Ben Rhodes (1:56)

This is the museum. My membership. I got my very nice my membership T shirt. I didn't. I do not get invited to the Met gala, but I do get a T shirt.

Tommy Vietor (2:03)

I wonder what it takes to get invited to that. You just have to be on somebody's list, right?

Ben Rhodes (2:07)

We're definitely not on this list.

Tommy Vietor (2:08)

No. No. Isn't it like some. It's someone famous, right?

Ben Rhodes (2:11)

Ana Wintour.

Tommy Vietor (2:12)

Thank you.

Ben Rhodes (2:13)

Yeah, yeah.

Tommy Vietor (2:14)

No, not on our radar.

Ben Rhodes (2:15)

Stream. Not on our radar.

Tommy Vietor (2:17)

Well, welcome back. Ben was just in London town.

Ben Rhodes (2:19)

I was.

Tommy Vietor (2:20)

Did you see. Did you see anybody? Anybody fun over There.

Ben Rhodes (2:24)

I mean, I went to the Albee's, which is the Georgia and Amal Clooney's annual dinner honoring various people who did great things. And there are people there who go to the Met gala. I was not one of them.

Tommy Vietor (2:38)

And get sanctioned by the US Government possibly for caring about international law.

Ben Rhodes (2:42)

Let's hope that's not the case.

Tommy Vietor (2:43)

Yeah, let's hope that's not the way.

Ben Rhodes (2:45)

Yes. But it was, it was, it was nice to be over there. Although there was like a, like a scary feeling of kind of 2022 vibes as we've talked about, like labor's kind of. Oh, yeah, like running back the old Biden playbook of defeating far right extremism. So hopefully they figured out as like.

Tommy Vietor (3:04)

Tommy Robinson's rampaging through the street with 120,000 people. Exactly. Yeah. It's not great. Well, welcome back. Good to see ya. And we had a great show for you guys today. We're going to talk about these growing signs that the United States is barreling towards a war with Venezuela and why no one really seems to be talking about it.

Ben Rhodes (3:21)

Just here on pods of the world. This is why you gotta, you know, smash that subscribe button.

Tommy Vietor (3:25)

It's crazy.

Ben Rhodes (3:26)

So you're ready for the war.

Tommy Vietor (3:27)

We're gonna talk about Hamas's response to President Trump's peace deal and then Trump's response to the Hamas response and how it humiliated Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. But then what comes next? We're also going to talk about Israel's treatment of activists who are arrested trying to enter Gaza on a flotilla. Trump's surprising executive order announcing a security guarantee for Katsu Qatar backed by the US military will explain how a bunch of Trump supporters want to turn the US Into El Salvador. The latest on Russia's drone incursions into Europe and how the so called Russian shadow fleet is involved. There was a blackout in Afghanistan that was really weird and worth noting. And then a rock concert in Argentina that will likely make us cringe. Ben. Then you're going to hear my interview with our old friend and colleague, Mike Frohman.

Ben Rhodes (4:11)

Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (4:12)

He is now the President of the Council on Foreign Relations. He's an expert in international economics, trade, all of the above. We talk about what the hell is Trump's trade policy. Like how many ever many months after Liberation Day, what he's doing with China. And then Mike, why? Mike believes that basically the international trade system as we know it is dead and what should come next. So good talking to him.

Ben Rhodes (4:34)

Curious to figure out What Trump's trade policy is, if he can help us do that, that'd be great.

Tommy Vietor (4:40)

Yeah, that was basically my question to him is like, I no longer know. You know, we were going to do. It was going to be like tariff palooza. Then 90 deals in 90 days, and now it's just like, I don't know anymore.

Ben Rhodes (4:48)

It's just kind of impulse control. It's kind of like, I'm mad at Brazil. Tariff you. I'm mad at India tariff you. I, you know, I heard this from somebody at Mar A Lago at the, you know, line for the men's restroom. And so someone's getting tariffed. You know, it's very strange.

Tommy Vietor (5:03)

Very, very strange. Okay, well, we are going to start today's show in South America because it does feel like we are barreling towards this regime change, war with Venezuela, and it's just not getting enough attention. So I'll try to quickly sum up the context that has everybody so concerned or us so concerned. As we've discussed, the United States just keeps blowing up boats that the Trump administration claims are being driven by narco terrorists off the coast of Venezuela. Basically, they're calling them drug runners. We have know of at least four strikes so far that have killed at least 21 people. To facilitate those extrajudicial murders, the US has moved a ton of military assets to the Caribbean that includes thousands of US US military personnel. Eight Navy ships, nuclear powered sub, three guided missile destroyers. They also sent a bunch of F35s to Puerto Rico. And then last week, the Trump administration informed Congress that the U.S. is in quote, armed conflict with drug cartels that the Trump administration has labeled as terrorist organizations. The administration calls suspected drug smugglers unlawful combatants and argues that it's okay to kill them. Basically, they're saying that the drug cartels are waging war on the US by bringing drugs here and therefore it's okay for the US Military to, to kill them. It is totally unprecedented. It is an absurd argument. More on that in a second. But in an address for the Navy's 250th anniversary at Naval Station Norfolk on Sunday, Trump bragged about the latest strike on one of these boats and then threatened to go even further. Let's listen.

Donald Trump (6:30)

The Navy has supported our mission to blow the cartel terrorists the hell out of the water. You see that every one of those boats is responsible for the death of, of 25,000American people and the destruction of families. So when you think of it that way, what we're doing is actually an act of Kindness. But we did another one last night. Now we just can't find any. You know, it's the old story, we're so good at it, that there are no boats, in fact, even fishing boats. Nobody wants to go into the water anymore. Sorry to tell you that they're not coming in by sea anymore. So now we'll have to start looking about the land because they'll be forced to go by land. And let me tell you right now, that's not going to work out well for them either.

Tommy Vietor (7:13)

Hear that, mission creep? I do. So, in previous episodes, we've talked about reports that the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio.

Ben Rhodes (7:22)

And archivists.

Tommy Vietor (7:22)

And archivists is pushing hard for regime change into Venezuela and to topple President Maduro, who we were the first one to admit is a tyrant and a bad guy. And still the last election. But that doesn't mean regime change.

Ben Rhodes (7:34)

A lot of bad guys out there.

Tommy Vietor (7:35)

Yeah. For a while, it seemed like there was a surprising voice of reason in the administration named Rick Grenell. Grinnell is a very caustic individual. He's kind of a Twitter troll come to life. Life who has one of those vague special envoy roles and had been reportedly.

Ben Rhodes (7:49)

And executive director of the Kennedy center.

Tommy Vietor (7:50)

And the Kennedy center and had been using that position to just have a dialogue with Maduro's regime, hopefully create an off ramp short of war. But then on Monday, the New York Times reported that Trump ordered Grinnell to stand down and stop his diplomatic outreach to Venezuela. So there goes that. So, in short, the White House has constructed a secret legal rationale that they believe authorizes airstrikes against cartels and cartel members. They have asserted that Nicolas Maduro is himself a cartel leader. So if you follow that logic train, it would seem to justify the US Military killing Nicolas Maduro himself. Pretty alarming. But, Ben, I didn't see a lot of Democrats sounding the alarm about this until Tuesday when the House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats finally tweeted, quote, trump and Rubio are pushing for regime change in Venezuela. The American people don't want another war. And. And Congress can't let any president start one illegally or unilaterally. That's not how the Constitution works. Glad they said that. But, Ben, like, what's your level of concern about all of this growing momentum towards whatever that Trump just outlined there is?

Ben Rhodes (8:51)

My concern is very high. And you just feel this steady build. I mean, first of all, we should say it certainly feels like there could be innocent people have been blown up on these boats. We get no information about who these people are, what the basis is for blowing these boats out of the water. What Trump said there is complete and utter bullshit. You know, one speedboat is not going to kill 25,000 people. Their legal rationale is also complete bullshit. They're describing people on these boats as unlawful combatants. At worst, they're drug dealers. And that's a really bad thing to be. But that's different than being a combatant. That's the language of war. That is saying that they're a legitimate military target. And if you're defining Maduro as the head of a cartel, you're defining him as a combatant potentially. And look, we should also say that under that logic, anybody selling drugs could just be killed. You know, it's a similar logic to like a policeman just shooting someone on the corner who's selling whatever, you know, so that's scary. But I also think that this accomplishes a lot of different objectives. Right. And we can break down the different personalities Rubio desperately wants as part of his political identity. I think the price of his soul is he wants to overthrow the Venezuelan and Cuban governments. He's always wanted to do that. I think he's, as I said on the previous podcast, very credulous of these Venezuelan opposition guys who come to him and say, it's all set, we have the plan. I mean, this happened last time. So that's Rubio's interest. I think Stephen Miller, who's been behind this too, likes the idea of how much power Trump could claim. If there's a war, you know, that that leads to more. He's already used the war with Trende Aragua to justify deportations. Who knows what other authorities he could claim if Trump is a so called war President Trump likes the power that comes from the war. He also likes the fact that there's a lot of oil in Venezuela and I think he wants to get his hands on that oil.

Tommy Vietor (10:50)

Yep.

Ben Rhodes (10:51)

Grinnell was trying to do that through a deal, but, you know, Trump has clearly been persuaded. Maybe we can just try to take this oil. And there's also like some weird Republican Party DNA. Tommy, I was thinking about this as we're getting ready today. You know, Ronald Reagan, when he was on the back foot in like 83, remember he invaded Grenada. So for some of the younger listeners, this was a totally trumped up invasion. There was a kind of left wing government that had taken over Grenada, and Reagan, with not much legal basis whatsoever, invaded that country, said he was coming to the aid of like a Few hundred American medical students there and was this big flex and seemed real nice and easy. Then George H.W. bush invades Panama because he said Manuel Noriega was then the leader of Panama, but also the leader of a cartel. And they literally arrested him, put him in prison. Now, difference being Grenada is a small island, Caribbean state. Panama's, like much small. Venezuela is a big military dictatorship, you know, and giant.

Tommy Vietor (11:50)

Like, geographically, it's the size of Germany and France combined.

Ben Rhodes (11:53)

That's right. So I think these guys are talking themselves into something being easy. I don't know what the thing is, whether it's just bombing Venezuela, whether it's like some coup, whether it's some kind of opposition scheme that they'll get behind, or whether it's just like a full scale regime change military operation. But it definitely feels like we're under ramp to something other than just boats. And that, by the way, that Time story you flagged, if you read between the lines, it was like they were warning us. Yeah, big time. Grinnell's effort at negotiation has been terminated. You know, and all that's left now is this stepladder to escalation.

