From Al Qaeda to the White House

Summary

Pod Save the World – "From Al Qaeda to the White House"

Episode Date: November 12, 2025
Hosts: Tommy Vietor, Ben Rhodes
Main Guests: Tara Kabash & Josh Paul (A New Policy)

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Overview

In this episode, Tommy Vietor and Ben Rhodes guide listeners through a whirlwind week in global affairs, focusing on dramatic developments such as the landmark White House visit by Syria’s new transitional president (a onetime Al Qaeda figure), Viktor Orban’s pitstop in DC, the US boycott of the G20 in South Africa over right-wing conspiracy, elections and protest crackdowns in Tanzania, Sudan’s deepening crisis, and more. The episode closes with an in-depth interview with Tara Kabash and Josh Paul, former Biden administration officials who resigned over Gaza policy and are now organizing for a transformative US policy on Israel and Palestine.

The hosts combine humor and outrage to break down the absurdities and gravely serious consequences of current US foreign policy, while spotlighting the intersections of domestic politics, international alliances, and human rights.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reagan Building Event: Mike Flynn & the State of US Institutions

• [02:39] Tommy opens with light banter about Mike Flynn and his organization sharing event space with Crooked Con. The hosts mock the incongruity and extremism of Flynn's post-government activities.
• Notable Quote:
  “He might have had us arrested by the marshal of the Supreme Court or something.”
  – Tommy Vietor [03:35]

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2. Syrian President Ahmed Alshara Visits the White House

• Context: Ahmed Alshara, former Al Qaeda affiliate, now Syrian transitional president, makes a historic White House visit—an improbable journey from jihadist leader to statesman.

• [07:27] Tommy breaks down Shara’s rise, his first US presidential visit, and Trump’s attempts at normalization.

• [08:35] Sanctions relief: Trump announces a 6-month suspension of US sanctions under the Caesar Act, but Congressional holdups remain due to concerns over atrocities against minorities (e.g., the Druze massacre in July).

• The visit included discussion of possible diplomatic normalization (embassies, airbase access for the US) and Syria joining the anti-ISIS coalition.

• Notable Quotes:
  “It's just pretty extraordinary that he went from basically being in northern Syria around Idlib...to being in the White House in less than one year.”
  – Ben Rhodes [11:34]

  “...if we're going to get out of this war on terror page ...there's gonna have to be a place for Islamists.”
  – Ben Rhodes [13:33]

Insight:
The hosts debate the strategic and ethical stakes—highlighting the US tendency to prioritize counterterrorism and Israel above real Syrian reconstruction. They express cautious optimism about sanctions relief, but warn about authoritarian backsliding.

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3. Viktor Orban’s Visit & American Right-wing Collusion

• [17:00] The Hungarian autocrat's DC trip is dissected, focusing on the US granting sanctions waivers and lucrative energy/nuclear deals after Orban’s anti-Ukraine stance.
• Trump delivers political boosts to allies on the global right-wing authoritarian circuit (Orban, Milei, Bukele), offering economic perks in exchange for loyalty.
• Notable Exchange:
  “...if you're one of Trump's guys...you get preferential treatment across the board, you get exemptions from sanctions.”
  – Ben Rhodes [19:39]
• The hosts note shady business connections, democratic backsliding, and media manipulation—especially Orban’s notorious anti-press antics toward the US and EU.

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4. The US Boycotts G20—Racist Politics Over Substance

• [26:21] Trump administration’s boycott of the G20 summit in South Africa explained: motivated by right-wing conspiracy about “white genocide,” further ceding global leadership to China.
• US absence means lost opportunities to tackle major issues (e.g., AI norms, economic coordination), effectively handing leverage to China/BRICS.
• Notable Analysis:
  “We are just saying like Chinese, you run this meeting entirely...You built this whole alternative world order with the BRICS...Now we're literally taking something from our world order...and just saying over to you now.”
  – Ben Rhodes [27:47–30:48]

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5. Crackdown in Tanzania: Gen Z Uprising Meets Old-school Repression

• [32:10+] Elections marred by massive fraud; lethal state violence against protesters; thousands killed or arrested.
• US and international actors largely ignore, reflective of global trend: “democratic backsliding” replaced by brute-force autocracy.
• Gen Z-led protest energy is growing, tied to economic frustration and rising youth population, especially acute in Africa.
• Memorable Observations:
  “There’s a ticking time bomb out there that, I mean, shit, I can feel in Los Angeles...but it’s nothing compared to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania or Nigeria...”
  – Ben Rhodes [39:09]

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6. Sudan’s Darfur Crisis Escalates: Famine, Massacres, and International Apathy

• [39:59] RSF’s seizure of Al Fashr leads to atrocities reminiscent of Rwanda. UAE implicated in arming genocidal forces for gold profits.
• Humanitarian work is hamstrung with the US (and rival powers) disengaged. Extreme malnutrition, displacement, and family separations described in a powerful audio dispatch from NRC Sudan ([42:17]).
• Notable Quotes:
  “It’s just unimaginably awful...If you’re looking to like donate...the need is just enormous.”
  – Tommy Vietor [43:29]
• Hosts bemoan moral abdication by “realists” everywhere:
  “There’s a space to kind of reclaim some basis of morality in politics. Nobody tries anymore.”
  – Ben Rhodes [45:34]

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7. Peace Watch: Trump, the ‘Peace President’—or Not

• [50:23+] A recap of violence and instability on Trump’s watch: failed peace deals, renewed nuclear tensions, regional conflagrations (e.g. Venezuela, Thailand-Cambodia, India-Pakistan), and US-British intelligence cooperation fracturing.
• Notable Commentary:
  “He never solves them. He just wants the photo op...He’s betting on the kind of stupidity or short attention span of most of the American media.”
  – Ben Rhodes [52:48]
• India-Pakistan tensions, in particular, flagged as serious risks the Trump administration is failing to defuse.

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8. Trump vs. the BBC: Media, Lawsuits, and Global Pressure on Journalists

• [56:22+] Trump sues the BBC for $1 billion over a misleadingly edited documentary, triggering resignations and public apologies.
• Segment serves as a microcosm for right-wing attacks on independent journalism, with Brexit-era right joining Trump to undermine foundational institutions.
• Notable Quotes:
  “It feels like we’re globalizing our own media drama and that makes me sad.”
  – Ben Rhodes [63:44]

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9. Saudi Arabia’s ‘The Line’—Techno-Utopian Fail

• [64:40+] A deep dive into MBS’s “Line” project: planned megacity devolves into logistical, economic, and human rights disaster.
• Intense critique of autocratic vanity projects and Silicon Valley’s ‘authoritarian-curious’ consulting class; environmental and social destruction highlighted.
• Memorable Anecdotes:
  “Who the fuck would want to live in a wall in the middle of the desert?”
  – Ben Rhodes [70:27]
  • The project’s absurdities, such as the impossible high-speed rail plan, serve as a parable of unchecked power and hubris.

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Interview: Tara Kabash & Josh Paul – On Resigning Over Gaza, Reforming US Mideast Policy

Background & Why They Quit

• [75:15+] Both resigned from the Biden administration to protest US Gaza policy (Josh: State Dept security assistance; Tara: Department of Education).

• Key Themes:

  • The lack of genuine debate inside the government.
  • US policy driven by special interests, not law or values.
  • Disillusionment in being unable to prevent injustices from inside.

• Personal Moment:
  “There was a particular moment. It was minutes after the first hospital got bombed...I realized, there was no amount of humanizing myself within the administration...my voice didn’t actually matter.”
  – Tara Kabash [86:22]

Analysis of US Gaza Policy (under Trump)

• [75:40+] The Trump administration’s so-called Gaza ‘ceasefire’ and reconstruction deal is critiqued as American “inputs coming from the wrong quarters”—business interests, outside imposed governance, echoing past failures in Iraq.
• American leverage (economic, military, diplomatic) is not used to rein in Israeli policies or defend even US citizens’ rights.

The Problem of Unconditional Israel Support

• [81:43+] US policy is “captured by special interests”—massive bipartisan reluctance to challenge Israel or enforce US/intl. law.
• Americans increasingly oppose this; it’s becoming a “litmus test” in both Democratic and Republican politics.

A New Policy—The Organization’s Mission

• Kabash and Paul have founded a political organization (not a think tank) to disrupt the “establishment duopoly,” push for real US leverage, and support candidates willing to challenge the lobby structure (especially AIPAC).
• Anyone can volunteer or support at act.anewpolicy.org/podsave.

On the Rising Right and Suppressing Dissent

• Conversation about how suppressing open debate is fueling antisemitic or conspiratorial movements on right and left; the importance of refusing to shut down legitimate criticism.

Settler Violence, Arms, and Legal Complicity

• [101:21+] Extensive documentation that US weapons are fueling West Bank settler violence. State Department reluctance, and White House overruling, are noted.

• Quote:
  “We all have skin in the game because we're Americans.”
  – Ben Rhodes [104:56]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It's hard to put yourself back into the place of what a gigantic disaster Syria was for such a long period of time...It's pretty extraordinary that he went from ... governing a small slice of land to being in the White House in less than one year.”
  – Ben Rhodes [11:34]

• “There's a ticking time bomb...just going to break at some point. I mean, Elon Musk just became a trillionaire. And yet you've got people that have to go to Saudi Arabia and endure that.”
  – Ben Rhodes [39:09]

• “There's space to reclaim some basis of morality in politics. Nobody tries anymore. ...We should value human dignity, human life around the world.”
  – Ben Rhodes [45:34]

• “It feels like we’re globalizing our own media drama and that makes me sad.”
  – Ben Rhodes [63:44]

• “ICE trains with the IDF. These policies always end up coming back...”
  – Ben Rhodes [106:14]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Syria, Sanctions Waiver, and Ahmed Alshara: [07:27]–[16:38]
• Viktor Orban in DC: [17:00]–[22:57]
• G20 Boycott Over ‘White Genocide’: [26:21]–[31:30]
• Tanzania Crackdown and Gen Z Uprisings: [32:10]–[38:05]
• Sudan’s Darfur Crisis: [39:59]–[47:47]
• Trump’s "Peace" Record & New Conflicts: [50:23]–[56:20]
• Trump Sues BBC, Global Media Pressure: [56:22]–[64:40]
• Saudi Arabia’s “The Line” Disaster: [64:40]–[72:30]
• Interview: Tara Kabash & Josh Paul: [75:15]–[108:24]

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Conclusion

This episode blends dark comedy with urgent analysis, laying bare how US politics, right-wing power, and unchecked foreign adventurism shape everything from government appointments to global crises. The interview segment gives tangible next steps for listeners who want to shift US policy away from unconditional military aid and toward human rights and accountability.

To Take Action or Learn More:
Visit act.anewpolicy.org/podsave to connect with A New Policy.

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Transcript

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Ben Rhodes]

Why is the Tic Tac shaped that way?

[Tommy Vietor]

Listen to the Political Gabfest now and join us as we go even deeper on the daily news you're already following. That's Political Gabfest. Wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor.

[Tariq Fancy]

I'm Ben Rhodes.

[Tommy Vietor]

Do you know who had the event after us in the Reagan building?

[Tariq Fancy]

After Crooked Con, like the Insurance association of America or something like that? Even better.

[Tommy Vietor]

Former General Mike Flynn.

[Tariq Fancy]

No way. No. What's his organization? Is it like a QAnon military coup kind of initiative coup too?

[Tommy Vietor]

No. So apparently he was the grand marshal of the national Veterans parade in D.C. on November 9th. So in the lead up to that, on November 7th, in the same day as Crooked Con, he was the grand marshal of what, the big Veterans day parade in D.C. i would have thought.

[Tariq Fancy]

Grand Wizard.

[Tommy Vietor]

Grand wizard, yes. So he was honored at a dinner that night, Reagan building, in the same venue as Crooked Con. So for anyone wondering why the thing was like halfway closed, halfway through, that was why. Mike Flynn pacing around.

[Tariq Fancy]

I'm surprised we didn't have him on a panel. Yeah, he might have had some insights.

[Tommy Vietor]

You might have. Might have had us arrested by the marshal of the Supreme Court or something. So Michael went deep on this. So the event was emceed by a woman named Chris D. Clark. Krsdee Clark. She was named Mrs. American 2023.

[Tariq Fancy]

Mrs. American. It's more of an identity statement than a pageantry.

[Tommy Vietor]

Okay, wait for this. So Michael went real deep on this. So not Miss America. So apparently runners up to the Mrs. America contest, which I think is like an off brand version of Miss America. So she's an off brand version of that. So she's like the. The TEMU version of Kirkland Vodka.

[Tariq Fancy]

She's like the MAGA brand version, I guess, with the MAGA face and the generic MAGA face.

[Tommy Vietor]

Anyway, Mike Flynn in the house. Could have come by you, me, Ro, Yasmine.

