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- [00:00]
Tommy Vitor
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- [01:28]
Ben Rhodes
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- [02:39]
Tommy Vitor
Welcome back to Pod Save the World I'm Tommy Vitor.
- [02:41]
Ben Rhodes
I'm Ben Rhodes.
- [02:42]
Tommy Vitor
Ben, congrats on your New York Knickerbockers.
- [02:46]
Ben Rhodes
It's unreal. Tommy. This is the best that they've played in my entire life. Usually when they're good, it is still agonizing. I don't know what it feels like to have your team just like paste the shit out of everybody they play.
- [02:58]
Tommy Vitor
Just crush the series.
- [02:59]
Ben Rhodes
Just crush and be fun and cool and have our fans take over Philadelphia
- [03:04]
Tommy Vitor
yelling bing bong at people.
- [03:05]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, it was, you know, it was, let's put it this way, like a four game destruction of Philadelphia was more fun than what would have been probably an agonizing Knick Celtic series for six or seven games.
- [03:17]
Tommy Vitor
So would have been tough. Ben Stiller out there tweeting away. So bang. Twin towers. A lot of tweets that we take in a couple different ways.
- [03:24]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, Stiller's. Like I said, he's just living my text thread on online.
- [03:30]
Tommy Vitor
Does he sit on the wood? Does he sit like at courtside?
- [03:32]
Ben Rhodes
He's courtside, yeah.
- [03:33]
Tommy Vitor
That's so awesome. What do you think those cost?
- [03:35]
Ben Rhodes
I got to go.
- [03:36]
Tommy Vitor
Were you on the wood?
- [03:37]
Ben Rhodes
Yes, for the first time this year. And it's weird because you kind of look down this row and there's like Spike Lee, Chalamet, Ben Stiller, you know, Chalamet wasn't there that day. Tracy Morgan, and it's. You know, I actually like our celebrities. Like sometimes that's kind of nauseating, but like Spike Lee, come on.
- [03:58]
Tommy Vitor
I mean, Spike's been going forever through thick and thin.
- [04:01]
Ben Rhodes
He's a fan.
- [04:02]
Tommy Vitor
They suck mostly. And yeah, he absolutely deserves to enjoy this. Chalamet has proven himself to be a real sports fan, seemingly a pretty cool guy.
- [04:10]
Ben Rhodes
I will say that they have the ex players there, which is cool to see too. I won't name names, but one of them walked by me and the whiff of marijuana was like one of the most powerful smells I've. I got like a contact high on the court side, but it's good down there.
- [04:25]
Tommy Vitor
Nothing wrong with that. Yeah. And then Jim Dolan is like using AI facial recognition to kick out any critics.
- [04:30]
Ben Rhodes
All right, just to give a wreck here, Pablo Torre did a fine grip about Dolan's.
- [04:36]
Tommy Vitor
Dolan's the owner of the Knicks and he literally, like has his frigging security goons run around the stadium and chase people that chant things critical of him. He's that petty of a sad little
- [04:46]
Ben Rhodes
monitors people in the bathroom. It's really creepy. That is really kind of Palantir esque.
- [04:51]
Tommy Vitor
Gross. That's very Palantir esque. Okay, enough about the Knicks. Congrats. I'm happy for you. We have a great, great show today. We're going to lead with something new. We're going to talk about the recent elections in the UK which were a disaster for the Labour Party and have led to widespread calls for Prime Minister Keir Starmer to step aside and allow a leadership election. We'll debate whether that's a good idea or not. Then we're going to walk you through the last disastrous week in the disastrous war with Iran. We got abandoned missions, Ben, ceasefires on life support. We had ballooning economic consequences, all of it. Then we watched Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's interview in 60 minutes so that you don't have to we're going to let you know about all the hard hitting questions from the new and improved Barry Weiss. CBS will preview Trump's trip to China. He's going to, he's actually, I think he's in the air right now. He's going to go meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. We'll tell you what both sides want out of the visit, what it means for Iran, what it means for Taiwan. We'll talk a little bit about some jockeying for the future of the Democratic Party. On foreign policy. We'll bitch about coverage of Marco Rubio because that's all we have left. We're just whining little babies cry about stuff. And then we're telling you about Kash Patel's recent testimony in the US Senate that then you did our interview.
- [05:59]
Ben Rhodes
I talked to Susie Hansen, who's a really great journalist who's written for the New York Times Magazine, among other places. She lived in Turkey for 10 years and she wrote a book essentially about one neighborhood. But it's really about the transformation of Turkey under Tayyip Erdogan, both inside of Turkey, but also this role it's played in welcoming millions of Syrian refugees in the Arab Spring and the rise of authoritarianism that Erdogan's been a part of. So it's both a conversation about Erdogan and Turkey, but also about understanding what's happened in the world through this place that all the trends converge in. I mean, like, there's not one thing that hasn't happened in the world in the last 15 years. It hasn't run through Turkey. So it's a great conversation, great book.
- [06:45]
Tommy Vitor
People should check it out. I always think about the day that There was that attempted coup.
- [06:48]
Ben Rhodes
We talk about that too.
- [06:49]
Tommy Vitor
Fighter jets.
- [06:50]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
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Tommy Vitor
Flying over.
- [06:51]
Ben Rhodes
That's what. Yeah, we were just. You came in and we were still talking about it after the interview because I have so many questions about tanks
- [06:57]
Tommy Vitor
rolling down the street and then just disappeared.
- [06:58]
Ben Rhodes
And yet everyone seemed to know about it. But did he.
- [07:01]
Tommy Vitor
But like FaceTiming from his phone on the plane.
- [07:04]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, the whole thing was very strange.
- [07:05]
Tommy Vitor
Fucking crazy. Finally, after that, our Friends of the Pod subscribers will hear. Ben and I take some questions from the Friend of the Pod subscriber community from our discord. If you want to join, go to crooked.com friends. You get ad free episodes of this show. Ad free episodes of Pod Save America. You get bonus episodes of Pod Save America. You get polling deep dives from Dan Feifer. And you can get discounted tickets to CrookedCon, our second annual jamboree of politics. Fun hot takes, cold takes, light drinking, heavy petting. There's all of it. So crooked.com friends, if you want to go. And by the way, subscribing is the number one thing you could do to help us grow as a progressive, independent media company. And if that's a bridge too far for you, at least just subscribe to Pod Save the world on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts, rate the show, review the show. It really helps us grow and we will appreciate it. So. All right, Ben, let's talk. Let's leave with the UK because we've been doing Iran stuff for like two months straight now. There have been some major political machinations in the uk. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's tenure as Prime Minister could be over soon or not, we just don't know yet. The backstory here is last week there were local elections in England and elections to the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments. These were not elections to Parliament itself. It was not like directly impacting Starmer's standing. But these council elections are seen as bellwethers to assess the political mood in the uk. And the mood is pissed. Voters are pissed. The results were really, really bad for the Labour Party. Remember, labor won an historic landslide in 2024. But in this election just two years later, labor lost 1400 council seats. So it's just a drubbing. And labor lost votes from both directions. They lost to the Greens on their left. They lost to Reform UK on their right. Reform is the right wing xenophobic party run by Nigel Farage. Cameo star Nigel Farage. So Reform, they made big gains in England. Reform also did really well in Wales and Scotland. In Wales, the Welsh Nationalist Party won the most seats, but Reform came in second in labor and the Tories last ground. This came after labor was literally the leading party in Wales for 100 years. Over 100 years. And then in Scotland, the SNP, the Scottish National Party, they're going to stay in control of Parliament. And Labour had its worst ever result in Scotland. It is now tied with Reform. The Greens also did quite well in Scotland. So what does it all mean? I think first, we're seeing the total collapse of the traditional two party system. And it's really becoming a five party system. You've got labor in, the Tories cratering. The Lib Dems are doing better. The Greens, Reform uk, they're gaining ground. And then in Scotland and Wales, you also have Nationalist local parties. Second, you have voters just furious about the cost of living and a bunch of economic issues. And labor has not made their lives better. They're getting punished for it. And there's lots of reports that labor campaigners were on the doors and they were talking to voters and the voters were like, we hate Keir Starmer. Hate, like visceral hate for that man. Which is interesting. So that gets us to the question of whether Starmer will step aside or be deposed. On Monday, he gave a defiant speech, taking responsibility for the loss, but rejecting calls to resign. Let's listen to a bit of that.
- [10:16]
Marco Rubio
The election results last week were tough, very tough.
- [10:22]
Tommy Vitor
We lost some brilliant Labour representatives.
- [10:26]
Marco Rubio
That hurts and it should hurt.
- [10:31]
Tommy Vitor
I get it, I feel it, and I take responsibility.
- [10:37]
Ben Rhodes
We are not just facing dangerous times, but dangerous opponents.
- [10:44]
Tommy Vitor
Very dangerous opponents.
- [10:47]
Marco Rubio
This hurts not just because labor has
- [10:50]
Ben Rhodes
done badly, but because if we don't get this right, our country will go down a very dark path.
- [11:00]
Tommy Vitor
It seems like he's not feeling emotions,
- [11:02]
Ben Rhodes
but performing, I should say. Yeah, yeah.
- [11:04]
Tommy Vitor
So on Tuesday, he also had the cabinet meeting. He was again defined. He told his team he's not going anywhere, but. But it's not entirely up to him. There are reports that more than 90 Labor MPs want Starmer to step aside. That includes foreign ministers in his government. But crucially, Ben, no alternative candidate has gotten the support of 81 sitting Labor MPs, which is what you need to formally challenge Starmer and trigger a leadership election. So, Ben, I'll pause there. Your thoughts on these results. And then after that, do you want to make the case that it's time for Keir Starmer to step aside and I'll make the Starmer should stay case.
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Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
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Tommy Vitor
Straw man, just for fun.
- [11:40]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, yeah. And I could probably argue it both ways, but I would definitely tilt in the direction I'm going to argue for. Look, the problem here is that labor won this massive majority in large part because the Tories had self immolated as we covered meticulously on this podcast over a decade, over the course of a decade with Brexit and Liz Truss and all the chaos, Boris Johnson having Covid parties, all the rest of it. And so they get this huge mandate and have done fuck all with it. I mean like what was their program like? What is Keir Starmer's?
- [12:17]
Tommy Vitor
They got jobs for Jeffrey Epstein Friends.
- [12:18]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. What is Keir Starmer's? Well, this is part of the problem is that their theory, Starmer's theory of the case was I got to purge Jeremy Corbyn, the left wing, previous leader of labor and all of his supporters and move this party to the center to make it an acceptable alternative to the Tories and, and win. And that worked. But the problem is they had no program for when they won. And this is a country that has an identity crisis after Brexit. This is a country that is desperately need of growth. This is a country that has xenophobic rising far right politics, but desperately needs immigrants to sustain their care economy and their nhs. So there's a lot of work to be done. And he's not offering any vision or any big ideas about what the UK is or what their economic future is. And that's showing up in the polls. And I know some of these, someone I know, Payman Assad actually won by 30 votes. But 30 votes, it's tough. And here I'll pivot to the case against Starmer. I know what he said, which is that we can't be as chaotic as the Tories and change leaders in the merry ground. Let me have five years to have my full mandate. The problem with that is he has not shown any other gear. You know, you know, when you see a politician, I mean, first of all, does he get it? No, he looks like he's reading talking points. He was told to say I feel it.
- [13:46]
Tommy Vitor
He did 10 speech preps where they
- [13:48]
Ben Rhodes
said show passion and he just can't really show emotion or passion.
- [13:52]
Tommy Vitor
Not his thing.
- [13:52]
Ben Rhodes
He's like a well meaning perhaps guy, but like he doesn't. But then beyond that, he hasn't shown that he has any new vision or any new program. It's all political positioning and tactics. Should I tack a little bit more to the right as they've done on immigration, which doesn't make Sense. Because if you're anti immigrant, you'll just vote for reform. Should I tack to the left? And look, the Green Party's done a lot to differentiate itself and actually stand on principle. That's why they're winning voters. I just don't think he knows what he wants to do as Prime Minister other than state Prime Minister. And there's a kind of, there's a kind of younger Joe Biden vibe here too. I just want to stick around and
- [14:35]
Tommy Vitor
look, he's the guy that did Aukus.