Tommy Vietor (12:30)

And it's like, what possible reason would you just terminate one, like, channel of dialogue? It doesn't make any sense. There's no rationale for that. Yeah, Ben, I was talking to a couple Venezuela policy experts today, just kind of like get a gut check on how worried they are about this. And first of all, it's just worth noting, like, it sounds like Trump really did want to take out Maduro in his first term and genuinely wants Venezuela's oil. And he was sort of talked out of it by the Pentagon and by Latin American leaders. But a lot of the same voices that would have talked him out of that kind of thing in the first term are now gone. They outlined for me kind of a range of options or things we might see. Like, the least worrisome way to explain what's happening is that this is really just about, like, the designations of the cartels. And Maduro is really about laying down a legal argument that the US Is being invaded by Venezuela and trying to justify invoking the Alien Enemies Act. So it's like a continuation of the legal fight that you're seeing from Stephen Miller and others. And it's battling out in the courts. The kind of next rung up the escalatory ladder could be naming Venezuela to be a state sponsor of terror and putting them on the SST list, which would lead to a bunch of very strong sanctions and penalties. That I think would lead to another mass migration out of Venezuela potentially. Then you could see a scenario where, you know, you've got the CIA maybe selling Marco Rubio on some sort of COVID action to topple Maduro. And we know like Rubio, as the head of the intelligence committee in the Senate, would have been briefed on these kinds of operations. But like, God help us if he wants the sticks, you know, and he wants to kind of run one himself. And then there's just a whole range of direct military action that we could see that could go from bombing a cartel target in eastern Venezuela to a leftist guerrilla group like the ELN in other parts of Venezuela. Or maybe you start going after Venezuelan military targets like radar or air defense systems, etc. And then the final, like, boss of insane ideas is a US Military invasion of Venezuela, which, as you just said, like, Venezuela is massive. This, it's a crazy idea. The US Military could never occupy Venezuela. We would never want to. And as you also pointed out, like, a lot of this is being driven by well connected wealthy opposition groups and individuals. It's by Trump's desire to get Venezuela's oil, it's by Rubio's politics and his presidential ambitions. But like, the, the people that historically have not felt like this was a good idea are the U.S. intelligence community. Like, they felt like regime change would not end well, that, you know, maybe you could depose Maduro, but then you're going to get some, the next general up. It's not going to be some like, benevolent group of pro democracy generals that transition the country to democracy. No, there's like a bunch of powerful factions, especially the military. They will cling to power for dear life because they are corrupt and they know they will get like purged and prosecuted if they're pushed out of there. So it's just, it's just, I don't want to sound alarmist, but it's hard to see a version of this plan that, that ends well for anybody.

Ben Rhodes (15:24)

Yeah, I mean, another group of people that think this is a terrible idea are like all the other countries in Latin America, most of whom don't like Maduro. You know, I think another thing that's really important to, to drive home to people because we live in such a distorted reality is that Venezuela is not a particularly large source of illegal drugs coming to the United States. Right, Right. So another reason this is fishy is that the pretext is not true. Right. Fentanyl is not coming from Venezuela. It's mainly coming from precursors from China. To Mexico, Mexico, Colombia are bigger sources of drugs coming to the United States. Peru and Ecuador have major ports of exit, by the way. I'm not blaming all those governments either. It's just cartels are very active in those places. And sure, like Venezuela's engaged in this a bit, but they're just nowhere near like the main issue when it comes to drugs. So Trump is spinning a story that is just wildly out of proportion to the underlying challenge. Right. I mean, they're oil rich, like, they don't need to become a narco state, you know, and this is the other problem is that there's no. You mentioned these day after scenarios. I just can't for the life of me think of what the clean scenario is here, but may be that Trump doesn't give a shit, you know, if there's just this kind of failed state, you know, with lots of violence. Because to your point, like the Venezuelan opposition, we should say, includes like some very courageous people. But the challenge is they have a lot of interest in saying, hey, this will be easy and like, we're ready to step in and govern. But as you said, like, the military is not going to relinquish control of this illicit economy that has got its grip into. The military is not going to want to face accountability for their own human rights violations. You've got millions of Venezuelans are out of the country who are some of the people that are more kind of aligned with the opposition. So I see no way in which this escalation is clean. It's going to exacerbate an already terrible humanitarian circumstance because of their own mismanagement, because of U.S. sanctions. And look, it just plays into this. I also worry about it kind of normalizing the use of military force in Latin America generally, because we know Trump's talked about the Panama Canal, we know he's talked about strikes in Mexico, obviously Greenland's up in North America. But I kind of feel like Trump looks at Latin America like Putin looks at the former Soviet Union. Oh, yeah, definitely. And we should just kind of be able to go down there and this is how things were a lot in the past and knock over governments that never ended. Well, it usually ended in chaos or a right wing dictatorship or a swing to a left wing revolution, death squads. You know, this is not a movie we want to repeat and we seem to be slow walking into it. And just because it's not, you know, the headline issue of Ukraine or Gaza or shutdown or what have you, this could be one of the things that catches us by surprise, as you know, the beginning of something pretty nefarious in the Trump era.

Tommy Vietor (18:29)

Yeah. And there's some reporting in the Guardian that Stephen Miller is, like, running the strikes on the Venezuela boats via his, like, leadership of the Homeland Security Council. And, you know, I was talking to someone who. Who pointed out that the first boat that these guys targeted, the US Military blew up, was straight up murder. Like, it's almost certainly. Remember that boat was the one that was off the coast of Venezuela.

Ben Rhodes (18:50)

Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (18:50)

It spotted the US Plane tracking them. It turned around, and then they struck it anyway. And then there were survivors, and then they took another pass and they struck the boat again. And there were so many people on the boat that there might have been drugs on there, but, like, experts think that there was almost certainly migrants on that boat as well.

Ben Rhodes (19:08)

Yeah. If you're smuggling drugs, you don't have, like, a whole bunch of people on the boat, 15 people, you're trying to get the fucking drugs on the boat. You know, not that I have any experience in this, but I actually do have experience, weirdly, we struck a deal with the Cubans to, like, jointly interdict, you know, drug shipments, because they don't like drugs either there. You know, I mean, so this is, like, not hard to interdict these boats. Trump is making this big point of that. It's some kind of deterrent, but that's kind of not how the drugs get here. Right. They mainly come up via land. I mean, some of them come. First of all, more of the boats come from. We've talked about it, like, Ecuador. Right. So not suggesting we should blow up boats there either, but the main route of drugs in the United States.

Tommy Vietor (19:51)

Right. The solution is not addressing the problem.

Ben Rhodes (19:53)

No. And it's a drop in the bucket. Even if he stopped all boat traffic from Venezuela, like, that's just not the fentanyl that's coming across the Mexican border. That's not the drugs he's saying he wants to stop. Which makes you think there's another agenda here, which is Rubio's ideological agenda, Miller's power agenda, Trump's oil agenda, and this lack of pushback, by the way, particularly from Democrats, because, you know, sometimes they're afraid, oh, I don't want to be seen to be defending Maduro. We heard the same stuff about Saddam Hussein. Right. Oh, I don't want to look like I'm standing up for Saddam Hussein by opposing the Iraq war. Or there's, like, some hardliners down in Florida and there's, like, what, one congressional seat?

Tommy Vietor (20:28)

Exactly.

Ben Rhodes (20:28)

Yeah. I mean, just fucking forget it, man.

Tommy Vietor (20:30)

Crazy.

Ben Rhodes (20:30)

Be against this war. Be against the illegality of it. Be against the fact that it breaks his promises, against forever wars. Like, be against the fact that this is not even solving the fucking problem of fentanyl that he said he would solve. This is the wrong thing to be doing.

Tommy Vietor (20:44)

And there's no legal authorization. No matter how many executive orders they put out. It's all made up. Ponzi of the World is brought to you by Naked Wines. Life's real busy these days. Pretty intense. A lot going on at work, A lot of kids at home got this podcast thing we do. Thankfully, John, a shipment from Naked Wines showed up the other day and that made me feel a lot better. I bet it did. This podcast is sponsored by Naked Wines. It's a Naked Wines, a wine club that directly connects you to the world's best independent winemakers. You can get world class wine delivered straight to your door. Use the code world for the code and password@nakedwines.com and get $100 off your first order. That's six bottles for just $39.99. Now look, I've done in my day a bunch of kind of wine club options. I've never had more hits in one box than the one I got from Naked Wines. It was an all Sauvignon Blanc box. Literally every single wine was not just good, it was really good, quite excellent. I enjoyed my box as well. And I don't know how they do it. They bring you amazing wine straight from the winery at up to 60% less than what you would pay in the store. They cut out extra costs like the middlemen markups, and winemakers can pass those savings onto you without skimping on quality. And I have to say again, the quality was excellent. The wines are great, the price is right, and this is an amazing deal. Six bottles for $39.99. Now is the time to join the Naked Wines community. Head to nakedwines.com world, click enter voucher and put in my code world for both the code and password. For just $100 off your first order, that's 6 bottles for only $39.99 with shipping included. That's $100 off your first 6 bottles@nakedwines.com World and use the code World and Password World for 6 bottles of wine and for $39.99.

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Tommy Vietor (23:02)

Okay, next big issue. So we're recording this on the two year anniversary of the October 7th attacks. That day was obviously horrific. And then the last two years, I think for me personally have been so much worse than I ever could have imagined in the days following October 7th, even though I think we all knew it was going to be really bad. I mean, in fact, that like, we're two years into the war and it's still as brutal as it is. It's just like ungodly awful. The good news is there were some signs of hope last week. On Friday, Hamas responded to Trump's 20 point peace plan with an extremely qualified yes. It was essentially they said, yes, we will release the hostages if that release achieves an end to the war and the full IDF withdrawal from Gaza. Hamas said, yes, we will hand over administration of the Gaza Strip to Palestinian technocrats as long as they get, you know, support from the requisite Palestinian and Arab groups. And, and then Hamas basically just ignored the rest of Trump's 20 point plan, saying, like, we're happy to talk about it. Let's have a, let's have a meeting. And Trump interestingly decided to celebrate that response and run with Hamas's qualified response. And now the two sides are in Egypt conducting talks, so we'll see how those go.

Ben Rhodes (24:07)

Jared Kushner with Jared Kushner.

Tommy Vietor (24:08)

I think Jared and Witkoff might be on their way. Yeah. So Al Jazeera reported that the first day was positive.

Ben Rhodes (24:13)

Dumb and dumber over there.

Tommy Vietor (24:14)

Hopefully that continues for Hamas. The talks are being led by Khalil Haya, who the Israelis tried to assassinate in Doha last month. That must be a little awkward in the, in the lunchroom. As you mentioned, Wyckoff, the golf buddy turned envoy, is heading to Egypt soon. Jared Kushner is going to join him because why not add a little dash of nepotism and a little dash of conflict of interest there? I remember Jared, I think, is sitting on $5.4 billion worth of Saudi, Emirati and Qatari money that he's vacuuming up. So in a statement on Friday, it's worth pointing out that Trump demanded that Israel immediately stop bombing Gaza. That has not happened. Military operations are ongoing. I think the IDF frames it as like, defensive operations versus offensive, but in practice, it's still killing people. Doesn't matter. Ben, let's just pause there. So I talked with our buddy Matt Duss about these developments last Friday, like just a couple hours after the Hamas announcement. Everyone can check that out on the Pod save the world YouTube and please subscribe to Pod Save the World on YouTube because we're doing lots of breaking new stuff. You were in the UK at the time and fast asleep. So this is your first chance to weigh in. I mean, I chose to be hopeful because the alternative is so grim. But I'm also clear eyed that none of the details have been worked out or really agreed to. And that basically, like, success or failure will be determined by how willing Trump is to focus and actually make Netanyahu do some hard things. But what was your reaction after a couple days of consuming news about this?

