty encouraged over the weekend that we heard this statement that came from the us, The Saudis and the uae, basically saying that they want humanitarian access. I want to get these. These convoys moving. And I'm hearing. And obviously this is. I'm pushing for this every day with all of these players that we've got to get. We've got to bust through those checkpoints. But ultimately, we need the conflict to stop. We need some sort of political process. And I'm hearing from the uae, from the Saudis and the Americans that they're willing to kind of do the work necessary to get that process in place.
- [82:29]
Tommy Vitor
What do you think that looks like? Is it a prioritization issue? Right. Because I knew the, the envoy trying to solve this civil war during the Biden administration. And I think, you know, one thing you would hear from that team was, you know, we kind of knew where, look, we, we knew that pressure on the UAE was a key part of any peace agreement or any diplomatic solution. But, you know, on the sort of pecking order of things we need the UAE to do, maybe Sudan wasn't high enough. Did you have sense that this is going to be prioritized in the Trump administration?
- [83:00]
Tom Fletcher
So I was also in touch with your colleague from the Biden administration on his way out, actually. So I had a good chat to him about his sense of how we could get in there and just reframe this problem and kind of meet this challenge. I think it is high on the list for our conversations with the Saudis, with the Emiratis, But I think also Sudan, I mean, unlike a lot of places I operate, Sudan at least does get some international attention. So there'll be a lot of meetings in high level week, un, our big week, our kind of speed dating, our World cup next week. There are a lot of side meetings, a lot of focus on Sudan. So I think at least it's got that level of attention. But we need, you know, diplomacy is 799 days of failure, one day of success. George Mitchell said that about Northern Ireland. And it's really discouraging in my job because most days the team come in here into this room and give me the operational update each morning and it's just doom and gloom and hopelessness and despair and all the numbers going in the wrong direction. And we just have to keep kind of dusting ourselves off and carrying on even though we're overstretched, we're underfunded, massively underfunded and massively under attack. Last year was the deadliest year ever to be a humanitarian worker. We're losing colleagues in Sudan, in Gaza, everywhere we're working. But we just have to keep carrying on because. Because we have no choice.
- [84:24]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. The other huge challenges in Gaza, I mean, we've watched for the last two years, the humanitarian situation has just gotten inexorably worse. The Israeli government clearly has the capacity to turn on and off the flow of aid into Gaza whenever it wants. Things have gotten worse since the UN was sidelined and the so called Gaza Humanitarian foundation took over relief efforts such as that are. What are you hearing from the ground? And what message do you think it says to the world that the United States under successive administrations, has fully backed this war effort that the United Nations, United Nations Commission now calls a genocide.
- [85:08]
Tom Fletcher
So I was in Gaza in February, and I'm in constant touch with the team on the ground. And I think of all the places I've visited, Gaza is easily the worst. And I drove in through the north, having been in Neros, one of the kibbutz that was hit on October 7th so horrifically by Hamas, and where 1 in 4 people were killed or taken hostage. And then you cross the border. And the first thing I said to the guy with me is, you know, why are the dogs so fat? And he said, because they're eating the corpses. And we drove through the rubble. I met a mother who had watched her kid bleed out on the road across from the hospital because he'd been hit by snipers. And every time the medics came to try and keep him alive, they were also hit by snipers. And she watched that happen in front of her. I got into the hospital and on the wall, you know, one of the medics has written, just tell them we did what we could. And he was also then killed by a sniper. So always you're trying to think, can we judge ourselves through that prison? Will we be able to say that we. We did what we could and to keep trying absolutely everything to get those convoys moving in the good days, I mean, to call them good is not quite right, because it was clearly still grim. But during the ceasefire, back in the first quarter of the year, we were getting in 500, 600 trucks a day. And so we were able to deal with the famine, we were able to stop the starvation levels getting so high, still not enough, but we were reaching everyone. One in Gaza. And as you say, that's. That's been shut down. We're getting a trickle in at the moment. It's a drop in the ocean compared to what we really need now. I'm in constant touch with the American administration. You know, we're talking to the Israelis all the time, the team on the ground. Obviously, we talk to member states to try and create the pressure on Israel.
- [86:57]
Tommy Vitor
What.
- [86:58]
Tom Fletcher
What we need is not complicated. All the crossings open, commercial traffic moving, an end to these bureaucratic impediments that mean we have to load and unload and load and unload. We bring the trucks in, we have to cart all the stuff off the trucks, then wait for other trucks to Come often that takes hours. Then we go, eventually we're cleared to move in the best case scenario, and we're moving down a road which we know the looters will be on. We get looted by starving, desperate parents trying to feed their kids. So it's, you know, we're being set up to fail here. And it's immensely, it's infuriating because we know the levels of hunger and starvation on the other side. I draw encouragement from the fact that President Trump's been very clear. He said we've got to stop the starvation. He doesn't want to see starving babies. And so that instruction has clearly gone down through the US System and we are in that constant daily engagement about how we could scale up and, and the reality as it was under previous administrations, as you know, is that probably it's only the Americans that can bring that pressure. And so we have to keep hoping, hoping, hoping that that pressure will come.
