Trump Flirts With Nuclear Annihilation

Summary

Pod Save the World – "Trump Flirts With Nuclear Annihilation"

Date: November 5, 2025
Hosts: Tommy Vietor & Ben Rhodes

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Episode Overview

This week’s episode dives into a whirlwind of recent global and US foreign policy developments, led by Tommy Vietor and Ben Rhodes. The pair scrutinize Trump’s alarming foreign policy decisions—from threatening military action in Nigeria to signaling a return to nuclear testing. They also discuss atrocities unfolding in Sudan, controversial happenings inside the Israeli justice system, and curbs on US refugee admissions, before closing with a slate of international election highlights. The show features a rich, in-depth interview with former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin about authoritarian threats, the current state of European security, and the obstacles facing young and especially female leaders.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Remembering Dick Cheney: Legacy, Irony, and Hypocrisy

[01:56 – 06:51]

• The episode opens with dark humor about Dick Cheney’s recent death, reflecting on the former VP's legacy intertwined with foreign policy disasters, his notorious lack of remorse, and his last-minute pivot away from Trump.
• Both hosts express frustration at the political normalization of Cheney’s record:
  Ben: "He plowed the ground for Trump. His rampant dishonesty … helped create this monster and then he saw it and he's like, oh, I don't like that." [03:07]
• They critique performative public statements after controversial figures’ deaths, suggesting silence is sometimes more appropriate. Tommy: "You don't have to glorify these people. … Saying nothing is available." [06:36]

2. Trump’s Nigeria Comments—Fox News Drives Foreign Policy Panic

[09:51 – 16:47]

• Trump threatens military invasion of Nigeria after seeing a Fox News segment about Christian persecution.
• The hosts explain the actual sectarian complexity in Nigeria—most Boko Haram victims are Muslims, and land/resource conflicts don’t equate to genocide.
• US Africa Command staff reportedly scrambled to draft military options in response to his social media post. Tommy: "Can you just imagine how freaked out, like, your average Nigerian was? … This is just going to pour gas on [sectarian tensions]." [13:23] Ben: "It's so obvious that he will occasionally just see some segment on Fox ... and then all of a sudden, we're on the cusp of war." [13:32]
• They flag the racialized undertones of US concern only for Christian lives and highlight the geopolitical costs with Africa: Ben: "Nigeria is a massively important country. … What a great way to signal: get as far away from the Americans as possible." [15:10]

3. Catastrophe in Sudan—Genocide in Darfur Ignored

[16:47 – 27:29]

• The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have taken over Al Fasher; satellite images show the carnage and blood visible from space.
• The humanitarian disaster is described in detail, including forced executions, famine, and ethnic cleansing.
• Tommy notes the world's indifference—evangelicals now ignore Darfur, US pressure on the UAE for arming the RSF is absent, and aid agencies are hamstrung.
• The collapse of international order is highlighted: Ben: "This is what it's like to not have an international system that works. These are the kinds of things that can happen. And all people seem to be able to do about it is comment on how people aren't commenting on it enough." [21:54]
• The hosts debunk accusations of selective outrage or "whataboutism" regarding Sudan vs. Gaza, and explain who is really benefitting and fueling the violence.

4. Trump Flirts with Nuclear Annihilation—Calls for US Nuclear Testing

[27:29 – 38:20]

• Trump posts online about resuming US nuclear tests, apparently misunderstanding Russia’s recent military activities.
• The distinction is made between testing nuclear weapons (not done by the US since 1992) and testing delivery systems.
• Both hosts stress how reckless and destabilizing actual nuclear testing would be: Ben: "If you start breaking again the norm of nuclear testing ... we're back at peak Cold War. ... You start bringing back nuclear weapons with this current crowd … we're fucked." [33:33]
• They point out that restarting nuclear tests would benefit China, be environmentally disastrous, and make the world far more dangerous.

5. FBI Director Cash Patel – Outrage over Grift and Hypocrisy

[40:41 – 47:00]

• The hosts mock FBI Director Cash Patel for misusing agency jets for personal trips to his girlfriend’s events, calling out his hypocrisy after he'd previously criticized such perks under his predecessor.
• They highlight how far-right infighting (not left-wing critics) fueled the backlash.
• Patel tries to cut off plane-tracking services amid the scandal, but continues posting publicly. Tommy: "All he's doing is … sitting on his fucking phone at the FBI headquarters between private jet rides to see his girlfriend, shitty country singer ..." [44:13]

6. Israel—Detainee Abuse, Leaks, and Political Fallout

[47:00 – 53:43]

• They discuss the exposure of a brutal assault on a Palestinian detainee at an IDF facility, the leaking of video evidence, and the subsequent targeting of the whistleblower rather than the perpetrators.
• Israeli political leaders, rather than condemning the abuse, rail against the harm to Israel’s reputation. Ben: "There's just something deeply sick about government and society where the crime is leaking the evidence of the criminal activity and not the absolute dehumanization of somebody in your custody." [50:34]

7. International Elections—Glimmers of Progressive Hope

[56:31 – 60:38]

• Ireland and the Netherlands buck right-wing trends: Catherine Connolly, a progressive, wins the Irish presidency, and centrist Rob Yetton (first openly gay Dutch PM) defeats far-right Geert Wilders.
• The hosts are cautiously optimistic, noting how running youthful, authentic candidates and taking on the far right directly can work.

8. US Refugee Policy—Explicit Racism

[60:38 – 64:26]

• Trump slashes US refugee admissions to a new low of 7,500, with priority for white South Africans (“Africars”). It’s the lowest cap in history and even lower than Trump’s last term.
• The hosts stress the open racism and the collapse of legal, orderly, and moral immigration policy: Ben: "If you peel back all the layers of Trumpism, there is just like a core of racism that is fundamental to the whole project." [62:02]

9. Prince Andrew is “Cancelled”—Royal Titles and Epstein Fallout

[64:26 – 71:03]

• Prince Andrew is stripped of his titles and privileges amid revived Epstein scandal revelations.
• The hosts both laugh at the royal fallout and note the relative seriousness with which the British are (belatedly) treating such misconduct compared to other elites.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Dick Cheney's Legacy
  Ben: "He plowed the ground for Trump. ... He kind of helped create this monster and then he saw it and he's like, oh, I don't like that." [03:07]

• On Trump’s Policy Impulses
  Ben: "It's so obvious that he will occasionally just see some segment on Fox ... and then all of a sudden, we're on the cusp of war." [13:32]

• On Sudan and International Disorder
  Ben: "This is what it's like to not have an international system that works. ... And all people seem to be able to do about it is comment on how people aren't commenting on it enough." [21:54]

• On Nuclear Testing
  Ben: "You start bringing back nuclear weapons with this current crowd that's running this collection of countries, and it just ... you're just suddenly starting to play, like, much higher stakes." [33:33]

• On US Racist Refugee Policy
  Ben: "If you peel back all the layers of Trumpism, there is just like a core of racism that is fundamental to the whole project." [62:02]

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Interview Highlight: Sanna Marin, Former Finnish Prime Minister

(Full interview begins ~ [74:10] — 1:14:10)

Main Topics:

• The personal and political challenges as a young female leader
  • The effect of constant scrutiny, social media hate, and societal double standards on who enters politics.
  • Marin: “We need people from all genders, different backgrounds, different age groups to participate in our democratic systems, or otherwise our democracies will fall and collapse.” [77:24]
• Finland’s decision to join NATO
  • Historical context: Finland’s long-standing concern with Russian aggression and the shock of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
  • Marin: “The most important thing for Finnish citizens has been always to stay independent ... At that moment it became real that only way to secure ourselves was to apply for NATO membership.” [86:11]
• Supporting Ukraine and the risk of Western hesitation
  • Marin argues for more robust military and financial support, stresses the urgency of using frozen Russian assets, and warns about sluggish Western response prolonging the war.
  • Marin: “We all could have done more and we should have done more. The little we give, and the slower that we are giving it… the longer this war will continue.” [91:54]
• Combatting the far right, authoritarianism, and political disinformation in Europe
  • Marin: “I see that there's actually two wars going on in the world ... one is the challenging of the rules-based international order ... The other is within our democracies ... with Russian influence ... pushing those pro-Russian forces into power and gain that kind of far right extremist way of thinking.” [96:26]
• Marin reflects on her future: for now, working outside politics, dedicating time to family, but doesn’t rule out returning "never say never".

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Topic | Start Time | End Time | |--------------------------------------|-------------|-------------| | Cheney legacy discussion | 01:56 | 06:51 | | Trump/Nigeria/Christian persecution | 09:51 | 16:47 | | Sudan/RSF/atrocities | 16:47 | 27:29 | | Nuclear testing/Cold War nostalgia | 27:29 | 38:20 | | Cash Patel/FBI jet scandal | 40:41 | 47:00 | | Israeli detention scandal | 47:00 | 53:43 | | Ireland & Netherlands elections | 56:31 | 60:38 | | US racist refugee policy | 60:38 | 64:26 | | Prince Andrew/royal repercussions | 64:26 | 71:03 | | Sanna Marin interview | 74:10 | 102:51 |

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Episode Tone & Style

The tone is signature Crooked Media: sharp, irreverent, conversational, and accessible—but anchored by deep knowledge of global affairs. The hosts blend gallows humor ("nuclear annihilation") with earnest, often urgent analysis, openly lamenting present political trends while spotlighting glimmers of hope and activism abroad.

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For Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

This episode delivers a comprehensive, cynical-yet-informed look at a global order in crisis—highlighting reckless US leadership under Trump, atrocities overlooked abroad, the undermining of international norms, and the consequences of politicized justice. The Sanna Marin interview offers a rare hopeful note on youth, gender, and resilience in contemporary politics.

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Skip the ads, focus on the banter and brains—this episode is an unfiltered window into the chaos and comedy of today’s world politics.

Transcript

[A]

Pod Save the World is brought to you by Simplisafe. If you could actually stop someone from breaking into your home before they got inside, why wouldn't you want to tradition be welcoming and invite them in. You want to throw an ice burglar like the Louvre guys or something. They're classy. Traditional security systems respond after someone breaks in. Simplisafe is different because it can stop crimes before they happen with its active guard outdoor protection high tech cameras detect threats while they are still outside your home and alert real security agents. This is a game changer. The agent take action while the intruder is still outside. They confront the intruder, letting them know they're being watched on camera and even sounding a loud siren and triggering a spotlight if needed and triggering the burglars. This is how you stop crime before it starts. Other systems have cameras that let you talk to intruders, but they require you to see the alert yourself. Simplisafe's monitoring agents have your back and talk to intruders even if they aren't there. Plus with Simplisafe, there's no long term contracts or hidden fees. You can cancel anytime. They've been named best home security systems by U.S. news and World Report for five years running. And they have a 60 day money back guarantee. So you can try and see the difference for yourself. As you guys know, John Levitt sent up a simply safe system himself. He did it right out of the box. It worked incredibly well. Kept John safe, kept pundit safe, kept everybody safe. You can turn it on and off from your phone. Very funny that we've been just congratulating. Love it for us. I'm so proud of him. Do it yourself security system for seven years running now. He's our special boy. Don't miss out on Simplisafe's biggest sale of the year. 60% off. Right now our listeners can save 60% off on a SimpliSafe home security [e-mail] CrookedWorld that's simplisafe.com CrookedWorld there's no safe like Simplisafe. Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor.

[B]

I'm Ben Rhodes.

[A]

Ben, the vaccine finally got Dick Cheney.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I'm just kidding.

[A]

He died of natural causes as far as we know.

[B]

I mean he hung on for a long time given he had like 17 heart procedures.

[A]

84 years old, five heart attacks. Yeah, and a chain smoker.

