King Trump Welcomes King Charles

Summary

Pod Save the World – Episode Summary

Episode Title: King Trump Welcomes King Charles
Release Date: April 29, 2026
Hosts: Tommy Vietor & Ben Rhodes

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into recent major foreign policy events, including the faltering US-Iran peace talks, the ongoing global economic fallout from Middle East conflict, political instability in Africa, corruption in US foreign policy, the complicated US-UK “special relationship” in the Trump era, and renewed authoritarian challenges worldwide. It also features a timely interview with the activists behind the new D Hub "Anti-Authoritarian Toolkit," created to help democracies push back against autocratic playbooks.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Fallout from Recent White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooting (00:58–04:14)

• Tommy and Ben reflect on the incident's media coverage and security lapses, agreeing violence is "always bad."
• Ben calls out the over-dramatization by some attendees:

  “The media is putting itself at the center of this as if they survived, like, the Battle of the Bulge…” (01:40, Ben Rhodes)

• They discuss inadequate event security and the annual dinner's relevance.

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2. US-Iran Peace Talks and the Geopolitical Stalemate (07:30–17:22)

• Trump cancels a negotiating trip to Pakistan on Iran, citing US leverage and cost-saving (07:55).

  “We have all the cards… They have no military left…” – Donald Trump (08:00)

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio denounces proposed Straits of Hormuz arrangement, calling it "an economic nuclear weapon" (09:38).
• Ben bluntly assesses the situation:

  “What a complete, abject, fucking failure, catastrophic decision this was by Donald Trump, and that he can't spin his way out of that.” (12:09)

• Discussion on Russia's and China’s roles as they exploit US stumbles, with Putin posturing as peacemaker (14:43–15:51).
• The inertia, global economic ripple effects, and potential need for a face-saving “spin” exit by Trump are highlighted.

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3. Global Economic Impact – Crude Shockwaves (15:56–20:07)

• Soaring gas prices, economic contraction in Gulf states, and supply chain disruptions are detailed.
• UAE’s exit from OPEC signals Gulf unity is fracturing, raising questions about global energy alliances.

  “The global economic fallout is going to be profound and long lasting… every country is going to make their own calculation.” (17:22, Ben Rhodes)

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4. US Munitions Shortage & National Security (20:07–25:53)

• New reports reveal alarming depletion of US missile stocks, with multi-year timelines for replenishment.
• The hosts outline grave strategic risks, especially in Asia, and the indirect costs:

  “We just spent billions of dollars… to replace things that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth could fire off in a six-week excursion…” (23:03, Ben Rhodes)

• South Korea and Taiwan’s eroding faith in the US security umbrella is noted, as is the threat to deterrence across Asia.

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5. Political Spin and Corruption in the Trump Administration (25:53–32:05 & 51:25–55:12)

• JD Vance and allies are trying to rewrite their track record on the Iran war.
• The administration is “brazenly” leaking to cover its failures (22:43).
• Ben points to deep corruption—Eric Trump gaining Pentagon contracts, military insiders betting on US-led regime changes:

  “There is a degree of corruption happening with the Pentagon budget that we have no idea…” (53:08, Ben Rhodes)

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6. Lebanon’s ‘Ceasefire’ and Attacks on Journalists (27:57–31:22)

• The situation is a misnomer; direct and deadly violence continues.
• They detail the targeted killing of Amal Khalil, likening the lack of outrage to previous attacks on Palestinian journalists:

  “They murdered this woman in front of the whole world. And don't expect any significant outcry beyond people who are already upset about these things.” (29:38, Ben Rhodes)

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7. King Charles’s Visit and the US-UK “Special Relationship” (34:33–41:36)

• The visit is positioned as ceremonial escapism amid turmoil—but also a diplomatic tool in Washington.
• Trump uses the occasion to distinguish between UK and Israel as allies, with both hosts highlighting how the US under Trump is “not for 80 years of cooperation”—King Charles delivering mild pro-NATO lines seems radical (35:43, King Charles; 39:28, Ben Rhodes).
• UK PM Keir Starmer is lambasted for political meekness:

  "Keir Starmer presents as the weakest guy. He presents as scared of Trump... It is destroying the Labour Party." (38:22, Ben Rhodes)

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8. Instability in Mali and the Sahel (41:36–48:09)

• A sweeping report on the spread of coups, Russia’s "Africa Corps," and the inability of foreign intervention to bring peace.
• Sahel’s violence is traced to local faults, post-Libya power vacuums, and misguided US/French interventions.

  “What is needed are strategies and approaches that fit these countries and deal with their politics. And I don't claim to know the exact formula…” (45:39, Ben Rhodes)

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9. CIA in Mexico: Nationalism, Sovereignty, Trump Pressure (55:44–63:49)

• The accidental exposure of CIA agents in Mexico provides a window into shadowy counter-cartel ops.
• Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum balances national empowerment against Trump’s demands, under constant pressure:

  “She’s just trying to manage to it and she's been firm with Trump when she needs to be. I like Claudia Sheinbaum a lot… but this strategy won’t work. The drug cartels are deeply entrenched. Trump’s not going to defeat them with some CIA operations.” (62:19–63:44, Ben Rhodes)

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10. Interview: Fighting Authoritarianism (67:02–94:54)

• [67:02] Ben Rhodes interviews Federica Vinci & Nick Entelov from Democracy Hub on their "Anti-Authoritarian Toolkit."
• The guests describe lessons learned from activists worldwide on combating autocracy:

  “Authoritarians were organizing all around the world ... we needed something like [a democratic playbook].” (68:30, Federica Vinci)

• Shared tactics include:
  • “Putting broccoli in the rice” (embedding democratic values/content into popular cultural channels, 74:32),
  • Building ecosystems of influencers for distributed (not centrally-controlled) organizing,
  • Exposing authoritarian corruption to flip their narratives (82:12).
• The toolkit is meant to be modular and adaptable:

  “Take what works for you, adapt the rest and use it wherever you are.” (85:48, Nick Entelov)

• Case study highlighted: France’s rapid, decentralized mobilization to block the far right.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ben Rhodes on Iran War Stalemate:

  "What a complete, abject, fucking failure ... this was by Donald Trump..." (12:08)

• Tommy Vietor on the WH Correspondents’ Dinner:

  "Don't you hate feeling like you have to always repeat that line? No shit, it's bad." (01:24)

• King Charles to Congress:

  "With a spirit of 1776 in our minds, we can perhaps agree that we do not always agree..." (35:43)

• On sports & politics:

  “Can't sports be like the last refuge? … The idea that you’re literally going to say, like, hey, we don’t like the Iranians, so we’re kicking them out of the World Cup... Come on, man, let’s watch the World Cup.” (27:21, Ben Rhodes)

• On anti-authoritarian organizing:

  “Democracy is protected either by politicians, journalists, or civil society … We need to put together the whole democratic ecosystem … and make them work so that they support each other.” (82:12, Federica Vinci)

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Key Timestamps

• 00:58 – Analysis of WH Correspondents’ Dinner incident
• 07:30 – US-Iran talks, Trump's threats and spin
• 09:38 – Marco Rubio on Hormuz blockade
• 12:08 – Ben’s assessment of failed US Iran strategy
• 15:56 – Global economic impacts
• 20:07 – Munitions shortage & national security fallout
• 27:57 – Lebanon 'ceasefire', attacks on journalists
• 34:33 – King Charles’ visit, US-UK relations
• 41:36 – Mali/Sahel instability, Russia’s role
• 51:25 – Corruption: Pentagon contracts & betting on regime change
• 55:44 – CIA in Mexico, Sheinbaum-Trump political dynamics
• 67:02 – Interview on Anti-Authoritarian Toolkit

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Conclusion

This episode paints a complex picture of US foreign policy under Trump: aggressive but ineffective wars, global fallout, strategic decline, and a growing threat from both domestic and global autocrats. The "Anti-Authoritarian Toolkit" interview provided a hopeful counterpoint, arming listeners with new tactics, case studies, and frameworks for organizing to defend and renew democracy in turbulent times.

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Resources Mentioned:

• Anti-Authoritarian Toolkit
• Crooked Media’s “Friends of the Pod” subscription

All timestamps in MM:SS format refer to the original episode as provided.

Transcript

[Tommy Vitor]

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[Ben Ritz]

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[Tommy Vitor]

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[Ben Rhodes]

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[Tommy Vitor]

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[Ben Ritz]

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[Tommy Vitor]

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[Ben Ritz]

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[Tommy Vitor]

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[Ben Ritz]

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[Tommy Vitor]

That's also a reason. Don't worry about surprises. Book a verbo you'll love with the Love by guest filter if you know you verbo. Welcome back to Podcast of the World. I'm Tommy Vitor.

[Ben Rhodes]

I'm Ben Ritz.

[Tommy Vitor]

I'm so Ben. I genuinely thought Trump might stage some sort of like, dramatic military operation for the day after his White House correspondent speech to match the 2011 Obama bin Laden Operation Weekend. I didn't see this coming. No, not that it was staged.

[Ben Rhodes]

No, but it was bad.

[Tommy Vitor]

But it was dramatic. Not that it was staged.

[Ben Rhodes]

I. It was bad. First of all, it's always bad. Violence is bad. Violence is bad.

[Tommy Vitor]

Don't you hate feeling like you have to, like, always repeat that line? No shit, it's bad.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

And when was it ever not bad?

[Ben Rhodes]

And by the way, you're just, it's just, it's idiotic, it's wrong, and it doesn't do anything to help what that guy seemed to say he cared about.

[Tommy Vitor]

No, it's going to help Trump politically.

[Ben Rhodes]

I did think that. I'm just going to go there, Tommy, like the, this is not a Trump point. Actually, this. I, you and I have been to that dinner a lot of times, and I feel bad that that was like a unsettling, potentially scary situation. It is also the case that that ballroom is like about, like a football field walk down a densely carpeted hotel room, past Magna Magnometers, down a flight of stairs or an escalator, into a heavily secured, cavernous ballroom. And so let's just say some of the media is putting itself at the center of this as if they survived like, you know, the battle of the bulge. Was that was the part of the discourse that. I mean, yes, I expect the Republicans to cynically blame Jimmy Kimmel or whatever, and that's always frustrating. But like, the number of people that Acted like they just went through, you know, like literally the Battle of Bulge here was a. Yeah, much to me.

[Tommy Vitor]

I, Look, I, I don't blame the reporters for being scared. I would be scared shitless if all of a sudden there's gunshots going off. But like the, the Republicans who are trying to compare what happened over the last weekend to Butler, like, that's a crazy comparison. A bullet hit his ear.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

As you said, this guy was nowhere near.

[Ben Rhodes]

He wasn't Trump. Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

If he'd done this thing like 30 minutes earlier, he might have had a lot of people in range to fire. You never know. That's the scary like scenario.