- [14:36]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, well, it's true, to be fair. But he's not wrong about Reform UK being scary. I mean, this is a xenophobic far right party led by Nigel Farage, who should be a punchline, not a Prime minister. But precisely because of that threat, I just don't see him rehabilitating labor to be able to compete with Nigel Farage. And so, and look, there's. The biggest problem is there's not an alternative. Part of the problem is not an alternative. The biggest alternative is Andy Burnham, right, who's a very popular mayor, but who would have to come into the Parliament to become Prime Minister. He was blocked from coming into Parliament by Keir Starmer and his allies. And so they prevented there from being alternatives. Again, echoes of the Democratic Party, how we've done primaries. And so I just don't, I just don't know that Keir Starmer has showed us that he can govern any differently than he already has and we see what the results are of how he governs. And I just therefore think that. And look, take some time if you're not ready today to find an alternative, you know, figure out a timeline to find one. But if they're running two, three years from now into the next election with Keir Starmer, I just think that's a recipe for disaster.
- [15:56]
Tommy Vitor
So let me, let me straw man the case for why Starmer should stay, because I actually think it's. Then we'll talk about our own personal views. I have a fairly strong view, but it is, it's complicated.
- [16:05]
Ben Rhodes
It is complicated.
- [16:06]
Tommy Vitor
The case for why Starmer should stay is like, you know, like I said at the top, like this was not a landslide for reform or a total wipeout for Labor. It was the political system really fracturing into this new reality of multi party, not just a two party system. And I think we do adjust our expectations accordingly. Yes, Keir Starmer is unpopular, his polling is terrible. There's all these reports about, you know, visceral hatred of him on the doorsteps but every single leader in Europe is unpopular right now, right? In April, YouGov did a big tracking poll. Keir Starmer is 44 points underwater. French President Emmanuel Macron is 49 points underwater. German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz is 52 points underwater. Even leaders, I think that you and I think of as more deft politically or at least more interesting or struggling. Like Georgia Maloney is negative 22. Her approval, Pedro Sanchez is 21 points underwater. So everyone's getting fucked. People are pissed everywhere. And then again, like, getting rid of Starmer is the easy part. Figuring out who comes next is much harder. Have you heard of Wes Streeding, Angela Rayner or Andy Burnham? Me neither. And those are the leading candidates to replace this guy, right? And like, if Wes Streeting wants to run, he needs to man up and do it. No one's manned up yet. And so to your point, Ben, about Starmer and his what do you want to do with the job? I don't get the sense from anybody really what they want to do within Labor. Like it's not about who comes next, it's about what comes next and what are you going to do with the mandate? And like no one's laying out an alternative vision. I know that's complicated when you're still in government, but no one's done it yet. And then in that speech, we didn't play all of it, but like Starmer did try to lay out a bit of a path forward. He has like more direct intervention in the economy. He talks about like nationalizing steel plants, more partnership with the eu. He takes a more head on fight with Nigel Farage. He blames the Iran war for a lot of his troubles. Speaking of which, you know, the one thing this will do is it will mean that Starmer helps Nigel Farage deliver on his big election promise. Let's watch a clip of Farage ranting away after the election had already happened. About the results. We fought this election campaign on a big national slogan. You might remember said vote reform and get some routes. And I tell you what, he'll be
- [18:30]
Ben Rhodes
gone by the middle of the summer.
- [18:31]
Tommy Vitor
The most unpatriotic, worst, least prepared prime minister we've ever seen in this country. And we will have seen the back of him. We are directly taking votes from patriotic old labour in areas that frankly, they've been pretty much able to take for granted since the end of World War I. It all goes to show that over the course of the last two years, since we made that breakthrough in the general election, we have professionalized party. We've done it at a very, very rapid rate. Is it possible to have a phone
- [19:04]
Marco Rubio
call with your friend Donald Trump to maybe end this war in Iran? That would help prices over here.
- [19:09]
Tommy Vitor
I think the war in Iran is very close to it. I mean, heroin is just not my thing. I. There's a way better backdrop for them. Also. I love the guys who have the big like brooches. Like there's one like a ribbon and like a horse jumping competition. But anyway, so if Starmer goes, he, you know, delivers for Farage. And I think that there's no way this ends with just a leadership election. There will be intense pressure to call for an early general election. That'll come at the worst time possible for labor. It'll rattle the bond markets. It'll create a permanent economic cost. And so I think, you know, the only path forward, deliver on the mandate voters gave Starmer, fight it out. Also very awkward that the King's Speech. I think it's the day this episode comes out, this Wednesday and that's where the Prime Minister lays out his legislative agenda. So it's kind of a crazy time to make a change. But that's the case for Star.
- [19:59]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, I get the case being that part of what like we made fun of the Tories for, you know, musical chairs, prime ministers and that's suboptimal. First of all, Nigel Farage, it's like a walking talking pack of marble reds. You know, that voice is so funny. But I think that they're not easy answers to these problems. I'd say a couple things though. First of all, yes, all those people are underwater, but you notice who's less underwater. Pedro Sanchez and Giorgio Maloney. Wildly different politically. Right. Ferroni's on the right, Sanchez is on the left. But they believe things like squishy centrism that Macron and Starmer embody, literally. And Mertz is a little bit more to the right, but is not what anyone's looking for. They want to know that we are dealing in this country, but also in the uk existential problems. The economy doesn't work anymore. Capitalism doesn't work anymore. The world doesn't work anymore. And this idea that you're just going to tinker and a little bit of a social program here and a little bit of a tough on immigrant rhetoric here and a tiny bit of money for the nhs, the National Health Service, that, that approach, that's the Starmerism. It's just not what people want.
- [21:19]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. And it's also creating problems that there's not like a clear faction that wants to get rid of them. It's not like the left of the Labor Party is all like, get rid of Starmer. It's just like everyone kind of just not that into him.
- [21:29]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. Because nobody really knows what, you know, what he is and what he stands for. And you know, I don't. I'd have to go deeper on what the big. What big ideas they could have. What is an actual.
- [21:41]
Tommy Vitor
Here's one. Brexit was bad.
- [21:42]
Ben Rhodes
Well, that's what it's about to say. You read my mind. It's like, why not just say, you know what? Like this economy has been totally fucked. Just like was predictable would be by Brexit. We have lost our place in the world stage because we're kind of an orphan now getting beat up by Donald Trump. Like, we should go back into the eu, right. Like that's going to be better for our geopolitics and our economy. It'll be good for growth because we'll have more markets. Like something on that scale.
- [22:07]
Tommy Vitor
The speech hints at more. More with Europe, more something like it. Like hints at getting back. Hints at undoing Brexit. But then his team was briefing. No, no, no, no, we didn't really mean that. He just wants more partnership with Europe or something like that. It's like, pick a side.
- [22:21]
Ben Rhodes
Pick a side and show people that you believe in something. And you know what, God forbid, maybe you lose, but at least you tried to do something you cared about, you know, And I think that that's what's missing. And now, you know, Angela Rayner would have normally been the left wing candidate. She member had these tax issues and mortgage scandals that here like, you know,
- [22:40]
Tommy Vitor
nothing and also like nothing compared to Nigel Farage. I mean, it just came out that he took like $5 million from some crypto billionaire. For some reason. He says it was for security, but, like, there's no like the me. The British media treats him kind of like a fun person to book on shows and be a talking head, not like a serious candidate.
- [22:58]
Ben Rhodes
The guy who created Prime Minister.
- [22:59]
Tommy Vitor
Prime Minister, Yeah.
- [23:00]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, Zach Polanski, the Green Party, you know, has made real inroads because there's a kind of a Mamdani dust that, you know, they have over there. But it's because, like people actually know what the Greens believe in, you know, and actually on the centrism side, well, then you have the Lib Dems. Like Labor's just kind of homeless now. Like it. What is it? You know, and I Think Starmer is not the one. He doesn't seem to be. And you could prove me wrong. He doesn't seem to have the answer to that question.
- [23:29]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, I think Zach Polanski really screwed up recently and didn't seem to take seriously enough some very serious incidents of anti Semitism that have happened in the uk. So I don't know what that means for his future. I'm with you.
- [23:41]
Ben Rhodes
He's Jewish, though.
- [23:42]
Tommy Vitor
I know. That's the weird part about all this. I mean, Starmer's speech, I watched the whole thing. Then he did a little press conference. It was just. It seemed so weak. It was like someone was trying to turn him up 20%. He had this refrain where he kept being like, and that's the labor way, or that's the labor choice. It just. It didn't work. He also, you know, he started to blame Iran for a lot of the UK's problems. I think that's. Well, it's probably accurate.
- [24:10]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. Yeah, they're lng.
- [24:11]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, it's useful. But I don't know. I like, I think. I think no one thinks that Keir Starmer is going to be leading the Labour Party into the next election. And the question is just like, when do you get rid of them?
- [24:22]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, that to me, is the question. Maybe. Take your time. If you make. Don't grab a Labor Liz Truss. But the clock is ticking.
- [24:30]
Tommy Vitor
They gotta start a process. They can't do what Biden did with Harris and just the Democratic Party did and just seem to anoint someone. They need a process. I don't know how long that is going to have to take, but they're going to have to have one. To your Biden point, I know this is unfair and silly and like an American thing, but I think Starmer said something about this being a fight for the soul of the country. And I was like, ooh. Just screamed Biden. Yeah. Look, I think he's a dead man walking. Politically, I think he was the right guy to get them through that election. He was not the right guy for this moment. Just because once you have a negative 50 approval rating, I don't know how you fix that. Whoever comes next is probably fucked as well. But, like, staunch the bleeding, I don't know.
- [25:08]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, yeah, we beat Medicare.
- [25:11]
Tommy Vitor
The scary thing is there's all these trends we're watching of the rise of the far right in the uk, in France, in Germany, and we have the French presidential election coming up in 2027. The Germans have a bunch of elections coming up. You could see like AfD governors in parts of Germany. It's just like the future for the far right in Europe is bright, which is dark for us.
- [25:32]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, it's never a good mix. Far right, politics and Europe.
- [25:36]
Tommy Vitor
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- [28:19]
Ben Rhodes
Operation Epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation. Is it accurate to say you think the combat operations are over and done, but they're.
- [28:29]
Marco Rubio
No, I didn't say that. I said they are. They are defeated, but that doesn't mean they're done.
- [28:34]
Bibi Netanyahu
Is the war with Iran over?
- [28:37]
Tommy Vitor
And if it isn't, who will decide when it is?
- [28:40]
Bibi Netanyahu
I think it accomplished a great deal, but it's not over because there's still nuclear material.
- [28:45]
Tommy Vitor
So clear as day. That was Marco Rubio, Trump, and then Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for those of you lucky enough to not just automatically recognize their voices. So let's try to walk you guys through the last week in the disaster that it was and then we'll talk about it. So first Trump announced Project Freedom. That was this like PR bullshit plan to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz. That mission lasted I think about 36 hours until Trump pulled the plug on it. NBC News later reported that the Saudis and the Kuwaitis were surprised by the plan. They were mad about it and they pressured the US to pull the plug because they thought it could unravel the ceasefire and peace talks. Then we had a bunch of breaking news and sirens from reporters quoting senior White House officials saying the US and Iran were very close to making a deal. That of course was bullshit. There's still no deal. And according to the Financial Times, the two sides were very far apart. Trump's demands were a 20 year moratorium on Iran's nuclear enrichment program, transferring the stockpile of uranium enriched to close the 60% enriched stockpile, the so called dust out of the country and then dismantling their three main nuclear sites. And the Iranian response I think loosely translates to get fucked. It was end the war on all fronts, have Iranian management of the Strait of Hormuz going forward, suspension of sanctions. And then they actually gave a little ground on their enriched uranium stockpile. They said they chip half of it out, but, like dilute the rest. But they gave Trump a little something. Here's how President Trump took their response. Let's watch.
- [30:13]
Ben Rhodes
For the time being, the cease fire remains in place.
- [30:16]
Marco Rubio
It's unbelievably weak, I would say. I would call it the weakest right now. After reading that piece of garbage they sent us. I didn't even finish reading it. They said, I'm not going to waste my time reading it. I would say it's one of the weakest right now. It's on life support. They understand. These are all medical people. Dr. Oz, life support is not a good thing. Do you agree? Bad prognostic. I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support, where the doctor walks in and says, sir, your loved one has approximately a 1% chance of living
- [30:54]
Tommy Vitor
free to allow the removal of all their enriched.
