Trump Officials on an Iranian Hit List

Summary

Summary of "Trump Officials on an Iranian Hit List" – Pod Save the World by Crooked Media

Release Date: October 16, 2024

In this compelling episode of "Pod Save the World," hosts Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes navigate through a myriad of pressing global issues, offering insightful analyses and expert perspectives. Titled "Trump Officials on an Iranian Hit List," the episode delves into the escalating tensions in the Middle East, the complexities of international diplomacy, and the evolving geopolitical landscape. Additionally, the hosts engage in an enlightening interview with Saad Mohseni, shedding light on independent media operations in Afghanistan.

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1. Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza and the General’s Plan

The episode opens with an urgent discussion about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in northern Gaza. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have surrounded the Jabalia refugee camp in an attempt to eliminate remaining Hamas fighters. Concurrently, international organizations are alarmed by the severe restrictions on aid flows, leading to a dire humanitarian crisis.

General’s Plan: A group of retired Israeli generals proposed a controversial strategy known as the General’s Plan, which involves declaring a one-week ultimatum for Palestinians in northern Gaza to evacuate. Those who remain would be deemed combatants, subjecting them to siege conditions intended to starve them out. Tommy Vitor highlights the severity of this plan:

“Anyone who stays will automatically be considered a combatant and military target.” [09:00]

Ben Rhodes emphasizes the international legal implications:

“Laying siege to all of Gaza like this would almost certainly be a massive war crime.” [09:20]

The Biden administration has responded by sending a letter from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Tony Blinken to Israeli officials, demanding immediate humanitarian relief measures. They outlined steps such as allowing 350 trucks of aid daily and preparing for winter, threatening a cutoff of weapons shipments if these demands are not met.

“The letter seems to suggest that the US would cut off weapons shipments to Israel if these things don't happen.” [12:27]

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2. Harrowing Events and Public Perception

Tommy shares two particularly distressing incidents captured on video:

• Al Aqsa Hospital Airstrike: An IDF airstrike on October 14th ignited a fire that engulfed tents housing displaced people, leading to the tragic death of a 19-year-old named Shaban Dalu. Tommy reflects on the inhumanity witnessed:

  “This is the dehumanization that is required to do that to human beings.” [13:24]

• Emotional Aftermath: A poignant clip shows young boys consoling each other after their mother's death in an airstrike, highlighting the profound human cost of the conflict.

  “It's wrong, but it's also gonna ensure that these people hate you.” [16:00]

Ben Rhodes comments on the global normalization of such suffering:

“The US is standing increasingly alone in this blank check for the Israeli military operation in Gaza.” [14:34]

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3. Escalation in Lebanon

The conversation shifts to the intensifying conflict in Lebanon, where the IDF has expanded its ground invasion into southern regions, leading to heavy airstrikes and significant civilian casualties. Satellite imagery reveals the IDF's movement across the border, targeting Hezbollah's infrastructure.

“Gallant, the Israeli Defense Minister, says these strikes have destroyed two-thirds of Hezbollah's estimated 150,000 rockets.” [24:12]

Lebanon has witnessed over 2,300 deaths and 400,000 children displaced in three weeks. The IDF's interactions with UN peacekeepers have led to tensions, with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu blaming the UN for endangering lives.

“Netanyahu blamed the UN and said, 'the refusal to evacuate peacekeepers makes them hostages of Hezbollah.'” [24:12]

Ben Rhodes critiques the Biden administration's inconsistent policy on Lebanon, questioning the sincerity of US support amidst Israel's aggressive military actions.

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4. Iran’s Ballistic Missile Attacks and Potential US Responses

Centering on the episode’s title, Tommy introduces the alarming report from Politico about Iran's hit list targeting former Trump officials. This intimidation strategy stems from Iran's retaliation for the assassination of IRGC leader Qasem Soleimani during the Trump administration.

“Iran has a pervasive assassination threat that is much more concrete than the graphic videos...” [41:42]

Ben Rhodes reflects on the motivations behind Iran's actions, pondering whether these threats are genuine plans or aspirational intimidation tactics.

“It may be that there's some IRGC guys who like to get together and put together lists...” [43:41]

Tommy discusses recent developments, including Biden's communication with Netanyahu to ensure that any Israeli military response targets Iranian military capabilities without escalating to nuclear or oil infrastructure.

“Netanyahu said that Israel has the right to conduct these limited incursions to degrade Hezbollah's capability.” [39:04]

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5. North Korea’s Provocations and Russia’s Involvement

The hosts examine North Korea's recent provocative actions, including the destruction of infrastructure projects intended to reconnect with South Korea and the deployment of troops to Russia amid the ongoing Ukraine conflict.

“There are several thousand North Korean infantry soldiers in Russia now getting trained.” [50:32]

Ben Rhodes discusses the implications of North Korea’s alignment with Russia, emphasizing the heightened security threats and the potential for further international escalation.

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6. Diplomatic Tensions Between Canada and India

A significant portion of the episode addresses Canada's accusations against India for orchestrating the assassination of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Najjar on Canadian soil. In response, Canada has expelled six Indian diplomats.

“We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.” – Justin Trudeau [52:55]

Ben Rhodes criticizes Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist policies and underscores the lack of US support for Canada in this diplomatic standoff, highlighting the broader implications for international relations.

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7. Interview with Saad Mohseni: Media in Afghanistan

In an exclusive interview, Saad Mohseni, founder of MOBI Group and author of "Radio Free Afghanistan," shares his experiences in establishing and running an independent media outlet in Kabul over two decades. He discusses the transformative role of media in Afghanistan, the challenges faced during the Taliban's takeover in August 2021, and the nuanced dynamics within the Taliban movement regarding governance and social policies.

Key Insights:

• Transformation of Kabul: Saad describes the stark changes in Kabul post-2001, emphasizing increased education and literacy rates among Afghans.

  “Afghanistan is a transformed country... literacy rates have more than doubled.” ([72:28])

• Media as a Unifying Force: He highlights how Moby’s diverse programming, including soap operas and reality shows, fostered a sense of national identity and unity.

  “There was this need to unite. Even...they treat us like a bridge between pre-2022 and the ban.” ([75:09])

• Challenges Under the Taliban: Saad recounts the rapid collapse of the Afghan government, the Taliban's surprising takeover, and the resilience of Afghan journalists in maintaining independent reporting despite oppressive restrictions.

  “We remained persistent, and I think we managed to fast track some of the changes that would have taken perhaps a couple of decades.” ([77:19])

• Future of Afghanistan: He calls for continued international engagement to support humanitarian efforts and uphold women's rights, stressing the importance of empowering Afghans to navigate the post-Taliban era.

  “The international community owes it to the Afghans, and particularly our women, to remain engaged.” ([90:35])

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8. Assorted Global Insights and Reflections

Throughout the episode, Tommy and Ben interweave personal anecdotes and reflections on broader geopolitical trends, including the rise of religious extremism, the normalization of authoritarianism, and the challenges of maintaining international alliances. They critique nationalist policies and highlight the dangers of external interference in sovereign nations' affairs.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Ben Rhodes: “Laying siege to all of Gaza like this would almost certainly be a massive war crime.” [09:20]

• Tommy Vitor: “Anyone who stays will automatically be considered a combatant and military target.” [09:00]

• Tommy Vitor: “It's wrong, but it's also gonna ensure that these people hate you.” [16:00]

• Justin Trudeau (quoted): “We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.” [52:55]

• Ben Rhodes: “The international community owes it to the Afghans, and particularly our women, to remain engaged.” [90:35]

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This episode provides a comprehensive overview of some of the most critical international issues of the time, blending expert analysis with on-the-ground perspectives. Through thoughtful dialogue and expert interviews, "Pod Save the World" offers listeners a nuanced understanding of the complexities shaping our global landscape.

Transcript

[Tommy Vitor]

Hi, welcome to ikea. Hey, I'm holiday shopping for the family.

[Ben Rhodes]

And I heard there's a sale.

[Saad Mohseni]

It's the IKEA Winter sale, now through January 7th.

[Tommy Vitor]

You can save up to 50% on.

[Ben Rhodes]

Select items in store and online.

[Saad Mohseni]

And if you're an IKEA loyalty member.

[Ben Rhodes]

You can save an extra 10% on select sale items.

[Saad Mohseni]

Perfect.

[Tommy Vitor]

I need storage help.

[Saad Mohseni]

Our storage solutions are great for organizing. Plus we're offering free delivery on orders.

[Tommy Vitor]

Over $2.99 through December 10th.

[Saad Mohseni]

Shop the IKEA Winter Sale today.

[Tommy Vitor]

Offer valid in the US through 1 7.

[Ben Rhodes]

While supplies last selection may vary by store and online. See ikea-usa.com wintersale for full terms. Restrictions apply.

[Tommy Vitor]

CIDP is no walk in the park.

[Ben Rhodes]

It can make your daily routine feel not so routine. The good news, now there's a new treatment option for chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy that may fit into your routine.

[Tommy Vitor]

Discover [e-mail] and talk to your doctor. That's innovationforcidp.com brought to you by Argenx. Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor.

[Saad Mohseni]

I'm Ben Rhodes.

[Tommy Vitor]

Ben, I think sometimes listeners tire of our sports banter at the top, but this time we have a foreign policy connection. Your coach of the Jets, Robert Salah, was recently fired.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah. I was hoping we could banter about the Mets.

[Tommy Vitor]

Never heard of them. But did you see how Salaw is wearing a Lebanese flag?

[Saad Mohseni]

He had a Lebanese flag during the game in London and then the jets lost and then he got canned by Woody Johnson, owner of the jets and former Trump ambassador to the United Kingdom.

[Tommy Vitor]

And there was some suggestion that maybe there was a connection between the Lebanese flag and the firing and not the jets sucking ass in the firing. And I saw a tweet that I thought you'd enjoy, which someone at River Tam YDN tweeted the New York jets would let a coach wear an ISIS flag if he could win the AFC East.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, I mean, I think that Woody Johnson, it was probably all the above. I'm sure that he's not, you know, a supporter of the Lebanese people in the same way that we would want him to be. I'm sure also that he didn't like his team losing in London, where he was the ambassador, where he probably wanted to impress his friends, all his buddies. And I don't know what role Aaron Rodgers played, but it couldn't have been good.

[Tommy Vitor]

I will say you want 30 seconds on the Mets. You want to sound off.

[Saad Mohseni]

The Mets are giving Me, the most joy I've had in my life in a while.

[Tommy Vitor]

You've been very happy on group texts.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yes, except for I decided to kind of break the bank, do the StubHub thing, go to game one, take my nine year old daughter. Super excited for her to share in this Mets run. I was about her age the last time the Mets won the World Series. And of course I picked the one game that they lost nine to nothing.

[Tommy Vitor]

Oh, nine nothing.

[Saad Mohseni]

And got three hits and never were in the game. So she had a baptism by fire of what it's like to be a Mets fan, even in a good playoff run.

[Tommy Vitor]

Was it fun?

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, you know, I mean, Dodger Stadium is loud. It's cool and trafficky, getting in and out. But you know, in there, you know, good food, good snacks. I mean, if you're nine, like, that's the stuff that matters.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, that's all that matters. You get an ice cream and a little like baseball helmet.

[Saad Mohseni]

We didn't. Yeah, I kind of struck out as a dad this time around.