- [88:08]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, I know. Look, I appreciate it and you have a really tough job and I appreciate the hopeful tone. It's just earlier in the show we talked about how Marco Rubio sort of sounded like he'd given up on brokering a ceasefire deal during his visit earlier the week. And, and a few weeks ago we were talking about a famine declaration in Gaza City and the need for humanitarian pauses in the fighting to facilitate the bringing in of aid. And now instead we're talking about a full on ground operation into Gaza City by the idf, which is a city with like half a million people still in it. So I just, I wonder what you think the impact of this new ground offensive is going to be on this famine declaration in Gaza City, which I assume has not gone away.
- [88:49]
Tom Fletcher
Right, right, it hasn't gone away. It means the, the famine will spread to other areas and it means that, you know, imagine being a family that's been, been displaced multiple times and has ended up in Gaza City, has had almost two years of, of this living under this bombardment, you know, will have lost family members, will be coping with starvation, you know, kids just utterly demoralized. You know, it's unthinkable as a parent trying to imagine how you would carry on in those in that situation. And here again, we'll see more mass, mass displacement, we'll see more starvation, we'll see more masses, more civilian deaths. And none of us know for sure what the numbers are of civilian deaths, but it's already for sure over 50 times the losses on that terrible day on October 7th. How much longer is this going to go on? How much retribution will there be?
- [89:46]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, we, we, you're right, we don't know. It's, it is daunting and haunting. Bigger picture. So, you know, the first half of the Trump administration was kind of dominated by Elon Musk and Doge in this destruction of USAID and just sort of the end of US Foreign assistance, except for military assistance to Israel and a few other places is in the wake of that destruction, how big is the gap when it comes to the global need for assistance versus the funding available and how has that impacted your job?
- [90:18]
Tom Fletcher
So the funding gap is absolutely massive. So back in December, I launched a campaign to say we needed to reach 300 million people in need. And for that we needed over $45 billion. Now even before the funding cuts, it was clear we weren't going to get, get close to that. And so I've now had to issue a hyper prioritized plan to try to save 114 million lives, which will cost 25 to 30 billion. And again, you know, I have to be optimistic and keep pushing for the funding, but I can't be all that optimistic that we'll, that we'll get anywhere close to that. So as a result, you've got tens of millions of people that we won't reach. Now a more positive way to frame that is that that over the decades the US taxpayer has saved hundreds of millions of lives and probably we became too dependent on that funding. It was sort of 40, 45% of all the humanitarian funding in the sector. And so we do need to spread that burden. It's a fair point. We do need to get others to step forward and fill that space. But I desperately, desperately hope that we'll see that US Leadership come back into the sector. I can't give up on that leadership because these are big, big numbers. And I see the brutal choices every day. You know, I was in Afghanistan and sat there in can do with mothers who'd lost their children because they'd had to cycle three hours to give birth down bumpy roads because the clinic had just shut. You know, I can see that in Haiti with the programs that are being shut down there. I can see it everywhere we work. So we are every day making brutal life and death choices because of the scale of the cuts. And so I desperately hope that we'll see all that scaling back up. I understand that there are specific places this administration wants to work and doesn't want to work, specific themes that they want to focus on. And I'm hoping there's a conversation There we can have an engagement. We can have. I was in Washington that weekend and building that dialogue because every bit of funding we get is saving huge numbers of lives.
- [92:24]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. And look, just from a purely kind of, if I put my Trump filter on my brain, I mean, boy, if he's worried about the migration crisis, imagine what a migration crisis from Sudan could look like if the entire country just disintegrates. Or South Sudan. Right. I mean, the long term impact of cutting off all of this funding and just leaving these places to fend for themselves means that mass populations are going to leave and they're going to come to the US or come to Europe or come to, you know, places where there are governments that don't want them completely.
- [92:55]
Tom Fletcher
And we used to say, you know, during that kind of holiday from history period, that sort of post 1989 period when it all seemed that history was moving in one direction, we used to often say, you know, global problems require global solutions. I think now we have to almost frame that in a slightly more transactional way, which is exactly that, that if you don't deal with these problems at source, then massive levels of migration, massive levels of disease spreading, economic insecurity spreading, physical insecurity, and terrorism spreading. So you almost have to, I think, frame it in that slightly more practical, pragmatic, transactional way. Because you can't put a tariff on a pandemic.
- [93:33]
Tommy Vitor
Right? Right. Absolutely not. Okay, so we're talking as part of this B Hope initiative that's tied to the, the 80th anniversary of the UN General assembly, the 10th anniversary of these goals that were designed to try to end poverty, reduce inequality and tackle climate change. I have so far delivered to the listener the most hopeless conversation possible interview possible, in part because of where my brain's at these days in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination and, you know, term two of Trump, but also, you know, given the topics we were talking about. So let me just try to give you a carte blanche here. Is there anything you are seeing that is going particularly well, advances in science or medicine or work that you've been a part of that makes you hopeful or excited about something happening that we can kind of point to?