Ben Rhodes (25:39)

Yeah, I think, look, this is the closest it feels like we've been to a ceasefire and a hostage release, presumably in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a halt to the fighting that allows aid in. It's the closest we've been to that since the last ceasefire fell apart. And so that is obviously positive. If they're able to get that done, there'd be tremendous relief for the hostages and their families. There'd be tremendous relief for the people of Gaza if the bombing actually stops and food and other aid gets in. My optimism, my cautious optimism ends there completely. I do not buy the rest of this plan. I don't think Trump is invested in it enough to put the pressure that will be required on Israel in particular to stick to this plan. I see a million ways in which after the hostages are out, the Israelis kind of pocket that and find some pretext to just resume what they were doing. Hamas has not. The part that they've been ambiguous about is that part that calls for them to disarm. So how we're going to get from that initial ceasefire and hostage release to Palestinian technocrats running Gaza with a board that includes Tony Blair and some Trump buddies, I just don't buy that second part, you know, I don't know. And so I don't want to diminish the achievement of if they get the hostages out and get some aid in, that's great. And by the way, that's more than like Joe Biden was able to do. Cuz frankly, Trump seems to be occasionally putting more pressure on. But Trump's pressure on Netanyahu is very episodic. Like, he decides he wants to do something probably because, like, the Nobel Peace Prize deadline's coming up and he wants the big show. And I think what Netanyahu knows is, hey, look, well, I'll have to appease Trump on this one. Maybe I can get the hostages out, lower some of the political temperature at home on that. But I really care about my far right, and frankly, I agree with my far right that we want to stay in Gaza and probably occupy Gaza and probably kick all the people out of Gaza. And so I just, I would urge people, not because I'm being pessimistic, but because I think I'm being realistic, that even if we do see this happen to, to be very careful about thinking that now this 20 point plan is going into force, there's a lot of things that could fucking derail this thing.

Tommy Vietor (28:03)

That's right, because neither side actually agreed to the full 20 point plan. Netanyahu didn't. I mean, it's like I'm torn on it too, because, like, the details matter of these kind of plans. Again, we listen to people that have been through like the Northern Ireland process or in the Balkans, like, the details really matter. Both sides need assurances that the other side will actually go through with whatever the process and sequencing is to get to the next step. But also you want some strategic ambiguity in whatever is agreed to that allows both sides to kind of do politics and like tell their supporters they got what they wanted out of it. It just seems like the strategic ambiguity. We're a little too heavy on the strategic ambiguity in this thing because it's just like 20 bullets. Yeah, there's not, there's not a lot of details to this thing. And I'm with you, like, there's no chance that like, whatever process is happening now is like, gets you to step 20, which is like conversations about a Palestinian state.

Ben Rhodes (28:52)

Yeah. And look, those are actually interesting parallels because if the example in the Balkans was Serbia, Kosovo and Kosovo, if Kosovo is kind of the Gaza in this situation, well, Serbia was bombed into submission. Accepting the reality that Kosovo is de facto going to be independent, we're not going to put that kind of pressure on Israel, obviously. And in Northern Ireland, the Labour government, the UK government, genuinely really wanted a deal that resolved everything. And Israel doesn't, Israel does not want that. And so the only way that you're gonna get to 20 points is if you put like, sustained, meaningful pressure on the Israeli government while making sustained investment in an alternative Palestinian leadership to Hamas. And I just don't see this crowd having the kind of patience and political will to do either of those things. So maybe they get the first step. That's better than not getting the first step. But I would be very cautious about seeing this as a sustainable peace deal. If I'm proven wrong, that's great. But let's, you know, Trump always, I saw him say the other day he's ending a 3,000 year war. First of all, I don't know what he's talking about. But second of all, like, he's not, he's potentially in a very good way getting hostages out and getting aid in.

Tommy Vietor (30:10)

Yeah.

Ben Rhodes (30:10)

But let's be cautious. We've been, we've seen this movie before, by the way. Happened nine months ago. And this could be another version of that.

Tommy Vietor (30:16)

Yeah, the best I'm sort of hoping for is hostages out, aid in the end of the bombardment and war in Gaza permanently. Maybe some sort of IDF withdrawal like that. That, that would be, I'll take away.

Ben Rhodes (30:26)

More than I think. Yeah, that would be a huge win.

Tommy Vietor (30:28)

The other sort of big things happening then is in previous episodes we've talked about the Global Samud Flotilla, which is this group of ships headed towards Gaza to try to break the blockade of Gaza and deliver a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid, but really just raise awareness about what's happening there. That flotilla has had a rough ride. First, they were attacked by drones off the coast of Tunisia. The, the drones dropped some sort of incendiary or explosive device on several of these ships. CBS News reported last week that the drone attack was ordered by Benjamin Netanyahu himself, the Israeli Prime Minister, and that the drones were launched from an Israeli submarine. Seems like a crazy use of a scarce, highly advanced military resource. But I think it sort of tells you a lot about their fear of the PR that could come from these sort of flotilla operations. But then this week, Bend the flotilla was finally intercepted by the Israeli navy as it was trying to actually get to shore. About 450 people were taken into custody and thrown in jail. Many have since been deported, including Greta Thunberg, as well as 21Americans. Those Americans include a guy named Californian named David Adler, who Crooked Media's Matt Berg was talking to as the Israelis surrounded his boat. Adler was deported to Jordan on Tuesday. Here's how he described his experience in Israel in an Israeli prison to Zateo News.

David Adler (31:46)

Over the course of five days, we were systematically denied our most basic rights. I'm talking about food and water and life saving medicines like insulin. We wanted to speak to our lawyers, which was like the Most basic. And we're basically told this isn't a prison. Like you're, you don't get access to a lawyer because you're not a prisoner, you're a terrorist. And we were just living in basically a rule, a non rule of law fever dream cooked up by Ben gvir, who came to like Israel cats, both came to this detention facility and had their photo ops there. There would be the riot gear who would come, any form of disloyalty or speaking out or speaking up, even about basic things like medical treatment. They would come and basically throw your head to the ground, shackle your hands behind your back and then take you to either like sit in the hot sun or sit in total isolation and shackle your ankles as well and just leave you there basically for the day.

Tommy Vietor (32:40)

So Adler mentioned far right minister, National Security Minister Itamar Ben GVIR there, who said explicitly that mistreatment of these flotilla activists was by design and that he was, quote, proud that we are treating the flotilla activists as terror supporters. Whoever supports terrorism is a terrorist and deserves the conditions of, of terrorists, end quote. At the same time, the Israeli government was saying that the claims of mistreatment were brazen lies. So they're kind of hard to square those circles there, Ben. First of all, if they're, that's what they're doing to Americans, like imagine what they're doing to Palestinians. It should go without saying that the US Government should be outraged by this treatment of peaceful activists, especially American activists. It doesn't seem like the Trump administration gives a shit. I'm not sure I've seen Mike Huckabee weigh in on this. But Ben, you also spoke with an activist on a different flotilla. Could you sort of set up that conversation?

Ben Rhodes (33:30)

Yeah, I talked to Noah Schnall, who's a journalist who's on the next wave of boats coming in. She's on a boat called the Conscience, which among other things, it has aid, but it also has a bunch of journalists because one of the things that's not allowed to get into Gaza is international journalists. Now obviously Palestinian journalists doing great work there. So I just wanted to get a flavor from her about what the mood is like on that boat. Who's on the boat? You know what to like. I was kind of curious, like, what's it like to be on one of these flotillas? So check out a piece of that conversation here. So a lot of our listeners and viewers have obviously been following these flotillas, but obviously don't know what it's like to be on One. I mean, why don't you just begin by describing us? You mentioned there are 82 people who's on board. How did those people get there? Who are they? And what kind of solidarity are you feeling with your fellow crewmates? Sure.

Ben Rhodes (34:22)

Well, the main solidarity is with the people of Gaza and all of Palestine, of course, but we're building solidarity with people on the ship as well. Most of us meeting for the first time. This boat is designated specifically with medics and journalists. Majority of us, some activists and people with other great skills as well. There's one fireman, there's social workers, all kinds of really interesting people from all over the world. So this is our third day at sea. We just caught up with the global Somuud Flutella. They left actually before us, but we. Because our ship is larger. It's actually a passenger ferry that we're using to reach international waters in other countries, which is absurd, but we're making it work.

Ben Rhodes (34:59)

The journalist piece is interesting, right? Because obviously most of the focus of these flotillas has been bringing aid in, bringing food in, bringing medicine in. It seems like part of what you're trying to do do on this particular boat is break the blockade, not just of aid, but of journalism. And obviously recognizing that they're extraordinary Palestinian journalists who've been covering this in Gaza, but there have been no international journalists. Is that part of the thinking that it's not just an aid blockade, it's a information blockade?

Ben Rhodes (35:29)

Well, it's always been about that. Right, because how much aid can a small ship bring in, really? Right. So that aid has been there, but it's been symbolic. So it's really actually always been about the blockade, and it's always been about breaking the siege, bringing attention to the apartheid, the genocide, specifically now trying to stop the arms deal, stop any kind of cooperation with Israel, bringing attention to all the international law that's being broken. Yeah, that's our main focus. And specifically with the journalists on board, we realized that, you know, the Palestinian journalists who are doing an incredible job in a time of genocide and so little sleep and almost no food because of the engineered famine, they're no less credible or objective or capable of doing their jobs than we are. But for whatever reason, we get more attention than they do racism. But we're just trying to hold the mantle or carry the mantle on their part. And we're answering their call, the call of our comrades. And the same goes for the medics on this boat.

Ben Rhodes (36:31)

And sometimes the media presents this as like, you know, Israel intercepts, you know, Flotilla down through Gaza and kind of doesn't reference the illegality of it. What is your understanding of the legality of the seizure of international water?

Ben Rhodes (36:45)

So the law of the high seas, high seas being international waters, those are interchangeable, means that anyone, as long as they're not committing any crimes is allowed to sail through high seas, international waters, which we are right now. So the fact that our ships get stopped in international waters is completely illegal. It is a crime. And the fact that people get abducted on the boats, international waters is a separate crime in itself and it is, it is a kidnapping. Israel would claim that it's their territorial waters, but still those people, people were taken and now are being treated as potential terrorists. So any of those other boats being stopped, completely illegal.

Ben Rhodes (37:28)

You guys are on the front lines of this in a way that nobody else is. You're putting your bodies on the line again, other than people of Gaza and the people of the West Bank. Be very clear. But, but in terms of international support, nobody else is kind of putting their bodies out there like you guys are. What, what can other people do who, who feel a sense of support but, but feel kind of powerless, you know, get loud.