[Tommy Vitor]

Oh, nice. Well done.

[Saad Mohseni]

I got kind of dad food. We got like nachos instead of ice cream. But it was good.

[Tommy Vitor]

I went to, I scalped a ticket to the 2018 Dodgers, Red Sox World Series in LA. And it was great because like, I got a ticket I could not have afforded or found in Boston in like 100 years. And we won. We actually watched them clinch.

[Saad Mohseni]

Well, that's the truth. Actually, the same tickets I bought in la, New York would probably be four times as much.

[Tommy Vitor]

Ten grand. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think they're going to do well.

[Saad Mohseni]

I think we are.

[Tommy Vitor]

You're going to be okay.

[Saad Mohseni]

I think we're going to do it.

[Tommy Vitor]

Sorry. To all the Phillies fans out there.

[Saad Mohseni]

Sorry. Not sorry.

[Tommy Vitor]

You're not sorry. Yeah, I kind of should be honest. I like really hate all Pennsylvania sports because I hate the Steelers and I hate the Phillies and I hate the Eagles. We're going on a long time about this, but got a lot of hate.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, I just had to explain because Ella's like. Or the Dodgers a big rival. I'm like, well, you know, New York and LA have a thing, but it's northeastern cities that that's the real rivalry. Right. The Philadelphia. And I like the city and I have friends there, but when it comes to sports, like you want to.

[Tommy Vitor]

You know, I saw Governor Josh Shapiro when we were in Philly briefly and I told him that Philly was JV Boston and he did not find that funny. Almost punched me.

[Saad Mohseni]

Well, it kind of is JV Boston.

[Tommy Vitor]

That's what I'm saying, dude. That's what I'm saying. Anyway, enough about us and that's a Going to the World Series. We're going to talk about the latest from Gaza in this episode and all the concern that is in the press these days about a plan by a bunch of retired Israeli generals to lay siege on northern Gaza and starve out anyone left there. We're going to update you on the latest from Lebanon as well as reports about how Israel might retaliate to Iran's ballistic missile attack from two weeks ago. What Iran knew about the October 7th terrorist attack before it happened in what was described as Iran's Trump administration hit list by Politico. Interesting story there. Very long story. Yeah, long hit list, apparently. Then we'll talk about why North Korean soldiers are reportedly in Russia, why Indian and Canadian diplomats are getting expelled from the respective countries. And then we'll celebrate a young German lawmaker who dunked on Hungarian dictator Viktor Orban to his face.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, that was good.

[Tommy Vitor]

Very fun. And then, Ben, you just did an interview. What'd you talk about?

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, I talked to Saad Mohseni, who you probably remember from the White House. He runs the MOBI group, which has Tolo news, the kind of leading independent news source in Afghanistan for the last two decades. And he's got a book out called Radio Free Afghanistan that kind of tells the story of this kind of 20 year odyssey he's had. And it's fascinating. We cover kind of what that was like to set up a media enterprise in Afghanistan that has news, but also soap operas and singing shows and, you know, the full works, what it was like to deal with the American forces there, his assessment of Afghan leaders like Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani, what it was like when things collapsed at the end. And he's both covering a story and he has employees leaving.

[Tommy Vitor]

Oh, man.

[Saad Mohseni]

But really interestingly, like what it's like in Afghanistan today and you know, the nuances of the Taliban, the complexities of the Taliban, they're still on air, right. So some things have changed. Guess what? There are no soap operas, no music, but they're still reporting the news. So if anybody's interested in not just Afghanistan's history, but where things are today, you should check it out.

[Tommy Vitor]

Do you think there's like an Afghanistan version of Politico that's writing stories about fights between like the national security press secretary, the Taliban and the like kind.

[Saad Mohseni]

Of domestic policy getting like in the U.S. yeah. Getting sourced in the Taliban that wouldn't be fun. Can't be that.

[Tommy Vitor]

That's not a fun like drinks and lunch.

[Saad Mohseni]

No, there's no drinks to be in Sweden. That's, that's not good.

[Tommy Vitor]

No, no, I will, I will definitely listen to that. That sounds fascinating. All right, Ben, let's start in Gaza because in particular the northern part of Gaza where, where fighting is both intensified and the humanitarian situation is increasingly desperate. So the IDF surrounded the Jabalia refugee camp in an effort to take out the remaining Hamas fighters they say are in the area. At the same time, the UN and like countless other organizations are sounding the alarm about the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza after the Israelis closed off the main aid crossings into northern Gaza in early October. But what makes this situation different from all the other previous times we've talked about Israel, like limiting or cutting off aid flows into Gaza is that a group of retired generals recently proposed a plan where Israel would say to the Palestinians, you have one week to get out of northern Gaza, the northern Gaza Strip, before we seal it off. Anyone who stays will automatically be considered a combatant and military target. And the IDF will then lay siege to the entire area, cutting off all food and water to, to either kill you or starve you out. Now, this is referred to as the General's plan. So this idea was pitched to Netanyahu, was pitched to the Israeli Parliament. The Associated Press reported that Netanyahu was considering it. There's about 400,000 people left in northern Gaza. Most of them have been forcibly displaced multiple times and they're now facing more orders to leave, according to Axios. Yoav Gallant, the Israeli Defense Minister, called Lloyd Austin over the weekend, our Secretary of Defense, and told him that Israel will not carry out the General's plan. But that kind of reassurance seems to be undercut by the fact that the aid has been basically cut off for two weeks. So it's hard to figure out what's happening here. On Sunday, General Austin, or Secretary Austin and Tony Blinken, the Secretary of State, sent a letter to two top Israeli officials articulating a whole range of demands and ways that humanitarian situation is deteriorating in northern Gaza. They asked for Israel to immediately start letting three hundred and fifty a trucks a day into Gaza to allow for pauses in fighting for humanitarian relief, including polio vaccinations, and then to take a bunch of steps to prepare for winter. It's a long, extensive list, but the letter seems to suggest that the US Would cut off weapons shipments to Israel if these things don't happen. More on that in a second. So, Ben, just to clarify for listeners, laying siege to all of Gaza like this would almost certainly be a massive war crime.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, it's a war crime.

[Tommy Vitor]

Like sieges aren't illegal per se, but you have to take all these specific steps to protect civilians.

[Saad Mohseni]

You have to allow food in. Protective civilians. You have to allow food in. You have to protect civilians in the way you conduct your military, especially with.

[Tommy Vitor]

Hospitals or special things you have to do with hospitals. I also suspect this would become item number one in the ICJ genocide trial if they were to actually implement this. But Ben, what did you make of this letter from the Biden administration to the Israelis, like kind of declaring the latest ultimatum and sort of hinting at a cutoff of weapons?

[Saad Mohseni]

Well, given that, first of all, that letter should have been sent in like November of last year. You know, I mean, we're 13 months into this and now we're sending this letter. I mean, this is the approach that. I mean, it just shows first of all that their approach has failed. I mean, we're supposed to hug BB and get all these results. Well, if that was working, you wouldn't have to threaten this kind of action. But to me, it says that what American officials are seeing is deeply worrying. And, you know, we should state that what we've just seen in the last few days, you know, the kind of grinding normalization, you know, you remember a year ago when Al Shifa Hospital was bombed, there was a huge debate about it. Now global story. Yeah, they've destroyed the entire healthcare infrastructure in Gaza, all of it, literally. You know, children were incinerated in tents nearby a makeshift hospital. I mean, there's no pretense of restraint. And what's really come back in full force are these aid restrictions. And I think what leads to that letter is a sense from American officials that these aid restrictions are once again like a matter of policy. You know, that this isn't just kind of, oh, it's tough getting trucks in. There seems to have been a cutoff getting in. It's a choice. And so I think that probably indicates the trigger that led to this letter being sent. Maybe our politics have something to do with this too. Because the other thing that's happened is there's no pretense of negotiating a ceasefire deal. Now that's gone. We're in a post ceasefire negotiation world. So that was kind of the main event for many months. And now we're kind of back to Israel pursuing military solutions in Gaza that, as we've talked about, are kind of Unachievable, unless. And the general's plan kind of gives away the game. The plan is ultimately to make it unlivable and to displace the population and probably bring back Israeli settlements in northern Gaza. And they'll claim it's for like a buffer zone or something, but I mean, that's ethnic cleansing is what that plan is. So I think the letter represents a kind of degree of frustration that the US approach has not worked. Ceasefire negotiations have not worked. Nothing we've said privately or publicly has brought about any restraint. And we're seeing, you know, very worrying limitations, if not wholesale prohibitions on aid getting in again. And so this is an attempt to kind of. And if the pass is prologue, you know, the Israelis will let a few trucks in, it'll get a little bit better, but it'll still be terrible. And maybe that is enough for this administration. I don't know. We'll see.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, some trucks will start going back in and then some like group of crazed settlers will block the next set and the government will throw up its hands. Yeah. You mentioned this horrific fire at basically refugee camp next to a hospital. There were two specific videos from the Gaza Strip that I wanted to highlight because they've literally, they've haunted me ever since I saw them. And also I think we sometimes talk about the politics and national security implications. And when you do that, only you can lose touch with humanity. So the first is this October 14th IDF airstrike on Al Aqsa Hospital. So the airstrike starts a fire, it starts burning all these tents housing displaced people. And it burnt a bunch of people alive. Yeah, including kids, including a 19 year old named Shaban Dalu. Shaban Dalu had been injured in a previous Israeli airstrike. And in this video you can see him raise his arm while in a gurney attached to an IV as he burns alive.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

On video.

[Saad Mohseni]

And this is not, you know, these are not Hamas fighters. It's a student, you know, this is the dehumanization that is required to do that to human beings and to be doing it 13 months after the fact, you know, there are no words, you.

[Tommy Vitor]

Know, left and for not to like shock the conscience. There was a period of time where a video like that would become a global story and all consuming thing on all media in all countries. And maybe it is outside of the US but it's like it was for me, it was like a thing in my Twitter algorithm. Because Twitter knows I care about this.

[Ben Rhodes]

No.

[Saad Mohseni]

And that's what's so discordant. About this war is that, yes, there's this kind of attrition where it grinds you down and it gets normalized, but outside the US this stuff is far more consequential in terms of driving opinion. You've seen this. Emmanuel Macron is increasingly outspoken about Israel needing to stop this. The US Is standing increasingly alone in this blank check for the Israeli military operation in Gaza. And that's going to have very long term consequences for kind of global views of the United States.

[Tommy Vitor]

Kamala Harris put out a statement on the northern Gaza humanitarian situation, right?

[Saad Mohseni]

She did. And I didn't see one from Biden.

[Tommy Vitor]

I don't know that. I mean, I might have missed it. It could have come from the briefing room or something. But I did catch that.