- [30:58]
Marco Rubio
Well, they did two days ago. They didn't. Okay, they did two days ago. They said, you're going to have to take it. We were going to go with them, but they changed their mind because they didn't put it in the paper. So when they sent us this document that we waited four days for, that should have taken ten minutes to do. Look, very simple. We get that they guarantee no nuclear weapons for a very long period of time and a couple of other minor things, but they just can't get there. They think that, well, I'll get tired of this or I'll get bored or I'll have some pressure, but there's no pressure. There's no pressure at all.
- [31:34]
Tommy Vitor
I love that. Like the sir construct for a story that he's totally making up support. No. And now is how the doctor talks to you in like the er when mom died.
- [31:44]
Ben Rhodes
Some random people have to stand there the whole time.
- [31:46]
Tommy Vitor
There's one lady, Ben, who literally, she was. Someone told her to smile and she did this the whole time. Anyway, things are going good. Things are going great.
- [31:55]
Ben Rhodes
First of all, I'm just going to keep going back to this because we have to, because our media doesn't do it enough. This is why we have to support independent, progressive media.
- [32:03]
Tommy Vitor
Thank you, sir.
- [32:04]
Ben Rhodes
They'll say things like, well, they're already defeated. At what? Like soccer. Like, the regime is in place. They have all the nuclear material, they control the Strait of Hormuz. Like, they're not defeated. Let's just not even let him just keep saying something that isn't True. Because he wants to repeat it until it becomes true. The fact that the Iranians aren't even offering the jcpoa, the Iran nuclear deal terms shows you that they believe that they have all this leverage. They control the Strait of Hormuz they've got. And the way he talks about, I can wait here all day, I'm not
- [32:36]
Tommy Vitor
bored, I won't let that person outside
- [32:38]
Ben Rhodes
who's paying fucking $7 a gallon for gas. Yeah, right. Tell that to the people in the UK who have shortages, or the people in South Korea who have shortages, or people in Bangladesh who, you know, have to ration energy. Like, everybody is suffering. And Donald Trump's just sitting there on his fat ass being like, oh, I got all the time in the world. Well, and then he acts like he's
- [33:00]
Tommy Vitor
asked about his red line for the negotiations. He's like, I don't know, we're going to think about it on the flight to China. Yeah.
- [33:04]
Ben Rhodes
And here's, here's the thing, like I've often again, the. They will be willing to ship that stockpile out because they know that's not their nuclear program, that's just the product of their nuclear program. And so I just don't get why these. He needs to end the war. He needs to show he got something. I just don't get why he doesn't make a deal where it's like, they gotta open the Strait of Hormuz and they're gonna ship out their stockpile and they're gonna get some sanctions relief and a bunch of money, cuz that's how this thing ends. And otherwise it's like a frozen conflict. But it's a frozen conflict where the Strait of Hormuz is closed, you know, and the global economy will collapse within a matter of months if that's the case.
- [33:42]
Tommy Vitor
The cost is unbelievable. The Pentagon says the direct cost is $29 billion. Now double that. Right? Like it's, it's.
- [33:50]
Ben Rhodes
They asked for 200 billion, so I don't know what planet they are.
- [33:52]
Tommy Vitor
The real number is way more. Oil prices are still are way up. So JP Morgan said its analysts think that the oil prices will remain over $100 a barrel through this year. That's bad. A Brown University study found that as of last week, American consumers had paid an extra $35 billion in gas and diesel costs since the war began. That's about $268 per household. Jet fuel prices are up 70%. Fertilizer prices are up 30%. By the way, us in California, Ben, we get Especially screwed, yes, because we're more dependent on Middle Eastern oil than other states. And then the Financial Times was looking at the total cost of the war, and they found that a reasonable estimate, based on the Fed's own models, is that the war is going to cost the economy $200 billion and a loss of a million jobs in the US for a bunch of factors including interest rates. And the Fed's monthly gauge of global supply chain pressures is now at the highest level since the pandemic. So everything, the economy is filling like a balloon and something is going to pop very soon. And he's just like, I'm not bored, I don't care.
- [34:56]
Ben Rhodes
That's the thing. Because everybody can feel it, right? So there's already this discordance between the quote, unquote markets and the lived reality of everybody that has to pay for anything on earth and the shortages that are coming. And I guess he thinks that when the bubble bursts, he'll just blame Barack Obama or Joe Biden or something. But this is one where everybody knows that things were one way and then this war happened and they're another way. And I think it's going to take the rest of the world, Xi Jinping in the next couple days. All these Europeans, they're going to have to go to Trump and be like, look, man, and the Iranians for that matter, and just be like, just take the minimalist deal. You can agree to. Trump, his willingness to spin anything should allow him to just get the hell out of this thing. He's going to say he defeated them anyway. His, his morons who watch Fox all day and listen to like, Mark Levin will swallow that. 70% of the country will think this is a mistake. They already think it's a mistake.
- [36:02]
Tommy Vitor
Look, yeah, and the right wingers, the FDD think tanks and stuff, like, they'll hate it, but eventually they'll shut up like the Hugh Hewitt's, you know, because they're intellectually fluffers and propagandists. Like, they will hate this deal. They're saying as much. But yes, I think that's where he's going to end up. And also, man, there's been all these reports about the way the war is kind of metastasizing and spreading across the Middle East. So the Wall Street Journal reported that the United Arab Emirates, uae, had been carrying out military strikes on Iran directly. They were a direct combatant in the war. They hit a refinery back in April, for example. They had been targeted by 2,800 missiles and drones from Iran. So it was response to that, but still, we didn't know that. There was also a Reuters report today that Saudi Arabia carried out a bunch of secret airstrikes during the war, too. So, again, this wasn't just the US And Israel. It was a bunch of countries bombing Iran. And then the Journal had this wild story about how Israel built a base in the middle of the Iraqi desert to support the military operation in Iran. And then I think it was like search and rescue and some sort of air force logistics. And the story says that at one point, the Iraqi military tried to investigate what was going on there. Because I'm like, you know, sheep herder tipped them off to it. And the IDF fired on them a couple times and killed two Iraqi soldiers. And, like, just nobody said, what is
- [37:16]
Ben Rhodes
their basis for being there? It's not their territory. Like, I think that's even beyond Mike Huckabee's definition of Israel, which ends somewhere around the Euphrates, ends in Kansas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, look, first of all, on the regional side, we just, again, we have no idea the damage that's been done to our bases, to our facilities, to these Gulf countries. We, you know, people still can't, like, post pictures of Dubai. The Emiratis are the biggest losers. Or, I don't know, they're a lot of losers, but they're one of the biggest losers in this war. First, they threw all their chips in with the Abraham Accords with Israel with this idea that we're going to form a united front and stand up to the Iranians. And here they are, they just got showered with drones and their Dubai model got wrecked, and they're carrying out airstrikes. And look, if feeling sorry for them, they fund the RSF in Sudan. That is like committing war crimes on a regular basis. But all this is going to. I'm very interested to see how the backstory of all these things comes out. In addition to the damage assessments. One thing in particular, that base in Iraq clearly seemed tied, and it was reported to the Kurds, right. To the idea that the Israelis wanted to use the Iranian and Iraqi Kurds to be a ground force to do things inside of Iran. I think what probably happened there is, you know, the Kurds have partnered with Israel in the past. Some Kurds, not all Kurds. And they were probably waiting to see, like, okay, can Iran take this punch? We kill the supreme Leader and drop all these bombs, and the regime, lo and behold, is not only still standing, they're capable of closing the Strait of Hormuz. And it seems like the Kurds were like, thanks, but no thanks. We're not, like, going to war against the regime. I think the Kurdish play was, if the regime collapses, you know, maybe we'll. Or the regime is like, literally on its last legs. Maybe we'll get involved here. But it should be pointed out that failed. Like the Israeli pitch as reported in the New York Times in the Situation Room was, the Kurds are going to rise up. There's going to be all these ground forces on our side. Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah, is going to come in. None of those things happened. And we never hold Bibi Ninho accountable. Not just for the fact that he convinced Trump to do this stupid fucking thing, but that his analysis, he was either lying or he was completely wrong. That the regime would fall, that the Kurds would rise up, that the Iranians would rise up, that Reza Pahlavi was somehow a credible leader of Iran.
- [39:49]
Tommy Vitor
Do you see Trump directly bitching about the Kurds? He was like, we gave them weapons and they just stole them and they didn't do it. He was complaining about it. They got covert action program.
- [39:57]
Ben Rhodes
And it's such, first of all, like, it's such. The Kurds have done so much. You know, they, they were the ground force against ISIS for the United States in the Obama years and under Trump, you know, they were on our side in the Iraq war. Like this idea that they're obligated to be our fight, our war, to fight all of our wars, and they never get what they want, which is a state.
- [40:17]
Tommy Vitor
Right.
- [40:18]
Ben Rhodes
And for reasons that I can understand given the complexity of that. But why would they fucking fight our war?
- [40:23]
Tommy Vitor
It's crazy. And also him just like, crying about a clear, like, covert action program in a lot of his press race.
- [40:29]
Ben Rhodes
Funny.
- [40:29]
Tommy Vitor
Also, the New York Times just posted a piece. It's a new, like, leaked assessment of the impact of the war in Iran. Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz.
- [40:45]
Ben Rhodes
But Pete Hexa told me that they
- [40:47]
Tommy Vitor
were destroyed, which could threaten America.
- [40:48]
Ben Rhodes
And so did Dan Kamen.
- [40:49]
Tommy Vitor
Oil tankers. Iran still fields about 70% of its mobile launchers across the country and has retained roughly 70% of its pre war missile stockpile. That is bad news. So they got a lot, a lot of kit left to fire at us and a lot of ways to do it. Also, Ben, do you see that DoD wants to apparently rename their war Operation Sledgehammer if it restarts and they're thinking that that means they get to restart the 60 day war powers clock so they can just do another end run around Congress by giving it a new name.
- [41:20]
Ben Rhodes
Well, that's what little Marco is doing when he's like, epic Fury's over. I mean, they think that a war is like the name that you give to something and not the hostilities that you have with the country. I mean, I would argue that we've been at war with Iran since at least the so called 12 Day War.
- [41:36]
Tommy Vitor
1947. What was the Tom Cotton timeline?
- [41:39]
Ben Rhodes
Oh, that was crazy.
- [41:40]
Tommy Vitor
Oh, 1979.
- [41:41]
Ben Rhodes
79. But I mean, remember the 12 Day War, like this has all been one war. I mean, that's the point. These guys count on our attention spans being so destroyed by social media and technology that we like forget that we're still in a war or something. Because as a new name, what are we, children?
- [41:58]
Tommy Vitor
I mean, just rebranding. It's like restaurants that close down and reopen in the same spot in LA every six months. It's a new name.
- [42:06]
Ben Rhodes
My favorite Taka place in Venice, Teddy's Restaurant, Del Taco. It suddenly was different, different name, and I was terrified. But the menu's exactly the same.
- [42:16]
Tommy Vitor
There you go.
- [42:16]
Ben Rhodes
Kind of like the Iran war, except the tacos are good.
- [42:18]
Tommy Vitor
Same spot. All right, you mentioned Netanyahu, Trump, the irgc. They're not the only arsonists in this conflict. We also have Bibi Netanyahu. He was on CBS 60 Minutes over the weekend. As Netanyahu watchers know, Netanyahu avoids speaking with Israeli journalists because they are actually knowledgeable about all of his failings and failures and ask him about them. And so he instead launders his message through the US media, who tend to be softer than baby skin and easily manipulated by him. And unfortunately, the new and improved 60 minutes under Bari Weiss's leadership was no exception. I want to play one example that just annoyed the shit out of me, Ben. Then we'll talk about some more substantive stuff. So this is CBS's Major Garrett, who by the way, is a nice guy. He's a good reporter. Not knocking him as a human, but this was not his finest hour or finest interview, I don't think. And it sounds like Weiss steered the interview to him as opposed to Leslie Stahl, who probably would have been a little rougher.
- [43:17]
Ben Rhodes
But by the way, Major, as you know, is capable of asking tough questions. So that tells you a lot about Barry Weiss's leadership to give Major even further pass. Although I Would prefer people didn't go along with Barry Weiss. Like I've seen Major Garrett do tough
- [43:30]
Tommy Vitor
interviews, be a hard ass.