[B]

Well, you know, also a lot of, a lot of being eaten from within by your deeds in the world, by your Mistakes.

[A]

Remember when he had his pacemaker removed or swapped out because there were words you could hack it. It was like a plot line from Homeland. Yeah.

[B]

I think, I think they watched a little too much tv.

[A]

Yes. I'm guessing that's not how the Al Qaeda guys are going to get you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Look, we don't like Dick Cheney. We don't like his political views. I give him credit for being one of the bigger name Republicans to come out and say he was voting for Kamala Harris and not for Donald Trump. He stepped over the lowest bar possible.

[B]

Yeah. I don't sauntered over it. Yeah, I, to me, that was a little bit emblematic of the ultimate too late, too little, too late category. Oh, yeah. Because essentially these guys like Cheney, they became never Trumpers at the end. But his dishonesty.

[A]

Trump shit on him for years.

[B]

But the thing is, he plowed the ground for Trump. Right. His rampant dishonesty and kind of bad faith approach to politics and, you know, win at all costs, blow through norms, you know, expand the power of the presidency. Like he, he, he, he kind of helped create this monster and then he saw it and he's like, oh, I don't like that. And you know, I don't know. Well, it's clearly the lowest bar. But he didn't exactly soar over it.

[A]

Yeah. And you know, I'm guessing that Cheney didn't like Trump because one, Trump was mean to his daughter and two, you know, he opposes all things that neocon stand for. At least pretended to.

[B]

Pretended to. Yeah. Yeah. So which just shows you there's no constituency prediction.

[A]

Like zero, like negative. Yeah. So I got my coffee and my water today. CU me a long night with election returns. So Cheney is primarily known as Bush's vp, but he had a long list of jobs and some political lowlights and highlights. Here's a few. Ben, chief of staff for Gerald Ford. I think that was during his wet era when he was drinking a lot. I had an uncle who was a journalist who said Dick Cheney was like a pretty good time at that point.

[B]

The Joe Biden of the Republican Party, except drunk.

[A]

He was a member of the House for 10 years, representing Wyoming defense secretary under George H.W. bush, CEO of Halliburton from 95 to 2000. Sweet gig if you can get it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Cheney led the VP selection process for George W. Bush and then ultimately selected himself, which you got to kind of take the hat.

[B]

I know. To the younger listeners, that was a great moment in politics that you missed.

[A]

It's like, wait Wait, wait, you picked you. In 2006, Cheney shot his friend Harry Whittington in the face while on a hunting trip. And they try to cover it up. That's the best part.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Didn't they then give the story to, like, the local newspaper where the hunting trip was in Texas?

[B]

Yeah. It was this made for like weeks of Daily show episodes. It was.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Glorious.

[A]

That was like, I remember where I was moment. I was in, like apartment with my then girlfriend. Anyway, so we don't, like, love Dick Cheney.

[B]

No.

[A]

The one thing about him is he was unrepentant for some of the problems he caused. Here's a clip that will highlight that for you. All right.

[C]

I say President Obama, you say.

[B]

I say a president whose policies are doing lasting damage to the United States of America.

[A]

The Iran nuclear deal, terrible deal. It definitely ought to be rejected by.

[C]

The Congress, should Guantanamo stay open.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Any regrets about going into Iraq?

[B]

No. It was the right thing to do then.

[A]

I believed it then and I believe it now.

[B]

No apologies.

[A]

No apologies. I believe that was 14 years after the invasion.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty remarkable.

[A]

Yeah. Anyway, so I guess the world looks.

[B]

Pretty good from whatever farm in Wyoming he was on.

[A]

You know, interesting.

[B]

Somehow the lasting damage of policies comment was directed at Obama and not in the Mirror. Yeah.

[A]

Not the Iraq War then. In a typically classy move, Trump has not yet put out a statement of any kind of dictionary.

[B]

Now there's Obama, as of this recording, which I.

[A]

Heavy D gets one.

[B]

Dick Cheney, which I kind of admire. If you can stick to that. Yeah, sure.

[A]

Why not?

[B]

Well, because there's something performative about this. Very much so. Like, I'm not trying to be a jerk or something, but it's like, I don't like Dick Cheney and I don't. You know, I get why his friends want to say nice things about him, but I don't know why we all have to. Colleagues pretend like he was a selfless public servant who tried to advance the democracy. Like, I don't think that's what he did.

[A]

This is the giant white space that, like, people refuse to just acknowledge is possible to you as a public figure.

[B]

Saying nothing is available.

[A]

You don't have to. You can just say nothing.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You don't have to glorify these people. Like, the whole Charlie Kirk thing is like. Or you can just.

[B]

You could just say nothing.

[A]

Bite your tongue.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or just wait a few weeks.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, I don't know. Anyway, we got a great show for you guys today. We're not going to talk Any more about Dick Cheney?

[B]

So kind of dealt with it.

[A]

Done. Yeah, we're going to cover. We're explaining why President Trump started threatening to invade Nigeria. That's the thing that happened. You'll be shocked to learn that he doesn't seem to have the best handle on the facts. We'll also update you on the latest from Sudan, where a rebel group called the RSF captured the last city under Sudanese government control in the Darfur region and is committing atrocities at such a massive scale that you can reportedly see the carnage from space. Truly horrifying story. We'll explain why Trump's plan to resume testing nuclear weapons. It's like maybe his dumbest idea ever been. Yes, it's like top five. Right.

[B]

It's concerning.

[A]

Okay, we'll, we'll get to it. We'll explain why FBI Director Cash Patel is very mad online and he's not at all defensive. And if you say that, he might sue you. We'll talk about the controversy over detainee abuse that is rocking Israel, but not for the reasons that you might expect or prefer to expect. The two big elections in the Netherlands and Ireland that might give you a little hope. Will explain why America's refugee policy is now just overtly racist. Not a complicated story. And then finally, Prince Andrew gets slapped in the face again.

[B]

It's a good show today.

[A]

Good show today. And then, Ben, you did our interview?

[B]

I did. I talked to Sana Marin, the former prime minister of Finland, who has a new book out, Hope in Action. It's a memoir of her time as prime minister. We talked about her view of Russia and the invasion of Ukraine. She obviously brought Finland into NATO. We talk about that decision, bring that up to date. You know, how does she, looking at the situation with Zelensky and looking at the war now, talk about battling far right politics. But also, like, really interestingly, you know, she writes about, we, I actually told her before the interview that we once had a episode titled Let Santa Marin Dance. She liked that. She liked that. But she went through all these faux scandals that she writes about that basically had to do with her being a woman with a life, you know, under 40, including the famous picture of her dancing that got some people all bent out of shape. But we talked about, like, does that disincentivize normal people from going into politics? Does that dissentivize women from going into politics? What is it about our culture that, you know, we particularly put young women through those kinds of quote unquote scandals? So that was like a really interesting conversation because Actually, Tommy, I worry about this a lot. Like how many normal people look at politics and like, I don't know.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

And so the way she was treated, definitely, you know, trends in the wrong direction. But obviously she wants people to get involved. So check it out.

[A]

It's an especially acute problem for progressive women.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Just progressives generally. I mean, Donald Trump was videotaped dancing with Jeffrey Epstein at a party at Mar a Lago, and everyone just seemed to memory hold.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, here we are.

[A]

Yeah. Anyway, stick around for that great interview. Also, for those of you who are subscribers and members of our Friends of the Pod community, you get a bonus Q and A that comes from the pod Save the world discord. If you want to join and be a part of that discord, go to cricket.com friends all right, Ben, let's talk about Nigeria.

[B]

Yeah. Didn't know that we'd start here.

[A]

Yeah, nor did I. So Donald Trump is suddenly very, very worried about events in Nigeria. On Friday, he named Nigeria a country of particular concern, which is a designation given to countries that according to the State Department, have engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom. On Saturday, Trump posted the following on Truth Social, quote, if the Nigerian government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance in Nigeria. And we may very well go into that now disgraced country, guns a blazing, to completely wipe out the Islamic terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities. Okay. And then here's a clip of Trump talking about Nigeria on Air Force One from Sunday.

[B]

Nigeria.

[A]

Just wanted to ask you, do you envisage US boots on the ground?

[C]

Could be.

[A]

I mean, a lot of things.

[C]

I envisage a lot of things.

[B]

They're killing record numbers of Christians in.

[C]

Nigeria and they have other countries. Very bad also, you know that, that.

[B]

Part of the world, very bad.

[C]

They're killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers.

[A]

We're not going to allow that to happen.

[B]

He envisions, he envisages a lot of things. I envisage many things.

[A]

So what the hell happened that prompted this, you ask? Well, it turns out, according to NBC News, that Trump saw a report about Nigeria on Fox News.

[B]

Of course.

[A]

Great way to make policy.

[B]

Great way to go to war.

[A]

So I have not seen that segment yet. I'm positive you don't need.

[B]

You don't need to see it.

[A]

Yeah, we know what it looks like.

[B]

You know what it looks like.

[A]

So there's this belief among evangelicals that there's been this wave of anti Christian violence in Nigeria to the point of it being a genocide. I'm sure it was about that. And so that led to these social media posts from Trump and then this massive scramble within the government to, like, catch up to whatever he was talking about. I saw one report, Ben, that said staffers at Africom got like an emergency call to come back to the office, and they were just scrambling to figure out military options to respond to a genocide against Christians that's not actually happening. Yeah, so that's great. So to be clear, though, like, there's a lot of violence in Nigeria. In the northeastern part of Nigeria, there's a terrorist group called Boko Haram that has launched brutal attacks on civilians, including on churches and mosques. Don't confuse them with Boko Haram, which did wage war on Twitter in the 2018, 2019 period in a pretty brutal fashion. But so that region, northeastern Nigeria, it's predominantly Muslim. And the majority of Boko Haram's victims are thus Muslims because they live in that community.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Don't take my word for it. Yeah. So last month, Mossad Belous, who is Tiffany Trump's father in law, said the following. People of all religions and of all tribes are dying. We even know that Boko Haram and ISIS are killing more Muslims than Christians.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

That this is not specifically targeted at one group or another. Again, Trump's advisor in central Nigeria, there's clashes between these Muslim nomadic cattle herders and mostly Christian farmers. That fighting is over scarce land and water resources, not like jihadist ideology. But this idea that there's a genocide against Christians is big among Republicans in Congress. It's big from Ted Cruz talks about it a lot. And then the reaction in Nigeria to all of this has just been, like, confusion, I think, understandably.

[B]

So. Yeah.

[A]

The president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, he's a Muslim guy, but he's married to a Christian woman who's a minister. So the idea that he's fomenting a.

[B]

Sectarian warfare seems unlikely.

