Tommy Vitor (2:18)

I thought you were talking about Paul.

Ben Rhodes (2:19)

Pierce and I was telling the story about in the first joint session Obama gave in 2009, we had this fact wrong. We said that Americans invented the automobile, which we didn't. And it was like this big thing. It was just. You probably don't remember this, but it was like this mini thing online. It's such a quaint idea.

Tommy Vitor (2:38)

Jesus.

Ben Rhodes (2:39)

That you actually used to be stressed. I was like, am I misleading these kids by telling them that you have to fact check everything you say when the President of the United States is probably not gonna fact check that address? I don't think they're fact checkers at the White House.

Tommy Vitor (2:51)

What a funny job to have.

Ben Rhodes (2:52)

Yeah, yeah.

Tommy Vitor (2:53)

Some people don't talk about something you could doge.

Ben Rhodes (2:55)

They're actually people whose whole job it is to fact check speech. Right. And I think it got dosed.

Tommy Vitor (3:01)

I would doge the hell out of the fact checkers at the White House. Yeah. And tonight, Trump's going to announce a military incursion to Canada or something.

Ben Rhodes (3:07)

Yeah.

Tommy Vitor (3:08)

Operation to take out Justin Trudeau. It's been a long week. Blind. Not even a week since the last time we talked on Friday. Then today we're going to cover, you know, the fallout from the disastrous Zelensky meeting with Trump on Friday and how Europeans are kind of trying to fill the breach here. We're going to talk about the trade war. It seems to have arrived. Although I just saw a clip from the Commerce Secretary saying the trade war could be over as soon as tomorrow. So I don't know. But we're going to talk about the implications. We'll talk about the latest we've heard about the impact of all the cuts to USAID programs and how people are dying all over the world. We'll talk about the Tate brothers. Andrew Tate. Do you hear about Andrew Tate in your house as he infected your kid's classroom?

Ben Rhodes (3:48)

Yeah. This is a little toxic masculinity that we hear about.

Tommy Vitor (3:50)

Yeah. Like the actual worst of the worst. We'll explain why he was allowed into the US Then some news out of Gaza about the ceasefire, and then a bucket of stories out of Latin America. There's some interesting news out of Panama, Mexico and Venezuela that we wanted to talk about. So we're skipping around the globe today.

Ben Rhodes (4:07)

All the places that Trump may, you know, go to war with.

Tommy Vitor (4:10)

Saint paid. Yeah. Good. And then, Ben, you did our interview this week. Who are we going to hear?

Ben Rhodes (4:13)

We have a return to the pod from Natasha hall, excellent Syria expert from csis. We talk about how the interim Syrian government is doing, spend a lot of time on what Israel is doing in literally invading Syria. Like, that's something that happened.

Tommy Vitor (4:28)

Seems like a big deal.

Ben Rhodes (4:29)

Occupying huge amounts of territory and taking natural resources. And then we do kind of a tour of all the external players that are trying to basically screw up Syria's transition. Israel at the top of that list, obviously, what's Turkey up to? What's going on with the Kurds. But also the Russians are back in the picture.

Tommy Vitor (4:47)

Nice.

Ben Rhodes (4:48)

And what I was trying to get my head around in this dizzying conversation, super interesting people should hear about, is that Israel apparently wants the Russians back in the picture. And maybe because Natasha's main point is that the sanctions are really screwing Syria. They can't get any assistance because the US Sanctions remain in place. Maybe getting close to Putin may be the way out of the penalty box. The Americans, that's the world. That's where we're at in 2025. You should listen to it, because it actually, I learned a lot. I mean, we covered a lot in 20 minutes.

Tommy Vitor (5:18)

What a completely predictable problem, but a bizarre solution never would have seen coming in a million years. But, yeah, Natasha is really, really smart, and I'm excited to listen to that. Well, let's talk about all things Ukraine for a minute. So there's been this flurry of diplomatic activity since the disastrous Oval Office meeting last week between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In the US The Trump administration has reportedly now suspended the shipment of additional weapons to Ukraine. I think this is the money, like the presidential drawdown authority that had been appropriated by Congress previously. Okay, so that comes on top of the basically de facto arms sale freeze to Ukraine that came from the foreign aid freeze, because so much of that money goes to the State Department or some of the money goes to the State Department. There were also a bunch of reports that the Pentagon has now denied that the US Cyber Command has. Was ordered to pause planning offensive cyber operations against Russia. So that's weird.

Ben Rhodes (6:11)

A little worrying. Yeah.

Tommy Vitor (6:13)

A little odd. Reuters reported that Trump is working on a plan to ease sanctions on Russia. A little worrisome. Little cart ahead of the horse. And then, you know, meanwhile, the Kremlin is just literally cheering for all of it. Dmitry Peskov, Putin's spokesman, said, quote, the new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations, end quote, a new one. This largely coincides with our vision, end quote. Over the weekend, 18 European leaders gathered in London for an emergency summit hosted by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Starmer, committed to sending Ukraine more military support, pushed others to follow Suit France put forward a plan for a one month ceasefire as a way to test whether Putin was acting in good faith. Spoiler alert, he's not. And then finally today, before we started recording then, Zelensky released a long message on Twitter that included a lot of the groveling that Trump allies have been demanding for days. I'll read a bit of it to you. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump's strong leadership to get a piece that lasts. Our meeting at the White House on Friday did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way. It is time to make things right. We would like future cooperation and communication to be constructive regarding an agreement on minerals and security. Ukraine is ready to sign it any time and in any convenient format. There's some reports that the they may even sign the minerals deal sometime today. Here's a clip of President Trump on Monday talking with reporters about all things Ukraine.

Donald Trump (7:34)

I want to see it end fast. I don't want to see this go on for years and years. Now. President Zelensky supposedly made a statement today in ap. I'm not a big fan of ap, so maybe it was an incorrect statement, but he said he thinks the war's going to go on for a long time and he better not be right about that. That's all I'm saying.

Tommy Vitor (7:55)

Should that be concerning to Americans?

Natasha Hall (7:56)

Read the statement that Russia, Russia says that your administration's foreign policy is, quote, largely in line with their vision.

Donald Trump (8:04)

Well, I'll tell you what, I think it takes two to tango. And you're going to have to make a deal with Russia and you're going to have to make a deal with Ukraine. And the deal can be made very fast. It should not be that hard a deal to be made very fast. Now, maybe somebody doesn't want to make a deal. And if somebody doesn't want to make a deal, I think that person won't be around very long. That person will not be listened to very long. Because I believe that Russia wants to make a deal. I believe certainly the people of Ukraine want to make a deal. They've suffered more than anybody else.

Tommy Vitor (8:34)

So, Ben, at the end there, Trump seems to be suggesting regime change. Mike Waltz said something similar over the weekend. Kind of amazing that in response to a question about the Kremlin loving his foreign policy, Trump then floats getting rid of Zelensky, which is right at the top of the Putin wish list.

Ben Rhodes (8:49)

Yeah, yeah. First of all, not the most important thing in that clip. But for someone who truths and tweets as much as he does. He doesn't seem to understand that a statement that the Associated Press covers is interested in the Associated Press. So let's put this aside. This guy's not that smart. Among other things. Where to begin? I mean, look, we covered this a few days ago, but the fact that he's still, you know, they came back and clearly in a coordinated fashion, pushed this regime change point. Right. Because Waltz was saying it on a Sunday show. This is not like something they're saying by accident.

Tommy Vitor (9:22)

No.

Ben Rhodes (9:23)

And it's just absolutely extreme. And we have to point out that the Trump administration's response to Zelenskyy's country getting invaded and Zelensky, like, heroically marshaling his own people and the world in defense of his country, that they think the regime change needs to be there. Remember, Joe Biden made that fuck up when he. At the end of his speech, he called for Putin to go, well, now we're just regularly calling for the democratically elected leader of a country that's been invaded to get out of the way so that Russia can dictate the terms of Ukraine's surrender. That's what's happening. That's where we're at. I think the headline for me the last few days, though, is I actually was impressed. You know, we're such Debbie Downers here these days. But I thought the Europeans reacted.

Tommy Vitor (10:06)

Well, they're trying.

Ben Rhodes (10:08)

And actually, if you wanna compare them to the Democratic Party, they seem to understand Trump better than the Democratic Party leadership does at times, which is that this is for real, this is happening. This is not a drill. And so you saw them immediately online post their support for Ukraine. They didn't care whether or not Trump wasn't gonna like that. They just all did it in unison. And so there was strength in numbers. That's one lesson. Like, if they all go together, it's harder for Trump to attack them. When you have, like, 25 European leaders expressing full support for Zelens. And then how about a good moment for Keir Starmer, who has taken some slings and arrows, but for him to kind of take this leadership role, bringing everybody to London, having that show of solidarity for Ukraine, having some pretty tangible announcements so in case people didn't follow, they're providing billions of additional assistance to Ukraine, and they're using it by leveraging the frozen Russian assets as kind of the backstop for these loans to Ukraine. You saw Germany, the Mertz, you know, chancellor elect, to be.