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, this guy clearly had no idea what he was doing. I mean, look, there are serious questions actually that are interesting about why there keep being these kind of security breaches. Close calls, by the way. There were a bunch in the Obama years. Bullets hit the White House, bullets hit the Truman Balcony.

[Tommy Vitor]

Didn't someone throw a grenade? Like it got pretty close to Trump or to Bush at one point too.

[Ben Rhodes]

This event, we should just say, is not a very secure event. It actually is in the ballroom. I guess from the Secret Service standpoint, they secured that ballroom. That's where the President's gonna be, right? President doesn't walk in through the mags. He comes in through like an underground parking garage or something and is suddenly in a secure ballroom. But the Capitol Hilton is this gigantic complex that anybody's staying there, like they don't have to be attached to the dinner. They can wander the lobby and there's

[Tommy Vitor]

always like little sub parties on the exterior range.

[Ben Rhodes]

Not, not sure that this event, like this event is already past its expiration date.

[Tommy Vitor]

Oh yeah, it's cursed.

[Ben Rhodes]

And now it's like this is another point that like maybe don't have this event at this big non secure hotel where lunatics can walk in off the street. And yeah, you may secure the ballroom, but somebody could get that Secret Service agent, you know. Thank God there was a bulletproof vest.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, it's, it's weird. By the way, thank you everyone who subscribed to Pod Save the World on YouTube, wherever you get the show, we solemnly pledge to you to never attend the White House correspondence dinner. And also if we do and there is an incident, we will point the camera outward.

[Ben Rhodes]

Outward.

[Maria Bartiromo]

Yeah.

[Ben Rhodes]

We will show you what's happening.

[Tommy Vitor]

Not our old ass faces. Real quick, are the Red Sox worse than the Mets?

[Ben Rhodes]

I think the Mets are worse.

[Tommy Vitor]

We just fired like our entire staff.

[Ben Rhodes]

The Mets have scored two runs or less in I think more than half their games and have nine wins.

[Tommy Vitor]

Okay, so.

[Ben Rhodes]

And the biggest payroll in Major League Baseball.

[Tommy Vitor]

That's bad. Okay, that's really bad. Speaking of bad, do you see Trump's going to put his own face on the US Passport. Maybe.

[Ben Rhodes]

I do not. Yeah, I. I'm just. I'm going to check. I carry around a passport, wallet in case I need to flee at any moment. And I'm gonna check my expiration date. Mine's coming up and it looks like mine extends past the Trump administration, so I do not have to get a Donald Trump passport.

[Tommy Vitor]

Okay, you're good to go. Okay.

[Ben Rhodes]

That's some live podcast.

[Tommy Vitor]

That's good. That's hopeful for everybody. So, great show today. We're gonna start with the peace talks, or lack thereof, between the US And Iran, what the end game for this war might actually look like. We're gonna talk about the latest data about the global economic impact and then more data and concern about the dwindling U.S. munitions stockpiles. We'll also cover Vice President J.D. v. Vance's very subtle attempts to spin and duck accountability for this war. Have you caught this at all? Have you seen any of this?

[Ben Rhodes]

No, I kidding. I delighted. This is what the algorithm's feeding me. It's not giving me the White House Correspondence Center. It's giving me like J.D. vance.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's so funny. I talked to some Naga people when I was in D.C. last weekend who were all remarking on how brazen Vance is spinning and all the others around Trump are spinning how opposed they were to this war. Get to it. We'll also cover the latest from Lebanon. Then we're going to talk about King Charles's trip to the US the highlights, the lowlights, the bizarre sexual innuendo. His speech to a joint session of Congress.

[Ben Rhodes]

Can't wait for this.

[Tommy Vitor]

Which is actually kind of funny. Then we're going to talk about the spiraling security situation in Mali after the government came under attack from an Al Qaeda linked terrorist group over the weekend. We're going to share with you some more examples of egregious corruption of US Foreign policy because the an endless story. And finally a wild story about CIA operations in Mexico. Got drug cartels. There was a tragic car accident. Mexican President Claudia Shanebaum's kind of delicate balance between sovereignty and nationalism and dealing with Donald Trump. So very fun for her. And then, Ben, you did our interview today. What'd you talk about?

[Ben Rhodes]

I did. There's a group called D Hub Democracy Hub that is releasing an anti authoritarian toolkit. This is an effort to learn from activists around the world about what's working in the fight against authoritarianism. So I took two people, actually, my friends Federica and Nick, who are both activists, activists themselves, who helped put this together. You know, we talked about the value of this kind of exercise, how they went about it, some of the lessons about how to do social media better, how to have networks of influencers, how to kind of mobilize people, how to do a kind of distributed form of organizing where you're not trying to control the message everywhere, but you're trying to give people enough guidance that they're coordinated, but enough freedom that they can run campaigns that make sense where they are. So lessons learned that can be applied around the world for how to fight authoritarianism.

[Tommy Vitor]

Got to give them the D hub.

[Ben Rhodes]

Got to give them the D hub.

[Tommy Vitor]

Those dictators. Excellent. Definitely check that out. All right, let's start with Iran. So this US Iran cease fire is kind of holding, right? But there's 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium still sit in Iran straight or Hormuz is closed. Huge parts of the global economy are just paralyzed and there's seemingly no end in sight. Other than that, it's good. On Saturday, Trump canceled his negotiating team's trip to Pakistan with going to listen to a clip from him explaining why.

[Donald Trump]

Probably heard that we canceled the trip. We have all the cards. We're not going to spend 15 hours in airplanes. All the time going back and forth to be giving a document that was not good enough. And so we'll deal by telephone and they can call us anytime they want. Again, we have all the cards. They have no military left, practically. They have no leaders left. We don't know who the leaders are. Nobody knows who the leader. I don't think they know who the leaders are. Very important. We're not going to be traveling 15, 16 hours to to have a meeting with people that nobody ever heard of. Traveling takes too long, too expensive. I'm a very cost conscious person. They are fighting with each other. It is tremendous infighting. They're probably fighting for leadership in many cases. I think they're fighting not to be the leader because we knocked out two levels of leaders. But I'll deal with whoever we have to. Interestingly, immediately when I canceled it, within 10 minutes, we got a new paper that was much better. They offered a lot, but not enough.

[Tommy Vitor]

I love this idea that the cost we're all worried about is like JD Vance's Ryanair ticket to Islamabad. Axios reported that Iran has offered a more Limited deal, maybe that was referencing there that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz. If the US Ends the blockade and ends the war, it punts all the nuclear talks down the road.

[Ben Rhodes]

That's nothing.

[Tommy Vitor]

Feels like a problem. I suspect this is kind of going to be the kind of deal Trump ends up being forced to take. But interestingly, Secretary of State Marco Rubio came out of his post Iran war hiding wherever he's Witness protection program he's been in since he went to the sticks on Capitol Hill and was like, israel made us do it and then ran away and then didn't speak again for a month. But here he is on Fox News, kind of shitting on the kind of deal we just described. Let's watch.

[Ben Rhodes]

If what they mean by opening the straits is, yes, the straits are open as long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission or we'll blow you up and you pay us. That's not opening the straits. Those are international waterways they cannot normalize, nor can we tolerate them trying to normalize a system in which the Iranians decide who gets to use an international waterway and how much you have to pay them to use it. The straits is basically the equivalent of an economic nuclear weapon that they're trying to use against the world. And they're bragging about it. Yeah, that's exactly what's happening.

[Tommy Vitor]

That's correct.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yep.

[Tommy Vitor]

Seems like they're doing it.

[Ben Rhodes]

Guess what? They weren't doing that before the fucking war.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. Also, it sounds like they have a lot of cards as described by Marc Rubio. So, Ben, as we all know, there's nothing better in life than when you have like shitty plans, like some shitty dinner, and it gets canceled. So Iranian foreman Surbass Arachi, he used that time he got back to fly to Russia, he went to see Vladimir Putin. He told Russian state media that Iran is, quote, standing up to the world's greatest superpower and that the US Has a request to talk because it has, quote, not achieved a single one of their goals and that Iran is considering whatever they put forward. Putin said, quote, we'll do everything that serves your interests and the interests of all the people in the region in order to ensure that this peace is achieved as soon as possible. Also, I'm sure you caught Ben. The German Chancellor, Friedrich Mertz weighed in saying that, quote, an entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by the so called Revolutionary Guards. That nation being ours.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yes.

[Tommy Vitor]

On Tuesday, Trump posted this weird message on Truth Social. He said, quote, iran has just informed us that they are in a state of collapse. They want us to open the Hormuz trade as soon as possible as they try to figure out their leadership situation, which I believe they'll be able to do. I love the idea of some Iranian officials calling Trump, being like, uncle, sir, you did it. You got us. I think that message was sent one minute before the stock market opened. So congrats to everybody who had some futures trades put down. So, Ben, two things. I'm curious what you make of Arachi's trip to see Putin in the Russian role. Like, Russia could be trying to facilitate a deal. Putin could be trying to sell some weapons. Either way, he seems to be saying, I'm here. I'm a player in this. You got to deal with me, too. And then on the end game, like, the Trump administration seems to think that their leverage is keeping the blockade in place long enough so that Iran runs out of storage for its oil and basically has to shut down its wells and kill off its own industry. It's not clear how long that would take, how much storage capacity they have left. And ultimately, this is a game of economic chicken that will crush Asian economies, poor countries, the Iranian people, but probably won't matter to the IRGC because they will enforce their will at gunpoint. So I don't know. I don't get it. But what do you make of this play?

[Ben Rhodes]

I think we just have to name, because sometimes our media is incapable of doing this. What a complete, abject, fucking failure, catastrophic decision this was by Donald Trump, and that he can't spin his way out of that. On the eve of the war, he was talking about regime change and destruction of the nuclear program entirely and getting Iranian people rising up. None of these things have happened.

[Tommy Vitor]

Remember, he wanted to pick the next supreme leader.

[Ben Rhodes]

He said, you know, Goliboff, the Speaker of the Parliament, Remember we were describing him as hot, you know, just like America's hot. You know, like, he's a hot option. He clearly has decided because he's been so humiliated and he's failed so miserably and was led down a rabbit hole by Bibi Netanyahu. That was so destructive. He's just trying to grasp this is a man, Donald Trump, that, like, 10 days ago, we did an emergency podcast because he told the world that there was a deal and that the straits were open forever and they were gonna get rid of the dust and all these things. None of that was true, right? And so, like, it's hard to. Even now, he's clearly decided that his narrative is gonna be their Leadership is so disrupted, they don't know who's in charge. The foreign minister is the same fucking foreign minister that was meeting with Witkoff

[Tommy Vitor]

and Jared before the war, and he's in Russia.