[A]

Feels off. The truth is, like, it's really hard to combat terrorist groups, especially in a country like Nigeria that is huge, has lots of ungoverned spaces, among other problems. So, Ben, like, all you can kind of do is laugh at something this crazy, but can you just imagine how freaked out, like, your average Nigerian was? Like, one day you wake up, the president, United States is threatening to invade you. And also, like, the country is half Muslims, half Christian. There are sectarian tensions, and this is just going to pour gas on them.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

There's so Many things that are crazy about this. I mean, you put your finger on one that really does matter because it's easy to chuckle at, but it's so obvious that he will occasionally just see some segment on Fox or Oan, or he'll, like, have a conversation with some visiting MAGA influencer. And then like, all of a sudden, we're on, like, the cusp of war or we're tariffing this country, or he's like, demanding the arrest of some foreign leader. That is fucking weird. And as he gets older, you know, another thing that we're beginning to, I think, have to talk about a little more. Like, this impulse control problem could get worse, you know, and there's nobody around him there to say, you know, in Trump parlance, sir, maybe we can put that one in the drafts folder, you know.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because Nigeria is the largest country in Africa. Like, he's literally threatening to 230 million people. He's literally threatening to invade a massive country that does not have this problem. Like, Boko Haram has been around for a long time. They're an awful group. They. They kill indiscriminate of, like, religion. Like, as you said, they've killed majority Muslims. There is literally no possible constructive U.S. military engagement that I could imagine whatsoever. Like, so this is kind of either a completely bizarre and disastrous threat if it actually leads to some action, or it's just kind of a bizarre thing to do to just kind of threaten to go to war with the largest country in Africa with a lot of racialized language too. You know, like, we. Bad things happening in that part of the world. And, you know, so now disgraced country. Nothing. Yeah, nothing. Watched Fox. Well. And actually, like, to be serious about it, you know, if you want to look at the geopolitics of this, like, Nigeria is a massively important country, right? We talk about competition with China. Like, well, what a great way to just signal that, like, get as far away from the Americans as possible. Like, sign up to every Belt Road initiative you can. Nigerians. Because we are not reliable. Like, these things actually matter in the real world.

[A]

There's gonna be 400 million people in Nigeria by 2050. They're having explosive population growth. Like, this is a huge important country.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And he's just. Now this will be the thing that they know about Trump. And just one more point on this, because we beat this drum a lot, but this is the man who promised end forever wars, you know, and the same time that he's like, on the verge of regime change, war in Venezuela and blowing up boats he's threatening to invade, you know, guns. A blazing Nigeria, like, does not feel like very ending of the forever war. Ish to me.

[A]

No, no, it does not. And also, part of what makes the concern about a fake genocide against Christians in Nigeria so galling in this moment is that there's an actual genocidal massacre happening as we speak in Sudan that I don't think I've seen him comment on.

[B]

No, and, and actually I'm glad you say that because one of the things bug me about this is like the, the clear prioritization of Christians. You know, I mean, genocides against other religions are fine. It just feels like. And we'll get to this with the refugees too. Like we care about white people and Christians and maybe sometimes Jews if they're Israelis. And we, like everybody else is a second class global citizen. Right. That. That's fucking dark.

[A]

Yeah, it is really dark. And it is like codified into policy now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so let's talk more about Sudan. So last week we talked about the fall of this city of Al Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region. They had been under siege for 18 months. And then finally, troops aligned with the Sudanese government just abandoned the city. And they allowed it to be taken by a militia group called the Rapid Support Forces, or rsf. So civilians in Al Fasher were already in the midst of a famine. They were eating animal feed to survive. But the violence since the RSF has taken over has been like, like Rwanda genocide levels of horrific. The humanitarian research lab at Yale, they were looking at Al Fasher via satellite imagery. They said they have seen a, quote, explosion of objects that are the size and shape of dead bodies on the ground and that there is discoloration around those clusters of bodies from all the blood. In other words, you can see the blood stains from the massacres from space. We also have RSF soldiers posting videos of themselves executing civilians and then bragging about it. Men and boys are being separated from women and being summarily executed. The women are being abducted. The World Health Organization said the RSF executed basically everyone they could find at the last remaining working hospital in Al fasher. Something like 500 people just executed. And then maybe most chillingly, Ben. So when El Fahsher fell, there were believed to be about 260,000 people left in the city. But according to the Norwegian Refugee council, less than 6,000 people have made it to the nearest refugee camp. And those that did had to survive like a 40 mile multi day journey. And when they got There they had stories about torture and beatings and witnessing executions as El FAS fell. And it just really makes you wonder, like, what is. Where are the rest of those people? Save the Children sent us this clip from a staffer in Sudan who has been in touch with folks on the ground in Darfur. Her name is Odette Nanatumbara. Here it is.

[B]

Our teams responding in Tawila tell us that many of the families and children coming through Tawila are arriving with nothing.

[C]

Recent stats from MSF show that out.

[B]

Of the 70 children under five screened for malnutrition, 100% of those were found to be malnourished. Now, these results are deeply worrying considering.

[A]

That many children as well witnessing killings.

[B]

Lost their family members or were separated from their loved ones.

[C]

Some now are living alone or with.

[B]

A host host family who themselves are struggling to cope.

[A]

So, you know, ethnic violence is driving a lot of these atrocities. The RSF is predominantly Arab. The Yale lab said the RSF quote, appears to be in a systematic and intentional process of ethnically cleansing of indigenous non Arab communities through forced displacement, in summary execution. So, Ben, as we, as we noticed last week, the world has ignored this civil war pretty much for years. Tragically, back in 2005, evangelical Christians were a huge part of the Save Darfur coalition that drew attention to that last genocide. Now I guess they're focused on Nigeria or just they don't care anymore. As discussed, the United States has completely failed to put pressure on the United Arab Emirates to stop funneling arms to the rsf. In fact, the UAE has increased those shipments over the last few months, and now USAID no longer exists to help people who escape. So I guess the question is, like, what the hell should the international community do now?

[B]

Well, I think that the core way to think about what's happening in Sudan is this is the absence of any international order or system. Right. Because normally there actually is, like, a pretty clear playbook about how you'd approach this. Now, remember, this all had roots in the fact that there was, like, a popular uprising that ousted a war criminal president of Sudan, and that was supposed to create some transition to democracy. Now, what inevitably happened is the regional powers did not want to see a transition to democracy. Some of them backed the Sudanese military, and some of them, like the uae, backed this RSF force. But in a normal system, the international community would come in and say, okay, wait a second, like, stop arming people in this proxy war uae, if we, the US are not going to sell you any more weapons, so long as you do that, like, exert a little bit of leverage there. You have some kind of U. UN you know, Security Council resolution aimed at kind of promoting like a process for a ceasefire. You have, you know, international diplomats who go in and negotiate that. And then you'd have mechanisms of international assistance like USAID working with others to like, surge resources, people on the ground. None of those things exist now. Like, there's no political will to put pressure on countries like the UAE that are funding the arms. There's not really the apparatus of the UN Security Council that can, you know, mount some initiative and set up a diplomatic process to get to a ceasefire. There's far less international assistance that can surge in. So what we're doing is we're seeing this is what it's like to not have an international system that works. These are the kinds of things that can happen. And all people seem to be able to do about it is comment on how people aren't commenting on it enough.

[A]

Yep, yep. And I do think, like, talking about this stuff matters because the UAE keeps denying that they're funneling arms to the rss.

[B]

Nobody does.

[A]

It's like, well documented. There's a UN panel of experts report, there's tons of press reporting. Like, there's a base in Chad that the UAE was using. The countries have found all kinds of weapons from the UK or from China that we know were sold to the uae and thus they must have given them to the RSF and, you know, the. The RSF forces. So the. The UAE has this relationship with this guy Hetty, who is the leader of the RSF that dates back a decade because they used RSF guys fight in Yemen, which is pretty fucking bleak. The UAE was trying to build a port, as we discussed, you know, last week, in Sudan and trying to build a relationship there to sort of extend their power. And they have this strange relationship with Sudan where all the Sudanese gold comes to the uae.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Say these economic interests, but my God, I mean, you would think that like a little bit of naming and shaming like this would go a long way, but so far they're just. They're still in this denial phase.

[B]

It doesn't seem to matter as much as it did to name and shame because we're in this kind of post rules world. And yeah, part of the other concerning thing underneath the surface here is like, gold is suddenly much more valuable. Right. Which makes sense. At a time when the world looks like it's falling apart, people turn to gold. The problem with that is as gold gets more valuable we see this kind of return to this resource plunder kind of foreign policy from some people. And look, the US has been one of them in the past. And I do worry that in addition to showing what happens when there's no functioning international system, we're kind of seeing the beginnings of what could be some pretty bloody efforts. I mean, we've already seen the drc, similar kind of resource wars. You know, that, that has the potential to, to, to. To. To reoccur in different places.

[A]

That's really dark. I mean, so just to give folks a little bit of sense of what people are trying to do about it. So, Chris Van Hollen and Sarah Jacobs. Senator Chris Van Hollen, Congresswoman Jacobs. They introduced a bill to halt US Weapons exports, the uae, until they stop supporting the rsf. That's not going to go anywhere under Trump, but, like, good on them.

[B]

The right approach. Yeah.

[A]

Senator Jim Risch, a Republican, has. Wants to designate the RSF a terrorist group. I don't know if that's the right approach, but it would cause them some.

[B]

Real problems and better than, like, inventing fictional terrorist groups to blow boats out of the water in the, you know, Caribbean.

[A]

Yeah, that's a good point. And also, if, if Sudan gets partitioned and basically the RSF controls the west and the Sudanese militia calls the East, I mean, that could create a new context. There were talks that were, you know, held by another group called the Quad. It was the us, the uae, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. That didn't do much because, again, a lot of those countries treat Sudan like a proxy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For their battles. One thing we did want to just highlight quickly, Ben, Both of us saw this particularly ghoulish article in the Jewish Insider that accused mostly progressives calling out the atrocities by the RSF and accused them of selective Sudan outrage. Again, like, so. It's, like, so ridiculous. I don't even know to be in. Like, so the, the, the, the point of the article is basically like, what about the Sudanese government? Why aren't you calling them out, too? They have Muslim Brother Brotherhood kind of influences or something. And I just found it so galling because I guarantee you, like, there's no fans of the Sudanese government out there. Sudanese military. But for years, the kind of what about ism you'd always hear from people defending the war in Gaza was that liberals were hypocrites because they're not talking about the atrocities in Sudan. And now Jewish Insider is attacking critics of the militia group that's conducting a genocide. And again, like, the RSF is Both sides are bad, but they're particularly evil. Like they grew out of the Janjaweed militias that conducted the last genocide. And the difference now is instead of being on horseback, they have like brand new military equipment from the UAE that they're using to slaughter people.

[B]

Yeah. And if your whole argument is constantly, what about ism? Like, that's a tell that you don't really want to defend things on facts. And look, the paradigm here, it's not subtle. It's like for a long time, the what about ISM was, oh, progressives, like, why do you care about Gaza and you don't care about Sudan? Which is a way of avoiding the facts of Gaza and just say, well, there are even more people being killed here. Never mind the fact that people cared about Gaza because it was US weapons doing the killing. And then now all of a sudden, people start talking a lot about Sudan and they're talking about the rsf. But you know, the UAE is an Abraham Accords country. It's like a country that like, has been the most stalwart supporter of Israel in the Arab world. And so now we're like, going to defend them. It just, you know what, like what the RSF doing is like grotesque atrocities. It's supported by the uae. That's why people are talking about it. You know, frankly, it looked like the conflict in Sudan, as terrible as it had been, was, was nearing an end and the Sudanese military was, was winning again, not because they're all good guys, but, like, I'd rather the conflict come to an end. And frankly, it probably makes sense that the corrupt military of the country is a more legitimate actor than like a rogue militia that did some, like, fighting in Yemen, you know, like, so it's not saying they're good, it's just saying that it makes kind of sense that the RSF is not going to be governing Sudan. So this kind of this, this stuff drives me nuts because it just shows you how everything becomes a proxy for some other thing that is about selective outrage. And what about ism? And no, it is not wrong to single out the RSF and the UE for scrutiny in this context.

[A]

Yeah. And those who have a problem with that are literally defending the indefensible. So.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. Okay. So the other big question kind of out there in the ether right now, Ben, about the Trump administration's foreign policy is whether the United States is about to start testing nuclear weapons again.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

This started, of course, because of a truth social post. So last week, Trump posted the following quote, because of other Countries testing programs. I've instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. Don't tell them that the Department of.

[B]

Energy, they don't manage a nuclear stock.