Tommy Vitor (11:11)

Yeah.

Ben Rhodes (11:12)

Get together with Schultz and make these Decisions to essentially do away with their cap on how much they can spend relative to the deficit so they could spend more in defense and infrastructure. That could make them less dependent on Russia. So you're seeing in, you saw obviously the French and the British kind of reiterating their commitment to a potential security force. It's European, a coalition of the willing. Probably not the most fortunate phrase. You know, Keir Starmer, bring it back. The phrase coalition of the willing to support Ukraine.

Tommy Vitor (11:39)

But we should note it's important that Starmer and the French are doing this on kind of an ad hoc basis because it does seem like Viktor Orban in Hungary, they're going to start blocking more military support to Ukraine in the eu, which is a problem.

Ben Rhodes (11:52)

Yeah, no, I mean we talked about this a few weeks ago that they're going to have to move this decision making outside the EU so that Viktor Orban can gum up the works. But you know, you saw pretty quickly the Europeans kind of come together behind a plan where they're going to be the security backstop for the Ukrainians. They're going to ramp up their own defense production for their own purposes and to be able to provide assistance to Ukraine. That's not going to make whole the Ukrainians in the, you know, medium term. I mean the, the danger for the Ukrainians is in a few months they're going to be feeling the impact of that US Weapons cut off.

Tommy Vitor (12:24)

Yeah.

Ben Rhodes (12:25)

And the Europeans can't ramp things up fast enough to make, make that good. But at least gives Ukraine a much more credible position at the negotiating table to have all of Europe essentially standing behind them saying we have their backs in the long run. We're ramping up assistance, we're ramping up military production. We're willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine like so. You know, I do not think it was Trump's three dimensional chest to get the Europeans to spend more money on defense. I think it's the opposite. I think the Europeans are like, we can no longer count the United States. They're not our security guarantee anymore. We have to be our own security guarantee and we have to have our own Ukraine policy.

Tommy Vitor (13:01)

Yeah.

Ben Rhodes (13:01)

And I think Starmer, Macron more than anybody else and Mertz, I have to say stepping up too is bringing that together.

Tommy Vitor (13:08)

He's pretty hawkish.

Ben Rhodes (13:09)

And Maloney was there like so, you know, you had the kind of less Putin friendly far right, you know, showing up. So.

Tommy Vitor (13:14)

Yeah, good. I don't, it doesn't sound like the Italians want to put provide troops, but she has been rhetorically in a better place than you would think. I don't know if you saw J.D. vance's interview on Sean Hanney about the Zelensky meeting.

Ben Rhodes (13:26)

Unfortunately, I saw some of it.

Tommy Vitor (13:27)

He was, like, giddy, so, like, so happy to have been allowed to talk at the. At the Big Boy meeting. And he also parroted Trump's line that it was great tv, which there's been a lot of conversations since the meeting about whether it was a setup or a trap or this. Like, I kind of. The more I thought about it, the more it's like, it's not that black and white. I think, like Trump and J.D. vance, they wanted to put on a show for their domestic political reasons. And then Zelensky has his own politics, and he just couldn't acquiesce to everything Trump was saying. And so it led to this collision. But, like, in. Now that we've watched sort of the news cycle in the days since, it's clear that Trump, he wasn't offended, he wasn't upset. They're thrilled at how this is playing out.

Ben Rhodes (14:06)

Well, I mean, there's a couple of things I look at. I mean, one, what was interesting to me is they genuinely don't like democracies. I mean, that's the only consistent thing in all of Trump's comments, J.D. vance's comments, if you are a liberal democracy, you're going to be in for it. And so Zelensky, they don't like, for a lot of reasons, which we talked about last time, including he has actually shown personal courage in a way that J.D. vance has certainly never done. And at the same time, Tommy, I don't know. I noticed that the day of the meeting, it was like an authoritarian dictate went out because every Trump Cabinet secretary was, like, tweeting, thank you, President Trump, for showing, like, the greatest leadership I've ever seen, including Cabinet officials who have nothing to do with Ukraine. And that suggested a little concern. Right? I mean, you know, when. When you have to keep telling everybody how great you are, you might think that that might not have gone down well.

Tommy Vitor (15:09)

But I think there's them pouring gasoline on a fire. They think, okay, well, I mean, look, it could be either.

Ben Rhodes (15:14)

No, no, you're. You know what? You're probably right. I mean, common thread in the Trump years is whatever the worst explanation is is probably the right one. And you're probably right that they. That they feel great about it. I just. What. What they did serve to do, though, is just to reinforce the core point that we made. The other day, which is that this is an absolute transformation of U.S. foreign policy and an absolute alignment of the United States with Russia in its view of the Ukraine conflict, in its view of Europe in its view of democracy itself. And the more J.D. vance talks, the more he just reinforces that. And there's a through line to him endorsing the AfD in Germany, beating up Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, doing victory laps on Sean Hannity. This is a guy that does not like democracy.

Tommy Vitor (15:59)

Did you see that? He went to Vermont for a ski trip and people protested him and they were holding up signs that said JD Van skis and jeans. I appreciated that from my New Englanders. Also, I don't think enough is being made about the fact that Zelensky did that whole press conference in English, which, like, imagine doing a 45 minute fight with the White House press corps and the President, United States in English, when that's not, you know, your first language. And he was repeatedly turning to his translator and asking for guidance. I don't like. We'll. We'll see what the fallout is. I mean, Marine Le Pen, of all people, condemned the brutality of suspending.

Justin Trudeau (16:34)

Yeah.

Ben Rhodes (16:35)

I mean, when, when the, the French far right, which has its own fascist roots, is, is a little put off. Nigel Farage.

Tommy Vitor (16:42)

Yeah.

Ben Rhodes (16:43)

Was attacking the JD Vance.

Tommy Vitor (16:45)

I thought that clip might have been AI. I was so shocked.

Ben Rhodes (16:48)

Yeah. Yeah. So if they've lost Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage, like, that's how far right our government is in this country.

Tommy Vitor (16:53)

Yeah. Shit's getting weird.

Ben Rhodes (16:55)

And this is going to. I mean, we should just name, like this is changing the way people view the United States of America all over the world. And, you know, I remember what it was like to go to Europe right after the Iraq war started. Wasn't that fun? You know, I always try to say that people need to separate the people from their governments. I hope people can do that with Americans, but it's hard to do that when Americans elected this guy knowing full well what was coming.

Tommy Vitor (17:22)

He's a real dickhead. I think the thing to watch is whether Elon Musk ends up cutting off Starlink access to the Ukrainians. Because you see these reports from soldiers being like, we can figure out how to deal with like, fewer, you know, shells or artillery or whatever, but like los. Starlink would mean they don't have communications tools, they don't have coordination abilities, they don't have drone operations. Those won't work anymore. So that'd be a huge deal. Last thing on this Bench. Thank you to everybody who listened to the bonus episode we did on on Friday and subscribe to the pod Save the World YouTube. We're going to keep doing a bunch of stuff on that channel, so please subscribe.

Ben Rhodes (17:57)

And there unfortunately probably be plenty of things to talk about. Way too much going on between Tuesday and Tuesday.

Tommy Vitor (18:02)

Way too much going on.

Ben Rhodes (18:04)

Speaking one, just, just side note noted intellectual foreign policy intellectual David Sachs had a great like like tweet today noting that in South Korea, Eisenhower forced the South Koreans to stop fighting and that's what we need. Conveniently overlooking the fact that there have also been tens of thousands of American troops in South Korea ever since. Seem to not fully understand what he's wading into there.

Tommy Vitor (18:31)

Just wanted to note that guys drive me crazy. Okay? Speaking of wars, though, the trade war has finally arrived, it seems. On Tuesday, Trump slapped a 25 tariff on all exports from Canada and Mexico with the exception of being Canadian energy, which only got a 10 tariff. He also slapped another 10 tariff on Chinese imports. That comes on top of the previous 10 tariff. So the economic impact of these total tariffs is getting very real. Canada and Mexico accounted for about 40% of U. S imports and exports last year. And this stuff, this is like stuff we all use. Beer, oil, ag products. Tariffs will have a huge impact on automobile sales. I think nearly 40% of cars and trucks sold in the US are imported. And the Canadians quickly responded with tariffs of their own, starting with tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods. And they're going to slap an additional set of tariffs on $125 billion worth of more goods in about three weeks, I think. Here's a clip, Ben, of a very pissy outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaking at a press conference on Tuesday.