- [94:21]
Tom Fletcher
So I think as I'm the only person in the world to have gone to all these places in the last year, from Darfur to Kunduz to Syria to Mandalay after the earthquake and so on, I probably have more reason to feel hopeless even than you or anyone else. And look, I'll be honest, there are days when I do despair that the numbers in need are going up. And I despair of all the numbers of people we're just not reaching because of the funding cuts and so on. I genuinely draw hope from the visits. I do, from the people I meet on those visits. You know that line about always look for the helpers? Actually, it really rings true for me because you go into these horrific situations and you always find someone there quietly dealing with, you know, we're not the humanitarian front lines. It's those local communities that are responding to what's happening to their neighbors, who are opening up their houses, to the person who's escaping an earthquake, who are going out, like these women I met in Haiti last week and just quietly rehabilitating survivors, supporting survivors like the. The women I met in Darfur, orphans themselves who are running centers to respond to those orphans who sadly are being displaced every day by the conflict. So I think you can draw hope from those individuals. This may come across as a bit glib, but I actually genuinely draw hope from the values of the UN and it's a really unfashionable thing to say now because there's no one standing up for institutions. And look, I know the flaws of this place. It's imperfect, it can be much, much better. But, you know, I go back and I look at the charter and, you know, it's we, the peoples, we're determined to stand up for those who need our support. We're determined to, having seen two world wars to try to end conflict. And I don't believe that that mission has become any less mighty. I just have to retain hope that there's a movement out there, there that will still believe in that. And maybe it doesn't come from governments and states in the way that it did do for most of my working life. Maybe it's a genuine movement of citizens who will respond with empathy and emotional intelligence and kindness. I don't believe that kindness has gone away just because of a few election results. I don't believe the world's less kind, and I have to keep faith with that.
- [96:39]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, well, yeah, my version of hope is. I do think the. The pandemic damaged us in ways that we have not begin to understand, let alone calculate. We're all feeling the impact. But that, broadly speaking, politics feels like a giant pendulum to me that swings one way and then often swings back the other way. And I am hopeful that. I know all the arguments about the UN and its flaws and its inefficiencies and yada yada, but you know what Institutions are made up of people and people are flawed. And so that's what you get. Right. The same as the US government, the same as the UK government, government. And so I hope that given the radical change we've seen, the damage it's inflicting on the world, the second and third order impacts of that damage, that hopefully people will wake up a bit and understand that we've gone too far and course correct. And maybe try to push and swing that pendulum back in a better direction.
- [97:31]
Tom Fletcher
Yeah, absolutely. And look, you know, I wrote this book, the naked diplomat in 2016, having been ambassador in Beirut during the Arab Spring. And I was way too idealistic and I was writing basically about social media and the way it will change politics and statecraft and diplomacy. And I was saying, look, this is going to make us more democratic, it's going to make the world fairer, it's going to give more power to individuals. And that's basically a good thing because my argument was that the more you democratize these issues of war and peace, the more peaceful we become now sat here in 2025, that looks way too idealistic. I hadn't realized the way that governments and lots of politics would weaponize social media. But I think I'm still on that arc of the moral universe bending in the right direction and I'm still on social media being part of that. I think it kind of comes down to whether you believe in humans.
- [98:25]
Tommy Vitor
Right.
- [98:26]
Tom Fletcher
And I think we have these two major drivers in our DNA, both Darwinian. One is to compete for resource, to fight for resource and other as strong and I believe stronger is to work together and collaborate for resource. And I think that's the great dividing line of our times. It's between the coexistors and the wall builders. And I believe that out there, you know, I think it's a bit like the period after the invention of the printing press when you just had this kind of cacophony of noise and libel and slander and anger and rage as people use this new tool that was democratizing knowledge to such an extent, but they used it for all sorts of ways that polarized our society and it took time for not just the rules but also the norms and the values to catch up with that. And I suppose I hope that will be the case with the Internet and social media. So let's not give up yet.
- [99:21]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, let's not give up yet. Well, listen, thank you. Let's end it on that very hopeful note. Tom, thanks for making time today. Thanks. And it's a very, very busy week month for you and I'm grateful to you for doing the show.
- [99:31]
Tom Fletcher
Thanks Tommy and keep up the great work. Cheers.
- [99:38]
Tommy Vitor
Thanks again to Tom Fletcher for doing the show and we will talk to you guys next week. Pod Save the World is a Crooked Media production. Our Senior producer is Ilona Minkowski. Our Associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Saul Rubin is helping out this summer. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our Audio engineer. Audio support by Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to our digital team, Ben Hethcoat, Mia Kelman, William Jones, David Toles and Ryan Young. Matt de Groat is our Head of Production. Adrian Hill is our Senior Vice President of News and Politics. If you want to listen to Pod Save the World, add free and get access to exclusive podcasts. Go to crooked.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter for more original content. Host takeovers and other community events. Plus find Pod Save the world on YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content and much more. And if like us, you're opinionated, leave us a review. Our production staff is proudly unionized by the Writers Guild of America East.
- [100:52]
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- [101:00]
Tommy Vitor
Yep.
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Tommy Vitor
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