- [43:31]
Ben Rhodes
So this is probably a direction from
- [43:33]
Tommy Vitor
on I. Yeah, it's very weird. So here's a question, here's part of a question he asked about Israeli intelligence that I thought was instructive.
- [43:40]
Bibi Netanyahu
Mr. Prime Minister, the capabilities of Israeli intelligence within Iran allowed you to pinpoint the location of Supreme Leader and others.
- [43:49]
Tommy Vitor
That is a kind of granular intelligence
- [43:51]
Bibi Netanyahu
that is borderline miraculous in the modern world. Why wasn't it sufficient to also foment a revolution?
- [43:59]
Tommy Vitor
So Ben, he was in his office. The airstrike that killed the fucking office, it was on his house. He was working above ground. The home office, on his own house. So that would like be a miraculous intelligence to bomb the White House to kill Trump or drone the Gold's Gym in Venice to take out RFK Jr.
- [44:19]
Ben Rhodes
The heavy breathing was good. Mr. Prime Minister. The granularity of that intelligence is just so remarkable.
- [44:25]
Tommy Vitor
It's like bombing the poodle room in cash.
- [44:27]
Ben Rhodes
Patel, we're not watching fucking Munich here.
- [44:29]
Tommy Vitor
It's crazy.
- [44:30]
Ben Rhodes
We're talking about a guy, an 86 year old man who was killed in his house.
- [44:32]
Tommy Vitor
It's crazy.
- [44:34]
Ben Rhodes
And look, this is a bigger deal. I mean, I know that it gets online attention, but I mean, that doesn't count for anything these days. I mean, this is 60 minutes, this is CBS News. This is like literally like the Cadillac of American journalism, right? And it gets purchased by David Ellison, whose kind of qualification for running anything is that his father's Larry Ellison and he went to like USC film school and wants to play with the movies. And they're super pro Israel and super pro Trump. And so he hands the keys of 60 Minutes and CBS News to Bari Weiss, whose only qualification is running a blog where she tells rich billionaires that they're wonderful, Israel's wonderful, and DEI is bad. And essentially the feels you get when you watch Bill Maher are all right. And we're gonna bring those feelings over to CBS News. And then you have the Prime Minister of a country that literally convinced the President, United States to do the dumbest thing since the Iraq war in launching an attack on a country. None of the things that Netanyahu said were gonna happen happened. We're in an economic catastrophe. Major Garrett and CBS News own viewers are like not being able to afford their gas. And he's sitting on there like blowing smoke up Bibi's butt about how wonderful and granular the intelligence is. What is going on here.
- [46:02]
Tommy Vitor
Is that your job?
- [46:03]
Ben Rhodes
This is Putin level propaganda.
- [46:05]
Tommy Vitor
I mean, also, CBS didn't ask about Netanyahu's responsibility for October 7th until an hour and seven minutes into the conversation. It feels like that'd be something that'd be front and center. And then he just brushed it off. There was lots of talk about Hamas violating the ceasefire in Gaza. There was none. No conversation about or questions about Israel violating the ceasefire, as far as I could tell. You had Netanyahu vomiting out the same talking points about all the ways the IDF avoids civilian casualties and text people. And it's like all the same shit we heard two years ago nobody believes. And then we watch like 70,000 people get slaughtered and it's just demonstrably false. And it just, you didn't get, you didn't get pushed on any of it. And also, you know, like Trump sued CBS, right, for editing out a 60 Minutes interview. Like a Kamala Harris answer. CBS cut from the broadcast version. Netanyahu saying, we'll play this clip in a minute. He was asked about social media and you know, ND blames social media for all of Israel's woes. And he said, basically says, like, we're now going to fight the battle on social media. But that got cut out. And I wonder why. They also cut Netanyahu saying that Americans turning against Israel also hate America. Again, like why? It seems like those are things that are relevant for American viewers. And so like the whole thing. You're right, it's frustrating because the debate, like the Bari Weiss's bad Twitter debate is like kind of boring and reductive and like, I'm not interested in it, but like, I do think like when there's a product like this that shows the fruits of that labor, it's worth kind of like highlighting.
- [47:37]
Ben Rhodes
That's the point.
- [47:38]
Tommy Vitor
The harm it did to us as viewers. We're trying to get information.
- [47:41]
Ben Rhodes
It's much bigger than just the kind of Bari Weiss discourse because it's about the fact that the premium brand In American journalism, 60 Minutes, like when it comes to Israel, it's like it makes RT look like a hard hitting news source, you know, and the problem with it is it's not like there's a significant market for this. Like, the problem, I mean, to be specific in complaint here is they constantly come back to this idea that social media is bad and that's why people are turning against Israel. No, it's what people are seeing on social media. Right. There's another story. Nick Kristof had a powerful story in the Times about the sexual assault of Palestinian prisoners. And all these people are on, you know, this is outrageous. How could the Times print this as if the problem is the story and not the underlying conduct that the story's about?
- [48:36]
Tommy Vitor
Well, there's some question about the veracity of some of the sourcing, but still, like, there's a lot of well documented evidence of rape and sexual assault of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. It's not the first. This was not the first coverage of.
- [48:50]
Ben Rhodes
This is. I've been to this rodeo. What you have is, let's say there's a hundred instances, and this is not that story. But I'm just the hypothetical. Let's say there are a hundred instances of sexual assault and 97 of them are true. But they find the three that have some holes in the story and they're like, this whole thing is a libel,
- [49:08]
Tommy Vitor
or that they go after sort of one of the victims who doesn't have
- [49:13]
Ben Rhodes
his cousin is in Hamas or something like that.
- [49:14]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah.
- [49:15]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, but this Major Garrett thing, if Americans want to know. I had this long conversation with Jon Stewart today. I did his podcast, and we had a pretty interesting conversation about why do we keep doing these dumb things? And we talked about all the reasons, but one of the reasons why is that we don't have a media that tells us the truth. You know, like, it makes it so much easier to give weapons to Israel or to go to war in Iran if we don't have media that will, like 60 Minutes viewers. Those should be some of the more informed people in the country that can't be told the truth about what's happening.
- [49:48]
Tommy Vitor
Yep. For the record, I think that Hamas raped and sexually assaulted victims on October 7th and that Palestinians are being raped and sexually assaulted in Israeli prisons. And both are true. And I wish there was, like, less attacking of reporters for talking about these things and more concern, like you said, about the underlying issue. Two more clips we want to play from this. So the first is Netanyahu saying, basically, it's time for Israel to wean itself off of US Military support. Let's watch that.
- [50:17]
Bibi Netanyahu
I want to draw down to zero the American financial support, the financial component of the military cooperation that we have. We've come of age. We have a booming economy after three years of war. You know, our currency is the strongest it's ever been in the last 50 years, maybe more. We have a lot of talent here, which we share with our American friends, and we're going to share it with our Arab friends, too. And I think that it's time that we weaned ourselves from the remaining military support and go from aid to partnership.
- [50:53]
Tommy Vitor
And then let's listen to the clip of him blaming Israel's image problems on social media and then talk about both of them.
- [50:59]
Bibi Netanyahu
The proportion of civilian casualties non combatants to combatants is one of the lowest in the history of modern urban warfare. So Israel is given a bum rap. I'll tell you what happened. We have several countries that basically manipulated social media with bot farms, with fake addresses to break the American sympathy to Israel, to break the American Israeli alliance, because they think it's in their interests and they do it in a clever way.
- [51:30]
Tommy Vitor
So that on the military support part, like, I mean, first of all, I'll just, I'll believe it when I see it, you know, and also he cites like the $3.8 billion a year stat. That's just the beginning of the support that US provides Israel. Like, there's always supplemental funding requests, emergency Iron Dome transfers, etc, then there's the direct support when the US is like literally shooting down, you know, missiles.
- [51:53]
Ben Rhodes
How much did we just spend on that?
- [51:54]
Tommy Vitor
Right. So again, like, I just don't believe, like Ben Shapiro has been saying this kind of thing too. Like, I, I just don't believe it. I'd like to see it happen. I just don't believe it's going to happen. And then the social media stuff, though, this is delusional and worrisome on a couple different levels. The suggestion is always that those of us who are worried about civilian casualties or the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, were just stupid rubes getting manipulated by algorithms who couldn't possibly just be sincerely horrified by day after day of these horrifying images of children suffering in Gaza. Do you feel like there's an eighth front in the war on fucking social media now? Like, first of all, Israel is famously active on social media.
- [52:35]
Ben Rhodes
Oh yeah, I've been on the receiving end of it.
- [52:37]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. There was reports that they're paying influencers like $7,000 to post positive stuff about Israel. Like, what does this mean? It's kind of ominous. I don't think social media is a war.
- [52:47]
Ben Rhodes
Well, first of all, on the military stuff, I mean, what that tells you is he knows he's losing the political argument in the United States. But importantly, that ship has sailed. They're not going to get further financing. Now what they do is there are a couple of questions remain, one that you highlighted, which is whenever they're in a war, which is seemingly all the time, there are these supplemental requests that aipac pushes hard. And so it's not in the ten year memory of understanding where it's like they get a set amount every year. They've gotten way more than that in quote, unquote emergency situations. But beyond that, the debate has shifted so much that last week or maybe two weeks ago, 40 Democratic senators voted against arms sales to Israel. This is the next front. The financing thing is over, I think. And that he's just acknowledging that you've got 40 Democrats, including everyone who might run for president, voting against even selling them weapons, which I think is the right position. And just to highlight, one of those systems that was being sold to the Israelis was bulldozers.
- [53:50]
Tommy Vitor
Arm armored.
- [53:51]
Ben Rhodes
What do you need armored bulldozers for? You need armored bulldozers to ethnically cleanse southern Lebanon or to demolish whatever remaining structure exists in Gaza. Like, that's that, that's where this is moving. And people should be aware that they're going to want to say, okay, fine, we don't need the financing. They're still going to want to be able to buy all the weapons.
- [54:09]
Tommy Vitor
The partnership is some real weasel language. What does that mean exactly?
- [54:12]
Ben Rhodes
It means we sell them whatever they want. And the thing is, if they're committing war crimes as they have, we shouldn't be selling them anything. You shouldn't be providing weapons either financed by the American taxpayer or sold full stop. The social media thing is rich and ominous. It's rich because the Israelis have done exactly what he says for a long time. They've got troll farms, they've got paid influencers. They're not new to this game. They're not just these people that we just use social media to post government statements. And there's some other governments I'm sure he's talking about like Qatar or something. They always, you know, hype this. I mean, this. If you have an Instagram account, you know that like, like most of the content you get related to Gaza is not like state sponsored. You can see that a mile away. It's like somebody, you know, like reposting a video. And by the way, you don't even need to aggregate whether this or that video is accurate. You can look at just a picture of Gaza and it's destroyed. It's just flattened, right? It's completely flattened now going forward. I think what is kind of worrisome, it ties into the conversation we just had about Bari Weiss, because lo and behold, Larry Ellison has also bought TikTok, right? And so that's where the fight's gonna be. I'm less worried about. Sure, they can pay all the influencers they want. It doesn't really make a difference. Just look at Ben Shapiro's audience. The problem is if they start to leverage their friends who bought TikTok or you know, Elon seems pretty committed to his version of free speech, which is, you know, kind of accessible but and start manipulating the algorithm, start shadow banning accounts, start censoring content. That's I think where this is going. And that's pretty scary.