[Tariq Fancy]

It continues to be completely extraordinary to me that that guy was a relatively senior official in the Obama administration. Just goes shooting. Extremely senior national security personnel. People let some slip through the cracks there.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, more than a few crazy people at the senior levels of the military. Well, anyway, thanks to everybody that came out to cr. Thanks to everybody who listened to it, we Released it in the feed on Monday. Great event. Thanks, Yasmine. Thanks to Ro. Really just awesome all around.

[Tariq Fancy]

It was. I mean, the vibes were great, the energy was great. It was good to see people in the flesh. People seemed fired up.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Tariq Fancy]

Rohdan, Yasmine gave a different perspective than we're used to hearing from the kind of windup doll Democratic foreign policy types.

[Tommy Vietor]

So it was good. Yeah, it was. It was a lot of fun. Also, great timing, you know, post election pre shutdown cave. Couldn't have timed it better.

[Tariq Fancy]

That was fun too. To just bask in victory for a couple days.

[Tommy Vietor]

Three or four days of glory. That's all we get. That's all we're metered out these days. All right, we got a great show for you guys though. We're going to cover Syrian President Abed Al Shara's improbable visit to the White House on Monday and what got done. We're also going to talk about Trump's visit last week from Hungarian autocrat Victor Orban. I hope they had a good time. Did you see the photo of like this right wing guy named Roger error. And JD Vance and Orban. They all spent like 90 minutes smoking.

[Tariq Fancy]

Cigars talking about geopolitics. All right, dude, sounds like a good time.

[Tommy Vietor]

I'd rather watch. Did anything else?

[Tariq Fancy]

Sounds like a lot of fun. See Victor Orban and J.D. vance.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Tariq Fancy]

Sipping whiskey and like.

[Tommy Vietor]

I hate migrants. No, I hate migrants. Okay, we're going to explain why the US is boycotting the upcoming G20 meeting in South Africa. The we'll cover the election and the brutal crackdown on protesters that happen in Tanzania. Got an update from Sudan. Then we'll explain why Trump is threatening to sue the BBC for $1 billion. I love that.

[Tariq Fancy]

That's like his pull numbers out of the starting point.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, Nice round number. We're going to explain why Trump's demand to be known as the peace president has hit some real trouble this past week. A lot of from a bunch of different angles. And then you'll hear a hilarious update from our always hilarious friends over in.

[Tariq Fancy]

Saudi Arabia about their not related to the comedy festival.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, not really the comedy festival. This is just about infrastructure week, actually. Infrastructure lifetime at this current rate. We'll talk about their planned Neom city and the line building, which. Wait around for this one. This is good.

[Ben Rhodes]

It's a good one.

[Tommy Vietor]

And then in a little bit I'm going to talk with Tara Kabash and Josh Paul. So I haven't done the conversation yet. And letting you guys behind the scenes here. They're coming in the studio afterwards. But they both resigned from the Biden administration over Gaza policy. And they have now formed a new organization called A New Policy to put together and put forward, not subtle, a smarter, more rational approach to US Israel policy. So we're talking about that experience, what it was like to resign, why more people didn't follow suit in their view. We'll talk about Trump's cease fire, the, you know, phase two planning that's happening or not happening as we speak, and much more. So excited about that.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, I talked to those guys after they resigned and deeply thoughtful, interesting, courageous people.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it took real guts. And, you know, it was not a lot of.

[Tariq Fancy]

Not a lot of profiles and courage. Looking around. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

No. All right, Ben, so let's start with Syria. So Monday was this pretty extraordinary moment where a former Al Qaeda guy turned statesman hopefully met with President Trump at the White House. No, I'm not talking about Rudy Giuliani. I'm talking about Ahmed Elshara, Syria's transitional president. So Shara led the charge to topple the Assad regime back in December of 2024. Doesn't that feel like it was more like four years ago?

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Not one year ago.

[Tariq Fancy]

That's back when he was Jelani.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Abu Jelani. Yeah. Better name. This was his first visit.

[Tariq Fancy]

Nom Daguerre is often better.

[Tommy Vietor]

Nom de guerre. I'd be sick to have a nom de guerre. I mean, I guess then you have to go to Ger, which I don't really want to do, but it's get the nom. Nom, Nom, nom. So he was. The Alshara's visit to the White House was the first ever by a Syrian head of state. They had a kind of a rough run of leaders since its independence in 1946. But this was Shara's second visit to the U.S. remember, he was at the UN General assembly in New York in September where he did that weird sit down with Dave Petraeus. It was also his second meeting with Trump. They first met face to face in Saudi Arabia several months ago. Here's what Trump told reporters about his conversations with Al Shara after they met on Syria. Can we expect an announcement on a.

[Tariq Fancy]

Pact between Syria, Israel, or an announcement.

[Tommy Vietor]

On them joining the anti.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, you can expect some announcements on Syria. We want to see Syria become a country that's very successful. And I think this leader can do it. I really do. I think this leader can do it.

[Ben Rhodes]

And people said he's had A rough past.

[Tariq Fancy]

We've all had rough pasts, but he.

[Ben Rhodes]

Has had a rough past.

[Tariq Fancy]

And I think frankly, if you didn't have a rough past, you wouldn't have a chance.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's like comparing himself, like getting syphilis at Studio 54.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, I was going to say like just in the bowels of the New York nightclub scene in the early 80s versus just like being Al Qaeda, a prison in Iraq for years and fighting a multi year insurgency. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

At Camp Leatherneck or, you know, I've.

[Tariq Fancy]

Had a rough past. You know, I once got like a citation for having a 40 when I was 17 years old.

[Tommy Vietor]

Exactly. So the biggest item on Shara's to do list besides, you know, making Trump feel like he's a big important man, was to get US Sanctions on Syria removed. Shah is desperate to attract businesses to Syria and also to get access to the international banking system. On that front, he had some limited success. On Monday, Trump announced the six month suspension of U S. Sanctions on Syria that are part of this 2019 law called the Caesar Act. But as we've discussed before, Congress will still need to act to permanently remove those sanctions. A bill to do that has passed the Senate, but it's being held up in the House due to ongoing concerns about the treatment of minority groups in Syria. So specifically, there was this really horrible incident back in July where an estimated 2,000 people were killed in the city of Sweda, mostly members of the Druze religious minority government forces were accused of being involved in that massacre. And there's also been reports of abuse of another minority group called the Alawites. President Assad was an Alawite and sort of that, that minority group ruled Syria for a long time. So there's been a lot of reprisal violence. So while Trump had mostly nice and or weird things to say about Shara, he called him attractive. He's like, oh, look at that hot, that hot extremist over there.

[Tariq Fancy]

He's a handsome guy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, you know, I wouldn't. Is he handsome? I don't know.

[Tariq Fancy]

I know he's aligned.

[Tommy Vietor]

If we're like, if we're ranking him in terms of just heads of state.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, he's not, he's not that new Dutch guy. But, you know, he's doing pretty good though.

[Tommy Vietor]

He's no center, Marin. He's just like, you know, he's in the middle of the pack. But it wasn't, it wasn't like a total love fest. Like there was no press conference, there was no pool spray, there wasn't Like a Mar a Lago dinner? Yeah, with the extremist guy. There wasn't a big arrival ceremony. I think they just sent him in through the side door. But the main deliverables were the sanctions waiver, which he got for six months. I think the UN Security Council took Char's name off its global terrorist list. That must be nice. And then Shara interrupt. They talked about reopening embassies. There was a Reuters report that the US May begin using an air base in Syria as part of some security pact with Syria and Israel. It'll be interesting to see how the old Al Qaeda buddies take that one. And then Shara said Syria is going to join the broader anti ISIS coalition. So, Ben, I don't know, what do you make of the visitors? The optics of it or lack thereof, and sort of what they got done.

[Tariq Fancy]

I mean, having sat through endless meetings in the White House situation room about Syria in which we just had no answers to what was a terrible situation with horrific suffering, barbaric Assad regime, a kind of Alphabet soup of different extremist groups operating proxy wars, other countries backing their favorite group in northern Syria. I mean, this. You know, it's hard to put yourself back into the place of what a gigantic disaster Suri was for such a long period of time. And I think it's just worth maintaining that perspective that how extraordinary it is that this guy, one year, you know, look, whatever we may come to learn about him and whether his autocratic tendencies kind of take hold, it is just pretty extraordinary that he went from basically being in northern Syria around Idlib, you know, governing a small slice of land to being in the White House in less than one year. I mean, like a year ago today, that guy was like, with some fighters, with some, like, you know, RPGs and, you know, flatbed trucks and stuff like. And now he's sitting in the White House.

[Tommy Vietor]

And like, I kept making jokes about his past, but, like, he's done a lot of the right things since taking power. And, you know, I think you and I are both on the record of saying the US should get rid of sanctions because we want Syria to succeed. Now, there is open question of whether he will be the next generation of strongman, but we got to give him a chance.

[Tariq Fancy]

No. And when you look at and listen to what he was saying, particularly right as he took over, this guy clearly read a lot of books when he was in prison and when he was. I mean, he has pretty evolved theories of politics. And look, I agree with the decision to waive Sanctions. I fundamentally agree with the idea. And Trump has a lot more room to do this. And Obama or Biden would have imagine them having Alshara there. Like Fox News is rolling out. The Bret Baier treatment for this guy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Is on Bret baier show at 6pm on Monday night. So we haven't been able to watch it yet. But that is a remarkable thing to imagine.

[Tariq Fancy]

That whole show would be dedicated to Islamophobic commentators, like crapping on Obama or Biden. But I think what's fundamental is if we're going to get out of this war on terror page and we're going to get to some kind of look, I don't expect everybody to have multiparty representative democracy in the way that we used to have in the United States. There's gonna have to be a place for Islamists. There just is. I mean, we had this fight all the way back in the Obama years with the Muslim Brotherhood. Like, you just, you can't exclude the most popular political movements in each of these countries. And so I think we do have to get comfortable with that. And it's in our interest for there to be Islamist movements that are capable of becoming nonviolent, inclusive and tolerant. That would be great. That's the best case scenario. Right? That's actually a better scenario than like just constantly imprisoning tens of thousands of people like they do in Egypt.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right.

[Tariq Fancy]

Because they're so distrustful of those kinds of movements. So all those reasons, I think it's worth taking a shot on the sky. The vibe you pick up in talking to people in the Middle east is like, oh, he seems like, pretty autocratic, you know, and like there's a huge delta between him becoming, you know, a Saddam Hussein, like, character and him being an inclusive, pluralistic leader who just leads here in the right direction. And I just think you have a better chance to influence that if you engage the guy. The one thing I will say is I wish that there was like a little bit more focus on creative efforts to how do you rebuild Syria? It's such a US Thing where it's like, we're going to have him here, waive the sanctions. We got to get them in the.

[Tommy Vietor]

ISIS coalition and also be nice to Israel.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like Israel, terror, you know, like, let's talk about what this guy and what Syrians are actually interested in, which is how do they rebuild their country? Because it's pretty remarkable that now he's in the counter ISIS coalition and he's like shooting hoops with American generals.

[Tommy Vietor]

The head of CENTCOM and the other guy who runs the global ISIS coalition, they were just playing some pickup, I guess.

[Tariq Fancy]

By the way, he's got a pretty good jump shot. But this is the problem, you would.

[Tommy Vietor]

Say that's the next thing.

[Tariq Fancy]

We show up and we're like, we're here to talk about Israel and terrorism, and it's just like, I wish we had a bigger agenda.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, and the history is extraordinary. I mean, Syria was named a state sponsor of terrorism in 1979 and has been there ever since. We just sanctioned the country to hell, understandably, under the Assad regime. But by the end of Assad's reign, basically their only economy was creating a drug called Captagon and then selling it to addicts throughout the Middle East. As we mentioned, Mishara was imprisoned by US forces in Iraq for five years in a variety of different locations. He was at Abu Ghraib Kampuca. You got out in 2011. But unfortunately, speaking of, like, unintended consequences, those prisons were like terrorist grad school, where everybody met, exchanged ideas and best practices. And so, you know, maybe another good reason not to do it. Do you think Assad watched the coverage from Moscow?

[Tariq Fancy]

Oh, 100%, I always imagine. Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, what he's up to.

[Tariq Fancy]

Two great shows, by the way. Like a biopic of Alshara I'd watch. And then like, just a reality show of Assad's life in Moscow I would definitely watch. But on the sanctions, I'm a big believer that you don't keep sanctions in place after the purpose behind the sanctions has expired.

[Tommy Vietor]

Of course not.

[Tariq Fancy]

You need some way to get rid of these sanctions regimes that are everywhere. And I think they should lift these sanctions because we put them in place for a different reason at a different time. That reason has expired, literally. The person, Bashar Al Sah is gone. And look, cuz, if this guy turns out to be a creep, you can always put sanctions back on him. So I'd like to see him go further and just look these things.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I would, too. It's also worth noting last week that when we were in dc, Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban was in town too, along with, I think, like, all of the stand countries.

[Tariq Fancy]

They're in our hotel.