Ben Rhodes (37:50)

Get in the streets. In Italy, people basically stopped the country. They got in the streets, they, I mean, dock workers striked. Is that the best sense of strike? I don't know.

Ben Rhodes (38:01)

Struck, strike, struck.

Ben Rhodes (38:04)

Yeah, but, yeah, basically stop everything that's going on in the country. Why is genocide not enough to make the world stop turning? Why are some lives less valuable than others? Why are governments full of lip service saying we can recognize Palestine but don't do anything to support its people? Get loud. You can write your representatives if you want. I don't know the, that actually does so much these days. But if you do it loud enough, maybe strike in the streets, support the flotilla, support families that are asking for money in Gaza and just get loud about it in every way. You know how.

Ben Rhodes (38:50)

Well, look, we, we wish you the best in terms of your safety and, and with what you're trying to do. We will keep people updated on what happens. You're on the conscious, which is well named, so if people want to follow that they can follow online. But thanks so much, Noah, for joining us. I know it must be a crowded, mildly seasick environment there, so thanks so much.

Ben Rhodes (39:17)

It's actually a good group. We're doing well. Thank you for giving me the time.

Ben Rhodes (39:21)

So, I mean, you obviously hear this is someone who is aware that she's going to probably end up in a prison like that and I just want to say I know some people. I don't know, Tommy. You probably have friends who are, like, can be a little snarky about the flotilla. I don't know. These are just people trying to bring food into Gaza. And I will say Israel's response is crazy. I mean, they're not trying to harm Israel. They're technically not even trying to come into Israel because Gaza is not a part of Israel. Right. And drop droning them and harassing them and mistreating people. This is that rogue state behavior that we've been talking about. This is not normal. Like, it's not normal to, like, put random people in solitary confinement because they asked for water, you know? And so, I don't know, you don't have to agree with, like, Greta Thunberg about everything to think that that's a fucking crazy overreaction, you know?

Tommy Vietor (40:15)

Yeah, no, I've seen the same sort of tone you've seen of scoffing at or mocking activists. I think sometimes it comes from, like, the activist speak and the tone with which sort of people characterize it. Look, I get it, like, whatever. But these are people who are putting.

Ben Rhodes (40:29)

Their bodies on the line, their lives.

Tommy Vietor (40:30)

On the line, their bodies on the line for a cause, for a reason. I have a lot of respect for that. And I think in so doing, they are revealing something about the Israeli government calling them terrorists, using a military submarine to launch a drone that then drops an incendiary device on a boat filled with, like, peaceful hippies. Well, that's free Palestinians. Like, what are you guys doing? You're insane.

Ben Rhodes (40:55)

And you put your finger on it. It's such an important point you made that this kind of direct action, Right. This is. What this is, is not intended to succeed in getting aid. It's intended to reveal something about the people denying it. The whole civil rights movement. Right. Like, the high point of the civil rights movement in many ways was sending kids out into the street of Birmingham knowing that you would learn that they'd be brutalized, brutalize them with dogs and imprison them. Right. And so what activism does, direct action like this is it holds a mirror up to the brutality of the other party and say whatever you want about these flotillas. Like, they are achieving that.

Tommy Vietor (41:34)

Yeah, they are. And I don't think they're going to stop.

Ben Rhodes (41:36)

Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (41:37)

You know, I think beating the shit out of these people is likely to make more people want to do it.

Ben Rhodes (41:40)

Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (41:41)

So hopefully these talks that are happening in Egypt right now bear some fruit. And if they do, we'll talk about it again later this week.

Ben Rhodes (41:46)

Yeah, absolutely.

Tommy Vietor (41:47)

All right, so earlier in the show, Ben, we mentioned the Israeli airstrike airstrikes into Doha last month in Qatar. They were targeting Hamas leaders. Those Hamas leaders were there meeting to discuss the latest ceasefire proposal. That incident outraged leaders in Qatar and really across the Gulf. And so fast forward to last week. Trump had met Netanyahu in the Oval Office. He set up this little humiliation ritual where he made Netanyahu call and apologize to the prime Minister of Qatar while he sat there and, like, held the phone for him. And they released a photo of it. So they very clearly, like, wanted to stick it to Bibi. Trump was showing that he was pissed. But then the thing we really wanted to focus on was an executive order that later came out from the White House that lays out a security guarantee for Qatar that Fox News even describes as near NATO status. So I'm going to read you a quote from the eo. Quote, the United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the state of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States. In the event of such an attack, the United States shall take all lawful and appropriate measures, including diplomatic, economic, and if necessary, military, to defend the interests of the United States in the state of Qatar and to restore peace and stability. So, yeah, it sounds a lot like Article 5 of NATO where attack upon one is attack upon all. For those wondering, wouldn't a treaty like that have to get ratified by the Senate? Yes, you are right. Even Trump sort of seems to get that. He got asked about Congress's role in all of this earlier this week. Let's listen.

Ben Rhodes (43:14)

Last week you signed the security guarantees for Gutter. Do you see any role for the Senate and that they have to vote on that?

Donald Trump (43:22)

Well, I wouldn't mind if they did. If they want to, they'd let me know. Nobody said that, that. But, you know, Guitar has been very, very helpful to us in this process.

Tommy Vietor (43:33)

So, I mean, I guess the Trump could abide by the EO for the duration of his presidency, but the next president wouldn't be bound by it if it's not passed by the Senate. But it's also, it's like, it's pretty head spinning, Ben, for a couple reasons. Like, first of all, Trump's best buddy in the global, you know, sort of the head of state world is Bibi Netanyahu, who as we just mentioned, recently bombed Doha and repeatedly accuses Qatar of harboring terrorists. And then back in 2017, Trump sided against Qatar when the country was blockaded by a bunch of other Gulf countries, including the Saudis. This is what he had to say at the time.

Donald Trump (44:06)

The nation of Qatar unfortunately has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.

Tommy Vietor (44:15)

So I think it's just worth kind of exploring what changed. You think giving them a couple hundred million dollar plane helped?

Ben Rhodes (44:24)

I think there are two things, right? I mean, one is, yes, Qatar has invested a lot, we should say, in just being on better terms. I mean, we should add, like Steve Witkoff's done business with Qatar, Pam Bondi was a lobbyist for Qatar. You could go on down the list.

Tommy Vietor (44:37)

I think the Trump Organization, there's Trump International being built in Doha.

Ben Rhodes (44:40)

They're building hotels, all this stuff. Right.

Tommy Vietor (44:42)

Presumably Bibi won't bomb that.

Ben Rhodes (44:43)

Yeah, well, who knows. But I think the second more interesting thing, cuz we all, we've covered this and that's everybody can see it for what it is. Right. They didn't gift him a plane out of, you know, mutual goodness of their hearts.

Tommy Vietor (44:56)

Yeah.

Ben Rhodes (44:56)

But I think that the deeper point is how much like Israel's behavior under Netanyahu has actually driven some of these Gulf countries closer together. Right. Because the other thing that's not happening is Qatar is not fighting with the Saudis and the Emiratis because everybody's a little freaked out by what's happening right now. And I think that this security guarantee is worth about the ink that is printed on the paper. I mean, I don't even know that people believe that Trump has committed to Article 5 of NATO and that's a treaty obligation.

Tommy Vietor (45:23)

Fair point.

Ben Rhodes (45:23)

But I think it is important because I think that that piece of paper has one objective, which is to say to Israel, you can't do that. Again, you know that the Qataris and the rest of the Gulf Arabs were furious when Israel bombed Qatar and the Qataris made that known. And Trump was freaked out by that. And frankly it turned him around entirely on Israel. I mean, it was a huge mistake strategically by the Israelis to do that because, well, at least in the short term, we'll see how things play out in the medium term. But in the short term it pissed Trump off because it created problems for him in the Gulf. And what's interesting to me is that given the choice between Israel and the Gulf Arabs, I kind of think he comes down on the side of the Gulf Arabs. There's a little bit more in it for him there.

Tommy Vietor (46:07)

Yeah.

Ben Rhodes (46:07)

So I think that this security guarantee, he is meant to send a message to Netanyahu, you're not doing that again. And a message to Qatar and all the Gulf Arabs, hey, I'm not gonna let them do that again. I don't think it really goes beyond that.

Tommy Vietor (46:19)

Yeah, I mean, look, I totally agree with you. The Saudis have. There's a bunch of Trump Towers and golf courses and things going up in Saudi Arabia and in the UAE and in Qatar, in the Quincy Institute, they did a big report on all of Qatar's lobbying, and it was just worth just sort of seeing it all laid out. I thought it was interesting. I mean, currently, Qatar is employing the services of 28 firms registered under the Foreign Agents Registration act, and since 2016, have spent almost $250 million on 88 fair registered orgs. You mentioned all the Trump officials who have worked for Qatar in some capacity. That includes Pam Bondi, Cash Patel, the EPA administrator. Jared Kushner has gotten all kinds of money. Oh, God, the Qataris. Steve Witkoff has two. And then over the past five years, Qatar has donated over $9 million to think tanks and has given a bunch to US colleges and universities. And then the Qatari royal invested $50 million into Newsmax. So they're being very. Look, look, I.

Ben Rhodes (47:15)

What would you do if you were them?

Tommy Vietor (47:16)

You're a tiny little country, right? You're highly vulnerable. You have, you know, the 10,000 US service members on the base in your country apparently can't protect you from bombardment from Israel, right? So you're spraying a lot of money around.

Ben Rhodes (47:31)

And remember, they got bombed by the Iranians. Now, the Iranians called them and were like, heads up. But I think that was interesting, too, because the Iranians, that was a signal like, hey, we don't want to do this, but if this war becomes a regime change war, we're going to burn down the Gulf with us. And so that's in their heads, too. But I'm not sure that Trump comes to their defense in that. You know, like, I just. I don't trust. Would you trust an agreement with Donald Trump? You know, like, I don't know.

Tommy Vietor (47:57)

Only if he has a vested interest. Only literally.

Ben Rhodes (47:58)

Yeah. Well, that's why they have to keep doing this lobbying.

Tommy Vietor (48:01)

Yeah. Yeah. All right, we're gonna take a quick break, but, Ben, you may have heard that crooked con sold out faster than we ever could have expected.

Ben Rhodes (48:07)

So it's right after I posted my social media. Sorry, guys.

Tommy Vietor (48:12)

So we're moving the location. You hear about this? You hear about this one? So we can sell more tickets, more panels, more guests, more chachkes. You know where the new venue is.

Ben Rhodes (48:22)

Where I worked for the first five.

Tommy Vietor (48:23)

Years I lived in Washington, The Ronald Reagan Building.

Ben Rhodes (48:26)

I went to work every day in the Ronald Reagan Building. And International Trade Center.

Tommy Vietor (48:29)

International Trade Center. I went there.

Ben Rhodes (48:31)

There's a piece of the Berlin Wall on the front there.

Tommy Vietor (48:33)

Really?

