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Pod Save the World
Unpacking Trump’s Ukraine “Peace Deal”
01:15:30
Tommy and Ben unpack Trump’s rapidly changing “peace deal” to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. They explain how the plan has changed since the first draft leaked last week, the confusion over where the plan came from and why many people believe the Russians authored it, what it tells us about which Trump officials are actually driving the policy, and why Russia seems poised to reject Trump’s plan even though it’s wildly tilted in their favor. They also discuss the consequences of the US skipping out on two major global summits at the G20 and COP, explain why former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro says a paranoid hallucination led to his arrest, provide an update on whether the US is going to attack Venezuela, unpack Israel’s recent airstrikes in Lebanon and Gaza despite ceasefire agreements, unpack the stakes of a spicy war of words between China and Japan and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call to President Trump over Taiwan, attempt to explain Candace Owens’ latest insa...
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- [00:00]
Tommy Vietor
Podcast the world is brought to you by himss. According to the National Institutes of Health, as many as 30 million men in the US experience ED. It's more common than a bad night's sleep. The good news? HIMSS makes getting access to treatment simple so you can feel like yourself again without the stress or awkwardness. Through hims, you can access personalized prescription treatment options for ed, like hard mints or Sex rx Climate control, climax control if prescribed. This is Leave it in, Leave it in. HIMSS offers access to ED treatment options ranging from trusted generics to that cost 95% less than brand names to hard mints if prescribed. You shouldn't have to go out of your way to feel like yourself. HIMSS brings expert care straight to you with 100% online access to personalized treatment plans that put your goals first. This isn't one size fits all care that forgets you in the waiting room. It's your health and goals put first with real medical providers making sure you get what you need to get results. Think of HIMS as your digital front door that gets you back to your old self. With 100% online access to trusted treatments for ED and more all in one place, I just want listeners to know that Ben took a bunch of these pills right before we recorded and the Tateman was table was popping up, you know, he could have used some climax control. To get simple online access to personalized affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss and more. Visit himss.comworld that's hims.comworld for your free online visit hims.comworld actual price will depend on product and subscription plan. Featured products include compounded drug products which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness or quality. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions and important safety information. Welcome back to pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitorin. Ben.
- [01:49]
Ben Rhodes
I'm Ben Rhodes.
- [01:50]
Tommy Vietor
Ben, happy Thanksgiving to you. Happy Thanksgiving to all the listeners. That time of the year when Americans famously binge eat turkey, we binge football, and then we demand that our allies surrender to the Russian government just so.
- [02:03]
Ben Rhodes
We can digest our food better, you know?
- [02:04]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, yeah. I'm of course talking about Trump's Ukraine peace deal. We're going to get into that in a minute. So you're in New York right now. Are you going to go to the Macy's parade?
- [02:12]
Ben Rhodes
I'm on the fence. I've been three out of the last four years, I think, and you know, it's a bit of an ordeal, but it's usually worth it. So we'll see. I'm seeing if I can score like a rooftop on Central Park West. That's my backup plan.
- [02:26]
Tommy Vietor
Did you go to the one when Spider man kind of floated into Uncle Sam's ass and he looked like he was doing something RFK might write a poem about?
- [02:34]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, thankfully I was with my children, but I was not positioned at that particular place on the parade route, so I didn't have to participate in a RFK livianuzi Ryan lizard triangle.
- [02:48]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah. Well, I have an early Christmas present for you. Ms. Now just reported that Trump is considering firing Cash Patel, the FBI director.
- [02:56]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, how is he going to get to those? Yeah, how's he going to get to those? You know, country music performances at obscure wrestling matches in Pennsylvania, then Southwest Airlines, buddy.
- [03:08]
Tommy Vietor
Sorry, Cash. I'm excited for that one. Ben, I just want to say to the listeners, we got a great show for them. But also please subscribe to Pod Save the world on YouTube because just last week alone on Friday, we did bonus Pod Save the world on YouTube about this Ukraine peace plan. We also did a full episode on this insane meeting that Trump's ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee had with a literal traitor to the United States named Jonathan Pollard. Pollard was a Navy intel guy who sold US secrets to Israel in the 1980s and then served 30 years in prison before being released and greeted back in Israel by Bibi Netanyahu with got literal hero's welcome. And apparently according to the New York Times, back in July, Huckabee invited Pollard to this meeting at the US Embassy in Jerusalem, which we unpack all the ways. That is stunning. But I want to hit 200,000 subscribers by the end of the year. So please subscribe to Pod Save the world on YouTube. It's free, it's great content. And also, you know, we're trying to, when people search for political news, we want them to find us and not tbusa, right?
- [04:07]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, we're trying to do our part here. We're making all kinds of extra content. People should come to the content verse that is the podcast of the world. YouTube.
- [04:16]
Tommy Vietor
Come to the content minds. We have an amazing show. So we're going to unpack these head spinning developments that have been happening all day today about this possible U.S. ukraine, Russia peace agreement. We'll talk about how on earth this exploded into the public in the first place. We're going to talk about which Trump officials are actually driving this policy, or at least the ones that are telling the press they're driving the policy. We will look at all the meetings that the US is not attending because we are boycotting, specifically the G20 and the COP climate summit. Nothing important happens there, right? Nothing big discussed. We're going to see, you know, kind of what it tells us about how the world is moving on without us. We'll explain how former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro maybe tried to escape his upcoming prison sentence and why he claims. Well, we'll talk about his excuse for what he claims happened, but it's a crazy story. We'll tell you the latest on the US Regime change operation in Venezuela. We'll explain how and why tensions between Japan and China have ratcheted way up. And then finally we're going to check in on our friend Candace Owens. She is waging a brave one woman battle against France, the state of Israel, a lot more. I mean, she's going through a bend.
- [05:26]
Ben Rhodes
Just a lonely battle that Candace is waging. She's posting through it though, thankfully, so we get to know her feelings as it unfolds.
- [05:32]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, we're learning a lot in real time. We're also going to tell you how some foreign voices have been boosting maga. But Ben, you want to start with Ukraine because you know, we're doing our best to keep up with the story. We'll see if by the time this, this episode posts, if it's still current. But so on Friday we did this Pod save the world YouTube where we talk through kind of our initial reactions to this 28 point so called peace plan that leaked to Axios. Again, subscribe to POD Save the World if you want to listen to that. But the key things you need to know about that initial 28 point plan is that it was just a full Russian wish list. Specifically it gave huge territorial concessions to Russia. They were, they got de facto recognition of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk. And that means that Ukraine would have to hand over territory to the Russian government that is not currently being occupied by the Russians. The plan capped Ukraine's military at 600,000 troops. The current force is around 880,000. Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO and NATO wouldn't be allowed to expand further. But Ukraine could join the EU under this plan. There was a weird provision in there where the US would get 50% of the profits from investments made with frozen Russian funds that were put into investments in Ukraine and reconstruction of Ukraine. Ukraine would have to hold elections in 100 days after signing the deal. And then the Russians get to rejoin the G8. They get full amnesty for war crimes and they get sanctions relief. So, full wish list there. Since that recording, there have been a flurry of talks. There were talks with the U.S. ukraine and European officials in Geneva, and now the U.S. and the Russians are talking in Abu Dhabi. Those talks have evolved and modified this plan a bunch. It sounds like it's down to now 19 points. We have not seen that full revised text, but we're going to try to piece it together via press reports. So the Financial Times, I think, are the most comprehensive piece on this. FT says the most contentious issues have been removed and they're going to be left for Trump and Zelensky to negotiate directly. Stuff like, you know, whether Ukraine has to give up what, what amount of territory and whether it gets a security guarantee. Those talks could happen as soon as this week if Zelensky goes to Mar a Lago. But then Trump just sent out this random tweet where he said he's sending Witkoff to Russia first to meet with Putin, and he's going to send Dan Driscoll, the Army secretary who's randomly emerged in these talks, to, I guess, Ukraine to negotiate with Ukrainians. He wants to do that before he meets with the leaders directly. So we don't know. The FT also says the Ukrainians have shifted the ceiling on their armed forces from 600,000 to 800,000. And the Washington Post says that, like all the bilateral US Russia issues will be removed from the plan so that Zelensky doesn't have to sign off on that stuff personally, and that Ukraine also wants to pull out anything regarding its negotiations directly with Europe or NATO. The Europeans, by the way, put forward their own plan or several plans which the Russians rejected. And it doesn't look like the White House even read. I think Rubio's quote was like, oh, I hadn't seen that yet. So, Ben, a few hours before we started recording, CBS quoted a US Official saying Ukraine has agreed to the deal in principle. A top advisor to Zelensky tweeted that The Ukrainian and U.S. delegation has, quote, reached a common understanding on the core term of the agreement. But the FT says that Russia is unhappy with the changes that have been made and might reject it. I'm going to pause there. Sorry for that. Long wind up, everybody. What are your big takeaways on how this thing has evolved in the last few hours? And do you think the Russians are going to accept the deal?