Unnamed Canadian Official (19:34)

So today the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they're talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense. I want to speak first directly to the American people. We don't want this. We want to work with you as a friend and ally and we don't want to see you hurt either. But your government has chosen to do this to you. As of this morning, markets are down and inflation is set to rise dramatically all across your country. Now, it's not in my habit to agree with the Wall Street Journal, but Donald, they point out that even though you're a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do.

Tommy Vitor (20:40)

Strong there from Trudeau.

Ben Rhodes (20:42)

I like pissy Trudeau.

Tommy Vitor (20:44)

I do, too.

Natasha Hall (20:44)

Great.

Ben Rhodes (20:44)

You know?

Tommy Vitor (20:45)

Yeah, a little context.

Ben Rhodes (20:46)

Finger translator for Trudeau.

Tommy Vitor (20:48)

A little bit of context just to help explain why he's so pissed. So the North American tariffs are ostensibly about pressuring Mexico and Canada to do more to stop migration and stop fentanyl trafficking into the US but southern border crossings are way down. Like, way, way, way, way down. In part because Mexico sent 10,000 troops to the border. And according to US Customs and Border Patrol, only 0.2% of all seizures of fentanyl entering the US are made at the Canadian border. So this is a made up problem to begin with. But despite that fact, when Trump first raised this in the in threatened tariffs a few months ago, Canada took a bunch of additional steps to limit fentanyl trafficking, including appointing a fentanyl czar. They're going to invest like $200 million in combating gangs to traffic fentanyl. And according to authorities, less than half an ounce of fentanyl was seized crossing the Canadian border in January. So it's all working pretty well. Mexico has also promised to retaliate. We're not sure how yet. So have the Chinese. With the Chinese Foreign Ministry tweeting, if war is what the US Wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war, or any other type of war, we're ready to fight till the end.

Ben Rhodes (21:51)

Yikes. Any other type of war kind of got my attention.

Tommy Vitor (21:55)

Me too.

Ben Rhodes (21:56)

I didn't eat any coffee this morning after I read that.

Tommy Vitor (21:58)

Yeah, so sometimes there's a method to Trump's madness on trade. I genuinely don't really get the end game here. You have any thoughts?

Ben Rhodes (22:05)

This is pure dumb fuckery. I do have thoughts about the end game. First of all, let's note that in the same way that Trump, you know, yes, Zelensky and Trudeau have in common, that they're leaders of democracies. Trump doesn't like democracy democracies. He doesn't like Zelensky because Zelensky actually has physical and personal courage, which Donald Trump does not. He doesn't like Justin Drew because Justin Drew is much better looking than him. I truly believe that's, like, part of the.

Tommy Vitor (22:29)

Okay, I'll take that.

Ben Rhodes (22:30)

He's a very handsome man. Yeah, he's got a sick bud. Let's go through this. So first of all, to your point, the Canadian angle of this has never made any sense, because you could at least think that, okay, these terrorists are pressuring Mexico to try to stop border crossings. That is not a problem at the northern border. Anybody who's Driven across that border, knows it's like a very orderly place. You know, there's not like fentanyl streaming across the border. And this is really dumb. And just to give people a sense of what this is going to do to your cost, 63% of US vegetables come from Mexico, right? That's your groceries. Those prices are going to go up. 60% of crude oil imports, United States come from Canada. That's going to make gas prices go up, particularly in the Midwest, particularly in Trump country, where they refine a lot of the Canadian crude. The US Automobile industry kind of operates wholly on supply chains, different parts and things that flow in from Mexico and Canada. And so the price of a car is going to go up dramatically. And the US Auto industry, saved by Barack Obama, is potentially going to suffer huge harm relative to their competitors because the cost of just making a car in the United States is going to go way up because of what Trump did. That's just a little bit of the economic impact that this could have. And look, if Trump calls it off in two days, cuz the market, I mean, what people should watch is Trump sometimes does seem to respond to the stock market. It's like one of the only things to check on his behavior.

Tommy Vitor (24:00)

Bad headlines and stocks.

Ben Rhodes (24:02)

But I don't even know what victory he's gonna claim. I don't either because there's nothing left for Canada to do. Remember, they appointed like the fentanyl czar and they pledged on a billion dollars to stop fentanyl when they're not even anything to stop. Which leads me to, you know, Trudeau said this a few times and he said it again today. He said that he thinks Trump's goal is to wreck the Canadian economy so he can annex Canada. I take that really seriously. You know, I mean, I don't think Trudeau's being hyperbolic there. He's dealt with Trump for a long time now. And there's no other rationale to me about why he's fucking with Canada so hard. I'm telling you, I've been doing deep reading in history. These guys like the territorial expansion becomes the game for these aging autocrats. And it explains why you would also run the bus over Zelensky to normalize Russia annexing 20% of Ukraine, like whether it's Greenland or Panama or Canada, you know, this repetition of Governor Trudeau, it's kind of not funny and dickish, but like, he seems to like really have something in mind for Canada and that should worry people. I don't think we're Gonna get there tomorrow. But I mean, four years of Trump. God only it's been less than two months, people. You have to use your imagination of where this thing could be in three years. And it's not inconceivable to me that he actually has territorial designs on Canada.

Tommy Vitor (25:26)

Not inconceivable. I think it'd be wildly unpopular.

Ben Rhodes (25:29)

Oh yeah, and I put this at a low probability, like single digits. But just the fact that it's not an insane thing for the Canadian Prime Minister to say, maybe this is what's going on. That shows you the kind of era that we're currently living.

Tommy Vitor (25:42)

Well, also shows you how it's being received in Canada. You know, it's gone from them, you know, booing the national anthem a couple times to like really pretty intense anti American sentiment. Understandably.

Ben Rhodes (25:54)

Well, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, canceled all Starlink contracts, canceled contracts with any U.S. companies. Like, Canadian nationalism is a weird. I've never seen it before. It's a weird thing.

Tommy Vitor (26:04)

It's wild.

Ben Rhodes (26:05)

But I mean, that's how much we're exporting. Nationalism.

Tommy Vitor (26:07)

Yeah. Good for us. Yeah. The International Chamber of Commerce has warned that this could sink the world into a new Great Depression.

Ben Rhodes (26:12)

So last time the 1930, the Smoot Hawley tariff, you know, didn't exactly get us out of the Great Depression. It got us a little deeper into it.

Tommy Vitor (26:21)

Named after Josh Hawley. Just kidding.

Ben Rhodes (26:23)

That was a really nerdy thing.

Tommy Vitor (26:24)

I apologize, Smoot Hawley.

Ben Rhodes (26:25)

I was doing a lot of tariff reading.

Tommy Vitor (26:27)

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Natasha Hall (28:08)

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Tommy Vitor (28:12)

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Ben Rhodes (28:21)

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Tommy Vitor (28:28)

The National Council for Mental well Being, Shatterproof and the AD Council. So we're, as you guys know, trying to keep a handle on the damage from the gutting of usaid. It's going to take years to assess the full damage, but you know, it is no exaggeration to say that right now people are dying because of these DOGE cuts to usaid. The New York Times published a piece last week listing some of the thousands of programs hit by the cuts. Among them are projects that vaccinate children from polio, conduct Ebola contact tracing and provide the only source of water for a quarter of a million people displaced in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Global Drug Facility, it's the world's largest source of tuberculosis medicine. It supplied TB meds for 3 million people, including 300,000 children. They have had their whole operational budget wiped out. In Nigeria, 60,000 kids under five are at immediate risk of death due to the gutting of the malnutrition program. The head of the Desmond Tutu HIV foundation in South Africa predicts that a half a million people will die in the next 10 years because the organizations that treat them have lost their grants. There are just too many programs and stats to name here, Ben. But when you see Elon Musk claim that no one has died or no one will die, just realize how brazenly dishonest that man is.

Ben Rhodes (29:49)

No, that's just a lie. I mean, because it stands to reason if you're giving life saving nutritional assistance to people in a famine in Sudan. If you're giving life saving drugs to people in places like South Africa and you stop giving those things to those people, they will die.

Tommy Vitor (30:03)

There's no bad dying.

Ben Rhodes (30:04)

People have already died because of Doge and many, many more people. When we say many, we're talking potentially millions of people will die because of this. And the other piece of this that I think people don't fully appreciate is usaid, imperfect as it was. And, you know, we'll have to build a new and better development agency under the next Democratic president was a force multiplier because they would give a certain amount of funding that kind of allowed for an organization to grow around that funding.

Tommy Vitor (30:33)

Right.