[Tommy Vietor]

Most of them are at our hotel. Yeah, we should have had a little informal bilat.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, well, there was, like. Felt like there's some side deals happening at the. Yeah, in the lobby there.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, some rare earths.

[Tariq Fancy]

Rare earths are getting sold around influencers.

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, like dudes in, like, sharp suits ripping Cigs everywhere.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

So Orban was there in D.C. to beg for foreign exemption from U.S. sanctions, that he he can continue to buy oil and gas from Russia. And he got one at least for a year. Now, Trump, as we discussed a couple weeks ago, Trump sanctioned the two largest oil companies in Russia. He has threatened to sanction any country that buys oil from the Russians. But I guess if you're a right wing autocrat who goes to cpac, you get a waiver. Or if you're Argentina, you get like a $40 billion bank bailout. So that's just how it goes these days. As part of the deal, Hungary also agreed to buy a bunch of natural gas from the US and he pledged to buy between 10 and 20 billion dollars worth of nuclear reactors, which I will believe when I see it. Orban also hinted that the US Might help him get his hands on some EU funds that have been frozen due to democratic backsliding in Hungary. Maybe another bailout of his own or like currency swap like the Tinians got. So stay tuned there. They also took some time in this, like spray that pool spray they did to on Ukraine and suggest that Ukraine could never win the war, which is a nice touch when you're there finalizing a deal that's going to send more money into the hands of Vladimir Putin to buy bombs to drop on Ukraine. Here's a little excerpt from the Orban Trump bilateral meeting in front of the press corps for you guys to enjoy. Affordability is what the American people elected this president to do, and he is doing it. And you guys refuse to cover it and you refuse to cover that the previous administration created the worst unaffordability crisis in American history.

[Tariq Fancy]

And I've been watching the TV all.

[Tommy Vietor]

Day saying that he doesn't want to talk about affordability. That's what he's working on every day.

[Tariq Fancy]

And that's what this administration is doing. But you know why they refuse to cover it? Because they're fake news, that's why.

[Ben Rhodes]

Go ahead.

[Tariq Fancy]

Can I get here someone? Caroline? The Prime Minister would like you to work for him in Hungary.

[Ben Rhodes]

You know what?

[Tariq Fancy]

That's a very good decision you just made. Please, please, please don't leave us.

[Ben Rhodes]

Caroline.

[Tommy Vietor]

That was Caroline Levitt. I mean, White House press secretary and getting an atta girl from Viktor Orban, real fan of the media. So I don't know. Ben Orban's facing his first major political challenge in what, like 15 years? It sure seems like this visit was just a totally unnecessary political gift to him before that election. But I Don't know. What'd you make of it?

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, there's no, like, vital reason for the President, United States to be having such a big, formal bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Hungary. And it just kind of continues what we've seen, which is that if you're one of Trump's guys, which is basically if you're on the CPAC circuit, right, if you're Javier Milei from Argentina, if you're Nay Bukele from El Salvador, if you're Viktor Orban, you know, you get preferential treatment across the board, you get exemptions from sanctions. We might throw some weight around at the EU to get them to give you money that they've rightly frozen. Not just because of democratic backsliding, because of rampant corruption. Orban basically takes that money. It's for infrastructure projects, gives the contracts to his buddies, and they skim billions of dollars up the top. Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

Old school of corruption.

[Tariq Fancy]

Brussels is like, why do we give him this money? And I will also say the thing about the. He still has these relationships into Russia. When he came to power, there was a lot of investigative journal them around. Seems like there's some shady business connections with the fsb, the Russian intelligence services into Hungary. Right. I mean, if someone. You start pulling back the threads on some of these deals over the years between Russia and Hungary, there's probably more there there. But Orban's there to make sure that nobody pays attention to that. Nobody's looking too closely at that. And he gets exemptions, and he can still buy some Russian energy, and then he can just shit on Zelenskyy in the process and kind of replenish his bona few days. I will say the Carolyn Levitt thing is gross on a number of levels. One is it, like, it's funny with her. Like, she's not that good. She's better than, like, Sean Spicer. Sean Spicer. And then that other woman who's on, like, fox now.

[Tommy Vietor]

Kayleigh McEnaughey.

[Tariq Fancy]

Kayleigh McEnagh. And actually, honestly, like, probably better than Kareen Jean Pierre. But, like, what is she? She's just like, he's doing affordability. Like, it doesn't even make sense.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's like, dude, your boss just said affordability is fake news and stupid and to fuck off if you care about it. We heard the tape.

[Tariq Fancy]

Her role is to perform in front of him and trash people. And then people chuckle. We're taking this seriously. And then have a kind of pretty creepy invention from war bunnies. Like, we will take her.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, imagine Kim Jong Un's like, good spin. He's like, okay.

[Tariq Fancy]

By the way, to connect the stands to this reminded me of this bilateral meeting that Obama once did with the president of Kazakhstan. And we actually had a Kazakh American on our team. And it was a woman. And Obama introduced him to her because he's nice like that. And then the guy's like, that is very good. Well, we give you one of ours, and now you must give us one of yours. And what was weird is like, think he wasn't kidding? Yeah, he was like, who are we supposed to give him? Like, hope it's not me, you know, like.

[Tommy Vietor]

But anyway, God, if you're president, you need to deal with some creepy weirdos and pretend a lot of jokes are funny.

[Tariq Fancy]

That just.

[Tommy Vietor]

Absolutely.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, a lot of like, fake chuckling. But I mean, look, we shouldn't under again. Like, we have to, like, kind of fight against the urge to be like, this is now the normal, like, Viktor Orban is like an undemocratic, illiberal, fascistic kind of creep. And that's who, like, we give foot rubs.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Ben Rhodes]

I'm reading.

[Tommy Vietor]

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[Tariq Fancy]

These Doritos golden sriracha aren't that spicy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Sriracha sounds pretty spicy to me.

[Tariq Fancy]

A little spicy, but also tangy and sweet.

[Tommy Vietor]

Maybe it's time to turn up the heat or turn it down.

[Tariq Fancy]

It's time for something that's not too spicy. Try Doritos, Golden Sriracha. Spicy but not too spicy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Speaking of awkward group events full of hesitation that are probably not that fun, but you got to go to them. Trump is apparently boycotting the G20. So the G20 is taking place in South Africa at the end of November. The US is, I guess, just not going to go at all. I mean, Trump had previously said that he was going to skip it. I thought he was going to send J.D. vance, but now the US isn't sending a delegation at all. And if you're wondering why, dear listener, it's because of a non existent genocide against white farmers in South Africa. Remember back in May, the President of South Africa was in the Oval Office, Cyril Ramaphosa, and Trump was showing him photos and printouts and videos that he said were evidence of this white genocide. But, like, one of the pictures was from the Congo. One was just like a video of a protest from five years ago. But those very humiliating errors did not slow Donald Trump down or, or prevent Trump from, like, railing away on this. He is now boycotting G20. He's calling for South Africa to be thrown out of the G20. We've completely changed our refugee policy in the United States so that we're only taking in white South African farmers. So this is again, the reality we live in. So, Ben, I don't know, it's. I'm surprised that even they wouldn't just like, Send Sad little J.D. vance over there. It seems like the net effect of this decision will be to hand the conference over to China and Russia. But what do you think J.D.

[Tariq Fancy]

Vance would have loved to go, by the way? Just lecture everybody, Go and lecture everybody about treating white people better in Africa.

[Tommy Vietor]

Not invited to dinner.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, I mean, look, the crude thing that needs to be pointed out here is it's useful to be reminded every now and then how just fundamentally racist the whole Tron project is. South Africa is a big, important country hosting arguably the most important meeting of the year. And we're not going in some weird fit of pique because of some Fox News programming about some, like, white farmers who are, by the way, like, we've come full circle to defending the white side of apartheid. You know, like, that's kind of where we're at in 2025. And that's not even that unusual. It's like, oh, you know, Trump's pulling down the G20 because of the white genocide. Right. The substantive thing that's important, again, is that the G20 I felt in the Obama years was the most important meeting of the year. It was the 20 biggest economies. Although, like that there are 20 countries in it that were set up at the time. They were the biggest economies. So not all of them are the biggest anymore, like Egypt and Argentina. But nonetheless, they're there. And you were meeting to kind of coordinate the piping and wiring and running of the global economy. You're then using it. So we used it a lot to kind of respond to the financial crisis and stimulate demand or deal with some emergency economic problems somewhere. But we also used it to deal with all kinds of other challenges. Right. Clean energy transition was a feature. Obviously, Trump doesn't give a shit about that fake news. But also the Chinese are there, the Russians are there when they're not indicted by the icc. So that's not a problem for Putin. The major European countries are there, Brazil's there, et cetera. So you'd use it to have bilateral meetings with all those countries too, about whatever the other things were on your agenda, because you basically have a big enough group 20, and they're usually some other countries invited that you can get a lot done, but it's small enough that you can kind of see half the people there and really get a lot of work done. And to your point, Tommy, like, by us not going to a G20 summit that is in a BRICS country, like South Africa is the s. In the brics. We are just saying like Chinese, you run this meeting entirely, right? This is your. You built this whole alternative world order with the BRICS and all these other development instruments. Now we're literally taking something from our world order. We built. And just saying over to you now and whether that's. The Chinese are going to be coming to talk about investment. We come to talk about tariffs and kissing Trump's ass. They're going to be coming to talk about investing more in Africa, development, financing, AI probably. By the way, I'd love to see the G20 used to be setting AI norms. That's clearly not happening. So when Trump does shit like this, you realize it's not just a spectacle and the offense of it. It's the opportunity cost of not being there. What's not getting done internationally that would normally be getting done on things like AI and then also just the opportunity for, like the Chinese of the world to just say, look, these guys are totally fucking unreliable. Deal with us.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, we got a fake white genocide leads to a boycott of the G20 in South Africa. We got a fake Christian genocide gets you military plans to invade Nigeria and The Trump foreign policy is like, hey, everyone, Tajikistan is joining the Abraham Accords. Like, that's. Well, but that's a good point.

[Tariq Fancy]

Like, the guy can't bring himself to go to the G20, like, the premier meeting of the year, but he can have this fucking cavalcade of people through the Oval Office, right? Orban Alshara, the Stans, some of which are probably got some corrupt side deals in play. I mean, what are we doing here?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, a little captagon for crypto deal.

[Tariq Fancy]

I mean, this is so funny. He's like, yeah, he's spending so much time on foreign policy, he spends too.

[Tommy Vietor]

Much time on foreign policy.

[Tariq Fancy]

It hurts me to say it, but he's not. Most of it is this performative bullshit.

[Tommy Vietor]

He's not accomplishing anything for us. He's accomplishing a lot for himself. He's getting Don and Eric's calls returned for the resort in bal. But even, like, Steve Bannon and people are being like, dude, like, the craziest right wingers are saying to Trump, like, enough of the foreign policy. Focus on the economy, focus on affordability. And he just absolutely refuses to do.

[Tariq Fancy]

It, by the way. Also, like, not a great look to have your press secretary, like, scolding people that you're working on affordability in the bilat with the prime Minister of Hungary, who has nothing to do with affordability in the United States.

[Tommy Vietor]

Clearly a waste of your time. But, hey, congrats on beating up the Reuters guy.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, good job. Really tough. Really dunked on Jeff Mason.

[Tommy Vietor]

All right, let's turn to Tanzania, where hundreds, if not thousands of Tanzanians are killed have been. Are dead following protests over a rigged presidential election. And hundreds more have been charged with treason for criticizing the government. So President Samia Salulu Hassan won the reelection on October 29th. One in air quotes, she got, or claims 97% of the vote with an 87% turnout. If you're, if you're. If you're racking up vote totals in the 90 percentile, it's usually a pretty good sign that something is amiss. And in this case, everything is amiss. So running up to the election, Amnesty International documented widespread human rights violations, including, quote, disappearances, arbitrary arrest, torture, unlawful killings, and severe restrictions on freedoms of movement, expression, and peaceful assembly. The leader of the main opposition party has been in jail since April. The candidate from the second largest opposition party was disqualified in September. And then on election day, the ruling party cut off the Internet and they stuffed the ballot boxes. But other than that, free and fair election. Hasan's party, the CCM, was formed in the late 1970s after the merger of two existing political parties. And it's basically been in charge ever since. In 2021, the president died in Hassan. Then the VP became Tanzania's first female president. There was some hope that she might be a democratic reformer, but she's quickly emerged to be a tyrant. Which brings us to this recent election where there's just all these just horrifying human rights abuses against protesters and just innocent people who are, like, caught in the crossfire. One human rights group said up to 3,000 people could have been killed by security forces. And then just the individual stories are horrifying. I mean, the Washington Post reported out a bunch of details and examples. There's a story of this young mom who's just driving through the largest city in Tanzania when she was stopped by armed men and executed in front of her two little kids. So, Ben, you know, we've been talking about these Gen Z led protests over the last few months. I don't know that these protesters have, like, identified themselves in the same way and used like, like, you know, like the Jolly Roger, like kind of pirate iconography or anything, but the median age In Tanzania is 18 years old. So it's a very young country. And the BBC reported that a third of Tanzanians aged 18 to 25 are unemployed. So it's like similar structural challenges that are leading to this anger. Ultimately, Hassan was sworn into office in this closed press ceremony. She blamed foreigners for the protests. So it's good to see that she's not struggling to figure out the kind of traditional autocratic playbook early in her tenure as a strong woman.