- [08:52]
Ben Rhodes
Spoiler alert. No, the Russians are not going to accept the deal. But to wind back the tape here and the personnel in the Trump administration is really important. Here, because pretty clear what happened here is a Russian guy went to genius negotiator Jared Kushner and Steve Woodkoff and basically gave them this 28 point plan. And Jared Kushner and Steve Woodkoff thought, well, this is great. This can be the plan to end the war, which by the way, as we Talked about on YouTube, but is the same plan that Putin basically brought to Alaska. Right. And you summarized it well. They get everything, essentially. I'm actually going to point out just one thing because we didn't talk about it the other day. It's crazy enough that Ukraine has to give up everything and Russia makes no concessions. There's even stuff in here that like NATO can't expand, not just to Ukraine, but anywhere else. Right. So Russia suddenly gets a veto on any future NATO membership, not just Ukraine's. That's a pretty special poison pill. Pretty clearly. This thing is immediately mocked, rejected. There's horror about it even in the Republican caucus in the Senate. This horror about it. In Europe, there's a flurry of activity, not unlike after the Alaska summit where the Europeans alliance can never yet to kind of run around and try to talk Trump down from capitulating everything to Putin. Marco Rubio swoops in and you know, he's the guy that is more friendly to the Ukrainians. He sits down with Yermak, who's like the second most powerful guy in Ukraine, Zelensky's chief of staff. And, you know, finesses. You know, this plan cuts out a bunch of stuff I think, you know, based on reports like they removed the, or they raise the cap on the size of the Ukrainian military, things like that. Right. Just making it less humiliating essentially to the Ukrainians. Presumably they still have to give up this territory. They're still not getting NATO. And then there's this question, you know, if you're Ukraine, you don't want to lose territory that you haven't already lost. I mean, ideally you'd like to get back your territory, but you certainly don't want to give up territory that you haven't lost. You don't want to cap on your military because you need an insurance policy against Russia invading you again. You want to get back the, the tens of thousands of children that have been kidnapped into Russia, things like that. But also you want a security guarantee. Now, the problem with any security guarantee, I think, is that if it's not NATO, if it's not Article 5, or if it doesn't have some kind of force, there's a discussion of a European kind of peacekeeping force as just almost a tripwire, like an insurance policy against Russian invasion. Are you really going to trust Trump when he says, well, there's a security guarantee, but we'll basically decide what it means if and when Russia invades you. You know, you're not going to trust that if you're the Ukrainians. Right. So there's all this stuff that they don't like, but they probably took out some of the worst stuff. But the other piece of this is that Putin has never signaled that he will agree to anything other than the most maximalist victory for Russia in this war. It's not a peace plan that was released initially. It was a surrender plan, essentially, for the Ukrainians. That's been his plan since January 20, when Trump is inaugurated. And so now fast forward all the way to where we are now. Marco Rubio does this flurry of work to just get this thing in, like, a less bad state than it was. But I would presume that it's highly unlikely that the Russians will accept that. If they do, we'll see even if the Lansky can get it through, et cetera. But I don't know. This whole thing feels very Keystone Copsish at a minimum. I do not think we're going to be eating our Turkey with peace in our time in Ukraine.
- [12:18]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah. I want to get into the backstory and the Keystone Cop element of just the weird origins of the plan in one second, but I was talking to a very smart expert about all of this earlier today, and she made some points that I thought were really worth highlighting. The first is just, like, big picture, Ben. We sometimes lose sight of this. The messaging disaster that arose from this plan and the way it was leaked and the way it came out and had, you know, different officials in the White House and Rubio like, saying different things like, that was a disaster. It was a disaster. Any other White House would be killed if there was a policy rollout like this that caused, like, literally a global freakout. And we should just, again, yeah, it's Trump, so we're all, like, a nerd to it. But it's worth pointing out second, like, like you just said, I mean, this person thought that Russia would almost certainly reject the deal because Putin has no incentive to take it. Trump and Wyckoff, they keep saying, like, I think Putin wants peace. He cares about the loss of life. He wants back into the global economy. There's actually zero evidence of that. In fact, there's. There's evidence of the opposite. Like, Putin just seems totally cool with losing 35,000 soldiers a month in perpetuity. And Russia's economy is surviving because it is now a full time wartime economy.
- [13:22]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
- [13:23]
Tommy Vietor
In fact. Right. There's these recruitment bonuses, there are death payouts that are basically subsidizing poorer regions of the country. You also have towns and factories that were dead that are now, like, kind of coming back to life because Soviet era factories are, you know, revving back up to make more weapons. And like, Putin can figure out how to deal with more sanctions. He cannot necessarily figure out how to create a normal, non wartime economy. And then this person finally just pointed out that Kirill Dmitriev, who is the, the Russian interlocutor who is now negotiating directly with Jared Kushner and Steve Wyckoff. This person described him as uniquely dangerous because he's like, he went to Harvard. He's kind of of their age. Right. He's a, he speaks perfect English. He's a business guy, he presents well. He seems pragmatic. And by the way, he controls a sovereign wealth fund. Wink, wink. Not, not. Jared, maybe down the road we could do business together for your little investment thing.
- [14:17]
Ben Rhodes
Yes. Percent but.
- [14:19]
Tommy Vietor
So. Right. So this guy seems reasonable, but the end of the day, he's just a Putin guy who sees and can play a couple hapless idiots like Wyckoff or Kushner or again, like, dangle some future business in front of their faces. So I don't. It, like, it feels pretty ominous. Like, the Thanksgiving deadline seems to have been pushed by Trump. Lavrov, you know, was out there on the record, the foreign minister kind of shitting on the deal. I don't know. We'll see what happens. But, like, it just seems unlikely, as you said, the Russians would accept this.
- [14:54]
Ben Rhodes
If people want to try to understand, like, what's going on here, what Putin is doing is he's fucking with both the US Government and the Ukrainian government. Because what we've seen now for months is periodically the Russians show up with different versions of the same plan. They get some useful idiot in the Trump administration. Sometimes it's Trump himself, sometimes it's Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to essentially agree to the Russian terms, knowing that the Ukrainians can never agree to those terms, knowing that it's suicide for them, knowing that the Europeans will never agree to those terms. Then there's kind of a flurry of activity and everybody's hysterical and everybody's trying to figure out what's going on. And you kind of get back to a status quo ante where the Ukrainians agree to something less than all the Russian demands. And the war just continues. Meanwhile, Ukraine just kind of gets weakened along the way. Right? Everybody's spending all this bandwidth just to stay above water. The US Is not providing new military assistance to the Ukrainians. So it's not like we're doing anything to try to change Putin's calculus on the battlefield. So the Ukrainians are getting weaker as this thing goes on. All the US Is doing now is selling weapons to the Europeans that they then provide to the Ukrainians. So Putin is just kind of playing this out for time, you know? And look, if he can get everything he wants at the negotiating table, fine, then he wins. But if not, he just makes us look like idiots. He divides us from the Europeans. He divides the Ukrainian political leadership internally because they're hardliners in Ukraine. They don't even like that Zelenskyy is negotiating on these terms. These corruption scandals have come out about Zelenskyy. I will say this is just one man's opinion. I believe those scandals to be true because there's good reporting that they're true. It's also possible that they're coming to light because the Russians are very good at getting those kinds of things out. So it just feels like Putin is just playing Trump over and over again. And the other thing we should talk about, Tommy, and you may get to this, is there's just all kinds of people in the Trump administration circling around this policy with wildly different perspectives from the Witkoff Jared one, which is like, we just want a deal that we can declare as a peace deal. And, oh, by the way, make some business deals probably under the table with these Russians on the back end, because what the Russians want, if they lose that war economy, they're going to need to do some stuff fast to generate revenue. Well, maybe Jared and Steve can be a part of that. I don't know. Trump just wants the war over so he can say he made peace. Even if it's not really a peace, it's a surrender for Ukraine and a possibility that they're just going to get invaded again in a couple years. But then Marco Rubio is kind of like the straight man in the whole tragicomedy who parachutes in and tries to make things a little bit better. J.D. vance is like, this heavy who comes in and just hates the Ukrainians. So it's just fucking chaos. And now we got guys I'd never even heard of who are, like, parachuting the negotiations. But this is. The Russians have one plan. It's Putin's plan on down. Trump's got like all these different factions duking it out. The Ukrainians probably don't even know who to call because they can call the people that are more friendly to them, but the people who are more friendly to them in the White House are not the people making the policy.