Ben Rhodes (30:34)

And so, you know, other philanthropies or other countries would kind of come on, on top of usaid. And it's kind of a rug pull, to use the phrase, we're using a lot on this pod where if you remove the USAID funding, those organizations collapse. And so you lose not just a USAID funding, you lose the other funding that went into that organization on top of usaid. Also, because of the Europeans needing to ramp up their defense spending, they're cutting their development budget. So the Brits said that they're gonna basically find the savings in their development budget to fund their military, which is.

Tommy Vitor (31:09)

Because of a Trump demand. Because of a Trump demand, Keir Starmer wanted to go to the White House and be able to deliver to Trump a tiny, but an increase in defense spending.

Ben Rhodes (31:17)

Yeah, so this is gonna ripple out. I know a lot of people that run kind of small NGOs that rely on USAID funding. Those NGOs might go under because of the withdrawal of USAID funding. And again, that means that you're losing more than just USAID impact. It's going to kind of reverberate for years through the kind of global development and philanthropic community. And real people are going to die. Real people are going to suffer. There's going to be more instability, there's going to be more disease, more things, more migration of people, by the way, like all the things that Trump says he wants to stop.

Tommy Vitor (31:47)

And all the people who work locally for these organizations in these afflicted parts of the world suddenly are out of a job and have nothing to do. I mean, it's a.

Ben Rhodes (31:54)

And they're like the best people. You know, it's.

Tommy Vitor (31:55)

Yeah, the mindshare we're losing. And also, you know, this brings us to these memos that were written by a USAID employee named Nicholas Enrich. So until recently, he was the acting administrator for Global Health. He wrote a couple memos kind of laying out the barriers put in place to actually implement these waivers that Marco Rubio said had been issued for life saving programs. But he says the issues in actually implementing the waiver came from, quote, the refusal to pay for assistance, activities conducted or goods and services rendered, the blockage and restriction of access to USAID's payment systems, followed by the creation of new ineffective processes for payments, the ever changing guidance as to what qualifies as life saving and whose approval is needed in making that decision, and most recently, the sweeping terminations of the most critical implementing mechanisms necessary for providing life saving services. But besides, that is all going good, Marco. He specifically pinned the failures on, quote, political leadership that will no doubt result in preventable death, destabilization and threats to national security on a massive scale. And for his candor, this man was put on leave, of course, of course, out of the organization. ProPublica also wrote a piece about how the U.S. government is refusing to pay about $2 billion worth of work for services already rendered. So it's just, like, hard to think of a more perfectly Trumpian policy than stiffing humanitarian groups doing life saving work for stuff they've already done.

Ben Rhodes (33:17)

Yeah, that they're probably, you know, operating on a tight margin again so they could put those people out of business. I mean, what all this shows you is there's this kind of combination of not caring and not understanding. Like, they don't give a shit that what they're doing is going to cause people to die. And they also just don't even understand what they're cutting. And, you know, just following John's, you know, back and forth and with Elon on X, you know, he wants to present it as, oh, no, I'm actually gonna save that program. It's like what he said, you know, when we found out we stopped Ebola, we turned it back as if that's like some great thing. Talk about the least fucking efficient thing in the world. I know the efficient thing would be to not kill the program and to, like, look at this thing.

Tommy Vitor (34:01)

Understand it first.

Ben Rhodes (34:02)

Yeah, understand it first and then select what you want to cut. Just like it's massively inefficient to just cut everything and then be like, oh, shit, we better have the Ebola people. Like, someone go find them and rehire them. Like, this is idiocy masquerading as competence, and it's cruel at its core.

Tommy Vitor (34:22)

Yeah. And like, these programs are complicated. They're funded in weird ways. Like, you're like, why is HHS actually paying for this program that USAID administers? I don't. Like, there's inefficiency. There's things we should change and streamline and improve. But the fact that Elon just, like, stormed in there with a bunch of 19 year olds who are fluent in, like, using big data sets and AI, and they decided they just understood how everything worked and they just destroyed it all and then tried to piece it back together after just. You're right. It's like the height of stupidity.

Ben Rhodes (34:50)

And what they're going to find out, too, is that there's billions of dollars that goes to, like, American farmers to buy the food that we send over. So it's going to screw a lot of Americans in that way.

Tommy Vitor (34:58)

You know what I always think of? You just mentioned David Sacks. David Sachs does a podcast called the All In Podcast with some other terrible people. One of them, this guy named Chamath, who infamously said that caring about the weaker genocide was below his line. He just didn't care. And it does seem like that mindset is just kind of permeated the entire US Government now. It's. It's not just that, you know, we can't do everything. We're gonna have to be able to fund some things and not others. It's like, you know what? I just don't give a shit. So it doesn't matter to me, anything.

Ben Rhodes (35:26)

That doesn't enrich these guys is below the line.

Tommy Vitor (35:29)

Yeah, if you're not doing like a pump and dump spac. He doesn't care about it. Okay, let's talk about some other odious characters. Similar, not equally odious, far more odious, the Tate brothers. So I guess half the audience is probably like, who are these guys? The other half, the kid. The listeners who have teenage kids are like, I fucking hate that guy.

Ben Rhodes (35:47)

Yeah.

Tommy Vitor (35:47)

So some context. Andrew Tate is. He's a former kickboxer turned social media influencer. He says racist, anti Semitic, misogynistic things all the time on purpose. Andrew and Tristan Tate were charged with rape and human trafficking by the Romanian government. Andrew Tate has also been accused of battery and sexual assault by women in the UK. Andrew Tate first broke into the mainstream in 2016 when he went on the British reality show Big Brother. Got kicked off the show halfway through. These British authorities were investigating him for rape allegations. Andrew and his brother then started the webcam business, which evolved into this massive social media following. And videos featuring Andrew Tate have literally been viewed like tens of billions of times, I think he was the most Googled person for one month in 2022. So he's just massive following. And they've parlay that social media following into creating these online universities that sound like kind of like Trump University pyramid schemes. He's also created kind of like, retreats and seminars that are almost cult like, where, like, these men pay thousands of dollars to fly to Romania to hang out with Andrew Tate and, like, fight each other and do all this weird shit. There's this amazing Vice documentary that's on YouTube, came out a couple years ago, if you want to go deeper. This reporter literally, like, got in the ring and physically fought with some kickboxer as a way to, like, earn his way into more access to Tate's events. But anyway, so Andrew Tate has been kicked off of various social media sites, but, like, nothing has dented his influence and popularity. And the reason this matters is because this guy is massively popular with teenage boys. You have teachers in the UK who've had to put together, like, specific programs to combat the proliferation of his views in British elementary and high schools. There have been surveys that found 80% of British boys aged 16 to 17 had watched Andrew Tate videos. There were similar surveys showing he had huge influence among Australian boys. And on top of that, he's, like, big in the cpac alt right, like, manosphere world. And so, despite all that context, last month, the Tate brothers were allowed to travel to the US The Romanian government reportedly lifted its travel ban on the Tates after pressure from the Trump administration, specifically from friend of the pod, Rick Grinnell, who apparently, like, rode them to do this. So Tate's a huge Trump fan. The kind of reach around here is he says wonderful things about Donald all the time and attacks his opponents. Trump claims to know nothing about his administration pressuring the Romanian government, but, like, this is just another example of the way this man is just poisoning the culture.

Ben Rhodes (38:20)

And this is what America prioritizes around the world, because nobody outside the United States who's any familiarity with this case and with Andrew Tate believes that Trump or like, the Trump administration didn't make this happen. The guy was no doubt locked up for a long time, you know, under house arrest, and. And all of a sudden, now he's at Miami back doing pods. I actually just looked, you know, if you peruse his Twitter, just to make sure people don't think you're inaccurate in your summary. He's literally just posted something by himself on a podcast, not this podcast, in the last 24 hours, saying, quote, the Average white family has a different approach to their financial stability and emotional investment towards children than Third Worlders. You can call me racist all you want. Third Worlders will just have kids without saying, can I afford this kid? And Andrew Tate reposted that.

Tommy Vitor (39:10)

Yeah, I just saw him. He was on the Patrick Bet David podcast, which is kind of like a right wing manosphere thing. This posted a few hours ago. They were doing a breakdown of the Zelensky Trump meeting and he was making this really misogynistic analysis of European leaders and blah, blah, blah, blah. So.

Ben Rhodes (39:26)

Yes, well, I, I mean, the, the other thing is the read up. I mean, the rape allegations are beyond credible.

Tommy Vitor (39:34)

Watch the Vice documentary.

