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Pod Save the World is brought to you by Remy.
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to protect the teeth of like 350,000Americans. They're Remy night guards. Me soon too. They just. I just got you to do one. They're great. And now it just sends you a new one every six months because they get a little gross after time.
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you again, that's shop r m I.com PSTW with code PSTW. Thank you, Remy, for sponsoring this episode.
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All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher and the Mango Pineapple Refresher with Popping Boba. To crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire six all new drinks are here now at McDonald's.
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Refreshers contain caffeine.
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Welcome back to Pod Save the World.
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I'm Tommy Vitor.
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I'm Ben Rhodes.
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Good to see you, buddy. Ben is overseas. We're gonna reveal where later in the show. This is how we make you stick around until the very end. But it's one of our.
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A
I think we have one more remote. How many we have.
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E
This is it. This is it. Next time I'm on with you, I will be sitting across the table from you. I'll be very happy to be there
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in the US Today.
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E
I feel like I've been on the road for five weeks or so. It's crazy.
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We miss you. We miss you. But we have a great show for the listeners.
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E
But four weeks on the bestseller list. Thanks to all the Worldos. Hey, so thank you for that.
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B
There we go. Worldos. That's directly of you guys because you bought the book. You recommended the book.
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E
It is, it is really because of you guys.
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You're good people. So keep showing up. We got a great show for you guys. We're going to talk about the agreement signed between the Lebanese government and Israel and what it means for the fight against Hezbollah and hopes for peace on the sort of Lebanon front of the U.S. iran, Israel war. Then we're going to recap the latest fighting between the US And Iran and then today's peace talks in Doha to the extent that we know it happened yet. We are going to fill you in on the latest shocking report about the Trump family's corrupt, this time via Kazakhstan, kind of exactly where I'd expect, frankly, for this kind of corruption. We'll talk about some Supreme Court decisions that will greatly impact U.S. foreign policy, the devastating earthquake that hit Venezuela and the potential political fallout. Then we're going to cover this pitched like cultural, existential political battle in France about air conditioning. That by the way, also is about people dying because it's so hot over there. And then we're going to do some more World cup fun, including the Easter egg. We talked about at the top about where Ben is and how that World cup result is affecting his trip. Because I think you might hunker down for a little bit, buddy. And then you're going to hear my conversation with Nicholas Kristof from the New York Times where we talk about Ben. I'm sure you've seen this too. Elon Musk's Insane claims that USAID's destruction, the doshing of USAID didn't lead to a single death, cutting off AIDS drugs from countless people. No deaths. Not funding malaria nets for babies. No deaths. Everything's just totally fine. It's just cool.
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E
Yeah, Big Balls knew exactly what he was doing.
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B
Yeah, Mr. Balls was all over it. So I talked to Nick about a couple things. First of all, he went to South Sudan recently. He's been to Uganda. He's been to a bunch of places that were directly impacted by USAID cuts. He met caregivers that cared for children that died. He met caregivers who themselves were going to die because their access to AIDS drugs, for example, were about to be cut off. We also talk about kind of the big picture projections about the impact of the USAID cuts. And then we end the interview with a question about his reporting on allegations of systematic rape of Palestinians in Israeli prisons and other places. So an important interview and what I think we want to do out of this, Ben, is take that conversation with Kristof, try to cut it down into the tightest social media video we can for Instagram and Twitter or wherever else, and just use it to rebut these claims from Musk. Because this is like the most 1984 shit I have ever seen in my life. And he just cannot get away with this.
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E
It's bad enough what he did, but to try to evade responsibility by essentially gaslighting people, just lying just cannot be allowed to stand. We have to kind of keep reminding people of the consequences of what he's doing. And just because he bought a social media platform doesn't mean he gets to control what's true and what's false.
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Yeah, it's truly disgusting. And it clearly bothers him that people are stating what happened and that reporters like Nick Kristoff and Atul Gawande and many others are reporting on the impact of his decision to, quote, feed USAID into the wood chipper. That was what he tweeted. Could have gone to some great parties, decided to spend the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. He bragged about this shit, so he will have to own it going forward and we're going to help him with that. And by the way, if you want to support a news organization that will gladly call out Elon Musk for killing people via one of his, you know, ketamine fueled rage moments. What I don't even want to call it the destruction of usaid. And with Doge, please consider becoming a friend of the Pod subscriber. You'll get ad free episodes. You get bonus content like bonus Pod Save Americas. You'll get great newsletters you get a deep dive into polling from Dan Pfeiffer and you help us grow and build a progressive independent media organization that is immune from the corporate forces of Bari Weiss and Paramount and Elon Musk and can actually, you know, speak the truth. So it's crooked.com friends. If you want to consider becoming a paid subscriber, please check it out there.
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All right, Ben.
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So it's been kind of confusing and unsettling week of news when it comes to this fragile peace between the US and Iran. So over the weekend, the US and the Iranian military exchange fire several times
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and then there was this flurry of
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diplomatic activity last week regarding Lebanon. So let's start there. On Friday, Israeli and Lebanese officials signed this 14 point agreement at a ceremony in Washington. The goal, the agreement is basically to create a pathway for the Lebanese armed forces and the government of Lebanon to take control of their own country and for Israel to withdraw from it. Although the time frame is not stipulated and I think the word withdraw is not in this agreement. But the gist of the way this thing would work. It proposes a phased approach. Lebanese forces take control of these two pilot zones first. Lebanon pledges to reject any security role for Hezbollah and Lebanon going forward. They commit to preventing Hezbollah from getting funding or support. And then Israeli troops are supp withdraw from two pilot zones to start the process of transferring security control with the ultimate goal of having the IDF fully withdraw. The agreement calls on the US and Arab countries to help support the deal. So far that means like $100 million in humanitarian aid from the U.S. and I think the State Department said the Pentagon is ready to provide another $30 million to the Lebanese military and direct military support. Now this all kind of sounds fine in theory, Ben, but I think there's more than a few reasons to be skeptical that the plan will ever work. First of all, Hezbollah is not a party to a peace agreement that involves Hezbollah. That's a problem they have responded about as well as you'd expect to the prospect of losing their power. There was also pushback and skepticism in Israel that starts on the far right. Israeli National Security Minister It's Mar called the deal, quote, a historic mistake, a terrible missed opportunity and a lament for generations. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and his own team. They also didn't sound all that bullish on the agreement. Working Defense Minister Israel Katz said, quote, people should not hold their breath wondering where the next place will be from which Israel will withdraw from Lebanon, because it will not until Hezbollah is disarmed we have no territorial ambitions in Lebanon, but until Hezbollah is disarmed, we will not withdraw a millimeter. Then there was a bunch of backlash in Lebanon where you had a bunch of senior officials, some of them with ties to Hezbollah, some of them not criticizing the deal. One called it a humiliation. There was the suggestion that it would force the Lebanese military to confront Hezbollah on the battlefield and lead to a civil war. It could legitimize Israel's occupation of Lebanon for many years to come. That's another concern. There's also concern that some of the terms of the deal, efforts to prosecute war crimes in the future, like accountability. So this is a deal separate from the MoU that reopened the Strait of Hormuz. And it's the result of a bunch of weeks of talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials at U.S. pressure. So, Ben, the fighting has not stopped. On Sunday, Hezbollah killed an IDF soldier. The Israelis have been conducting a bunch of airstrikes. What did you make of this agreement, the U.S. role in pushing for it and some of the very strong responses you're seeing that it could actually lead to civil war, not peace.
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It doesn't feel like a deal that's actually going to solve the problem. If you define the problem as Hezbollah needs to disarm and Israel needs to withdraw from Lebanon, it feels like a deal that's designed to be a fig leaf to facilitate the U.S. iran, MOU to go forward. Because at the end of the day, the only deal that could lead to some form of disarming Hezbollah is between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government. You fundamentally can't have a deal that, you know, whatever you think of Hezbollah, this is not even in any way a favorable statement about them. But like, if they're not a party to the agreement. Well, sure, the Lebanese government and Lebanese armed forces is willing to sign a piece of paper saying the Hezbollah needs to disarm, but that's not going to get you there. And so I think where it's going to leave you is you may have this kind of veneer of diplomacy that gives people enough face saving to move forward with moving the MOU between Iran and the US Forward. Right, because the US can tell Israel, look, we're getting Hezbollah disarmed, and the US can say to Iran, see, Israel's pulling back from these parts of Lebanon and hopefully he's not bombing Beirut anymore. And so we can move forward with our deal. But this is like we've seen this time and again in the Trump diplomacy. They don't solve underlying problems. They kind of Paper over them, have big ceremonies, lavish signing ceremonies, announce things and you don't solve the problem. And the problem is this will fester like Israel will continue to occupy parts of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah will continue to be armed. They live in southern Lebanon. And I see this thing flaring up time and again. And if Israeli politics is also pushing from the right, then Bibi Netanyahu has an incentive to occasionally bomb Lebanon to show that he's not going to be bound by a piece of paper either. So I guess it's better than not having it, but it's not in any way solving the problem.