- [55:54]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, that is the scary stuff. Positive World is brought to you by Sundays is your dog's food created to maximize your dog's quality of life or to extend the food's shelf life? Think about it. And while you do, let me tell you about sundaes. Sundaes was founded by a veterinarian and mom, Dr. Tori Waxman, who got tired of seeing so called premium dog food full of fillers and synthetics. So she designed sundaes, air dried real food made in a human grade kitchen using the same ingredients and care you'd use to cook for yourself and your family. Every bite of sundaes is clean and made from real meat, fruits and veggies. No kibble. That means no weird ingredients you can't pronounce and no fillers. And the best part, you just scoop and serve. No freezer, no thawing, no prep, no mess. It's just nutrient rich, clean food that fuels their happiest, healthiest days so you can get more of them to share together. I can confirm that Luka inhales sundaes for dogs every time it is offered. The dogs love it. It's good for them. They, I don't know. They're happy. What else do you want? Your dog is happy. It's healthy food. It's affordable, it's not messy. Give it a shot. Make the switch to Sundays. Go right now to sundays4dogs.com world50 and get 50% off your first order. Or you can use the code world50 at checkout. That's 50% off your first order at sundaysfordogs.com world50 Sundaysfordogs.com world50 or use code world50 at checkout. Potsave the World is brought to you by Helix. Got a Helix mattress at our house. It is unbelievably comfortable and I think we all know that you need a comfy mattress to get a good night's sleep. There's a lot of reasons you'll get a bad night's sleep. Stress, other things going on in life, too much light coming in the room, but a bad mattress, that's going to kill you. You got to have a good mattress. Helix is super comfortable and they will take care of everything for you and make it easy. I have a Dawn Lux love. It's got a Don Lux, super comfortable. Super comfortable sleeping every goddamn night of my life. They do a little sleep quiz. Yeah, I took the quiz, I got the Dawn Luxe, then I bought it. They have over 20 mattress models so you can find the perfect model for you and a good night's sleep sets you up for a great day. Now is the perfect time to invest in the best sleep. With a new Helix mattress. You will not regret it. You have never woken up one day and thought, oh man, too bad I got such a great night's sleep. Too bad I feel too good today. Really sucks, right? That's uncommon. Feel amazing today. Helix makes buying a mattress easy. Take the Helix Sleep quiz and it'll match you with your perfect mattress based on your personal preferences and sleep needs. Get free shipping and seamless delivery. Helix delivers your mattress right to your door with free shipping. In the US The Happy with Helix guarantee offers a risk free customer first experience designed to ensure you're completely satisfied with your new mattress so you can rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. Plus, Helix offers 120 night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty. Go to helix sleep.comworld for 27% off site wide. That's Helix sleep.comworld for 27 percent off sitewide. This offer is exclusive to our listeners. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you helixsleep.com world all right, so let's talk about China. Speaking of censo, Trump's on his way to China for this big summit meeting. He was supposed to go to Beijing in late March. The trip got delayed because Trump wanted to wrap up the whole war with Iran thing. So glad we got that all handled. He arrives in Beijing Wednesday night. There's a welcome ceremony. Thursday morning there's a one on one with Xi. There's a tour of the Temple of Heaven, which is this amazing temple complex, dates back to the Ming dynasty. I think it was built in 1420. Then he attends a state banquet Thursday evening. Then he has tea and lunch with Xi again on Friday and then he goes home. It's a lot of meetings, so let's just speculate on what they want out of this trip. Ben. So for Trump, first and foremost, he wants to feel like the biggest boy on the biggest stage and special in the pomp and circumstance. Then I think he wants a trade deal or something he could sell back home as having some sort of economic benefit. Third, I'm sure he would enjoy some help reopening the Straight of Hormuz or getting Iran to chill out. We could talk about what that might entail. And then fourth, I think we should just always assume that there's a big, fat corruption bucket sitting there that we'll learn about down the road someday, whether it's crypto or, you know, Don Jr.
- [59:58]
Ben Rhodes
Suddenly invested in Chinese robots.
- [60:00]
Tommy Vitor
Chinese drones. Yeah. Chinese Robotics Co. CEO Don Jr. For Xi, Xi Jinping. I would imagine he wants to get rid of US Tariffs on stuff. He wants to show the world that he can manipulate Trump and that he is actually as strong, if not the stronger, party. I bet he'll try to wring some concessions out of Trump on Taiwan, maybe try to get rid of some restrictions on AI chips. Who knows? So Trump on this trip is going to be flanked by a bunch of American CEOs. Elon Musk will be there. Tim Cook will be there. Remember when they almost briefed Elon Musk on the secret China war?
- [60:33]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. Yeah.
- [60:34]
Tommy Vitor
It was a good idea. Great idea.
- [60:35]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
- [60:36]
Tommy Vitor
Here's Trump talking about the China trip from Monday in the Oval Office.
- [60:39]
Marco Rubio
He's a great gentleman. I find him to be an amazing. An amazing man. And when I say that, the press always says, oh, that's terrible that he called him. He runs 1.4 billion people with a pretty iron fist. He's. He loves his country, I can tell you that. President Xi, I look forward to being there. And if he felt anything, we wouldn't.
- [61:03]
Ben Rhodes
We wouldn't be doing it.
- [61:05]
Marco Rubio
But a lot of good things can happen now. We'll be talking about. I mean, he'll bring up Taiwan, I think, more than I will. I have a great relationship with President Xi. We're doing a lot of business, but it's smart business. We used to be taken advantage of for years with our previous presidents, and now we're doing great with China. We make a lot of money with China, have a great relationship with President Xi. And I think you can see that with the fact that in Hormuz, they get a big percentage, 40% of their oil from Hormuz. There's been no ships coming in, no nasty ships coming in that we end up in skirmishes with. There's been. He'd like to see it get done. He doesn't want to see. I'll tell you what. Look, I respect him a lot, and hopefully he Respects me. He didn't respect our previous government, that I can tell you.
- [61:54]
Tommy Vitor
All those clips are from the same women rolling out moms.gov, these poor women.
- [62:02]
Ben Rhodes
It's up there with the. The doordash lady.
- [62:04]
Yeah.
- [62:06]
Trans athletes or something.
- [62:07]
Tommy Vitor
Like, do you like transports? She's like, I'm just here for the tip.
- [62:11]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, this is completely insane.
- [62:13]
Tommy Vitor
What do you think? What do you think? What's the. What's on the agenda for the meeting? Like, what's the best case, you think, in terms of an accomplishment? A deliverable.
- [62:19]
Ben Rhodes
Don Jr gets a robotics guy.
- [62:20]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, there's a deliverable for him.
- [62:22]
Ben Rhodes
For real, though, here's what I would. So here. First of all, there's a problem, which is normally, these are huge summits. They usually happen, like every two years, you spend two or three days. We use this, for instance, under Obama, to come up with a bilateral agreement on reducing carbon emissions. It became the Paris Agreement. We worked on that for a year. So, first of all, the fact that there's a war in Iran and Hormuz is still closed for business means that they're going to spend a big chunk of time just talking about that. And Trump is probably gonna be asking the Chinese to pressure the Iranians to open the strait and make a deal. Chinese gonna be pressuring us to, you know, just wrap this thing up.
- [63:04]
Tommy Vitor
I was talking to an Iran expert friend of both of ours who suspects that the Taiwan conversation, the Iran conversation, will be like, Mr. President, how do you expect me to help you with the Iranians and to not sell my good friends in Iran weapons when you're selling weapons to Taiwan and giving them all this help? Wink, wink.
- [63:22]
Ben Rhodes
Chinese is very good at whataboutism, by the way. We get to do what you did to Iran and Taiwan, I think. And yet Trump may want, you know, I think for him a win is like, you know, they agree to buy a bunch of soybeans or something. Right. You know, like, he can just say he loves these deals where it's like the Chinese said, they're going to spend X amount of money on American products that, by the way, they're probably going to buy anyway or something, you know, and the Chinese will extract some concessions
- [63:50]
Tommy Vitor
or they'll just lie about it.
- [63:50]
Ben Rhodes
Or they'll lie about it. Everybody's done. I mean, I mean, if you add up the money people claim that they're gonna spend in these photo ops, Trump, it's like trillions of dollars and none of it's here. Here's what I would be doing on Taiwan. What you wanna do is you wanna create some diplomatic track that just kind of puts this thing on a back burner and slow rolls it. I don't think Trump is deft enough to do that. The Chinese will say, don't sell them arms. We'll say, don't conduct military exercises. And most likely it's just going to be what it is.
- [64:22]
Tommy Vitor
Well, interestingly, there's been some big headlines, announcements of arms sales to Taiwan, but I didn't realize that those have been very slow on getting delivered. There's like a $20 billion backlog on the delivery of US arms to Taiwan. So that's kind of the rub there, if you're.
- [64:39]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, well, and what's notable about that is that the Congress votes for these things and then the executive branch has to deliver them. And they're probably slow rolling them to create positive atmospheric. In terms of what I think they should be doing, I'm not sure they're going to do is they should be talking about artificial intelligence. Because we are the two AI superpowers. We have all these frontier companies like anthropic and OpenAI and Microsoft, Google, et cetera. They have their own AI models that like. And here we should say this is actually kind of a. I don't want to say a failure of the Biden administration, but there was this idea that we're going to put all these restrictions in place and export controls and sanctions and whatever. The Chinese figured out how to build the technology anyway.
- [65:27]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, we slowed that. We didn't stop them.
- [65:28]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. And so the, the, the. Whether. Who's ahead? You know, someone might be ahead by six months. It almost doesn't matter because Chinese have AI, we have AI. In normal times, we would be sitting down and saying, let's negotiate some norms and some guardrails around this new technology before it's fully deployed out in the world. We want to make sure that nuclear weapons and command and control systems have human beings in the loop. We want to make sure that job displacement is cushioned by testing models. We have huge cybersecurity. You saw this incident with Mythos, the next generation of anthropics AI model that when they, you know, shared it with some of their customers, was like, nobody was ready to deal with this. It could literally launch a cyber attack and shut down, you know, the power grid of the country.
- [66:14]
Tommy Vitor
You know, do you see the time story about how AI bots were telling these scientists how to make biological weapons?
- [66:18]
Ben Rhodes
Exactly. Biological. Here's the recipe for biological weapons. Here's another pandemic strain. Right. And so what should be happening is we should be getting off this idea that there's some, like, AI race, like foot race, and whoever wins gets the technology. No, everybody's going to get this technology. We should be putting strict guardrails, starting with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, dealing with job displacement, dealing with cybersecurity risks. The Chinese aren't going to want to negotiate around disinformation or information operations, but that's part of this. I just don't think Trump's going to do that. If anything, he's gone the other direction. If Biden was building export controls, Trump is, for whatever reason, probably some corrupt reason, is greasing the skid so Jensen Huang and Nvidia can sell advanced semiconductors to the Chinese. So the Chinese would love that. I'm sure what the Chinese would do is buy a bunch of chips, you know, so I'd love to see how AIs dealt with that at this thing.
- [67:12]
Tommy Vitor
It's just the idea of Trump sitting down for tea and like, the Forbidden City with Xi Jinping and having, like, a deep, substantive conversation about AI.
- [67:20]
Marco Rubio
So.
- [67:20]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, it's so impossible to imagine.
- [67:22]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. And test models and set guardrails. It's just not how Trump thinks.
- [67:26]
Tommy Vitor
No, but it's what they.
- [67:27]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, it's what you should be talking about, for sure.
- [67:30]
Tommy Vitor
No doubt. There's no doubt. Or human rights. Remember that?
- [67:32]
Ben Rhodes
Or climate change.
- [67:33]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, there's a few things. Okay, we got a couple more things, so we'll get to those. Now, obviously, next week, we'll talk about how the trip actually went, the extent we know. But first, we're going to be petty for a second because there was an article in the Atlantic last week with the headline, is Marco Rubio the Happiest Cabinet Member? That we wanted to discuss here. So this was almost entirely based off this one press briefing Rubio did at the White House. It was like his only appearance at the White House briefing room since the war in Iran started. Here are some excerpts from that briefing.
- [68:06]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, the top people in that government are, to say the least. You know, they're insane in the brain. I wish I knew your name. I apologize. Can you put name tags on? Can I ask you in Spanish or can I ask.
- [68:19]
Yeah, you can answer in Spanish.
- [68:21]
Do I have to translate for them? What you ask them? La Politica. You don't have black, you have blue on. I'm colorblind, but I know blue and black right there. Yes, ma'.
- [68:31]
Am.
- [68:31]
No, no, you the first one I called on. Thank you, mister.
- [68:34]
Marco Rubio
Thank you.
- [68:34]
Ben Rhodes
This is chaos, guys. I wish I had, like, a dice.
- [68:37]
Marco Rubio
Go ahead.
- [68:38]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no.
- [68:40]
Right there.
- [68:41]
Because I'm going to Italy.
- [68:43]
Okay.
- [68:44]
He's Italian. I know him. He used to cover Capitol Hill.
- [68:47]
Tommy Vitor
Secretary, many people want to know what.
- [68:49]
Marco Rubio
What is your DJ name?
- [68:51]
Ben Rhodes
My DJ name?