Ben Rhodes (39:35)

Absolutely horrifying. And he kind of celebrates this rape culture, so it's not like something he shies away from. And, and so if you have, have a son, you don't want it to be like entertainment. You don't want him to be like entertainment. If you have a daughter, like I do and you do, like, I don't want my daughters to be around people like that. The one thing I'll say that's remarkable to me, Tommy, is the, you know, we don't talk that much about QAnon. It's always like the people that are most on the nose as to what the QAnon people say they're fighting, who seem to become heroes.

Tommy Vitor (40:05)

Oh, I know.

Ben Rhodes (40:06)

You know, of course, like, like this man is involved in sex trafficking and child. Or like allegedly. I know we have to say, you know, but like, this guy is as everything that that movement says it's fighting. But then they celebrate him because he doesn't like the libs or something.

Tommy Vitor (40:22)

Well, Trump lets the Silk Road guy.

Ben Rhodes (40:24)

Yeah.

Tommy Vitor (40:24)

Out of prison. Who, you know, maybe you could argue his sentence was too long, but there was like the Silk Road, which is this, you know, early online site on the, on like the Tor network where you could buy all kinds of child pornography and drugs and like, like all the things that these sort of right wing MAGA types say they're trying to fight against.

Ben Rhodes (40:42)

Yeah, yeah, that's their idea of free speech, I guess.

Tommy Vitor (40:45)

But it's disgusting. But yeah, no, it's good to know that our diplomatic dollars are going towards.

Ben Rhodes (40:50)

Well, Rick Grinnell, the acting President, Kennedy center too. Like, among other hats that he wears.

Tommy Vitor (40:56)

There'S a rumor that Rick Cornell might get tapped to play some sort of diplomatic role in Ukraine.

Ben Rhodes (41:01)

I mean, it's just because he's a troll. So Trump lets him troll around. He'll troll Ukraine, he'll troll you know, the arts in this country. He'll troll people that don't like Andrew Tate. Like, that's all Rick Grenell does.

Tommy Vitor (41:12)

Yeah, it's good stuff.

Ben Rhodes (41:13)

And he riches himself along the way.

Tommy Vitor (41:14)

Yeah, I'm sure he's.

Ben Rhodes (41:15)

And deals with Jared Kushner.

Tommy Vitor (41:16)

Lots of cash with Jared Kushner. All right. Speaking of the sort of special representatives running around the world for Trump, let's talk about Gaza. Because on Sunday, Israel stopped all humanitarian aid from going into Gaza in an effort to pressure Hamas into accepting revised ceasefire terms. International aid groups, the un, Arab countries, Egypt, Qatar, they all condemn the move, but the White House supports it. This comes after phase one of the Gaza ceasefire officially ended this past Saturday. Phase two was supposed to be negotiated during phase one, but I don't think those talks ever even started.

Ben Rhodes (41:47)

No.

Tommy Vitor (41:47)

At least they never got off the ground. In lieu of phase two, Israel said it agreed to a different proposal that they said came from Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle east envoy. Under Witkoff's plan, the ceasefire would continue for seven weeks, until mid April through Ramadan and Passover. Half of the remaining hostages would would be released on day one of the extension, the other half when a permanent ceasefire agreement is reached. Hamas refused to accept this deal. They want to stick to the original framework, not surprisingly, those painstakingly negotiated. So Israel has ramped up pressure on them by closing the crossings into Gaza. In response, Hamas said the decision to suspend humanitarian aid is cheap blackmail, a war crime, and a blatant coup against the ceasefire agreement. According to the BBC, 4,200 trucks a week had been going into Gaza. Now that number is zero, and food prices are already spiking, and things could get worse. The Israeli public broadcaster Khan reported that the Netanyahu government has what they're calling a hell plan, which entails cutting off water and electricity to Gaza, displacing people again from the north and sending them the south, and prepping to resume fighting. So according to the Guardian, Hamas is also prepping for a return to war by harvesting explosives from unexploded Israeli bombs to use as weapons. So really, really ominous.

Ben Rhodes (43:01)

Perfect encapsulation of the one element of the stupidity of Israeli policies that all they drop so many bombs that their own bombs that were provided by the US will then be used against them. I mean, it just. You can't encapsulate the cycle of violence any clearer than that. I think we just need to be clear. There's so much happening in the world. This is a war crime, you know, you, you, you. Cutting off all assistance to a, you know, besieged people is against international law. Like, again, and nobody seems to give a shit. The court, they would investigate that. The ICC is being sanctioned by Trump. So this is what it feels like to live in a world with no rules. You know, for all of Joe Biden's many, many, many problems, particularly on this issue, at least six months ago, people would have, like, paid attention to this. Now it's like, oh, yeah, there are no rules. Israel, I mean, you know, Israel right now is, has invaded an occupied part of Syria and like, Trump administration's fine with that. They cut off all assistance to Gaza. Like, this is what, what a world without rules feels like. We, we, we live in it fully now.

Tommy Vitor (44:13)

And Trump, they just, they just bypassed Congress to send another 4 billion worth of weapons to Israel, including 35,000, 2,000 pound bombs. I think that gets it to the shipments under the Trump administration to 12 billion total. So, again, like, yeah, I know the Biden administration policy was terrible. I am surprised at this point that there are no. Maybe once the fighting resumes, there will be a series of protests again.

Ben Rhodes (44:36)

Well, it doesn't help the Trump, like, truth the other day that, you know, he's gonna cut all funding to any school, there's a protest and deport the people. This, all this connects. I will, I will say to the people that, you know, were okay with, like, you know, cracking down on those protests and like, you that plowed some ground for this, you know, like, here we are. This is what it feels like, and it's not good.

Tommy Vitor (45:00)

Yeah. Okay. We're gonna take a quick break, but before we do, Ben, we got some exciting news. Our book imprint, Crooked Media Reads, has a new novel coming out. It's called Woodworking by Yellowjackets writer and culture commentator Emily St. James. It's out now, wherever you get your books.

Ben Rhodes (45:16)

All right.

Tommy Vitor (45:17)

I know you're. Are you a Yellow Jackets fan?

Ben Rhodes (45:19)

Yeah.

Tommy Vitor (45:20)

My sister was really into that show. It sounded scary. It's like kids killing each other and shit.

Ben Rhodes (45:24)

Anyway, Dark Times.

Tommy Vitor (45:25)

The Woodworking is an unforgettable and heartwarming debut following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows, one of her students. Students. The five star Goodreads reviews are already pouring in and Woodworking is featured on them and AV Club's most anticipated books of the 2025 lists. Publishers Weekly says St. James enthralls with her depiction of what it's like to be trans in a conservative and insular community and the courage it takes for people to openly be themselves. Get your copy of Woodworking right now@crooked.com Books Foreign Save the World is brought to you by Acorns. They say money can't buy you happiness. That might be true, but money can make you feel a lot of other things like stressed, guilty, overwhelmed. That's because when you're not in control of your money, your money can control you. Acorns is a financial wellness app that helps you take control of your money with simple tools that make it easy to start saving and investing for your future. You don't have to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that matches you and your money goals. You don't have to be rich. Acorns lets you get started with the spare money you've got right now. Even if all you've got is spare change, you can create an Acorns account and start investing in just five minutes. Financial wellness doesn't have to feel impossible. Acorns gives you small, simple steps to get you and your money on track. Basically, Acorns does the hard part so you can give your money a chance to grow. If I already have one piece of advice to the young people out there, it start saving early. Because when you save early compounds over time and you'll be very, very happy you did it. It Acorns is a great way to just get yourself in a routine of putting a couple bucks a week or a month or whatever you can afford into savings so they can grow. You won't even miss it. And a few years from now if you need to, you know, pay for a house or do something big, it will be there for you. Ready to take control of your money? Sign up now and join over 14 million all time customers who have already saved and invested over $25 billion with Acorns. Head to acorns.com world or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns Tier 1 compensation provided investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures@acorns.com World skipping cold and.

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Tommy Vitor (48:06)

A couple big stories out of Latin America that we wanted to highlight. So we've talked a couple times, Ben, about Trump's obsession with the Panama Canal. He claims the canal is controlled by China. It's not. It's controlled by a Panamanian government. But for about 30 years, two ports on either side of the canal have been owned by a Hong Kong based company called CK Hutchinson. Earlier today, we learned that CK Hutchinson has agreed to a deal to sell over 40 ports to a consortium of buyers led by BlackRock. It's a $23 billion deal that includes two ports in Panama. So, Ben, reading about this did make me wonder if political pressure from Trump forced the deal to happen or if Trump knew this deal was in the works, which is why he started talking about it, so he could take credit. I don't know if I'm bringing too much red string to the broadcast, though.