[Saad Mohseni]

I thought it was interesting. No, I mean, look, you know, she's got, I believe that in the next three weeks she's not going to solve Gaza even by taking positions that I agree with. I think the important point is if she wins, hopefully she's got some pretty big decisions to make out of the gate here because continuing this policy will immediately color global opinion of her. And it's a tough inheritance, a really hard inheritance because I don't think she was responsible for Gaza policy. That's clearly, you know, Joe Biden had a very clear sense of how he wanted to handle this. But yeah, this is going to be there the day after the election, you know, no matter who wins. But for her it's, it's going to be a tough set of decisions in the transition.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. And then there was one other video that I saw again, it was shared on Twitter. I know even less about it, but I like literally have not been able to stop thinking about it because it was this. A clip of the small boys, maybe five, consoling his younger brother who looks like he was two or three. And the younger boy is saying, I want my mom as like the older one rubs his back and their mother had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. And like, I just like, I don't know how you can watch these videos and not imagine yourself or your kids in their place, you know what I mean? And like, it makes, what makes me. So I have a bunch of friends and acquaintances who I'm sure as you do too, or even elected officials who I just like fight about on text chains constantly about the war in Gaza. And what I find is I get to a point where a lot of the supporters of what's still happening in the Gaza offensive, they can't seem to recognize that, yes, of course, like, October 7th was like an evil, unjustifiable act. But now October 7th is being used to justify inflicting nearly identical horrors and suffering on Palestinian civilians seemingly in perpetuity. And you just get to this point of the debate where it's like a mental block, and I find that people just seem to refuse to engage with that reality, you know what I mean? Like, on a human level, on a moral level, even on a strategic level, because, like, I just. It's gonna. I mean, it's wrong, but it's also gonna ensure that these people hate you. If someone did that to me, someone killed my wife, if someone killed my kid, I would fucking hate you. And I would want to kill you until the day I died. And, like, I worry that that's a natural feeling on either side to have that, like, hatred when someone harms you like this. But it's just every day, like, growing in perpetuity.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, like you. I find it hardest, obviously, to consume any of these pictures, videos, stories related to children, because, like you, I immediately think about my children. And it's interesting the kind of reaction you get. You know, sometimes people will say, you know, well, it's all Hamas's fault, you know, and part of it is Hamas's fault. But not all of it is. You know, it's not the case that these people are all Hamas. It's just not. They are not all Hamas. These are not all inevitable consequences of war. These are not all. Because Hamas is using people as human shields. Like the scale of destruction. All of Gaza's destroyed. Almost everybody's lost a family member. Children are being killed in the tens of thousands. And that's kind of a policy choice, too. It's not just like one stray bomb. So then you get the. Well, you don't Talk enough about October 7th or what Hamas wants to do.

[Tommy Vitor]

But it's like, I do.

[Saad Mohseni]

We do.

[Tommy Vitor]

We have.

[Saad Mohseni]

It's been a year, but it's been over a year. And to your point, I don't know that this is guaranteeing long term security for Israel. I get some people after my Ta Nehisi Coates interview too, saying things like, they're just profoundly misinformed. Like, why don't you ask them how Arabs have more rights in Israel than in other Arab countries? It's not that they're under occupation. I mean, you may point to an Arab citizen of Israel proper, but these people seem to have no idea what it's like to be in Gaza or what it's like to be in the west bank or what it's like to be in southern Lebanon right now. And they don't want to engage that at all. And this is the last point I want to make, which is that it's both, obviously the suffering that we're seeing, but it's also what it does to the people that are doing this. It's not healthy, it has not been healthy for the United States to be in a 20 year warranty. There is some causation to Trump there, something about the jingoism and the normalization of torture and the kind of dehumanization of populations in other countries. What happened in the right wing media. Somehow Trump is kind of a product of our post 911 response is something I've always thought of. What is this doing to the nature of Israeli society to be doing this to human beings? That's a profound question that I think people need to stop and think about here because what is Israel on the back end of this? And I think if you look at Ben Gavir and Smotrich, it gives you a bit of a sense of what that is and it's not good.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I mean, there's a piece of this I think you and I, or most Americans just fundamentally cannot understand, which is the, the depth of the religious extremism on both sides, frankly, like in Hamas, but also someone like Itmar Ben GVIR or you know, Baruch Goldstein. Right. Like people who like mass murder their opponents for these religious fundamentalist reasons. But yeah, there's also, I mean, just to our experience after 9 11, it just reminded you that to continue to take these like offensive actions and to justify doing all these things, the level of fear that needs to be kind of permeated through the culture of a society by the government, among the people, like everyone needs to feel like they're at risk at all times. Everything gets sort of hyped to the 10th, 11th degree to justify what's happening. It's just.

[Saad Mohseni]

And the last thing I'd say, it's not healthy either. Yeah, the last thing I'd say about this is you and I have experience with this. I don't think the excesses of the Obama years are anywhere near the early war on terror and torture and Guantanamo and the invasion of Iraq. But there were excesses in the Obama years. You can explain each individual thing, right? Here's why we had to take this strike, or here's why this thing is justified. Can you justify the collective. Can you step back and look at Gaza and what it looks like today? And Say, yeah, that was the right thing to do, you know.

[Tommy Vitor]

Right. And look how much money and time and, you know, the US Spend on the war on terror. Look at the number of places that we bombed or drone struck or whatever. It's like, does everyone feel safer? Is there less Al Qaeda now than then?

[Saad Mohseni]

There's more. And look at what those places have become.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, let's turn to Lebanon. Yes.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

So the IDF ground invasion there is expanding. The New York Times looked at some satellite images and videos posted by the Israeli military, and they found the IDF stem moving across the border into Lebanon into a bunch of different places. Very inhospitable terrain, by the way, like large valleys and things. Yeah. That Hezbollah has prepared for a long time. So this is, like, really grueling fighting. A lot of this fighting. I think all of it at the moment is happening in what is supposed to be like a UN policed buffer zone between the two countries established after the war in 2006. However, Israel has told residents of dozens of towns just north of that border that they too have to evacuate. So it seems like this, you know, the ground invasion is going to expand. In addition to the ground invasion, though, the IDF is launching heavy airstrikes in and around Beirut and in southern Lebanon. I was just listening to a BBC report where the reporter said that Israel conducted 200 airstrikes in the last 24 hours. So the volume is increasing. And also the kind of geographic spread of where they're hitting targets is expanding. The IDF even bombed this small Christian majority village called Aitu in northern Lebanon and killed 21 people. And I think that's getting investigated. So you have Gallant, the Israeli Defense Minister, says that these strikes have destroyed two thirds of Hezbollah's estimated 150,000 rockets. Lebanon's health ministry says that more than 2,300 people have been killed and 10,000 injured since. The fighting between Hezbollah and Israel started, like, you know, what, a year ago. But about 75% of those killed were in the last month. The UN has said that 400,000 children in Lebanon were displaced in the past three weeks. But the Israelis have taken some serious casualties, too. A Hezbollah drone managed to get past Israeli defense systems and hit a military base, which killed four IDF soldiers and wounded dozens of others. And Hezbollah is firing hundreds of rockets per day into northern Israel or at northern Israel. So there's still this ongoing fighting. The IDF also has had these weird clashes with UN peacekeepers in the region. On Sunday, Israeli tanks entered a base housing UN peacekeepers stationed in southern Lebanon. No one was hurt, but it was this weird, like, kind of mini occupation for a few hours.

[Saad Mohseni]

Netanyahu like, taped one of his videos, you know, threatening the UN mission.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, yeah. So, like, the UN officials were furious. Georgia Maloney was furious because the prime minister of Italy, because a lot of these peacekeepers are Italian. But Netanyahu blamed the UN and said, quote, the refusal to evacuate the peacekeepers, quote, makes them hostages of Hezbollah. This endangers both them and the lives of Israeli soldiers. So he just lashes out at everyone. So, Ben, last thing on this. The Biden administration's policy is evolving.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yes.

[Tommy Vitor]

On Lebanon. So for a year, you know, Biden pressured Netanyahu not to launch a second front with Hezbollah. I think we gave him a lot of credit for succeeding there on the show.

[Saad Mohseni]

It was their big success.

[Tommy Vitor]

There was their big effort to broker a cease fire back at the UN during unga. But now that this IDF invasion of Lebanon is happening, the administration says Israel has, quote, the right to conduct these limited incursions to degrade Hezbollah's capability.

[Saad Mohseni]

Why is that?

[Tommy Vitor]

What's your confidence that these are limited, by the way?

[Saad Mohseni]

Well, it just. It's absolutely extraordinary that you could spend months trying to avoid this outcome. Literally be negotiating a ceasefire at the time that the escalation takes place with the strike on Nasrallah. And then a week later, Israel does the thing that you've been telling them not to do for a full year.

[Tommy Vitor]

You're like, attaboy.

[Saad Mohseni]

And you're like, that's great. We support this. We should degrade their infrastructure. Which, by the way, is such an amorphous statement as to mean anything. That's a blank check if there ever was one. Go ahead and degrade their infrastructure. Where does that stop? Right.

[Tommy Vitor]

Infrastructure could mean Hezbollah walks up to some farmer and says, hey, man, we're putting 10,000 rockets in your barn. If you've got a problem with it, let us know. And so they end up there.

[Saad Mohseni]

So then you bomb that Hezbollah has some buildings in Beirut, and now we're gonna blow those up, and there happen to be a bunch of civilians there, too. It just shows you the kind of absurdity of this policy where they can take a position for a whole year that it would be bad if there's an Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon. And then when that policy happens, and the whole world has heard you, and this is why this matters, it gets the US Credibility. The whole world has heard you say for a year. That would be bad. And by the way, when they were asked, isn't your policy failing, they would point to this as a success. Right. To your point. And now that the thing that you didn't want to have happen is happening, you're for it. There's something completely absurd about this. I mean, it's hard to think of a superpower looking less like a superpower when they can just switch on a dime like that. Because they're what, they don't want to be in a different place than BB Netanyahu. You know, that's the first thing.

[Tommy Vitor]

And the State Department is, like, urging US Citizens to leave Lebanon. Now they're saying, use commercial flights, get on US Brokered options, because the US Brokered options will not be able to continue indefinitely. So now we're scrambling to get our own people out of there.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, which I was going to say. And I'm going to bring politics into this, too. You know, we talk a lot about, you know, the Arab population of Michigan. It is primarily Lebanese. Right. And so this is a population that was already upset about what was being done in Gaza, just out of kind of solidarity. And yes, there are Palestinians, a lot of Palestinian Americans in Michigan, too. But now the war is coming to their families. And I should say I'd like to see the US doing more to evacuate Americans. In 2006, they were putting people on US military ships and taking them out of there. And it doesn't seem to be at that level yet either. And the thing that concerns me is that there's always a reason to kind of continue. So you go in and let's say, hey, there's some rocket sites that we want to take out in southern Lebanon. And then Israel goes in, and then somebody fires at them from somewhere else. And then they say, oh, we have to go get those people who are firing at us from somewhere else. And then it's like, well, then we have to get where they're manufacturing or there's a mission creep that happens constantly. That's what happened in 1982 when Israel ended up occupying Lebanon for a very long time. There were parts of it. And I just. Where is this ending? You know?

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I was talking to somebody here in LA who, you know, is from Lebanon, has a lot of friends there, a lot of family there. He's Druze, who are, you know, sort of a unique ethnic religious group in Lebanon.

[Saad Mohseni]

But not Hamas.

[Tommy Vitor]

Not Hamas. Right. But like, not like part of the Shia population. Not Sunni, not the Christians. They're 5% of the population. And he was saying that their friends just feel trapped, trapped in the middle. Right. Like Lebanon has just lurched from crisis to crisis to crisis, from war to economic crisis now to a political crisis. And like, they don't want the war to continue, but they're also scared if it stops. Because if it stops and Hezbollah is still in charge, you're going to have this kind of weakened but not toppled terrorists, but political group trying to reassert its domination over the country.