- [68:52]
Tommy Vitor
Your DJ name?
- [68:54]
Ben Rhodes
You're not ready for my DJ name. They are facing real catastrophic destruction to their economy, generational destruction to their economy, generational destruction to the wealth of their country, imposed on themselves by the actions that they're taking. They should check themselves before they wreck themselves in the direction that they're going.
- [69:10]
Tommy Vitor
What a cool cat. There's also this video of Rubio, like, stepping into the DJ booth in Mar A Lago. Trump's fucking caddy turned Deputy Chief of staff Dan Scabino posted that. And then this whole conversation kind of folds into this broader debate of will it be Rubio or will it be J.D. vance, who takes, like, kind of the mantle of MAGA and becomes a Republican nominee in 2028? So this is petty media criticism, Ben. But I did just want to ask reporters, like, what are we doing here, guys? Because, first of all, Rubio, I don't know if he's happy or not. I don't. I don't wish him any personal unhappiness, but, like, he should not be happy about how his job is going if he's doing a briefing when the US Is stuck in a catastrophic war with Iran. And just, like, regarding that press briefing itself, Rubio was rolling out Project Freedom, that straight A Hormuz escort mission that we just talked about, which Trump unwound, like, a day later. So that is. That is humiliating. Any other. Any other senior foreign policy official would be judged according. Like, that would be seen as a humiliating moment in defeat for them, Possibly a, like, career ending thing. And on top of that, like, the last time Rubio did a press conference, it was when he was on Capitol Hill that one day, and he basically, like, ran up to the sticks and was like, the Jews made us do it. And he ran away and he hid in a fucking. In a cave for a month. And so I was like, what is this article?
- [70:34]
Ben Rhodes
My daughter, I remember she did AYSO soccer, and I think she was 6 or 7. And at the end of the year, it was really nice. Even though the team didn't win a single game. It was kind of a Bad News Bears kind of team. They all got trophies, nice participation, trophies. Literally, the eagerness with which Most of the Washington press corps is intent on giving Marco Rubio a participation trophy. Is so embarrassing. I mean, let's just to just build on what you said. The man is Secretary of State and National Security advisor for a country that just lost and mounted one of the dumbest wars in recorded human history. He announced an operation that lasted 24 hours. Let's just dig into his responsibilities. One of the reasons that that operation shut down is because the Saudis hadn't been notified about it. And we wanted to use their.
- [71:40]
Tommy Vitor
Who would do that normally?
- [71:41]
Ben Rhodes
The Secretary of State. Right. I mean, he is failing utterly at his job. The National Security Advisor is supposed to be coordinating policymaking, so it's smart. Did anyone ask Marco Rubio why they didn't know that the Iranians would close the Strait of Hormuz?
- [71:55]
Tommy Vitor
Seems like a good one.
- [71:56]
Ben Rhodes
Because it's his job as National Security Advisor to war game how the war is gonna go. And they clearly do not know anything about Iran or the Strait of Hormuz. Did not consult allies, which is also his responsibility. So like he is directly responsible, more even than Pete Hegseth, for the catastrophic failure of this policy and the fact that the whole world is suffering because of it. And they're all sitting there like having a grand old time chuckling about what he says. Second these. Sure, he doesn't do the like Dr. Seuss rhyme, weird Pete Hegseth voice. But this check yourself before I wreck.
- [72:30]
Tommy Vitor
It's just lame.
- [72:31]
Ben Rhodes
It's not cool.
- [72:33]
Tommy Vitor
Is he more charming than J.D. vance? Sure. But talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations.
- [72:38]
Ben Rhodes
As George Bush once said, that's not cool. Check yourself. I cannot believe the extent. And this foreshadows the Cash Patel segment to which we are run, our country's run, and apparently a significant slice of our media by people that just could not get anyone to sit next to them at lunch in high school. Now years later, he's like, check yourself before you wreck yourself. Like, what is going on here?
- [73:05]
Tommy Vitor
And like, look, Rubio is like seen as politically ascendant within the Republican Party. Like Sarah Longwell from the Bulwark talks about how his name's coming up in her focus groups all the time. Now there's this meme of like Marco Rubio on the couch in the Oval Office getting every job. Apparently that's like genuinely helping him because he's seen as competent. But again, it's like, you know, the land, the, you know, the one eyed man is king and the land of the blind kind of situation where it's like, yeah, he's the most competent of a bunch of morons, but what is.
- [73:28]
Ben Rhodes
What is his accomplish? Like, here's what. Here's what drives me nuts.
- [73:31]
Tommy Vitor
Venezuela has seen this as one accomplishment, but again, that is not a finished story.
- [73:36]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. And even if you just accept the premise, the premise being that he's capable of standing at a podium and being reasonably articulate for an extended period of time, which, by the way, should be like the bar for the deputy press secretary, not the future president or the secretary of state, even if that's some bar he clears. Judge him on his results. Like what. What is he. Like, this is what our politics. I mean, just today's media criticism day. Like, don't the results matter? Like, just the optics. Just the fact that this guy manages to not, like, vomit on himself or. Or appear to be on. On Adderall, purely politically.
- [74:19]
Tommy Vitor
Trump's approval ratings in. In the toilet.
- [74:22]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
- [74:22]
Tommy Vitor
37.
- [74:23]
Ben Rhodes
What are we doing here? Why building this guy up for. For. For. For nothing. Like, for.
- [74:29]
Tommy Vitor
For.
- [74:29]
Ben Rhodes
For being responsible for this policy.
- [74:31]
Tommy Vitor
It is enraging. Speaking of losers in high school, Ben, FBI Director Trash Patel. Sorry, Cash Patel. He's up on Capitol Hill this morning. On Tuesday, as our listeners know, Cash has gotten a little bit of unwanted attention lately because he's. Because he. Drinky. Drinky. He was guzzling beers on camera at the Olympics. The Atlantic reported that his boozing is a source of concern within the bureau and that Cash was once so drunk that his security detail couldn't wake him up and considered calling a SWAT team to get the equipment used to bust on the door. Then he sued the Atlantic and this reporter in particular, and apparently the FBI might be investigating her. And then she drops another banger on his head. And we learned that Cash has created and distributes his own signature bourbon bottles, not really beating the drunk rapper. There. Got a little logo on it. There's Eagle talon. His name on it. It's all very cute.
- [75:23]
Ben Rhodes
And as a dollar sign.
- [75:24]
Tommy Vitor
Cash. Yeah, because that's his name. Cash. Because, like, the dollars. Yeah. So presumably you would think that given all this context, Cash would want to deliver a calm, sober performance in front of the Senate to silence his critics. Let's see how it went.
- [75:40]
Ben Rhodes
There have been no occasions when your security detail had difficulty waking or locating you, is that right? Nope. It's a total farce. I don't even know where you get
- [75:48]
Tommy Vitor
this stuff, but it doesn't make sense.
- [75:49]
Ben Rhodes
Credible.
- [75:49]
Tommy Vitor
Because you say so.
- [75:50]
Ben Rhodes
I'm not saying it. Director Patel. I. It's Been written and documented. You are literally saying it. No, I'm saying that these are reports, Director Patel. Unlike. Unlike baseless reports, the only person that was slinging margaritas in El Salvador on the taxpayer dollar with a convicted gang banging rapist was you. You know, the only person that ran up a thousand dollar bar tab in Washington D.C. at the lobby was you.
- [76:15]
Tommy Vitor
Okay. Yeah. That was with Senator Chris Van Hollen. So that exchange actually built up, by the way, like, a while longer.
- [76:20]
Ben Rhodes
Chris Van Hollen doesn't strike me as some guy who's like, really a big boozer. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's just not, like, not a credible attack.
- [76:28]
Tommy Vitor
Well, first of all, like, yeah, I have no idea about the bar tab thing, but, like, the. Remember the Kilmar Abrego Van Holland went
- [76:33]
Ben Rhodes
down to El Salvador rapist gang banger. There's no evidence.
- [76:35]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah. So Van Holland went to El Salvador to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
- [76:39]
Bibi Netanyahu
They.
- [76:40]
Tommy Vitor
They had a conversation at the embassy. Naya Bukele's goons put these drinks in front of them to stage a photo op that made it look like they were drinking together. It was just like. It was completely propaganda. Bullshit.
- [76:50]
Bibi Netanyahu
Of course.
- [76:51]
Tommy Vitor
Cash Patel's repeating that. Second, as you noted, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is absolutely not a convicted gang banger rapist. And for the FBI director to say that he perjured himself, it's crazy.
- [77:02]
Ben Rhodes
He perjured himself. Mark it down.
- [77:03]
Tommy Vitor
And then finally, buddy button, the top button. He looked like a groomsman who'd been at a wedding since, you know, the bar opened at 5.
- [77:13]
Ben Rhodes
He looks like he tied one on last night.
- [77:14]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah.
- [77:15]
Ben Rhodes
He's got, like, a bottle underneath the
- [77:16]
Tommy Vitor
fucking table, slouching forward.
- [77:18]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
- [77:19]
Tommy Vitor
Like, I know they all think that this is what Trump wants, which is like, fight back. Throw a punch.
- [77:23]
Ben Rhodes
How'd that work for Pam Bondi?
- [77:24]
Tommy Vitor
Did that look good to you? Didn't look great to me.
- [77:26]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, first of all, we just have to remember that the FBI director is supposed to be a nonpartisan official.
- [77:34]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah.
- [77:34]
Ben Rhodes
So it's just insane that anybody would. Yeah. And he's supposed to be like a. Yeah. Civil servant, essentially. And so, like, I get that. The audience of one. But. But this makes him look ridiculous. Like, if his problem is he looks ridiculous to the point that the whole country's making fun of him and he's like, becoming a thing on Saturday Live. Like, he's just. Just keeps dumping ammo out for everyone else to use because he looks completely absurd. And actually he's just drawing attention to that Atlantic report, like, you know, it's not even good communications.
- [78:08]
Tommy Vitor
Like, no.
- [78:09]
Ben Rhodes
The smart thing is to be like, no, that report's not true, and just. That's it. But by, like, throwing a little tantrum, it's like, going to drive some more people to that article and be like, ha, ha, ha. Cash had to get woken up in the morning because he's so hammered. I mean, like, boy, this guy. I can't decide. The content creator in me wants Cash around. But, like, the American is a little concerned about that. That's the person running the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And, by the way, a little bit obviously concerned about the fact that nobody's minding the store and there's actually criminals and terrorists and all the sorts of people that the FBI is supposed to be dealing with. But that mentality, the way you talk to Van Hollen. The FBI has vast investigative powers.
- [78:49]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah.
- [78:50]
Ben Rhodes
It did not suggest someone who might not abuse those powers to, like, how does he know about the bar tab? I don't know.
- [78:55]
Tommy Vitor
Like, I think someone that. It seems that paranoid. I mean, there's all these reports, right? Remember the other report in the Atlantic that he got logged out of his computer and he freaked out and thought
- [79:05]
Ben Rhodes
he was, and he's polygraphing everybody on his detail.
- [79:07]
Tommy Vitor
Like, he seems like a dangerous, paranoid, like, kind of wounded animal who knows he's not up for the job. Who would do exactly what you're saying there? Like, kind of use the enormous power of the FBI to go after critics. I like, yes, whoever comes next will be terrible, but I think it would be good for the world to get that asshole out of there.
- [79:27]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, I think it would. We'll miss him. I guess we can cover.
- [79:30]
Tommy Vitor
I'm sure I'll go back to podcasting.
- [79:31]
Ben Rhodes
Him and Bongino can team up again. Just Batman and Robin.
- [79:34]
Tommy Vitor
Yeah, it'd be great. Okay, that's it for our boy Cash. Drinks on us. Next time you're in la, preorder my book.
- [79:40]
Ben Rhodes
It's out two weeks from today, pre order. And I'm actually gonna be doing my virtual book launch event next Monday, so I'll throw that link on my social channels.