[Ben Rhodes]

How is this guy saying that there was regime change when Abbas Arachi is literally the same guy showing up, representing the same regime with the Supreme Leader's son? And then they start dunk on how hurt he is? Well, he's the fucking supreme leader, and he's 30 years younger than his father was. And the IRGC is calling the sh. And even little Marco has to acknowledge that they're running the straight of Hormuz. So we need to just create some space to just. This is not sane. This is failing right now. Let's move on. Like, what happens now? I think you're right. This is hurting everybody at this point. It's hurting the United States, it is hurting our economy, it's hurting the Iranian people, it's hurting the global economy. Everybody wants out of this war. And the question is, who is just gonna decide that? They can spin like, Iran won this war. The IRGC status quo ante now controls the Strait of Hormuz. And if the big concession they have to make to end the war is opening up an international waterway that was open before the war, I think that they take that position. Donald Trump is just trying to figure out how to spin his way out of it, that it's a win even if he doesn't get them to make a whole bunch of concessions to the negotiating table. And if you look at Putin, he can smell that this is a humiliation of the United States. He's trying to insert himself into this. He's trying to kind of play the role of peacemaker. Trump is the crazy man who starts wars.

[Tommy Vitor]

You see that? The Russian, some Russian super yacht worth like half a billion dollars just kind of cruise through the Strait of Hormuz this week, this weekend.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

No, IRGC left it alone. Yeah.

[Ben Rhodes]

Putin's flexing. This is. Putin and Xi are looking at this and they're like, this is going to have geopolitical reverberations for a generation. The Gulf countries are splitting apart and hedging and going to move in the direction of Russia and China. The Iranians, like, their, you know, their. Their closest ally in the region now controls the Strait. That's a. You know, Russia and China want that waterway open. So, like, I think they're probably telling the Ryan's like, hey, can we wrap this thing up? But at the same time, they're going to be thinking about how can we take advantage of the fact that the United States was just revealed to be incapable of. Of collapsing the Iranian regime with military power.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, well, yeah, when your opponent shoots himself in the foot, it's a good time for a road race. Yeah. So the Axios, a couple, like, data points to back up what you were just saying. Axios has a report out this week that Trump aides are concerned he's getting drawn into a frozen conflict where the US Will just be forced to keep a ton of military assets in the Middle east to enforce this blockade while the Strait of Hormuz stays closed for months and harms the global economy. Like, yeah, guys, yeah, that's what's happening. Reuters had a report that the US intel agencies are studying how Iran would respond if Trump just declared he loved victory.

[Ben Rhodes]

I think what's going to happen, Definitely

[Tommy Vitor]

what's going to happen. And I think they want to know if, like, these guys will kind of walk away and let it be or if they're going to dunk all over them. I guess we'll find out. Meanwhile, I mean, the economic cost is going up. So gas prices on Tuesday in the U.S. rose to their highest level in four years. So the average gallon is now 418. But outside the U.S. as we've talked about many times, the economic impact is massive. So some data points in China, car sales are down. The cost of plastics are up because they are petroleum based. And that has led to factories shutting down. People are out of work, there's been riots. According to the Financial Times, the IMF forecasts that the economies of Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar will contract this year, the latter by up to 8.6%, while growth in Saudi Arabia and the UAE will slow, but remain at about 3%. The the US might have to provide the UAE with a currency swap line to help them bail out of some financial difficulties. There's cooking oil shortages in India. Interest rates are going up around the globe. The world's largest condom maker is increasing prices by 30% because of supply chain issues. And then Today, Ben, the UAE announced it would be leaving OPEC, the oil cartel. So the UAE is the third largest producer in OPEC. That's going to leave OPEC with 13% less capacity. I think this is probably less of an economic impact than just sort of like another sign of the UAE and Saudi Arabia splitting on a bunch of stuff and the reshuffling of alliances that you were just hinting at. But what did you make of that, that move from the Emiratis So I

[Ben Rhodes]

think like the global economic fallout is going to be profound and long lasting and is going to lead to this continued hedging that countries are doing. How can I protect myself against the United States? Like, first it was tariffs and now it's this war. Like, how can I have supply chains that are more secure and not vulnerable to like some crazy thing Donald Trump might do? And so that every country is going to make their own calculation. Now, the UAE one is really interesting. So OPEC has generally been this cartel of major oil producers that produces about a quarter of the world's fossil fuel energy. And the Saudis have generally called the shots. And the Saudis like to keep prices high because it keeps their coffers filled. The UAE has a more diversified economy and therefore they care less about necessarily like, you know, keeping the price. At a certain point they want to produce more, they would like to expand in more markets. They want to get the most out of, by the way, oil while they can because they see the writing on the wall down the line. It's going to be a clean energy economy. So they have some short term interests in having some freedom of action. But the main thing I think that's happening here is that the Emiratis, like the leader of the UAE is Mohammed bin Zayed. He used to be super tight with mbs, Mohammed bin Salman. They've had a massive falling out that we've talked about in the last couple of years. It's manifested in almost the two militaries that went to war together in Yemen fighting each other in Yemen. They're backing different sides of the Sudan civil war. The Emiratis are kind of all in with the Abraham Accords and the Israelis and much more hawkish on Iran. The Saudis, no fans of the Iranians, but have been a little bit more hedged for sure. Hedged, right. And so I see this as a personal thought between MBS and NBZ that is fascinating. If anybody could ever make the, you know, like a Netflix show about those guys falling out, I'd watch that. But it's also this kind of geopolitical splitting. Like the Gulf states tried to project this kind of unified front through the Gulf Cooperation Council, the gcc. And you know, that's Qatar, uae, Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain. They're now moving in different directions. And again, it mirrors what's going to happen globally where every nation is just going to increasingly, in this kind of crazy, dangerous, nationalist, transactional world, kind of look out for itself. The Emiratis want to produce more cell without having to check it through opec. The Saudis are trying to kind of keep prices up to fund MBS's Vision 2030 and all these things.

[Tommy Vitor]

Socrates.

[Ben Rhodes]

But it's emblematic of an unraveling set of global arrangements. And I think that the Iran war will be seen from history as a massive accelerant on the kind of unraveling of all these different institutions and ways of doing things.

[Tommy Vitor]

And part of that unraveling are institutions or the belief from other countries the US can or will protect them. Yeah, and now there's increasing data, data about concern that the US can't protect itself because of these munition shortages we've talked about in the wake of these repeated conflicts with Iran. So there's some more data on this. The center for Strategic and International Studies or csis, they released a report that walked through some numbers. Then there was some great reporting. It was first Alex Ward at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times added to it. The major concern is not that we're going to run out of bullets in this war, it's about the next war, especially if there's one with China. For example, let's start with Tomahawk missiles or TLAMs. These are precision long range cruise missiles that usually get fired from ships or submarines that could be as far as 1500 miles away from the target. The US launched at least a thousand of them against Iran, which is about 10 times the number the Pentagon buys every year for the low low price of $3.6 million each. It'll take years to replace them at current rates. But also Ben, they require rare earth elements and other like advanced electronic components that China has proven choke off. And in previous war games about a conflict between the US and China over Taiwan, they found that the US exhausted supply of Tomak missiles in a couple days or weeks. So with the supply already down, that's not good. There is a similar missile, a missile used in similar use cases called the Joint Air to Surface standoff missile. The US has used 23% of that stockpile. These are fired from planes, but they cost again $2.6 million each. We fired about 1,000 ATACM missiles in this war. Remember there was a hot deb over whether the US should give Ukraine attack on missiles. So those are offensive weapons. And then again we're running out of interceptor missiles for missile defense systems. That includes a third of what are called SM6 interceptors, nearly half of the SM3 variant, more than 50% of Patriot interceptors and 80% of THAAD interceptors. That's a lot of jargon and gibberish. Just know that the prices on those bad boys range from $4 million to $28 million a pop, depending on the missile and the variant altogether. Some US Officials told the Wall Street Journal that wholly replacing those stockpiles could take up to six years. So that's a long term problem that will take a while to fix. And that is apparently one of the things worrying JD Vance, who once again dispatched his minions to the Atlantic to tell them Jacob Reese is concerned. Yeah, some fucker. About the war. From the stockpiles to the accuracy of information Trump is getting from Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon. Again, Ben, I'm just, I'm blown away by how brazen these leaks are. Like, how is this not pissing Trump off? But what do I know?

[Ben Rhodes]

It just shows you that for all the facade of Trump's a genius and we blew up the Iranian navy or whatever, they know that this war has been a disaster. Because the degree of ass covering here through leak is, you know, even by Washington standards, it makes you blush a little bit. I think when you look at costs, like, I just focus on the practical, literal costs and then the geopolitical costs on the practical costs. Like these numbers are, these are billions and billions of dollars. Like that is ACA subsidies that are not going, you know, that's real health care that people need. Those are, that's nutrition assistance. That's like God forbid we ever do get our shit together for like a universal basic income. Like, we just spent billions of dollars and are gonna have to spend another round of billions of dollars to replace things that Donald Trump and Pete Hecseth could fire off in a six week excursion. Isn't that what Trump called it to do? To do nothing other than to accomplish close the Strait of Hormuz so that you can then try to reopen it again and declare victory. And yeah, we blew up a bunch of Iranian things and we killed an 86 year old supreme Leader.

[Tommy Vitor]

Like, but like the amount we spent is like more than what was once the annual budget of usaid.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

Which did tons of good all around,

[Ben Rhodes]

which we heard that was so wasteful. Right. That's a really good analogy. Then I just want to like hone in on the geopolitical costs because it ties in what I was saying about countries having to make different decisions. What you'll often hear from the national security types, people that you and I hung out with a lot over the years, that all these munitions, all these systems are really important in Asia to deal with China and North Korea. And sometimes people hear that and they think, oh, you warmongers, you want all these weapons to fight the Chinese? No, they're there as a deterrent. You want those weapons in place to, to, to prevent a war, you know, so it's like, hey, this looks super scary. If you're China and you're thinking about invading Taiwan or you're Kim Jong Un, you're thinking about making a move on South Korea. Like the Americans have all these fancy systems. We don't want to fuck around with that. Let's just take the one case of South Korea. South Korea is getting hit about as hard as anybody because of shortages. Right. They have shortages of petrochemicals, they have shortages of plastics. They have potential disruptions like to all manner of different industries from this war. Like they're suffering economically, never mind a higher, higher fuel prices. Meanwhile, the country that was their closest ally, the United States, also moved the missile defense systems that were protecting them from potential North Korean nuclear attacks.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, we yanked a THAAD system.

[Ben Rhodes]

We moved that to the Middle east because we needed that for our Iran war. We moved these other munitions so we simultaneously left them more vulnerable to the nut case, like chain smoking autocrat that lives to their north or to the Chinese and ruin their economy in the process. If you're South Korea, aren't you gonna start making some other decisions about maybe you need to cut your own deal with the Chinese or the North Koreans? If you're Taiwan, how are you feeling about the American security umbrella protecting you against a Chinese invasion? So this stuff is going to reverberate for years and Trump can spin and JD Vance can leak. It can't change that.