[A]

Small detail, details, details. Only nukes. So this statement was seemingly in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who last week announced that Russia had tested an underwater nuclear drone that can create a tsunami and take out a coastal city. So he says, as well as a nuclear powered cruise missile that flew for over 15 hours. But critically, both of those cases involve Russia testing the delivery system for a nuclear weapon, not the nuclear weapon itself. It's a nuclear detonation. And that distinction is a really big deal because the US hasn't tested a nuclear weapon since 1992. In 1996, we signed, along with many other countries, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, or ctbt. Before that treaty, the world's nuclear powers carried out over 2,000 nuclear tests. But since the CTBT, there have only been 10 total nuclear tests. Two by India, two by Pakistan, and then six by Trump's buddies over in North Korea. So this is a good thing for a lot of reasons. To state the obvious, like, militarily, the status quo benefits the United states because the US conducted a little over half of the 2,000 nuclear tests, which means we have more data about nuclear detonations than any other country. And we can use that information to create computer models to test our nuclear arsenal with computers. The Russians are next with about 700 tests. China has only done 45 tests. So if the world starts testing nukes again, it would really, really, really benefit China, which is the middle of a massive buildup of its nuclear arsenal. And I'm sure would love nothing more than more data to refine those nukes as they go. It's also, I mean, again, to state the obvious was really bad to fill the atmosphere with nuclear radiation all the time. But judging Ben by this exchange Trump had with 60 Minutes is Nora O'. Donnell. It's not clear that he understands the distinction or really the issue at all. Let's watch.

[C]

Less than an hour before your meeting with President Xi, you posted on social media that you instructed the, quote, Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons immediately.

[B]

What did you mean? Well, we have more nuclear weapons than any other country. I think we should do something about denuclearization. And I did actually discuss that with both President Putin and President Xi. We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times.

[C]

Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons.

[B]

And China will have a lot.

[C]

They have some.

[A]

They have quite a bit.

[B]

So why do we need to test our nuclear weapons? Well, because you have to see how they work. You know, you do have to. And the reason I'm saying testing is because Russia announced that they were going to be doing a test. If you notice, North Korea is testing constantly.

[A]

Other countries are testing. We're the only country that doesn't test.

[B]

And I want to be. I don't want to be the only.

[C]

Country that doesn't test.

[B]

Are you saying that after more than.

[C]

30 years, the United States is going to start detonating nuclear weapons?

[B]

I'm saying that we're going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do.

[C]

Yes, but the only country that's testing nuclear weapons is North Korea. China, Russia are.

[B]

No, no, no. Russia's testing nuclear weapons. My understanding. And China's testing them, too.

[A]

You just don't know about it.

[B]

That would be certainly very newsworthy. My understanding is what Russia did recently.

[C]

Recently was test essentially the delivery systems.

[B]

For nuclear weapons, essentially missiles, which we.

[C]

Can do that, but what.

[B]

Not with nuclear weapons. Russia's testing and China's testing, but they.

[A]

Don'T talk about it. That's wrong. Okay, so Trump's team kind of scrambled to clean this up. The Energy Secretary and the head of the US Strategic Command both seem to walk the statements back, but you never know with Trump. Ben, I have lots of thoughts on why this is so dumb, but please go off.

[B]

Well, first of all, if there were tests of nuclear weapons, right, like secret tests, we would know about it. Like, you can't hide, you cannot hide the detonation of nuclear device. So just in case anybody was wondering, there wasn't some big reveal there about the Chinese. Like, I just. We would be able to tell if someone detonated a nuclear device. This is completely.

[A]

It's like a Collection priority number one.

[B]

A. Yeah, U.S. intelligence, you can see that kind of thing. There's satellites right now. This would be terrible. Look, CTBT has been one of the most effective international treaties in post World War II era. Frankly, we tried to get it ratified in the Senate in the Obama years and didn't go anywhere because Republicans wouldn't ratify the treaty. But we basically act as if we're in line with the treaty. But the reason why is it doesn't take a genius if you start breaking again the norm of nuclear testing and potentially environmentally catastrophic. But also, you're just kind of loosening the norms on nukes in ways that then other countries start testing. Believe me, if the US Starts testing nuclear weapons. The Chinese and Russians will do that. We're back at, like, peak Cold War. Other countries that are, like, nuclear curious.

[A]

India and Pakistan.

[B]

Yeah. Might start saying, we got to start testing, or we. If we don't have nuclear weapons, we have to get them. But the thing that really worries me about this, Tommy, is that, look, we've done on this podcast, like, World War Watch. It's concerning. There's already a big war in Europe. There's been big war in the Middle East. Now we've got, like, the fascistic president in this country. You look out at this collection of goons in the world, and it's Trump and it's Xi and it's Putin and it's Modi and whoever is holding the button on the Pakistani nuclear stockpile. And we know we're gonna go through some, like, bumpy times here. We know this. There's not gonna be a soft landing out of this period in history. The thing that we can't survive is if this suddenly gets linked up. All this conflict and ego and nationalism and narcissism and old men and toxicity. If all that becomes a nuclear question, like, we're fucked. You know, like anything else, we can survive an economic collapse. We can. The AI like, shuts down the power grid or like, there's.

[A]

We can even survive the East Wing.

[B]

Yeah. We can even survive the East Wing being knocked down. We can even survive Dick Cheney passing away. Right. But this is just the one thing that needs to stay off limits. Like, I for sure, please just keep this one on the other side of the. Of the lock and key here, because you start bringing back nuclear weapons with this current crowd that's running this collection of countries, and it just. You're just suddenly starting to play, like, much higher stakes. Yeah.

[A]

And, like, it just. You can't overstate how much this doesn't make sense. Just, like, militarily, like, the weapons Putin tested weren't new and they're not game changers in any way. Like, apparently even Russian researchers are skeptical that this, like, tsunami underwater drone thing will work. And, like, even if it did, a tsunami drone is not more threatening to our security than a Russian nuclear sub with 16 ballistic missiles that each carry a half a dozen warheads. That's a little more of a threat to us in this. In the nuclear cruise missile. Apparently, the US was testing nuclear cruise missile technology in the 1960s, and we were like, you know what? We don't need this because we have ICBMs.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And what those do is they go into space, and they come back down at Mach 20 fast.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they're really hard to take out because they have multiple warheads and decoys and shit. And so, like, neither of these weapons changes the strategic calculus of mutually assured destruction. Yes, that is behind our theory.

[B]

But part of what is concerning about this, to take it seriously, is the reason Putin is designing all these new delivery systems is because he has this paranoia about US Missile defense, right? And so he's tried to figure out these different ways underwater missiles and tsunamis and all the rest of it. This is kind of Putin's kind of mad response to US Missile defense, By the way. US Missile defense is also pretty fucking.

[A]

Crazy and kind of bullshit.

[B]

Because it's bullshit. We know it doesn't work anywhere near 100% of the time.

[A]

More like 50%.

[B]

You and I actually were chatting about House of Dynamite, this new Netflix movie in which the US Missile defense misses an incoming nuclear weapon. And they basically say, well, it's 50, 50 chance. And actually the Department of War put out a statement being like, it is 100%. And that's bullshit. Right. But if people start trying to figure out how to win nuclear wars, right, Whether it's Putin developing new delivery systems or the US Building a Golden Dome member Trump is gonna build, like, that scares the shit out of me, because mutually assured, as long as there are nuclear weapons, like, the only fallback against them being used is mutually assured destruction. If these guys start competing in testing things to try to figure out how to, like, beat the other guy's defenses. What are you suggesting? You're suggesting the nuclear war could be fought and that should be off the.

[A]

Table or could be won? Yeah. I mean, that's the scary thing, right? Like, Project 2025. Those guys want to go back to kind of like the scariest Cold War days when we are trying to win the race to produce the most nukes.

[B]

What is it with these fucking guys?

[A]

It's nuts, man. And again, I was talking to an expert last week because I just called around to be like. Like, am I missing something here?

[B]

Nope.

[A]

This person said that a nuclear cruise missile, like the one that they. The Russians allegedly tested would be much easier to intercept again than an ICBM going Mach 20.

[B]

We have cruise missile defenses in part.

[A]

Because, like, you said, like, we had this missile defense system that, like, I feel like the. The success rate was like, 60 in the most possible favorable.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Conditions favorable. Conditions possible. Which doesn't like. But again, 50, 60, that doesn't do much for you when we're talking about, like, nuclear annihilation. No, like 100.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So anyway, like, this makes. This is crazy. Revving. Testing back up would take years. It would cost billions. People in Nevada would lose their minds.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Where the fuck are you going to test this stuff?

[A]

This is all nuts and it's such bad politics. I just can't believe. But he's like, he's such an arrogant prick. Like, he knows he's screwed up, but he's, like, not willing to back down to Norah o' Donnell there in the face of, like, incontrovertible facts.

[B]

Well, and even says things when he tries to sound like the normal, rational person. Like, you know, it's crazy that we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world 150 times. It somehow seems more unset just having him say those words out loud because, you know, he's the person who literally has the sole authority to launch American nuclear weapons. You know, like, it's just all up to this guy, you know, I mean, it should make people think about why we don't consider that a little bit more when we vote. You know, Trump doesn't seem like the kind of character that would have gotten in the Cold War when a nuclear war seemed like it's something that could actually happen. So, like, maybe this will sober people up. I mean, we've talked about him threatening to invade Nigeria, start nuclear weapons testing at a certain point again, his aging and his impulse control and his sycophantic circle. Who is saying no to this guy? And that should be on nuclear weapons testing or invading Nigeria. There should be people there. Bring back the Committee to Save America or whatever that was. Just. Who will actually say no to this guy?

[A]

Where are you at, Jim Mattis? Yeah, I know normally Trump's comments on nuclear weapons are referring to it as the other N word at rallies because that gets a little titter out of people. So that's all cool. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As seasons change and days grow darker sooner, it could be a tough time for many, I feel this one. This November, better help is encouraging everyone to reach out, check in on friends, reconnect with loved ones, and remind the people in your life that you're there. Just as it can take a little courage to send that message or grab coffee with someone you haven't seen in a while, Reaching out for therapy can feel difficult, too, but it's worth it. And it almost always leaves people wondering, why didn't I do this sooner? Hey, Tommy, I'm here. Thank you so much, Sean. BetterHelp therapists work according to get a new job at BetterHelp. They work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences in their 12 plus years of experience and industry leading. Match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. If you aren't happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is one of the world's largest online therapy platforms, having served over 5 million people globally. 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 month. Don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com crookedworld that's betterhelp H E L P.com crookedworld A BetterHelp ad.

[B]

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[C]

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[A]

Okay, so nuclear annihilation. It's a bit heavy, so let's lighten things up for a bit and talk about our buddy.

[B]

One of those yes men.

[A]

One of those yes men. One of our favorite yes men. So Ben, you guys probably know Ben and I are not the biggest fans of FBI Director Cash Patel. He is absolutely, unequivocally not qualified to do the job. He clearly got the job because he wrote a book that had a literal enemies list and that he's shown that he's willing to go after the people Trump hates. So.

[B]

And a book where Trump is like a wizard, right?