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Yeah, and the problem has been really bad. I mean, 4,000 people have died in Lebanon since the March 2nd war started. To the extent there was a ceasefire in Iran itself, there just was not one in any way in Lebanon. And so the people have really suffered there, like I mentioned, at the top of the bend. So this 60 day ceasefire deal between the US and Israel, it's been light on ceasing, heavy on firing. So last week Iran, there was a bunch of activity. Iran fired an attack drone at a tanker because it was basically, it was using a route out of the Strait of Hormuz that was closer to the coast of Oman than to the coast of Iran. And Iran has said that they want only ships going in and out of the Strait of Hormuz via their pre approved route. Only those ones will be ensured safe passage. So they fire this drone at a ship. Then on Friday, the US retaliates by hitting Iranian missile and drone sites. On Saturday, Iran attacked another tanker. So the US military retaliated again hitting Iranian military infrastructure. Then of course, Trump has to pop off on social media. He said that the US and Iran may have to go back to war. And quote, if that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist. So we're back to the kind of genocidal threats then on Sunday, the IRGC fired at Bahrain in Kuwait, where the US has troops. Those missiles were intercepted by missile defense systems. But one damaged residential building in Bahrain and there's reports that a Qatari national was killed by falling shrapnel. On Monday, Trump tried to put a lid on the thing, at least temporarily. He tweeted that the US and Iran would meet in Doha on Tuesday, the day we're recording. It's always funny, Ben, to me, how all the fighting happens on weekends when markets are closed. Yeah, convenient. Steve Wyckoff, Jared Kushner, Trump's golf buddy and his son in law, they were dispatched for the talks here's Trump talking earlier this week about what he expects from these Doha talks.
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But the meeting in Doha is going to be perhaps important, perhaps not. We're going to find out, but we're winning militarily.
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It's almost one. Militarily, I would say, seems bullish. So for what it's worth, the Iranians basically said that they're not going to meet with Kushner and they're not going to meet with Wyckoff while they're there. They're saying that the sole reason they're going to Doha is to talk about the 6 billion in Iranian assets they want unfrozen. I believe this is money that was promised to Iran in 2023 as part of this Biden era hostage release deal that was then frozen after the October 7th attacks. So, Ben, we don't know how the talks went yet. I think my concern as an outside observer is that Iran is just trying to constantly normalize this new normal where they control the Strait of Hormuz. They tell ships where they can go, they fire at the ones who don't do what they're told and they'll demand fees in the future. And they just assume that Trump, as we saw in that clip, is ready to move on and just want to be done with it all.
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I think that's exactly right. I think the thing that the Iranians have showed is their priority is that they control the Strait of Hormuz, that they've not only demonstrated that they can shut it down as a deterrent against future US Military action against them. Right. Who needs a nuclear weapon when you can control 20% of the world's energy? But they intend to profit off the strait. There's no question about that. They want to control the route the ships take. They can put some kind of fee on it. They can call an insurance fee, they can call whatever they want. But if they can establish that they can make money off the Strait of Hormuz, they have a whole new revenue source in an open ended way for many years to come. And that clearly is worth more to them than even just some temporary sanctions relief. Right, that they're getting from this deal. And the thing that's so interesting to me, beyond just the market nature of it, all, right, the wars happen on the weekends and not during the week. Is that Trump's threats? I mean, look, I'm glad he's not acting on them. I don't want him to try to end a civilization or end a country. But the Iranians clearly don't believe Them, Nobody does anymore. Whatever happened to red lines? And I think what the Iranians understand is that those true social posts are no longer even intended for Iran. It's just kind of intended for Trump's dumbest base. You know, the same people that believe that we somehow have won militarily or that we've destroyed Iran's military capabilities, which, oh, by the way, we have to periodically keep bombing because they're still there. Trump is just issuing these posts just for his own dead enders, you know, to throw a sop to Ben Shapiro and, you know, Mark Levin or whomever, you know. And so I think we're in this state where clearly they want a deal of some sort, but the Iranians are signaling. I mean, you have to watch what they do as well as what they say they're signaling. Controlling the strait is our top priority. It's even more important than this deal. And even if this deal goes forward, we want to enter into the deal making it very clear that we're still gonna control the strait even if we allow traffic to pass through there. Again, it's our decision to allow it. And Trump can try all he wants to make it look like. No, it's not. We're forcing them to open the strait. We just bombed a few missile sites. But that's not what the rest of the world's seeing. The rest of the world is seeing. The Iranians are wanting to decide whether or not the tankers get through.
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B
Yeah. And just on this, Trump claiming we've defeated them militarily, I mean, Jennifer Griffin at Fox News asked a defense official why they had to bomb and restrike these sites. Because I guess we'd hit them before. And she was told that Iran had reconstituted its air defenses and its missile systems along the Strait of Hormuz since the ceasefire. And now that's why we're having to hit them again. So clearly this, clearly they have lots of reserves and they're going to be able to rebuild their missile defense infrastructure and have enough missiles and drones to be positioned in a way that they can close the strait. And then one other interesting thing, Ben, I mean, so the weekend's events, I think they demonstrate how fragile the cease fire deal, such as it is, is and continues to be. The good news on that front is that the tanker traffic through the Strait is way up week over week, but it's still only about 70% of what it was before the war started, according to the Kepler data. And we're always just kind of like one drone strike. You know, one Iranian one way attack drone or missile away from the thing being closed again for God knows how long. But one interesting question I've had, Ben, is why didn't the oil, the price of oil go up further? Because, you know, you and I were reading the same energy experts who are predicting like $150 per barrel oil, and those people were very wrong. And I think Politico took an interesting crack at this question and they ended up essentially pinning it on a couple factors. Like one was a weaker than expected Chinese economy. And then China cut oil imports by about 3 million barrels a day. So that took a lot of demand offline and helped sort of even things out. And then they just noted like Trump's ability to bully the oil markets and mess with oil futures and, you know, convince those, you know, oil analysts to just never like fully price in the worst, like kind of downside risk case, because I guess they all assumed that Trump would taco, as we were just talking about there. And then you had countries trapping their strategic reserves at a greater level than expected. And then I guess more tankers were just kind of willing to sneak through the strait even despite the risk of getting fired at than we had expected. So now that the deal's in place, Iran's been able to flood the market with oil because the US Gave them that sanctions relief. But it was, I thought, an interesting attempt to kind of close the loop on why those worst case scenarios in terms of price never quite came to be.
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E
I thought that was good. Actually, both of those articles, you point to the Jennifer Griffin report and we should say for a Fox News reporter, she's often been like a very good reporter and a pretty straight reporter. It's really important because this war was clearly a catastrophic mistake. The best thing that anybody could try to spin about it, and I've seen some of the war's defenders spin this is, well, you know, maybe we didn't achieve all these objectives and the regime's still in place and they still have a nuclear program, but we really set back their military capabilities. And I think what that report shows is we didn't because even if we destroyed things, they rebuilt those things pretty quickly. They're going to be back to their status quo entity of their ballistic missile capabilities, their drone capabilities within weeks, maybe months of this kind of pointless tens of billions of dollars, if not hundreds of billions of dollars war. Right? And so it kind of speaks to kind of the futility of military action to achieve your objectives because your adversary can just rebuild it is the Case, though, that in addition to higher prices, I mean, we all know there are higher prices like Americans paid them. The shortages around the world have been very real. And so part of the reason that the prices didn't go up more is because there was intense rationing of energy. Right. You had people staying home, you had power grids operating at less than what they normally would. You had shortages in other areas of things that went through the strait as well. We're going to probably have a tail of. Of agricultural impacts because of the shortages of things like fertilizer as well. So all of this effort was put into kind of mitigating what was a shitty situation and just preventing it from being an even shittier situation. I also think we were clearly approaching the danger zone. And part of the reason that Trump is tacoing so hard on this deal is that he knew that another couple months of this thing and you would have that spiral. The last thing I'd just say, Tommy, is like, I'm not an investor. There's a pyramid scheme feel to the markets these days in general. Oh, God, yeah. I mean, just look at the AI bubble. It's just speculate. It's such speculation. It's just trading in futures and putting the most optimistic spin on things.
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B
And a lot of it's levered. A lot of it's levered, too. You have people taking out loans to invest in stuff, and a lot of times they're investing in these. They're called triple bull directional funds that are using levered accounts to bet even more. I'm trying to explain this without being too wonky, but basically a lot of people are borrowing money to bet on the stock market in ways that creates a lot of systemic risk.
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E
Yeah. And again, unfortunately, I think we're probably going to be talking about this at some point in the coming months. This whole thing just feels like a bit of a house of cards. It feels like we're living in an economy that's kind of a pyramid scheme. And obviously AI is at the center of that. But energy has some eerie characteristics that are similar. And you just summed it up.
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D
Well.
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E
It's a lot of borrowing, betting, betting currencies, like speculating. And I'm not sure that this thing is going to sustain itself.