[Tommy Vitor]

Also, when the US Put that THAAD system in South Korea in the first place, the Chinese flipped out.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

And they did all this economic retaliation. They essentially banned Chinese tourists from going to South Korea and like crushed the tourism business in the entire country. So yeah, they, we got screwed on the front end and they're getting screwed on the back end here. One other just dumb thing. Ben, do you see. Remember that guy Paolo Zampoli who we talked about a couple weeks ago? He's like the old like 80s buddy that Trump would like hang out with at 54 or whatever. He's like some model.

[Ben Rhodes]

They'd use ice to deport his wife or ex wife.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yes, Mother of his child. Good guy, great guy. Apparently he has been recommending that FIFA kick Iran out of the World cup and put Italy in. Did you see this?

[Ben Rhodes]

I saw this because FIFA needed to

[Tommy Vitor]

be further corrupted and politicized. And even the Italians were like, no, this is completely stupid. What are you talking about?

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, first of all, the Italians flaming out of the World Cup, I mean, tough. The Italians themselves said we don't want to get in this way, but, but also, like, I hate, like FIFA's already debased itself so much they gave Trump that fake peace prize member, that corrupt guy. Forget who runs FIFA. Did you see this today that he like demanded. He wanted a motorcade in Vancouver as if analogous to the Pope Infantino did. Yeah, he, he got, he threw a hissy fit because the Canadians wouldn't give him a full motorcade on the scale of like the President, United States of the Hope or something. Anyway, break, break. Part of what I find so disgusting about this is like, can't sports be like the last refuge? Like just like, like you start politicizing sports this way, where it's like, not that it's always been pure. It's not. We've. You, you did a whole podcast on, on how corrupt the World cup is. But the idea that you're literally going to say, like, hey, we don't like the Iranians because Trump decided to go to war with them. So we're kicking them out of the World cup. And you know, everybody likes the Italians, so let's put them in there. Even though they flamed out in the European division, right? Come on, man, like, let's watch the World Cup. Like, like the Iranian, even if you hate the Iranian regime, like the soccer players didn't have any play also.

[Tommy Vitor]

They earned their way on that stage.

[Ben Rhodes]

Bad news bears, man. Let, let them play.

[Tommy Vitor]

Let them play. Finally, Ben, on paper, there is still a ceasefire in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, but in practice it's not really a ceasefire. It's more of like a de escalation of the fighting that is still very much ongoing, just a lower intensity. For example, the Lebanese government said 14 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Sunday alone. An Israeli soldier was announced that he was killed on Sunday. Two more were wounded on Monday. And the IDF has ordered a bunch more communities to evacuate, including ones outside of the current evacuation zone. So the, the war seems to be expanding. The leader of Hezbollah said they would not, quote, relinquish its weapons or defenses, meaning they won't disarm. Listeners also might have heard about the killing of a woman named Amal Khalil. She's a well known journalist for the Lebanese newspaper Al Akbar. She was driving with a photojournalist colleague in southern Lebanon. The car in front of them got hit by an Israeli strike. So they took shelter in a nearby building. They were wounded and they tried to get help. But an hour and a half later the building they were in was struck again. When the Red Cross tried to help her and her colleague, the IDF fired on them and they were forced to turn back. So Khalil's also reported receiving a death threat that she attributed to the IDF back in 2024. So this is just like, this is one of those incidents that would have been, I think a global scandal before the war in Gaza, but now it almost feels priced in because the Israelis killed so many Gaza based journalists that people are almost numb to it.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, I mean, I spent some time with this one because it was so egregious. I mean she's a well known journalist, very well, and, and she's trapped under rubble for hours and the Israelis are literally like striking the rescuers, trying to get to her. I mean this is like an assassination.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's indefensible.

[Ben Rhodes]

They know who she is. Like they have such total surveillance control over that part of Lebanon. They know exactly who she is. She's obviously also wearing press. They murdered this woman in front of the whole world. And don't expect any significant outcry beyond people who are already upset about these things. And that's outrageous, you know, and it does. I just, I do wish, like there's a, like a very admirable instinct in among the U.S. journalists to, to advocate for journalists in danger around the world. But it's usually journalists endangered inside of geopolitical adversaries of the United States. You know, advocating for Venezuelan journalists or Iranian journalists or Russian journalists or certainly any American journalists. But like these people are doing the same job as you. And yet you just like I, I, and I'm not. Some journalists have been outspoken about these things. I'd, I'd just like to see like more voices raised because this is like, this is, this is what, this is the worst case scenario. You're talking about political violence. I mean this is literally saying that like if we, because I, some people I saw then say, well, she worked for like a newspaper media outlet, like

[Tommy Vitor]

an extremist paper tied to Hezbollah that

[Ben Rhodes]

was sympathetic to Hezbollah. She's a fucking journalist.

[Tommy Vitor]

There's extremist Israeli newspapers tied to the idf. Like you can't kill people.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, I don't like Fox News. I don't think anything bad should happen to these people. That's actually the most deranged possible Explanation.

[Tommy Vitor]

I agree.

[Ben Rhodes]

So we just now assassinate journalists admitting you killed?

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, yeah. It's like, what are we talking about? It was a horrible, horrible story. It reminded me of Shereen Abu Akla, another famous Palestinian American journalist who was killed during the Biden administration. And no one did shit about it.

[Ben Rhodes]

Nothing.

[Tommy Vitor]

And it pisses me off to this day. Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry Me. You don't have to be unhappy at work to want something more. Success doesn't just happen. And the most successful people in the world don't figure it out alone. They have mentors, coaches and people guiding them every step of the way. That's where Strawberry Me career coaching comes in. Career coaching through Strawberry Me can help you get unstuck and help you uncover what you really want in your job or life. Identify obstacles holding you back, develop a step by step plan and turn your goals into a reality. The term coaching maybe sounds a little formal, but we've all had a mentor in our life or someone we worked with who really guided us or helped us understand our potential. What we wanted, what we didn't want. There's nothing honestly better than that person who tells you like, don't go to law school. You're not gonna like that. That's not for you. Unless, hey, Thomas, if you're listening and you're, you're wanna go to law school.

[Donald Trump]

If you.

[Tommy Vitor]

If what law school is for you, go to law school. But you need someone to like, look at you in the eye who knows you and be like, that ain't your bag. And be honest with you. That is what Strawberry Me can help you with. Go to Strawberry Me World and find out if career coaching is right for you. That's Strawberry Me world to get 50 off the first session. Positive the world is brought to you by Ridge John. I think we all went through that time in life when we kept a lot of things in our wallet so much. The Costanza wallet, very topical, timely reference. Like a 6 inch gave you some back problems. Yeah, you have every business card you've ever kept. Some crusty leather brick that was really falling part. You basically couldn't open it because otherwise it would just disintegrate. And then your back hurts because you're sitting unevenly and all of a sudden your spine's ruined. Don't let that happen to you. Ridge wallets have unique, slim, modern designs that hold up to 12 cards plus cash. They're made with premium materials like aluminum, titanium and carbon fiber. The cub in over 50 or more colors and styles to choose from. All Ridge products have a lifetime warranty. It's literally the last wallet you will ever have to buy. And all Ridge wallets feature RFID blocking technology protecting you from digital pickpockets. Losing your wallet is the absolute worst. But with a Ridge tracker card, you'll always know exactly where it is before panic mode kicks in. Ridge isn't just about wallets. They create premium everyday carry essentials like power banks, key cases, suitcases and rings, all built with the same sleek, durable design. No matter what you pick, Ridge has free shipping, a 99 day risk free trial, and a lifetime warranty on all of their products. For a limited time, our listeners get 10% off at Ridge by using the code PSTW at checkout. Just head to ridge.com and use code PSTW and you're all set. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that POD Save the World sent you. Okay, let's switch gears a little bit. Ben. So the Iran tensions we just talked about, those are the, the backdrop and the mood music for King Charles's 40th visit to the US. The visit is technically part of the America's 250th birthday celebrations because no party is complete without an aging monarch. Charles and Camilla's visit is a thrill a minute. They attended a garden party, they looked at a beehive. Then there's a quote literary event marking the 100th birthday of the children's character Winnie the Pooh.

[Ben Rhodes]

Really?

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. How about that? No word if they'll speak with Prince Harry or victims of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse. A lot of calls on Charles to meet with some Epstein victims and talk about his brother. Maybe, but anyway, so this all comes though, as we've discussed. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under attack from Trump on a daily basis for not fully backing or participating in the war with Iran. Recently there was a report about retaliation. There was a leaked memo, Pentagon memo, that was floated. They talked about punishing the UK and the refusal to further participate in the war by revoking US support for their possession of the Falkland Islands. It's very 80s response there. This has also kicked up endless hand wringing and discussion of the special relationship between the US and the UK. The Financial Times reported that the UK's ambassador to the US told some students recently, quote, I think they're probably, I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States and that is probably Israel.

[Ben Rhodes]

Very accurate.

[Tommy Vitor]

He's not Wrong.

[Ben Rhodes]

Very accurate.

[Tommy Vitor]

Charles also became the first British king to address a joint session of Congress. His mom, the Queen, did so in 1991. But Trump laid out the distinction in his remarks. Here is some of what he said.

[King Charles]

With a spirit of 1776 in our minds, we can perhaps agree that we do not always agree. As my prime minister said last month, ours is an indispensable partnership. We must not disregard everything that has sustained us for the last 80 years. Instead, we must build on it. In the immediate aftermath of 9 11, NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time, and the United Nations Security Council was united in the face of terror. That same unyielding resolve is needed for the defense of Ukraine and her most courageous people. From the depths of the Atlantic to the disastrously melting ice caps of the Arctic, the commitment and expertise of the United States armed forces and its allies lie at the heart of NATO. I pray with all my heart that our alliance will continue to defend our shared values and that we ignore the clarion calls to become ever more inward looking. America's words carry weight and meaning as they have since independence. The actions of this great nation matter even more.

[Tommy Vitor]

So, as you could hear there, Charles didn't totally shy away from policy differences on climate change or NATO or Ukraine. And for context, I think it probably sometimes seems to Americans like the royals are distinct from the government or kind of float above it. In practice, that's not the case. Like, a royal visit like this is planned by number 10 Downing Street. His speech is thoroughly vetted. If not written by the government. It is functionally indistinguishable from a prime minister's visit. They just know that Trump loves the royal family and cares more about them and hopefully won't be as much of a dick. So that gets you to me, to my question, Ben. I guess I'm still like, obviously the shooting attempt thing on Saturday, that kind of changes the vibes around all this stuff and you're like walking on eggshells for a while.