[A]

Yeah, there's a wizard book too. Yeah. Yeah, there's a wizard. It's the worst. Anyway, so this week Cash has been big mad after getting his ass kicked up and down social media. So at issue is Cash's use of the FBI's government jet. Now, to be fair, Cash Patel, the FBI director is required by law to use government aircraft when you travel because you have to have access to, like, secure comms equipment at all times. But there is no law requiring that the FBI director fly to see his girlfriend sing the national anthem at some low rent real American freestyle wrestling event at Penn State. Nor does the law require that you give her a ride home to the city of Nashville, where you don't actually live, which is what he did. It also does not require you to post photos of all this stuff on fucking social media, you stupid goober. So the story blew up when a former FBI agent who has turned into this right wing influencer type tweeted about Cash's trip. But again, it wasn't some state secret. Like, you can track the FBI director's flight schedule using online tracking services. And again, Cash reposted photos of himself with his girlfriend at the event. So you didn't have to be like an FBI agent to figure this out. However, that did not stop Cash Patel from flipping out and blaming others for his stupidity. Bloomberg News reported that Patel forced out an official overseeing aviation operations at the FBI. And he posted this Bill Ackman length tweet about it all, declaring that he will not be distracted by, quote, uninformed Internet anarchists. What? And he pretended that people were going after his girlfriend, not him, and was, like, trying to act like how. You know, how the pale that was. So this is verbatim, Ben. The disgusting, baseless attacks against Alexis. That's his girlfriend. A true patriot. And the woman I'm proud to call my partner in life are beyond pathetic. She is a rock solid conservative and a country music sensation who has done more for this nation than Most will in 10 lifetimes. I'll never forget in your wedding vows, when you're like, anna's a true patriot.

[B]

10 lifetimes.

[A]

A true patriot.

[B]

Isn't this woman, like, 26 years old too, or something?

[A]

Yeah, she's very young.

[B]

That may be the wrong age.

[A]

I think it's 20. She's 26. It's also very important to note here that she is absolutely not a country music sensation. This clip will explain why.

[C]

The past.

[B]

I'm just saying that I want my country back.

[A]

Okay, so finally, Ben, what makes this whole mess just too perfect is this clip from 2023 of Cash Patel offering his thoughts on former FBI director Christopher Wray's use of government planes. Let's watch.

[B]

I'm not saying take all their funding. I'm not the defund everything guy.

[A]

I'm just saying Chris Wray doesn't need.

[B]

A government funded G5 jet to go to vacation. Maybe we ground that plane. 15,000 every time it takes off, minimum.

[A]

Maybe we ground that plane. Ben.

[B]

There is a podcast clip for everything, isn't there, Tommy?

[A]

It's remarkable.

[B]

I. I mean, look, the one thing I'd add is this guy also seems to spend like a tremendous amount of time online. Oh, yeah.

[A]

You know, he's so triggered.

[B]

And part of his. His constant tough guy defense is like, I'm so busy catching bad guys that I don't have time to worry about you fucking trolls. But all he's doing is clearly sitting on his fucking phone at the FBI headquarters between private jet rides to see his girlfriend, shitty country singer who's only getting gigs because she's dating the FBI.

[A]

Catching bad guys and baddies.

[B]

I mean, if this isn't a grift, I don't know what is, right? I mean, this guy's just living a fucking fantasy camp of FBI director, you.

[A]

Know, we're funding it.

[B]

He's training in like, you know, Quantico with the agents and posting social media pics of him looking like a tough guy. He's like, you know, gonna see his, you know, Charlie, Kirk and Valhalla and some weird cryptic things.

[A]

That's really under discussed. I'll see you in Valhalla, brother. What.

[C]

What is.

[B]

We're just living through this act. And guess what? Here's the thing. I would say there are real life criminals that Caspatel is not catching. Like his boss when he's on. When he's on the private jet ride to, like, the Penn State wrestling match that he's going to attend. Like, there's white collar criminals, there's crypto scammers, there's money launderers, there's international terrorist organizations. There are these narco traffickers that they're always telling us about. Is Cash on the case or is he just dunking on, like some Midas touch bot that triggered him online?

[A]

You know, this is the best part, Ben. It's not. It's not like the lefties that are getting him so mad. He is getting killed by like, Infowars. I watched this long segment of this dude just going so hard at cash, but we couldn't clip it because he uses the f slur over and over again. It's like crazy. But it's like the far right is going nuts on Patel on this, which is why he's getting so mad, because.

[B]

Look at that podcast clip. He pissed on their legs about the Epstein files, about ending corruption the FBI about all these things. And, like, you know, now he's the. He's clearly not delivering the goods for those guys.

[A]

No. And by the way, now. Now Cash Patel has made it so that services like FlightAware can no longer track his flight. So he took his G5 and went home.

[B]

G5 went dark.

[A]

You know, I'm sure we'll find you another way, you moron.

[B]

Yeah. Cause we'll see you at the fucking wrestling match that you flew to. You know, it's not.

[A]

Glad you're having a good time, Cash. Enjoy the plane.

[C]

Well, and you can't.

[B]

I mean, one more thing about this, too, because this is like, a lot of the snowflakes in the Trump administration are like this. You can't, like, simultaneously be this, like. Like, hyper public person. You know, you're in a position of Senate confirmed responsibility. You're online all the time. You're, like, showing up at events and then want total privacy.

[A]

And your girlfriend's a MAGA influencer. Yeah. Like, she's not some private. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's, like, trying to be a country star. She tweets all day about MAGA shit like, yeah, like, I'm not going after her, but, like, don't act like this person is not out there, too.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Well, she's just trying to take her country back, Tommy.

[A]

Yeah, she wants her country back. Okay, that was cathartic. Okay, back to some really bleak shit. So this story comes out of Israel. So, Ben, last summer, listeners probably remember this horrific story of the abuse of a Palestinian prisoner at the SDE Timan military detention center. And that just exploded into the media. So the details of the abuse are, like, truly awful. This guy was brutally clubbed and kicked and beaten for about 15 full minutes. He was shocked with a taser. And his resulting injuries were life threatening and required surgery, including a severe injury to his rectum after being raped with a foreign object. Like, that's what these monsters did to him in the span of 15 minutes. And the injuries were so bad that this guy needed to get medical treatment outside of this detention facility, which got it on the radar screen of Israeli military police that they launched an investigation. So after this investigation was launched, five Israeli reservists were charged with assault. And in response to those charges, there was this, like, massive right wing backlash and freak out. Like, the. The worst right wing political leaders were stoking this, and protesters even stormed the detention facility. I think two detention facilities to try to, like, stop the prosecution. Right wing leaders were calling, like, the IDF lawyers were saying they were on the side of Hamas. You know, it's just sort of like the worst politics. So fast forward. About a month later, a video of the assault was leaked to Channel 12 news in Israel. And you can see in the video like this, this detainee gets taken aside. He's surrounded by soldiers. They hold up, ride shields to block what they're doing from view. And then 15 minutes later, they literally drag this man back to the other detainees and he can't even walk. It's like, awful. So fast forward to last week on Friday. On Friday, the IDF Military Advocate General, Major General Yifat Tomorial Shalmi, she resigned, taking responsibility for leaking the video. And then on Sunday, she was arrested, but only after this, like, strange period of time where she kind of disappeared. On the beach, do you see all this?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, they found her car on the beach. No one could hear from her. There was a weird cryptic note and there's. Everyone seems to think like people thought she might have killed herself. At a minimum, she seems to have tossed her cell phone into the ocean. So I'm not sure that's going to work, by the way. Yeah, usually those things are backed up in the cloud.

[B]

There's a cloud. Such a thing.

[A]

Tough. Anyway, now she's being prosecuted both for leaking the video, but also for lying about it. So just stepping back, it's important to note that the reaction to all of this in Israel is primarily anger about the leak itself.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Not the underlying activities. So the Israeli Defense Minister, Israel Katz, accused Tomer Yaroshalmi of spreading blood libel. And Bibi Netanyahu said the leak quote caused enormous reputational damage to Israel, to the idf, and to our soldiers. He didn't say the soldier's actions caused the damage to the reputation he said the leak did. Katz also said the next person in that role must, quote, not initiate or take part in blood libels that will defame IDF soldiers, harm their honor, and expose them to persecution throughout the world. So I guess they just get a pass if they do stuff like this in the future. It's also important to note that this detention facility was notorious for detainee abuses. And human rights groups accused Tomer Yolo Shalomi of turning a blind eye to those abuses over the course of the war until this one incident finally kind of became public. And also, Ben, just like as we're. As long as we're talking about COVID ups, the Washington Post reported that the State Department's Inspector General said the IDF has committed so many potential violations of U.S. human rights law in Gaza that it will take multiple years to review them all, assuming they even try. So just an incredibly dark story about, you know, kind of like the lingering, worst abuses of the war in Gaza.

[B]

There's just something deeply sick about government and society where the crime is leaking the evidence of the criminal activity and not the absolute brutal dehumanization of somebody in your custody. You know, I mean, this, we see this pattern time and again too, that there's this effort to kind of obfuscate any examination of facts. You know, it's either we don't like. You wonder why there's still no international journalist allowed into Gaza. Right. How many weeks ago was the quote, unquote ceasefire? And they still won't even let people in just to see the aftermath of the destruction of Gaza. This kind of any information leaking out of this prison system gets like brutally suppressed. The next thing that happens when people talk about this, they'll probably say like, what about Sudan? You know, anything. Right. To just get the conversation off of this. And it does kind of speak to something that has always been a talking point that drove me insane in the Biden years. Right. I mean, Trump doesn't even bother with it anymore, but used to hear all the time from the Biden State Department when some horrible thing would happen, it would leak out. Well, Israel must do an investigation. They're not going to investigate misconduct by the idf. In fact, they're going to punish the people that reveal the misconduct by the IDF or whistleblowers. Right. I just don't know how much more evidence people need.

[A]

Yeah. And like I was trying to think about Abu Ghraib and some of the incidents of detainee abuse or abuse of POWs in the US and I don't know, it hasn't been this bad. I don't remember a right wing faction storming the courthouse or storming Fort Bragg. But clearly, like, I think a lot of militaries like, you know, circle the wagons like this and protect their people at all costs. What was the real dark stain?

[B]

Yeah. What was bad about ours in Abu Ghraib and some of the others is that we tend to just kind of punish the low level guys and actually in some cases women in Abu Ghraib, but nobody else up the chain has to be responsible for creating the environment. But yeah, this feels like a systemic effort to create a culture of complete impunity for whatever people do in prisons or in warfare. And that's a recipe for like consistent war crimes.

[A]

Yeah. And just so, folks, I mean, this detainee was released back into Gaza without providing testimony. And the individual is described by the Times of Israel as basically like, a Hamas police officer. He was not like, Yahya Sinwar.

[B]

Yeah. He wasn't like, paragliding on Octopus.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Which, like. Like, again, wouldn't make it okay.

[B]

Yeah, it wouldn't make it okay.

[A]

But sort of like, shows you how random and seemingly widespread this violence was. And it seems like the. The military advocate general and a couple of her colleagues are in serious legal jeopardy because. Not just because they leaked this video, but because as soon as the video was leaked, there were all these calls to do a leak investigation, and then her office was tasked with doing it. So they basically faked a leak investigation and pretended they couldn't find the culprit because it was them. And they swear it's some, like, sworn affidavit. So they lied. They obstructed justice. Like, it's a huge mess and are going to be in some serious trouble.

[B]

Well, you should run a tight shop like Pete Hegseth with them.

[A]

Yes, that's right. That's right. Just signal it out. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but before we do, this is your last chance to get tickets at CrookedCon in D.C. there's only about 50 tickets left. CrookedCon is the event we're doing where other angry, hopeful, and otherwise exhausted people can get together and talk about the better future we're all fighting for. Our guests include Jen Saki. You know her, Ben Rhodes, Tim Miller, Mark Elias, Governor Andy Beshear, Senator Brian Schatz. A lot of great folks. I'm not going to name them all because then they get mad at you. You just can't.

[B]

Too many great ones.