- [18:02]
Tommy Vietor
Well, and then you also got people like Steve Wyckoff, who's just a hapless idiot who on October 14, I mean, Bloomberg got a hold of a recording of his call to a top foreign policy advisor to Putin where he basically, Wyckoff recommends to him that the way to get a deal done would be to recommend like that the Ukrainians give up the nets so part of the Donbas and do a land swap somewhere else. But for Steve Wyckoff to do that, like on the just before Zelensky was about to visit is very pretty shocking. And also he is a complete and total idiot if he's going to call a Russian official and make an offer like this on an open line and not expect it to get recorded by several intelligence services who then leak it to Bloomberg, which is clearly what happened here. So, Ben, you sort of alluded to this couple times. There's a lot of debate about where this plane came from and like who authored it and who's driving the policy. The most confusing stuff came from Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota who I've never thought about before and probably won't since. But he said at this press conference he was in Halifax, this big security conference that he talked on the phone with Marco Rubio. I think it was him and Gene Sheen and Marco Rubio and that Rubio briefed them that this 28 point plan was a document sent over to the US by the Russians that was basically their wish list and didn't reflect the administration's position. Now, round says this publicly, then the State Department denies it. Rubio gets on the phone, calls, rounds back and is like, oh, no, no, you misunderstood me. But like something weird happened there. Then you had some Twitter sleuths who were looking at the wording of the plan and they argued that, like the wording looked like it had been in Russian and that was translated back to English and that suggested that this was like a Russian document that came to the U.S. who knows? We know that Wyckoff thinks that the Russians leaked this plan initially to Axios because de Woff, again, who is a genius, tweeted as much in a message that was meant to be a dm. There's also all this chatter that, like you just said about whether Rubio was cut out of the drafting of the document. And then there's this odd inclusion of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll in the talks. And so the reason that matters is Dan Driscoll is best friends with J.D. vance. And there's a suggestion, a lot of the reporting, that his presence is a bit of a power play by Vance to take control of this process and, and humiliate Rubio, his 2028 rival. Now Driscoll also being there also humiliates Pete Hegseth, which is just a nice, you know, chef's kiss touch. So the White House has spent in the State Department. They spent the last few days kind of spin a more sanitized version of the story. Taylor Swift stands might call it Jared's version. So Axios dutifully reported Jared's version. It goes like this. On the flight back from the Middle east after the Gaza ceasefire, and Jared Kushner and Steve Wykoff, they get together and they say, let's sketch out a Ukraine peace deal modeled on what we just did in Gaza. Then Kushner and Wyckoff meet with Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund that I mentioned earlier. For several days of talks in Miami, the Wall Street Journal described the negotiations in the following way. The three men had similar views on what a proposal should look like, though Dmitriev had far more specific ideas in mind, officials said, which I thought was like a great, like, deadpan description. So those Talks become this 28 point plan that gets briefed to Zelensky and then about a week ago to Zielinski himself. And for some reason then at these, like, Miami talks, there's some senior Qatari official there, according to news reports. God knows why or what that person was doing. And then Axios, you know, insists that Rubio and J.D. vance were like, fully read into this process all along. But it sure seems like there's other reporting that like Rubio has reasserted control more recently. And then Trump, you know, is just being Trump. Like he's flailing away on truth social. He attacks Zelensky for showing zero gratitude. Then he set this Thanksgiving deadline and then that deadline's gotten walked back. So big picture, Ben, like, God knows what's happening here, but like Trump's theory of the case is certainly, let's just put whatever the stronger party wants on paper. Let's call it a plan and then let's foist it upon the weaker party and see if we can get a deal. And like, maybe, but I guess the Russians aren't going to go along with that. Potentially here, we don't know.
- [22:11]
Ben Rhodes
That's what he did in Gaza. And he got universally lauded for ceasefire in which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since the quote, unquote, ceasefire is concluded. Trump just wants to say he ended the war and do some business deals in Russia. Right. The problem is Putin will only end the war on not just maximalist terms, like the terms of victory for Russia, which are unacceptable to Ukraine and Europe. Now, just to go through, like you did a great job unpacking the insanity that we've all lived through, it's clear that this had an origin in this Russian approach to Jared Kushner and Sivatkov. Like that. Nobody disputes that. Right. Russians bring something to Jared and Witkoff and suddenly that becomes a US plan, which is pretty wild if you actually think about that. And let's just be clear here, like, we are normalizing a degree of corruption in our foreign policy that is absolutely staggering. Why the fuck is the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund sitting in Miami with the President's son in law without the Ukrainians, like, carving up Ukraine and, and talking about future business deals? Cause this is what's happening. That's their account of what's happening. That's not like the negative account.
- [23:29]
Tommy Vietor
No, that's Jared's version.
- [23:32]
Ben Rhodes
Jared's version is, why are you negotiating with the head of the sovereign wealth fund? What could that possibly be about other than some kind of future business relationship? Right. Or some kind of prioritization of getting the Russian sanctions lifted and having some deals on critical minerals or whatever. The thing is that Trump's hot for that day, or Jared's hot for, or Steve Witkoff has an interest in, in the future. Right. That should not be happening full stop. And another thing which we haven't talked about here is that Rubio is remembered not just as Secretary of State. Ostensibly, he's the National Security Adviser. Right. Isn't it? Did I miss something, Tommy?
- [24:06]
Tommy Vietor
No, Andy named somebody. Yep.
- [24:08]
Ben Rhodes
And the nsc, from everything I hear, has been absolutely hollowed out. Like there's just like a, you know, what used to be hundreds of people. It's like a few dozen policy people, like, doing God knows what in the White House. They're supposed to be coordinating policy. Right. The NSC is supposed to get everybody together, the State Department, the Pentagon, all these other agencies that are doing sanctions enforcement, Treasury Department. And the reason you do that is because this is a sprawling policy with different pieces and different pieces of the US Government, when there's no coordination, when there's no captain of the ship here, there's no one calling the plays. I'm using too many metaphors here. All you get is this kind of forum shopping, which the Russians are very good at. You form shop for the most friendly interlocutor. In this case, it's two useful idiots, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. And then on top of it, I totally see this. J.D. vance, Marco Rubio. If you don't think that those guys aren't, like, positioning themselves for 2028, you know, you're not paying attention to kind of like the blood sport that is the competition for the next head of maga, you know, which, by the way, is a sign that Trump's own guys are looking past Trump, which I actually find to be pretty interesting as well. But the net result is we just have this kind of train wreck that we lived through before. Like, this is the same dynamic that happened in Alaska. They rush a summit that nobody thought was ready, except for Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump. It happens. It's a disaster, and everybody has to hurry up to clean it up. And that's kind of. We're right back in Groundhog Day. But meanwhile, the one thing that doesn't change is the Russians are grinding away at that front line inch by inch, taking Ukrainian territory, bombing Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure and weakening them over time because they're not getting any meaningful U.S. assistance.
- [25:53]
Tommy Vietor
And just for what it's worth, like, the people physically at the table for these talks are Steve Wykoff, who a year ago was doing real estate deals, Jared Kushner, who is as corrupted as it gets. Right. We know about his giant kickback from the Saudis and from the Emiratis and all the investment money he's sitting on. So I imagine he's thinking about that next payout. And then this guy, Dan Driscoll, who's just sort of emerged out of nowhere over the last few days. Like, he's also the acting head of the atf, which is strange.
- [26:22]
Ben Rhodes
That's news to me, too.
- [26:23]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, but he's like, a buddy with J.D. vance. He. He seems, like, highly regarded. I'm sure he's a smart guy. He served in the US army for a few years. But, like, this guy, none of these people are like Russia hands. They have no experience with Russia and Ukraine. At least Marco Rubio served in government. Yeah, he was chair of the Intelligence Committee. Like, I'm not a big Rubio fan, but, like, he's got a little Bit of expertise. These other three are just complete and total rubes. Now, maybe they'll get the job done. Maybe I'll eat these words, but, like, I don't know, I would love someone who has a little familiarity with the issues that didn't start, you know, January 21st of this year.