[Tariq Fancy]

I guess this is a pretty striking situation because first of all, Tanzania's generally been a more stable country. I mean, they've also been governed by one party that dates all the way back to kind of liberation. But it was always kind of like one of the better models of stability, economic development. Obama went there. I remember we went there in 2015, and the President, Kikwete was one of these guys that everybody thought was one of the more positive leaders in Africa. And so therefore, first of all, this election was totally fucking rigged, right? They threw the opposition in prison. Even the election monitors who are pretty.

[Tommy Vietor]

Casual, they hesitate to really come down hard.

[Tariq Fancy]

They were like, holy shit, this is not bad. As bad as it gets. This is some bad shit.

[Tommy Vietor]

The AU was whacking them.

[Tariq Fancy]

They're getting whacked left and right, right? So, so to me, what's depressing about that is it does show you that this kind of democratic backsliding, I mean, we're so far beyond even that because everywhere around the world you're just seeing more and more brute force for people staying in power. And that's all the examples. If you look around the world, you don't see a lot of positive examples of multi party democracy or people relinquishing power easily. By the way, you didn't see that in the United States after 2000 election either.

[Tommy Vietor]

Good point.

[Tariq Fancy]

And so that's depressing. I will say there was a Gen Z aspect to this because essentially, I think if you read the coverage, essentially and look at some of the better analysts, the resistance was bigger than clearly the ruling party thought. They thought they could just do this and people wouldn't really bother. And instead it looks like there was big turnout here and there's big turnout among younger people. Bear in mind, I mean, we covered the Kenyan protest on this podcast like a few weeks ago. That's right next door. Kenya has more of a tradition of political protests. But I mean, honestly watch this trend because we've talked a lot about the global authoritarian trend. Now we've seen one of the things that characterizes that is it's everywhere, right? And we've said it's from Brazil and Argentina to the US to Hungary to Russia to Turkey to Indonesia, all these different places. Well, here you've had these kind of Gen Z protests in Bangladesh, in Nepal, in Madagascar, in Tanzania, in Kenya, in Indonesia. It does just feel like there's something happening out there where younger people in general, they're sick and tired of corruption. They don't believe that the future is better than the past. So they don't see a lot of opportunity for themselves. They're also frankly a generation that had to deal with COVID and a bunch of insanity. And it does feel like there's a pent up feeling that is beginning to be expressed in country after country. There's no reason to believe that's gonna stop. And the more it happens, it seems like people are watching it happen in other places and say, well, let's do this here. And I'd say that's a particularly big warning sign or potentially positive thing, depending on how it goes in Africa. Because they're your populations are so weighted.

[Tommy Vietor]

To use explosive population.

[Tariq Fancy]

It's explosive. And on the surface it looks like, okay, you got all these strong men and they're kind of, you know, they're the old people like Museveni in Uganda or they're these new like coup leaders in West Africa. But the reality of this thing is that they're sitting on top of these giant population bulges under 25 and they're not creating jobs fast enough. And so I just think we're gonna.

[Tommy Vietor]

See a lot more of this. I really do. This was not on our rundown for the show today, but there was a story in the Times, you mentioned Kenya, about all these Kenyan moms who had no. These Kenyan women who had no economic opportunity, so they got lured into jobs in the Gulf, specifically Saudi Arabia. And the story in the Times was about women, these Kenyan women who had kids while there. And now their kids are stuck in this horrific legal limbo. Like they can't get a birth certificate, they can't get any kind of legal status. So they can't get vaccines, they can't get schooling, they can't get daycare. And like a lot of these women had like, had got pregnant by another immigrant working in Saudi Arabia. Several had been raped, others arrived pregnant and just didn't know it. But now they're in this situation where their kids live in this just sort of like status less world and they're not allowed to leave. So the moms can leave Saudi Arabia, but they're not letting the kids. It is like, it is harrowing, awful. These women are living outside these gas stations. But it just, it sort of speaks to the total lack of economic opportunities for young people and the links. They're going to find jobs abroad and maybe send home some money and how rife it makes them for abuse.

[Tariq Fancy]

It's just not. There's a degree of inequality. There's always been inequality. I mean, we had colonialism for hundreds of years, right? But it just feels like we're entering a phase where there's something that's just going to break at some point. I mean, Elon Musk just became a trillionaire. And yet you've got people that have to go to Saudi Arabia and endure that. Right? And country after country you just see that governments economies don't have the answer to the need for job creation, the need for cost of living reductions. And frankly the only answer out there in the global economy right now and where you find growth is AI, which is probably not going to create jobs. It's going to take them away. So there's just like a ticking time bomb out there that, I mean, shit, I can feel in Los Angeles, pretty stratified place. But I mean, it's nothing compared to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania or Nigeria, where.

[Tommy Vietor]

The population growth is going to be just Explosive. Okay, so staying in Africa, Ben, in recent weeks, covered Sudan a bunch. There's been this horrific attack by a rebel group called the RSF on the city of Al Fashr in the Darfur region of Sudan. Remember the rsf? They've been laying siege to Al Fasher. They did it for about 18 months. And the Sudanese civil war has been raging since April of 2023. So this has been just an ungodly, awful past few years for everybody in Sudan. And then there was finally, like, the Sudanese armed forces left the city of Al Fasher and the RSF took it. And the. The atrocities that have been documented are just ungodly awful. There's been some amazing, great coverage that we'd recommend. Check out work by Yusra Elbegger at Sky News. The New Yorker had a really comprehensive, great piece called the title was Rebels Post Videos of Mass Killings in Darfur. As the world watches, that got at how these RSF forces. I mean, there's one guy in particular who was, like, bragging about having hit his goal of killing 2,000 people. Apparently he sort of became a mini celebrity among influencers from the UAE is like, just disgusting shit. The Times and the Journal have covered all the ways the uae, the United Arab Emirates, has been prolonging the war, worsening the war by funneling weapons to the rsf. So just check out, you know, those outlets for doing a great job here. It's hard to overstate how bad this recent massacre in Al Fasher seems to have been. Some have compared it to the early days of the Rwandan genocide. Just indiscriminate massacres everywhere. If people manage to escape Al Fashur, their troubles don't end there. The Doctors Without Borders says they're seeing a massive hunger crisis in Tooeleh, which is the closest town, which I think is like 40 miles away. 70% of the kids there under 5 are acutely malnourished. 35% are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. MSF screened like 1100 adults in Tahula. 60% of the adults were malnourished, about 40% of whom were severely malnourished. So we reached out to the Norwegian Refugee Council, who has people on the ground in Tawila where these displaced people who are able to make it out of Al Fashur are gathering. This is a clip from Shaswav Sarov, the country director at NRC Sudan. Please listen. People who are arriving in Tavila talk about the horrors that they've encountered in Fasher. And also on the way they've talked.

[Tariq Fancy]

About how they have had to run with bullets flying all around, how they.

[Tommy Vietor]

Have been detained on the way they.

[Tariq Fancy]

Have been beaten and at times have also been asked for money.

[Tommy Vietor]

When they arrive in Tavila, one of the things that strikes us is that.

[Tariq Fancy]

Every single individual who's arriving in in Tavila talks about how they have become an incomplete family.

[Tommy Vietor]

Either they don't know where their husband.

[Tariq Fancy]

Is or their wife is, or siblings are, or parents. A young woman arrived today, she mentioned.

[Tommy Vietor]

That when they were leaving Fashar, there were bullets flying everywhere and her three year child was on the shoulder of her husband. And by the time she realized with all the running, her husband and the child were nowhere to be seen. And then she walked for days to come here, but she has no idea.

[Tariq Fancy]

Where her husband and child are.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's just unimaginably awful. And you know, that woman who's survived, there's not a lot of resources there because obviously, as you mentioned, newly minted trillionaire elon Musk destroyed USAID. So a bunch of NGOs are desperately trying to fill even a small part of the void that's left by the US departing. If you're looking to like donate to an organization, the nrc, the Norwegian Refugee Council, there's Doctors Without Borders, there's the Sudanese American Physicians association, there's Save the Children, that's just a few. You can look up a bunch more places like Charity Navigator or other sites, but the need is just enormous. So just consider it.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, and it's really frustrating and angering to come back to this each week. And there's just this relentless dehumanization of these people that are just trapped in this. I mean, in the Emirates, they just so fundamentally clearly don't give a shit. You know, they are literally, you know, funneling guns to this genocidal militia, the rsf, and just vacuuming up gold, you know, that they can wash through the gold trading post in Dubai or whatever the fuck it is. And just not even burdened at all by the fact that not even think twice, by the way. Like, you know someone. So we're not in a glass house here. Like we shoveled weapons out the door that were dropped on kids in Gaza. Like there's a contagion to these things where it's just like over time, people are supposed to kind of be numb to this degree of suffering. And I would like to see. And crooked con was really, I thought good at this time. It's good because when you're a crowd, it Kind of forces you to make that turn to the positive. And so I want to do that here. I just think there's a space to kind of reclaim some basis of morality in politics. Nobody tries anymore. I mean, and nobody's, you know, because I can show me all the polls about how people don't like foreign aid. And when's the last time anybody tried to go out there and say, hey, we should value human dignity, human life around the world. We should try to do something about these things?

[Tommy Vietor]

It worked 20 years ago in the Darfur region. It was a coalition from the far right to the far left. It was evangelical Christians to, you know, lefty liberals.

[Tariq Fancy]

There is a space out there, whether it's in this country, hopefully, you know, Democrats or anybody, frankly, but other foreign leaders, there's a space for people. Because you see this in the Gen Z protests. I don't think most people like the way things are going in the world right now. And one thing to try that nobody seems to be trying is to give a shit again and not just be on defense, like, well, we don't like migrants either. Or we're trying to sit in the lab and develop the talking points that can speak to our working class. Like, that's. I'm not suggesting that's not important. But, like, sometimes there needs to be a space for just, like, a moral purpose here. And the world has a huge vacuum.

[Tommy Vietor]

Especially in a moment like this when, like, a genocidal massacre is happening and there's a moment for moral clarity and sounding the alarm. And I think people. I agree with you. I think people do care. I think young people in particular care. And if someone sounds the alarm and talks about what's happening and talks about our responsibility to do something about it, not in a way to make you feel guilty, but like a responsibility to speak out and state the truth and talk about the forces that are making this massacre worse, like the UAE and the way they are just funneling arms into this civil war.

[Tariq Fancy]

It's so interesting because one of the things Trump has done is he's shattered all these norms, right? Like, he, you know, and that would actually get. He will never do this. But, like, imagine if someone like Trump who just doesn't give a shit, you.

[Tommy Vietor]

Know, he can make one phone call.

[Tariq Fancy]

What if he went out tomorrow and said, you know what? This is fucking bullshit. I'm getting all these briefings. These women and children are getting massacred, and it's just so a bunch of gold can go to the UAE and they can be like a little bit richer than they already are. And I'm just not gonna sell them anything, you know, I'm gonna tariff them 300% and cut off weapons tomorrow. If they don't cut this out, this fucking war could be over. You know, it could be over.

[Tommy Vietor]

It really could be like this was true in Gaza, right? Like we could just shut off the spigot, stop sending the Israeli arms. But if Trump called mbz, the leader of the United Arab Emirates, and said, stop this right now or else there will be consequences for you, they would have to listen.

[Tariq Fancy]

I think they would. And so there's actually like a weird space to take some of this Trumpian impulse foreign policy and use it for good, you know, but we don't see that.

[Tommy Vietor]

We're gonna take a quick break, but after you listen to this whole show, if you're looking for some more content, check out what a Day. It's the Daily show from Crooked Media. They just landed a great interview with Senator Bernie Sanders about why this Democratic Party just caved on the shutdown thing. Ben, it's pretty frustrating, but listen to what a Day. Wherever you get your podcasts, Jane Coston is a fantastic host, hilarious person, super interesting political views, great interviewer. So check it out. This podcast is brought to you by wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. With Wise, you can send, spend and receive up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps. Whether you're buying souvenirs with yen in Tokyo or sending Karuna to a loved one in Prague, you know you're getting the mid market exchange rate with no extra markups. That's what makes WISE the fast, affordable way to use your money around the globe. WISE offers 24.7live support and runs over 7 million daily checks to catch and prevent fraud. So you know your money is where it's supposed to be. WISE is an incredible app. It's super easy to use. You can exchange currency, you can use it to pay for stuff. I was in France recently. I went to the Louvre for about seven minutes and I had to move some money around super fast and like Wise was there. I'm just kidding. Obviously that was not the case, but if you wanted to take the metro to the Louvre to pay to go there the right way and view some priceless art and leave it there when you're done. I would recommend Wyze. Take only photographs, Leave only footprints.