[A]

Too many great ones. If you can't make it, you can listen in and watch the content after on our YouTube channels and on our podcast feeds and on crookedcon.com we're gonna share the foreign policy panel we do on this feed, so enjoy that. Also, follow our socials. If you want content throughout the day, make sure to go to crookedcon.com to get tickets before they sell out for real. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace provides all the necessary tools to claim your domain, build a professional website, expand your brand, and facilitate payments, making it the ideal solution for businesses of all sizes. Squarespace gives you everything you need to offer services and get paid all in one place. From consultations to events and experiences. Showcase your offerings with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business. With Squarespace's collection of cutting edge design tools, anyone can build a bespoke online presence that perfectly fits their brand or business. Squarespace makes it easy to showcase your expertise and engage clients with video content on your website, upload and organize your videos, create stunning video libraries, and even monetize your content by adding a paywall. Perfect for online courses, exclusive tutorials and premium workshops, Squarespace domains make it easy to find the best name for your business at one fair, all inclusive price. No hidden fees or add ons required. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to Launch, go to squarespace.comworld to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.comworld with stays under $250 a.

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[A]

Okay, so two quick updates on elections abroad that might provide you guys with some hope. Some rare good news for fans of democracy and progressive politics. So let's start in Ireland, where Catherine Connolly just won a landslide election to become Ireland's next president. This is a largely ceremonial role, but she does have to sign every bill before it becomes a law or refer to the Supreme Court to assess its constitutionality. So there is some power. There's. It was also a weird election. One of the top candidates decided not to run for health reasons. Another pulled out like 19 days before the election itself because of a corruption scandal. But the result was a clear F you to the establishment. And Connolly's unabashedly lefty views on issues like Gaza have drawn comparisons to Bernie Sanders. And then over in the Netherlands, oh.

[B]

Don'T forget our buddy Conor McGregor. Right.

[A]

Yeah, he was. He thought about running for a while, but he pulled out, right?

[B]

He pulled out. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

What an idiot. Why do you want to run for president? President be the Taoiseach did.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Or clean up that cocaine problem.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And then in the Netherlands, there was a 38 year old centrist named Rob Yetton, who was part of the D6 6 party. He beat out a far right wing populist named Hirt Wilders in his Party for Freedom. This was a very, very close race. It was basically decided by people, Dutch folks living abroad. But Dutch political analysts say that Yetin's like, optimistic, forward looking message ultimately was more appealing to voters than Wilder's nativism and racism and Islamophobia. And he is on track to be the youngest and first openly gay prime minister in Dutch history. The government formation process is a total mess because there's like a million parties and it'll take them a while to sort it all out. But hopefully this race can help others figure out a path to defeat these far right, right wing populists. Ben, any big takeaways from these races from you?

[B]

I think the Ireland one is interesting only insofar as, like Ireland, despite its relatively small size, has kind of begun. I mean, you saw this most acutely on Gaza, but they've become a bit more of a spotlighted country speaking out on other things around the world. And they have this kind of weird credibility as a European country that was colonized for hundreds of years and as people that are just pretty fucking awesome if you know Irish people. And as people that are a little neutral, they're that big NATO country. So. So that's interesting is that Ireland continues to be this kind of voice for the underdog in geopolitics and she'll do that. I think the Netherlands thing is really hopeful. Geert Wilders has kind of been driving the train of Dutch politics.

[A]

Recently informed his party in 2006, the party for Freedom. He's been around forever.

[B]

He's been around forever and he kind of broke through like Farage is breaking through in the UK now in the last election. And it just kind of feel like something is stirring out there a bit with like younger, more unabashed parties that are less afraid of taking on the far right. They're not tentative. They're not like the Democrats in this country, like checking like 900 focus groups before they like go on a podcast. You know, I mean, hopefully when we record, you know, we're recording this on Tuesday, hopefully tomorrow morning, like we'll have had Zoran Mamdani win here. And you know, we obviously want to win the governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia, but it does kind of feel like, you know, maybe, I mean, the Dutch thing is a little too early to tell here, but like, is the far right the establishment now? And is there? I keep Wondering, is there a younger, like, if parties? If these center left parties and left parties can just get fucking younger and less afraid of themselves, can we run less baggage? Yeah, with less baggage, can we just run as like authentic people who are outsiders and fighting against a far right establishment? That is the message hopefully you could take away from all three elections. Ireland, the Netherlands, and assuming it goes well, the Mamdani one in particular.

[A]

If Keir Starmer and the Labour party in the UK can take on like 13 years worth of baggage in like a year or 10 months, certainly some of these far right parties can own some of the events happening around the world.

[B]

Absolutely. You know, and the fact that you don't really have solutions, like, I mean, that guy Geert Wilders has just been blaming immigrants for everything for 20 years. You know, like, this is not a new. He's no new idea. His offer.

[A]

And that was kind of the message against him. Like, look, we could talk about like actually fixing the economy or you can blame Muslim people. Yeah, like what's going to work? Unfortunately though, Ben, we do still have a right wing populist in charge of our country. Along those lines, Trump has announced that he has decided to limit the number of refugees that will be admitted to the US over the next year to 7,500 people. Only 7,500 people. And that white South Africans, known as Africars, who are French and Dutch descendants, are going to get priority. 7,500 is the lowest allotment of refugees in our nation's history. It's literally half of what Trump took in, or the limit Trump set in the first term. Biden set his target at 125,000 refugees. Of course, Trump also ignored a law that required him to consult with Congress on these matters. I'm sure Speaker Johnson is drafting a very harsh letter as we speak. So, Ben, it's just like the policy is just, it's so overtly racist and despicable. It's not surprising. You know, Trump paused refugee admissions back in January. So all these people are in limbo in the vetting process. He's been pushing to get white South Africans to come to the United States for a long. Ever since he saw some Tucker Carlson, you know, segment on a white genocide of South African farmers in like 2019. But it is still disgusting and just it also, it's kind of like, it really jumps out to me that there is not more outrage or clear condemnation of what is just like unequivocally a racist policy.

[B]

Yes, yes. Well, that's the thing. I mean, it's useful in that it just reminds you of how, at core, if you peel back all the layers of Trumpism, there is just like a core of racism that is fundamental to the whole project. It's baked in. It's not secondary. Right. This is the birther president. This is like the Stephen Miller boss. Right? Like, this is actually their worldview manifested in saying, we're not going to take anybody but white South Africans, literally, the people who did apartheid and were worried about them, out of everybody in the world. The other thing that bothers me about this is it's a moral abomination to slam the door on refugees. It's also going to make it harder. It's going to incentivize other countries to stop taking refugees. It's going to leave all these people in this limbo. It's going to kind of break the international system that requires countries to. To take refugees in. I know that, like, you can look at polls and refugees support for refugees polls, like, low. But in part it's because nobody's been willing to defend these programs for, like, 10 years. Because actually, if you also look at polls, people tend to like the refugees in their communities. They're these hugely successful groups. The Vietnamese here in California are a good example of people that have built extraordinary communities in this country who are refugees. But also importantly, Tommy, if your concern is, and this is an argument I've not heard people make, if your concern about, you know, immigration or the border, right, is this kind of sense, it's out of control. Like, there are all these people, tens of thousands of people are crossing the border. We didn't know who they were. We didn't know, you know, where they were going. There is actually no more orderly process for admitting people in the United States than refugees.

[A]

And, like, their vetting is so stupid.

[B]

They are vetted like crazy. They have to wait in line. Like, talk about coming through the front door, like you're applying for these slots. And so actually, if we ever could get back to a discussion about an actual legal immigration system that worked, that had a very secure border, that did not just let people to, like, cross the border with no process, a key part of that, actually, I think should be, like, a big refugee program, because that's how you could get, like, an orderly process to admit a certain number of people who've been vetted and all the rest of it. So it's kind of a dumb thing to take aim at, like, the most rigorous part of the immigration system.

[A]

It's just.

[B]

And I know that's not what. They just don't want any black and brown people here and they want more white people here. So I'm not expecting them to do this, but someday I hope we can get back to that.

[A]

Yeah, it would be nice. And you're right. You gotta make a case. Okay, Ben. Our final story allows us to say one last fuck you to the worst duke since David Prince Andrew. Last week, the palace announced that it has, quote, initiated a formal process to remove the style, titles and honors of Prince Andrew, a punishment the New York Times calls unheard of in the annals.

[B]

Our buddy Mark Landler really enjoyed writing this one.

[A]

He sure did. Great reporter. A couple weeks ago we talked about how Prince Andrew was giving up his Duke of York title, but King Charles went even further. Now Andrew will be losing his prince title too. I didn't even know that was possible. I thought if you're like the son of a queen, brutal, whatever. He will now be known as only Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. Maybe you can do like a cool thing like the former prince, the other one, the symbol. And Andrew will also get the boot from the Royal Lodge, the 30 room mansion he's been crashing in with his ex wife. He will now have to slum it at Sandringham Estate, a 20,000 acre property north of London owned by the Royal family. So the controversy is mostly about Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced pedophile and New York financier who once said he was Donald Trump's closest friend. One of Epstein's victims, a woman named Virginia Giuffre, published a memoir recently that includes details about being trafficked to Prince Andrew. Disgustingly, she writes that Andrew told her that his daughters were, quote, just a little younger than you on the evening of their first sexual encounter. She was 17. Andrew has previously said he has no recollection of meeting Giuffre, but he settled a lawsuit with her that included like a $10 million payout. So, like, good luck squaring that circle. Andrew's demise, it really started in 2019 when he did an interview with the BBC about all this. That was an unmitigated disaster. A guy named Charlie Proctor, the editor of the Royal Central website, like one of the Royal Watcher journalists, described it on Twitter as, quote, a plane crashing into an oil tanker, causing a tsunami, triggering a nuclear explosion. Level bad.

[B]

It's a pretty bad interview.

[A]

Pretty bad interview.

[B]

Did the prep for that one.

[A]

I don't know. Andrew also lied about when he cut ties. The magic of Andrew. Andrew also lied when he has a joke. Just for you and like, two people when he. When he cut ties with Epstein. So, like, Prince Andrew said he had cut ties with Epstein. Then all these emails came out that showed him emailing with Epstein like, a year later. So he's just full of shit. So, Ben, my favorite part of the coverage of all this is that the stories seem to note that Andrew will no longer be attending Royal family Christmas celebrations. I don't know if that's like a special specific thing.

[B]

Massive dunk on the guy, public component.

[A]

But I know, like you were saying, like, this is the definition, I think, of too little, too late. I guess better late than never.

[B]

No, it's better late than never. I mean, look, I read these world watcher that I am, I, like, dissected the coverage of this, including. I was reading, like, the British press, and a few things jumped out to me. Like, number one, the palace was all over these stories. So, like, details like this, like, he's not even gonna be invited to the fucking Christmas party, so he can't come to things. Yeah, yeah. You could just tell that, like, King Charles authorized, like, a shiving of his brother.

[A]

He was done.

[B]

Like, it was scorched earth in the media. Like, every detail of every single thing that's being taken away from this guy.

[A]

Was stressed because apparently the Queen liked Andrew, right? He was referred to as her favorite song.

[B]

You got a sense that after the Queen died, the gloves came off a little bit.

[A]

She sharpened that too soon.

[B]

It's just been one battle after another for Andrew since then. So that was good. The other thing is to the point, actually, I was reading about this. Usually you would take an act of parliament to remove the prince title. King Charles, man, that one for norms. We got another norm buster over here. But he's kind of flexing his muscles here a little bit.

[A]

So that confused me because, like, when we talked about this last week, we repeated that line because it was reported that it would take an act of Parliament. Did he just say, no, it doesn't. I'm the king?

[B]

Yeah, I read the spin and it was basically like, I didn't want the Parliament to waste a minute on this motherfucker. Oh, that was basically the line.