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B
Yeah, it's good that prices came down quickly. It doesn't change the fact that we all, I think, spent collectively like 60, 70 billion extra on energy.
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D
Yeah.
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B
For no additional people.
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E
Profited. Yeah.
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B
For no additional, like, value. You know, it's just. It's terrible.
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A
Yeah.
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B
It's oil and gas companies profited.
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A
This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace gives you the tools to claim your domain, build a professional website and expand your brand and facilitate payments all in one place. With Squarespace's collection of cutting edge design tools, anyone can build a bespoke online presence that perfectly fits their business. Start with blueprint AI to get fully custom websites in just a few minutes, using basic information about your industry, your goals and personality to generate premium quality content and personalized design recommendations. Every dream needs a domain. Squarespace Domains makes it easier to find the best name for your business at one fair, all inclusive price, no hidden fees or add ons required. Squarespace provides everything you need to bring more of your dream to life. Whether that means building a website or adding a professional email service. Don't wait to claim your name. Invest in your dream domain today. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to Launch, go to squarespace.comworld to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain that squarespace.comworld this episode is brought to you by Power Plays, an audio documentary series from the Human Rights Foundation. If you've been watching this year's World cup unfold and wonder how we ended up with a global sporting juggernaut full of corruption scandals, price gouging and political theater, look no further than Power Plays. Power Plays is a five episode journey through the little known authoritarian history of the FIFA World Cup. From Mussolini's Italy in 1934, through the military junta in Argentina in 1978, Putin's Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022. The series also examines the present 2026 World cup hosted by the US and looks ahead of geopolitics influencing future host countries like Morocco in 2030 and Saudi Arabia in 2034. If you've been watching this year's World cup and wondering how we ended up here, the corruption scandals, the price gouging, the political theater, this show gives you the full picture into the history that
- [24:46]
B
allowed this to happen.
- [24:46]
A
And it goes back a lot further than Trump or Gianni Infantino. The show is made for football lovers by football lovers. It's for anyone who thinks the intersection of history, geopolitical drama, dark money and sports. Sounds like a good time. Five episodes, all streaming now. Search Power Plays wherever you get your podcasts.
- [25:07]
B
Ben so keeping up with the Trump family's corruption scandals is basically a full time job and one we are proud to do for our listeners. The latest story has to do with tungsten metal, Kazakhstan, and then the dumbass kids of both Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. So here's the gist of this story. President Trump convinces the president of Kazakhstan to let a small American company that's now called CAS Resources have access to the world's largest untapped reserve of tungsten. And it's a metal. And then in just an amazing stroke of luck, a firm called Dominari securities, which is partly owned by the Trump sons, pulled together a group of investors to take a 20% stake in that project. And then Howard Lutnick's kids, who now run Cantor Fitzgerald, that's their dad's old company, so they're running it while dad's off playing government. They helped raise over $210 million as part of that deal, which will make them, we assume, millions of dollars in fees. And then if that wasn't enough, Ben, the Trump administration has preliminarily approved $1.6 billion in federal financing for the project. Now, that is a shocking amount of grift and corruption. But the time says that this deal is hardly an outlier. And the Trump and the Cantor kids, I'm sorry, the Lutnick kids have, quote, financial ties to at least 14 companies that are actively working with the federal government on critical mining deals. So this is just one of many mining projects where the Trump family is benefiting financially. So I highly recommend reading this whole article because it is long and it's complicated and they did a really great job kind of reporting it all out and laying out all the details, including with infographics. But it's also just a great example, I think, for us, Ben, of Trump's family corruption directly impacting US national security because the military needs tungsten because it is the highest melting point of any metal. It's extremely dense. It's nearly as hard as a diamond. So it ends up getting used in lots of military things like large caliber armor piercing shells, armor for things like tanks, jet engines and components, stuff that you need to get really hot that's be able to withstand really high heat. And so this is very important. And so if the Trump kids screw this up and we aren't able to get this metal, like our troops won't be able to use it. And just generally speaking, like, if the Trump kids are involved in all these critical mineral deals or rare earths deals and they fail or, you know, they skim A bunch off the top, and we're not prepared. It means we're going to get creamed in the next trade war with China again. So it just like, it's just one of those stories where before the Trump administration, this is like, the only thing anyone talks about. And now, you know, we live in a reality where JD Vance is bragging about how Watergate wouldn't be a big deal anymore.
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E
Yeah, I actually think this is an incredibly important story for our times because it says everything about how the world works right now. So bear with me for one second. These Central Asian countries like Kazakhstan were literally reborn out of corruption. So when the Soviet Union broke up, what you had is all these vast natural resources that were once controlled by the Soviet state kind of got sold off and given away to the oligarchs who took over countries like Kazakhstan, and they set it up as kind of a family business. We are rich. We control the political power in this country. We control the resources. These are the billionaires that were starting shadow companies in London. These were the original oligarchs of the global economy that we're currently living in. So this is how they know how to do business. Right? You pay off somebody's son, somebody's son in law, you give them access to resources. Everybody makes a bunch of money except for the people who get screwed in the process. Let's fast forward. Tommy, I want to take you back in time. Crooked con, right? Remember last year, do you remember the hotel we were staying at?
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F
Oh, yeah.
- [28:57]
E
Was also hosting the delegates to the Central Asian Summit Trump was having at the. And I remember walking by the north end of Lafayette park, and I could see in the distance like a cocktail party at the North Portico. Right. Trump literally threw a huge summit for these Central Asian countries. And I can tell you that the reason was not in normal foreign policy times. You might say, well, this is an interesting strategy to try to counter Russian influence in Central Asia or Chinese influence that is clearly not their interest at all in Central Asia, because Trump likes Putin, Trump likes Xi Jinping. The whole purpose of that summit was to set up, I think, deals like this. And so you fast forward to now and what's super dark about this is it's kind of perfect that just like you had the Trump family in business with the Witkoff family on crypto, you've got the Trump family in business with the Lutnick family on these mining deals. Two people, by the way, Donald Trump and Howard Lutnick, who are pretty close to Jeff Epstein. So let's just Say, this is the Epstein class in miniature, that you've got the Trump family and the Lutnick family cutting mining deals with Central Asian countries like Kazakhstan. And the reality is these inputs are essential to the military technologies of the future. Everything from drones to armored vehicles, all the kinds of things that we're going to need to compete and potentially, hopefully not have to fight wars, is dependent on these. But that's just another vehicle to make a buck for these people. So you basically have the Epstein class running our country, working hand in glove, in concert with oligarchs and autocratic leaders in places like Kazakhstan to mine the materials that are necessary to then sell to the Pentagon for defense contracts so that we can maintain some advantage in the military hardware of the future. Super dark. But it is exactly what is going on in the world today. This is who's running the world right now.
- [30:52]
A
Yeah. And I can't remember if we talked
- [30:54]
B
about it in this show or if it's another show, but there's another company that's just like this. Donald Trump Jr. S VC firm takes an undisclosed stake in a company called Vulcan Elements as part of their, like, Series A. I think at the time it was valued at 200 million. Fast forward a couple months, they get a massive injection of capital from the U.S. government. I think it was like a $600 million from the Pentagon, another 50 million from, like, what was left of the Chips Act. And wouldn't you know it, Ben, pretty soon after, the valuation of Vulcan elements is now $2 billion. So Don Jr just 10x his investment in a couple months. And it's just clear that, like, I think Peter Navarro called in a favor and said to the Pentagon, like, you have to do this loan from Vulcan Elements. So this corruption, it just. It's so pervasive and, like, the Howard Lutnick of it all getting his kids,
- [31:44]
A
like, kissed into the grift.
- [31:45]
B
In Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's new book, Regime Change. There's an anecdote in there that apparently Lutnick's kids created some bad headlines from doing some sketchy shit, I think, you know, kind of, like corrupt stuff like this, basically. And it pissed off Trump. And so Lutnick made a $25 million donation to the Trump Presidential Library to mollify him. And now it's a thing like Trump likes to make fun of him about and brag him about. I mean, that's just, like, how pervasive all of this corruption is.
- [32:14]
E
Yeah. And what's so dumb about. Well, everything's so Dumb. But the two things off what you said, the first is they again, are using the trillion dollar that they want to make a trillion half dollar Pentagon budget as a giant piggy bank that they can loot, because if they can kind of corner the access to some of these inputs, or they can get drone companies and then basically have what amount to no bid contracts, they can make an unlimited spigot of money off of that. That's gross enough. And that leads to the second thing, which is the $25 million gift to the Trump library. That's like a loose change in the couch compared to the money that the Lutnick family stands to make from doing these deals. I'm not suggesting There's a virtuous $25 million Lutnick gift to the Trump library, but it just shows you that our system is so broken. And we're talking on a day when the Supreme Court further gutted campaign finance laws that Elon Musk's and the Howard Ludnicks of the world for minimal investment. You know, tens of millions of dollars on a campaign here, tens of millions of dollars on a library here, they can make hundreds, billions of dollars off stuff like this.