[Ben Rhodes]

A couple weeks.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. But like, again, I don't get why Starmer's office sent King Charles in the midst of this war, when Trump is calling Starmer Neville Chamberlain every day, saying he's no Winston Churchill, just like humiliating the guy left and right when we all know that, I don't know, maybe a snub would lead to some actual fallout on policy. But, like, failing to push back on Trump is hurting Starmer politically. And he just looks so weak and hapless. And I'm wondering, when is labor going to cut the court on this guy. Yeah, it is a fucking disaster.

[Ben Rhodes]

It is destroying the Labor Party.

[Tommy Vitor]

It really is.

[Ben Rhodes]

I mean, the reason Trump keeps coming back is because he smells weakness. Like, this is the most obvious thing in the world to see. Keir Starmer presents as the weakest guy. He presents as scared of Trump. Even when he stands up to Trump, he seems scared about doing it.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's like half hearted, always just.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah. Why is, you know, King Charles is here as part of, like, the Starmer plan to charm Trump. Like, it's. It's. They're. They're literally threatening to, like, try to give the Falkland Islands to their buddy Javier Milei down in Argentina. Like, they've so little respect. And the lesson time and again is like, Trump will respect you more if you punch him in the face, you know, than if you are continually scared of him. He's just gonna keep coming back. I think the sad thing about that speech is every clip that we played is absolute pablum. Like, we've heard this for, you know, our whole lives in politics, 80 years, and NATO is important. They sound downright edgy, you know?

[Tommy Vitor]

Right.

[Ben Rhodes]

The fact that it sounds edgy that King Charles is like, and we should turn inward and let's cooperate, and NATO's important and we support the brave people of Ukraine. Like, like, basically the most anodyne things that you'd expect from your, like, you know, liberal friend on online. Like, sound like, like, you know, King Charles is picking fights, you know, and. And that's a. That's a. That's. So if Starmer's fault is his weakness, that speech is in. Is a good capsule of how much Donald Trump has reordered the world in a year and a half. Because we're not for any. The United States is not for any of those things. We're not for NATO. We're not for 80 years of cooperation. We're not for, like, looking outward. We're not for agreeing to disagree about things like, that's crazy that we're so extreme that he's, like. He's, like, talking to his completely alcoholic family member and saying, like, remember how much fun we used to have taking walks together?

[Tommy Vitor]

We're for drinking after five or for not being drunk at breakfast. Yeah, that's a really good point. I previewed some sexual tension at the top. So Trump did this event. They, like, welcomed Charles to the White House and he gave a little speech, and Trump said something like how he was talking about his mother and how she would say, look at Charles. He's so cute. My mother had a crush on Charles. Charles is 77. Trump is 79.

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, I would say also though, that's a little Epstein seeing Charles up there. He looked so young compared to Joe Biden and Donald Trump. I mean, it's good to have a young, vigorous man up there.

[Tommy Vitor]

Young sausage fingered gentlemen. Trump also couldn't help but do Churchill Bus shout out.

[Ben Rhodes]

There was a funny cuz he's so online. If you get the reference, you're too online.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, you are way too online. Speaking of state visits, Ben, CricketCon is back and bigger than ever. Get your calendar out. Pause, pause. The podcast. Pencil in a trip to D.C. november 5th through 7th. Bigger stages, more panels, bigger stages, hotter speakers. Maybe even King Charles. Probably not, though there'll also be live taping of shows you know, and love a lot more. Go to crookedcon.com to sign up for updates. It'll be fun. We had fun last time.

[Ben Rhodes]

I actually, I really like. I had a great time.

[Tommy Vitor]

We had a good ass time. We did a fun panel. Okay, let's talk about the security situation in Mali. So over the last several years, we have covered this wave of coups across Northern Africa, especially the Sahel region, started in Mali in 2020 and guinea in 2021. It's a little outside of this Sahel, but you get my point. Burkina Faso in 2022, then Niger and Gabon in 2023. These were distinct events across a large geographic area, but there were some common threads, like anger at corruption, weak and ineffective governance, anger at foreign military presences, especially the French, and the threat from Islamist extremist groups. And as this process went on, with

[Ben Rhodes]

a little Wagner group sprinkled in.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, well, as it went on, the French and the US Security forces, we got pushed out of the region. The Russians came in. At the time, it was the Wagner mercenary group Group. They got renamed after their. Their boss had a little aerial accident.

[Ben Rhodes]

Isn't that crazy thing that happened when Prigozhin tried to have a coup against Putin, marched on Moscow and then mysteriously

[Tommy Vitor]

thought he was gonna get away with it? And then, oh, funny, a grenade went off.

[Ben Rhodes]

That's the best thing that happened. Yeah, this is how crazy the last few years have been.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's wild. And then they named the Wagner group. They called it the Africa Corps, which is what it's called now. So in 2024, the military leaders in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, they pulled out of ecowas, the regional alliance. They formed their own little alliance. And I think, Ben, it's fair to say that the U.S. french approach that predated all of this was a disaster. Like terrorism in the Sahel was getting worse, not better. The security extremist situation was getting worse, not better. But things now in Mali are really, really bad. So over the weekend, an Al Qaeda linked extremist group called jnim, they launched this coordinated series of attacks across Mali, including the capital, Obama. They attacked the President's house, they attacked and killed the Defense Minister. There were militants, like videos of these militants just driving around big parts of the capitol with no real opposition. And these JNIM fighters also attacked the Russian troops, the Africa Corps troops, who have proven over time to be worse than useless partners against his counterterrorism partner, in fact, probably helped fuel the insurgency by just killing lots of civilians. In the past few days, the Russians, they got pushed out of some key parts of northern Mali that they had helped retake back in the day. So it's a total humiliation. So this is very bad. This group JNIM, they were established in 2017. It's considered an Al Qaeda affiliate. But in this case, they also coordinated with a separatist group representing the Tuareg ethnic minority. It's a traditionally nomadic group that got screwed out of political representation by French colonial lines because they got divided up and they had no one and no political representation. So they have been basically waging an insurgency ever since. It got way worse again. And Muammar Gaddafi used to hire these Tauren fighters. And when Libya collapsed, many of them returned to Mali, in Niger, with their Libyan weapons and supercharged that insurgency. So another reason why that adventure, the Obama years, was a disaster too. So, Ben, I guess the question is, like, you see these images on tv. They look scary. It's horrible for the people living there, especially women and girls. I wonder how much of a threat it poses to the us whether JNIM is just focused regionally, whether we should worry about them being more expansive like Al Qaeda, and whether there's anything the US should be doing about it.

[Ben Rhodes]

I mean, yeah, first of all, I do think that Mali was a place where around in the aftermath of Libya, in part, and also just in part because of some extremist elements. Like around 2012, 2013, things were getting very hairy there. And it was a French intervention, literally, French special forces went in, they kind of pushed out these jihadist groups. They kind of formed the kind of backbone of propping up a government there. And then, you know, there was kind of this model where the US had some counterterrorism capabilities. You know, we had the drone drones and you know, intelligence gathering and probably a light footprint of some special forces in that region. And then the French were kind of the bigger footprint. Training security forces, things like that clearly didn't work. You know, was a little too self interested. Created, you know, its own forms of corruption. And you described well the dynamic of these coups, I guess. Look, Tommy, I, I'm sure that there's some nexus to some people with wider ambitions beyond this part of Africa. But at the end of the day, I think one of the things we've learned about these countries is like these are at the end of the day inherently like local dynamics. You know, that, that there are, there are militias, some of them are more extremists. Some like buy into like an Islamist ideology that is like repressive and. But I think part of what has kind of contributed to the factors that have made this region more radicalized and violent is seeing every group of armed guys and Land Cruisers as like ISIS core or Osama bin Laden. What is needed are strategies and approaches that fit these countries and deal with their politics. And I don't claim I've seen this with tremendous amount of humility. I don't claim to know the exact formula to bring to Mali. I don't think it helps. And I think, look, I could be proven wrong. Maybe this will become the next iteration of isis. I just don't think that's right though. I think these countries have internal dynamics that need different solutions rather than being seen as like a front in a global war on terror.

[Tommy Vitor]

Certainly hasn't helped. Just have the only security relationship between the US and these countries to be like intelligence sharing or selling them weapons. Well, yeah, because you fed the conflicts.

[Ben Ritz]

Yeah.

[Ben Rhodes]

And I know I'm about to offer a solution that is not currently available, but, but I think that it also didn't make sense for the former colonial power to be the one that comes in because that feels an awful lot like colonialism if you're in Mali. Right. This is why you need a United Nations. Like this is why you need credible international institutions that can do like retro 1990s era missions like multinational peacekeeping and conflict resolution and negotiation. Like this is a, a proving. And by the way, it'd be good if the African Union did some of that, which they don't because they don't really function either. And so I, I think what's really needed is, is, is multilateral systems and institutions.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. And until then, not great.

[Ben Rhodes]

Until then I think it's going to be this kind of game Of Thrones.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, you know, pretty bad. Podcast of the World is brought to you by Aura Frame. Or a frame is the perfect Mother's Day gift to capture the chaos you put her through and the memories that came with it. Also, I just want to personally thank the Aura Frame people because every year this copy reminds me that Mother's Day is coming up. Yeah. Now, unfortunately for me, I've already purchased my mother an aura frame. Me too, because it was a massive hit. And if you're out there and you're thinking, oh man, what am I gonna get my mom this year? Get an aura frame. Do it. Yeah, you gotta. You've been going on vacations. Mom would like to see that you got a new pet. Mom would love to see you that you got some grandkids running around. It's a great way for mom to get picture after picture. It's the biggest no brainer of anything. An absolute no brainer. You get free unlimited storage. Add as many photos and videos as you want. You can preload photos before it ships. You can personalize your gift. You can add a message before it arrives. There's a gift box included. It's super easy to share photos and videos effortlessly. You just download the free Aura app or you text the photos right to your frame. It is a top rated app, will reach number one in the App Store on Christmas Day in 2025. Make Mother's Day special with Aura Frames named number one by Wirecutter. You can save on the gifts moms love by visiting auraframes.com for a limited time. Listeners get $25 off their bestselling Carver mat frame with the Code world. That's a frames.com promo. Code world. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Pod Save the World is brought to you by bilt. Whether you're renting or paying a mortgage, one of your biggest monthly expenses should be working harder for you. That's where BILT comes in. Built is the membership for where you live that rewards you with points on every housing payment wherever you live. BILT started out rewarding members on the rent. Now, as of 2026, BILT members can also earn points on mortgage payments wherever they live. Every housing payment earns you points you can use toward flights. With top travel partners like United and Hyatt, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases and much, much more. They have a ton of options where you can redeem your points. We mentioned Amazon mentioned the travel portal. That's a great way to do it. There's also tons of fitness classes in your community. There are gift cards at over 120 brands there you can do your student loan balances. There's a million ways you can spend your built points. But here is the most underrated part. John Built members also get access to a neighborhood concierge. They can make restaurant reservations, book fitness classes and find new local spots, all while being rewarded and more than 45,000 merchant partners. It's like having a personal assistant baked into where you live. It's simple. Being a renter and now owning a home is better. With BILT join the membership where you live at joinbuilt.com world that's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T.com world make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. All right, I want to update you on corruption in the administration. So last week we did a big section on the the rampant corruption within the Trump administration and how it's hurting US national security. One to follow up because there were some examples that were so egregious and absurd that it was just, it was worth highlighting again. So first, Ben, this is just a quick clip of Fox Businesses Maria Bartiromo congratulating Eric Trump after his company was awarded a $24 million contract from the Pentagon. Let's watch. And the company's chief strategy advisor, Eric Trump, President Trump's son.