[A]

Solid.

[B]

So I'm just doing this. I'm just pulling the plug. So that struck me too. It also struck me that, like, the core unit that remains right of Charles and William, that's basically it. And you could add, like, Kate to that. Camilla's, like, a little questionable.

[C]

Right.

[B]

These people have been through some crazy shit. They had, like, Diana and the divorce And Charles with the tampon and all that. Then Diana's death and the aftermath of that and how badly that was handled. Then Harry, like, flying the coop, you know, like, then the, the crazy book from Harry about fistfights with his brother. Like this, this, this, these two, Charles and William must get in a room and be like, we are like literally the last piece of this institution. That. And you know, I'm not saying they're emerging clean from all this. I'm just saying that, like, this has been a lot of shit, you know. Yeah.

[A]

And they just decide to unload on Andrew.

[B]

Well, they did, but rightly so. And I will say this in their defense, like, Ehud Barak also in that book. Like, I don't see a lot of defrocking of that kind of thing.

[A]

Oh, no, absolutely.

[B]

It's great. Donald Trump buddies with Epstein. He's sitting pretty in the White House. So I'll say one thing for the Brits, like, they're taking out the trash with Epstein. Remember they.

[A]

And they fired Peter Manelson.

[B]

They fired Peter Manelson who like, weirdly emailed Epstein that, like, he would never be treated like this in the uk. Well, maybe Peter Manelson was wrong because they're fucking. They're dealing with their Epstein mess.

[A]

God, it's good. Get him out of there. What a dickhead.

[B]

What do you think? What does he do alone in the whatever, the rooms he's in now? Like, yeah, kind of weird.

[A]

There's big questions about what he does for money too. He's unemployable.

[B]

Because I remember Fergie when I was a kid, his ex wife. But, like, it's kind of weird that he was shacking up with his ex wife.

[A]

Yeah, I guess. 30 room house, you can divide that pretty easily.

[B]

She got the boot too. They made it clear in the spin that she's not getting anything. Like no allowance from the King or nothing.

[A]

No corgis. Yeah, I read that. I read that Andrew has leached about $14 million public dollars over the past four decades. So pretty good gig. Get it? I guess. I don't know what he'll do now. Again, I said this was mostly about Epstein because I think it is. But also it recently came out that Prince Andrew had been meeting with this Chinese spy. Basically.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

With the Chinese government and sort of compromised the family that way. So he's just a disaster. Like, I could only imagine what this dude does behind closed doors.

[B]

Yeah, he'll just have to summer with Alan Dershowitz and Martha's Vineyard and get into fights with Shout out the parochial.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

The Epstein alumni reunions.

[A]

Epstein alum reunion. That's so funny. Maybe we could do it on the island. Yeah, we could just kind of lock them there.

[B]

It's happy space.

[A]

It's like you guys live here now.

[B]

Yeah, I met, you know, it's, I met Princess Beatrice. She's a very, very, very nice person.

[A]

Which one is she?

[B]

The daughter of Andrew. And, you know, so I feel bad for like the two, but they're still royals. They get to keep their tittles.

[A]

Yeah, good luck with that, dad. Okay, we are going to take a quick break. When we come back, you're going to hear Ben's interview with former prime minister Sana Marin. Stick around for that.

[B]

Positive.

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The world is brought to you by American Giant. Talk about a piece of clothing you worn to the ground. I had New England Patriots kind of throwback logo T shirt that I think I bought when I was in LA for Ben Rhodes wedding 20 years ago, like legitimate. We're coming up on it. I threw it out two days ago. Actually, no, I didn't even throw it out. I gave it to Hannah because she was like, I'll wear that. You've had that a long time. It's. It's super comfy. And you know, when you love a piece of clothing and when it's durable, it means something. American Giants clothes work harder and are wearable for years to come, ensuring you get layers you can count on for seasons to come. Their greatest hoodie ever made is 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. I love my American Giant stuff. I have sweatpants, a sweatshirt. I have a ton of stuff. I lost count. How's your American Giant gear these days? I have a good sweatshirt and I could use some more of their T shirts though. They got some good T shirts. This has reminded me to go check it out. They have a wide range of looks from the greatest hoodie ever made to everyday pieces designed for everyday life. From fleece to knit in all seasonal colors for versatile daily wear. Their men's crew neck is made in Los Angeles and easy to layer on of the top top of tees or under a heavy coat. Choosing American Giant means taking a stand for hard working people, local communities and quality clothes through American ingenuity and innovation. They're going against the current and doing better. They believe small changes add up to something big, a new kind of conscious buying. Get 20 off your first order when you use the promo code [e-mail] that's 20 off when you use the promo code world at american-giant.com the holidays mean.

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[C]

Well, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.

[B]

So I want to get into all the geopolitics with Russia, with the democracy versus authoritarianism issues that you dealt with. But I have to say one of the reasons why people should read the book is it's also just an incredible window into like what it's like for a person at a relatively young age. You were 34 years old when you became prime minister, to go through the kind of strangeness of ascending to the heights of politics, to dealing with double standards that women leaders have to face. And I wanted to start by asking you about this line that really jumped out to me. Our political system struggle to acknowledge that politicians are also human. And you obviously had and listeners to the show, remember we followed the story about you dancing. But what I was struck by in reading this is you were clearly balancing wanting to still be human, be a mom, be a friend with the responsibilities of politics. And I guess the question I wanted to ask you to start is just do you feel like that's getting harder because of either social media, because of polarization. How concerned are you that maybe normal people might not want to go into politics because it looks so strange from the outside in?

[C]

Well, first of all, I have to say that politicians are just human beings. They are people. And I have had the privilege to work with a Lot of politicians, of course, in the European Council, with my colleagues in Europe, but also otherwise. And when I have worked with these people, I can say that they are just generally normal human beings, but we are not viewed politicians this way. And of course, social media platforms and also the news cycle that is always speeding up and chasing for polarizing stories because they sell more and negative news actually sells better than positive news. This all comes to the situation where politicians are quite scrutinized. They're constantly watched, people have cameras with their phones everywhere. So of course, politicians are under a lot of pressure, and especially the younger generation and women and people from minority groups that are scrutinized otherwise as well, are acknowledging this fact, and they are wondering that is this a platform where they can run, where they can participate, where they can actually take action? And that's real pity, because we need people from all genders, different backgrounds, different age groups to participate in our democratic systems, or otherwise our democracies will fall and collapse. So, of course, I worry about the fact that we are not always witnessing politicians as humans with all of their sides. I think we should more welcome people to join and participate and not drive them away with these unrealistic expectations or perspectives.

[B]

Yeah, And I want to ask one more question about this, because I actually work with the Obama foundation has networks of young people, many of whom are in politics and in Europe in particular. One of the things I've noticed and I've talked to, we talked to Jacinda Ardern about this, but that young women in politics in particular have to deal with a lot of stuff online, and some of it can be kind of scary. Right. Do you think that there are ways to provide kind of support? Are there extra steps that can be taken to just kind of ease that burden on people? Or do you have tips for people about how to manage what it's like? If you're starting out, you're getting elected to parliament, you're getting elected to city government, and this is all new to you. What would you say, particularly to a young female politician, about how to deal with the strangeness of these times?

[C]

Well, even though I'm quite young and I became the prime Minister with only 34 years old, so I was young then, and I'm still relatively young compared to many politicians. But still, when I started in politics 20 years ago, when I was 20, I didn't have to deal with the social media that young people have to deal with today, or everybody has to deal with today. So even though it was never easy, I think it Was much more easier earlier when we didn't have to face that hostile and violent environment where people have to live nowadays. And especially, as I said before, young people, women, people from different minority groups, different ethnic groups, they have to face a lot of hostility coming to their homes from different platforms. And this is scary. And I think how we should deal with this is not actually putting this on the burden of individuals, but actually we should look this as a societal problem and a societal issue and acknowledge this as a violence against people, like any kind of violence is. So we need legislation changes, we need protective measures. Social media platforms should take more action to combat these phenomenons. And we shouldn't let people deal with this alone because it is too much burden for any individual to deal with this kind of hostility that is out there. And of course, of course, me and also the other leaders that were in our government, we were a coalition government led by five parties, actually five women, four of us were under 40 years old. So we know exactly how it is to meet that kind of hate speech and usually also very sexualized hate speech and violence that is usually targeted against women. So. So of course it is scary for individuals. It is an environment where nobody feels protected and safe. If we don't take that responsibility as communities, as societies, as a group, and not put this on the burden of individuals.

[B]

Yeah, no, I just think it's so important because you want people to go into politics, and if people. There's a barrier to entry, we're just not gonna have as good people in it moving us, like into some of the geopolitics a little bit. But I wanted to ask kind of one more question about this because I was struck in reading your. You have this kind of extraordinary story of dealing with the Russian invasion in particular, and then you have this chapter on all these kind of fake scandals. It reminded me of when I was working for Barack Obama in the White House. And I think he got scrutiny. Obviously he's a man, but as a black man, he got extra scrutiny. And so there's a famous scandal where he wore a tan suit. And what people.

[C]

I remember that actually. And I was always wondering, what on earth is this scandal about? Tan suit. I just didn't get it. As a Finnish citizen, I didn't know what it was about.

[B]

Well, as an American citizen, I don't get it, but I don't get a lot of things about our politics. But what I remembered about that day is we were dealing with the height of the ISIS crisis. Right. And I remember the strangeness of he's simultaneously dealing with the rise of ISIS and the need to put together this global coalition against ISIS and responding to this tan suit scandal. And in your book, this comes across like you were, I think you were at the Munich security conference right when that story broke. What was it like, just juggling like, on the one hand, you have this incredibly weighty issues that you're dealing with that are like existential for Finland. On the other hand, you're dealing with this kind of nonsense. I mean, how was that experience of juggling? Because you write about it well in the book, but for people who are trying to bring to the book, tell us a little bit about what that was like.

[C]

Well, of course, every politician that works on a high level meets some kind of scandals or some kind of media scrutiny. It varies on the person. But I also wanted to include these scandals of mine to the book to show people what kind of scandals I personally have to deal with and what those scandals might tell a bus, tell us about our societies. So put it in one chapter. And my scandals has maybe interesting tone to it because it's not actually political scandals, nothing to do with corruption, nothing to do with misuse of power or public money or anything such sorts. My scandals are named the blazer scandal where I showed too much skin on a cover shoot. Here, nothing actually showed, but that was one scandal. Then there was the breakfast scandal and a phone scandal where I didn't have two work phones with me on a night out, but actually only one, the one that I usually used. And then there was the famous dancing scandal. So all of my scandals are in a context of moral side or watching me. Am I performing correctly as a person? And I think that those scandals also tell something about our societies and how we treat women. And I think the reason why so many related and wanted to support is actually that many women are viewed in their everyday lives similarly and we are not viewing and watching women that they are full persons, that they have the right and that they are entitled to have 100% of their lives. At the same time they can be leaders and professionals and very powerful and very tough. And at the same time they can also be mothers and daughters and friends to their friends and to their closed ones. And they can have that funny, quirky side at their free time. And still they can be extremely professional and good at their jobs. And I think that it is important to understand that this is a structural issue. And one example is that I don't think that ever any man has been asked how can you lead your Company or country or whatever, when you have a small child at home or how can you be at work today to be professional when just yesterday you went to a football game, drank a beer with your friends. How is that possible? How does that work? But women are met in these circumstances many times and they are viewed, I think, very narrowly. And I think it's also important to say to women out there that you are entitled, you have the right to be fully yourselves and you can be many things at the same time. And that doesn't lower your value at all as individuals and as professionals.