[Saad Mohseni]

Well, that's the thing. Yeah. The risk of civil war, conflict, or bombings is just going up. The more things get destroyed, the more the stakes go up and the more. And meanwhile, I was talking to some Lebanese Americans who were describing their families have no idea where to go in Beirut. Right. So nowhere to go do they go? Just kind of try to hang out close to the American Embassy because it might not get bombed. I mean, that's the degree of calculation people are having to make in Beirut. Like a major world city.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. And you had all these sort of sectarian neighborhoods and now all these people are getting displaced and squeezed together and that could end very badly. And you're right, is so much of the Western kind of media coverage and talk about foreign policy or places like Gaza, like the people get otherized. Right. Like, you cannot do that about Beirut. This is like a. Yeah, this is a place where all these reporters have gone to like hang out and party. And you know, it's like, it's. Anyway, it's just awful. And also there has been this horrible government crisis for years. But you're hearing, you're hearing kind of like American and Western officials talk about this like it's some moment of opportunity for Lebanon.

[Saad Mohseni]

Never works. Never works.

[Tommy Vitor]

What the fuck are we doing?

[Saad Mohseni]

How many times do you have to see in the Middle east that, you know, if you blow everything up and then say, well, what a great opportunity to get the right kind of person in charge here.

[Tommy Vitor]

Seize control.

[Saad Mohseni]

That never works. Like, point me to the Middle Eastern country that has emerged from being broken apart by violence in some democracy flourishing way. You know, just. I can't believe we're back here the same. It's the same fucking people that said that about Iraq or saying this about Lebanon today.

[Tommy Vitor]

I know, I know. I've had people talk, I've had people say this to me about the moment of opportunity for Iran of like decapitating the snake in Iran.

[Saad Mohseni]

What an opportunity. What are these people talking about? Like it's baseball cards that they're trading here.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. So I guess there was some reporting that the US Was told by Israel that they intend to wrap up the Lebanon operation in the coming weeks.

[Saad Mohseni]

We've heard that before, maybe right after our election.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. Hopefully it's true.

[Saad Mohseni]

Bibi does his best for Trump and.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, yeah, gives him attaboy. Before we get a break, Ben, we're trying to do a lot of stuff here. We got a lot of great shows, trying to do some electoral work over at Vote Save America. And we're trying to build a little progressive independent media company at a time when it's challenging. One way you can support us is by subscribing to the Friends of the Pod. For a limited time, we're offering 25% off all new annual subscriptions. If you're already a monthly subscriber, upgrading to an annual plan is quick and easy. Join Friends of the Pod today to help our mission and help yourself to exclusive shows like Inside 2024, Ad Free Pod, Save America, and much, much more. Go to crooked.com friends to get more. And by the way, Inside 2024 just dropped a new episode. Hysteria's Aaron Ryan sat down with Tina Chen, former chief of staff to Michelle Obama, to talk about the evolving role of first ladies in campaigns and what Doug Emhoff's historically new position could mean to get access to this exclusive series and take advantage of the sale. Go to crooked.com friends to sign up now. But you don't have to sign up for anything to listen to the election series.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah. I'm loving how this has come together. Thanks to the team. We've had two episodes so far. People should go back, check those out. One on democracy globally, one on the stakes for the war in Ukraine this Saturday in your feeds. Definitely don't want to miss this one. We cover the war in the Middle east, focus on Gaza, but also stretch the regional perspective. We talked to Peter Beinart, who's always incredibly smart, provocative, thoughtful on where things are going with Israel. We talked to Rula Jabril, who's just a great guest to offer not just a Palestinian perspective, but her own deep expertise in covering this region for a long time. And Greg Karlstrom, greatest follow on Twitter when it comes to Middle east politics.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's a great episode.

[Saad Mohseni]

He looks at the region. Yeah. So Peter, Rula, Greg, you don't want to miss this one. This is good.

[Tommy Vitor]

No, those are some really, really smart, thoughtful at times. Controversial.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yes, yes. Everybody says something controversial. You won't miss it.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. You will not be forced to listen to conventional wisdom.

[Saad Mohseni]

No, no, not these three. No.

[Tommy Vitor]

You'll get deeply held ideas. So check it out. Election series in your pod. Save the world feed on Saturday. Pod say the world is brought to you by Simplisafe. If you're like me, the safety of your home and your loved ones isn't just a priority. It's your everything. The problem is old school home security systems only take action once someone is already inside your home. Simplisafe home security is changing that with new active guard outdoor protection. It's the only home security designed to prevent crimes before they happen. John Lovett prevented some crimes before they happened when he set up a Simplisafe system himself. Yeah, you bet. You bet. I said it'd be Simplisafe. And it's part of a new Justice Department program to stop pre crime. Very important. Involved moving things around with your hands. No, I thought I accidentally touched Tommy's hand just now and recoiled. It was not me. It was a pre crime. With Active Guard, SimpliSafe's 247 monitoring agents keep a close watch over your property and actually stop crimes before they happen. The cameras can alert you to potential threats and find suspicious individuals before they get close to your home. And the Simplisafe agents can talk directly to the intruder through the Simplisafe system, sound a loud siren, flashlights and even alert the police. Sounds like a like a nightclub. While other systems only react after a break in, Simplisafe combines live monitoring and proactive protection both outside and inside your home. That's why millions of people trust Simplisafe with their own home security. And we want you to have the same peace of mind. Protect your home with 50% off a new Simplisafe system plus a free indoor security camera. When you sign up for fast protect monitoring, just visit simplisafe.com crooked world that's simplisafe.com crooked world there's no safe like Simplisafe Positive the world is brought to you by Quint. I really like Quint. They have a lot of good stuff on there if you need some new clothes. And they've got a range of things you can get like, you know, high end cozy cashmere sweaters or I went on there and I bought just like a whole new set of workout stuff because after a while you can wash it, but the washing doesn't take, doesn't work anymore. And you know that she's a little funky and you're the guy at the gym. It smells so great. So I highly recommend checking out Quinn's. They offer affordable, high quality essentials for any wardrobe. That includes seasonal must haves like Mongolian cashmere sweaters from $60 and comfortable pants for any occasion. Quint only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing techniques along with premium fabrics and finishes. And they partner with them directly, cutting out the cost of the middleman, passing the savings on to you. That means Quint's Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. So you can update your look without breaking the bank. Upgrade your wardrobe with pieces made to last with quints. Go to quince.comworld for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E dot com world to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.comworld the credit card companies are ripping you off and you don't even know it. Every time you use your credit card, they charge a hidden swipe fee. It costs the average family more than eleven hundred dollars per year. Really? $1,100. That's because the credit card companies organize banks into pricing cartels. It's like OPEC for credit cards. That's terrible.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

Awful organization with no competition. We have the highest credit card swipe fees in the world and that is just wrong. Thankfully, the House and Senate have a bipartisan bill to fix this problem. It's called the Credit Card Competition Act. It would finally make credit card companies compete like every business across the country is supposed to. So call your senators and representatives and tell them to pass the Credit Card Competition Act. Finally, like last bucket of this Middle east talk here, Ben. So on Iran itself. So it's been two weeks to the day that we're recording this since Iran fired the 180 ballistic missiles at Israel. We've been waiting for some sort of response from the Israelis ever since. There was some reporting today or this week that Biden called Netanyahu as their first talk in like seven weeks. And Biden got some assurances from Netanyahu that any response will focus on military targets in Iran, not on their nuclear facilities or oil infrastructure. We'll see. The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran has warned, I guess like Western or Gulf leaders that if the Israelis hit them, they will respond to any attack by hitting Israel's civilian infrastructure and they will retaliate against Arab states that facilitate the attack. So they will, obviously they will grow this thing immediately. They'll expand the war. That is to bolster Israel's air defenses. Biden sent a Thaad missile defense system to Israel along with about 100 US military personnel to man it. And also on the Iran front, the New York Times was given minutes of 10 meetings between Hamas's top leaders who planned the October 7 attack in Gaza. This was like what they talked about and all their planning over the course of several years. These notes were apparently found on a computer that was recovered by the IDF in Gaza. The meetings reportedly show that Hamas did in fact, brief both Iranian officials and Hezbollah on the October 7 attack before it happened and tried to get them to participate. The report said Hamas leaders came away from these discussions thinking that Iran was supportive in principle. But we all saw what happened kind of that day, that week. Hezbollah participated in the attack in kind of a limited fashion with some limited rocket attacks. After the attack, Iran didn't get involved directly until after the Israelis bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus and killed two IRGC generals. Obviously, over the years, like, Iran has given lots of money and material support and weapons and training to both Hamas and Hezbollah. But Hamas was not talking about that. They were trying to get them to, like, engage and fight with them that day, like blow up military, Israeli military infrastructure at the start of the attack. So it's worth reading this piece in full because there's lots of interesting detail in there. But also I came away from reading it very nervous that the leak was part of the messaging effort to kind of preemptively justify or explain some sort of major Israeli response against Iran.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, I mean, it was a complicated leak because on the one hand, it's very alarming if Iranian officials had some notion that there was an attack being planned on October 7th, but they also, on the other end, they clearly chose not to participate. So it's kind of a murky picture, but obviously a damning one just for them. Having foreknowledge. My experience over the years with Iran is that the proxy that they had the most kind of control over was Hezbollah. That Hamas was kind of in a category like the Houthis, where they gave them money and weapons. Cause it kind of suited them. But they weren't like, pulling all the strings.

[Tommy Vitor]

Right. And they weren't like, ideologically alliance. Right?

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah. They're Shia and they're Sunni. Right. So this is a bit complicated, but I think you're right. I mean, where could those documents have come from? I mean, clearly this was an effort to kind of message around Iranian complicity to some extent, which suggests perhaps like a justification for a bigger military operation against Iran. Who knows what we'll see happen? I mean, one thing I will say, Tommy, is that one thing the Israelis under Netanyahu are good at is they act like they might do something really over the top. The US Spends a lot of time trying to talk them out of doing it, and then they do something that would have been seen to be really dramatic.

[Tommy Vitor]

That's true.

[Saad Mohseni]

But it seems like less, you know, so it's like, you know, I can see a world in which they might launch like a pretty significant military attack on Iran, but not hit the nuclear facilities and oil fields. And the Biden people are saying, oh, we talk them out of that. Kind of like the Rafah operation, you know. Well, they didn't destroy all of Rafah, so at once. Now it looks more limited. But yeah, you know, and beware of this. You know, this is, this is. We've seen this happen repeatedly since October 7th. Like the General's plan may fall in that category. Like, here's our plan to depopulate Gaza, you know, and then the US Spends a lot of time and then they think they kind of talk them down from doing something when in fact Israel's still escalating what they're doing, you know. And that kind of feels to me like where we are right now. But they seem pretty determined, the Israelis, to kind of use this window to degrade the Iranian network, including the Iranian regime itself, as much as possible. The question again is what emerges on the back end of that? Because you're not going to eliminate it entirely and you're going to buy a lot of ill will in the process, not just among those groups, but globally. And that's the trade off that the Israelis seem to be comfortable living.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's worth reading the story. Lots of interesting details. No Judy Miller on the byline, but it did get my Spidey senses anxiety about leaks popping up. Another one, though, on the Iran front, Politico had a long report about what they describe as Iran's hit list of former Trump aides and the challenges the US Is having protecting all of them. So these are all Trump officials connected to the 2020 assassination of IRGC leader Qasem Soleimani. Politico describes the threat as pervasive assassination threat that is much more concrete than the graphic videos, brash proclamations and menacing social media posts that have found their way into the public eye. Congress has been briefed on all this. There are like 24 sources quoted in the story, current and former and congressional. Congress appropriated a bunch of money to protect some of these individuals, especially the former state and DoD people, but not everyone. In particular, it sounds like the NSC staff, the White House staff, who are asking for Secret Service coverage. But Secret Service, as we've discussed, is having a hard time protecting Trump at the moment. So they're spread a little thin, but apparently, I mean, again, it's another very long story. It sounds like the Iranians are doing extensive surveillance on all these individuals, just kind of like on the Internet. They're trying to get access to their schedules, figure out where they are. There was an anecdote about some Trump official who was in Paris, who was tailed by a couple of dudes that freaked out his security detail. Obviously, this list of people they would like to respond to, the Iranians would like to respond to, includes Donald Trump, who has decided that Iran is responsible for the two assassination attempts on him in this presidential cycle. He apparently has requested, which is crazy.