[Tariq Fancy]

That's right.

[Tommy Vietor]

Make only memories at the Louvre.

[Tariq Fancy]

Be Smart.

[Tommy Vietor]

Join the 15 million customers who choose WISE. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com, terms and conditions apply. Justworks is the HR platform that helps small businesses take care of their teams. Whether you're hiring, automating payroll, expanding globally, or tackling compliance, JustWorks offers 247 support, hire and manage international talent without additional platforms and licensing fees. Access premium benefits for your employees like health insurance, 401k and commuter perks. Plus with transparent pricing, you know what you're paying for. Go to justworks.com to learn more. They do your human resources right so you can do right by your people. Justworks for your people. Let's sort of talk about where we're at on the whole peace watch thing. You know, Trump, Trump is constantly demanding the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Tariq Fancy]

What are we up to? 9. Nine wars, probably 10.

[Tommy Vietor]

You know, I haven't, I haven't checked in lately, but there have been. So we couldn't cover all of these issues.

[Tariq Fancy]

It doesn't feel like it based on the show.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, it does not. So we wanted to like, just fold kind of four important things happening in the world right now that just speak to the way the president of peace is making all things safer. So in Venezuela, regarding this ongoing Trump Rubio regime change operation that's happening down there this week, we learned that the UK has stopped sharing intelligence with the Trump administration about ships in the Caribbean because they think it's probably illegal to murder random people in boats off the coast of Venezuela. Stands to reason. And also the USS Gerald Ford, which is the Navy's largest aircraft carrier, is now in the Caribbean, along with three Navy destroyers that escorted everywhere and about 4,000 sailors. So that sounds very peaceful.

[Tariq Fancy]

Sounds like a lot of peace.

[Tommy Vietor]

Nobel Prize. Speaking of which, Trump constantly demands credit for a peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia. Unfortunately, that deal seems to have fallen apart, at least for now. On Monday, there were several Thai troops who were wounded by landmines near this disputed border, which is what this whole thing is about. The Thai military accused Cambodia of laying those landmines, which Cambodia denies. Either way, the supreme commander of Thailand's military said, quote, he was halting all agreements until Cambodia clearly and sincerely demonstrates that it will not be hostile on the nuclear front. Ben, after Trump's announcement last month that the US Is going to resume testing nuclear weapons, the Russians said they would respond in kind. Geez, you know, who could have seen that coming? And then finally, Ben, on Monday, there was a car explosion in New Delhi, India, that killed at least 10 people. This happened in this very historically significant tourist area near the Red Fort, which is a famous Monument and symbol of India's independence. We don't know the cause yet, but India's counterterrorism agency is handling the case. Then on Tuesday afternoon, there was a bombing outside a courthouse in Islamabad, Pakistan, that killed at least 12 people and wounded many, many more, Dozens more. Pakistan's Prime Minister, Shabbat Sharif blamed India for the bombing, calling it, quote, Indian state terrorism. Now, it should. We should note that a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, or ttp says they were responsible for this. So there's no evidence that these two events in India and Pakistan are connected except for, you know, time and the fact that it happened one day after the other. But these are the kinds of events that start wars. So, Ben, I guess, like, if Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize, it's like, I don't know if my advice right now should be to get to work and start mediating some things or just go away and stop with this Venezuela shit.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah. Look, first of all, the Brits cutting off intelligence sharing. These people follow us into Iraq. The Brits are usually pretty lenient about the special relationship. This just tells you how insane and extrajudicial this killing is at the United States is doing in the Caribbean. I will say, all these conflicts, he never solves them. He just wants the photo op. And he's betting on the kind of stupidity or short attention span of most of the American media that will cover his peace announcement and will never follow up and pay attention to whether or not Thailand and Cambodia are actually not fighting anymore. To me, the one that worries me is this India, Pakistan one.

[Tommy Vietor]

I was gonna say. I mean, it's the most recent, but also, that's very scary.

[Tariq Fancy]

It's very scary. And there's, like, a big dynamic happening in that region, which is that the Afghan Taliban, after years of being in bed with the Pakistani intelligence service and having a safe haven in Pakistan, well, they're back in charge in Afghanistan. They have. There's a Pakistani Taliban. It's different, but there are links there. And there have been some pretty brutal border skirmishes, including Pakistan, literally, like, bombing Pakistani Taliban on the other side of the Afghan border. And feels like it's getting a little hot there now. What's the connection? Well, the connection is the Indians are now building out relations with the Afghan Taliban. And so if you're Pakistan, you're probably like, oh, shit, we're gonna get flanked. We thought the Afghans were our allies, but now they're reaching out to our. This is just. I say this, it's a tinderbox. You've got Kashmir. You've got this hot and on again, off again India, Pakistan conflict that involves nuclear weapons. Now you got this Pakistan, Afghanistan conflict. I mean, you've got variety of extremist groups. I mean, the peacemaker here, I know Marco Rubio made one phone call for which Trump declared he'd solved the India, Pakistan conflict. But if you just want a sign of how stupid that is, we got another reminder of this week. And by the way, politically, but also substantively, like, Trump fucking owns this stuff. If you want to go out and claim that you made the ceasefire and you solved this problem and you should get a Nobel Peace Prize. Well, when shit starts to blow up like that's on you, motherfucker.

[Josh Paul]

Absolutely.

[Tariq Fancy]

Where's your peace effort now? What are you getting out of the fact that the Pakistanis nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize? They only really did that to fucking troll India and to kind of get you more on their side in the next time they have a fight with India. So are you going to be a trusted interlocutor or not? I mean, this is. He's playing with fire with these peace deals, and I don't think people understand that.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. And look, you know, the last major attack in Islamabad was in 2022. So this hasn't happened in a while. And now you have an even more autocratic strong man in Modi who's been stoking nationalism all day, every day, for the last however long. You've got a weak leader in, in Prime Minister Sharif in Pakistan, who immediately pointed the finger at the Indian government. But really the military is calling the shots. And also the Pakistani military was distracted at the time of this attack because they were focused on rescuing cadets at this army run college in South Waziristan near the Afghanistan border, who were attacked by militants and were being held hostage. So, like, there's all these reasons for that government to not the point the finger at, you know, the TTP or other Taliban forces that are more likely to have done it and to try to stoke nationalism in service of their political projects and blame India, which, as you said, ratchets up tensions and makes things really, really unsafe.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

So, yeah, get back at it.

[Tariq Fancy]

Good work, everybody.

[Tommy Vietor]

Okay, a couple more things, Ben. So thinking back to our time in government, do you remember when the British press would just hammer us all the time over all sorts of perceived slights?

[Tariq Fancy]

The bust of Winston Churchill is still living.

[Tommy Vietor]

The bust of Winston Churchill was moved somewhere and everyone was upset about it.

[Tariq Fancy]

He was replaced by a bust of Martin Luther King. In the White House, but they didn't have the perspective to understand why the first black president.

[Tommy Vietor]

Details, details. Well, now Donald Trump is threatening to sue the BBC for a billion dollars. So I think that's what the nerds would call the, the Overton window shifting. So here's what happened, Ben. In October of 2024, the BBC aired a documentary called Trump A Second Chance. Question mark. This existence of this documentary was news to me. It seemed like no one really gave a shit about it at the time until last week when the Telegraph, a conservative paper in the uk, published a leaked memo from a former advisor to the BBC board that included a litany of criticisms of the BBC for, you know, perceived bias, being too hard on Israel, etc, that included criticism of the way this specific documentary was edited. So remember Trump's infamous January 6th speech at the Ellipse? They, they edited it in a way that I think was genuinely bad and misleading. Basically, they edited together Trump saying, we're going to go walk down to the Capitol with a line 54 minutes later in the speech that said they have to fight like hell or you're not going to have a country anymore. Which, look, we all know what Trump was doing in that speech. We all know he's sick to those people in the Capitol. But it makes it sound like an even more direct call by Trump for violence and to take the Capitol by violence. And it just wasn't necessary and I don't understand why someone would have done it. So this leak to the Telegraph led to a bunch of former BBC journalists to speak out and ask why nothing had been done done earlier to kind of fix the problem. And then you had Trump threatening to sue for false, defamatory, malicious, disparaging and inflammatory edits. On Sunday, the fallout was pretty quick. The BBC's director general and chief executive of BBC News resigned. But that did not appease Trump. And what makes this all so complicated, Ben, is that the BBC is partially financed by the public by this fee, a license fee that's charged to basically any British household that consumes BBC content. It's about 300 bucks a year. So Trump is essentially threatening to sue the British public and his storied institution in the United Kingdom. So this seems not great for the BBC. Like, like all news media here in the us, the BBC has been just battered by charges of liberal bias, anti Israel bias. It is constantly attacked by, you know, conservative politicians in the UK and conservative news outlets like, like the Telegraph. But unlike most US based news outlets, they get this public funding and they are desperate to be seen as kind of above the political fray, which is all but impossible, I think, in 2025. So the BBC has until 5pm Eastern on Friday to respond to Trump's demand for money. He's also demanding an apology and a retraction of the documentary or else he's going to sue for a billion dollars. The BBC board's chairman apologized for the documentary in a letter to Parliament. They called the edit an error of judgment. But I don't think they've contacted Trump directly. What do you think they do?

[Tariq Fancy]

This is so fucking stupid. I think I hate everything about this story. I mean, look, did they edit the documentary? Fine. I don't sit combing through Frontline documentaries. I'm sure there's some things in there that I didn't like the edit on. You know, I don't sue them for a billion dollars. I just think that this is taking something that like the BBC airs like, like endless content. There's number of channels. Like, I just don't get this outrage.

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, it's just him being a whiny little bitch.

[Tariq Fancy]

So what, they edited some documentary we didn't like, like embarrass him in the Telegraph? Make them apologize. Okay, but like, why was the CEO of the BBC the editor on this fucking thing too? I don't get this. Like, just stop capitulating to this guy. I mean, it was weird enough when CBS had to like bring in Barry Weiss because they edited a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris the way Trump didn't. Like, now other countries are like. I mean, it literally feels like an American media company. Like other countries are having to like bend the knee to Trump and kiss his ass and apologize and deal with lawsuits. Cuz they edited some documentary that literally nobody saw.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, I can't think about that.

[Tariq Fancy]

Because if you think about, like, if you, if you actually want to look at it from Trump's perspective, did this documentary harm him in any way?

[Tommy Vietor]

Well, this is the thing that's interesting about this. So. So the statute of limitations has expired. In London, you have a year to file a suit, but in Florida, you have two years. So he's filing this suit in Florida because he can get it under the statute of limitations. But also he's going to have to find some Florida voter who says they saw this documentary and that it harmed them or like harmed their understanding of him, which just seems impossible.

[Tariq Fancy]

There's probably not. There's not a single human being on earth whose view of Donald Trump was changed because of the way this Documentary is edited. Then I also want to say that the BBC, they've been working the refs over there my whole adult life. The liberal bias over there. And so much of it is just bullshit, like Boris Johnson, like Tory Nigel Farage kind of bullshit. I mean, even on the Israel stuff, now they're so scared of that that they'll have some poor Palestinian on and they'll scream at the person to condemn Hamas and to. But there's, I mean, what are we doing here? This is a great institution. We spend a lot of time talking about British identity on this show. If these guys and I say this, my brother runs Sky News like a competitor, but I'll say like BBC is a core to British identity. It's like up there with like the Royal family about what people know and respect about the United Kingdom.

[Tommy Vietor]

It existed since 1927. It's an institution.

[Tariq Fancy]

And if they're gonna tear this thing apart because of like weird Nigel Farage type grievances against the liberal media or Telegraph crusades or Donald Trump suing them, like show some spine, some backbone here BBC. Because before you know it, you're just gonna be like a, you know, Barry Weiss is gonna be running the fucking BBC by the end of the Trump administration.

[Tommy Vietor]

Side hustle. Side hustle. Yeah, I mean, look, this thing's been around again since 1927. It's up for renewal in 2027. I think they thought they might have, you know, Keir Starmer might make it a little easier for them to grease things now. It's gotten complicated and tied up in Trump. There have been a bunch of other BBC controversies like they didn't move fast enough enough to deal with an anchor accused of sexual misconduct.

[Tariq Fancy]

That was bad.

[Tommy Vietor]

There was the suspension of this beloved soccer commentator named Gary Lineker for criticism of the torties immigration policy. There was sexual harassment by another presenter. There was this Gaza documentary that you mentioned where it turned out the father of this 13 year old narrator was a Hamas official and no one knew it, which is set, you know, opened them up to all sorts of accusations. But again, you know, like the BBC collected about 7.8 billion in revenue in the last financial year. About half of that was from these license fee payments, the rest was from commercial pursuits. They've got, you know, 627 million in cash on the books currently. But a Trump, Trump wouldn't win a billion dollars. Like it seems ridiculous, but you know, he could clear out a big hunk of that. So they got to fight.