[B]

Yeah, well, you clearly did manage the job part very well. I want to ask about Russia. One of the things I thought was really interesting is you kind of bring in the unique history that Finland has had with Russia. You obviously have the longest land border with Russia of any NATO country now. And you also had this experience in the Cold War of kind of being in a different category where you had to kind of almost self censor about the Soviet Union. And you write about how all that informed your decision to bring Finland into NATO. And I just want to ask you a bit about what was your reaction to the Russian invasion and how did Finland's unique history and its long border kind of inform that decision to pull your country out of neutrality and into NATO membership?

[C]

Well, we had a long history and policy to be military non aligned. And there were of course, historical reasons behind of this. But actually the same reasons were also behind our decision of joining NATO. The most important thing for Finnish citizens has been always to stay independent, stay secure and safe as a country, to have the right to decide by ourselves and on up till that point when Russia attacked Ukraine with full scale invasion. 2023, the war started already 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea, but in 22 when Russia went to Ukraine with full force. The reason and the logic behind Finland joining NATO and applying NATO membership then was the exact same. We saw that not only in the history books, but actually today we have that kind of aggressive neighbor that starts full scale invasion of war in Europe today. So we were seeking security, we were seeking to be more safe. And at that moment it became real. That only way to secure ourselves were to apply NATO membership. But the logic and reasoning was exactly the same behind that, to make sure that Finland and Finnish citizens are safe. And that was the way to handle that at that point.

[B]

And I want to ask a couple more questions about this because it's obviously been such a strange couple of years with the transition here to President Trump. But I want to ask first, about President Zelensky. I think you write pretty powerfully about going there relatively early in the war, shortly after the Buta massacre, meeting with President Zelensky, kind of sensing the weight that was on his shoulders. You're younger, so is he. You're a neighbor. And I've always felt like he had particularly close relationships with, you know, the Baltic countries, Finland countries that similarly knew what it was like to be, you know, sharing a border with Russia. What did you learn about President Zelensky as a leader and how do you. It seems like the burden on him has only gotten higher, right, as he's had to manage Donald Trump, you know, dressing him down in the Oval Office, you know, manage these questions of peace negotiations and trying to get US support. How do you explain to people the kind of, as someone who's sat with him, what's the weight on his shoulders and how would you describe for people how he's managed that?

[C]

Well, I would only say that President Zelensky is extremely tough and talented leader that has come through so much, like his whole nation has. First COVID 19 that everybody met and that was a big global crisis that we had to deal with and face. And just after that, when things were going easier, the full scale invasion towards Ukraine, that was a burden for any leader and he has handled it, I think very, very talented. And Ukraine is still in this situation. And Finland, like Nordic countries, Baltic countries, Poland, countries with that closeness to the Russian border can really feel their pain. And that's why we have shown support like rest of Europe and like us has. But we can really feel the pain of the people because we also have and share that kind of history. Finnish citizens, they have the collective memory of our wars with Soviet Union and the pain and the hardship of lost lives. Land. We had to accommodate huge amount of Finnish citizens after the wars because we lost so much land. And then we had the very difficult history also with Russia, when we always had to watch what our aggressive Eastern neighbor is doing, how it might affect us. So we know exactly how hard the situation is. And now we have to show true solidarity to Ukraine because that is the only way also to keep whole of Europe safe. Ukraine is the only country in Europe that has experience of the modern warfare. And there's so much we need to learn from Ukraine because Russia will be there, it will stay there and it will have that kind of aggressive attitude against Europe also in the future. So we have to learn from this war. And the only way to learn is to look what Ukraine has endured and how they have coped and they have really shown so much skill, like President Zelensky personally has also during this war that unfortunately still lasts.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, you've been pretty outspoken about the need to provide more support. And you know, recently we saw some additional sanctions on Russian oil companies, but you know, we still have not seen the provision of additional advanced weapons to Ukraine. You know, there was this question about whether to provide longer range rockets that the US has still not done. You've also said in your book that the Europeans must strengthen their military forces and capabilities quickly now, especially given that the US is taking a bit of a step back. I mean, what more would you like to see now in terms of support for Ukraine? And are there times when you were in office even when you felt like the US could have been doing more, what's been missing in terms of the support that the Ukrainians need?

[C]

Well, I think that we all could have done more and we should have done more. The little we get. And the slower we give it to Ukraine, the little we give, and the slower that we are giving it to Ukraine, the longer this war will continue. So of course we all should do more. And we could do more. If we look at the percentage, how little actually European countries and countries in general are using money to support Ukraine, the amount isn't something that is huge. We could do so much more. And what Ukraine needs now, they need decisive decisions on the financial supporting their financial situation, especially using the frozen assets of Russia to support Ukraine. And there are ways, and I'm really sad that the European Council couldn't do the decision in its last meeting. I only hope that they will reach this decision in their December meeting. So using the frozen assets in a way that Ukraine could lend money to use that as a collateral. That would be one concrete example how to support Ukraine financially because they need money to continue in their defending themselves. They need military equipment and they need it fast. And also there, of course, we as Europe could do more, but also us because US is the greatest military force that we have in the globe. So of course we need us to help. And then the sanctions, we need more heavier sanctions and we need to make sure that the sanctions cannot be circled because there is a big problem also with the circulation of the sanctions. And this isn't any new news. We have known this for a long time, but now it is time to take real action and not only discuss about these problems that we have witnessed for a long time. So of course there are so many things that, that we could do and also Europe needs to face the fact that we cannot rely, that US will always come to our aid. We have to be able to take care of ourselves and keep European citizens safe. And I think that if there is something that I truly also agree with the current administration and the message that has been sent to Europe is that Europe needs to take care of itself. We need to boost our military capabilities. We need to make sure that we can defend ourselves and that we can also this way be better partners in NATO. So we have to also take responsibility. Finland has always taken responsibility in its own security. And when others didn't always invest in their defense systems, Finland did. And we maintained our military capabilities, making sure that there is still mandatory military service. We invested heavily throughout the decades with our own capabilities because we knew what kind of neighbor we have and we couldn't rely that somebody else will take care of our problems. We have to take care of our own problems when we meet them and of course, work together with others. And that's why we joined NATO. We wanted to make sure that we are not alone and we can also support others because we, as democratic countries are on the right side and on the same side.

[B]

Yeah. Another thing I want to ask you about is obviously the conflict with Russia, in its own way is part of this larger conflict about the direction of politics. I would kind of count Russia as a far right nationalist system, albeit a unique one, because it's very expansionist. You were governing as a social democrat at a time when you're also engaging far right leaders. You had to deal with Viktor Orban. And we see across Europe, in France and Germany, but also in Finland. You write about not going into a coalition with the far right party there. It feels like everybody's aware of this danger from the rise of far right politics in Europe. It presents unique challenges too, because it makes it harder for Europeans to act collectively. If there are these far right parties that want to kind of spoil things in Brussels, what's your advice essentially about what Social Democrats can do to both better prevail against far right parties inside their countries, but also kind of beat back this global tide of far right politics?

[C]

Well, I see that there's actually two wars going on in the world, if we would want to use this kind of wording. There is the challenging of the rules based international order. Authoritarian leaders, authoritarian countries are actually questioning and challenging the whole international rule based order that we built after the Second World War together, try to build some kind of rules that everybody obeys so that not only the strong and powerful rule with force. And this is being challenged. So we need as a democratic country to understand that there is this wider battle of values going on and the war in Ukraine or conflicts elsewhere are only part of this story. And then there is also war within our democracies. There are more and more actors within our democracies and also outside forces like Russia influencing in our democratic system and in our elections. And this is something that we have seen in Europe more and more, that there are actually Russian money, Russian influence, Russian misinformation used in our democratic elections, trying to push those pro Russian forces into power and gain that kind of far right extremist way of thinking and get those actors and parties to governing. So we are living in a very difficult moment. And I know that many citizens watching, for example, nowadays election discussion debates are quite confused because we don't anymore see the platforms working where we can even share the facts. It's very polarized and there is so much misinformation and also so polarizing and aggressive takes on things that many middle ground voters and people that are just normal people are wondering what is going on. And I think this is a challenge where social democrats or liberals or moderate forces should really focus on and bring back to the facts and value real information and try to have some kind of middle ground rational discussion about the things that really worries about people. And many times we're also. The far right wins. The people's worries are genuine. They are real. It's about housing, prices of everyday living, high inflation, energy costs, can they support themselves, their families, what is the situation with their education systems or social welfare or social health, healthcare or different kind of services. These are normal everyday problems that we need to tackle and face and not dismiss the people worries that they have, but give real solutions and not give the so good solutions that the far right many times has, like blaming the immigrants or blaming somebody else coming from outside. That doesn't help anybody. But we really need to tackle with the people's everyday worries and take those seriously.

[B]

Yeah. Well, one last question I wanted to ask you, which is, you know, you were 34 when you were prime minister, so you were historically young in that job. You're historically young to be a former prime minister. You had a successful term. I mean, your party didn't stay in government, but you know, you increased the vote share. So it wasn't like a necessarily negative verdict on you. So now you're, you're younger than I am, that's for sure. And you're working, I know at the Tony Blair Institute on some of these issues like Ukraine and Moldova. But what might we expect from you in the future? Is Finnish politics over or European politics or some other international role? How are you thinking about your next chapter? Are you just kind of taking it one step at a time here?

[C]

Well, even though I have would say resigned the parliament quite, quite early on, I'm now turning 40 so I'm still quite young when we compare to many politicians. But I've been in politics for 20 years. Like I said before, right now I'm not seeking any position in politics. I'm really happy that I can work the ways that I do now. So I work with Tony Blair in his Institute for Global Change which We work approximately 40 countries globally helping governments and leaders with their strategy, with their policy and also the delivery of the things that they want to do in their countries. And now I have been writing my book Hope in Action intensively for one and a half years and finally it's here. So I'm very excited also to meet the people and discuss about also the hope that is there so we can all make our part in making the world better. And I'm still working on the same human rights, climate, gender equality, rule based international order and geopolitics. And I still have passion for these issues. But right now I don't have the passion to have that kind of political position. But maybe in the future I would never, never say never. Now I'm also focusing just being my mom mom because I have a 7 year old daughter and it's so nice to spend time with her more that I didn't have the time when I was prime minister. So I'm also focusing on the little things in life and enjoying that.

[B]

Well that's good. I have an 8 year old and a 10 year old daughter and that is full time and fun. Well look, everybody should check out Hope in Action. It's funny actually I mentioned the Obama foundation earlier. The framework that the foundation uses with leaders is called Hope to Action. So you actually skipped right to Hope in Action. So that's what we want to see, more Hope in Action. But the book is extraordinary. It takes you inside your kind of personal story. It takes people inside like these huge events like Covid and the invasion of Ukraine. So everybody should check it out. I want to wish you the best with the book and appreciate spending this time with you.

[C]

Well, thank you so much for having me. It was my pleasure.

[A]

Thanks again to Sana Marin for joining the show. Talk to you guys next week. Oh, see you at crookedcon Ben yeah, see.

[B]

Oh yeah. You know, I'm very excited about Crooked Con.

[A]

That'll be very fun. We'll also have some bonus content from crookedcon for you guys, so look for that in your feed.

[B]

Get a taste of the the Village.

[A]

Pod Save the World is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Ilona Minkowski. Our Associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan 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 Groat is our Head of production. Adrian Hill is our Senior Vice President of News and politics. If you want to listen to Pod Save the World ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked media on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter for more original content. Host takeovers and other community events. Plus find Pod Save the world on YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content and much more. And if, like us, you're opinionated, leave us a review Our production staff is proudly unionized by the Writers Guild of America east.

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[C]

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