- [26:58]
Ben Rhodes
And the Russians have been running, like, at least a 10 to 15 year plan on Ukraine. They've been at this, you know, they think in terms of, like, long sweep of history. Trump thinks in terms of the announcement he can get on television and the plaudits he can get from Fox pundits and Jared and Witkoff think in terms of, like, the deals that could be done with the sovereign wealth fund. They're not thinking about the fact that if you dismember Ukraine, don't give them a meaningful security guarantee and cap their military. Well, Putin's gonna wait a few years, like, cash in all that sanctions relief and then just like reinvade and take another chunk of it. And I'm not, I'm not like, you know, Bret Stephens here. Like, I'm not someone who thinks that, you know, Russia's about to invade Western Europe or something, but that's not a hypothetical scenario because that's already happened. Like, that's like Russia's already done that. You know, in the broader context, though.
- [27:52]
Tommy Vietor
I mean, like, whether or not you're. Bret Stephens, the Russians have been firing drones into European airspace repeatedly over the last couple months. And the polls accused them of blowing up a rail line in Poland that was being used to resupply the Ukrainians. So the Russian aggression is getting worse, not better. And.
- [28:09]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, and so if people want to know what should happen, it's like, well, you have to generate a little bit more leverage on Putin. You know, unfreeze that money, those $300 billion in Russian assets, begin to make that available to the Ukrainians, provide them with some more weapons systems and write a fucking US Plan. That is something that we believe that the Ukrainians should live with. And by the way, that's going to involve them losing territory that certainly, you know, they're not going to get Crimea back. They're not going to get all the eastern Ukraine back. They sure as hell, though, shouldn't have to give up territory that they currently have. They certainly should be able to have a meaningful security guarantee so they know they won't get invaded. I personally don't think that they should accept any infringement on their sovereignty. Not sure, you know, they need a cap on the size of their military.
- [28:55]
Tommy Vietor
Or that NATO should be told what.
- [28:57]
Ben Rhodes
To do, or that NATO can't have other members that aren't even Ukraine. I mean, so there are meaningful ways to say, let's generate some more leverage on Putin. Let's make a reasonable plan and try to have that be the basis to get to some kind of ceasefire. And, by the way, prioritize a ceasefire, because the Ukrainians could benefit from not having missiles and drones raining down on them. So there is an alternative here. They just haven't even tried it.
- [29:21]
Tommy Vietor
They got hit hard last night, the Ukrainians did, with another massive barrage of missiles and drones. And so, yeah, if this fails, we'll see what Trump does. I mean, the only thing he hasn't tried is ramping up assistance to Ukrainians. That might put real pressure on Putin, but clearly doesn't want to do that. So we'll find out. POD Save the World is brought to you by Counsel for a Livable World. Let's be honest, few people really want to spend their days thinking about nuclear war. It is not fun to think about. Lucky for us, at POD Save the World, our friends at Counsel for a Livable World work on avoiding it every day. For more than 60 years, Counsel for a Livable World has made improving U.S. nuclear policy its mission. They have helped elect more than 400 members of Congress who support policy that makes sense, keeps us safe, and doesn't waste our tax dollars. They've consistently pushed Congress to do its job by asking government and industry tough questions on nuclear weapons, missile defense, and other national security and foreign policy topics. And with the support of people like you, Counsel for a Livable World endorsed candidates and advocacy on Capitol Hill have helped lead to treaties and agreements that reduce the global nuclear stockpile from more than 70,000 at the height of the Cold War to about 12,000 today. That's incredible progress, but their work is far from over. We know that because Donald Trump is out there threatening to resume testing of nuclear weapons, which is absolutely insane. And guess what? The Russians are like, okay, we'll do it too. So that's. That's wonderful. Nuclear risks are rising again. You can help Counsel for a Livable World finish the job through quick and easy action by going to livableworld.org crooked that's L I V A B L E W o r l d.org Crooked this podcast is presented by the Netflix film A House of Dynamite from Academy Award winning director Catherine Bigelow, starring Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson. Not only are critics raving about the film, with Deadline calling a house Of Dynamite. Exceptionally powerful and brilliantly directed. But policymakers, experts and scientists alike are weighing in, proclaiming that the film is required viewing. A powerful and thought provoking movie and a movie of our time, worth watching, mulling and debating. A House of Dynamite now playing on Netflix for your awards consideration. Ben, you know, as we negotiate this deal with the Russians and we try to jam it down the Ukrainians throats, it is worth noting that the rest of the world is at these major global summits that we are just boycotting. The first is the G20 that just wrapped up in South Africa. This was the first time an African nation had hosted the G20 and the US boycotted because Donald Trump thinks South Africa is too mean to white people, specifically white farmers. So these leaders were left trying to coordinate, you know, the global economy without the world's largest economy in the world at the table. Also, this Ukraine peace deal leaked during the G20 and there's no US rep there. So they're all scrambling to figure out what the hell is going on. Which is a nice kind of like insulting touch. Then there was the COP summit in Brazil. That is the annual United nations meeting to coordinate action to prevent climate change. The US skipped COP for the first time in 30 years. The outcome was extremely depressing. The final resolution did not even mention fossil fuels. A literal fire burned part of the pavilion that served as the venue, which is honestly just fitting. This was the 10 year anniversary of the Paris Climate Accords. I'm sure you remember. Well Ben, we are almost certainly going to miss the targets outlined at Paris of limited global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or even 2 degrees Celsius. There were a few small good things that came out of this. This year's COP, there's 5 billion in pledges for anti deforestation. I think that was, you know, about a fifth of what they wanted. But it's some money. There was a resolution calling for more money for countries facing climate related disasters and then need mitigation. But unfortunately like the bigger picture story of COP recently is just a complete and total failure to meet the moment or come close to addressing the scale of the problem. So again Ben, I guess the question is like, do these summits matter if the US boycotts them for the next three years? How do you think the world should go on without us?
- [33:24]
Ben Rhodes
They matter a lot. And first of all we should just say not going to the first G20 in Africa is just incredibly racist thing to do. And that sends a message that we have a like racist administration that doesn't give a shit about Africa, which is stupid because Africa is a fast growing continent and a source of geopolitical rivalry with the Chinese. All these things.
- [33:43]
Tommy Vietor
Did you see like the 11th hour bid that the Trump administration made to try to have some like low level acting ambassador from the US do the handover ceremony from Cyril Ramaphosa to the US because we're hosting the next G20 and they try to get like some like 2 bit JV diplomat involved at the last minute. And Ramaphosa just like laughed at the question when he was asked about it. It's just totally insulting.
- [34:05]
Ben Rhodes
Totally insulting, right. And that's like reputational damage that'll stick. Second is I went to 8G 20s, okay, which is maybe embarrassing actually. But the reality is that every G20 I was at was both about coordinating the global economy, which is important, particularly now when there's a lot of warning signs in the global economy. There's an AI bubble, there's like, you know, growth slowing down. But also you deal with whatever the other pressing issue is in the world at the G20. It's very convenient to be in the same place as at least, you know, 19 other world leaders. And they're more than that because they invite other countries. Normally we would be there like at a head of state level talking about Ukraine, talking about, you know, Gaza, talking about all these other things. And so it's just, you know, a missed opportunity. And guess what? Our old boss Tom Donilon used to say, well, when you're not at the table, you're on the menu. Well, that means all these other countries are just kind of coordinating their own strategies around us. How do we work around the Americans, how do we work against the Americans? And then that leads to, I think the consistent problem, if you're just looking at this from a geopolitics standpoint, is whether it's COP or the G20, our absence, the Chinese are presenting themselves now the, they're not subtle about it. They loved showing up these summits talking about the rules based order, talking about like international cooperation. They're increasingly calling the shots on issues around the global economy, on issues around climate change and clean energy, where they want to kind of corner the market on certain technologies, on certain supply chains. So our absence is just a huge gift to China and anybody else that wants to kind of create an alternative world order to the United States. By the way, I actually think the world order needs to change. But I would actually like, you know, in an ideal world, you want the United States to be Part of that, and the climate piece is the most obvious one because we're not only not at the table, we are like an antagonist, we're like lobbying from afar against ambitious efforts to deal with climate change, which is just historically going to be one of the dumbest and most self defeating things of this era. It's not like a victory to like water down, you know, efforts to fight fossil fuel emissions and efforts to transition to clean energy. It's just stupid. And actually Trump is at the same time that he's absenting himself from like the cop, he's getting pissed that, like China has like the monopoly on all these supply chains. Right, right. Like we've heard him complain, you know, that they have all these rare earth materials and all these inputs for solar panels and things like that. Well, maybe you should show up at the place where people are talking about clean energy investment if you're worried that you're getting beat by the Chinese on it. It's just stupid.