[Saad Mohseni]

Which is crazy.

[Tommy Vitor]

Which seems very unlikely, at most unproven. He's requested military aircraft and military vehicles to take him from place to place in the final weeks of the campaign because of these Iranian threats. I guess I can't tell if this is a real thing, if this is his staff just like, trying to call Biden Week if they feel like the Secret Service isn't up to the job. I don't know. What did you make of this story?

[Saad Mohseni]

Well, first of all, this goes back to the assassination of Qasem Soleimani. So the Trump administration assassinates Qasem Soleimani, who is this kind of revered leader of the irgc, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. So it doesn't. On the one hand, the idea that Iranians have long memories will want to avenge the killing of Qasem Soleimani, you know, that rings true. On the other hand, you know, and I've said a version of this before, you know, it may be that there's some IRGC guys who like to get together and put together lists of people that they don't like. And intelligence kind of picks that up. And how concrete this threat is remains unclear. It's kind of murky when you read that story. What is kind of aspirational we might like to do this someday versus, like, actually trying to do it is a different thing. I mean, we haven't seen. So I take it seriously. But we've yet to see them try to do this. It may also be that they want these people to just kind of live with some degree of fear, you know?

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah.

[Saad Mohseni]

So there's another. And this is not me trying to diminish it, it's just saying, yeah, that would be awful. Yeah. Like, like, they may just kind of. They may not mind. The US Is picking up, oh, we might, you know, we might have designs on these 24 people. I want John Bolton and Robert O'Brien or whomever it is, to be uncomfortable. You know, maybe we have some guys, you know, tail somebody in London just to, you know. So I think that may be happening too. It's just like a sense of, like, intimidation and like planting a seed in people's heads. So, you know, but it's, it's the, you know, it's the. If you go all in and trying to kind of end a regime, you know, like the Iranian regime, precisely because, like, there are people in that regime that play a version of hardball. Like, I take the threat seriously and all the US can do is kind of follow the intelligence picture and, and do what it can. I do think there's a chance, and I hope this is the case, that these are not very advanced plots. These are kind of aspirational, meant to intimidate and not to actually do something.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I hope that's the case.

[Saad Mohseni]

I hope that's the case.

[Tommy Vitor]

I could totally understand how if you were like a senior director on the nsc, you have, and that Iran decided that you were part of this assassination plot and they've added you to this list and you're getting warned by the FBI about these threats or surveillance on you, but you have absolutely no resources to protect yourself short of something you fund out of your own pocket. That is terrifying. And I truly do feel for these people. I find it very hard to believe that because of a threat from Iran that the US Secret Service can't adequately defend Donald Trump and that he has to drive around Milwaukee and MRAP and then fly back to Mar a lago in an F22. Like, this is. It's just absurd. It seems like posturing.

[Saad Mohseni]

This is totally different. So break, break. I'm not comparing it apples to apples. My only experience of something strange happening after I left the White House is when it came out in the news that I was getting spied on by a bunch of former Mossad guys, Black Cube, they were trying to dig up dirt on me. They had files on me. There's, you know, I remember just kind of feeling kind of weird. Like when you're in the White House, you know, you have all this juice. And I had Secret Service protection at times because right wing death threats in this country. But your former White House officials, like, you're on your own, man.

[Tommy Vitor]

You're gone.

[Saad Mohseni]

I was like, who do I call? I called like, John Brennan.

[Tommy Vitor]

You walk out that gate and you're like, See ya.

[Saad Mohseni]

I remember calling Brennan, being like, hey, can I do anything with this block you thing? He's like, I'm not the CIA director anymore. You know, like, there's not a former White House official hotline to call, you know, which sucks. I mean, I feel bad.

[Tommy Vitor]

And it's the kind of private protection is incredibly expensive. I think Mitt Romney talked about paying hundreds of thousand dollars a month for protection from mega people, basically.

[Saad Mohseni]

I mean, he does have the.

[Tommy Vitor]

Mick can pay for it.

[Saad Mohseni]

Maybe Mick can, you know, donate.

[Tommy Vitor]

Not a bad idea. A couple other things, Ben. So we're going to add North Korea to our kind of basket of problems that are steadily getting worse at the moment. So it was not long ago that we covered the bags of trash that North Korea was floating over the border into South Korea. And the kind of tit for tat between north and south continues with the north taking this. It's largely symbolic, but very provocative step of literally blowing up roads and railroad tracks meant to connect north and South Korea. As you can imagine, the roads were not in use, but they were part of this project started in the 2000s that was designed to eventually connect the two countries. And for decades, you know, North Korea claimed they wanted to reunify the peninsula, but Kim Jong Un changed the policy officially back in January, calling the south an invariable principal enemy. So the road destruction came after North Korea accused the south of dropping all these propaganda leaflets over Pyongyang via drone. I don't think that South Korea's declined to confirm if they're responsible. In response, the south fired some warning shots near the border, et cetera. So it's like this constant tit for tat. But, Ben, I mean, I think blowing up the roads obviously is bad news for anyone who supports reunification. It's bad for anyone that's worried about the nuclear risk from North Korea. But it also comes in this broader context, in this moment where North Korea is giving Russia all these artillery shells in support for the war in Ukraine. In exchange, they're getting some kind of military technology. I think people assume it's ballistic missile program help. And then just this week, there's reports that North Korea sent troops to Russia to fight against Ukraine. This was in the Washington Post. A Ukrainian intelligence official said there are several thousand North Korean infantry soldiers in Russia now getting trained. It was not clear to me reading this piece if they're going to get sent to the front lines or if they're just there to, like, maintain North Korean equipment that's old and shitty and Kind of probably needs a lot of work, but it seems like a hell of an escalation.

[Saad Mohseni]

Well, it's starting to get like world war vibes, you know, I mean, I should add on the Iran piece, I noticed the Iranian president went to visit Putin. You know, these, these countries are getting closer, you know, Iran, Russia, North Korea, China. And yeah, if you suddenly have North Korean guys on the front lines or doing anything, frankly in Russia, that's a massive change for North Korea. That the so called hermit kingdom, walled off in the world. I mean, that's Kim kind of flexing a bit, but that's this kind of intermingling of Russia and North Korea. And it's not just an alliance of convenience. It seems to be more like an alliance now, you know. Right. And yet you wonder what the North Koreans are getting. Ballistic missile technology. Russians have a lot of intelligence. You know, there's all kinds of things they could be getting. And I'd watch this space because no matter who wins, I think we're in for kind of a bumpy year with the North Koreans. Because, you know, I've said before, if Trump wins, Kim's gonna feel pretty emboldened to fuck around with the South Koreans.

[Tommy Vitor]

Boys.

[Saad Mohseni]

Grand, yeah. These boys in the White House, you know, they love each other. But if she wins, North Koreans have a pattern of kind of testing new U.S. presidents. You know, if you go back and look, you know, when Obama came in, there were missile tests and you know, when Trump came in, remember you had the whole rocketman thing and, you know, so I just kind of feel like we're headed for a little more attention on North Korea than we ever want to give. But the mega trend I'm watching is that the kind of absence of diplomatic de escalation in any of these theaters seems to be kind of thickening this anti Western alliance in ways that are pretty worrying, you know?

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. One other story that we've been watching for a while now is about the assassination of a Sikh separatist named Hardeep Singh Najjar on Canadian soil in June of 2023. I should say he was like an alleged separatist. He was just kind of an activist in space. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. His government accused the Indian government led by Narendra Modi of being behind the assassination. And now the fallout from this case is growing and growing as the Canadian government says they have evidence of a much wider campaign of targeting Indian dissidents happening in Canada. An investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police found at least one other murder Drive by shootings in a home invasion carried out by a gang that was allegedly being fed intelligence by Indian diplomats in Canada, who would also use threats of, you know, denying immigration documents to get Indians living in Canada to become informants for them. Canadian officials are saying that all of this is being directed by people at very high levels of the Indian government. This Monday, the Canadian government expelled six Indian diplomats who they said were involved in gathering intelligence on Sikh activists, including the most senior Indian diplomat in Canada. Here's what Trudeau said about it all at a press conference. Let me be clear. The evidence brought to light by the RCMP cannot be a ignored. It leads to one conclusion. It is necessary to disrupt the criminal activities that continue to pose a threat.

[Saad Mohseni]

To public safety in Canada.

[Tommy Vitor]

That is why we acted, because we will always, first and foremost, stand for the rights of Canadians to feel safe.

[Saad Mohseni]

And secure in their own country.

[Tommy Vitor]

We will never tolerate the involvement of a foreign government threatening and killing Canadian citizens on Canadian soil. A deeply unacceptable violation of Canada's sovereignty and of international law. So we should say the Indian government denies everything. They also expelled six Canadian diplomats because why not?

[Saad Mohseni]

Why not?

[Tommy Vitor]

Either way, it's a new low between the two countries. Again, just the broader context here. If people were like, what is happening? The people being targeted by the Indian government allegedly support the Sikh separatist movement in the creation of an independent Sikh state. There is absolutely zero risk of that happening. The movement is banned in India. There is no chance this is going to happen. But the Indian government is still jeopardizing its relationship with some of the most powerful countries in the world for what?

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

What is the point of this?

[Saad Mohseni]

A couple of things on this. I mean, first of all, if you read the accounts of this, the Canadians briefed out, like, this is very specific evidence that they had. Right. These are intercepts. I mean, they were quite specific on background in detailing, you know, what looks like a very robust intelligence picture. And frankly, intelligence pictures suggest that these Indian diplomats were not exactly being that careful and cutting their tracks. You know, they're surveilling people. They're talking about it. They did. Why would they make this up? It is not in their interest. It's not fun to have a fight with a country of over a billion people. That is really important geopolitically.

[Tommy Vitor]

You don't be scolded by Trudeau. You suck. I feel like an asshole.