Ben Rhodes (48:33)

Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (48:33)

That's cool. I went there for one. After the Haiti earthquake, I was supposed to like go kind of work out of usaid and I couldn't get my email working for nine hours. So I left, never came back. But we'll be there. Your favorite cricket hosts. We got a bunch of special guests. There's gonna be a Vote Save America action hub where you can get some action, as Lovett told us yesterday, some hot Vote Save America action hub, tpusa.

Ben Rhodes (48:53)

Kind of action or similar.

Tommy Vietor (48:55)

There's a place where their partner orgs can hang out. We can help you just get better at activism and figure out how to deal with the Trump administration.

Ben Rhodes (49:01)

So there's a really good food court in the basement. So I just flagged that for people flagging that one.

Tommy Vietor (49:07)

Crookedcon.com go there for tickets and we'll see you on November 7th in DC. Also, Ben, as I mentioned before, we're trying to build a progressive media powerhouse here. One way you guys can help us is by becoming friends of the pod, joining our subscription community. Go to crooked.com friends. You'll get stuff like ad free pod save America. Ad free pod save the world. You'll get exclusive shows like Polar Coaster from Dan Pfeiffer. You'll get to join the Discord community and pitch Ben and I questions for special bonus Pod Save the World episodes. Also, it's really fun. It's a great group of people. It's for a good cause. So go to crooked.com friends also, for the month of October, you'll get 20% off when you subscribe for a full year. So I don't know. I don't know the meaning of that discount. Maybe it's spooky, maybe it's for Halloween. But 20% off positive world is brought to you by American Giant. I got some great American Giant clothes. I got some sweatpants. I got a sweatshirt, some T shirts. I don't know. I've been wearing them. I've had them for a long time now. Greatest hoodie ever made. I've worn. Yeah, super comfortable hoodie. I think I've worn it hundreds of times. I've washed it countless times and it's still going. It looks great. And you know, that's not usually what you get when you order clothes these days, there's a lot of fast fashion. You wash that five times and it might as well be toilet paper. It's just gone. Don't buy toilet paper. American Giants clothes, not for clothing. Yeah. American Giants clothes work harder and are wearable for years to come, ensuring you get layers you can count on for the seasons to come. Their greatest hoodie ever made of the highest quality materials that are cut and sewn right here in the United States. So you're investing right back into your local supply chain. As the seasons shift and get cooler, stock your closet with durable layers that are built to last. From American Giant. Mega corporations obsessed with growth are churning out cheap crap while the working class is left behind. The founders of American Giant were dissatisfied with how the clothes are made, so they created their own opportunity to make things better. Choosing American Giant means taking the stand for hard working people, local communities. Quality clothes through American ingenuity and innovation. They're going against the grain and doing better. They believe small changes add up to something big. A new kind of conscious buying. I like this is part like clothing ad and part Bernie Sanders. You know, I Respect that. Get 20% off your first order when you use promo code world@american-giant.com. that's 20% off when you use the code world@american-Giant.com.

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Tommy Vietor (52:02)

All right, so speaking of Trump, he is certainly willing to deploy us to go after us. He is sending the National Guard to cities he thinks are liberal and blue states like Chicago or Portland. Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection act, which would allow him to use the military to actually enforce federal laws or put down protests. And that could lead to scenarios where you've got like, you know, soldiers arresting people, establishing curfews, dispersing crowds. Like scary authoritarian stuff at the same time. Then I've just noticed all this chatter from MAGA types about how we need to be more like El Salvador. Like, the biggest example was Elon Musk saying, quote, tweeting something that in Saying it was essential to Bukele, our judicial system. That's a reference to Naya Bukele, the president of El Salvador. And just for the context for people, what Bukele did was fire judges on El Salvador's equivalent of a Supreme Court and their attorney general, replace them with loyalist. Then he forced through like so called reforms that forced a bunch of judges and prosecutors to retire. I think he set like an age cap, like 60. So he forced a bunch of them out so he could replace those guys with loyalists too. All those loyalist judges then decide actually it's okay for Bukele to run for reelection for consecutive terms, even though the constitution in El Salvador plainly prohibits it. And then Bukele declares a state of exception, he suspends due process, then he can throw anyone he wants in jail without charges. And so just to sum it all up, like, that's what Elon Musk is saying we need to do in America, gut our judicial system. And like they're not hiding it at all. Like, Michael on our team flagged a Twitter back and forth between Bukele and Elon Musk back in February about how they need to impeach judges. And it just made me think how like directly these guys are running the Bukele playbook. It's like they govern by trolling. There's crypto corruption everywhere. They want to send the military into the streets, they want to gut the judicial system. It's not subtle, but it's pretty frightening.

Ben Rhodes (54:02)

They want elections to be pre cooked if they happen at all. It is frightening because they are saying what they want to do and there's no reason to not believe them. Right. I mean, you sketched out what the playbook is, I think, to connect some of the threads we've been talking about today. Look, I take what Stephen Miller says very seriously.

Tommy Vietor (54:20)

Me too.

Ben Rhodes (54:20)

Like when he goes out and says the Democratic Party is a terrorist organization, when he basically talks about like conquering blue cities, when he uses this kind of fascistic rhetoric, but then says you're not allowed to call it that, I think that's exactly what he wants to do. And I think we need to take it seriously. Because again, to connect things, if you're thinking about like a turn from we've already taken the turn from democracy to authoritarianism. But if you think about the turn from authoritarianism to fascism, the two characteristics that you would look for are the deployment of the military against the citizens at home and some kind of war abroad. And this is where I kind of see this connection between wanting to invade Portland and potentially wanting to invade Venezuela. Like, this is the characteristic of an increasingly militarized authoritarian movement in this country. That, again, they're saying this, they're not pretending. Like, does anybody think that Elon Musk or Stephen Miller would prefer there to be a democracy in which it's possible that there's an election that they lose? Of course not.

Tommy Vietor (55:18)

No.

Ben Rhodes (55:18)

And so why should we project onto them that they're going to let that happen? And I think it just unfortunately sends a message to all of us that this is gonna be hard. It's not just gonna be about winning a midterm election or something. That's gonna be harder than you think to just have that midterm election.

Tommy Vietor (55:36)

Yeah. And look, Steven Miller is reportedly the one running this play where he is designating people on random boats off the coast of Venezuela as narco terrorists and then killing them.

Ben Rhodes (55:45)

Killing them.

Tommy Vietor (55:45)

He is also going on TV calling, you know, left liberal, progressive groups. Terrorist. Domestic terrorists.

Ben Rhodes (55:52)

Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (55:52)

What do you do to them?

Ben Rhodes (55:54)

Probably whatever you want.

Tommy Vietor (55:55)

Yeah. Whatever the fuck you want.

Ben Rhodes (55:56)

Whatever the fuck you want.

Tommy Vietor (55:57)

So it's. It's chilling stuff. And, like, I think I. Look, I'm with you. I think we got to look that guy in the eye and, like, take him literally.

Ben Rhodes (56:03)

Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (56:03)

And believe that all your worst fears about him are true.

Ben Rhodes (56:07)

Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (56:07)

Because he's given us no reason to believe otherwise.

Ben Rhodes (56:09)

No reason. I mean, you know, what does his wife say? That he wakes up every morning and gives a speech about crushing the left? I mean, I actually think she's telling the truth. I think that's, like, one thing that. What's her name? Katie Miller.

Tommy Vietor (56:20)

Yeah.

Ben Rhodes (56:21)

It's one thing she's telling the truth about. You know, imagine if you woke up.

Tommy Vietor (56:23)

In the morning, you're like, all right, Anne, I'm gonna go make a smoothie and then prepare to crush maga. Like, what? Hannah will be like, get out of my house. You are a loser. She would be right.

Ben Rhodes (56:34)

Look up and like, well, what are you gonna make the kids for lunch today?

Tommy Vietor (56:37)

Yeah. I do think it's important to remind Stephen Miller that he is, in fact, a fucking loser.

Ben Rhodes (56:41)

Yeah. As AOC did. Well, I thought. Yeah, that was well handled.

Tommy Vietor (56:44)

I'm sorry people were mean to you in high school. It doesn't mean you get to turn us into a fascist.

Ben Rhodes (56:47)

I mean, a lot of history, a lot of suffering and death and destruction throughout history has been caused by people that were unpopular in school. Yeah, unfortunately. Yeah. It's a corollary to the Barack Obama point made recently that a lot of suffering in the world is old men clinging to power. A lot of those old men started as unpopular people in school.

Tommy Vietor (57:06)

Do you think when Obama said that he was thinking about Trump and then realized like an hour later, like, oh, shit, people are gonna think I'm talking about Biden.

Ben Rhodes (57:13)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tommy Vietor (57:15)

Cause that's awkward. Okay. Speaking of other old men clinging to power, Vladimir Putin. So over the last few weeks.

Ben Rhodes (57:22)

Well done.

Tommy Vietor (57:22)

Thank you. Got out of that one. We have been tracking the story of these Russian drone incursions into NATO airspace. We mentioned the drones going into Poland. There was the brief shutdown of Copenhagen's airport due to drone interference. But there's also been reports of drone activity at other airports leading to flight dis. That includes four smaller airports in Denmark, including two military bases. There was the Munich airport, the Oslo airport, some critical infrastructure in Germany. German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz has said publicly that he thinks Russia is behind these drones. The Danish Prime Minister Met Fredrickson, has not officially pointed the finger at Russia, but said, there's only one country willing to threaten us and is Russia. Therefore, we need a very strong answer. Mertz and Friedrichson have both said that Russia is conducting a hybrid war against Europe. The Danish Defense Intelligence Service defines hybrid warfare as political, economic, informational and military means used by a state to weaken and undermine other states while remaining below that threshold of armed conflict. That's kind of where the Russians like to live until the full scale invasion of Ukraine. The Russians, of course, are responding to the response from European leaders with like their typical trolling bullshit. In a post on Telegram, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, quote, the main thing is that the short sighted Europeans should feel on their own skin what the danger of war is, so that they fear and tremble like stupid animals in a herd being driven to the slaughter, so that they crap themselves with fear.

Ben Rhodes (58:46)

How much vodka do you think Medvedev put back before he typed that one out?

Tommy Vietor (58:50)

Guy, he's the best. Some European leaders are floating the idea of a drone wall. What that means exactly is tbd, but essentially some sort of coordination of like tracking technology along the Europe's eastern front that could identify and shoot down these drones. As we know though, getting anything like that done in Europe requires a lot of time and consensus and money and who knows if it'll happen. But Ben, it does get a little weirder. Like, I'd initially assumed that these drones were just getting fired from Russian territory and traveling a really long way. But then last week, French special forces boarded a Tanker used by Russia, reportedly because they believed that drones that had entered Denmark's airspace were launched from the deck of that ship. So this might be a little more complicated than a drone wall.