Ben Rhodes (48:50)

Well, I mean, look, this is what's so dumb about all this. In the same way that the critical minerals from Ukraine are not really the game changer that Trump is casting them as. I don't think a Hong Kong based port management company no longer managing a couple of, you know, stations on the Panama Canal makes a shit bit of difference to anything in the world. It's all just this kind of optics of like, you know, Trump is getting the Chinese out of the Panama Canal when it's, you know, just like some port management company, which, by the way, probably made a lot of money in the BlackRock, too. Like, like CK Hutchison is doing just fine.

Tommy Vitor (49:28)

Yeah, 23B.

Ben Rhodes (49:29)

Yeah, I think.

Tommy Vitor (49:29)

Not bad.

Ben Rhodes (49:30)

Yeah, I think 23B is fine. It's probably a little higher than they paid for the port. You know, maybe they did a couple renovations like, you know, to drive the valuation. So there's an absurdity to all this. And nor do I think that this will end his fixation on the Panama Canal. And this is what leaders around the world need to get. You give Trump his pound of flesh, he'll come back for more. You know, then he'll come back and say, we want to operate the canal or we want to, you know, Americans don't have to pay to go through there. And so, you know, it's tough for panel because they're a small country, but. But I don't think this is going to reduce the degree to which he still fancies the canal there.

Tommy Vitor (50:06)

No. And also last week we talked about the US Using Panama as a staging ground for deporting Migrants. We just wanted to flag that. A group of lawyers that brought a case against Panama in front of the Inter American Commission on Human Rights, arguing that Panama has violated the American Convention on Human Rights by detaining these migrants. And then there's a specific argument around these 10 Christian Iranian converts who should qualify for asylum because they could be put to death for converting under Iranian law. So that. That's sort of in the mix. There's lots of legal challenges now happening to these immigration measures put forward by Trump.

Ben Rhodes (50:42)

Yeah. And, well, one, you know, in the end of the day, of course, it won't be the US that suffers. It'll be like Panama that suffers for just having to be dragged along with our inhumane deportation policy.

Tommy Vitor (50:53)

Yeah. Also in the courts, the Supreme Court is going to hear a case from Mexico this week about whether American gun companies can be held liable for cartel violence committed using their weapons. So Mexican authorities say 70 to 90% of guns found at crime scenes in the country are trafficked from America. In total, about $170 million worth of guns are trafficked from the US to Mexico each year. The case challenges decades of precedent involving the Second Amendment. Federal law protects gun manufacturers from liability. Why it shouldn't. Oral arguments happened the morning of this recording, and it looks bad for Mexico, with both liberal and conservative justices questioning the validity of their argument. But for more on the case, check out this week's Monday's episode of our Supreme Court podcast, Trick Scrutiny. But then, you know, I read about this, and I could imagine Claudia Shanebaum saying, I'm slapping tariffs on all US Policies until the White House addresses the scourge of US Guns coming into Mexico. And that would be completely valid.

Ben Rhodes (51:53)

Yeah, the cartels just come in here and buy up a bunch of AR15s and stuff totally legally, and just take them across the border, and that's how they arm themselves. You know, it's not that complicated. I mean, there's, there's like a, There's a sickness in the United States that, you know, people, you, you do have to look at this country from the outside in. I mean, the, the, the, the Chinese, you know, and I'm, I'm very critical of the Chinese Communist Party. But in that statement that we referenced earlier, for instance, they, they were kind of like guys like the fentanyl crisis is your crisis. You know, like, they're not all these other countries with, you know, there's something broken in your society, and, and instead of trying to fix it, you come over here and tell us that we have to like, do all these things, you're going to tariff us, you're going to drown us, you know, And. And the same is true here. Like, we are buying the drugs from Mexico and sending the weapons the cartels because we can't have rational gun laws. And then we're punishing these other countries for things demand that comes from within the United States or guns that are available from the United States. Like, we would do the world a much bigger favor if we just fixed ourselves than anything else we could do. Rational gun laws, like addressing the crisis of belonging is driving people to fentanyl, you know, like legalize drugs so people can just buy some fucking gummies down the street instead of having to, you know, buy them from a fucking cartel. Like, there are fixes to these things that are not trade wars.

Tommy Vitor (53:29)

Yeah, or the CIA flying drones or.

Ben Rhodes (53:32)

Yeah, or the CIA like, doing regime.

Tommy Vitor (53:33)

Change, you know, One other story, last one out of Latin America. So bad news for anyone who's hoping for a, you know, broader rapprochement between the US And Venezuela. So Trump is officially ending Chevron's oil license in Venezuela and giving them 30 days to end their operations there. So, pretty quick, just some history on this. Chevron has been operating in Venezuela for more than 100 years. During Trump's first term, the administration told Chevron to wind down operations as they put in sanctions in place against the Maduro government. Then in 2022, the Biden administration renewed Chevron's license to operate in Venezuela and provided some sanctions relief in this deal that was designed to incentivize Venezuela to hold free and fair elections. Fast forward to last year's elections. That didn't work. They were globally criticized for being rigged. The leading opposition figure wasn't even allowed to run. But the Biden team never rescinded Chevron's license. I think they probably wanted that oil flowing into global supply. When gas prices were high, when Trump was elected and Marco Rubio became Secretary of State, I think I assumed that it was only a matter of time until Trump went back to like, kind of a maximum pressure, maximum sanction policy on Venezuela. But then, surprisingly, Chevron got a brief reprieve. Rick Cornell flew to Venezuela to bring back six Americans who had been in prison. So the question is, okay, what changed? According to a really interesting story in Axios, two things you don't usually hear together. No, they do pretty good work. It was parochial Florida politics. These three Cuban members of Congress basically forced Trump's hand. They threatened to withhold their votes on the House budget deal unless Trump canceled the license to allow Venezuela oil exports to the US So it's just like I knew bringing this up would trigger you to the moon because it's just amazing that an entire hemisphere is determined.

Ben Rhodes (55:27)

By the parochial Miami politics, South Florida Republican members of Congress that nobody's heard of. You know, I mean, we talk about AIPAC on this show and the influence of the Israel lobby. This is like the AIPAC of the Western hemisphere. The fact that we outsource to like literally a few neighborhoods in South Florida, our entire Latin America policy, crazy, because these people have a multi decade personal vendetta against the Cuban Communist Party is absolutely fucking insane. And by the way, like, there's an inflation theme to today's show because I can tell you, like taking Chevron oil from Venezuela off the market on top of your trade war is not going to dislodge Maduro. It's not going to lead to democracy in Venezuela. It's not going to be some bang shot that hurts the Cubans, but it is going to raise prices for Americans who buy gas. So congratulations, you know, like, what are we doing here?

Tommy Vitor (56:33)

I'm so confused by it all, the totality of it.

Ben Rhodes (56:35)

Well, they just, they seem to not think that any rules apply to them in terms of like, if you do X, Y will happen in the economy and we're already seeing prices go up and the market go down and job losses and then you're going to get the impact the federal government. If you were trying to crash the U.S. economy, Tommy, you would literally do everything that they're doing. You would start a trade war. You would gut the federal government. You'd like plow like money into unregulated crypto markets. Like, they're good. And actually maybe the best case scenario is like an economic crash that kind of wakes this country up and so we don't have to get into a war to be woken up or something, or a pandemic. But this is, this is crazy.

Tommy Vitor (57:18)

No, the real problem is Zelensky didn't wear a suit.

Ben Rhodes (57:22)

That's the kind of thing we're pissed about.

Tommy Vitor (57:23)

I'm upset about that final thing. We often end with something fun and light. Haven't really seen a lot of it lately. The world's not feeling. So I just heard this amazing story about a heroic person, Ben, that I wanted to tell you about. So rest in peace to this Australian man named James Harrison. Oam. Incredible story, right? So this guy was an Australian blood donor. He saved himself 2.4 million babies by donating his rare plasma, he. He was like. He had this rare antibody called anti D. And so he donated blood 1173 times. I think he donated like every two weeks since the age of 18. And in the, in, in so doing like saved literally millions of people himself. Like when he traveled, he would find a place to donate blood abroad.

Ben Rhodes (58:13)

I mean, this is the kind of Australian ingenuity that we celebrate on this podcast.

Tommy Vitor (58:18)

You know, it's a funny thing in like, in a, in a just world, we wouldn't have to endure all these speeches about the brutalist.

Ben Rhodes (58:26)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy Vitor (58:26)

Cinematography and it'd be like, yeah, you know, events about guys like this.

Ben Rhodes (58:30)

But yeah, this guy I'm talking about bonafide hero. He's like A1MAN USAID, you know, I mean, just to close on that note, on the Oscars, I mean. Did you watch the Oscars? No, I watched every minute.

Tommy Vitor (58:43)

You like it?