[Saad Mohseni]

The first point is that this feels pretty clear that this happened. And also, I have to say, good for the Canadian government. I mean, one thing you can do with autocracy is just call it out and you know, be, be transparent about what you know. And I kind of, I wish the United States was kind of backing them up more. I mean, I know we have this big geopolitical play with Modi and we part of our China strategy and he's in multiple quads and things like that. But it's not acceptable to basically be weaponizing your diplomatic service to kill people or surveill people or intimidate people like this in Canada. Right. You know, I mean, it's crazy. And I'm glad that they are calling this out and that they're not kind of self censoring and handcuffing themselves because India is an export market or because India is part of some China strategy. I'd like to see the G7, the US, other groupings of countries backing this up. And this leads me to the last point, which is to your point about why are they doing this. Listeners podcast know we're not huge fans of ethno nationalism here.

[Tommy Vitor]

Bold.

[Saad Mohseni]

I just don't like this. You know, you get a sense that like Modi thinks he's the prime minister of all Indians everywhere. You know, like even if you're not in India, even if you're not even a citizen of India.

[Tommy Vitor]

Right?

[Saad Mohseni]

If you're an Indian diaspora, like, silence you. Yeah, yeah, he can silence you. You're a part of his constituency. It's an incredibly nationalist view of things. By the way, the Chinese are doing the same thing. You know, they've got multiple stories recently about people that they have in New York that are. They set up a police station in New York to kind of monitor Chinese diaspora there. Like, they clearly think that they're in charge of people and Flushing Queens who are Chinese. Like, those are people in the United States.

[Tommy Vitor]

You know, all you had to do is upgrade. Eric Adams on a flight.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, good to go. Get whatever you want. Right? Come on, guys. So I just. This trend of nationalism is bad enough when it's within the borders of the country, but this kind of globalization of nationalism is. That's what I think is going on here. And look, yes, countries have a right to say, I don't like something that somebody's doing there. They can bring that to the attention of the Canadian authorities. If they think there's something criminal happening or something, there's a threat to their national security, they have every right to do that. They could complain if the Canadians aren't acting on it. But what they can't do is like run hit jobs on people.

[Tommy Vitor]

Right, Right. I Wonder. I mean, so six, I think, are, like, 2% of the Canadian population. There's a bunch of, like, a dozen or so Sikh members of Parliament. I wonder if that representation and that sort of sizable population kind of forced the government's hands.

[Saad Mohseni]

I think, yeah, they're an influent diaspora group in Canada.

[Tommy Vitor]

But I'm with you. They deserve credit for doing it. And on your intelligence point, I mean, you're right. There was a surprising amount of briefing about the nature of the intelligence. But also, Canada is a member of the Five Eyes. It's the U.S. the U.K. new Zealand, Australia. Doesn't necessarily mean that Canada intercepted all this stuff. It's interesting that all those countries have been sitting on this information to kind of try to work over how to deal with it.

[Saad Mohseni]

I've always wondered about this since this first happened, which is, you know, because they. They spotlight the rural Canadian Mounted Police or whatever, you know, But. But you're right. Like, they're in this intelligence pool where everybody shares everything.

[Tommy Vitor]

Don't you imagine, like, dudes on horses, like cones?

[Saad Mohseni]

I think about, like, you remember the Untouchables, when those dudes, like, rolling on horseback and stuff? So, like, in my mind, I have a bunch of, like, mustached. You know, we're the Canadians.

[Tommy Vitor]

We're the worst Americans.

[Saad Mohseni]

But. But the reality is, like, it's probably, you know, I want. If it is Five eye stuff, then what does the US Think about this? You know, and are we saying to the Indians, and, look, I want to get along with India. Like, I. I want the geopolitical thing to work out. I want, you know, but you have to have some lines here as to what is acceptable, you know? And look, we can have the debate. Like, I'm sure the Indian government might what about this? And say, well, like, you guys do drone strikes in all these other countries. Fair debate. Let's all, like, have the debate. But, like, like, you know, this is, you know, kicking out six Canadians. I guarantee you those Canadians are not surveilling Indians to kill them. No. So it just kind of feels like a dumb tip for tat.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. Speaking of dumb things, I was just listening to that Trudeau clip. Can everyone just stop saying, let me be clear.

[Saad Mohseni]

Oh, Obama's the guiltiest party. Right.

[Tommy Vitor]

Kamala does it. Everyone stopped doing it.

[Saad Mohseni]

Trudeau's, by the way. I mean, we could come back to this after our election. He's had some challenges.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's been a rough couple months. Yeah. I think he just survived his second no Confidence vote. It was like a bullshit one by the Conservatives that had chance of passing. But that also came after the. The New Democratic Party, the kind of Bernie Sanders wing of Canadian politics led by Sikh politicians. Yeah. Pulled out of, you know, their kind of deal with Trudeau's party. I think Trudeau's approval rating is down in, like, the 30 to 35% range, which in some ways is impressive because he's been in charge for nine years, including, you know, from the pandemic until now. And basically every incumbent is getting killed in the polls.

[Saad Mohseni]

But, yeah, you pointed that out. I mean, the pandemic has not been good for incumbents. People are pissed off.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. Finally, Ben. So it's not often that you see a world leader just get dunked on straight to their face. But Moritz Koerner, who's a German member of the European Parliament, shot his shots verbally. Last week, Viktor Orban gave a big speech to the Parliament in Strasbourg. It received what the New York Times called a hostile reception. After his speech, Orban was forced to listen as a parade of lawmakers, including the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, told him what they really thought of him. But Kerner went particularly hard in the paint. Let's hear a bit of a clip of what he had to say.

[Saad Mohseni]

What a speech, Mr. Orban.

[Tommy Vitor]

What a speech. You say you want democracy, and you brag about your majorities in the Hungarian Parliament. Yet since years, you only rule by emergency decree.

[Saad Mohseni]

Are you so afraid of democracy, Mr. Orban? Mr. Orban, you are not a patriot.

[Tommy Vitor]

You are just a useful idiot of Russia and China.

[Saad Mohseni]

That's the reality.

[Tommy Vitor]

You turned Hungary into a banana republic. You robbed your population and enriched your family and friends. Under your rule, Hungary has become one of the poorest and officially the most corrupt country in the eu.

[Saad Mohseni]

Thank you. What a fraud.

[Tommy Vitor]

What a burden for your people. Mr. Orban, please step down.

[Saad Mohseni]

To make Hungary great again, there's something so funny, I want to start having a German accent when I. Dripping sarcasm.

[Tommy Vitor]

In a German accent is so funny.

[Saad Mohseni]

I mean, I will tell you, like, what I love about that is, you know, my last book, I had this whole Orban section, and Orban has this kind of J.D. vance thing where he kind of likes to think of himself as the smartest guy in the room, and he likes to kind of go to hostile audiences, go on podcasts. I mean, yeah, we could see if he wants to come up, because what I like about it is the useful idiot point, which is you think you're such a fucking genius. When actually you're just this kind of vessel for the Russians and the Chinese to get influence in the eu, which is true, by the way. I mean, the Russians have all manner of agendas running through Orban. The Chinese, you know, like, Hungary has kind of become part of their Belt road thing, but Hungary is probably like a massive Chinese intelligence base in the eu. And so this guy who thinks he's this, like, super intellectual J.D. vance of Europe, kind of thinking of the future of, you know, quote, unquote, illiberal democracy is what he literally calls it, is actually just this guy who's like a tool of these bigger foreign powers. It's a good way of cutting him down to size.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah.

[Saad Mohseni]

It's not just saying, you know, hey, like, you're. You're. You're authoritarian. Like, he doesn't mind that. What he minds is the idea that he's just kind of a tool, you know, and so I. And it's all the better. In a German accent.

[Tommy Vitor]

You aren't even up to speed on the European Parliament's new rules of procedure.

[Saad Mohseni]

Your rule, though, imagines the decree. Like, you know, it's.

[Tommy Vitor]

Have you even read Rule 243? I feel like we're gonna get in trouble. Do you think this guy's in. Put himself in any danger? Like, we just talked about the Indians whacking people in Canada. Is there any chance Orban would go after a German lawmaker? Because it's pretty ballsy?

[Saad Mohseni]

No, but one of the strange realizations I had when I was in Hungary working on that book is like, I met multiple people who had also been spied on by Black Cube. Right. So there was a great story. It's not, I mean, interesting story of Black Cube spying on some OSF. Soros kind of funded NGOs, and the venue before the Hungarian election, shortly before the Hungarian election, they said it was this big conspiracy, that there was a meeting in Germany where one of the people in these NGOs said something like, we want Orban out of there. Which, of course, someone in NGO wants. And guess where it showed up in the media? The Jerusalem Post.

[Tommy Vitor]

Interesting.

[Saad Mohseni]

So there's this kind of weird relation because Orban's anti Semite, but what Netanyahu really cares about is whether he's an ethnonationalist like Netanyahu is. And so there's this kind of strange, you know, symbiosis between Netanyahu and Orban, and Black Cube is doing stuff. So it is possible that this guy could get, like, spied on and Stuff, but it's usually of that variety more than it is the Canadian, you know, Indian method. Well, but, you know, I don't know.

[Tommy Vitor]

Hope they don't mess with him.

[Saad Mohseni]

I hope they don't mess with him.

[Tommy Vitor]

He's young, he's like 34. He's from the sort of FDP party, which is the Liberal. A liberal political party in Germany.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, yeah. Okay, quick side note. I went on a trip with Josh Earnest, former White House press secretary.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yes.

[Saad Mohseni]

In like 2005. It was after the Bush reelection and it was one of these things where the FDP has a foundation and it was like an exchange. So they flew a bunch of young American political professionals to Germany to meet with the fdp. And what was really funny about it is that they're the Libertarian Party and there are all these people, astroturf people like Koch brothers funded people like, you know, 29 year olds running groups with names like Americans for Prosperity. And they wanted to like love the FDP because they're libertarian, but they are true libertarians. And so the head of the FTP was this super charismatic gay guy who hated, you know, member Bush Rand on like banning gay marriage. And this guy in the best German accent was like pounding on the table and like, what the fuck do you have against two men? And like all these guys who thought that they were there to like get, you know, be Josh Earnest and I are like right there, like. And he was like, fuck Putin. Like, this guy was like the best. Like, I wish I remember his name.

[Tommy Vitor]

I love that.

[Saad Mohseni]

But it was just like, it was such a great like upending of expectations for all these Koch brother funded people that all of a sudden have some.

[Tommy Vitor]

That's great.

[Saad Mohseni]

Gay German yelling at them about their Republican party's policies on gay rights.

[Tommy Vitor]

Mr. Orban, you are even up to.

[Ben Rhodes]

Speed on the rules of procedure as.

[Tommy Vitor]

Enshrined in Article 232.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

Everyone on the couch is looking at us. Okay, I think that's enough of us offending all our listeners.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, we love German. We love Every except the AfD. Did you see the Hitler guy? The neo Nazi who was there was. The neo Nazi was hiking near where like Hitler used to hike in his mountain retreat and he fell to his death. I did see that. A lot of bad Twitter about that. There are a lot of bad resistance Twitter. But it was interesting.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, it was interesting. Also interesting is after the speech, Orban speech, a bunch of members of parliament serenaded him with a song called Bella Ciao, which is an Italian anti fascist anthem. And at the end of the singing the or during the singing the European Parliament president said this is not the Eurovision.

[Saad Mohseni]

But the good thing about all this is like the left and center left and libertarians are like stirred. They're awake in Europe. You know, this is good. Like for a while, Orban counted on every kind of not paying attention. I kind of like this, you know.

[Tommy Vitor]

I also like the tone I like. I like trolling and mocking and cutting down to size.