- [79:48]
Tommy Vitor
There we go. But also stick around for Ben's interview with Susie Hansen about Prime Minister Erdogan. Life in Turkey. Lots of big, important geopolitical issues, so don't miss that. Potency of the world is brought to you by Remy. I'm sure we've all had those times in our lives when you wake up and you're like, why does my Jaw hurt. Why do my teeth hurt? It's because you've been clenching and grinding from stress. It screws up your sleep and it makes you not sleeping. It happens all the time. It used to happen to me a lot. It was actually a real problem. I'd wake up with, like, headaches and jaw pain until I got Remy. This was years ago, by the way, long before they were ever a sponsor. And that's why I trust Remy to protect my teeth with their custom night guards, which have been helping out over like 350, 000Americans. Remy night guards. They're clinically tested in FDA clear to prevent teeth damage from grinding, to reduce jaw tension and facial muscle strain, and improve your sleep quality. You get the same professional quality and comfort as a night guard from the dentist for 80% less of the cost by taking your own impression at home. So what they do is you, you. When you make the purchase, they send you the impression kit. It comes straight to your door. You follow the step by step guide to get a perfect impression, and they make your night guard and they ship it back to you. Bada bing, bada boom, you're good to go. It's funny to get one of these. It really is. Honestly, it's great. And like, first of all, I had to go to the dentist yesterday. There's literally nothing in life I hate more than going to the dentist. It sucks, it's far away, it gives me anxiety. And then they hurt you for a couple hours and they charge you a ton of money. Like, that's, that's my experience. Because, like, I'll torture you for an hour and a half, maybe two hours, and then charge you a couple grand so that your mouth can be just normal.
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Ben Rhodes
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Ben Rhodes
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Tommy Vitor
Good reason.
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Ben Rhodes
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Ben Rhodes
And that it's one of those good saunas with the hot rock thing. Ugh. Love a good hot rock thing. Fancy.
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Ben Rhodes
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- [82:37]
Okay. I'm very pleased to be joined by my friend Susie Hansen, who is a journalist who lived in Istanbul for over a decade. She's written for the New York Times Magazine. Her first book, which I also recommend, notes on a Foreign country, was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Her new book, which everybody needs to buy if you like politics, geopolitics, literary journalism, great writing, amazing personalities. It's called From Life Itself, Turkey, Istanbul and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdogan. Susie, thanks so much for joining us.
- [83:07]
Thank you so much for having me, Ben.
- [83:09]
Okay, so this really is, you know, a unique book because you start it and you are reading the story of a neighborhood in Istanbul, then you realize you're reading about the city of Istanbul, then you realize you're reading about Turkey, then you realize you're reading about Erdogan, and then you realize, and this is all within the first probably, you know, 40 pages, that you're reading a book about everything that's happened to the world, you know. And so I want to begin by asking where you begin the book, which is you describe how the forces that we've all become familiar with now, the kind of cocktail of nationalism, authoritarianism, corruption, chaos, how those things that we feel as Americans arrived in Turkey first, and in particular in this neighborhood that you profile, you write, the dissolution of nations and borders and peoples and seemingly civilization itself was transforming how many of us felt about our individual lives and our future. That sense that we are. We're in history here and not the good kind. Can you describe how these forces became manifest in. In Turkey and in this neighborhood first? And it's really around 2015 or Arab Spring to 2015 that you begin and why did you choose to write about those forces through this neighborhood?
- [84:23]
So it was 2015. I had been witnessing. I moved to Turkey in 2007. So I'd been there for seven or eight years. And then I was there as all of these Syrian refugees were fleeing the Syrian civil war into Turkey. And, you know, I'm sure you're aware of this. This was a kind of laissez faire refugee management situation. Where Erdogan was just allowing people to come in, millions of people, and they sort of had to figure out their lives on their own. I mean, had to find. They had to rent a place, they had to put their kids in school, all of that. So no one really had any idea how everyone was making this work. And there were at that point, 2015, 500,000 Syrians in Istanbul. And one evening I went to a friend's for dinner, and they said, you know, after dinner, you have to take a walk down the main street of Kargamruk. All of the shops have become Syrian. And that was. I knew enough about Kargumruk to know why that was surprising. Kargumruk was a nationalist neighborhood. It was famous for the. For mafia, for thieves. It was famous for this right wing party that mayhe pay. And so I knew that they were not going to be welcoming to Arabs. And I saw the opportunity to tell this larger story through how these people were getting along. Because when I started talking to them, they started talking about how the presence of the Arabs was challenging their Turkish national identity. And then as I was there for the next few years, all of these major events were happening. So you had the Syrian civil war, obviously, you had ISIS had appeared in Turkey, and they were flying into Istanbul and then switching to airplanes and going down to the southern border. You had a new war with the pkk, the Kurdish militant group. And you had Erdogan steadily becoming more repressive. And I suddenly recognized, okay, maybe I can see all of these events through these characters, but understand how they're seeing it from the street level, not from the headlines and not from, you know, the point of view of the West.
- [86:25]
So you shift back and forth between some of these incredible characters you find in this neighborhood and Erdogan himself, who's a huge character in your book. And I want to focus a bit on him because I'd never read a book that I learned as much about him from. He's a fascinating character. And one place I wanted to start, I did not fully understand this. You write about his kind of dual love of Islam and capitalism, and we in the west think of him as an Islamist. But you write about how much he embraced capitalism and kind of development, real estate development, for lack of a better way of putting it, and kind of the corruption, the playbook we've seen where you're building things, but you're skimming money off the top and all the rest of it. It also got me thinking that as much as we don't associate Islamists with capitalism. I mean, in our country, the religious zealots, the Christian evangelicals, are similarly bullish on capitalism and deregulation. Explain where this ideology of Erdogan's came from and how would you describe this melding of Islamist politics and kind of uber 21st century capitalism?
- [87:39]
I mean, this goes deep into Turkish Islamist history. It goes way back to the first Islamist parties and movements in the 1960s and 70s. But I think you have to back come they put it in the context of Turkey's founding party was Ataturk's party. And the only way. And they had shunned religious people to some degree. They had forced religious brotherhoods to go underground. They had wanted Turkey to be a Western looking secularist country. And so the people of the countryside and the religious people were very much shut out from the halls of power, right? And so there were a number of old families that got a lot of the contracts from the government and were rebuilding Turkey after World War I and World War II. But the religious people were shut out of this. And so slowly, slowly over time, they did see business and starting their own businesses as a way to build their own power in the country, because they were shut out of the state and shut out of most of the business activities. Erdogan was the mentee of a man named Nejmetin Erbakan, who also saw the union of Islam and capitalism as a way of restoring Turkish pride, because these were people who were very nostalgic for the Ottoman Empire and for this more grandiose sense of Turkey than what the Turkish Republic became. Erdogan learned from him, but also I think it was sort of deep in his blood in the sense that he came to power as the mayor of Istanbul, and Istanbul was a wreck at that time. It was very poor, people were suffering. And what he recognized he could do, even though most of the secularist elites did not want him to be in office, was he could actually improve the lives of the people. Which seems like an obvious thing for a politician to do, but it's a little bit shades of Mamdani there. But he saw that, oh, I can clean up the garbage of the city, I can improve the water supply, I can improve. But he needed to, obviously, to ally with business groups and other businessmen in order to make a lot of these things happen. And so I think it happened naturally. But I think a really crucial thing here also is when he finally becomes prime minister, he feels still threatened by the secular state, by the military and the judiciary, who very much wanted to get rid of him. They put him in jail in the 1990s. And so he quickly had to build up his crony class, his businessman class, and that was the way he saw that he could solidify his power in the country.
- [90:15]
So one of the things that listeners of the show hopefully know is that over the years, I've kind of really had to reprogram myself around or away from some of the assumptions that are kind of baked into American foreign policy or baked into kind of the commentary class about the world. And you go right at some of those assumptions about Erdogan. And I want to go through a couple of them. The first one is, I remember when we came into office in 2009, and we went to Ankara and Istanbul in 2009, from that period, kind of through the Arab Spring. The trendy thing was Erdogan is a mediator between Islam and the West. He's a potential bridge because he has cred with these Islamist Muslim Brotherhood guys in places like Egypt, and yet he's modern and capitalist and wants to join the European Union. I kind of now see how, like, Orientalist that was, you know, to just kind of, well, he's Muslim, and so therefore he, you know, he can be a bridge, you know, yet at the same time, he's clearly an intermediary in other ways. This is a guy that can navigate between the US And Russia, between Europe and the Arab world, between, you know, the brics countries and NATO. Why is it, you know, I mean, Turkey historically has always been this kind of bridge country between Islam in the west and the rest of it. So there's some of that history, but what is it about him that has allowed him to play this kind of mediator role, or this guy that can kind of live in one block for a few months and then shift to another one?
- [91:52]
I mean, I think in the beginning, first of all, that was how they were marketing themselves to the world, right? And it was not only Erdogan, but it was also this other Islamic brotherhood, the Gulen movement, which was already very international. This is this global Islamic movement that was in the United States, knew lots of people on the hill, had schools in every country. And so these two allied together. And I think, again, their fundamental fear was about the Turkish state, right? So they want to create a sense of them as big on the global stage in order to fortify their own power and counter some of the national forces that were against them. I mean, it's amazing because he came to power in the 2000s. It's like really globalization is firing on all cylinders and he becomes this kind of globally minded leader. And so I think he was
- [92:43]
Marco Rubio
very
- [92:44]
Ben Rhodes
different from other Turkish leaders who were much more inward looking and much more almost defensive. And so I don't think it was all incorrect. But now what he has managed to do is something even more extraordinary because over these 20 years, what we have seen him do is extend himself in Libya, in Syria, in Azerbaijan, but also to stand up on the world stage with his rhetoric and say, no, we take care of our own country. We are regional leaders. We own our own Syrian refugee crisis. We are not going to let the NGOs in and tell us what to do. He has, over time, steadily made this into, you know, his position in the world. But with those refugees, if you remember, he was essentially able to say to Europe and the west, you can no longer tell me what to do. You cannot criticize me in terms of human rights and everything else. He's putting leaders like Salahat and Demirtas, the pro Kurdish leader, in jail and all of these. He's repressing thousands of people after the 2016 military coup. But he had 4 million Syrian refugees and it gave him a card to play with the Europeans, so as to say, you know, I can just let them into Europe anytime I want. And look at us, we are actually taking care of these people and you can't deal with them. I mean, in all of these different ways, he was able to assert himself. It's unprecedented. And now he's, yes, he advertises himself. I'm the middleman for everybody. Hey, Ukraine, hey, Russia, hey, you know, Israel. I mean, he's always projecting this sense that you need him, that all of the. But I think in some ways they do, simply because of Turkey's geography. I mean, look, Europe is now speaking to him in these very kind terms because they might need him against Russia. So he somehow manages to bounce back and reposition himself always.
- [94:29]
Yeah. I mean, among many good things about. There are all these what ifs of history that I found myself asking, one of which was there was still this idea that they were going to join the European Union, which seems impossible now in 2009, 2010. And you rightly point out that Sarkozy is the one who truly tubed that, although I think probably other Europeans supported that. That's a great what if. What if they were in the EU? One other D.C. thing that you kind of take aim at is, and I've been guilty of this, which is that he gets put in the creep club, you know, it's when you're rattling off the list of autocrats who got elected through democracy and then dismantled it. You know, it's usually you're like saying Putin, Modi, Erdogan, Orban, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Netanyahu, now Trump. You kind of push back against that. And I was really curious to kind of pursue that with you, because on the one hand, the way you describe it really meticulously, I see a familiar playbook. You kind of enrich people through corruption and you build these power blocks and you slowly change the judiciary, and then you're starting to intimidate the media and make it pro government. And then, lo and behold, we're changing the constitution and Erdogan is going to be president after being prime minister, whatever. And yet you kind of push back against him being the same or kind of in a group with those guys. And they're all guys. I think I get why in the sense that Turkey has such an eccentric political system, but how would you position him relative to the autocrats who have kind of defined our age?