- [36:45]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, I mean, the, the kids and grandkids of MAGA officials are going to have to live in a world with more extreme weather and, you know, God knows what too. So, yes, it's an enormous cell phone, by the way, while we're talking about Brazil. So the climate summit was in Brazil, actually in a, in a town that had been really hit hard by climate change and was dealing with like flooding and massive rainstorms and oppressive heat. We should note that Brazil is interesting because Brazilian President Lula da Silva has, unlike most leaders in the world, has repeatedly told Trump to shove his demands where the sun don't shine, especially when it comes to the prosecution of the former Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro. So remember that Bolsonaro was sentenced recently to 27 years in prison for leading this attempted coup against Lula, which included their own little version of January 6th, a bunch of assassination plots, etc. It's very ugly. Trump tried to get involved. He tried to tariff Brazil into dropping the case against Bolsonaro, literally 50 tariffs. But Lula was like, fuck you. No. So fast forward to this past weekend. Brazilian police arrested Bolsonaro because they became worried that Bolsonaro was trying to escape before he has to go to prison to serve out his sentence. The AP reported that Bolsonaro tried to remove his ankle monitor with a soldering iron. And that later that day, Bolsonaro's son had organized a protest outside of his father's house. So I think the idea was use the soldering iron to get the ankle monitor off your ankle, create this, like, you know, massive scene outside of the house to give you cover to get your dad out of there and help him escape. Now, Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro says this is all a misunderstanding. And what actually happened was he took some medicine that made him trip balls, and he thought the ankle monitor was spying on him, so he tried to take it off. So I think actually that tracks. Ben. You see, Ben's doing a face. But I think this is credible either way. Bolsonaro is now in the pool.
- [38:34]
Ben Rhodes
Who among us, you know?
- [38:35]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, who? I mean, technically, he's right. The ankle monitor was spying on him. But, like, whatever he. So Trump got asked about Bolsonaro's plight on Saturday. This is the quote from what he said, Ben, is that what happened? That's too bad, he said. Press for further comment. He said, I just think it's too bad. So it's good to see that Bond is holding up.
- [38:57]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, first of all, both things can be true, right? This was a Keystone Cops operation to, like, remove the ankle monitor and flee the country on some private jet in chaos. And he could have been tripping balls and trying to move the ankle monitor.
- [39:11]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, why not both?
- [39:12]
Ben Rhodes
Let's just give. You know, people are constantly asking us, like, how do you better fight authoritarianism? I think the Brazilians have given us a pretty good example because it was two and a half years ago, essentially, that Brazil had their own January 6, and Bolsonaro tried to overthrow the results of an election. And what have they done? They've managed to prosecute this guy, they've managed to sentence this guy, and they've managed now to put him in prison. Right. And the time that it took, like, Merrick Garland to figure out, like, where the men's room was on the Justice Department. Thanks, Merrick. So I don't know, it's like a pretty good example that if someone is guilty, as Bolsonaro was, of trying to overthrow the results of a democratic election, maybe you should actually hold that person accountable on a credible timeline.
- [39:54]
Tommy Vietor
It's a good idea.
- [39:55]
Ben Rhodes
I will also say lesson for how to deal with Trump, all these Europeans who've been sucking up to him and calling him daddy and, like, coming to the Oval Office and kissing his ass. They keep getting the rug pulled out from under them on Ukraine, they keep getting tariffed. Well, you know, let's look at the other strategies, right? Lula gets 50% tariffs and demand. You have to, like, let Bolsonaro go, and he tells him to fuck off, and Trump's not doing anything. And, like, Those tariffs are coming down because guess what, like, Americans don't want to pay that extra prices. Trump just to suit like, you know, Bolsonaro and his son's political ambitions.
- [40:29]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah. And Zahra Mandani's like, damn right. He's a fascist and a despot and, you know, shut up.
- [40:34]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, yeah. Zoram Dani didn't change any of his positions. And he's getting gazed at in a way that like, nobody's ever really looked at me, like Xi Jinping. Xi Jinping told Trump to fuck off and ratchet up tariffs and cut off rare earth materials. And the trade deal that was announced was better for China than before the tariffs. So message to maybe US universities and law firms and all these other people that, you know, bend over for Trump. You seem to do a little bit better when you actually have some backbone with Trump and you just kiss his ass.
- [41:03]
Tommy Vietor
When Macron's like, oh, Donald, you are a genius. That's bad French accent. That's going to get me in trouble. We're going to get to Candace in a minute. Ben speaking. Staying in South America. So we're going to check in on our little regime change effort that we're kind of starting with the Venezuelans. So it's still pending, kind of, you know, the US we have officially designated this group the, we're calling them the Cartel de la Souls, which we designate them as a terrorist organization. The State Department says that it's headed by President Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan president. A small issue with that designation is that Cartel de la Souls is not a real thing. It's a term that Venezuelan journalists use to describe corrupt members of the Venezuelan military who either profited off of or turned a blind eye to drug trafficking. That it refers to the sons that are on their military uniforms. And the term actually predates both Maduro and Hugo Chavez's tenure in government. But as we know, facts don't really matter to this administration. Look no further than their efforts to call Antifa some sort of organized terrorist group and then go after them. So, but you know, as Pete Hegseth put it, labeling Maduro as a kingpin or a narco terrorist offers a whole bunch of new options to the United States to respond. Some of those may involve the CIA. Now, we've talked about the CIA's, you know, sort of finding or authorization to do covert action in Venezuela in the past. Reuters reported that the US Is on the cusp of a new phase of Venezuela related operations in Venezuela. They cited anonymous officials who said the first moves the US Makes for regime change would be covert. Now, that story has not been confirmed anywhere else, so I'm a little skeptical. But there was previous reporting by the New York Times that Trump had given the CIA go ahead to operate in Venezuela. Either way, on the overt side, the US Continues to have this huge military buildup in the Caribbean. Dan Kaine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, went to Puerto Rico on Monday. He was meeting with troops there who were deployed as part of the largest buildup of naval forces in the region since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Did that one go well for us? I'll Google it.
- [43:03]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, it turned out well, but that's because we didn't go to war. Oh, that's right. That was some real diplomacy.
- [43:06]
Tommy Vietor
That's fair, that's fair. So finally, Ben Axios reported that Trump is planning on talking with Maduro directly. So to quote our president, I guess we'll see what happens.
- [43:18]
Ben Rhodes
I think that, you know, what it feels like is happening to me is they want regime change. You know, Trump wants it because he hates Maduro and he wants the oil in Venezuela and he wants to basically run Latin America like he's the emperor. Marco Rubio has long wanted this ideologically because he has some domino theory too where Venezuela goes and Cuba will go because Cuba depends on Venezuela for an oral subsidy. Maria Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize winning, courageous, but very right wing opposition leader, wants the US to oust Maduro and is telling Trump and Rubio that I can step in right away and we have a plan. And I think what's happening here is that they're trying to do this on the cheap, right? They're trying to blow up these boats and intimidate everybody. Show a force, send the aircraft carrier that has nothing to do with blowing up boats, by the way, to the region, but then try to do this old school US Latin America style, like get some covert operations going, get some people on the ground, do some, maybe sabotage, like try to turn some military officers against Maduro or something. I'd be very curious whether there are any kind of off books US Special forces types who are in Venezuela. That's certainly a possibility. But then that becomes a bit of a slippery slope because I don't think Maduro is going anywhere. I don't think this guy is the kind of guy that will end up wanting, and by the way, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But it doesn't strike me as the kind of guy that wants to be living in Moscow, like down the hallway from Bashar Al Saad and whatever apartment that guy's in, he's pretty ideological guy. It's existential for him. And so if he sticks around, well then they keep trying to do more, right? And then, you know, you get on this slippery and then maybe we're bombing targets in Venezuela thinking that maybe that will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. And then on top of this, if you even get him out, then this place implodes because this kind of corrupt military that is involved in all kinds of stuff, not just narco trafficking, but kind of owns pieces of Venice. One economy. They're not going to want to go along with like Maria Machado's transition plan. And so you're going to have these groups fighting out in Venezuela and we're going to be there and we get sucked in. I mean, there's two options here. You either try to have a regime change operation that leads to a war and violent chaos, or Maduro's there. I mean, the other option would be to actually have a diplomatic strategy, but they're not doing anything diplomatically. They're not even trying to get other countries together in Latin America and have some process. So this feels very ominous to me. Tommy. The last thing I'd say about this is that as things get worse for Trump politically, you know, as like, you know, the resignation of MTG in Congress and he's beginning to be a lame duck and the judges are throwing out his bullshit cases in court. This is when like autocrats do dumb shit or scary shit like invade countries. Right. Like when Putin was starting to have political problems. That's when we get an invasion of Ukraine. Right. And so I do worry that, you know, what may seem irrational could become an option for Trump because he needs to do something dramatic somewhere.