Ben Rhodes (59:35)

This is a pretty fucking scary thing that's happening because there clearly is intentionality behind it. A lot of the countries that have suffered these kind of violations are the ones that have been the most strident supporters of Ukraine in terms of the amount of assistance provided. I thought Mertz had a good line, which is that we're not at war, but we're not at peace either. It is this kind of gray zone of testing, cyber attacks, drone incursions, information war, all the things that are in the definition of asymmetric warfare. I think what Europe should do, first of all is they should be very clear and immediate in calling this stuff out and publicizing it. There's a kind of weird. What's the hesitation? I don't get the hesitation of like, well, it may be them and no, no, you know, what's going on. And I think there's some benefit to kind of spotlighting, in part to. To get your people ready for that. There's not some easy answer here. And we're going to have to spend some money, we're going to have to do some things. I also think that there should be. There's been this unwillingness to spend the Russian money that's frozen largely in Europe. I mean, shit, if they start fumbling me like that, like, you know, yeah, pay for the drone wall with that or give some of that to the Ukrainians, obviously. But then I think that in the long run, you're going to have to find some way, I would hope to, through a position of greater strength, get into a real negotiation, not like a fake Alaska one. Because this is dangerous stuff. It may not lead to a war next month, but where are we gonna be in five years? Cause, like, this is what they started.

Tommy Vietor (61:00)

The ladder's just going up and up and up.

Ben Rhodes (61:01)

Yeah. They started doing this kind of stuff in Ukraine. And then all of a sudden, you know, a few years later, there's a full scale invasion. Right. And that's what I worry about. They wanna weaken NATO, divide people, wear them down, make it seem like it's too exhausting to stand up to it. And then, who knows, in five years they've seized part of the Baltics or something. I mean, that's what this feels like.

Tommy Vietor (61:19)

Yeah. And it also highlights this broader issue of the Russian shadow fleet, which is this network of like the old, often kind of Busted up ships, but they have disguised ownership and they've been used to covertly ship oil from Russia to around the world and bust sanctions. And we're talking about like hundreds, maybe a thousand of these ships. They're often flagged in different countries, but they have sustained the Russian economy. And now apparently they're. They're launching drones and maybe even severing these undersea cables. So the Russians are just getting pretty creative here.

Ben Rhodes (61:49)

Would you watch a Netflix show? Like, it's about kind of like Shadowfleet secret called Shadowfleet.

Tommy Vietor (61:53)

It's a great name.

Ben Rhodes (61:54)

We have a pitch going on right now, it's called Shadow Fleet. And there's gotta be some guy that has to like infiltrate it and like sabotage it or something. I'd watch a show like that.

Tommy Vietor (62:03)

Yeah, I would too. It also, it feels like that's. I mean, it's funny you say that because I was thinking the other day, like, if you wanted to infiltrate the, the Shadow Fleet, it wouldn't be that hard to put some random sailor on one of these boats.

Ben Rhodes (62:15)

Honestly, like one thing that Europe, I mean, so people like, so there's new pragmatic ideas other than just like spending more money. And like, is actually like, the Europeans seem like they need. And some of them have this but like much better intelligence and including like that kind of intelligence. Right. Like, because the Russians have all kinds of stuff. Right. Part of what the Europeans need is not just like, you know, churning out small arms to the Ukrainians. They need people that can like fight these shadow battles, fight information wars, fight cyber wars, fuck with the Shadow Fleet. I'm not trying to minimize. You don't want to escalate that into a war. I'm not suggesting that. But a lot of this stuff the Russians do is with their intelligence services, paramilitary services. And one way to counter that without getting into a real war is having some of your own pushback in those spaces too.

Tommy Vietor (63:04)

Yeah. Once while you hear about like a small kind of European or Baltic intelligence service that's really good. Estonians or like, you know, Finland or something. But you're right, I mean, there's got to be some sort of way you could, you could deal with some of this or like manage it or deal.

Ben Rhodes (63:18)

With some of this in the gray.

Tommy Vietor (63:19)

Clearly the French had some sort of eyes on this ship that they ended up boarding. Yeah, but man, crazy story. Okay, two more quick things. So, Ben, there was this two day long communications blackout in Afghanistan we wanted to highlight. The Taliban has demonstrated its willingness and ability to shut off connections to certain Provinces before because they say it will prevent immoral activities in air quotes. But in those cases they cut the fiber optic Internet, not mobile services. But last Monday through Wednesday they basically blacked out the whole country. They hit all like WI fi connections, mobile Internet and phone services. And there's no real warning or reason given. But the blackout itself obviously just destroyed day to day life for anyone in Afghanistan. For banking to business, to flights, to women and girls who are trying to use the Internet to get around the Taliban's ban on female education. And you kind of just when you see a story like that, you have to wonder what happened and why.

Ben Rhodes (64:16)

Well, and it's also terrifying for, you know, so many Afghans are outside the country, suddenly you can't call your family, you know, can't be in touch with them. I have to say like I talked to a bunch of people who watch Afghanistan closely and like one of the interesting theory, because you hear different theories, like maybe there's some kind of weird hardliner decided that the Internet is debaucherous and we need to shut it down. But I think the one that seemed kind of plausible to me is that there were fears of some kind of coup or something, right? That there's splits inside the Taliban. It's not a homogeneous organization. You've got the Haqqani network into that. You've got some more religious people, then you've got some more pragmatic people. And we have this bagram thing, right? So you know, and this is pure speculation on my part, but you know that whatever guys might actually be entertaining this bagram proposal from Trump, man. There's other people in the Taliban, they're like, fuck that, like we are not letting the Americans back in. And so I just wondered whether it was a signal that the internal disputes inside the Taliban are bigger than we think and that they had to shut down the Internet to prevent. Cuz if you're, if you're worried about a coup, one thing you do is we don't want them to be able to communicate. Shut it fucking down.

Tommy Vietor (65:21)

Yeah, that's autocrat101. Just shut off the Internet.

Ben Rhodes (65:23)

It's one thing I just putting a theory out there that might connect back to the Bagram thing.

Tommy Vietor (65:27)

Weird. I'd love to know why. How much would you give to just have perfect visibility into one of these governments?

Ben Rhodes (65:34)

I'd love to know what's going on inside the Taliban because I think it's much more interesting than we think. We see a bunch of clerics in Kandahar or something. And I think based on my own experience, they're frankly more sophisticated than we give them credit for. They fucking won that war. So. But, but they're, they, they're not all.

Tommy Vietor (65:53)

The same, you know, Imagine being like the Taliban minister goon who is doing the secret talks with the Trump administration about this bagram thing. And then all of a sudden Trump randomly announces it in a speech in the Oval Office or whatever, and you have to explain to all your buddies, like, okay, so I did like three. I did one Zoom. Yeah, yeah, it was with Wickoff. Sky Witkoff seemed like an idiot, but, you know, I just.

Ben Rhodes (66:12)

And then Jared showed up and he wanted some money.

Tommy Vietor (66:15)

In some prison and.

Ben Rhodes (66:16)

Jared wanted to build a pipeline through here, you know?

Tommy Vietor (66:18)

Yeah, yeah, Jared, yeah, Jared wanted to build a pipeline from Azerbaijan and sell it to the Syrians at inflated rates or something. Finally, Ben, as we've discussed on the show, the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, is going through some stuff. He's got this corruption scandal involving his sister, who's also his closest advisor, who is also this kind of shadowy force in Argentina. There is a stalled out economy that seems to be necessitating a bailout from the Trump administration. I asked Mike Froman about that to explain what the hell's going on there later in the interview. And then he lost badly in the Buenos Aires provincial elections, which was expected, but I think he lost way worse than expected. So he has a very sort of shaky grip on control at the moment. So what do you do if you're in those in his shoes? You rock the fuck out. He held what was described as a rock show, libertarian economic summit, book premiere in political rally and midlife crisis in front of 15,000 people in a stadium in Buenos Aires. Apparently he sang mostly 80s rock covers and even Hava Nagila, a little Jewish folk song he said that would stick it to the left. Like what these guys think is sticking it to the left these days always confuses me. It's like I, I'll. I'll clap along with Hava Nagila.

Ben Rhodes (67:32)

This guy has like. He makes Elon Musk look like a more mature version of a teenager. I mean, this guy's a weird fucking guy. Yeah, he's got this huge dependency on his sister. Like he's got massive impulse control.

Tommy Vietor (67:47)

Remember, he was talking to his dead dogs.

Ben Rhodes (67:50)

He was talking to his dead dogs. He's got the chainsaw and he's trying to be this kind of intellectual anarcho capitalist, whatever they call it, and basically an overgrown teenager and this Is the guy. I mean, one of the things that sucks about being alive in 2025 is how fucking mediocre all these fascists are.

Tommy Vietor (68:08)

I know.

Ben Rhodes (68:09)

Like, they're a bunch of losers and weirdos and social outcasts who are somehow in charge of all these countries or winning. I mean, this CPAC group is all, like, there's no guardrails on their personal behavior whatsoever. And I want to be clear. It's not that cool. Like, this guy, like, doing weird dances and singing, like, bad versions, 80s songs. Like, it's not what he thinks it is. Well, maybe it is. Maybe we're the losers. Maybe the joke's on us.

Tommy Vietor (68:36)

The joke probably is on us. I agree with you. That Malay is kind of like Elon Musk on, like, a good ketamine day, you know, minus engineering skills. But unfortunately, we have a clip from this event which neither Ben nor I have seen, but Michael and our team likes to torture us with sight unseen. So away we. Oh, that face. I love to. So for many.

Ben Rhodes (69:15)

Crowd'S not exactly good.

Tommy Vietor (69:16)

They're not feeling it.

Ben Rhodes (69:17)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (69:17)

I don't know about that.

Ben Rhodes (69:18)

Here's the thing. He's got the chops, but here's the thing that's fun. It's fun to do, like, the basement of Mozette, the karaoke place in Adams, to do it. Right. Like, why do you have to. This is what's so weird about these guys. They need to do it in a stadium with 50,000 people to, like, get their midlife crisis out, you know?

Tommy Vietor (69:35)

He did have, like, a real aging rocker vibe. Yeah.

Ben Rhodes (69:39)

Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (69:40)

He really, like, caught the kind of squad, the leather jacket. But then all of a sudden, he looks like Wolverine, and he's just screaming at you.

Ben Rhodes (69:47)

And he's just screaming at you. And it's the kind of thing that maybe it's kind of fun for, like, five minutes. And then this went on for, like, hours, I think. Right. Can you imagine having sit through that and be like, all right, now I'm listening to the ninth version of some 80s anthem from this guy.

Tommy Vietor (70:01)

Yeah. The last time we saw a political leader do karaoke, wasn't it the Korean dude at the White House.

Ben Rhodes (70:10)

Yeah. Who tried martial law. Yeah. Who's singing American Pie with Joe Biden, Kind of giving that old man vacant grin at him.

Tommy Vietor (70:19)

Yeah. You gave him a guitar. Yeah. It was like a little sweet moment in the moment, I guess.

Ben Rhodes (70:24)

But, yeah, low energy.