Ben Rhodes (58:44)

You know, I. I was kind of rooting for Nora. I thought it was the best movie I saw last year. And then I was like, I don't know if it should win all the awards. It was like a little over the top. Yeah, like he. Sean Baker won four alone. Director, editor, screenplay, fit, picture. I mean, you would have thought this was like Citizen Kane or something. A. It's a good movie about a Russian oligarch and a. You know, and power dynamics in Brooklyn. You know, it's great, but it felt a little much.

Tommy Vitor (59:12)

I'll check it out. I don't think I've seen any of the Oscar movies this year.

Ben Rhodes (59:17)

Well, clearly your daughter is not old enough for Wicked yet, because I know every word to Wicked now because my daughters sing it constantly in the car. And when the Oscars opened with Ariana Grande, it was like, that's solid. It was like, you know, I mean, for all the unhappiness in the world for that. For 10 minutes with Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, we were, we were back.

Tommy Vitor (59:42)

In that life was good in your house. We tried to put on Moana the other day and see if we could get Lizzie to watch. She's not there yet.

Ben Rhodes (59:47)

It's my favorite. She's. I fucking love Moana.

Tommy Vitor (59:49)

I'm excited for when she's just into Disney.

Ben Rhodes (59:51)

I still make them watch it. They don't even want to watch anymore. They're getting older. I'm like, can we watch Moana tonight? Like, I just. I cry in Moana. It's really good.

Tommy Vitor (59:58)

It's good.

Ben Rhodes (59:58)

It's a good movie. I'm talking about.

Tommy Vitor (60:00)

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Ben Rhodes (61:57)

All right. We are very pleased to welcome back to Pod Save of the World, Natasha hall, who's a senior fellow in the Middle east program at the center for Strategic and International Studies, known to those in the know as csis. Natasha, welcome back to POTSI of the World.

Natasha Hall (62:11)

Thanks for having me, Ben.

Ben Rhodes (62:12)

So we wanted to have you on because in normal times, what's happening in Syria would be a massive story. We keep getting, obviously, focused on whatever Trump's doing. But we wanted to check in with you on a number of things, particularly the situation with Israel. But just to start, you know, we last had you on when this new government was just taking power or seizing power. Now, you know, you've got a pretty established transitional government. Last week, there was a national dialogue conference at which they sought to demonstrate an inclusive form of governance. You've seen this kind of flurry of diplomacy with other Arab leaders. This past Sunday, there was an announcement. There's a committee that's going to draft a constitutional declaration. How do you assess the current moves of the government? I mean, it's obviously like early days. But what do you see that is making you optimistic? And what are you seeing that is making you concerned?

Natasha Hall (63:10)

I mean, much like the entire Syrian war, what makes me optimistic is Syrians and what makes me pessimistic is all of the external factors that are basically keeping down Syrians from charting their own path towards a better future. I mean, to be. To be really blunt and frank, you say it's early days. It's somewhat early days, but we haven't seen any serious discussion about the sanctions that remain on Syria that were primarily for the previous regime, which no longer exists. Nothing on terrorism designations. These are things that really paralyze the country from external investment. Qatar recently said that it would increase public sector salaries, for example, by 400%. And then finally it came out that apparently they're not because they're afraid of the Trump administration and U.S. sanctions. And at the same time, you're seeing these massive aid cuts really across the board from Europe and then obviously from the United States as well. And so it's, you know, there's a lot of challenges that the new government is facing in addition to all of these geopolitical issues, which I think at the end of the day are going to be sort of the demise. And I think, and I think that those are very much connected to the fact that you haven't seen a lot of movement or really any movement on Syria policy on the US Side, because we do see Israel, you sort of alluded to it, not just invading the country and occupying certain areas, but really trying to cause turmoil, tension within the country and apparently lobbying the United States to allow Russia to come back to its bases and to really sort of, I think, keep the. The country weak and divided. So a lot of challenges here for the new government. The national dialogue Conference that you were talking about. There was a lot of complaints that maybe we can get into. But there was a lot of positives too, including I think, actually those that were part of the Constitutional Committee, which are real serious, I think civil society heavy hitters.

Ben Rhodes (65:17)

Yeah, I mean, let's. Maybe we'll come back to that at the end. But I do think we have to focus on the geopolitics because that, like you said, everything in Syria has been shaped by external actors. And I guess could you just explain to people who may not be following this that closely just the extent of what Israel is doing in southern Syria as well as in addition to kind of military operations. Prime Minister Netanyahu started to describe essentially kind of a weak, demilitarized Syria that Israel can push around at will. What is happening in southern Syria and why would you tell people that's important?

Natasha Hall (66:01)

Yeah, well, I'm actually going to go back to maybe even November. So before the fall of Assad, you saw a lot of discussions from Israel, from the supporters of Israel, talking about really trying to build links with the Druze community in the south of Syria, with the Kurds in the north. And a lot of this had to do with Syria or with Israel trying to create a security corridor in the south. But in the north, it had a lot to do with the weakening ties between Turkey and Israel over the Gaza situation. So in May, you saw Erdogan, President erdogan suspend this $8 billion trade agreement. There's been, you know, a lot of more pro Palestinian rhetoric in Turkey. And Israel was essentially trying to use its pre existing ties with the Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria to try to sort of build that kind of divide, create a security corridor. That security corridor also worked for pushing against obviously Iranian influence in the country as well. Then you have the fall of Assad. And immediately, within 48 hours, Israel launches 500 attacks on Syria, by some estimates eliminating 70 to 80% of Syria's military strategic capabilities. This is an enormous challenge for a new country as well, that's trying to create security within the country that is essentially ruled by still a foreign designated terrorist organization. So who's going to replace a lot of that security capabilities for a country like Syria? Probably no one, except for maybe Russia. And so you immediately had Russia come in and really try to reestablish ties with the new government, which is pretty astounding given Russia's very close alliance with the Assad regime throughout all of this, essentially bombarding most of Syria for the past 10 years. And this was because of the challenges that the New government faces. And then fast forward to the past few weeks and you continue to see more attacks. You saw an attack just yesterday on what appears to be some kind of new government Turkey naval patrol. But you also have, and this is, I think the thing that you're alluding to is essentially the invasion of Syria past the Golan Heights, past the demilitarized zone that was established in 1974, and retaking essentially Mount Hermon, which is a very strategic point. It's the highest point in the eastern Mediterranean area, about 9,200 meters, and actually taking the upstream waters from the Wahda Dam, which is something that Syria shares with Jordan, so also affecting Jordan's water security downstream, which I don't see any reporting on that for some reason, and then gradually moving further and further in. And so you have, you know, some, some raids going on still in the south. Netanyahu has come out and, and so have other members of his cabinet saying that the southern areas of Syria need to be completely demilitarized. I mean, these are three governorates of a, of, of a country. And so it's, you know, that the actions alone were pretty astounding. And then in very recent days, you had Israeli cabinet officials essentially, you know, reaching out to the Jerusalem community saying you can work in the occupied Golan Heights for 75, $100 a day, which is, you know, three months of salary in Syria right now. And you also have them sort of stirring up unrest, suggesting that, you know, the Druze community is under threat and that Israel will come to support and protect the Druze if the new government harms them. This is a situation where Israel is essentially creating a problem that doesn't exist, though it doesn't seem like the Druze are under threat at all. And so it, it sort of remains to be seen what's going to happen from all of this. But certainly in the initial phases, it has failed and actually united the Druze community, I think, with the larger Syrian community in a lot of these protests against sort of Israeli occupation.

Ben Rhodes (70:43)

So, I mean, you're describing essentially the invasion of a sovereign country and the seizing of its resources. This may confuse some people, right, because they think, well, I thought Assad was part of the axis of resistance. And obviously, you can see why there may be trepidation about Ahmed Al Shara, the new leader of Syria, and he's an Islamist. But in reality, I don't think there's anybody that believes that this new Syrian government's, like, preparing for war with Israel or something. What do you assess to be Israel's objective? I mean, you mentioned it may be that they're wary of an Islamist government. It may be that they're in a geopolitical competition with Erdogan. But it also seems like, is this a land grab? Like, are they just trying to kind of acquire more resources and use this kind of Druze thing as an excuse for it? I can also see why kind of casting Syria back into a weak, failed state might not be good for Israel's security. But what is your best guess at what the Israeli interests are that they're acting on? And what are the tools available to the Syrian government to deal with this? Mainly, I've seen them kind of try to reach out to Arab states and get unity, but it's not like that has kind of affected Israel's behavior that much in other contexts. But. But how do you see the Israeli intention here?