- [96:16]
Well, it just never, when he was lumped in, in that category, it just never rang true to me. And I thought it was a little bit, bit lazy. I think now from the point of view of 2026, I'm seeing more and more of these similarities with the United States. So when I wrote the book, I finished it in 2025, I never would have compared the US and Turkey. But now since 2025 and 2026, it actually, this current time period, echoes the book a lot. Like, there's a whole chapter about a university and the oppression of universities. But I think that a few things are different. Number one, you know, he wasn't, we weren't really referring to him as a populist in the beginning. I think it's the first 10 years that is different about. That are different about Turkey and that you want to look at. He was not just preying on people's sense of victimhood or grievances the way that, say, Donald Trump does. The people who he appealed to actually had legitimate grievances. They were actually left behind. They were not folded into the system properly. They were people who felt that they had been looked down upon and left behind in terms of the economy and education and many other things. And so I think, and then the second part is he actually did improve the lives of people. This isn't a superficial ruler. This is someone who actually everyone can talk about. When he got the natural gas, you know, people's natural gas, Accounts hooked up to the Internet, or when he made water supply easier or better, when he improved the electricity, all of these services, when he improved the healthcare, when he. And then, of course, just what he did for people's self esteem, which was all very real. So it was because of this genuine popularity. That's the basis for why he has sustained a lot of his role today. I think it's more interesting to consider, again, as you said, yes, the eu, what would have happened, but also all of these other regional and global events that were going on and how they affected some of these regimes he had had. Okay. The Syrian civil war played a huge role in radicalizing Erdogan. I think that's worth looking at. But I think at the end, which I'm sure you remember, I. I do think we have to consider how, for a regime in the Middle east, how the war on terror also. Oh, yeah, just the. That environment led to this increasing radicalization. It's not to let him off the hook because we can talk about the second 10 years. Very happy to do that. But I think that it is just worthwhile to consider that there are other reasons why the world is going in this direction.
- [98:54]
Yeah. Well, let's talk about the second 10 years, and maybe can I bring in a little bit of my history here? It might be interesting. Yeah, sure. And you write in part one, we kind of work up to 2015 and Erdogan's consolidated power. The Syrian refugees are there. Like, these changes are in motion. Then you have this coup where I still don't. You know, people think when you're in the US Government in a role like mine, you know what happened. I have no idea what happened. I know that something fundamental shifted in Erdogan, and you obviously get it in this, in the book. I will tell you my experience, which is he used to be a fascinating guy to meet with because he would actually debate Obama and they liked each other, and they. They'd go back and forth, and he was nimble, flexible even. He might change his mind on something. In the meeting after that coup, Obama only overlapped for what, like a year? Every meeting, he would literally show up with files about Gulen. This is the Islamist that he fell out with, who he blamed for the coup and demand his extradition and just didn't want to hear about anything else, didn't want to talk about anything else. He kind of started presenting, like Putin, like, I. I believe what I believe. Some of it may be true, some may be conspiracy theory. And that was my experience of him. I Mean, you write about this transformation in him. I mean, what was your impression at the time that you obviously reflect on about what happened? Something happened. There was some attempt to bomb the Parliament. And yet I also know Turks who think that was all false flag. You know, you hear a million different things, but something clearly did happen. How did he change because of this event that also, by the way, coincided with the year that Brexit and Trump happened. So the world is taking a pretty dark turn.
- [100:53]
I think he genuinely felt threatened. And then I think that he made use of a glorious opportunity which echoed what happened after many military coups in Turkish history, which is that they sort of remake everything. They put people in jail, they start all over. But it was much worse with what he did. But I think that, you know, if you look at the number of threats that in his mind, he was facing, it was this war with the Gulen Movement. Most people do believe the Gulen Movement was involved in that military coup. I think that it's very. They suspect that, yes, he might have known about it earlier. He let it happen then. He knew he could take advantage of it. But that war between Erdogan and the Gulen Movement was absolutely real. And it. It was. A lot of people in the country really resent the Gulen Movement. So, I mean, there have been tons of things written about it. It's just very difficult to understand. And I think.
- [101:43]
Get your head.
- [101:44]
Yeah, it's a very weird, fascinating movement, trust me. I tried to sell lots of magazine stories about this many, many years ago, and it was hard because people couldn't really get their head around it. But by now it's quite well known what they were about. But I think also he saw Mohamed Morsi in Egypt deposed in 2013, and he believed that it was possible to. Turks believed it was possible that the Americans were involved in that as well. And this is a Muslim Brotherhood guy. You know, you have a belief in Turkey on the left, on the right, basically across the board, that the Americans have always been involved in military coups in Turkey or played some sort of role. So I think that just speaks to a broad fear. And then I think there were also in 2013, the Gezi park protests, which. Which, you know, might not seem that threatening from the outside. You know, you think, oh, he's a big guy, he's a strong man, whatever. He can just deploy the military and put them all down. It was deeply threatening to him.
- [102:42]
Yeah, this was like people occupying this green space. It was going to be demolished. It was lost from remaining Green space, just so people know. And it grew to thousands and thousands of people upset with what had been happening in Istanbul, in the country. I see that. And I guess just to pull it up to today, and then I want to get to the neighborhood with one more question. How do you know? You look at Erdogan today and look, he's still a key player and almost an indispensable man on the world stage in Syria. Ahmed Al Shara, a guy he backed, is now in charge of that country instead of Bashar Al Assad. At the same time, Israel is making noises about attacking Turkey next after Iran. We'll see if that happens, given what happened in Iran. You know, he's, you know, barely skates through elections, but he does the, the Kurdish issue is, you know, up and down. Like there's a peace deal with the pkk, but there's still these concerns about the Kurds in Syria having autonomy, although Ahmed Al Shar is trying to put an end to that. I mean, the question I guess I wanted to ask is, is this a man who is realizing what he wants to do in power? Does he have a strategy that he's implementing in Turkey and in the region, or is this a man that is just a survivor who's had to react to a million things in an opportunistic way and some of them work and others don't? How much do you think he's building something and has this kind of idea of what Turkey is and should be in the region versus he's just a very candid. Any political survivor?
- [104:19]
No, I think they had a vision for Turkey in the region. And as what if you say middle power, I don't think they like that term. But as a regional power, I think they've had a vision for a long time. I think they've been building up their defense industry. I think they've obviously, as I said, extending themselves throughout the region. I think they also did that for business interests. I think they did that as a way to just shore up their power. And I think it works in the sense that I think some people in Turkey probably can't imagine who would come after them at this point because he, he has successfully taken over basically all of the institutions of the country. He has repressed about 40% of the population, and at this point, he's now taken to meddling in elections. But I think in terms of the bouncing back and being a sort of canny, flexible domestic leader, I think he's just reacting to events at home and he's happy to shift. He was a liberal looking leader in the beginning. Then he became allied with a right wing party around 2015. And so, you know, he was looking at a Kurdish opening in his first eight years in power. And then he was, he turned against wherever he saw the mood of the country or, you know, his own political fortunes shifting, he would shift also and he'll do it again. I mean, he has now put the country just in a terrible, terrible economic situation. And that is the trap. I don't see the way out of that. I mean, I was just in Turkey in March. The people in my book who loved him for all of these years suddenly are shattered people, including one of my characters, Hussein. Their self esteem, their sense of self and also their belief in Turkey's great future and their children's future is now gone. And I think that that is very, very new for him and I don't think he has a way out of it. So I think it will be interesting to see where we go. I think the question that you have and I have is what about the opposition? What happened?
- [106:25]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [106:27]
And at this point, what exactly can they even do given how much he's repressing them?
- [106:32]
Well, the last thing I wanted to ask you is the neighborhood itself is fascinating. And one of the things I love about your writing and your journalism is that you don't exclude people. I know we just spent a long time talking about Erawan, but we see what it's like for people to live through all these changes. And the question I want to ask you is I love this role of Mutar. So people understand this is kind of like you're. It's not just like you're the kind of mayor of the neighborhood. You literally, people come to you with every problem, like from I don't want my daughter to marry this person to where can I get this document? It's a very old feeling, but it's a form of democracy in a way. It's just people constantly trying to solve these problems and survive. I hesitate to say resilient because I know a lot of people who hate being called resilient because it makes it seem like it's not hard. But. But with all this change, you just see these people working it out and sometimes they're helping each other, sometimes they resent the new Syrians or what have you, but it is human beings just in a somewhat democratic way, just keeping this neighborhood moving. And the question I wanted to ask you is we just talked about the decline of democracy in some ways under erdogan. Which is undeniable. I've changed how I think about democracy. There's no such thing as this is a democracy, and this isn't like, everything's a spectrum, you know, like, America right now is very. Not democratic in tons of ways and kind of democratic in others. Right. But did you learn something about democracy itself by just focusing in on this local neighborhood? And now human beings experience democracy, you know, that human beings that may not have a stake in, you know, how Erdogan's policy is going in Syria, well beyond the refugees. So maybe that's not the right one. But, like, how did that local viewpoint of democracy changed how you think about the concept itself?
- [108:36]
Well, this was why I found this neighborhood interesting, because they were a bit on the margins. No one in my neighborhood was a member of the media that was being oppressed or of the academics or the Kurds or maybe the judiciary, the judges who were all being fired or transferred. These people were a little bit on the margins, and many of them supported Erdogan. About 75% of the neighborhood did, and then there was 25% that did not. But they weren't. Their lives were not directly affected. And what I think was the benefit of failing to finish my book in a normal amount of time was that I got to go there for 10 years, and I got to see how all of these people changed and evolved over those years. And what I found fascinating, and I think would be fascinating to Americans as well, is that you might disparage some of these people who vote for the autocrat, but what you're not really prepared for is how they are actually processing what's happening to them and the moment when it strikes them that their lives have changed. And it does. And I think the chapter in the book that is somewhat hopeful, although it was a while ago now, is 2019. Because what happened in my neighborhood was that it was the. The Istanbul mayoral election. There was. AKP was running their candidate. They had run Istanbul for 25 years. And then there was the opposition candidate, Ekrem Imamolu, and he won. And it was the first time AKP had been defeated in a very important election in the Istanbul mayoral election. And then the AKP tried to claim that there were election irregularities, and they called a second election. And everyone in my neighborhood, even his supporters, were so insulted. You know, they said, what, does he think we're stupid? Does he not realize? Does he not think that we realize what he's doing? And it was a very funny kind of macho reaction in some respects. And they started saying, you know, we're going to teach him a lesson. We're just going to teach him a lesson this time. And then the neighborhood actually voted for the opposition party, which they had not voted for, for maybe in all of their lives, just to show Erdogan that they were not going to lose their voice. And an interesting thing about Turkey is that it has always had free elections. And this is the one thing everybody has had. And they love to vote there. I mean, it's really a great pleasure to witness election day in Turkey. And so they fought back. In that instance, Imamolu became mayor. Of course, Imamolu is in jail now.
- [111:10]
Now he's in jail.
- [111:11]
Now he's in jail. But I think that when we think about people's psychologies in the age of authoritarianism, I think. I think the verdict is that we don't really know what's happening, how people are feeling and what exactly they are going to react to. And you're right. In a neighborhood like that, in an old Ottoman, in these neighborhoods in Istanbul, they still work together to figure things out. They're out in the street, they're talking to each other face to face. I mean, this was also what was appealing to me because I was online all the time, and they're still talking to. They're still passing on information in this face to face way, which I think is a lesson for all of us as well. So I do have hope for Turkey. I simply do. I think also one thing to consider about characters like Erdogan, and this is really an open question, he loves elections too, so he has put his main rival in jail. This was also an unprecedented move. But will he return the country to some sort of real elections? I think that's still a possibility.
- [112:17]
Yeah. Well, let's hope so. I mean, you convey, like you say, this country's been through everything you can imagine, and yet Istanbul, all kinds of people are there and they regenerate. Roma, Armenian, Greek, Syrian, in addition to Turks. All these other people have kind of passed through and some have been expelled and then some have gone. And yet it all kind of keeps. This is what I love about cities. Like, it just keeps regenerating and becoming something that is similar and different, you know?
- [112:49]
Yeah. And I think that if you look at what Erdogan was brilliant at the beginning is that he took that creative chaos and he created a new political movement out of it. I mean, it was by going into these neighborhoods. That's the whole reason also that I told the book through a neighborhood but the question is, can the opposition now look at the world as it is and the city as it is and actually say, okay, what is the political movement that needs to be created now?
- [113:17]
Well, look, the book is from life itself. It's just so rich with character detail, history, politics. So people should check it out. Suzy Hanson, thanks so much for joining us.
- [113:28]
Thank you, Ben. It was really great talking to you.
- [113:35]
Tommy Vitor
Thanks again to Susie Hansen for doing the show. And we'll talk to you next week. Pod Save the World is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Ilona Minkowski, Michael Goldsmith and Nisha Banerjee. Our team includes Matt de Groat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Kanter, Kenny Moffitt, David Tolles, and Ryan Young. Her staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Sam.