Tommy Vietor (70:26)

All not well that ends well. Okay, so everyone stay away from karaoke. Everyone stay away from karaoke. Okay, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, you're going to hear my interview with Mike Froman. We are going to talk about Trump's trade policy, why it doesn't seem like he's focusing on China at all when that was supposed to be the whole thing. We're going to talk about how the, the trade, international orders, we know it is dead and what Mike thinks should come next. So stick around for that. I feel like this is my, this area is my greatest weakness in all.

Ben Rhodes (70:54)

Of foreign policy and everybody.

Tommy Vietor (70:56)

So hearing from an actual expert was really interesting. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. October 10th is World Mental Health Day. BetterHelp therapists have helped over 5 million people worldwide on their mental health journeys. That's millions of stories, millions of journeys behind everyone as a therapist who showed up, listened and helped someone take that step forward. That's why we're actually saying thank you therapist, thank you, thank you therapists. Moments in therapy like the right question, a safe space to cry, a small win. They can change lives. This World mental health day, BetterHelp is honoring those connections and the therapists who make them possible, while showing how easy it is to get guidance from a licensed therapist. And online with BetterHelp, everyone needs a therapist. You get stuff going on in your life, your personal life, your marriage, maybe dealing with kids, maybe Work is annoying. It's great to have someone to talk to and they can't pick up their phone halfway through. They're getting paid to be there. Or if they or if they do, you can switch therapists at any time. You can fire them. And Better Help therapists can work. They work according to a strict code of conduct and they're fully licensed in the US BetterHelp does initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences and their 10 or more years of experience in industry. Leading match fulfillment rate means BetterHelp typically gets it right the first time. And if you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored wrecks and then talk to that new therapist about how disappointed you were in the first one. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform and it works with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews. This World Mental Health Day, we are celebrating the therapists who've helped millions of people take a step forward. If you're ready to find the right therapist for you. BetterH can help you start that journey. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com crookedworld that's BetterHelp H E L P.com crookedworld When's the last.

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Tommy Vietor (73:24)

My guest today is the President of the Council of Foreign Relations and served as a US Trade Representative under President Obama from 2013 to 2017. His most recent piece for Foreign affairs is called called after the Trade War Remaking Rules from the Ruins of the Rules Based System. Mike Froman, great to see you. Welcome to the show.

Ben Rhodes (73:40)

Great to see you.

Mike Froman (73:41)

Thanks for having me.

Tommy Vietor (73:42)

It is. I was just telling you off, Mike. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to just ask basic questions to a very smart person because I barely understand trade or Trump's policies on trade these days and hoping you can follow him better than than I have because, you know, we had like Liberation Day back in April, right? It seemed like Trump's plan was just to slap tariffs on the whole world. They told us they were going to get 90 trade deals in 90 days. That has somehow evolved to a series of sporadic announcements about maybe trade agreements in principle or new tariffs on countries like Brazil for totally non economic, non trade related reasons. So I guess knowing what we know now, it's October 6th. How would you define Trump's approach to trade at this current moment? And are there areas where you think he's had some success or particular failure that you think are worth highlighting?

Mike Froman (74:37)

So first of all, I think trade has been one of those areas of core interest for Trump long before he was president. He's been talking about it for decades and he's been in love with tariffs as a tool, as a tool for everything. I think he's approached this really with three goals in mind. To impose tariffs on other countries. One, just as a source of leverage, it brings them to the table. He can talk to them about fentanyl or migration or how Bolsonaro is being treated in Brazil and secondly, to bring in revenue. And thirdly, to drive more manufacturing back to the United States. The idea being that if you put up a wall of tariffs, companies will have to move their production or move their supply chains to the United States if they want access to our market. When you look back, certainly as a source of leverage, it works. I mean, they may grumble, but other countries do come to the table and are willing to negotiate with the US As a source of revenue. He's brought in a couple hundred billion dollars this year in tariffs, which is a significant increase over previous years. The hardest part is probably that third one, which is, will it actually change the US Economy? Are we going to start producing more things here because it's become more expensive to import them from abroad? And that we won't know, I think, really, for some number of years, yeah.

Tommy Vietor (75:55)

And I guess what I found the most confusing, maybe, about Trump's approach is when I listened to the campaign rhetoric and frankly, what he said in his first term, all of it led me to believe that China was the primary enemy in his worldview and that focusing on China would be, you know, what his trade policy was about. But instead of, you have Trump tariffing the hell out of countries that you would think he would want to ally with to push back on China. Examples include, you know, Vietnam or Brazil that we can get into. There are some clear data now.

Mike Froman (76:26)

How about Canada? I mean, Canada, our neighbors of the north. Right.

Tommy Vietor (76:29)

Another great example, all of Europe. There seems to be some clear data now that these policies are actually hurting American workers. For example, American farmers used to sell billions of dollars worth of soybeans to China. Now the Chinese are buying soybeans from countries in South America instead. And the administration is considering using tariff money to bail those farmers out, as they believe he did in the first term. What do you make of Trump's approach to China and the impact so far? Like, how would you grade his approach?

Mike Froman (76:59)

So, look, I think he's been quite frustrated, and rightly so. The years of engaging with China have not convinced them to change their economic strategy, and they pursued, you know, a China first strategy, really at the expense of the rest of the world. So I'm sympathetic to that. He's been all over the map, though, to be frank, in his approach to China. The rhetoric has been hot at times, and at other times, he's talked about wanting to do a big deal with President Xi, with whom he thinks he has a good, close personal relationship, and he's had more anger towards countries like Canada than he's had towards China. I think what we've seen is as, as tariffs began to get imposed on China. Remember at one point they went up to about 145%. China was one of the few countries that retaliated. They've spent the last few years really understanding where their leverage over the United States was, what products that they produce that we can only get from China and how to turn them on or off in a very strategic way to get the attention of the American economy. So turning off certain critical minerals magnets, suddenly we de escalated our tariff war. And I think that's really the question of where do we go from here. During his first term he negotiated what he called a phase one deal, which was really just an agreement to buy more soybeans and liquefied natural gas and a few other products. We still haven't dealt with the fundamental issues in the US China relationship and how to resolve those. And so we're sort of dealing with issues at the margin. There's now talk about a summit meeting between the President and President Xi and his high expectation there'll be some discussion of trade, some kind of so called trade agreement. But the major issues remain outstanding, which is that China is following its own set of rules and now the US is following its own set of rules, which is one reason why the multilateral rules based system is under so much stress.

Tommy Vietor (78:54)

Yeah, and it does seem like the Chinese identified a real powerful point of leverage by withholding these rare earth minerals which are, you know, used in all of our electronics, you know, our phones, etc. But also a lot of really sophisticated military equipment. And then, you know, you mentioned that there might be this meeting between Trump and President Xi in October. I think the Wall Street Journal reported the other day that the Chinese may be coming to that meeting with an ask that basically says the US should oppose independence for Taiwan in exchange for some sort of economic deal. Are you hearing anything similar? Would that surprise you?

Mike Froman (79:32)

That doesn't surprise me. The language that's used around Taiwan is one of the most highly negotiated pieces of diplomacy for several decades. So the US has made clear, many administrations have made clear that we do not support Taiwanese independence now that China wants us to go one step further and say we oppose it and they're worried that at some point the government in Taiwan is just going to simply declare independence and create a crisis there and put the United States and China in conflict with each other. So I think there is a lot of discussion about should there be a new agreement, something more explicit about where the US stands vis a vis Taiwanese independence and whether the US Would come to the defense of Taiwan if China were to take military action against it. I think there's a lot of worry that President Trump may well sell Taiwan down the river because he's been less concerned about Taiwanese democracy and more concerned about semiconductors. And he's very transactional. And oftentimes that transactionalism starts with a commercial agreement. And you could see him saying something like, we won't come to the aid of, we're not going to spill American blood for Taiwan. All we care about is making sure we have access to semiconductors going forward. And China agreeing to some sort of arrangement like that.

Tommy Vietor (80:53)

Yeah, that's very, very easy to see happening. The other just baffling Trump policy that we keep hearing about recently is a conversation about some sort of bank bailout for Argentina. Trump's treasury secretary, Scott Bessen, said on Twitter that he's, quote, currently in negotiations with Argentine officials for a $20 billion swap line with the central bank. Could you explain to listeners what the hell a swap line is and how that may or may not differ from what we might call a bailout? And then second, I believe Argentina is one of the aforementioned countries undercutting American soybean farmers. Right, by selling them to China. So I'm just wondering, like, how one could possibly justify that set of policies as America first.

Mike Froman (81:38)

So, first of all, you're right. China's stopped buying American soybeans. We used to sell about half of our exports of soybeans to China, and now it's gone down to zero. And Argentina is one of the countries that has provided a substitute for American soybeans. And so it's a global commodity market. And so if we don't sell it, then the Argentines will sell it, and they're selling it for lower prices. They just took off some of their export taxes, which makes them even cheaper in the market in China. So that's a real issue. President Trump is wanting to be supportive of President Milei and his economic and his political agenda. And so while President Milei goes through some pretty significant economic steps in Argentina, the US Is now offering some sort of financial support. It's a little confusing because swap lines are actually done from the Federal Reserve to other central banks. And it's to say that if you need access to dollars, it'll be there in exchange for other currency in case there's a run on the banks in Argentina. The problem is that we're talking about the treasury secretary using the exchange stabilization fund. It gets very wonky here, Tommy, but You can't do a swap line with the Exchange Stabilization Fund. That's basically a credit line. It's a loan. And the question is, are we going to loan or give money to Argentina at the same time that they're undercutting our sales of soybeans to China? And that's why this has become so controversial in the last few days.

Tommy Vietor (83:07)

Interesting. Yeah. And look, President Milei came into office with a very difficult job. I think inflation was at like, 300%. I think he's gotten it down to closer to 30. But he did that by putting in place some brutal austerity measures. Like, on the one hand, I think we probably, as a country want Argentina to get on its feet. Right. And not to be dealing with runaway inflation in perpetuity. On the other hand, it's very weird to me that Argentina gets a bank bailout just because, like, he, the president goes to CPAC and is friends with Don Jr. Or something like.

Ben Rhodes (83:39)

You know what I mean?

Tommy Vietor (83:39)

It's like I've sort of two minds of it.

Mike Froman (83:41)

Well, traditionally, we haven't done it on political grounds, but we have done it where there are important Americans, American interests at stake, like Mexico. In the Mexico crisis of the 1990s, that was deemed to be so much in the interest of the United States that Mexico be a stable neighbor, that we did provide financial support. And it worked. It got Mexico back on its feet. Now, the Mexican government at the time was undergoing really serious economic reforms. You mentioned, Tommy, some of the austerity measures that President Milei has adopted, and those are very significant. What he hasn't done is let the exchange rate move. And so he's trying to maintain an overly valued peso in order to keep inflation down. And that's going to require more and more reserves to back it up. And that's why he's looking to us for support. So at some point, he may well have to adopt a broader set of economic reform measures if he really wants to stabilize the Argentine economy.

Ben Rhodes (84:33)

Got it.