- [46:24]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, I kind of agree with you. I think in an ideal world, Trump would be able to bluff Maduro into leaving the country and into some sort of transition that makes him look like the hero. And that probably comes along with some deal for US oil companies to get into Venezuela and Trump gets enriched off of that. The question becomes, when Maduro doesn't leave, does he have a bunch of people around him saying, the United States can't bluff, sir, and you've moved all these assets to the region and this thing just sort of like takes on a life of its own. And you're right, like I've heard, not only heard that Maria Machado, you know, they're, they've said publicly they have like a hundred hour transition plan and they talk about how easy a leadership turnover would be, how all of these migrants who'd fled Venezuela would return home and it would solve all the problems in the region, in the world. That seems fairly unlikely. And also I've heard, Ben, that Machado is maybe whispering to Trump that in fact the Venezuelans did help rig the 2020 election. Like, remember all the Hugo Chavez's ghost was in the voting machine shit. Like, I've heard for some people that she might be kind of whispering that stuff into Trump's ear. So, like, I just worry about, you know, this stuff kind of becoming self perpetuating and all of a sudden, like, even though MAGA hates it, we're in a regime change war in Venezuela that no one really wanted.
- [47:39]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. And she's, she's even saying some of that stuff publicly. Like, I've seen interviews where she's kind of made intimations about, well, yeah, we got to look into what happened in the election. You know, like she's look. And of course she's doing that. Like, But I will tell you, like, in the Venezuelan opposition, it's kind of like the Cuban opposition that's out of the country. Like, they, they make this sound much easier than it would be because you've had, you know, 25 years of Chavez Maduro rule there. Like the whole economy set up around the military in part because of our sanctions too. Like, the whole economy is this black market economy. The military owns a bunch of stuff. Sure there's some rich opposition figures who are out of the country, but why would the people there who have guns, like the military is armed, why would they just be like, yeah, yeah, we're going to relinquish all of our economic power and let the Americans come run our oil industry as a part of a 100 hour plan or something. I just don't see it.
- [48:45]
Tommy Vietor
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- [53:13]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah. There's not a ceasefire. I mean, a ceasefire means you've ceased firing, you know, and there's just been hundreds of strikes and hundreds of people killed. Like, if this was measured, sure. Measured against the height of Israel's assault on Gaza, there's. This is like a lower boreal war. But if you measure this against, like, a normal status quo, like, this would be a shocking amount of violence. Like, that's just how much we've been numbed to this. And it's almost like the ceasefire exists mainly to just, like, try to get it off the headlines, you know, like, people don't have to worry about this as much. We call that a ceasefire. So I'm very worried about this because if you also see the direction of Israeli politics, like, the right wing of Bibi's coalition is still holding him hostage. And so. And by the way, he may be happy with that situation. So he's still, you know, he's taking these shots in the Gaza, he's taking these shots into Lebanon, the West Bank. We've seen a huge escalation in settler violence in the west bank since the quote unquote ceasefire. That's them showing like, well, if, you know, we don't like the ceasefire over here, we're going to make things worse in the West Bank. So I just find it all very tenuous. And I think the one thing I would say constructively, which I don't think they'll do, is, yeah, there's this chicken and egg dynamic you described on a stabilization force. They're not trying to do anything that I can tell to develop an alternative Palestinian leadership because that's the missing piece here. You've got like a sclerotic Palestinian Authority with no credibility, with like a Mahmoud Abbas is pushing 90 in the West bank and NF Hamas, like why aren't we just trying to build and invest in different Palestinian leadership? There's really talented people who are more technocratic or the civil society or they're in the diaspora. There's nobody trying to answer that question of who would run Palestine. And that's because they don't want a Palestinian state. And even these meetings that we hear about that the US is having about a stabilization plan with the Israelis, there are no Palestinians even in the meetings.
- [55:11]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, it's an occupation plan. You're right, exactly. Netanyahu keeps reaffirming that he does not believe in a two state solution, does not believe in a Palestinian state. So yeah, you're right. There's no effort to figure out what governance could look like. Because the governance in his mind will just be the Israelis controlling things.
- [55:28]
Ben Rhodes
And like Russia with Ukraine just grinding away, taking more land, like annexing the west bank chunk by chunk or like not leaving that half of Gaza you're in. Like that's what I would watch. Kind of slow motion annexation.
- [55:39]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, me too. Okay, a few more quick things before we end this show. So a few weeks back we covered the election of Japan's new Prime minister, Prime Minister Sanat Yitakaichi. And somehow been since that show, she has managed to push Japan to the brink of conflict with China. Which is quite impressive if you think about it. Yes, here's what happened. So on November 7, in response to a question posed to her in Japan's parliament about what situation will qualify for collective self defense, that is what would allow Japan to mobilize its military under their pacifist constitution, she replied that Chinese action against Taiwan might meet that threshold. So a blockade or an invasion of Taiwan, quote, could constitute an existential threat. No matter how you look at is was her quote. The Chinese took this about as well as you'd expect. In other words, they went nuts. So the Chinese foreign minister said she, quote, cross a red line that should not have been touched. The Chinese UN Ambassador said, if Japan dares to intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait situation, it will constitute an act of an aggression. And then the China's Consul General in Osaka wrote in a now deleted post, quote, if you stick that filthy neck where it doesn't belong, it's going to get sliced off you. Are you ready for that? That's a, that's a hot one. So, yeah, it's a hot take right there. So the kind of nationalist Chinese media has used this issue to stoke anger about Japan's history of aggression and war crimes. During World War II, the Chinese government has retaliated economically by canceling flights to Japan. They've discouraged tourism, they've blocked the import of seafood. In certain films, Taka Ichi has refused to back down. Her spin is basically, look, I'm just repeating long standing policy. The Chinese are also very mad about a separate Japanese plan to deploy missiles to an island that's like 60, 70 miles off the eastern coast of Taiwan. How big a deal do you think this is? Are the Chinese overreacting? Because, like, anything that touches Taiwan is, you know, just like a major red line for them and they punch you as hard as you can so you never do it again. Or do you think, like, there is a real risk of conflict here?
- [57:44]
Ben Rhodes
I think this is an enormous deal. We're gonna do a little World War watch here, right? I mean, cause we've got the European war and the Middle Eastern war. This is like the flashpoint. Taiwan is the flashpoint. You now have like a more right wing and nationalist Japanese prime minister. She changes kind of like the status quo language, which is super talmudic in Asia, right on Taiwan formulations matter a lot. So she turns the dial up a bit. And I think the Chinese are sensing that the U.S. trump doesn't give a shit as much about Taiwan as he does about how many soybeans they're buying. The Chinese have more credibility internationally than the US does right now with a lot of countries. Given everything we've talked about today, their military modernization is such that in the next year or two, they're going to have some real military options vis a vis Taiwan. And so they're just trying to pounce on what she said to kind of overwhelm not just the Japanese, but kind of any sense that countries will come to Taiwan's aid. Xi Jinping called Trump, and I'm sure that this was like, the lead of his agenda. What was interesting is that the US Readout of that call from Trump on Truth Social was like, great call. I invited Xi Jinping for a state visit, and I'm going to go visit China. It's going to be great. You know, the Chinese readout was like, we basically lectured Trump about, like, we are the stewards of the international order and she needs to butt the fuck out of, you know, Taiwan matters, then she had to call Trump. Right. But if they're counting on Trump to being the one to avoid tensions, like, I don't think this guy gives two shits about Taiwan. So I worry about this, cuz, you know, the more tensions ratchet up around Taiwan, the. The more you might get some blockade scenario that just kind of develops or you might get some incident in the Taiwan Strait. Right. And remember, we've got a lot of troops in Japan. So, like this. This is not just something we're watching from afar. Like in Taiwan scenarios, if the US does get involved, like, those troops are getting bombed by China, you know. Yeah. Now, the last thing I'd say that's interesting is she's not backing down and her approval rating is ticking up because national. Yeah, nationalism works in both directions. Right. And she sent her defense minister down to that island that's 70 miles from Taiwan. And so I just think this is gonna. We should get used to the fact that we're gonna be living with some tensions over here in Asia as well as everywhere else.