[Tariq Fancy]

And to be clear, I have no idea who these two executives are, I couldn't pick them out of a lineup. They may have done a shitty job. They may have done a good job. Some of these other things you said, I follow those controversies and they seem bad, but even if they sucked at their jobs, I just don't like the optic of like Donald Trump being like, hey, this documentary that came out a.

[Tommy Vietor]

Year ago and it made me sad.

[Tariq Fancy]

I'm mad about it because someone showed me a thing from the Telegraph and so now you gotta fire. It's just, it feels like we're globalizing our own media drama and that makes me sad.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, it's not good. Yeah, it's globalizing. Just this, the, in this case legal attacks on the media that's trying to destroy it in service of all these right wing populists. Like it's an interesting like commentary about nationalism that someone like Nigel Farage would side with Donald Trump in taking a wrecking ball to a British, you know, institution that is really important and treasured and powerful and a good way for the UK to project power. Yeah, overtaking the side of his own country. I realize that it's all tied up in his party and his identity and he thinks the BBC is liberal and that's mean to him. But they also, you know, they give the guy tons of airtime so he benefits from BBC.

[Tariq Fancy]

Good luck not having a BBC. You know, I'm sure the whole world will be tracking GB news, you know, like whatever right wing rag Nigel Farah.

[Tommy Vietor]

Does, you can maybe stream if you're lucky. Finally, Ben, so longtime listener to the show, know that Ben and I are not the biggest fans of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. I'm not sure, Ben, if for you it was the butchering of a journalist named Jamal Khashoggi or the crackdowns and even executions of human rights activists, including women who just, you know, wanted to drive a car or the disastrous Saudi led war in Yemen. The list goes on and on. But the, the rest of the world, especially the business world, has largely moved on from those things and largely forgiven MBS's transgressions because he offered a full throated sincere apology and promised to change his ways. That or the trillion dollar sovereign. So guys like MBS though, who are ruthless and rich and powerful, they inevitably end up surrounded by yes men who are too afraid to tell them when their ideas are stupid. Which brings us to something called the Line. For those unfamiliar, the Line was a planned linear city in the Saudi desert. The full vision for the Line was announced back in 2021. It includes a structure that would ultimately accommodate 9 million residents. So a linear city in a 170 kilometer long building that is 1600ft tall and mirrored on both sides. So imagine two walls that are significantly taller than the Empire State Building. The building is between those two things and then repeat that for 170km. So it was obvious at the time, I'm pretty sure we said as much on the show that this was a ridiculous boom.

[Tariq Fancy]

We've been doing this show long enough.

[Tommy Vietor]

Way too long, that this was never going to happen. But the Financial Times has a report out about like it specifics about just what a disaster this project has become and why it seems like it has been put on ice. So everyone should read it because it's really, it's worth your time and it's too long to summarize here, but a few things that Jumped out at US1, the budget estimate went from 1.6 trillion in 2021 to an estimated 4.5 trillion in earlier this spring. So the design for the line, it's broken up into these modules that are kind of repeated to create consistency in the manufacturing process. But the scale of the resources you need for that manufacturing is just unimaginable. So here's a couple examples. One ex employee, he worked on the building's construction, said that to make the concrete for the first 20 modules, the contractors would need a supply of cement every year. That would be greater than France's annual output. Seems like a lot. Someone else told the FD that the plan would eat up something like 60% of the global production of green steel per year, which obviously jacks up the price of all these commodities. A senior construction manager said that for 12 modules to be built by 2030, a 40 foot container would need to arrive every 8 seconds, 24 hours a day from now until then. And the line was sold like with all this like bullshit sustainability, environmental protection, kind of branding. It was like they talked about how because it's built vertically, the footprint of the city was so much smaller than normal city, right? And good for the environment. But people pointed out that in practice what they were creating was a 500 meter tall, 170 kilometer long wall blocking the path of all these migrating birds. And the wall was surrounded by wind turbines. So these birds, they either get chopped up in this like wind energy blender or they crash into the world's biggest mirror before plunging to their death in like a fiery hot desert. So that seems bad. And then there's the human element. So there's a village in the lion's path that essentially was knocked down. And according to this FT report, some members of the tribe protested being evicted and 15 were sent to prison, some for up to 50 years, and three were executed. So that's how they treated the people who didn't like this dumb idea. So 50 billion has been spent. I guess we'll just see if MBS adds to that. He did already detonate an entire mountain. So there's some sunk costs, as they say.

[Tariq Fancy]

There's all these often Silicon Valley guys that are super totalitarian, curious. And they like the kind of, well, you can get things done in an authoritarian system. Well, this is the counter to that, which is that when everybody has to say yes to every idea that the autocrat has, like you get clusterfucks like this. Just to point out a couple things that jumped out to me, Tommy, did you notice that one guy said to him to mbs, hey, high speed rail is great. We can go from one side of the line to the next in 20 minutes or something. And so they started planning to build this light rail because MBS was really psyched about it. But it turned out that high speed rail only works if it never stops.

[Tommy Vietor]

I forgot to mention, they stop.

[Tariq Fancy]

Everybody lives in between the two ends. But nobody wanted to tell MBS because he was promised a 20 minute high speed rail. And so they didn't point out that you. Same thing with like getting to the airport. It was like, oh, I'm gonna take the rail to the airport, but there's not enough room in the railway cars for bags.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes.

[Tariq Fancy]

And so they had to pick up your bags like eight hours before you get to the airport. All these little details like this, I'd also just say the other. There's a global cabal of like management consultants. And honestly, I would bet anything I don't know this that the same kind of people that were having like pitch decks prepared for like the Gaza Riviera definitely have a piece of this thing. There just must be these people that go around vacuuming up money for like the wild ideas of the super rich or the autocrats around the world, because that $50 billion got spent on a lot of things other than concrete. It's like consultants, architects. Yep, they were. MBS was talking to quantum physicists. I was like, why the fuck is he talking to quantum physicists? And I'm like, well, maybe a nice side hustle if you're a quantum physicist to go talk to MBS about the line. And then the last thing is, even if this worked. Which it's clearly not gonna do. Who the fuck would want to live in a wall in the middle of the desert?

[Tommy Vietor]

No one. Literally no one. It's like 25% of the Saudi population.

[Tariq Fancy]

Nobody could ever explain to me like, why anyone would want like, even in the beautiful drawings that they made of this wall with trees in it and stuff, you'd be like, well, that seems like a recipe for claustrophobia. Seems like I'd be going out of my fucking mind inside of this prison for like.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. And there's little basic things like what if there's a fire? Oh yeah. I guess we run horizontally. The opening of the story is about how they had to create a. They wanted to create a marina where that like the world's largest cruise ship could I guess, dock in the building for some reason.

[Tariq Fancy]

Why though? Why?

[Tommy Vietor]

I have no idea.

[Tariq Fancy]

There's plenty of beautiful places on earth for the cruise ship to dock.

[Tommy Vietor]

There wasn't even a marina. So they'd like dig the harbor, but then the water was stagnant, so it would like be a horrible health hazard.

[Tariq Fancy]

And then wasn't there a soccer stadium above the marina?

[Tommy Vietor]

They wanted to build a, a 30 story glass and steel chandelier and above that a 45,000 person soccer stadium.

[Tariq Fancy]

This is just. This is beyond I. What's after late stage capitalism. Because that's.

[Tommy Vietor]

Whatever this is, whatever this is because.

[Tariq Fancy]

Like, who needs a chandelier that big? Like, who wants to even look at a chandelier that big?

[Tommy Vietor]

A Saudi prince, I guess. I also love the anecdote where MBS would show up at like planning meetings with literally a 40 to 50 person entourage. And I guess it would just be dead silent as they walked around. And if you like something, the whole group would be like. And if you didn't like anything, they'd all tut at it and like tisk and wag their fingers.

[Tariq Fancy]

I don't like that.

[Tommy Vietor]

But like, can you imagine the stress, like knowing what this guy did to Jamal Khashoggi and God knows how many other activists and journalists and opposition leaders in Saudi Arabia. Like imagine, you know, he's like not happy about your window mockup or whatever.

[Tariq Fancy]

I just. It definitely feels like not a lot of people are delivering the bad news to MBS on this project though, because.

[Tommy Vietor]

Because you'll get high speed railed.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, not good. I mean, it's actually going to end up being one of those great artifacts of history if it gets like 1/10 of it built and like 100 years from now, people are going to go on like tourist destinations just to see the, like, you know, wreckage of some concrete that was poured in the middle of the desert or something.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it'd be like aliens.

[Tariq Fancy]

Guess who'll be fine? The birds will be fucking fine.

[Tommy Vietor]

The birds. Imagine the birds. Birds like, oh, I can't fly over this thing. I guess I'll just fly around it 170km later, just like, I'm dead. All right, that is it for the news portion of the show, but please stick around for my interview with Tara Kabash and Josh Paul. We're going to talk about why they resigned from the Biden administration over Gaza policy, what they think a better policy looks like, and all they know about the Trump administration's ceasefire deal and reconstruction efforts in Gaza. It's a very important conversation, so stick around for that positive. The world is brought to you by Simplisafe. Is your home actually safe if you have an old school home? Security? I don't know. Traditional security systems respond after someone breaks in. Simplisafe is different because it can stop crimes before they happen with its active guard outdoor protection high tech cameras detect threats while they're still outside your home and alert real security agents. It's a game changer. The agents take action while the intruder is still outside. They confront the intruder, letting them know they're being watched on camera and that police are on their way and even sound a loud siren and trigger a spotlight if needed. This is how you stop crime before it starts. Other systems have cameras that let you talk to intruders, but they require you to see the alert yourself. Simplisafe's monitoring agents have your back and talk to intruders even if they aren't there. Plus, with SimpliSafe there are no long term contracts or hidden fees you can cancel anytime. They've been named the best home security system by U.S. news & World Report for five years running and they have a 60 day money back guarantee. So you can try it and see the difference for yourself. I know John Lovett set up a Simplisafe himself. I heard it was excellent service. Turn it on and off from your phone. Easy to set up yourself. Customer support, really reliable app, really easy to use. Highly recommend it. Kept the coyotes away from pundit. That's right. Win, win. Sure don't miss out on Simplisafe's biggest sale of the year. 60% off. Right now our listeners can save 60% off on a SimpliSafe home security [e-mail] CrookedWorld that's simplisafe.com CrookedWorld there's no safe like SimpliSafe. Justworks is the HR platform that helps small businesses take care of their teams. Whether you're hiring, automating payroll, expanding globally or tackling compliance. JustWorks offers 24. 7 support, hire and manage international talent without additional platforms and licensing fees. Access premium benefits for your employees like health insurance, 401k and commuter perks, plus with transparent pricing, you know what you're paying for. Go to justworks.com to learn more. They do your human resources right so you can do right by your people. Justworks for your people Joining me in the studio today are Tara Kabash and Josh Paul. Together they founded and now direct the organization and new policy. Thank you both for being here.

[Tariq Fancy]

Thanks for having us.

[Tommy Vietor]

Folks probably know of your name. Just for context, both of you resigned from the Biden administration administration over its handling of Gaza policy. Josh, after spending a decade at the State Department and Tarek was serving as advisor at the Department of Education. I want to talk to you about that experience in a minute especially so what it was like and why maybe more people didn't follow you out the door in your opinion. But I wanted to start with just your opinions on what we know about this Trump Gaza ceasefire deal. I mean, there was a report in Politico this morning, they got a leaked PowerPoint presentation. It's about how the administration is struggling to get from ceasefire to phase two of this deal. Phase two including disarming Hamas, the IDF withdrawing from more parts of Gaza, Palestinian governance and reform, economic development. You know, the easy stuff. The White House is also reportedly struggling to put together an international stabilization force to secure Gaza. There have been all these reports that maybe the plan is to only rebuild parts of the Gaza Strip that the IDF controls, not anything under control of Hamas. The Atlantic reported on the plan to create what they're calling alternate safe communities where I guess up to 25,000 Gazans may like live together in these little hamlets, I don't know what to call them and not be allowed to travel to parts of Gaza under Hamas control. So just throwing information at you guys here. Josh, back in September you wrote not bad for the Guardian, calling the Kushner Blair plan, reconstruction plan for a post war Gaza a moral and policy atrocity. Has that view changed since you've learned more about what they're actually planning to do?