[Saad Mohseni]

Strongman, you're just Putin's running hungry into the ground. On behalf of Vladimir Putin, Amen.

[Tommy Vitor]

Okay, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, you'll hear Ben's interview all about what it is like to run a news channel, a TV news channel, a news gathering organization in Afghanistan right now. So stick around for that pod. Save the World is brought to you by Sling TV. Seems like things change every 20 minutes. It's hard to keep up. That's why you should watch Sling. They provide the best value for your essential news channels. With Sling, you get all your favorite news channels at the best price. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Hannity, Anderson Cooper, 360, Hannity and Anderson, Hannity and Anderson Cooper 360, the Rachel Maddow show and more for just 40 bucks a month. How about that for a deal? So yeah, with the election coverage and everything else happening, you can get news that will raise your blood pressure at prices that won't get the best price on news about what's going on in the world. Then say what else is going on in the world. And it's not just news. Check this out. Sling has live sports, news and entertainment channels you love and less of the ones you don't. So you save hundreds of dollars. Sling lets you choose and customize your news channel so you can choose channels you actually like. Sling's cloud DVR lets you record your shows and watch on your schedule. There's no complex technology, no long term contracts, and no hidden rigmarole. Sling is great. It's very frustrating when you're trying to kind of flip back and forth and things are on, you know, different streaming services and it takes a long time. With Sling, all your news channels are right there. You can watch live sports, you can record it on your dvr. It's simple, it's affordable, and it's just a great way to deal with the great unbundling that is happening. And now there's some rebundling anyway. You don't need any of that. Just get Sling tv, Get rewarded for watching your favorite news channels. Sling lets you do it. Visit sling.com now to learn more and get started. That's sling.com now. Sling.com now Patsy of the World is brought to you by USA for UNHCR. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, responds to emergencies and provides long term solutions for refugees in more than 130 countries, including Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan. UNHCR supports people forced to flee from war, violence and persecution at their greatest moment of need. During the winter, people forced to flee are faced with increased hardships and costs. As temperatures drop, families struggle to meet basic needs like heating their shelters, buying warm clothes and cooking hot meals. Refugees and displaced people are struggling to survive like never before. Funding shortfalls and rising food prices force UNHCR to dial back its life saving aid to vulnerable families around the world. Donor support is crucial to address the need for essentials for millions of families. Without sufficient funding, life saving assistance will be threatened, cutting off a vital lifeline for refugees and displaced people. This is a tremendous challenge for people forced to Flee. Donate to USA for UNHCR by visiting unrefugees.org Winter all gifts before December 31st are automatically matched. Pod Save the World is brought to you by stamps.com we all have little life hacks to save us time. Love to know you're a big mobile ordering fan when it comes to coffee, you bet. I love love that. I love getting that app. Use a little chatgpt to slow down the time of your research or speed up rather. Yeah, no, yeah that's what I use it for because I want my research fast and inaccurate. Being able to run your business on your schedule is important. If mailing items like legal documents, checks or marketing materials takes up a lot of your time, stamps.com is a time saver you need. From small businesses to multi location organizations, Stamps.com handles all of your mailing and shipping needs wherever, whenever, seamlessly. Connect with every major marketplace and shopping cart. If you sell products online, access the USPS and UPS mailing services. You need to run your business right from your computer or phone, anytime, day or night. No lines, no traffic, no waiting. Get rates you can't find anywhere else like up to 89% off. USPS and UPS order shipping and mailing supplies, labels and even printers from the supply store when you run low. I can't believe people out there don't use stamps.com. it is so much easier than going to the post office all the time. You'll save time. You'll save money. It's A great user experience. Give it a shot. Stamps.com free up more time for more important business with stamps.com sign [e-mail] and enter the code PSW for special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a free digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. That's stamps.compsw.

[Saad Mohseni]

Okay. I'm very pleased to be joined by Saad Mohseni, who for a long time ran Moby, the kind of leading media outlet in Afghanistan over the course of of 20 years, starting in 2002, Saad has a new book out called radio free a 20 year odyssey for an independent voice in Kabul. It's great to see you.

[Ben Rhodes]

Thanks. Thanks, Ben. I still run it.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah. Still run it, yes. It's still there. Yes, absolutely. Well, actually, that kind of sets up the whole tenor of this book, which is what's extraordinary about it is your own story. It's the story of building this media enterprise, but in its own way, it's also a way of telling the story of what happened in Afghanistan over the course of the last two decades. I want to start by going back in time. You had left Afghanistan in 1978 as a child and then returned in 2002 after the US led invasion. And I just want to start by having you describe kind of what it was like to return. What was the Kabul that you found in 2002 like?

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, it was quite different to how we left it, and yet I remembered all the streets. I had kept on going through Kabul for 23, 24 odd years. So I was familiar with all the roads and all the major streets. And yet the city itself had been totally destroyed by the civil war of the 90s. And what was extraordinary was the people, they were like zombie, like walking aimlessly. And the city had shrunk from like 1.2, 1.5 million individuals to about 6, 700,000 people because of the Taliban. So it was quite jarring to return. It was the same old Kabul, yet quite different.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah.

[Saad Mohseni]

And we're going to get to Moby in a second here and I'm just kind of curious. I mean, one of the interesting kind of points you make, which I heard frequently from people who visited, I visited, but I visited in a giant security footprint. So I was kind of mindful. I wasn't seeing much except for Bagram Air Base and the kind of presidential palace compound and the embassy. But you write about the kind of two cobbles, right. Like there was this kind of cosmopolitan, dynamic city with very entrepreneurial Afghans, a lot of international presence. But then that was kind of a city within a city. I mean, how did you see, over the course of the international presence, the city around you evolving?

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, the initial changes were very much sort of almost forced because there was so much money and there was so much engagement. There were so many NGOs and so many embassies, and it seemed a little artificial, but over time, it became quite organic. And you have to remember, Ben, that the country's population doubled from 2001 to 2021. 22. Today's Afghanistan's population is at 42 million. It's still growing at 3% per annum. So half the country wasn't even born in 2001. So we've seen this huge transformation of the country. It's become vastly organized. People are much better educated. Literacy rates have more than doubled. But of the younger generation of Afghans, the under 30s, the great majority are educated. A lot of them have been to universities. So it's a transformed country. And through this book, I try to tell the story of this new Afghanistan, this transformed Afghanistan. A lot of people view Afghanistan as a complete and total failure, but for the people, I think it was a huge success.

[Saad Mohseni]

Well, yeah, I want to talk about the people because Moby was such an interesting. I remember when I was in the White House for eight years, you kind of looked to that as an independent news source and kind of barometer of what was going on. But what's interesting, and you obviously tell the story in the book, it wasn't just news. You had soap operas, you had very popular singing competition. And I'm wondering, Afghanistan is such a diverse country in the sense that you have some deeply religious Muslim population communities, you have different ethnic groups. You have obviously an urban, rural divide like other countries. I mean, as you're kind of developing programming, talk a little bit about how you took into account the kind of diversity of the audience that you were seeking to appeal to. And in programming, how did you kind of get to know the Afghan people better, what they were interested in, what they wanted more of in terms of programming?

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, you know, Afghanistan was obviously, initially, access to media was quite low, except radio. Television was quite low. So it was a bit like the 1950s in the US people started to get one television set, you know, for a house or for a community. So it was a single TV households we were directing. So it had to be general entertainment that would appeal to the entire family. So we chose skewed a little bit towards females. So we had lots of soap operas, we had variety shows. We had reality shows. We had these singing competitions like Afghan Star. We had sports. So it was. We had to take everyone into account. I mean, obviously even the rural urban divide. Initially, we were targeting city dwellers, but we realized a lot of Afghans in smaller communities would also watch these programs. And some of these programs were hugely controversial, but people still watch them. So our viewership continues to remain extraordinary. We're talking about 10, 15 million people watch our sort of primetime programs even to this day.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah. I mean, did you feel like you were participating in the development of a kind of new form of national identity? I mean, it's interesting. I remember the Afghan Star, and I actually. I remember following the woman who won that at one point was on. You know, she had an Instagram following that was pretty enormous. She was kind of like. I don't know how to describe it to our listeners. It's not like the Afghan Kim Kardashian, but she would kind of wear Afghan security forces uniforms. But it just felt like if you went to Moby, it was the assertion, if the Taliban represents obviously, a certain kind of identity. You seemed to be building a different kind of identity in what you were showing in, obviously, the gender diversity on air. I mean, how conscious were you of being a venue for that kind of nation building, in a sense?

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, Afghans have a very strong sense of what it means to be an Afghan, and they've always maintained that. I mean, Afghanistan was formed in the 1700s. So in terms of how people feel towards a country, it's pretty strong. I mean, there are different interpretations of what it means to be an Afghanistan, but there are some common themes which we managed to capture through our football league and the singing competition and so forth. There's this need. There was always this need to unite. Even, for example, our travel shows, when going through the different communities, were hugely popular because people are rediscovering each other from different ethnic backgrounds and different parts of the country. But a lot of the stuff that you saw on television was they were pretty organic. We were always very careful in terms of not imposing social change. We would facilitate social change, maybe give people a glimpse of what was possible, and it would step back. And I think sometimes we made mistakes, we pushed too far, but I think what we did was we weren't afraid to take risks, and sometimes our decisions were hugely controversial, but we persisted, and I think we managed to fast track some of the changes that would have taken perhaps a couple of decades. We managed to achieve those in five or 10 years.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah. And now I Want to pivot to talking a bit about, obviously, the war and the US Presence. You write with some understandable frustration about American officials who would tell you, when you would point out problems, corruption, Afghanistan is a sovereign nation, as if the US didn't have the capacity to. It wasn't kind of complicit in the corruption and some of the dysfunction in the government. And I invite you to be as critical as possible because I'm highly mindful of the mistakes that the U.S. made along the way. Do you feel like, did U.S. officials listen to Afghans? I mean, when I look back on it, I kind of think to all these meetings I was in about Afghanistan where there were no Afghans present, you know, and as I've gotten to know more Afghans over the years, they have very common, you know, complaints and critiques of things that the US Was doing, the kind of corrupt economy we were building, the dependency of Afghan security forces, things like that. What was your sense of the willingness of American officials to listen to people like you who probably had a closer ear to the ground than certainly people back in Washington did?

[Ben Rhodes]

No, I think people did listen and were willing to listen. I mean, I think there were so many committed individuals who really cared about the Afghans and Afghanistan, and they continued to care about Afghanistan. You know, hundreds of thousands of Afghans were taken out of the airport. A lot of them, you know, a lot of the sort of evacuation projects were funded by private individuals and foundations. And I think the reason why I'm continuing to sort of talk about Afghanistan is that there was interest from members of the American public. I think the problem was, and I think someone mentioned this years ago, that America fought 20 different wars one year at a time. There was no. There were a series of tactics, and there were no. I mean, no one sat back and said, listen, this is going to take us 20 years to achieve, so let's plan for this properly. And this was the problem, that a lot of the foundations of this new nation were not laid properly, and a lot of money was spent, but a lot of that money was squandered. And I think, I mean, it's important to criticize the Americans, but I also, you know, I mostly criticize the Afghans for having squandered this enormous opportunity because of corruption, because of ineptitude. And it's important for us Afghans to look within and say, and ask ourselves as to what we did wrong. So there are lessons, important lessons for us. I think there was also too much money. I mean, I think we didn't have the capacity to absorb that much assistance and that much help.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, well, you know, I wouldn't ask you. I mean, you have kind of detailed discussions around. You know, you obviously had relationships with both Hamid Karzai and then Ashraf Ghani, the two presidents during this time. And you're particularly critical of Ghani at the end. What's your assessment of those two men and their kind of performance? I mean, they have said it's a tough job. President of Afghanistan, you're negotiating between foreign militaries and different constituencies in the country. You're dealing with an insurgency. Like you said, it's hard to absorb all this funding. But what did you see in Karzai and Ghani? How do you compare those two leaders?