[Maria Bartiromo]

Congratulations to you, Bo.

[Ben Rhodes]

Both, thank you so much for being here.

[Tommy Vitor]

So Eric Trump is like barely like the chief advisor to a robotics company and she's like, oh, that's totally normal. Like, so thank you, Maria, for that, that hard hitting journalism. And then also, Ben, we had discussed previously how some anonymous person had made more than $400,000 by betting on Polymarket that Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro would be deposed. Sure enough, it happens. That guy cashes out. It turns out that the individual involved was a master Sergeant with the U.S. army Special Forces who participated in the operation itself. He apparently was also not the brightest bulb on the tree since this guy transferred the money to Polymarket and back via his own Coinbase account, which is a US Based crypto company that verifies your identity. So you're gonna get nailed there, buddy. Not hard to track that one. So that said, Ben, I am going to place a bet on Polymarket that that guy gets pardoned. After watching these comments from Trump.

[Ben Rhodes]

Are you concerned that federal employees are betting on these prediction markets and potentially getting rich?

[Donald Trump]

Well, I don't know about it, but was he betting that they would get him or they wouldn't get him.

[Ben Rhodes]

It sounds like he was betting on his removal from office, that Maduro would be removed. He was involved in the operation.

[Donald Trump]

That's like Pete Rose betting on his own team. It's a little like Pete Rose. Pete Rose, he kept him out of the hall of Fame because he bet on his own team. Now if he bet against his team, that would be no good, but he bet on his own team. I'll look into it. Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

So the indifference, so 80s, man. The indifference. There could be also because Donald Trump Jr. Is an advisor to both Polymarket and his number one competitor, Kelsey. So good stuff.

[Ben Rhodes]

Both of these things speak to a like, tip of an iceberg of corruption, right? And we get into this in the anti authoritarian toolkit, the need to spotlight corruption, but also to explain it. So the Eric Trump thing, there is a degree of corruption happening with the Pentagon budget that we have no idea.

[Tommy Vitor]

$1.5 trillion.

[Ben Rhodes]

If the Democrats get control of Congress, I would burrow in here because they want a $1.5 trillion defense budget. You got Eric Trump suddenly getting in the drone game, you know, and getting contracts from the federal government that his father controls. And its father's sycophant, Pete Hegseth is like in charge of this Department of War. But it's not just that. All these tech guys, like, who suck up the Trump, you know, Alex Karp, the head of Palantir, all these defense tech guys, probably with Peter Thiel investments and stuff, they are just feeding at the trough. And the stuff they're throwing Eric Trump's way is a ton of money to you and me. A few hundred million dollars here, billion dollars there. These guys are probably walking away with tens of billions of dollars contracts, right?

[Tommy Vitor]

Billions.

[Ben Rhodes]

So we got to look at the defense budget and then on the polymarket stuff, this is a, you know, it reminds me of like Abu Ghraib where this guy is guilty as hell, but they're going to punish the service member. But not how many people were making bets on polymarket, do you think? Or how many people are shorting oil markets before Trump posts something.

[Donald Trump]

Right?

[Tommy Vitor]

I hope to God that there is some investigation by the SEC or some New York state authority on the stock market manipulation, the oil market manipulation, because otherwise, like, what's the point of having these agencies?

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, and do you know, I don't even know the answer is why isn't every Democrat, like, campaigning to shut down all these prediction markets?

[Tommy Vitor]

I don't know.

[Ben Rhodes]

Are they? I mean, I think some are.

[Tommy Vitor]

I Think, honestly, I've not dug into everybody's platform on this, but I think

[Ben Rhodes]

like every single Democrat should be for shutting down. You cannot find a more acute manifestation of corruption than the people that controlling the government have the capacity to bet on their own actions on a prediction market.

[Tommy Vitor]

And most of the actual business on these platforms is just an end run against state bans on sports betting that is like their primary revenue. So, yeah, it's a terrible idea. I do not support it. Finally, Ben, let's, let's turn to Mexico. So because U.S. involvement there in a counter cartel operations, they've created this huge headache for Mexican President Claudia Shanebaum. The story starts on April 19th. So the two Americans and two Mexican investigators were killed after their car reportedly plunged off a cliff. I don't really. It's hard. Like I feel like there's more to the story.

[Maria Bartiromo]

We don't know.

[Ben Rhodes]

Right? Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

I mean, did they just drive off? Something happened? Yeah. It's like so there's so much we don't know. But they were returning from a drug bust operation on a meth lab in the mountains of northern Mexico in the state of Chihuahua. So it has since been confirmed by some U.S. officials who spoke to the AP, among other news outlets, that they were CIA officers. This created big political and legal and foreign policy problems for Claudia Sheinbaum. Under Mexico's constitution, foreign governments cannot conduct law enforcement or intelligence operations on Mexican soil. It's very sensitive, at least not independently. They need to be with the government or registered. It's a very sensitive sovereignty issue. It dates back many decades. There have been all these terrible incidents. And this became an intense focus under President Lopez Obrador, who a couple years back, like 21 or 2020, passed legislation further restricting foreign law enforcement intelligence agents in Mexico. So again, fast forward to when this story broke earlier this month. Shane Baum initially says that she was not aware that American officials were participating in the operation. She's basically held to that story so far. She's like asked the US for more detail or clarification, but mostly blamed officials in Chihuahua and threatened to reprimand them. It. I think it's helped that the governor there is from the opposition party. So Ben, I'm trying to like, again, trying to figure out how to read this. Did the US really not tell the Mexican federal government about this operation or register these individuals? We don't know. Was this like a don't ask, don't tell situation where the US Is doing a lot of stuff? Shane Bomb gets told, some general strokes, but not all of it for deniability on the specifics, like big picture. It's definitely an example of how XI is trying to balance between nationalism and sovereignty and then all the things Trump is demanding. Because as we've talked about before, Trump has threatened to conduct airstrikes on cartels in Mexico on Mexican territory. There's reports that the CIA has been flying surveillance drones over Mexican territory. God knows what else the CIA and the DEA are doing in Mexico that we don't know about. And so Shane Bomb's trying to fend off these crazier ideas while not getting tariffed to hell. What did you make of this story and how to read between the lines?

[Ben Rhodes]

I thought it was really important. I mean, the suggestion out of the fact pattern that we see is that there were two CIA agents that were down in this state in Chihuahua, and they were not there under the approval of the Mexican federal government, that maybe they'd made some side deals with local officials or the governor and that they were in some operation and then something went wrong. And I do wonder how the car plunged off a cliff.

[Tommy Vitor]

And by the way, a reason for that could be that the US Thinks that the federal officials are corrupt and

[Ben Rhodes]

the state officials, so we can't tell

[Tommy Vitor]

the up and up, so they go around them. I don't know.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, it could be that they think that if we tell the federal officials, they'll tip off the cartels, or it's just faster to deal with it, or it's kind of like how we deal with, I don't know, hypothetically, like Pakistan. You, you know, it's, it's just rough out there, and we're just gonna have to do what we have to do. And, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll let them know generically we're doing stuff over here in your tribal regions. But, you know, we're not gonna tell you about what we're doing. Now, here's why I think this is important. If there are these two CIA guys doing this, that tells me that this is happening, this is not the only place that they're probably CIA.

[Tommy Vitor]

That's my assumption too.

[Ben Rhodes]

And so it suggests to me that we have moved the war on terror paradigm into Mexico, where you've got on the ground CIA presence. Some of that is partnered with local security forces. Some of that may be freelance, some of that may be coordinated with the government, but that there's a kind of much more active confrontation with drug cartels. Now, now people may say, well, that's Good. We're fighting drug cartels. The war on drugs paradigm and the war on terror paradigm. Neither of them have worked. And so fusing them is a little disconcerting to me. And I feel like I saw this and I thought, you know, and I was saying this to our producer, Ilona, before we recorded, like, we've, like, Mexico dropped off the war list. You know, it's like, well, Cuba, Greenland.

[Tommy Vitor]

Good point.

[Ben Rhodes]

This kind of reminder like this, I think Mexico is going to come up more. And this question of, what are we doing? Are there covert operations happening? Are there CI operations? Could that lead to military action against the cartels directly? And then related to that, what does this mean for Claudia Shanebaum? Because she does not want to have that happen. She's made very clear she doesn't want US Military engagement in her country. And one way to do that is to look the other way and just kind of not pay attention to what the US Government may be doing. But this episode makes that kind of untenable for her because she doesn't want to look feckless. Right. And not in charge. And so it's going to create potential difficulties for her to manage through, too. This is one of those stories you put a pin in and say, I have a feeling we're going to be talking more about Mexico. I have a feeling that there's more happening in Mexico than we're seeing.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. And, like, so far, she's given Trump a lot of concessions. Like, she extradited a bunch of drug leaders for prosecution. She put National Guard troops on the border. I think she slapped a big tariff on the Chinese to be in line with US Tariffs. She cut off oil shipments to Cuba. So, like, she's given Trump a lot of what he wants. But even when there have been major cartel operations, like the takedown of that guy El Mencho that we talked about a while back, Trump's reaction wasn't to praise them necessarily. It was like he got mad at the images of violence and chaos that were on TV afterwards and started demanding that the Mexican authorities do more. So she's like, just in this squeeze. And, you know, there's an interesting piece. I think it was a Wall Street Journal. Had a great profile on her in this moment. And, like, all that she's doing to manage this guy talked about how she has a security meeting at 6am every day, then she does this 7:30am press conference every day, and then just, like, works into the night. Like, she's, like, just grinding and is getting pressured by Trump, but also Getting pressured by President Lopez Obrador, her political benefactor mentor, who is on paper left the scene, is writing a book. But he's pressuring her to break with Trump, to cut deals with China, to cut deals with Canada, demanding more nationalism. And she's met with Trump once, but had nearly 20 phone calls with the guy. So there's clearly all this behind the scenes management happening and a relationship that actually seems genuinely cordial. But as you know, with Trump, you're always one comment away from the thing. Being offended.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, no, she's just trying to manage to it and she's been firm with Trump when she needs to be. I like Claudia Shane Baum a lot. And by the way, Amlo Lopez over to her predecessor, kind of rich for him because he was pretty chummy. Chummy with Trump too. He was like Mr. Fellow Populist. I'm just a leftist populist, but I get it. He's reflecting the kind of left wing nationalism that you would expect from that, that political party in Mexico. I should just say the problem is that this strategy won't work. The drug cartels are deeply entrenched. Trump's not going to defeat them in two and a half years with some CIA operations. And if people know what to do. Ricardo Zuniga has been on with both of us to talk about this. A strategy that far more aggressively just kind of goes after all their money sources. They depend on global financial networks. They have sprawling business empires that go beyond Mexico. They control ports, you know, in different parts of the world. Like, there are other ways trying to shrink the cartels. By the way, you could legalize drugs in this country to kind of take away the revenue that goes that way. I personally favor that. But like you're not. This isn't going to work. Like the peop. The idea that like some CI operations, Mexico's a big country. Like the drug trade is decades established. Like it employs tens of thousands of people. Like, you're not going to beat them with like CIA operation after CIA operation.