- [60:05]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah. Her approval went way up. That is disconcerting if you're thinking about political incentives here. Interestingly, about that Xi call to Trump, Ben, I mean, the Journal, our old colleague Evan Medeiros just was. Was pointing out how it is actually unusual for Xi Jinping to initiate these kinds of calls. And the Chinese readout of the call or whatever was in state media talked about Taiwan, and it talked about the history of the US Fighting side by side against fascism and militarism during World War II. So not a. Not a subtle reference to Japan there, but I guess Trump's readout did not mention Taiwan. He was like, oh, yeah, we talked about the war in Ukraine, Fentanyl and soybeans. But other things, which is. It's a little ominous to me. Right. Because we've talked about this in the past. There's Been some reporting that Xi Jinping is hoping he can get Trump to trade changes in the U. S. Position on Taiwan, either going from strategic ambiguity to opposing Taiwan's independence and supporting quote, unquote reunification. So a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in exchange for like, I don't know, probably price more soybeans or something or some sort of economic deal. And the fact that Trump would take the call, do a readout, not mention Taiwan, but then the Chinese make it the focus of everything they say about this call. I don't know, it's just another data point that, that worries me about us selling out Taiwan.
- [61:26]
Ben Rhodes
And he's going to try, Xi Jinping is going to try to flip Trump. You know, if he's got these big, if the meetings do go forward next year, like Trump visits China, Xi comes here, his argument's going to be like, we're more important than the Japanese. Like we, our economy is bigger. And any normal US President would be like, well, they're a treaty ally of ours, you know, but like Trump doesn't give a shit about that. And if people are like, well, why does it even matter? It matters, you know, because it's the wrong thing to do. But also because the Taiwanese will not agree to reunify with China. It's like a same situation as Ukraine. Like, so there will be a military conflict. You know, it makes conflict more likely if China believes that Taiwan is totally isolated and no one will come to their defense because then they might decide to do something.
- [62:08]
Tommy Vietor
We are going to take a quick break, but before we go, just want to tell you guys, I know that it's really hard to sort through all the news out there. At Crooked Media, we try to make that our mission. We try to cut through the noise with facts and humor and good conversations. And if you like our shows, please consider subscribing to the Friends of the POD community to support our work directly. Your subscription helps us keep making shows, newsletters, deep dives you enjoy. It also unlocks perks like ad free episodes and and exclusive content like Polar Coaster with Dan Feifer. Plus it's a great way to support independent, progressive media. And if you need another reason to subscribe, this holiday season we are offering 25% off annual subscriptions now through November 30th. So go to crooked.com friends to subscribe. You can even hear a special episode of our subscription show terminally online with the POD Save the world team. It's very funny, very loose. Also, the holidays are coming so we have another big merch sale for you. Go to crooked.comstore to shop the sale. You can get gifts. You can get new friends of the pod, hoodies, stocking stuffers, all the stuff you want there. Go find some crooked merch. Go to crooked.com store. POD Save the World is brought to you by Soul. When the holiday season rolls around, it feels like there's a party every weekend. All all the sugary drinks add up this season. Reach for Sol's out of Office Gummies instead. The same fun vibe, Low in calories and zero hangover, Sol is a wellness brand that believes feeling good should be fun and easy. Sole specializes in delicious hemp derived THC and CBD products designed to boost your mood and help you unwind. Their best selling out of Office Gummies were designed to provide a mild, relaxing buzz, boost your mood and enhance creativity and relaxation. With five different strengths, you can tailor the dose to 15. Fit your vibe from a gentle 1.5 microdose to their newest 15mg gummy for a more elevated experience. And if you like their out of Office Gummies, try the new out of Office Beverage, a refreshing, alcohol free alternative that's perfect for winding down on the couch or socializing with friends. With wellness at the forefront, you can feel good about what you're putting in your body. All of Sol's products are made from organically farmed USA grown hemp and are vegan, gluten free, low in sugar and federally legal. The Soul Gummies are great. We love the Blueberry Lemonade Nightcap gummies. Nice little 3 milligram gummy that is perfect to help relax you before bed to fall asleep quickly and then wake up feeling great the next day. Take advantage of Soul's Black Friday Cyber Monday deal right now. For a limited time, get 40% off your entire order. Go to GetSoul.com and use the code WORLD. That's GetSoul.com promo code WORLD for 40% off. Don't miss their best deal of the year. My parents made every Christmas magical, and even though we're miles apart, I still want them to feel loved and remembered during the holidays. That's why I'm sending something beautiful from 1-800-Flowers. Their Christmas bestsellers are timeless, heartfelt, and just what they'll love. For a limited time, you can get up to 40% off Christmas bestsellers at 1-800flowers.comsxm that's 1-800-flowers.comsxm to save up to 40% on Christmas bestsellers. Shop now. All right, we got two more Sort of fun stories. The first is just, you know, it's you and me snorting a big fat line of raw, uncut crazy. So this one comes courtesy of podcaster Candace Owens. As listeners might recall, Candace has recorded dozens, maybe hundreds of hours of episodes of her podcast alleging that Brigitte Macron, the first lady of France, is in fact a man. Specifically, Candace alleges that Brigitte Macron is a man named Jean Michel Trogno, who, again, I feel crazy when I say this explanation because it's like, how does.
- [65:58]
Ben Rhodes
This explain I love you? You're like, so expert on this.
- [66:01]
Tommy Vietor
So Jean Michel Trogno is Brigitte Macron's old, older brother who was alive and lives in France still and has been photographed at public events with his sister, including the inaugurations. Those facts notwithstanding, the allegations were so crazy and so repeated that the Macrons are now suing her for defamation. But did this slow our girl down? Absolutely not. In one recent video that Michael and our team flagged, Candace has set about trying to prove that Brigitte, then Jean Michel Trogno, was part of the Stanford Prison experiment. Are you familiar with this, Ben?
- [66:38]
Ben Rhodes
No, I'm not. I'm sorry.
- [66:41]
Tommy Vietor
Okay, so you probably learned about this in like, you know, you know, psychology 101 in college. It was this. I remember that experiment.
- [66:48]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
- [66:48]
Tommy Vietor
Okay, so this infamous experiment for listeners who don't know that researchers at Stanford did. They recruited like 20, 24 male Stanford students. They made some of them the guards, some of them the prisoners, and then watch them as the guards turned into like completely sadistic lunatics.
- [67:04]
Ben Rhodes
And it's actually quite fascinating, people.
- [67:06]
Tommy Vietor
It's fascinating. Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating. It's worth reading about. But I think Candace seems to think that Jean Michel Trogno was one of these 24, and then he later transitioned into Brigitte. What a coincidence. Real wow. You know, Forrest Gump kind of there at every part of history, so. But that was not what caught my eye, Ben. From Candace over the weekend, listeners might know that Candace also does not believe the official story about Charlie Kirk's assassination. She has not so subtle, subtly suggested that Israel was behind Kirk's death, or you know, maybe just a group of people who. Who rhyme with the. The blues. Yeah, but this is like the good stuff right here from Candace's tweet over the weekend. So she says that a high ranking French government official close to the Macrons called her and tipped her off that the Macrons have, quote, executed upon and paid for her Candace's assassination at the cost of $1.5 million. She says an elite French law enforcement group is going to do the deed. The team is composed of a French female assassin and, of course, a male Israeli, because you got to have some representation there for your people, Ben. She also claims that Charlie Kirk's assassin trained with the French Foreign Legion. So that's new. She says that Candace says she relayed this plot to the White House and some counterterrorism agencies who have confirmed receipts, which is a very funny way of being like, huh, Got it. And in case you think that Candace is lying, I did notice that some crazy woman who works for The MyPillow Guys TV network, which is a thing that really exists in the world, said she has confirmed Candace's story. So take that, fact checkers. Also, Pavel Durov, remember that guy, the founder of Telegram.
- [68:44]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah.