[Josh Paul]

No, not really. I think the thing that's changed is it's become increasingly clear that There's despite this 20 point Trump proposal, really the absence of a plan in terms of how you get to the next phase. There's certainly inputs that are coming, I think unfortunately, from the wrong quarters, both from business interests. I think there's a lot of people who are looking at Gaza and thinking about how they can make money off this. And you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing all he can to, if not scuttle this, then bend it to his will, which of course is not the route to a just and lasting peace. So I think where we are now is also unfortunately taking a leaf from the last two decades or 25 years of failed American policy in the Middle east. And in particular where we see the absence of any sort of Palestinian role in this plan and the imposition of governance from the outside. That's what went wrong in Iraq. And we have taken apparently no lessons from that. And the war will pay for itself.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, Tark, I mean there's basically nothing in there about Palestinian self determination, but.

[Ben Rhodes]

Correct me if I'm wrong, that's pretty much right. And to Josh's point, it's the same problem we continue to see with American foreign policy in the Middle East. It's always happening in contra to what the actual people are looking to achieve. And without having a self governing system, without giving Palestinians the authority, the ability to speak for themselves, we're gonna get this wrong. You need to have Palestinians actually at the table. That's Palestinians in the region, that's Palestinians in the diaspora, not a US government that is dictating what they think is best for Palestinians. In the same way we don't tell Israelis what to do, far from it. Actually, we give them complete autonomy to decide what they want to do, sometimes to their own detriment. Why don't Palestinians have that same type of voice? Why don't they have that same type of self determination? I think it's actually in the United States best interest as well as all peoples in the region to create that space for Palestine means to be part of the solution.

[Tommy Vietor]

So the Washington Post reported that this US led civil military coordination center has now taken the lead in overseeing the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza. I guess on one level it's maybe a little bit of a relief that it won't be as disastrously handled as the ghf, the previous iteration of assistance was. But in response to that news, I saw that your organization and new policies released a statement that said, quote, the U.S. must avoid a mission creep that makes Israel's legacy our responsibility. Can you guys just elaborate on that? Risk of mission creep. And then just sort of, what do you think is an appropriate role to make sure that these civilians in Gaza who have been bombarded or starved for the better part of two years actually get the humanitarian assistance?

[Josh Paul]

Yeah, I mean, first of all, the good news, right, which is that I think it's very clear to everyone that Israel is not the appropriate authority to be in charge of humanitarian assistance going into Gaza. It has weaponized that assistance not just for the last couple of years, but for decades, restricting the flow of medicine, of food, of construction materials to the Palestinians. And so if there's to be any hope of a successful reconstruction, it has to be taken out of Israel's hands. And, you know, the United States is an appropriate partner to play a significant role in that. Of course, the downside is that we know how US Operations in the Middle east tend to go. They go, they start slowly, and then before you know it, you are pulled into something that is not in America's interest. And, you know, I think we all wonder what is going to happen when the first American soldier gets killed in one of these operations, you know, which seems at some point or other, you know, the more and more we get involved, the greater the risk becomes. And then what is the next step after that? What is the long term plan again? Are we committing ourselves to an operation without an exit plan, without a long term plan, and without clearly a plan to transition this role to that Palestinian governance and leadership that Tariq was just talking about?

[Tommy Vietor]

There's been a Palestinian American kid named Mohammed Ibrahim who has been rotting in Israeli prisons since February for like nine months. He's 16 years old. The crime is allegedly throwing stones, I think, in an empty street in the West Bank. It doesn't seem like anyone in the Trump administration has lifted a finger to get this kid out. There have been a number of journalists who have tried to raise awareness about the cause. Not enough, I would argue, but it doesn't seem to really penetrate. You two know far better than anyone about, you know, the Biden's administration's failure to use leverage and pressure Israel to do things. For all this talk of US Leverage, especially the billions in military assistance that we give them, it seems that historically, or at least in recent history, we've rarely use that leverage. Why do you think that is?

[Ben Rhodes]

I think it's a political problem, plain and simple. You know, to your point, Biden had all the time in the world to use US Leverage to stop the ongoing atrocities that we were witnessing in Gaza. The forced starvation, the continuous bombing of civilian infrastructure. We never did anything. And I think the reality is that regardless if it's Democrats or if it's Republicans, there is this entrenchment in US politics today and for many years now that has been completely captured by special interests. And the special interests here are extremely wealthy billionaires that are operating in Democratic primaries, that are operating in Republican elections to ensure that there is an unconditional support to the Israeli government's policies of oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. And I think that is fundamentally the problem that Americans have been watching for years and they have realized in the last couple years is not working in their own interests. These positions that politicians are taking to fail to use US Leverage is working against all of our communities. And it's something that Americans are increasingly frustrated by. We've seen these tremendous shifts in public opinion that don't want to see US tax dollars and US weapons being used against civilians. They want that money to be reinvested in their communities. And they're realizing that Palestine is actually this litmus test in American politics because there is going to be the establishment in both parties in this duopoly that is going to continue to allow these special interests to dictate to them what leverage should or shouldn't be used. And then there are a lot of people who are increasingly frustrated, who are going to be running against those establishment type figures who are gonna say we need a different solution and that means we need to be able to reject those special interests. We need to actually fight for our communities. And that's kind of what a new policy is here to do. It's a change. And to break that political chokehold on our politicians in Washington D.C. yeah, I.

[Tommy Vietor]

Definitely wanna ask you more about the organization and the way you can break that chokehold, but I mean, are you guys ever surprised that look, the rights of American citizens don't trump other priorities like this kid's 16 year old American kid robbing in prison. There's American citizens on these flotillas that the IDF is reportedly bombing, like dropping incendiary devices on drones. And seemingly the United States government, at least under the Trump administration, doesn't say a fucking word.

[Josh Paul]

Well, I'm glad you bring this up, right, because I mean, yes, you know, Mohamed Ibrahim has been in prison now for nine months and is suffering there. But you know, there's been at least 13American citizens who have been killed by Israeli security forces over the course of the last few years with impunity. Apparently there has never been anyone held accountable for any of those killings, including of American journalist Reena Beauclerk, but of other Americans as well, including, for example, an elderly grandfather in his 70s who was, you know, kicked and punched by Israeli security forces in the West Bank, Omar Assad, and then left to die, which he did. If you could think about any country, any other country in the world where we had seen over a dozen Americans killed by their security forces, Congress would be raising hell. The White House would be on the phone to that government saying, what the hell are you doing? We want to see accountability. We want to see people put on trial. We want to know exactly what has happened. And in the case of Israel, the opposite is happening, and it's pretty shocking. There's actually a retired U.S. army colonel, Colonel Steve Gabovicz of the former U.S. army military policeman who served in the west bank for the last few years, who just spoke publicly to say that he investigated one of those killings of an American citizen. He took his findings up the chain and he was told, no, we're not going to say that. We're going to follow Israel's version of events here. It's, to me, I think, one of those issues where if we can't even stand up and saying this also, as someone who served in the State Department for a long time, if we can't even stand up for the security and the safety and the right rights of our own citizens overseas with one of our closest partners who depends on us for their defense, what on earth are we doing?

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

So you guys made, both of you, this gutsy decision to resign from jobs in the Biden administration over Gaza policy. Can you just tell us, what was that like? Was it lonely? Was it scary? Were you surprised that more people didn't follow suit? Tark's already.

[Ben Rhodes]

It was lonely, yeah, absolutely. You know, I've never actually told the story about, like, the moment that I decided to resign. For me, you know, after days of, you know, very dehumanizing rhetoric from the president himself, you know, from conversations with colleagues, there was, like, a particular moment. It was minutes after the first hospital got bombed. It was El Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. And. And I turned to a colleague. We're in a meeting, and I was like, what the fuck are we doing? And she just didn't know what to say. She knew I was Palestinian. She knew that this was an issue that was close to me that had been raising concerns about U.S. complicity. And she looks at her phone, she sees a notification from the Washington Post, and she's like, the headline says that it was a backfiring rocket from Hamas. And in that moment, I realized, like, there was no amount of humanizing myself within the administration with these colleagues that I'd worked with for years, because the propaganda machine that always played out, that I had been so familiar with as a Palestinian, that our stories, that our voices were never trustworthy enough, that it was always going to be, the Israeli officials said this, and so that's what we have to go with. And in those conversations with senior officials in the Department of Education in the White House, my voice didn't actually matter. And, you know, a few weeks later, the Washington Post came out with a very thorough investigation, making it very clear that, like, there was no way this is a rocket backfiring. This was always an Israeli rocket that had hit a hospital that killed 500 civilians. And that allowance of, you know, this idea that, you know, oh, it could have been something else, allowed for dozens of hospitals to be invaded, to be bombed. And, like, it was very clear that, like, this was a lonely road for me. And despite that, I still continued to communicate with many colleagues who were increasingly frustrated, who wanted to take a position, but because they had family circumstances that made it impossible for them to leave, because they needed to have health care, because costs are getting more and more expensive in these cities, like, there had to be someone else to raise their voice and to do what I ultimately had to do, which was resign and to be public about it. And I don't envy other people for not being able to make that decision, but I do wish there were more people who took that position.

[Tommy Vietor]

It is really, I mean, galling to think back to those early days when there were these debates over whether medical infrastructure was being targeted, and then it was just routine, or when you'd cite the health ministry death toll and people would scream at you and say, it's Hamas run. How dare you. Obviously, they're lying. And now those numbers are not even disputed, and if anything, they're widely perceived to be an undercount.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

But thank you for triggering me. Josh, what was your experience of residing? Like, can you tell folks what you did?

[Josh Paul]

Yeah, so I worked in the State Department in something called the Bureau of Political Military affairs, which is the part of the US Government that is responsible for what we broadly call our defense diplomacy. But essentially, it's the overlap between military diplomacy and foreign policy, and that includes arms transfers, security assistance, as well as a host of other functions. Global humanitarian demining, security negotiations with countries around the world. And so in that bureau, where I'd been for over a decade, There were certainly plenty of, of difficult issues. I went into it knowing that there would be plenty of difficult issues that we would struggle with as we strike a balance, right as it always is, between America's hard security interests and human life. Frankly, what was different in this context, I think were two things were first of all, the absolute scope and scale of the harm that was being done so quickly with American weapons, and not just American weapons, but weapons that we ourselves were paying for for the most part. By the time I left October 18th of 2023, there were already three and a half thousand people who were killed in Gaza at that point, almost all of them with American weapons. The other thing that was different was the absence of debate, in fact the unwillingness, frankly the top down direction for there not to be any sort of policy discussion. And if you know the state, top down from whom, certainly from the White House, but in my experience from the Secretary, from the undersecretary level, flipping a process on its head that is normally a bottom up policy process to say, you will approve these arms sales. We will not discuss these, these, these questions. We will not, you know, listen to your concerns.

[Tommy Vietor]

And these, these questions are like, is this in accordance with US Law? So a lot of instances, right?

[Josh Paul]

Is this according to, within, with U.S. law? But also even the, the more simple question of what the heck are we doing? If the whole theory here is for the US piece of this puzzle to be the provision of security in order to lead to peace, that's clearly not worked, that's clearly collapsed. So what even are we doing in the underlying policy? But also are these arms transfers that we know are going to be violent, used to violate international law, we know are going to cause immense civilian harm? Should there not be some use of leverage first of all? And should we not also be conditioning those as the law requires, whether it is the Leahy Law, whether it is the Arms Export Control Act, There are plenty of hooks that are normally applied, I have to say, in most contexts around the world. But in this context a blind eye was turned.

[Tommy Vietor]

I remember those early days. I mean, President Biden famously went over to Israel. You know, there was the embrace with Netanyahu on the tarmac. And the conventional wisdom that was sort of articulated via news reports from, you know, background quotes from officials in the Biden administration was very familiar to me, having worked in the Obama years. And the idea was basically Americans politicians cannot disagree with Netanyahu publicly. You have to do that. Privately they call it the hug Bibi strategy. The closer you get to him the more leverage you have. Has that ever worked? Did that work with Biden? Did you ever see that leverage exerted privately or hear about it?

[Ben Rhodes]

No, no. I mean, the level of influence was always coming from the other side. It was always Netanyahu had leverage over Biden and not because. Any particular reason that he had leverage, but because Joe Biden, because Democrats were unwilling to use their leverage. It gave Netanyahu all the leverage. He was the one that was dictating the policies. He was the one that was making decisions about what Israel was going to do when. And it was our weapons, it was our money. And, and we didn't have a say. We were completely operating without any sort of oversight, without any sort of real role. Who's the superpower? I think that's always the question. It comes back to, is it us, is it the United States of fucking America, or is it someone else?

[Tommy Vietor]

The famous Bill Clinton line, right? Like he walked out of a meeting then. Yeah, said, who's the fucking superpower here?

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

So tell me about the organization and new policy and the associated political action committee. I mean, I mean, what are you guys trying to create? Is it a policy framework and white papers for the wonks? Is it political support and leverage? All of the above. Like how are you thinking about it?