Tommy Vietor (84:33)

That makes sense. One, we will be watching. You mentioned Canada earlier as a country we might want to ally with to. To manage the threat from China. You may recall a few months ago, Trump was threatening to invade Canada next summer. I believe there's a formal review of the usmca, which is the trade deal that Trump inked in his first term with Mexico in Canada and then has been talking shit about as if someone else did it. Do you think all this invasion talk is going to jeopardize this review period or the future of the agreement generally.

Mike Froman (85:05)

Well, it certainly has pushed the, the Canadians to become remarkably anti American for Canadians. I mean, there's still Canada nice, so to speak, but tourism is way off and economic relations are strained. And they're looking to see where they can, how to diversify away from the United States. They're sort of condemned by geography to be right on our northern border. So there's only so much they can do to really move away from the US Economy, but they're looking at those options. I think the issue around the USMCA is that there are things that have happened over the last few years that could probably be improved. For example, if we're going to see big influxes of Chinese investment in Mexico or Canada as a way of avoiding tariffs on China, we want to take a hard look at what's going on in those factories, whether they're really producing in Mexico and Canada, or whether it's just assembling some final products so they can bring them in under USMCA without tariffs. Then that's an issue that should be dealt with. Those are sort of called transshipment issues, and those kinds of loopholes should be closed. I think the bigger question right now is what does it matter? We have these trade agreements like usmca. We have lots of trade agreements with countries around the world. This administration has demonstrated that it is willing to take unilateral action where it deems it in the US Interests to ignore agreements that it has. And so if you're Canada or Mexico, it becomes very difficult to make the kinds of hard concessions in a renegotiation if you're not 100% sure that the US is going to stand by the agreement. At the end of the day, yeah.

Tommy Vietor (86:38)

It'S like the US Congress cutting all these budget deals and then Trump uses the rescission process just to cloud the money back. So we're like, what's the point? So, bigger picture. In your Foreign affairs piece, you state unequivocally, the global trading system as we have known it is dead. What did you mean by that? And how do you think that impacts the average person listening to this show?

Mike Froman (87:00)

So the US spent 80 years, really since the Second World War building this global trading system with rules, with disciplines, getting other countries to basically adopt a US Model for economic engagement. And over the years, it has had enormous benefits. It's also had costs, by the way, including on manufacturing workers in the United States who were subject to more competition from abroad. And that led to certain dislocation in the United States as well. But it had enormous benefits in terms of raising hundreds of millions of people, if not a billion or more, out of poverty. And in the US Making it possible for particularly low income families to be able to support their families and buy the things that they need, clothing and footwear and back to school items and toys at lower and lower prices so they'll be able to save more and spend on other things other than those products. That was a system that existed. And now because China has followed its own set of rules for a while and the US has joined China in now following its own set of rules, that system is beginning to come apart. President Trump didn't kill the system. He may have put the final nail in the coffin. It's been under stress for some time, but I think the reality is, is that you've got a set of rules that the two largest economies in the world aren't really following and that leaves open where do we go from here? You don't want chaos, you don't want anarchy. You don't want every country doing its own actions. Because to your question, Tommy, that's how Americans get affected. If every country starts adopting protectionist measures, puts up tariffs, prevents US Products from coming into their country, whether it's soybeans or corn or energy products or whether it's manufactured products or services, 80% of the American public works in the service sector. If they start putting up barriers to those exports, then Americans incomes are going to be affected as well. American jobs are going to be affected. And that's what we want to avoid. And that's what the rules based system was really intended to prevent.

Tommy Vietor (89:02)

Yeah, I believe services were famously not included in any of the Liberation Day masks that decided all the tariff rates, am I correct?

Mike Froman (89:10)

Well, that's right, because you don't tend to put tariffs on services. Although the President recently announced 100% tariffs on movies that are made abroad. And folks are trying to figure out how that actually works. But the issue is more that if we put tariffs on their products, will they retaliate by, for example, keeping our services out of their economy? And we're a leading services provider to the world. We're by the way, a big manufacturer too. We export a lot of manufacturing products. We want access to other markets because that's where 95% of the world's consumers live or outside the United States. And so we need access to those markets to support good paying jobs here in the United States.

Tommy Vietor (89:48)

Yeah. And so you write in the piece, the rules based order sort of as we knew it is Dead. But you're not an anti trade guy. In fact, you kind of make fun of the quote, self flagellation about the failures of the trading system. That has practically become the price of entry to discussions about the global economy's future. I thought that was a fun line. So where do you think a sane administration would go and where should the global world order go from here to kind of replace what has become either broken or outmoded or ditched?

Mike Froman (90:19)

So I think coalitions of the willing, coalitions of the ambitious countries will come together who are like minded around a set of issues and negotiate their own set of rules. For some countries, much of the world is continuing to negotiate trade agreements that open markets to each other. The EU and India are talking about one, the UK and India just did one, the EU and South America MERCOSUR recently negotiated an agreement. The UK just joined the Trans Pacific Partnership. And so other countries are moving ahead and they continue to do so. If it's not popular in the United States, we may want to work with other countries on how to restrict trade in certain areas. For example, technology that may be key to national security. We'd rather make sure we're working with allies and partners and have a common view of which technologies are critical to national security and how to control them or what kind of investments we want to ensure are done by our own companies rather than by foreign companies and build rules around that. So my guess is we're going to have instead of one big multilateral rules based system, a series of smaller, what I call it open plurilateral systems. So coalitions of a smaller group of countries defining their own set of rules to be less efficient, be more expensive than the old system, but it may be one that's more politically sustainable over time.

Tommy Vietor (91:40)

Do you think those should be coalitions of democracies? Is it going to look more like the G7 than the G20 or would you broaden out kind of the aperture?

Mike Froman (91:49)

Yeah, I think in some cases it could be the democracies coming together, maybe around, for example, rules of how to use technology for surveillance. They may have a particular view of what the appropriate role of AI is in certain areas, for example. But in other cases I think it will go beyond traditional democracies and we'll want to have other countries working with us to help set the rules of the road because we'd much rather have us at the table setting the rules of the road, then leaving that to China or to somebody else. And so whether it's from countries in the Middle east or Countries in Asia, which may not be full democracies may want to work with us as well on those issues.

Tommy Vietor (92:26)

Yeah, unfortunately some of the democracies are the, the worst offenders when it comes to surveillance. Like looking at, looking in the mirror here and look at our friends over in Israel. Okay, so I know you don't like self flagellation, but we should do a little bit here with the benefit of hindsight. Were there trade related things that we screwed up during the Obama years and if you could go back in time, is there anything that you would have done differently?

Mike Froman (92:47)

I don't think we explained well enough to the American people just how much they benefited from the global system and from trade. Nobody walks out of a Walmart saying thank goodness for the World Trade Organization and for trade agreements, but they're able to spend a smaller and smaller portion of their disposable income on the things that they need for their family. And that's what's at risk if we go down the road of protectionism and retaliation is that those costs are going to go up for Americans.

Tommy Vietor (93:15)

So it's a comms problem. So I did this.

Mike Froman (93:17)

Always blame the comms people.

Tommy Vietor (93:19)

Right fucking roads.

Mike Froman (93:22)

But there's substance under that as well. Look, I think neither Republican nor Democratic administrations over the last several decades have focus sufficiently on the costs of dislocation. Most dislocation for workers comes from technology. Over 80% of dislocated workers, it's because of automation. But there is some portion that is because of globalization. And as a government we never came up with a decent package of policies to say here's how you help workers survive and thrive in a rapidly changing economy. Where that change is coming from technology or immigration or trade. And that continues to be a failure today. And the reason I worry about it is the China shock. China coming into the global trading system, it's estimated to have cost the US somewhere between 2 and 3 million jobs over 12 years. The AI shock is expected to cost tens of millions of jobs over a much shorter period of time. And we still don't have a concerted strategy. Everyone admires the problem and says we got to do something about this. But we don't have real work being done to say here's what we're going to do to make sure workers can survive and thrive in what's likely to be coming down the pike. And I think that's going to be absolutely necessary if we're going to have social cohesion and political cohesion to do what we need to do as a country.

Tommy Vietor (94:46)

Yeah, no, this conversation reminds me of some of the worst meetings we would all go to in the Situation Room where the assembled cabinet would tell the President what a difficult decision he had and then have no real take on what to do about it. You're right. There's a lot of admiring the problem when it comes to AI. There's not a lot of clear solutions being articulated. But it's worse than that because it seems like major US government decisions are getting made in an ad hoc basis where maybe the benefit is the Trump family sells a bunch of crypto. Right. I mean, you're seeing these reports where the UAE was given access to some top Nvidia chips right around the time when an Emirati linked company, I think, purchased $2 billion worth of stablecoin from the Trump family crypto company. So it just seems like not only are. There's not planning for how this might impact our economy, but it's not clear to me that the US interests are being considered at all, even in the near term.

Mike Froman (95:41)

Well, look, I think we have to focus on what those interests are and how to make sure we're addressing them. Because if we're worried about the kind of polarization we've over the last decade or so due to people feeling like the system has left them behind, that it's not working for them, you can only imagine what it's going to look like if all that people can look forward to is sitting on their sofa playing video games and collecting universal basic income. That's not a great vision for the future. And so we all, I think, need to spend a lot more time and attention on those fundamental issues. Issues.

Tommy Vietor (96:15)

Yeah. Agreed. Well, Mike, it's great to talk with you. Everyone should check out this full piece. It's called after the Trade War. Remaking Rules from the Ruins of the Rules Based System. It's in Foreign affairs as we speak. Great to see you. Thanks for.

Mike Froman (96:26)

See you.

Tommy Vietor (96:26)

Thanks for having me in this stuff. Appreciate it.

Mike Froman (96:28)

Take care.

Tommy Vietor (96:33)

Thanks again to Mike Froman for doing the show. And I'm just kind of reeling from that rocker Rolling Stones wannabe.

Ben Rhodes (96:42)

Yeah. I don't know, man.

Tommy Vietor (96:45)

Smells like Viagra.

Ben Rhodes (96:46)

I just want to go back to the days we could go to. It smells of Viagra. I just want to go back the days we go to Buenos Aires and have like a steak in some Malbec and.

Tommy Vietor (96:54)

Yeah. Hang out and some boring political leaders.

Ben Rhodes (96:57)

Yeah. Yeah, how about that? Let's go back to that. Guys. You know, this is a little weird.

Tommy Vietor (97:00)

Give me a Duakas or go back.

Ben Rhodes (97:02)

You know, like it's like the male Vita Peron or something.

Tommy Vietor (97:05)

It's her. It's like it Pod Save the World is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Ilona Minkowski. Our associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Saul Rubin is helping out this summer. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our audio engineer. Audio support by Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to our digital team, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, William Jones, David Toles and Ryan Young. Matt De Grace is our head of production. Adrian Hill is our senior Vice President of news and politics. If you want to listen to Pod Save the World ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked media on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events. Plus find Pod Save the world on YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content and much more. And if, like us, you're opinionated, leave us a review Our production staff is proudly unionized by the Writers Guild of America East.

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Tommy Vietor (98:41)

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