- [33:22]
B
Yeah, it's just a down payment. And by the way, I believe that the, the aggregate budget for Trump's Future library is 2 billion because he just needed to, like, double the Obama amount. As if Obama's costing 1 billion is like a good thing that you'd want to top and not just like a sign that maybe these things have gotten a little too expensive. You mentioned the Supreme Court there, Ben. So there have been a bunch of major Supreme Court decisions this week that have national security implications, foreign policy implications. We're going to walk you through just a couple of them. The first is what counts as good news these days, which is that that on Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld the principle of birthright citizenship, which means that anyone born on US Soil automatically becomes a US Citizen. Trump had tried to end it via executive order that should have been thrown out, laughed out of court, because the text of the 14th Amendment reads, quote, all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. Seems pretty clear for the textualists on the Supreme Court, but still, the outcome was way too close. The margin was 6 to 3. Really is more like 5 to 4. The opinion, given that Brett Kavanaugh said he agreed with the result, but he didn't join the majority opinion for reasons that we won't dig into. If you want to Learn more. Listen to strict scrutiny. They are much better on this stuff.
- [34:34]
A
And then Ben, Last Thursday the court
- [34:37]
B
cited 6, 3 with the Trump administration to give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to remove temporary protected status from 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. TPS. The TPS program was established in 1990. It allows people experiencing humanitarian or natural disasters to legally live or work in the U.S. the Trump administration, they've been trying to end TPS status for 13 of 17 countries that currently have it. The suit to fight it brought by these Haitian and Syrian TPS holders argued that the administration's policy was driven by racism. I think listeners probably remember that whole the Haitians are eating your pets thing from the campaign seems pretty self evidently racist. But Justice Alito said that none of Trump's statements were quote, overtly racial. Okay. Not discussed were the shocking levels of violence and insecurity in both countries. So Haiti has been gripped by war zone like levels of violence ever since 2021 when Haitian President Joven El Moise was assassinated. Gangs control major swaths of the country. Millions of people have been displaced. I think the World Food Program says half the population is facing acute hunger. And the State Department lists Haiti as a do not travel destination. And then similarly Syria barely starting to recover after 14 years of civil war under Assad that as we remember ended in December of 2024. The State Department Syria page says quote,
- [36:02]
A
do not travel to Syria for any reason.
- [36:04]
B
US citizens are at risk due to terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, hostage taking in armed conflict. But remember, under this new Alito approved not at all racist immigration policy. Ben. White South Africans are basically the only refugees alone in the country. I'm sure you saw the New York Times report that the Trump administration was planning like special Africana welcome bags that had, it's like you're arriving at like an anti woke wedding. It had like weird revisionists like white nationalist history books and shit in it. So Ben, I just like like fucking par for the course when it comes to the country's shockingly cruel and racist immigration policies. There is something like I'm used to it from Stephen Miller. There's something harder for me to stomach though when it gets kind of like blessed by the Supreme Court.
- [36:48]
E
Yeah. And it just goes to show you like what an out of control radical far right enterprise the Supreme Court has become. I mean, yeah, first of all like quick swerve on the birthright citizenship here. Like we're celebrating essentially a 5, 4 decision. Cause Kavanaugh was kind of of being like Here's a better way to get rid of birthright citizenship. But we're celebrating that the same way we celebrated them. Like not overturning the 2020 election. Meanwhile, every other decision is racist. Every other decision is oligarchic. Every other decision is undermining democracy. On this one, if the State Department doesn't believe it's safe to go to these countries, then by definition it meets the threshold for people who are here not being safe to return to those countries. Like, it's not exactly a leap to figure that out. And we should just call this what it is, which is racist. Obviously it's racist. If you are opening the doors to do. I mean, let's just do a thought exercise. Tommy, what is a more dangerous place to be? Haiti for any Haitian or South Africa for a rich Afrikaner.
- [37:49]
F
Right.
- [37:49]
E
You know, many of whom have come
- [37:51]
B
over here and then gone back, by the way. There's a great reporting in New York Times about a lot of them were like, you know, we actually didn't like it as much as we thought. So he went home to South Africa. Like, there are high levels of violence in South Africa. At times that violence has been directed at white farmers, but there's just no evidence that it was systemic and based on race. It's more likely that they have resources and stuff to steal. So they gotten attacked and robbed and in some instances killed, which is horrible and unacceptable. But it's like, again, it's like the notion that there's some like, pogrom against white farmers, it's just. It's a fever dream on the right.
- [38:19]
G
No.
- [38:19]
E
And yeah, it's not akin to the kind of systematic political violence you see in a place like Haiti. Right. Or that we've seen in a place like Syria. And these are human lives. These are thousands upon thousands of people whose lives are upended by this ruling. I mean, I hate how thin skinned Alito and Thomas get about this stuff. If they're challenged on it, like, fuck you guys. How do you like to be a Haitian who's going to be deported back to a country that is driven by gang violence, where you're fundamentally not safe and you've been contributing to an American community. And just because the Supreme Court decides that they're on board with like Stephen Miller's fever dream of a white nationalist constitution in this country, which doesn't exist, by the way, you have to get deported back. We even saw, and we'll get to the earthquake in Venezuela, but I saw a horrible thing earlier today, Tommy. Potentially well, over 100 people died in an earthquake, had just been deported back by the United States. We were just sending people, in some cases not even to their home country, to third countries. Right. And this will be like a lasting kind of stain on us too. It's not like precisely because these are human lies, precisely because we're breaking a promise. TPS is a promise. That's the promise that the United States government makes, that we're going to give you protected status. And by the way, a lot of these diaspora populations, like, not so much obviously Haitians, but like, like Venezuelans for instance, some of them support kind of right wing politics in this country, so that they've gone along with Republican policies because they wanted something like the Maduro operation. But when you rescind tps, it tells you what they really think about you. And so do not believe for a second that just because the Trump administration or some Republican administration kind of doesn't like the same leaders that you don't like that they actually give a shit about you. This Supreme Court decision, this revocation of TPS tells you everything about how they feel about you. And it's fundamentally racist.
- [40:17]
B
And by the way, just it's worth mentioning for folks who don't know the 14th amendment was passed after the Civil War specifically to overturn the Dred Scott decision, which basically said that black Americans, including freed slaves, could never be citizens. It's the worst thing the Supreme Court has ever done, in many scholars view. And the 14th amendment was designed to fix that. And these guys came this close to throwing the whole thing out. I mean, it's just, it's shocking.
- [40:45]
E
Yeah. And just because like in, you know, my book is about this question, like, who's an American who gets to decide that question? Frederick Douglass had a great quote which I came across in writing the book, which is how is it that these originalists, they were originalists back in the 19th century, or like we need to divine the intention of the founding Fathers, but we totally ignore the intention of the authors of the 14th Amendment. Right. Like they had an original intent too, which is every person who's born in this country is a fucking citizen, you know, and like, you mess with that, you mess with like the core idea of what being an American is, including
- [41:19]
B
one of the best players on the US Men's national team. And we'll get there in a minute.
- [41:22]
E
Yeah.
- [41:23]
B
So another country impacted by these TPS decisions has been Venezuela, as you mentioned mentioned. The listeners have probably seen the reports of these. It was a pair of just catastrophic earthquakes In Venezuela last week, as of this recording, there are at least 1700 known casualties, but that number is going to go up dramatically. 700 buildings were at least partially collapsed. 50,000 people are reportedly missing. So there's, you know, we're now at the point where aid workers from around the world have descended on the country trying to help. The US has pledged 300 million in aid, which is nowhere near enough, but they also sent more than 300 search and rescue personnel from the U.S. those search and rescue teams, they're often called DART teams. They are incredible human beings. They. I met a bunch of them in Haiti in 2010. They work around the clock, just like, searching through rubble, trying to rescue anyone they can. And, you know, like, some of the stories have been surfaced, and it's always incredible, but they're not going to be able to meet the need. They're not going to find everyone. And I think just by comparison, Ben, I mean, I was looking back at the 2010 response to what happened in Haiti, and within, like, two weeks, I think the U.S. had nearly 17,000 U.S. military personnel kind of in and around Haiti. There was an aircraft carrier, there was a hospital ship, all this infrastructure. Hopefully, the Trump administration will continue to increase its support. I know they've had some military on the ground, but I think they're mostly just like, reopening runways and stuff like that to facilitate the, you know, aid transfers or fixing ports. But, like, it just feels like they could use more.
- [42:55]
A
And the context is obviously different.
- [42:56]
B
I mean, this happened about six months after Trump launched this military operation that deposed Nicolas Maduro and installed his vice president, Dulcie Rodriguez's interim leader. Before the earthquake, there was kind of like growing reporting about frustration and discontent in the Venezuelan population because their lives were not getting better. There was, like, a lack of improvement or change. I think this is obviously going to be a severe test of her leadership and the kind of the status quo, because, you know, you're already seeing these reports, Ben, of, like, Venezuelans who are furious that their own military was not helping with search and rescue efforts. They were like these guys just kind of sitting around while average citizens are digging through piles of rubble trying to find their loved ones. Crowds jeered Delsey Rodriguez when she went to one side, they were chanting, get out.