- [68:44]
Tommy Vietor
Guy briefly detained in France by the French government. Says he says that Candace's claims are plausible. And our boy Mike Flynn says there's plenty of truth to the accusations. So I guess, Ben, the question is, if this is true, when do we declare war on the French?
- [69:04]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, she's just asking questions. She's just doing research, and she's uncovering all kinds of shocking things here. You know, I just want this to go on. I just want this to continue. It's, like, so good for content that Candace is heroically taking it upon herself. I mean, I do, you know, the original sin here beyond Candace's insanity was this lawsuit, because it's just kind of giving her this platform to just pull the thread on, like, her, you know, wildest conspiracy theories. And people like us are obviously paying attention because she's getting sued by the president of France, which kind of, you know, like, PR 101, is that, like, if there's something like, insane like this, maybe you don't shine, like, the brightest possible spotlight on it. So I'm not quite sure, like, why the Macrons have gone down the lawsuit strategy. Candace seems to be just fine with it. But suffice to say, I do not believe that the French Foreign Legion trained Charlie Kirk's assassin, nor do I think, you know, I don't think Candace is anything to worry about from the French government other than this lawsuit.
- [70:11]
Tommy Vietor
What is the suggestion? Is it like, the French were so mad about Candace's reporting on Brigitte that they took out Charlie Kirk to punish her, like someone she was, like, estranged from? Also, she also just. She tweeted again, just another standalone tweet. I would like again to stress that there was a French Female assassin, but also a male Israeli assassin that were selected to kill me. So she just wants to make sure you, you didn't miss in her longer tweet that there was a Jewish person involved who was trying to kill her. No, that is definitely not the center of all of this.
- [70:42]
Ben Rhodes
There's a core anti Semitism here that is kind of like interesting to look at because it's so old fashioned. Because if you, if you actually, you know, I did go down the rabbit hole on this one before, and the whole idea was that Emmanuel Macron is some kind of Manchurian Candidate working on behalf of kind of like the one World Government, right. Kind of enterprise led by, you know, Brigitte Macron, the man, you know, and the Jews. Right. Like, so it kind of all goes back to like old fashioned, you know, Rothschild kind of stuff. It is. And actually I think there's Rothschild involved in her theory.
- [71:16]
Tommy Vietor
There's Frank is like.
- [71:17]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [71:18]
Tommy Vietor
So it's, it's all there. I went to her Twitter today, just sort of like see what she was up to and what she was tweeting about. She, she repeated. She was retweeting that guy Dugan, what's his first name? The kind of blood.
- [71:28]
Ben Rhodes
Oh yeah, the Russian guy. Yeah, Russian.
- [71:29]
Tommy Vietor
Russian propagandist who's tweeting about the frankness as well. It's a weird world over there. I, I don't recommend it. Speaking of weird stuff on Twitter, Ben, I did notice that Twitter, or now X, they rolled out this new feature that lets you see where an account is located and when they join Twitter. And this has sort of led to this, like, I think long suspected but hilarious revelation that a lot of these really big Maga fan accounts are actually just randos based way outside the United States. So the Daily Beast looked into this. They found that there's a account, Maga Nation X, which has like 400,000 followers in a bio that's like Patriot Voice for We the People. They're based in Eastern Europe. There is a user named America first that has like a ton of followers. And the profile picture of Caroline Levitt that's based in Bangladesh. There's an Ivanka Trump fan account with a million followers based in Nigeria. You get the point. A few other weird tidbits, Ben. The BBC found that multiple accounts promoting Scottish independence were actually based in Iran. That's sort of a surprising one. And then there this location tool, it's a little, it seems a little bit buggy. It can certainly be fooled by a vpn. So for Example, the Bulwark did some great reporting on all of this. And when they looked at their location, it was saying that their tweets were coming from Germany because of some sort of, you know, tech tool they use or whatever. But it also showed that the Department of Homeland Security's account was based in Israel. And, boy, let me tell you, folks, that answered a lot of questions that people had on Twitter about that one. There's some big theories that got borne out just because of that.
- [73:05]
Ben Rhodes
Anybody alert Candace Owens to that?
- [73:07]
Tommy Vietor
Oh, yeah, she's on it.
- [73:08]
Ben Rhodes
I mean, this is the thing is, like, I don't know, I don't really trust X or Grok or that much. Is it the case, though, that there are these huge fan accounts? Absolutely. And what's so dumb about this is Trump's whole Russia hoax thing has somehow made it continually revelatory that there's massive foreign influence operations designed to boost MAGA because MAGA makes the United States dumber and more divided. That's something that we've actually known to be a fact for, like, eight or nine years. But, like, there's like, half the country that still doesn't believe that there was an influence operation. And by the way, it wasn't just in the 2016 election. It's an ongoing influence operation that is. Has never ended. You know, actually, there's one last thing I had left in the cupboard, Tommy, that I just want to throw at you, which is, you know, now that I mentioned 2016, Jared, do you think he's engaged in these contacts with the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund on government email?
- [74:14]
Tommy Vietor
Oh, absolutely not. I mean, the shit you read about these people, like, all of them are just using signal all the time.
- [74:20]
Ben Rhodes
Remember when the number one issue in Trump's entire ascent to political power was the use of private email servers?
- [74:27]
Tommy Vietor
No, it's absurd. None of the rules are being followed. They're all breaking the law routinely. You can only imagine, like, the absolutely corrupt, outrageous shit that we would be learning if there were ever to be a FOIA request and things were happening the right way. But no, it's worth noting, Ben, that like a lot of. I think a lot of this stuff that's happening on X is based is getting driven by the fact that Elon Musk kind of changed the way the service works and made it so that you can get paid off of views. So, like, a bunch of the accounts boosting far right neo Nazis like Nick Fuentes are people from, like, Bangladesh and foreign accounts, but. Or from, like, New Zealand now Maybe they are just vile racists over there and that's why they're doing it. But I think it's more likely that this is people just trying to make a buck.
- [75:15]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, but. But, yeah, unfortunately, this synergy between the people trying to make a buck and the people trying to, like, destroy society is a huge overlap. That. That's a perfect circle, that overlapping Venn diagram.
- [75:27]
Tommy Vietor
Yeah, yeah, that's. That's good stuff. Stuff.
- [75:29]
Ben Rhodes
All right.
- [75:30]
Tommy Vietor
That's all we got for you guys this week. We're going guest list because it's a. It's a shortened week. It's a holiday. We had way too much. We wanted to talk about ourselves. We will be back next Tuesday. But again, please subscribe to Pod Save the world on YouTube and also wherever you get your podcasts. Why not subscribe both?
- [75:44]
Ben Rhodes
Yeah, throw down a review, you know, five stars while you're at Smash the five stars, throw us a review.
- [75:50]
Tommy Vietor
Roast us in the reviews. Have a great Thanksgiving. Thank you for listening and we will talk to you guys soon. Pod Save the World is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Ilona Minkowski. Our associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our audio engineer. Audio support by Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to our digital team, Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, William Jones, David Toles and Ryan Young. Matt de Groat is our head of production. Adrian Hill is our senior vice president of news and politics. If you want to listen to Pod Save the World ad free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube or Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events. Plus, find Pod Save the World on YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content and much more. And if, like us, you're opinionated, leave us a review. Our production staff is proudly unionized by the Writers Guild of America East. Your new home is now ready. Dr. Horton, America's builder, has new homes that are ready today with new construction communities in Ellensburg and throughout the Greater Seattle area. Dr. Horton has the right home for you at. At Dr. Horton, we're still building with flexible living spaces, smart home technology and two and three car garages. More communities and more homes available every day. Find your new home in Ellensburg now ready@drhorton.com Dr. Horton, America's builder and equal housing opportunity builder.
- [77:32]
Ben Rhodes
What is the secret to making great toast?
- [77:34]
Tommy Vietor
Oh, you're just going to go in with the hard hitting questions.
- [77:38]
Ben Rhodes
I'm Dan Pashman from the Sporkful. We like to say it's not for foodies, it's for eaters. We use food to learn about culture, history and science.
- [77:45]
Tommy Vietor
There was the time we looked into.
- [77:46]
Ben Rhodes
Allegations of discrimination at Bon Appetit. Or when I spent three years inventing a new pasta shape.
- [77:52]
Tommy Vietor
It's a complex noodle that you've put.
- [77:54]
Ben Rhodes
Together every episode of the Sporkful. You're gonna learn something, feel something and laugh. The Sporkful. Get it wherever you get your podcasts.