[Josh Paul]

Yeah, I mean, first let's just clarify what the problem is. Right? And Tarek's touched on this, that, you know, the problem we face here with this unconditional, this policy that transcends administrations of unconditional support to Israel is not just a foreign policy problem, it's also a domestic policy problem. In my own experience, it is a problem that if you want to give that unconditional military support to Israel, you have to break American law to do it. You have to be willing not to enforce American law. You also have to be willing to tear apart the international rules based order, you know, sanction the ICC as not only President Trump is doing, but as you know, previous administrations were as well. You also have to be willing to sacrifice America's global leadership and credibility because the rest of the world can see very clearly what's happening and the hypocrisy of our approach. You also have to be willing to shut down dissent and protests here in a way that is fundamentally un American. And all of that emerges from, you know, that is not a set of policy choices per se. That is a set of political choices. And it is. So therefore we're not a policy organization, we're not a think tank. We are a political organization that is here to fix that political problem. And the way we are doing that is through taking this incredible transformation and this movement and this energy that we see across Americans of all creeds, of all backgrounds, of all political perspectives who want to see change and driving that into politics in a way that politics, and American politics at least, is designed to respond to, which means lobbying, it means votes, and then separately, on Tariq's side of the House, it means money.

[Tommy Vietor]

So directly for candidates, for campaigns.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, it's. It means that we're going to support candidates that are going to protect American democracy and that are going to fight for US Policies that actually align with the interests of their voters, their communities, and what's good for America's national interests. Plain and simple. What we're trying to do is not change where people are. We're trying to meet Americans where they are and bring politicians along.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's been extraordinary watching people start to rethink, you know, this sort of blanket support for Israel. I mean, there's a lot of it on the left, but more recently, there's a pretty serious conversation about US Support for Israel on the right, including the very far right, the scary right, the literally neo Nazi right that is tearing apart the Republican Party as we speak. For those who haven't followed this, the kind of inciting event was Tucker Carlson invited this kid named Nick Fuentes on his show who is Holocaust denier, misogynist, open, racist, said Jim Crow was good for black people, like that level of neo Nazi. But I think it has sort of laid bare what was simmering under the surface, which was, you know, young Republicans don't understand the kind of blanket support for Israel. And I think they would argue, I don't know if this is fair to say, but they would argue the lack of space to openly debate these issues has led people to more extreme quarters and people like Nick Fuentes and voices like his. Do you think that observation or that sort of excuse for the anti Semitic fringe is accurate and sort of, how can a new organization more openly talking about this help kind of be a pressure valve?

[Ben Rhodes]

I mean, I think there's an obligation on everyone to be talking about these issues. And I think what's happening on the right is a function of where American politics has been in terms of what you are allowed to talk about. I mean, the repression that we are now seeing in American civil society on college campuses, that didn't start with Donald Trump. That actually started under the Biden administration. It was one of the big issues that made my job as a political Appointee in the Department of Education. Almost impossible to do because there was no willingness to actually defend these institutions that were getting called in front of Congress and being berated as, quote, unquote, anti Semitic because they were allowing schools and their universities and their student and faculty demographics just to have conversations or question existing U.S. foreign policy. And so like, this idea that, you know, this is only a function of like the far right is actually, it's definitely happening, that conversation is happening there, but it's happening because there's been this blanket repression about what you can talk about, who you can criticize in this particular moment. And I think it's a really dangerous place to be in American civil society because there is an obligation for reasonable politicians to actually engage with their voters. And the more that reasonable politicians ignore what people are feeling and the pain that they're feeling, the more likely people are gonna lash out and it's gonna be a lot less safe for a lot more people.

[Tommy Vietor]

So when you guys are looking at candidates who you might wanna support, what are the kinds of, of issues? I imagine it's like arms to Israel, aipac. Would you factor in support for the Abraham Accords or at least more honest debate about what they were and were not, how you think about this?

[Ben Rhodes]

So we're thinking about a pretty broad landscape of policy questions. I think all those issues are on the table and they're discussed with candidates. I think first and foremost, like reconstruction, how you think about Palestinian self determination and the role of Israel's continued occupation of Palestinian life. You know, what does the role of, you know, the United States or, you know, an international community look like in terms of reinvesting in Gaza and rebuilding? What does accountability look like? All these are like really important questions. But another big piece of this is making sure that you are identifying people who are going to be successful in being able to win. Because at the end of the day, this has been an issue that has far too long been on the fringes in American politics. This is not a far left issue anymore. This is a kitchen table issue. It's a litmus test for Democrats and increasingly so for Republicans. And so what we are starting to see is that there are politicians that have been elected for many years start to talk about not taking AIPAC money, not being paid off by Republican billionaires in Democratic primaries. I think that is an important step. But I think you also want to make sure that these politicians are actually signing on to bills that are going to condition weapons to a country that is violating U.S. law. That is a Pretty clean cut, straightforward in America's interest or not question. And if that's a question that you're not willing to answer or engage in, you're probably not a candidate we're going to support.

[Tommy Vietor]

Josh, one other issue that's, that's, you know, it's been a challenge for a long time, but it's getting a lot of attention lately has been settler violence in the West Bank. A recent guest on this show, a guy named Jasper Nathaniel with a great substack, Infinite Jazz, was over in the west bank covering the olive harvest, which is 10 has been a particularly violent time for Palestinian farmers who are trying to go to their olive groves, harvest their crops and come home. They've been attacked by, by these lunatics, the terrorists in the West Bank. Jasper posted a video of one of these settlers clubbing a woman, elderly woman, nearly to death, which I think made a lot of news. It's my understanding that, you know, US Weapons are being used in this repression, right? I mean, was this something that you felt like you were allowed to discuss when you were at the State Department in working on these arms transfers?

[Josh Paul]

So this is not an issue that just arose in the last couple of years. This is a longstanding issue and it's certainly one that the State Department is well aware of and has been asked about many times by Congress. For example, we know that US funded and provided military bulldozers are used to demolish Palestinian houses in the west bank in an act of collective punishment. We know that US Manufactured firearms are provided for commercial resale to these settlers, who then use them for that violence in the west bank or passed out.

[Tommy Vietor]

By Itmar Ben gvir.

[Josh Paul]

Passed out by. And that was actually a live discussion, discussion ahead of that sale that I myself was a part of. This was back in 2022, when actually that same sale was being considered and saying, hey, we should probably not do this. And I was overruled by the White House at the time. I think it's important to note as well that the settler violence is not just a sort of a thing that happens and a movement that is happening by itself. You can overlay where that settler violence happens with Israel's own public transportation strategy for the west bank, its own infrastructure plans. And you can see, and there's a great organization called Breaking the Silence, which is an organization of former IDF soldiers who are now speaking out, who have done this mapping and this overlay. And there is very clearly a strategy behind it. So I think, first of all, look, there is a need to absolutely condemn that violence. There's also a need to withhold the means for that violence, but there's also a need to withhold the means for the mechanisms that support it. And what I mean by that is the settlement enterprise itself, both as a function of Israeli government policy, but also as a function of US Funding. Again, and here I'm not talking about government funding, but private US funding. A lot of the settlements are funded through US charitable organizations, which last time I checked, shouldn't be supporting what are clearly illegal operations. And yet here we are.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, it feels like, I mean, you're right, this has been a long standing issue. It is clearly like been one of the biggest obstacles to the notion of a two state solution, which I think a lot of people rightly have observed has been off the table or at least unrealistic for a long time. But it's little discussed. I mean, it's starting to come to the fore, but I'm not entirely sure why. Why now? Not earlier?

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, I mean, I think plain and simple, people are realizing how Israel's policies, both in Gaza and in the west bank are completely out of sync of what our values are. And I think as Americans start to realize this more and more, as we see more independent media start to talk about these issues, about how we're witnessing a lack of democracy actually in how Israel operates, how we're witnessing actual injustice, actual state sanctioned settler violence and terrorism against civilians that already don't have equal rights. As we see more people engaging in this de facto annexation, even if it's not an official policy of annexation, it is happening. We have seen more and more power. Palestinian land gets stripped from Palestinians. I think people are realizing that like we are financing this, we are creating these problems, it's our job to fix them. Whether we like it or not, we are all part of this problem. Doesn't mean that you're giving to aipac, you're part of the problem, but it means your tax dollars are going to Israel and they are creating these types of problems. So we all have to be part of the solution. We all have skin in the game because we're Americans.

[Josh Paul]

Yeah, just on that. I mean, I think particularly for the Democratic Party, there's a challenge here. Right. Because the dogma has been, you know, since Clinton, the belief in the two state solution. And it's a dogma that is rolled out again and again. And it's very easy for, you know, Democratic elected to say, well, you know, I'm not pro Netanyahu, I support the two state solution.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right.

[Josh Paul]

But it's Charlie in the football, right? It's been pulled out. And when you look at the settler violence, when you look at the expansion of settlements, the expansion of infrastructure, the ethnic cleansing, frankly, of Palestinians from many villages in the west bank, the way the west bank is being cut up, okay, so I believe in a two state solution, but that solution is no longer viable on the ground. Where does that leave me? And I think that's one of the reasons why Democrats are now suddenly beginning to really focus on the west bank, because they realize, oh, crap, I'm left holding the bag for this policy that isn't going to go anywhere. And so there's a lot of, I think this is almost a form of backpedaling and trying to rewind history. I fear it's too late or at.

[Tommy Vietor]

Least ground the conversation reality. So if people are listening and they think, I like what these guys are talking about, I want to be a part of this organization. I want to learn more. Where can they go?

[Ben Rhodes]

You can go to act.a new policy.org podsave actually, we can create a special link just like that.

[Tommy Vietor]

And what can people do if they want to help out or be a part of it? What can they do?

[Ben Rhodes]

So we also have a volunteer intake on our website. So we have hundreds of volunteers that are already, you know, working with us. We activate people through our advocacy program. There's always opportunities to engage with your member of Congress, to engage through political campaigns, to door knock. You know, our organization has the infrastructure to do all of these different things. And it's going to take all of us, it's going to take millions of Americans to realign our politics with the values that we care about. And when it comes to foreign policy, when it comes to Palestine in particular, this isn't just a foreign policy issue. It's in every single issue. It's domestic policy, it's civil rights, it's healthcare, it's immigration, it's our neighbors and our colleagues getting abducted off the streets by ice. I wrote about this back in July, that what happens in Palestine doesn't stay in Palestine. What ICE is doing today, what ICE has been doing for years, but has been expanded under Trump's big, beautiful bill, has been this, this effective occupation of our own cities and communities. Where I have to go on Google Maps and check and see where the random checkpoints are because there's a bunch of traffic that should not normally be there and go around it because I'm a brown guy that looks like me. This is what Palestinians deal with every single day in the west bank and in East Jerusalem. We are importing these policies. We're importing their technology that is allowing ICE to be able to hack into our phones and look at our encrypted text messages. ICE trains with the idf. These policies always end up coming back and so it's always going to be on us to think about how we solve the problem. If AIPAC is the problem, a new policy is here to be the solution.

[Josh Paul]

So follow us online. Follow our social media as Tarek said, go to act.anewpolicy.org Podsave Sign up for our newsletter if you would are capable of it. Do think about contributing. You know American political work takes money. But more than that, it takes all of us raising our voices and we look forward to working with millions of Americans across the country to translate their desire for change into that real and lasting change.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh well, look, I bet a lot of people listening will want to do that. Thank you for the work you guys are doing. Thanks for the courage it took to quit a job with no clear path for what it meant for the future and for being here. Great to see you both.

[Ben Rhodes]

Thanks so much Tommy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Thanks again to Tarek and Josh for coming by and we will see you guys next week. Thanks for coming to Kirky Khan.

[Tariq Fancy]

Yeah, it was great. That's fantastic.

[Tommy Vietor]

Good ass time.

[Tariq Fancy]

Fantastic. Good to see everybody there.

[Tommy Vietor]

Pot Save the World is a Crooked Media production. Our our senior producer is Ilona 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. Jordan Cancer is our audio engineer. Audio support by Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis thanks to our digital team Ben Hefcote, 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 ad 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. America Easy JustWorks is the HR platform that helps small businesses take care of their teams. Whether you're hiring, automating payroll, expanding globally or tackling compliance. JustWorks offers 247 support, hire and manage international talent without additional platforms and licensing fees. Access premium benefits for your employees like health insurance, 401k and commuter perks. Plus with transparent pricing, you know what you're paying for. Go to justworks.com to learn more. They do your human resources right so you can do right by your people. Justworks for your people.

[Tariq Fancy]

What's poppin listeners?

[Tommy Vietor]

I'm Laci Mosley, host of the podcast.

[Tariq Fancy]

Scam Goddess, the show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time. Want to know about the fake?

[Josh Paul]

Eric?

[Tariq Fancy]

We got em.

[Tommy Vietor]

What about a career con man?

[Tariq Fancy]

We've got them too. Guys that will wine and dine you.

[Tommy Vietor]

And then steal all your coins.

[Tariq Fancy]

Oh, you know they are represented because representation matters. I'm joined by guests like Nicole Byer, Ira Madison iii, Conan o', Brien, and more. Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess.

[Tommy Vietor]

Wherever you get your podcasts.