- [43:40]
C
Get out.
- [43:41]
B
The Wall Street Journal reported that Venezuelans were also mad at US Officials who were praising the response. And then Maria Machado is the opposition party. She said that her. They tried to, like, basically do a charity drive, and it got shut down by the police. In some places. So there's a lot of anger brewing. And so again, Ben, you and I were in government during that 2010 earthquake. The death toll is way higher. I mean, the estimates were as high as like 310,000 people. It was horrifying that, like, the government basically collapsed from the presidential palace to like, all the infrastructure and services. I was in Port au Prince for like a week to work on it. And like, I just again, I told talked about this on the show before, but I'll never forget how proud and inspired I felt by the kind of immediate term relief efforts, the ability of the US Government to rescue people, like get infrastructure fixed, get relief efforts in, distribute aid, and then just how catastrophically wrong it went in the kind of medium and long term, like the donor money never materialized. The projects took longer than expected to get done. There was not enough money going to Haitians and Haitian organizations. Too much went to American NGOs, housing never got built. And then in the cruelest development of all, 10 months into it, a UN peacekeeping base created this cholera outbreak that killed 10,000 people. And then they denied it for years and years and years. So that's how badly things can go when you have an administration that cared. When you had USAID intact and functioning and now Venezuela went into this with a healthcare infrastructure that had been decimated and a Trump administration that seemingly just wants to loot their resources. And it makes me very nervous for the people there.
- [45:22]
E
Well, yeah, I was going to say first of all, those DART teams in Haiti, as you'll remember, were run by usaid. So once again, we are seeing that is the kind of organization that is necessary to run a complex assistance response that has an immediate surge of disaster response through DART teams, but then has to meet all these basic needs. They're going to be really acute in Venezuela. And look, I think your point about the long term, that earthquake ended up basically completely collapsing the Haitian government because they couldn't deal with the scale of the challenge and they lost the confidence of the people, whatever they had left. And I think one thing to watch for in Venezuela is just because Maduro was removed doesn't mean that really anything about the nature of that government changed. It continued to be corrupt, it continued to be repressive, it continued to not deliver for the needs of its citizens. All it did differently is offer a little bit of tribute to the Trump administration to the tune of some oil tankers and kind of let all these Trump people down there like Mauricio Klaber, who's kind of Trump's viceroy down there who are just doing deals. They're not changing the political system to be more responsive. They're doing energy deals or real estate deals. Right. They'll probably want to get in on the reconstruction down there now, too. But I think something to watch is, man, I don't know that there's anything that Delsey Rodriguez's government can do, particularly the way it's constituted, to kind of win back the trust of the people that has been shattered over a long time, but has been really shattered in this earthquake response. And so this quote, unquote, success stories of Trump, this equally repressive regime that's just a little bit more responsive to him. This place could become a mess. It already is, obviously a human tragedy, but also you could see kind of unrest and political instability because of this. My hope is, and if you want to, what should happen is, well, ideally, I saw a lot of other countries in the region providing assistance, providing search and rescue. You would hope that there's some capacity to kind of internationalize a response to help kind of clean the rubble, obviously, try to identify anybody you can save. And then also people are going to want the remains of their loved ones, tragically, but then some international response to help rebuild. The problem is, you know, not only is USAID decimated, so is the international community. There's not money for that anywhere. The UN system doesn't really work. And so I really do worry about the people of Venezuela who've already been through a lot, their capacity to come out from under this.
- [48:06]
B
Yeah, I'm extremely worried, too.
- [48:07]
G
Yeah.
- [48:08]
B
Maybe send the board apiece down there. Maybe they can. They can solve this one.
- [48:11]
E
Yeah.
- [48:16]
A
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- [51:08]
B
A couple more things. So the listeners might have heard that there's this massive heat dome across Europe. There have been record breaking temperatures in England, Spain, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, and record temperatures for a record number of days, which is really dangerous. So in France alone, the health ministry said that more than 1,000 unexpected deaths have happened, including 70 poor people, 74 people who have drowned who are just like trying to escape the heat. This sort of heat dome challenge has kicked up a huge French media and political debate about air conditioning and how to cool people down. Check out this Instagram video from a French influencer named Olivier Hud. I'm probably saying that wrong, but it's a good video. Let's watch. So for those listening and not watching on YouTube, first of all, please subscribe to Pod Save the world on YouTube. We're trying to beat back on the right wing crap that's all over this platform. You know, the pro war propaganda from Fox News and Ben Shapiro and everybody else. But for those just who didn't see it, this guy put a pan outside his window and heated it in the sun and then grilled a burger, popped popcorn, cooked bacon and fried an egg using just the sun. So that's how hot it is in France right now. So you know, Ben, I've been to like Paris in the summer, France in the summer. I've sweated, you know, through my shirt in restaurants and bars and hotels. But until I dug into this latest debate over air conditioning, I just didn't realize how like deep seated and cultural this fight was. So currently for just a level set for folks, about 25% of French households have air conditioning. And I'm going to try to summarize the arguments you hear in French media or from French elected officials against AC first. So they say, you know, like it's bad for the environment, it's going to contribute to climate change. There's easier solutions out there that we should do first, like putting up shades and shutters on buildings. Changing roofing materials is another one. They say there are greener solutions like planting more trees. And they argue that universal AC adoption would actually heat up the city itself because your unit, when it pumps cool air into your head house, it pumps out warm air that can heat up the city in aggregate. There's also concern about thermal shock when you go from hot to cold or vice versa. I think that's really overstated, but it's a thing you hear in the media. And then there's this broader concern that's really about French identity and that if everyone gets an AC unit, they're just going to sit inside all day and that France will stop having this, like, outdoor culture. And so the pushback on those arguments are, yes, it would be great to have more greener spaces and less asphalt, but that's a long term project and the need is now. So yes, changes should be made to buildings first to make them kind of naturally cooler. But Parisians are often just as averse to putting up shutters on the facades of buildings that kind of change the appearance or getting rid of their zinc rooftops that are standard in Paris and give it the look we all know and love, but absorb heat and can be as hot as 150 degrees. You know, they're as averse to that stuff as they are to installing AC. And then in terms of the climate impact in 2025, about 95% of the energy generated in mainland France was low carbon. So it's mostly nuclear and then some renewables. So the climate impact of more energy usage in France is not going to be nearly as bad as it might be in other places. Of course, increased demand will mean higher prices. It could mean more fossil fuel use, especially at night. They'll put strain on the grid and power lines and on days when it's too hot and nuclear plants can't necessarily run at full capacity. But that's sort of like the policy debate. But then we get into this political fight, Ben. So Marine Le Pen and the far right National Rally Party are running on air conditioning for all. It's like Bernie Sanders, like Medicare for all. She's putting forward a national air conditioning plan, whereas the leftist candidate Jean Luc Melanchon says France, says France installing AC will make the situation worse. And he wants to create heat resistant buildings first. Then I saw, you know, Macron's Minister of ecological transmission said she was horrified was the word she used by calls for AC in public buildings. And this is where I think the debate just gets insane, Ben, because we're not just talking about AC and homes. It's also schools, retirement homes and hospitals. I saw a report about a Parisian hospital where only three of 30 wards had air conditioning. And so the other 27 sections of the hospital temperatures reached 95 degrees. And people were being told to bring fans from home, including in, like, maternity wards. And then I was talking to a buddy who's French. His grandfather lives in a home where only their common room has AC everywhere else is just like burning up and it's genuinely unsafe. So, Ben, I know you've experienced this yourself because you've been traveling in Europe recently. I'd love to hear your views, your experience, your lived experience, as they say. But then also just like a political matter, like, I just can't believe the left is taking such an insane, like, kind of strident position on this issue when, like, there's a thousand additional deaths because of this most recent heat wave. Like, it seems insane.
- [56:27]
E
Yes. So I'll start with my lived experience because I think it actually does contribute to this conversation. Because a week ago I was in London, and actually the day that I did my podcast, it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit in London, so just about as hot as in Paris. I will say, I care so much about this podcast, Tommy, that in my un air conditioned Airbnb, it's crazy. I podcasted through the heat, but look, I noticed the same thing. London has a lot of the same issues, right? It does not have AC anywhere. I mean, I rode the tube, the London Underground, and it was fucking hot. And the train stopped in the tunnel and I was like, if this thing doesn't move, like, I just don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do. And you go into public buildings, you go into restaurants are not air conditioned. Nothing is air condition. Like, and this is, I think as an American, what really struck me is, yes, maybe you're aware that homes, apartments, you know, don't have air conditioning. But like, public buildings, restaurants, stores, like, nobody has air conditioning and people have to go to work in that. People are riding on buses, they're not air conditioned. People riding on trains, they're not air conditioned. It's dangerous because you get no respite anywhere. You know, it's not like, well, I don't have air conditioning at home, but I can like go ride the, the bus and get a little AC or go to my workspace. My work has air conditioning. You just can't escape the heat all day. And I felt that, and that was kind of scary, to be honest. Which leads me. And actually just to get to the policy of this all, there was also a perfect timing thing in London when I was there. A conference dedicated to extreme heat had to be canceled because of the extreme heat.