[Tommy Vitor]

We're just killing off leaders like the kingpin. Strategies don't seem to work. They create chaos. They create.

[Ben Rhodes]

Look at the Sahel that we just.

[Tommy Vitor]

Stability.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, we killed a lot of terrorists there.

[Tommy Vitor]

You know, Al Qaeda number three down again. Yeah, it doesn't always work. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, you're going to hear Ben's interview about how to fight authoritarianism. We got a playbook for you, so stick around for that.

[King Charles]

Pod.

[Tommy Vitor]

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[Ben Rhodes]

So from our point of view, we're

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[Ben Rhodes]

Okay? I'm very pleased to be joined by two friends of mine. Federica Vinci is a program coordinator and Nick Entepov is a project association associate for Democracy Hub, D Hub, a group that works to counter authoritarianism. They have created an anti authoritarian toolkit which is going to be a resource that activists and political leaders can use to defend against and ultimately overcome autocracies. So we're here to talk about the release of that project that I've had some interface with over the years. Just of a couple, just a couple brief notes about you guys. Federica is also a board member for the Voltaire Foundation. She worked on campaigns. She's increased women's participations in politics. Nick is co founder of makeout, a project on gender, sexuality and anti discrimination in Belarus that empowers the LGBTQ community. There has also been an activist against the authoritarianism in Belarus. And I met you both because you're both also Obama Foundation Europe leaders. So, Nick and Feda, thanks for joining me today.

[Ben Ritz]

Thank you, Ben.

[Maria Bartiromo]

Thank you so much, Ben.

[Ben Rhodes]

So before we get into the toolkit, I do want to just kind of introduce people a bit to your journeys and I guess I'll start with you, Feta. Talk about how did you come to D Hub? How did you take a journey from being kind of a politician to someone who's more in this kind of activist?

[Ben Ritz]

Thanks a lot, Ben. So I still remember the moment in which I realized that authoritarians were organizing all around the world. I was leading a transnational political party. It still exists. It's called Vault. And I remember that at one moment all different authoritarian far right parties were presenting in different countries around Europe, a piece of law that forced women to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus before abortion. And I was shocked because I could see that like in. And they were presenting it in Hungary and then at the same time they were presenting it in Italy and at the same time they were presenting it in Spain and in Portugal and in France. And we on the other side, we were trying to organize a transnational political party, and we didn't even know how to make people talk. People that didn't talk the same language, they didn't speak the same language. And I was like, there must be something here that they are doing that we are not. So while I was thinking about these questions, I was also deputy mayor of my hometown back then. I was doing politics at the local level. I come across D Hub or whatever better D Hub. Nika Kovacs that we both know, comes across me, and she talks to me about these organizations that had as main aim the objective of creating a democratic playbook. So something that people that were fighting for democracy could use and replicate exactly in the same way that authoritarians were doing for their own autocracy. So I thought that this exactly made sense. And when she came to me and she asked me to join D Hub, I was like, look, I felt on my own skin that we needed something like this. And I was really more than happy to join this fight and starting writing, I mean, starting producing and working with those people for the authoritarian. For the authoritarian toolkit.

[Ben Rhodes]

Okay, so, Nick, you had, like, a different experience, I think feta. You describe, well, the kind of. Of awareness of this right wing, far right, authoritarian kind of coordination. Nick, when I met you, you were dealing with a much more kind of visceral form of authoritarianism. Lukashenko, the autocratic leader of Belarus, has cracked down the opposition. You literally had to kind of exile at first to Lithuania. Describe your journey from being in Belarus, running an organization to D Hub.

[Maria Bartiromo]

Yeah, thank you. My journey into the D help. It's a bit different, you know, born in and raised in Minsk and under the regime. Lukashenko, going to schools, washed with all propaganda. Somehow I found this, I don't know, courage and some, I don't know, meaning in a way that something is not right. Something that doesn't make any sense. And obviously, maybe it's connecting with my. With my sexuality and queer identity. I found this idea of liberation inside me. Liberation of my sexuality, liberation of my community, and liberation of my own country. Because back then, I didn't understand how everything is so connected. And the fight for LGBTQ rights, it's also the fight for democracy now, five years later. Yeah, I. I lost kind of. I lost my country. I lost my. Lost my ability to see my loved ones, lost my. Lost my meaning, basically, you know, to. To influence on my community and to try to push it. And living now in Berlin, I kind of realized, especially I realized that that when, especially when Trump started getting into power, people sometimes started talking about, oh my God, this is new new world order. And then I was like, wait, wait a second, is it. Or maybe it's already authoritarian playbook which already was built and actually just transformed in a new wave. So I'm kind of was happy that my journey and my journey of like a small community also in a country which sometimes also overlooked in the big politics, I tried to take all the lessons from all these years of democracy defenders in my region and kind of also share it with my, with my community and community worldwide. So yeah, the D Hub. Now we're creating this authoritarian toolkit which connect all practices in some kind of readable and hands on book and not book. And it's anomaly publication to make sure that we have all the knowledge and all the strategy how to fight back and eventually I hope it will bring my region to democracy.

[Ben Rhodes]

So I've interacted with you guys through D Hub and so people understand essentially you're a network that works with, with small D democracy activists, not just in Europe, but around the world. I mean, it's a global perspective that you're taking on this authoritarian challenge that all three of us have interacted with in our own ways. I've dealt with Trump here in the United States from the perspective of politics and media. Feta, you've been a politician and activist yourself, kind of feeling the rising tide of a certain kind of far right politics in places like Italy. Nick, you had the most firsthand experience of losing, at least for the time being, your country. How do you describe the process by which you put together this anti authoritarian toolkit? Who did you talk to in order to put it together? And I guess to begin FETA with you, can you explain? I want to start pulling out lessons. One that we talked about when I saw you in Costa Rica was putting broccoli in the rice. I like that you guys try to have these, you know, phrases that are punchy and clever but that actually speak to something important. Like how do you get from talking to a bunch of activists to a point like put broccoli in the rice.

[Ben Ritz]

Thanks so much for the question. So basically we, as you were saying, we're activists ourselves and we started from our own people to start understanding what was the ground. So what were we talking about when we were talking about rising authoritarians? What was their playbook? And from people like us and from our own contact, we started to talk with other activists first to understand what was the playbook of authoritarians. And from this the authoritarian playbook was born. But then we didn't want just to give another diagnosis of how the world, the world was working. We really wanted to get into how do we fight them. So we started talking with activists from literally all around the world. We have camera case studies going from Thailand to South Africa to Kenya to Argentina, talking about with them, about what were the different strategies and tactics that allowed them to win possible authoritarians. Also, because here I think it's important to say that we are talking about elected authoritarians, so people that almost fairly win the elections, but then get into power and dismantle the, the institutions of democracy from within. So we needed to understand first, how do we do in order not to have them elected. So how do we win elections? But it was not just about election. It was about building movements. It was about creating an opposition inside different parliaments. So we started talking with people that managed to do it successfully. A good example of this where, for example, our friends in Brazil or our friends in France, where they just, just beat at the far right and the parliamentary elections a couple of years ago. So we started talking with these people and they gave us different strategies and tactics in order to fight back. And one of the strategies and tactics is exactly what you were talking about, which is the strategy of broccoli and rice. So what we do here is that within our volume of digital comms, which I happen to have it here, we talk about several tactics that can fight authoritarians and we have a grand strategy. One of these tactics, for example, is network of influencers. And when we talk about broccoli and rice, we ask these influencers that might talk about several things like makeup or gossips. We ask them to put into their pages some piece and bits of political content in order to start shaping the idea of the people that listen to them and that and that see them on social media in a democratic way. This is a play that authoritarians have developed so well all around the world. An example is Bukele, who has more than 1500 YouTube or Facebook pages that talk about everything and include his politics in his social media. We need to start doing the same. And we wrote it exactly that. How do you do it within your own people, within your own communities, to put broccoli so things that people might not generally like, like politics into the rise. So the nice content about makeup so that you start changing the discourse yourself?

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, no, it's a really important point because after the last election, I mean, this is why we're on a podcast. So it's One of the reasons I brought up this point, after the Democrats lost in 2024, there was this kind of pretty predictable freakout. Oh, Trump won, you know, by going on all these podcasts, you know, Theo Vaughn and Joe Rogan and people like that in the United States. And the Democrats are like, maybe we have to go on the podcast, too. And I think what they missed is, you know, Joe Rogan is a comedian and a UFC commentator. Right? He's not. He didn't start in politics like he started with the rice. The thing that people were attracted to was his kind of curiosity and his background and. And he's funny, they think, or whatever. And then that gives him more credibility. In some ways, politics is downstream from culture, as you would say. When he has a political conversation, he's built up a credibility with the audience. And I think that's an important message for us. Now, this is one of many lessons you have embedded. Nick. I want to ask you, though, to this question of messaging. You know, one of the things that Trump and other authoritarians have done is they kind of talk about a corrupt system, and then they themselves are phenomenally corrupt. You know, and we've seen corruption become, you know, a tool that has worked against authoritarians. It just worked against Viktor Orban in Hungary. What lessons do you take from how corruption can be a way of going on offense against authoritarians? And what other lessons are there about the forms of messaging that can help drive arguments against authoritarians who are kind of trying to control, in some ways, the media space?