Natasha Hall (72:13)

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a bit of all of the above from the issues that you listed. And this is not really a new strategy either. I've been recently reading a Syrian author called El Mahout who basically jokes, how much buffer does Israel need to feel safe? And he says, do they need Syria, do they need Lebanon, do they need Bosnia, do they need Northern Europe? And so on and so forth. This was a book that was published in 1987. So this is not, this isn't sort of a new sort of doctrine. I think in addition to that, you do have this, you know, periphery doctrine that people are discussing more now from, you know, Ben Gurion days, 1950s, where essentially Israel tries to create alliances with either non Arab or non Muslim communities around the Arab world to sort of, you know, have stalwart alliances with those that might feel under threat. So in many cases, this has not worked, but it certainly has worked to a certain extent with, you know, the Maronites in Lebanon, the Kurds, and now especially in Syria, but also I would say unofficially with the KRG in Iraq. And so, and now they're, you know, they're trying to do it with the Druze community in the south. So this is not really a new strategy per se. You know, I think Israel feels very much emboldened by the past year and a half, if not more. And especially so with the Trump administration, who seems to be, you know, really giving Israel carte blanche, even worse than the Biden administration, which is saying a lot. And so, you know, they're taking what they can get while they get it. And I mean, I agree with you that it seems a little bit Counterintuitive. Why would you want an unstable, divided country on your flank, especially ruled by at least what you perceive to be and would have been calling a sort of a terrorist organization? We can argue about that. But, you know, I think Ashara, who's like the new sort of interim president, let's say, of. Of. Of Syria, is. Is well aware of these challenges, and I think he probably hoped that he could, you know, reassure Israel. And, you know, in statements, he's explicitly said he's not seeking a war with Israel, he's not seeking any kind of violence along that border. They're hoping to secure the border and consolidate power, monopolize violence, like those kinds of things, to reassure Israel that, you know, they would be safe. That clearly, you know, has not reassured Israel, though. And so we see all of these, you know, essentially land grabs.

Ben Rhodes (75:03)

Yeah, well, moving around the map here, there's also the issue of the Kurds in northern and eastern Syria. In Turkey, the pkk, which has been involved in a civil conflict with the Turkish government for decades, declared a ceasefire. There's still this kind of question. The Kurds seem the most reluctant to kind of come underneath the umbrella of the transitional government in Syria. What is the impact of the Turkish dynamic with Kurds inside of Turkey? And where do things currently stand with the Syrian Kurds?

Natasha Hall (75:43)

Yeah, so this is a very interesting, but also complex dynamic that goes back decades, unfortunately. But so essentially what you had first is the pkk, which has been essentially at war with turkey since the 1980s. The leader of that group that has been under house arrest since, I think, the late 90s 98, basically calling for the PKK to lay down their arms, which is a pretty big deal. The last time we saw any kind of rapprochement or attempt at that was 2015 between Turkey and the PKK, and that fell apart this time. You actually see, I mean, the PKK is a bit divided between more extreme elements and more moderate elements. So the more moderate elements are going along with this. The more extreme elements are, you know, voicing their concerns. But Erdogan has his domestic reasons for pushing this forward as well. You actually even see the nationalist MHP in Turkey, this party, it's quite anti Kurdish, pushing these negotiations, this agreement forward as well, which is quite surprising. And a lot of this likely stems from the fact that Erdogan can't legally, at this point, run for president in 2028. And so he needs to garner more support from all of the other major parties in Turkey in order to make the legal case that he can indeed do that. So there's sort of those domestic reasons at play. Then you also have, obviously the situation in Syria where I think in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Assad, everyone was saying, oh, Turkey's the big winner here, because these are groups, the groups that essentially took over are like HTS is a group that is more strongly affiliated with Turkey than any other sort of country out there. But you also had the fear of the Kurds, sort of the. Not all Kurds, but the Syrian Democratic Forces that the United States has supported all these years in the counter ISIS fight in northeastern Syria. Really concerned about its position. But what's really interesting is that actually General Masloom of the SDF was one of the few Kurdish elements that basically said, this deal has nothing to do with us. So whatever the PKK in Turkey arranges, that has nothing to do with what we want. And I think to a certain extent, they're still holding their cards close to their chest. They don't have a lot of cards at this point, but they're really trying to hold onto them. And I do think that they are really thinking about this alliance with Israel as well, because it does seem, and we could talk about how Assad did this too, said one and Assad two, that, you know, reassuring Israel and being allied to Israel even unofficially does help with your survival in the Middle East.

Ben Rhodes (79:00)

Yeah, well, it's. It does feel like it's interesting that Israel is playing its cards in response to Turkey. And then that brings us all the way back to Russia. You know, Russia has made contact with this government, as you said, like Russia is potentially. Even though they literally bomb these people, hts, you know, Putin is nothing if not pragmatic. And in a super bizarre way, maybe one way to get out from under US sanctions is to get close to Putin. I never thought I'd say that, but I mean that, you know, given this administration's affinity for Putin, maybe if Israel and Russia are okay with this government, I mean, how do you make sense of the Russian dynamic in all this?

Natasha Hall (79:48)

Yeah, it's just wild. So immediately after the fall of Assad, you actually saw high level diplomatic contact between the new president of Syria, ostensibly Shira, and Bogdanov and other very high level Russian officials. You immediately had Russia sort of changing its tone on hts. I mean, for a long time it was calling anyone who opposed the regime terrorists. And then suddenly all of that changed. And that's, of course, because listeners will probably know, you know, Syria was essentially Russia's first launching point. Outside of its near abroad, really, for, I think, greater global influence. And that certainly worked in, in the Middle east, and it worked as a launching point into, into Africa as well and the Mediterranean. So, so Russia has this, this Mediterranean port in Tartuous, this sort of naval base and also an air base along the western coast, and really wanted to hold on to that. I think with the fall of Assad, Assad was sort of viewed as kind of a toxic asset at that point by both Russia and Iran, which is probably why you saw the regime crumble so quickly, because both of these, and we can talk about why on the Iran side, but for Russia, clearly they wanted to focus on Ukraine and thought perhaps they could make some kind of deal with this new administration if Assad did fall. And we do know that there were some talks prior to Assad really falling in early December. So, you know, now you have Israel. I mean, this is just really, all of this is quite insane. So you have Israel essentially lobbying the United States to allow the new Syrian government to let Russia back to its bases. It hasn't completely left. It also hasn't, by the way, completely left northeastern Syria. It still has that presence there. But, you know, essentially, I think for, for Israel, they, they trust Russia to kind of stabilize things. And I think in a previous administration, one of the differences you might have seen is with a Biden administration or Harris administration, you might have seen this as a, you know, a great opportunity to get Russia out of the US's traditional sphere of influence. But with this administration, which we saw on Friday, seems to be quite closely aligned with Russia and Putin, that's clearly not a motivating factor. So we could indeed see Russia, I think, returning.

Ben Rhodes (82:41)

God, that's a dizzying tour. Just, I mean, just quickly to finish. I assume that if you're Alshara, if you're the interim government, you just got to try to maintain as much unity in the country as possible while this is happening around you.

Tommy Vitor (82:58)

Right.

Ben Rhodes (82:58)

I mean, that's essentially the only play.

Natasha Hall (83:01)

That I can think of that is the goal and I think really trying to get the Arab countries and anyone that has any kind of influence on the US to at the very least, you know, remove these sanctions, alleviate the sanctions, do something about the designation, because with no aid and with these sanctions remaining in place, I just don't see how Syria holds together. And frankly, you know, that should be of a grave concern to the United States because a country like that, a sanctioned country, does not bode well economically or politically for the United States. I mean, this is going to be a country that, you know, needs to resort to nefarious actors to just stay afloat. So, you know, a big strategic opportunity lost, I think.

Ben Rhodes (83:54)

Yeah, no, I agree. Well, look, Natasha, thanks so much for, you know, walking us through all that. People should follow your work at CSIS and online and we'll, I'm sure have occasion to talk to you again. But thanks so much for joining us. Us.

Natasha Hall (84:09)

Thanks for having me.

Tommy Vitor (84:14)

Thanks again to Natasha for doing the show. Thanks for listening. Thanks for subscribing to the Pod save the world YouTube and we'll talk to you guys next week. If you want to get ad free episodes, exclusive content and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community@crooked.com friends. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, Tik tok and Twitter for more original content. Host Takeover and other community events. Plus find Pod Save the world on YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content and more. If you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping a review. Pod Save the World is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Alona Minkowski. Our associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick and engineered by Vasilis Fotopoulos. Audio support by Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Leslie Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt De Groat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Phoebe Bradford, William Jones, Kiril Palaviv and Molly Lobel who upload our episodes and videos to YouTube.com podsavetheworld our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East Cats have always acted like their don't stink.

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