- [58:05]
C
Perfect.
- [58:05]
E
And so look, the thing to the left, I'd say is this absolutely make the argument that, you know, Europe is actually heating up faster than any other region. This is proving man made climate change. This is happening because of climate change. This proves that we can't turn our back on a clean energy transition. We need to be moving to cleaner sources of energy. By all means, use the heat to make your case. This is not the hill to die on though. No, literally and at a minimum, and by the way, because it all. Well, yes, they should be greening these cities, they should be growing more trees, they should be doing all these things to try to make these European cities not like these heat capturing hellish places when it gets hot. But at a minimum, you need to air condition these public spaces. It's a leftist idea to say the worker that has to ride the bus should be able to have academic or public buildings should have air conditioning. You know, like, does that mean that every single, you know, apartment in these European cities is going to have ac? No, but start somewhere like in the public goods space. Because believe me, if you care about climate change and you choose to hilt a die on as we don't want air conditioning, you're not going to be able to implement your climate agenda because you're going to lose. And that's the long and short of it.
- [59:30]
B
That's the key point. I think sometimes on the left, we like, like personalize and individualize the solution to problems that actually require government action. And we act like if all the progressives in the world like don't use Claude or whatever, or like AI that somehow it's going to like, you know, save enough water or like, you know, impact the climate materially.
- [59:50]
A
And like that's.
- [59:51]
B
I'm not like trying to absolve people of making smart choices. We all should do our best and like think about climate mitigation in our own lives. But when you're talking about air conditioning a hospital, like maternity ward.
- [60:03]
E
Exactly.
- [60:03]
B
This is bonkers. What are you talking? Like you actually are punishing people that like historically, like, you know, social democratic movements are supposed to help the elderly, children, kids in school, like, like it's, it's insane. It is like it is a death sentence as a party. Like I think Marine Le Pen is going to ride this into the Elise if they're not caring.
- [60:24]
E
Yeah, no, I mean again, workers, right? I was talking to one guy who had a 40 minute commute and he was like, I was gonna pass out by the time I got to work and then I'm working somewhere that's not air conditioning. I want to say one thing about that video, Tommy. I do love the French. I love that the guy salted the meat. He wasn't just showing, you know, because I saw Like a good video. In Poland, someone was like, frying egg like that. But the French are still seasoning the food. You know, it'd be so good if
- [60:54]
B
you put a little garlic in there, chop it up. Yeah, it was great. I love the French. It still makes. It does make me want to go to Paris. All right, Ben, last thing. So for us, at least. So last week, we talked about kind of the thrill of victory in the World Cup. We talked about the kind of the beautiful melding of cultures and fan bases. And today we want to talk a bit about the agony of defeat because teams are starting to go home. So there have been some huge upsets. Germany lost to Paraguay on penalty kicks. Amazing game. The Netherlands lost to Morocco, also in penalty kicks. I don't know if you caught this one. I don't know what time it is there, but it was like, I've just never seen them miss so many penalty kicks in a row or so many get saved. Uruguay lost, and the expectations were quite high for the team. They completely flamed out. And apparently their soccer federation was so pissed off that they canceled their charter flight home from Mexico and they told the players to book commercial flights.
- [61:47]
E
So.
- [61:47]
B
So I really like that pettiness. A couple more headlines for you, Ben. So the New York Times had this one quote, world cup loss dominates German news, displacing even a mass shooting. That's how seriously they're taking this over there. This is supposed to be a lighter, fun segment, so I'm going to spare you guys the details of the mass shooting, but it was awful. Here's another headline from the Athletic that you should speak to, Ben. The Netherlands World Cup Exit sparks identity crisis in nation of Total Football. Another very, you know, deeply felt one there. Pretty intense. And then, Ben, I think maybe the worst fallout might have been in South Korea because the expectations for this team going into this World cup was really high. You have a lot of great players playing for, like, major international clubs. They won their first game. They lost their second game. They just needed to tie their third game against South Africa, who was ranked way lower than South Korea. But then they lost. And I think the team looks so bad that the coach was asked at the press conference afterwards if they had food poisoning. They were jeered at the airport when they arrived home. And then South Korea's president has since called for an investigation into the team's performance because it was so bad. I thought that was pretty fucking good. There's a lot of story like, I went down a YouTube rabbit hole. There's A story about like corruption within the kfa, their soccer association, that I won't get into, but fascinating stuff. So you again, you've been in Europe, you've been kind of living the. From that side of the pond. What have you been seeing?
- [63:09]
E
So I'm in Amsterdam, I'm on vacation after my book tour and I will say, so I watched like the Germany game last night. Props to Paraguay, by the way. Did you see that the president of Paraguay had a national called the national holiday the day after just so people could, you know, get hammered all night and like sleep it off the next day? By the way, like, great, fuck you to Uruguay too, that Paraguay's advancing, you know, like an old rivalry there. But I will say, like, I went to sleep because the, the, the Dutch game started at 3am Amsterdam time. I want to say that I was walking around like late last night because it's light here till like 11 o' clock at night and people were setting up the coolest, you know, like they had boats with like big screen TVs and like fully stocked bars. Like people were getting ready to do it right out here. And at about 5 in the morning, maybe it's 5:30, I just started to be awoken by all these horns honking and people shouting. And so I wake up like, what the fuck is going on? You know, And I start, I look at my phone and they're, they're reacting to each penalty shot. Like there was so much like pent up anxiety in the city that like, good or bad, there's just like noise accompanying each penalty kick and horns and like, I mean, I can't. It was like the whole city was making noise and like in the middle of the fucking night. And then when they lost, like, it was dark, man. I just heard people shouting. I heard a lot of drunk people making very unpleasant noises. Like, I was like, I was like, I'm not going out of this hotel for a little while. I had to tell my kids, like, we had to be really nice to any Dutch people that we see today because they're gonna be in a really shit mood.
- [64:49]
B
Don't tell me.
- [64:49]
E
I went out this morning. There was like trash everywhere. Like there's trash cans kicked out. Like, it was not a good scene here. Like these people really like their football here and it didn't end well. Flip side, like the Moroccans are, I mean the Moroccans made the semis last time. They're the new spoiler. They're like, this is the biggest, you know, anti colonial movement that we've seen in decades, you know, the Moroccan soccer team, you know, and the African teams in general. It's been a great subplot of this World cup, like how well the African teams have been doing.
- [65:19]
B
Yeah, it's been really fun. I loved every minute of it. A lot of big games coming up. I'm going to watch. I'm like, preemptively sad about it being over, to be totally honest with you. That's like, it's crazy.
- [65:28]
C
You.
- [65:28]
B
They're just going nuts at five in the morning. My only experience comes close to that is when I was in college. I got to Rome in Roma. The professional soccer team had just won the Syria for the first time in like a couple decades. And they literally drove around and honked their horns for three days straight. I, I'm not exaggerating what I said. All day and all night, people were honking their horns. It was insane.
- [65:48]
E
But that's, I had this experience. I studied abroad in Paris and, and I got there right after the French had won the first World cup in, in 1998, and it was, it was bonkers for days. I was like, is this what Paris is like? This is awesome. You know, marching down the Champs Elysees and like, their uniforms is fucking great.
- [66:06]
B
Burning it down. Okay, that is it for us for today. But do not turn off the podcast because when you come back, you're gonna hear my interview with Nick Kristof about Elon Musk being the worst liar in the world and trying to claim that no one died as a result of doging usaid. He walks through in great detail what he found on his reporting in places like South Sudan, what the, you know, sort of the projections and analysis say about the impact of USAID cuts and much more. So please stick around for that. It's a very important conversation. We cannot let Elon get away with these lies.
- [66:41]
A
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G
In moments like these, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and even easier to feel powerless. But we are neither. I'm Stacey Abrams and on my podcast Assembly Required, I take on each executive action, legislative battle, and breaking news moment by asking three questions. What's really happening? What can we do about it? And how do we keep going together? This is a space for clarity, strategy and hope rooted in action, not denial. New episodes of Assembly Required. Drop Tuesdays. Tune in wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube.
- [68:36]
D
All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher and the Mango Pineapple Refresher with Popping Boba to crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire six? All new drinks are here now at McDonald's.
- [69:03]
E
Refreshers contain caffeine.
- [69:11]
A
My guest today is a columnist at
- [69:12]
B
the New York Times. He has written and reported extensively on the effects of Elon Musk and Donald Trump's destruction of usaid.
- [69:19]
A
Nicholas Kristob, welcome to the show.
- [69:21]
C
Great to be with you.