[Ben Rhodes]

I think Karzai was an extraordinary leader, quite inspirational and a true national figure, but a terrible manager. And Ashraf Ghani wasn't a particularly good manager. He was also a terrible leader, and he never listened. I mean, one of the big flaws of Ashraf Ghani's was that he was inclined to be very didactic and would give a speech and lecture rather than listen to people. And it was quite frustrating dealing with both of them, to be honest with you. And of course, there was so much corruption and ineptitude. I mean, we did a survey, I think in 2019 or 2020, the Taliban's approval rating was at about 15%, but the government's approval rating was also around 17%. So the Afghan population, which, by the way, continues to pay a price for its government even today, always paid this price. We were sort of between a rock and a hard place.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, well, when things unraveled at the end, In August of 2021, when did you have a sense that this was collapsing, that Kabul was going to follow the Taliban? And then how did you deal with a situation where, on the one hand, you're covering this massive news event, on the other hand, I imagine, and you write about you have employees that want to evacuate because they are worried about being targeted by the Taliban or they're worried about what Afghanistan is going to be like. How would you describe those weeks?

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, I mean, it's like a blur the last few months, because we had a sense that the government was going to collapse. I was actually in Washington in July, and I went to see Samantha Power. I went to see Jake. I went to see a whole bunch of other people, and I told them that this government's going to fall. And I was asked the question, when do you think? I said, by November. And everyone said wow, you're being an alarmist. By November of 2021, I said, Absolutely, because it was always going to be a case of lowering one flag and raising another flag. My assumption was that they would not fight. As soon as they knew that the end was near, people were just going to switch sides. And then, of course, when it happened in mid August, we were dealing with, you know, our biggest threat in those early weeks was we were losing our people every single day. They were going to the airport and, you know, the newsreader would show up at 10. By 11 o'clock, he was out. The producer would show up at 11, he was out by 2 in the afternoon. So we were constantly hiring people throughout the day and putting them in front of a, you know, a television camera to read the news or to report on something. And what's extraordinary that Afghans have watched so much media that a lot of these kids just were like ducks to water. They, you know, they were just very natural, from like, no experience to presenting to tens of millions of people. So it was a. It was a pretty. And we were worried about our people, and we were worried about our people at the airport. We were worried about our staff on the ground. This sort of Taliban force, a bit sort of not dissimilar to a Martian, you know, invading force from Mars, had taken over the city and this country, and we didn't know what they were going to do with us. So I had very little sleep probably, you know, in all of August and all of September.

[Saad Mohseni]

And what was it like just dealing with the Taliban? In those initial days, you obviously employed women on air, and, you know, there were some dramatic moments, you know, that I remember even seeing. How did you interact with the Taliban? How did they seek to impose their will on programming that obviously runs counter to their brand of Islam?

[Ben Rhodes]

You know, they were very careful and quite gentle in the way they conducted themselves. And they were actually just as surprised as everyone else, because I don't think they realized they would need to come into the city that quickly. As a matter of fact, when Ashraf Ghani fell and sort of, he brought the whole thing to a head, the assumption was that there would be an interim arrangement. And Karzai and Abdullah. Abdullah were meant to go to Doha and negotiate with the Taliban, but Ghani fleeing brought everything to a head. So they were quite surprised, just like the rest of us. But our guys on the ground were just as cheeky, and they were pushing the envelope. The first time a Taliban official came to speak on television, they had a female reporter Interview her. But slowly we realized that, you know, we couldn't have music on, we couldn't have soap operas. But what's extraordinary is that, you know, Afghanistan obviously is a different Afghanistan to 2001. And I ask myself sometimes this question. It's almost like a race, you know, do we change them or, or will they change us? And it's almost like a race because even today, if you look at Kabul, for example, or Mazar al Sharif al the major cities, you know, the Taliban are changing in the way that they interact with people, the way they dress. They still, there are a lot of females that work for government officers in terms of implementation of their directives and decrees and so forth. There's quite a bit of a difference to Taliban 1.0. The concern that we have is within the Taliban movement itself, obviously it's not a monolithic movement. There are different views in terms of how they should govern the country. There's almost a race between the pragmatists and not so pragmatic Taliban, while there's also a race between the modern Afghanistan and the Taliban movement. And we're seeing all of this play out on a day to day basis.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, I mean, we recently had a woman named Sahar Halam Zion who works for Malala. And talking about obviously all of these different dictates that have come down from the hardest line in the Taliban, obviously banning women from attending school, the kind of bringing back. Women can't speak in public, even extending to men. Men can't look at women who aren't in immediate relations in public spaces. I mean, it feels like a kind of iron. I mean, Sahara used the term gender apartheid. And yet you also hear that there's this diversity in the Taliban. Some of the people at the local level are more pragmatic, are a little annoyed, frankly by these really hardline dictates and make it harder to get international assistance. How should we understand what the Taliban is today? Because what we see is all the worst things that they're announcing. But then you hear from aid groups and others, well, there's this diversity in the movement. How do you see that?

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, the situation on the ground is a lot more nuanced than how they appear from the outside. So to answer your question, I mean, I think all of the above is true. And some villages and some towns, they're very conservative. They don't even allow TV cameras and press conferences. But then in a place like Kabul or the other major cities or even some smaller villages, they're much more liberal. Like for example, Bamyan, this historical city where the statues, the Buddha statues are destroyed in the 1990s. The governor is the same guy that destroyed the Buddha Bamyans. And yet today, 25 years on, he's much more liberal. He's allowing some education at these vocational training centers and he tolerates quite a degree of freedom enjoyed by the inhabitants of Bamiyana and tourists who go and visit. So you're seeing differences in the way that these laws are being implemented. And that's why I said that it has to converge at some stage, either on the implementation side, they're going to become much more strict, or they need to actually dilute these laws. And that's why I think it's important for the world to engage, because they need to go and talk to these Taliban to make them understand that there is a roadmap of sorts in terms of recognition and legitimacy and lifting of sanctions. But they have to do certain things in order to get there. I mean, I'll give you an example. They banned NGOs from hiring Afghan women. So the likes of the NRC, Jan Eglin was telling me this and I'm sure he wouldn't mind sharing the story. They went and met with the Taliban across the country and through negotiating with them and making them understand the importance of NGOs, hire foreign NGOs, hiring female employees, that they could better serve Afghans. And as a result, he told me this, like 60 or 65 or 70% of their women continue to work even in the most conservative communities because they were, they were able to convince these people on the ground.

[Saad Mohseni]

Well, yeah, that's a good, I mean, the last thing I wanted to ask you is, you know, to me, the U.S. it feels like, hasn't found a way to figure out, you know, its post collapse of Kabul Afghan policy. I mean, there are all these sanctions in place. There's, you know, there's some sense that there's probably counterterrorism discussions happening because ISIS K is a threat. And yet I think the principal issue that is concerning to the US Is the status of women in Afghanistan, women and girls. What should we be doing differently? What should the United States and other former isaf, the international coalition partners, be doing to try to influence the direction of the Taliban, to try to, to incentivize, like let's start with women and girls, like less stringent policies related to their ability to work or have an education?

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, I mean, Afghanistan is a transformed country. So let's see if we can maintain these gains. And I think it's you know, the international community owes it to the Afghans, and particularly our women actually, to remain engaged, that the economy is in tethers. The humanitarian crises, which we haven't talked about, is just. I mean, Afghanistan, half the population doesn't have food security. We're in a pretty bad place. So it's important for the international community to not just, you know, give out aid, but it's also important for them to provide basic needs or development. It's important for them to talk to the Taliban, because I think that they can make the Taliban understand, not in a very condescending way or to give them lectures, but to make them understand, if they want legitimacy, they have to do certain things. They have certain obligations, as if they want to become members of the UN Again, of the international community. Afghanistan is a signatory to thousands of different conventions that requires them to respect women's rights and so forth. But again, us Afghans, we also have an obligation to make the Taliban understand why it's important for women to not disappear from the public. I mean, I mentioned to someone the other day, we've done over 2,000 stories on girls education since 2022. So I think it's something that we need to do as Afghans, but the international community needs to also support us as we move forward.

[Saad Mohseni]

And I mean. Last question. So as you're continuing to cover this, it sounds like you're in this interesting position where you kind of can't do everything you did before 2021, but you're still doing stories about women. You still have women employees. I mean, what's that transition been like for you?

[Ben Rhodes]

That's very painful. I mean, it's very painful to go back, you know, to sort of pre Taliban era. But it's important for us for as long as we can to stay in the country, because we not just inform the Afghans, but we also get information out for the international community. And, you know, we do really interesting stuff like education programs for boys and girls and four major subjects. And this is having a huge difference in terms of. I mean, for us, we're a bridge between pre 2022 and then the ban. And we're hopeful that one day our girls can go back to school. And we're providing that bridge. And it's important for us to remain. We don't take that for granted. We could get kicked out or we could get shut down any day.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, well, look, anybody who's interested in the history of Afghanistan over the last couple of decades, and also just a remarkably compelling story about building this incredible media enterprise. Should check out Radio Free Afghanistan. And I really want to thank you for joining us today. And where can people check it out? Why don't you direct people to how they can kind of follow your products?

[Ben Rhodes]

Well, we're on YouTube, we're on Instagram, Tolo TV, Tolo News. The book's available on Amazon and all good bookstores. As they say. We're pretty active. I mean, we're the primary providers of news and information from Afghanistan.

[Saad Mohseni]

Yeah, no, I remember meeting you in my very small White House office because Tolo was like, let's just say it was better source sometimes than certainly no offense to the US Intelligence community, but you could do a lot by watching Tolo to understand what was going on. Well, thanks so much for the book and thanks for joining us today.

[Ben Rhodes]

Thank you, Ben.

[Tommy Vitor]

Thanks, Asad Mousseni for joining the show. And that's it for us. We'll talk to you next week.

[Saad Mohseni]

See ya.

[Tommy Vitor]

If you want to get ad free episodes, exclusive content and more, consider joining our Friends of the podcast subscription [e-mail] friends. 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 more. If you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping a review. Pod Save the World is a Crooked Media production. Our producer is Ilona Minkowski. Our associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our executive executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick and engineered by Vasilis Vitopoulos. Audio support by Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Phoebe Bradford, William Jones, Kirill Palaviv and Molly Lobel, who upload our episodes and videos to YouTube.com podsavethew World up first achieves the rare 12 punches of being short and thorough, national and international, fact based and personable. Every morning, up first takes the three biggest stories of the day and explains why they matter. And they do it all in less than 15 minutes. So you can start your day a little more in the know than when you went to sleep. Listen to the Upfirst podcast from npr.

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