[Maria Bartiromo]

Oh, it's a good question. I think, you know, it's also very. I need to point out that the authoritarian populism rises not because people love it, but also because democracy failed to meet their needs. They talking about corruption also because of it. But the problem with the authoritarians, that they changed and yeah, maybe they no longer arrives with tanks and stage coups, but now they build popularity and wins these elections. But the problem with people not realizing that once they elected, they erode democratic institutions, they destroy independent media and concentrate power and weaken civic spaces. So they slowly, like a frog in slowly heater water. By the time you realize it, you are already an autocracy building this toolkit. We wanted to show that the time that. That progressives need to learn also. And sometimes we are also doing wrong when we're talking about democracy. We not need only to defend democracy, but we also need to renew it. These 10 volumes, as Fedeh mentioned, there are two core volumes, the authoritarian Playbooks, which helps identify and understand authoritarian Tactics and democratic playbook which brings together the all best knowledges from all our sector of our toolkit.

[Ben Rhodes]

But

[Maria Bartiromo]

talking about public conversation. Yeah, I think the progressives need to change how they do it in the digital environments because the authoritarians actually they are the first ones who understand these spaces and they have clear advantages. Like Bukele as mentioned in El Salvador or even Orban in Hungary. But he lost. Yeah, I mean this is influence no longer works through the single message or messengers, but the. Through ecosystems. And this is what we did in our. Actually it's mentioned in our authoritarian playbook that we need to put a broccoli into rice or working with, working with influencers. This has to be renewed and the. Our message needs to be also simple. We need to stop being very preachy. Yeah, so that's my, that's my thought about the changes.

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, and Federer, what do you take? I mean there's a lot in here. What would you want to highlight for people as some of the key learnings that you're seeking to kind of spread to other like minded people?

[Ben Ritz]

People are asking us whether we want a different way of doing politics. And this is what we're thinking about when we talk about the authority, the anti authoritarian toolkit. So we are bringing new practices into what has been hold and talking about several lessons that can be learned. First of all, as Nick was saying is how do we manage digital communication? So we were talking about putting broccoli in the rice, but this is not the only thing. We need to, for example, have networks of influencers, change the way in which we talk about politics. Come and talk about real values. You were talking about corruption before. Ben, there is one thing really important that I want to say about corruption. Authoritarians use corruptions as their main enemy from the other side. So when they're discovered as the corrupted one, this is the moment in which they start losing. One of the things that we have to do is exactly exposing this corruption and see how the moral authority from which they're coming to expose the other side as corrupted. It's actually the one that is breaking them because they're not. And an example that you were giving about Maggier and Orban. Well, Magyar won. Exactly. Because he managed not only to expose this corruption, but also to go on the ground. And he visited like more than a thousand little places during his own campaign so that while he was attacking on the other side, he was meeting people one by one and building a vision. This is another thing that we have seen in several campaigns that really worked like the Mandami campaign, we're not talking just about exposing what is wrong from these authoritarians. We are also giving people a vision of what is it, that word that we would want and that we would like. So all of this together with working with the whole digital ecosystem and what I mean by that, we generally think that democracy is protected either by politicians, either by journalists, either by civil society. What we say here is that we. What we say here is that we don't have. Those are not three words that work separately. We need to put together the whole democratic ecosystem that is built on these different pillars and make and let them work in a way that they support each other. We have one, one whole volume and place on how the political side can actually work and collaborate with civil societies and journalists in order not only to win campaign, but to expose corruption, to expose the authoritarian place and so be stronger together. This is, I think, something new that we have, that we have seen with all our researches and interviews, that it is the moment in which we have the whole democratic system working together that we can actually win. And every. Anything can be found in our website, antiauthoritarian.com. so if anyone listening to us is interested, you can just go and give a look to what we're putting up [e-mail] and so you've got, I mean,

[Ben Rhodes]

just to pull out the things we've talked about. You know, the idea of building networks of influencers, the idea of engaging people on the things that they're interested and then working your way into politics. That's the broccoli into rice. The need to spotlight corruption, to kind of turn the tables on the authoritarians. The need to show up everywhere, like you said Magyar did, to get out into the field, to go to places maybe that progressives haven't been showing up before. Nick, are there any lessons that you want to add to that from the work that you've done about how do you mobilize people, how do you get people out to actually vote? And also one other thing that you guys have is examples of where this worked. Are there case studies? Are there places. You know, Fede mentioned Mamdani in New York, we've talked about Hungary. Are there places that you would spotlight where we can learn from progressive successes against authoritarians?

[Maria Bartiromo]

Of course, the whole toolkit is designed to be adapted. Yeah, we always say that. Take that works for you, adapt the rest and use in whatever you are. So I wanted to, you know, when I just wanted to amplify. This is the huge of work which was done by not only by the D Hub but democracy defender worldwide. Because we spent almost two years and talk with doing like 100 interviews with the people, like real people who was fighting for democracy, who fought or who lost in their battles. And we really wanted to create some kind of. Of not a publication, this is not a publication. It's a hands on resource designed to be used by the people. Right now. I cannot say right now that there is something which we can work for instance in United States or it was what's with the best what works in Hungary or in Poland. But this, but the thing is like people can connect. We are as progressives sometimes losing the hope that we can win and we finally have something which can help us to continue. I, coming from the background when I I don't need a hope. I always say that I don't need a hope to continue to fight and to resist. This is what I was taking from the queer community in Belarus because we were existing before this concept of hope. So now I think when we have this material which can be used and implemented in different societies or different regions, that's kind of impressive. This is what we, this is what we wanted to do. And also this is like non stop process. This is like the toolkit will be updated. The toolkit will be like we will be updating through our website. It's a podcast, it's our video, it's everything.

[Ben Rhodes]

So Fede, just to give you the last word here, what do you think about. I take Nick's point that essentially what you have is a, a bunch of different ideas taken from around the world. Here are some strategies and tactics that have worked that might be either replicated or adapted to other places. So I take your point, Nick, that it's not going to be exactly what happened in Hungary or New York City is going to work in Italy for instance, but that there are lessons you can take and then apply and that just there's something empowering about the sharing that you're doing in that regard. Do you, when you look around the world the last couple of years, the time you were working on this, where did you see Democratic campaigns? And I don't mean the Democratic Party in the US or Italy for that matter. I mean you know, small D Democratic campaigns. Where do you see the most innovative strategies that we can be learning from in the battles to come?

[Ben Ritz]

Let me add something on exactly that. Not only the most interesting strategies, but what ATK is needed for. So as Nick was saying, as you were underlying, we cannot take Plays and exactly use them in one country. But I give you a very specific example of a play that I thought was extremely interesting. And now people like me in my own country, or a person, one of the people that wrote to the antidote toolkit Augustinus Wright is using in his country is the play of distributed organizing. So this was a play that was developed from one of our friends, Saradurio, in France, right before the parliamentary elections in France a couple of years ago. So Macron calls for elections three weeks before the actual elections. So people didn't really have the time to organize around the elections and understand what they could do. So what they did is that all of these people came up into a zoom call and they started organizing in order to have a get out the vote campaign and also to understand who they had to move in terms of candidates to allow for the Front national not to win. And so what they developed was like a central team that was very, very small and that was not controlling, but this central team was basically managing the communication of what is it that they can communicate to people that it's going to work and then share the messages with thousands of organizations, influencers, people that could actually move the base and so that this message could get to a wider public as possible in a way that was not coordinated. I mean, that was coordinated, sorry, but that was not controlled. So the main part of the message was there was developed by a central team. But then everybody from influencers to organizations could adopt this message and communicate it in the best way that they needed to in order to reach their own target. And in this way they managed to do these two things, develop a huge GOTV campaign that allowed them to not have the Front national and so the far right party in France win, but also to then have a massive influence on candidates. So which were the candidates that needed to go down in order for have at the local level, let's predict this in order not to have Front Nacional win. And they, they did it. And so now what we're trying to do here in different countries for elections that are coming, it's sort of like replicating the same play, but in a more organized way. So we are adapting this play and we're trying to put together from now influencers, civil societies, journalists that want to have a specific talks, they want to have specific talk topics to talk about for the elections and then have a GOTV campaign run on these topics that will be supported, or we hope are going to be supported by, by center left party slash Democratic parties that go against the Far right. So what we did here was taking the example of what we used, what was used in France and worked, reimagined, wrote it in the AATK into the anti authoritarian toolkit as a play, so a tactic. And then now activists like me are taking it, changing it, and adapting to their own national country context. And this is just one idea, but on antiauthoritarian.com people are going to find 10 volumes on 10 different topics, all of them with place and more than 150 cases of what worked in different countries and literally and how to. So how can you do display from one to seven steps, including tips to make it work in your own context? So the idea is that really this is something live. We want people to take it, use it, make mistakes, but at least try and have something from scratch, like from, to start from. Because I remember that as an activist it was really hard because you had no idea from where you had to start. And now at least we have something that tell us those are the things that are working around the world. You can take it, you can change them, you can use them. This is what we're looking for.

[Ben Rhodes]

Yeah, no, I think the distributed organizing is an important point. And I mean, it resonates here in the United States because I think Democrats sometimes are trying to figure out the perfect set of talking points or the one message that's going to work across the country, or are we moving to the left or to the center. But the idea is if you have some core arguments and core values and core anti authoritarian messages, like, you know, Trump is wildly corrupt and is actually looting the government for his own purposes, not trying to fix a corrupt system, that you then allow for a coordinated dissemination of that messaging that, you know, Zohra Mamdani is gonna have one message in New York City, but James Talarico is gonna have a different version of that message in Texas. There'll be a common DNA, but there'll be this distributed organizing where it's different in different parts of the country. And that's kind of part of what needs to happen around the world. I mean, just to wrap this up, I'd just say the main thing is that there needs to be coordination among politicians, activists, civil society, even sometimes journalists, as you say, independent journalists, but also just among like minded people around the world, because the far right has been very networked, very coordinated. You guys have experienced that in your own lives and work. We're all experiencing that around the world. This is a starting point for trying to create a kind of living resource for people. So again, we'll put this in the show notes. I encourage people to check out the anti authoritarian playbook, the Toolkit and D Hub in general. So Nick and Federica, thanks so much for the work you've done on this and for joining us today.

[Ben Ritz]

Thank you Ben for having us.

[Maria Bartiromo]

Thank you so much.

[Tommy Vitor]

Thanks to Nick and Federica for coming on the show and we'll talk to you guys soon. Pod Save the World is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Alone in the Minkowski. Our producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our associate producer is Anisha Banerjee. We get production support from Saul Rubin. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes. The show is engineered, mixed and edited by Jordan Kanter Audio support by Charlotte Landis thank you to our digital team, Ben Hethcote, Mia Kelman, William Jones, David Toles and Ryan Young. Matt de Groat is our Head of production. Adrian Hill is our Senior Vice President of News and Politics. If you want to listen to Pod Save the World ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events. Please subscribe to Pod Save the world on YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and much more. If you're opinionated like us, leave a review. Our production staff is proudly unionized by the Writers Guild of America East SA.