- [69:22]
B
Thank you so much for doing this. So as you know, Elon Musk has spent the last couple of weeks really just attacking in the most personal terms anyone who criticizes what he and Trump and the Doge team did to usaid. Musk has denied that medical funding was stopped. He claimed that no one has died as the result of Doge cuts to usaid. He even threatened to sue Congressman Ro Khanna for some of his comments. Specifically, Musk says no one can name a single person who died, quote, not a single name. And he also tried to claim that USAID is responsible for Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So he's been on one. Lots to unpack here. Let's start with the basics. Can you just remind us what exactly Musk and Doge and Trump did to usaid?
- [70:07]
C
Yeah, well, in Musk's own words, he fed it into the wood chipper and he did it over a weekend. And so there was a perfectly legitimate argument to have about reforming aid policies, about programs that could be redeveloped, even about the levels of aid. But that's not what happened. He actually tossed it into the wood chipper. And while some programs were revived, there was a freeze on funding. People who would actually disperse funds were suddenly no longer in office. And so there were all kinds of programs, even those that they said that they valued, that were abruptly cut. And so, you know, instead of nobody dying, lots of people died. And there's a, there's, you know, a lot of debate about the numbers and we can talk about that. But you know, I, as somebody who reported the aftermath and walked through villages, I saw people dying and talked to bereaved families of kids who had died. And that's just, it's ludicrous to propose that nobody died as a consequence.
- [71:19]
B
Yeah, it is. I want to ask you about that reporting. Yeah, I think all total, like 83% of USAID programs are canceled, 94% of the staff were laid off, some were rehired by, by the State Department. But that was after a long independent process. So the suggestion that, you know, they destroyed it, they fed it into the wood chipper. Exactly what Elon said.
- [71:36]
C
That's right.
- [71:37]
B
And so I just want to start with some of the specific examples you just mentioned and then ask you about the broader long term impact of the cuts. Let's first watch this clip of Musk talking about USAID from May of 2025. And then I will ask you a couple questions about it.
- [71:50]
F
But many, many times over with USAID and other organizations when we've, when they said, oh well, this is going to happen, help, you know, children or it's going to help some disease eradication or something like that. And then when we ask for any evidence whatsoever, I say, well, please connect us with this group of children so we can talk to them and understand
- [72:12]
B
more about their issue.
- [72:13]
F
We get nothing. We, we don't, they don't even try to prevent show come up with a, with it with a show orphan meaning like, like this sort of like, well, can we at least see a few kids, like, where, where are they? If they're in trouble, we'd like to talk to them and talk to their caregivers. And then we get this thing as a response because it's what, what we find is an enormous amount of, of fraud and graft.
- [72:39]
B
A show orphan. That's a term he used. So Elon has repeatedly made claims more recently, like, quote, they cannot cite a single name of someone who died out of the millions they falsely claim at died. Not a single name. You responded to him on Twitter with evidence you saw with your own eyes from your reporting trips to places like South Sudan, Uganda, the list goes on. Can you tell us about those trips and what you saw?
- [73:02]
C
Yeah. So I traveled to South Sudan, for example, and found kids who had died very early on because they were HIV positive. They had been kept alive by the PEPFAR program that President Bush had started in 2003 that has saved 26 million lives so far. And I think that Musk and Trump did intend to keep much of those HIV AIDS programs alive, but they fired the health workers who had been the connector between the system and the kids who were receiving these often AIDS orphans who were receiving the benefits. And so if you've got a, you know, 8 year old kid, for example, who is on ARVs to prevent AIDS and, you know, how is that kid possibly going to navigate the system to manage to get those medicines? And so, you know, one boy called Peter Dande died, another Evan Anzu died. There were a number of, you know, these kids who had died that health workers told me about. Then in Liberia, for example, you know, dropped in one village and a child had just died of malaria because the malaria medications, they had been supplied, in some cases supported by the U.S. but maybe more important, the U.S. had supported the pipeline that transported them from the warehouses in the capital to the individual clinics. And without that pipeline, all of a sudden, things collapsed. And if this had happened over time, if the US had said, look, a year from now we're going to stop that pipeline, you know, Uganda might have been able to adjust. But it happened right in the middle of a fiscal year and there was no time to make these adjustments. So that little child died, a woman, that Yama Freeman, mother of two, she in another village in Uganda, she was in labor, she was hemorrhaging. And the US had provided ambulances precisely to reduce maternal mortality in an area that had very high levels of it. And those ambulances remained there. But Doge cut the fuel, the diesel that had gone to Power those ambulances. And so when Yama Freeman was hemorrhaging, the villagers called the ambulance and said, you know, this woman is dying. And they said, well, you know, send some fuel over and we will come and rescue her. But of course, they can't do that. A bunch of the strong men in the village put her in a hammock, put her on their shoulders, and they raced down this path toward the hospital shouting encouragement to her, but she bled to death on the way. And that would not have happened if, for the cost of just maintaining diesel to ambulances we had already provided. And I could go so on and on and on. And when you go through these villages, little girl called Jibeia, you know, everything went wrong. In her case, the US had provided bed nets to prevent mosquito bites and malaria. A bed net cost $2. It's incredibly cost effective. So Jabia's family, their bed net had holes. They couldn't get a new bed net. She got malaria. Normally there would be a community health worker who would connect her to the system, get her medication. The community health workers had been. The clinic no longer had anti malaria medicine. She got very, very sick and needed to be rushed to the larger hospital. But the ambulances there too had lost their fuel. And by the time she got there, she was almost dead. And she died shortly after. A fourth grade girl ranking number three in her very large class, dead because of the reckless way in which Musk took apart aid.
- [77:12]
B
Yeah, I mean, the, the reporting folks should read all of your reporting on this. I mean, it's gut wrenching. You know, you're talking to kids, caregivers, you know, caregivers who have HIV who will die because they will no longer get access to the, the, the drugs they need. And you know, when you see Musk, it's, it's hard sometimes to, to determine whether this is malevolence or ignorance. I also interviewed a former USAID staffer turned whistleblower named Nicholas Enrich. He wrote a book called into the Wood Chipper about his experience at usaid. And he talks about finally getting to brief the sort of Trump administration officials who were sent over to USAID as part of this leadership team about the work they've been doing. He, I think he got like five minutes, he focused on public health. And one of the Trump staffers said to him, wow, there really is so much that USAID does that we never knew. This is the story that needs to get out there. And then another said, I had no idea you did all this as a Republican. When I Think of what USAID does in global health.
- [78:05]
G
Health.
- [78:06]
B
I assumed it was just, you know, abortion. So it's like profound ignorance and lack of interest.
- [78:11]
A
And then the other part of must
- [78:12]
B
defense is like, well, if all these people died, if all these kids died, it would be a huge story. It would be front page news. Which, like the suggestion that mass death in Africa is necessarily a huge story in the US Media just demonstrates such a profound ignorance of how the press works in the US that it's kind of, it's hard to wrap your, your, your head around that. This is like one of the world's smartest men. You just. Does he really think this?
- [78:37]
C
Yeah, you know, I, I've, I've wondered about Musk's motivations and you know, he had been so successful in the business world by disrupting things and blowing it up. And you know, SpaceX succeeded in a way that Boeing and Lockheed did not. And he made mistakes along the way, but then he was able to correct them. But when you're dealing with an aid agency, when you make mistakes, then the result is dead kids. And the result is Ebola now in Congo raging out of control. And I think that that kind of recklessness was paired with a lack of empathy, kind of an indifference to two kids on a different continent. And that combination of recklessness and indifference has just been enormously lethal.
- [79:29]
B
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned Ebola. So the Democratic Republic of Congo has had this horrible Ebola outbreak. I think there's been 1200 plus cases, well over 300 deaths. How do you think the USAID's absence and the actions of the Trump administration have made that crisis worse?
- [79:46]
C
So with Ebola, the most important thing you can do is get an early warning and just tackle it immediately when there are just a few cases on the ground. So this began in Ituri in northeastern Congo. It's an area that I've traveled through. It's a difficult area to work in because there is conflict there. But the US had previously funded a lot of work in Eastern Congo and had a network on the ground, but that was all defunded. And so all of a sudden doctors are, and nurses are not staffing local clinics to the same degree. They're off growing their cassava. And then even if they find something, they're no longer reporting to NGOs which are reporting to the US and so the Ebola outbreak happened and grew before anybody was there to blow the whistle. And it was also, it was a different species of virus, so it was harder to, it was harder to Catch
- [80:56]
B
no vaccine for this version.
- [80:58]
C
That's right. And so this would have been a challenge, but everybody there on the ground tells me that unmistakably it would have been caught earlier than it was and that there are many more cases as a result, which means it's harder to do contact tracing, it's harder to contain it.
- [81:15]
A
Yeah.
- [81:15]
B
So let's zoom out a bit. So there have been efforts to track. Track the total impact of the USAID cuts in terms of mortality. There's some researchers at Boston University who created a tracker. I think they estimate that over 780,000 people have died as a result of those cuts. The medical journal the Lancet published a study estimating that 9.4 million additional deaths could occur by 2030.
- [81:36]
A
Could you help us give us your
- [81:38]
B
sense of how you make sense of these studies because. Including their limitations. Because it is challenging to project the impact of USAID cutting cuts into the future. But I'm curious what you make of the methodology, how accurate these claims are, the likelihood that they could change if a Democrat gets into office and revamps some of these programs.
- [82:03]
C
I mean, I think the methodology is actually reasonably sound, but that we have to be very skeptical of these numbers because we don't have good mortality data. And, and one of the things that aid cuts did is it also decimated the data collection process. So that makes it harder to actually figure out the impact. Early on in my reporting in Africa, I thought that some of these numbers were exaggerated because local health systems had actually managed to reallocate money in ways that somewhat softened the blow. But then, and also, you know, people have reserves, they don't die immediately. You stop getting ARVs. And it's not that you, you know, drop dead right away, but over time, it seemed to me that mortality was increasing precisely for that reason. It was catching up with people. And if they're malnourished and also get malaria, then they're, you know, then they're more likely to die. And so I think that mortality, for example, is going to be higher as a consequence of the USAID demolition in 2026 than it was in 2025, because it is, to some degree cumulative. And so I think we should be very wary of the numbers. But the kind of general order of magnitude of hundreds of thousands of deaths a year I think is fundamentally right. But the exact toll is going to be, I think, unknowable until we resume data collection.
- [83:51]
A
Yeah.
- [83:52]
B
You mentioned this example in Congo a minute ago of these sort of like, frontline workers who went from warning USAID about Ebola outbreaks to farming essentially.
- [84:03]
F
Right.
- [84:03]
B
So that we kind of lost this, this global health infrastructure in a lot of places. I'm curious how hard you think it will be to build that back because we got a bunch of Democrats who are going to run for president in 2028. Hopefully one of them wins. Hopefully that individual will want to build back usaid. But I think you've seen the good parts of usaid. You've also seen the programs that don't work as well. And I'm curious what you think of how to build it back and what reforms, you know, could or should be implemented.
- [84:33]
C
So I mean, one of the astonishing things about this is that humanitarian aid is actually pretty popular among Republicans and Democrats alike. And the Rockefeller foundation just did some polling about this. And you know, and Americans think that about 20% of the federal budget goes to this kind of foreign assistance. In fact, it's, you know, about it traditionally was about 1%. It's, you know, it's a tiny, it's 22 cents of every hundred dollars of national income in the U.S. that is going to this kind of aid. And so I, you know, I certainly hope that Democrats will try to revive it. I don't think that it was a fatal decision to move it to the State Department. You know, there, I mean, there are arguments either way. Moving things is always a little chaotic. But I think one could reasonably keep it in the State Department. But it has to have support within the State Department and it has to have funding. I do think that periodically Democrats and Republicans alike have invested in projects that are a little on the ideological side. And Democrats tended to invest in women's empowerment programs that sometimes were well grounded but sometimes were kind of touchy feely and it wasn't obvious that they had good evidence behind them. Meanwhile, Republicans invested in abstinence only programs that did not seem to help fight HIV aids, for example. So, you know, I think a starting point is to really look at evidence based programs that have randomized control trials behind them, given the limitations on resources. Make sure that you're investing in the places that, that need it most and in the programs that need it most. You know, Sudan and Sudan is the world's worst humanitarian crisis right now. It desperately needs assistance and it's not getting it. Somalia is a catastrophe right now and likewise isn't getting it. I mean, it's one of the problems with the Trump assistance that it's being, it's now dished out in a sense in exchange for other benefits. So okay. If you give rare earth mineral contracts to American companies, then we'll help you fight malaria.
- [87:04]
B
Right.
- [87:05]
C
So I, boy, I mean, I. I hope it'll be revived and then we can turn the trajectory. Some of these doctors and nurses can, you know, move from cassava farming back to saving lives. And we'll all be better off if they do that.
- [87:19]
F
Yeah, I hope.
- [87:20]
B
There's a widespread commitment among all the Democrats running in 2028, and Republicans too, by the way, to restore a lot of this funding, especially the life saving humanitarian aid to starving people in places like Sudan. That also has to be coupled with a commitment, by the way, to go after bad actors like the United Arab Emirates who are helping feeding the conflict in Sudan. The list could go on and on, but, you know, just, it's. It's just so obvious to me that we can help avoid future conflicts if we take care of people in some of these places. And instead, President Trump took all the savings he might have gotten from Doge and put it into a catastrophic war with Iran. So don't we all feel safer because of that?
- [87:59]
C
Yeah. And I mean, you know, we'll spend far, far more on the Iran war than we were ever spending on these life saving programs. And, you know, one of the things I hear a lot on X is that, look, you know, it's not our job to save all these people, that we can't do everything, and we can't do everything. But if any of us were next to a woman in an ambulance that had run out of gas and she was hemorrhaging and dying in that ambulance for one of ten bucks worth of gas, of course we would reach into our pockets and help. And, you know, this is a chance for the country to do that in ways that advance American interests as well as American values. And we have failed on that because of Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Yeah.
- [88:42]
B
And relatedly, I think, of course, if, you know, if I were to see someone like Elon Musk or anyone else take medicine, life saving medicine, away from a child and then that child died, then of course, they deserve to be blamed for the outcome of that move and that decision.
- [88:57]
A
Finally, I just wanted to ask you
- [88:58]
B
about a separate piece you wrote back in May about what you called a, quote, pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women, and even children by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency, and above all, prison guards. This is a really, you know, deeply reported piece that was met with fierce pushback from Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu the Israeli Foreign Ministry called it, quote, one of the worst blood libels ever to appear in the modern press. I think they have threatened legal action. I was just wondering if you want could describe sort of how you reported out that piece and what your reaction was to the reaction and the pushback back from Israel.
- [89:39]
C
Yeah. Given the threat of legal action which Prime Minister Netanyahu has promised, I shouldn't say much. But let me say that actually the roots of this came two years ago when I was speaking to a peace activist in a Palestinian in the west bank who had been arrested and told me that he had been sexually assaulted by his jailers. And he told me this was he thought, you know, quite widespread that. But because of shame, people didn't talk about it. And so that's what sort of seeded the idea. And I began to ask around, and then this year I took that on seriously and I wasn't sure it would be possible to report that people would be willing to talk about rape and assault. But it turns out that if you ask the question and spread the networks, then people. I found 14 people, 14 different people who independently unaware of each other, told me about having been sexually assaulted.
- [90:45]
G
And
- [90:48]
C
you know, that pattern in prisons by Settlers, by Shin Bet, it. I think it's what happens when you get a combination of dehumanization of Palestinians and anger at them and complete impunity in the prison process. And, you know, I wish the. I knew that there would be a very harsh reaction. Of course I expected that. It's one reason why we fact checked it out the gazoo. But it was certainly more hostile than I had expected. And I just wish that the response were more along the lines of, well, let's investigate and prove Christoph wrong. Yeah, let's let the Red Cross in and talk to these prisoners. Let's let lawyers back in to the prison system. And, you know, so far there hasn't been much inclination to do that.
- [91:52]
B
Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, Netanyahu has one speed, right. Which is attack demagogue, you know, deflect from whatever responsibility. I'm with you. That I wish the focus had been on the impact of. On the victim's support for them preventing this from happening again. There is, you know, we've all seen video evidence of Israeli prison guards, you know, allegedly raping a Palestinian prisoner.
- [92:16]
A
Right.
- [92:16]
B
So this is. This should not have surprised anyone, even though the reporting, the. What you reported was shocking, should shock the conscience so. Well, listen, thank you so much, Nick, for doing the show today. It's not easy to get to South Sudan. It's not easy to get to the places you're reporting from. It takes a lot of time and money, and you do it at personal risk to yourself and to the people who travel with you. So we're very grateful to you for the work you're doing and thanks for joining the show.
- [92:37]
C
Thanks for shining your light on this topic.
- [92:39]
A
Thanks again to Nick Kristof for joining the show and talk to you guys next week. Pod Save the World is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Ilona Minkowski, Michael Goldsmith, and Anisha Banerjee.
- [92:49]
B
Our team includes Matt de Groot, Ben
- [92:51]
A
Hethcote, Jordan Kantor, Kenny Moffat, David Toles, and Ryan Young. Her staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.
- [93:02]
G
In moments like these, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and even easier to feel powerless. But we are neither. I'm Stacey Abrams and on my podcast Assembly Required, I take on each executive action, legislative battle, and breaking news moment by asking three questions. What's really happening? What can we do about it? And how do we keep going together? This is a space for clarity, strategy and hope rooted in action, not denial. New episodes of Assembly Required. Drop Tuesdays. Tune in wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube.
- [93:43]
D
All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher and the Mango Pineapple Refresher with Popping Boba to crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire six? All new drinks are here now at McDonald's.
- [94:10]
E
Refreshers contain caffeine.