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- [00:08]
A
Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On today's roundtable, we'll discuss Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's purge of senior military leadership and America's relationship with our European allies in the second Trump administration. Looking specifically at America's storied relationship with France. Then, for not worth your time, we'll take a look at the lifting of Fuller and Baligan's red card and the suspension and whether or not Trump's corruption has made its way to the World Cup. I'm joined today by my Dispatch colleague Kevin Williamson and Dispatch contributor Mike Nelson. Let's dive right in. Welcome, gentlemen. I wanted to do something a little bit different with our conversation today. In addition to having just two panelists, I want to focus on some of the things that we're seeing that are obscured by the day to day sort of everydayness of the news cycle. The maelstrom of the moment, I think, sometimes keeps us from seeing the long term consequences of specific Trump administration decisions, actions that we're seeing unfold on a daily basis that are likely to have significant impact not just this week or in two months or a year, but in three years or five years. And as it happens, you both had pieces out over the last week that I think highlighted that in a particularly interesting, compelling and helpful way. So I wanted to bring you both on to talk about the pieces that you've written and to go a little bit deeper on the longer term consequences of what we're seeing play out today. And Mike Nelson, I want to start with you. You had a piece. It's been almost a week now. We'll put these pieces, of course, in the show notes, but I've been having a lot of conversations lately with people who cover the Pentagon, people who work at the Pentagon, people who once worked at the Pentagon, about exactly what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been doing, sort of systematically firing senior officers, accomplished warriors and others. And you wrote about that for us last week. I'm going to just start by reading your lead, the lead to your piece. In June 2014, Iraq's second largest city fell to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in a disastrous route of the Iraqi army condemning the residents of Mosul to three years of brutal occupation. By the fall of that year, the black banners of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi's ISIS fighters were a mere eight miles from Baghdad after having marched through most of Anbar province across the border. The last holdouts against the ISIS conquest in northeastern Syria, the Kurdish peshmerga that would later form the core of the Syrian Democratic forces had been pushed into a besieged salient in the city of Kobani. Things were dark and growing darker. And while a friendly government in Iraq allowed for a return of US Forces to advise their, Syria was much more complex. In the midst of a bloody civil war and with an American enemy in Damascus and a risk averse administration in Washington, American options were limited. Time was growing short for the peshmerga and with them any hopes of an American partner to fight isis. In an urban engagement that raged for longer than the battle of Stalingrad, the Kurdish fighters stopped the ISIS advance, held the line and fought off the invaders in bloody and brutal block to block fighting. While the Peshmerga's victory in March 2015 was in no small part due to their valor, the word peshmerga literally translates as quote, those who face death. It was also the result of ingenuity and determination from an American Special Mission unit that found a way to influence the fight despite substantial limitations and complications. Coordinating airstrikes against an enemy they couldn't observe to help a partner they couldn't accompany. The special operators saved hundreds of Kurdish lives while taking out thousands of ISIS fighters. The Kobani breakout was the first bright ray of hope in an otherwise bleak outlook for the Syrian portion of the fight against isis, thanks to the skill and dedication of a unit commanded by then Colonel Sidi Donahue. You go on to walk us through other ways in which C.D. donahue, then Colonel C.D. donahue, now General C.D. donahue,' has had a significant, direct and immediate impact on the way the United States fights and the security of its citizens. He is now being pushed out of the Pentagon. Why would Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth push out somebody who is so universally might be overstating, but widely and deeply respected because of the things that you detail in your piece. Isn't he exactly the kind of military leader that the United States should want? What's happening?
- [05:27]
B
Well, the conversation from last week, the forced retirement of CD Donahue was the catalyst for that conversation. And there was a lot of focus on his specific de facto firing. But this is part and parcel for something that's been taking place for the past year and a half since Secretary Hegseth assumed the role. And he almost immediately started by firing several high profile generals and admirals, including General C. Q. Brown, who's the chairman at the time, and Admiral Lisa Franchetti, who was the chief of Naval operations. And that's continued to pace across that time, including just most recently before the firing or the forced retirement of CD Donahue. The firing of CD Chief of Staff of the Army Randy George, and the Commander of Training and Transformation Command, General David Hodney, right before that. So this is part of something he is doing on a vast scale to reform the Department of Defense and the military that it oversees. In his words, he's doing this to purge out those who are woke or weak or, you know, vestigial remnants of the Biden era. But in reality, it seems to be that he's trying to reshape it more into a department of his own image in this undefined way that he wants people, people who reflect back at him the things that he wants to see within himself. Because by objective measure, if we look at the things he says he wants, lethality, joint war, fighting, innovation, commitment to the troops. Soldier, soldier. They are the very men and women that he's been firing. Not all of them are legendary warriors. Lisa Franchetti was a surface warfare officer, and she did exactly what we expect surface warfare officers to do. Command ships and fleets. But CD Donahue was the commander of our most elite Special Mission unit. General Hodney was a commander within Ranger Regiment. General George led a parachute assault into northern Iraq during the invasion. These men have done the things that Hegseth says he values in a warrior leader, yet he fires them without truly explaining why. And most notably in the case of Randy George, not even providing an explanation to the officer himself, just firing him without ceremony, and then notably without doing it to the American people or to congressional leaders who are trying to exercise oversight. When they've asked him why he's removed these leaders, he just gives the explanation. I can do it because it's in my authority, and I don't need to explain it to you. But I think these are further examples of kind of the weak and petulant nature of the Secretary, who does not like people who threaten his sense of self and his sense of authority. There's been extensive reporting about his kind of paranoia within the building that he feels anyone who's a challenge, his. His authority is. Is purged out, whether they are loyalists or not. And many of these people, by calling into question, or at least by pointing out as a contrast, the things that they actually provide as opposed to his kind of cultural agenda, probably even if not directly create a threat to him and his position of authority. Additionally, there's been this reporting that I can't speak to personally, but the Secretary feels threatened by the Secretary of the army who has demonstrated competence, and he worries he's you know, he feels, hears the hoof prints or hoofbeats chasing him down. As you know, his time is probably limited in the future Trump administration, and so he's doing anything he can to purge out those who are seen as political allies of the Secretary of the army as well. So there seems to be some interpersonal dynamics at play in these firings.
- [08:54]
A
You wrote in the piece that you didn't serve with Donahue directly, but you saw the effects of what he accomplished when you were the future operations Director of the Interagency Task Force for Syria during the same time he and his folks were working. What were those real effects? What did you see from him?
- [09:14]
B
So we look back at the fight against ISIS right now and think that it was, of course we were going to win. We were far more capable. We had all these technological advantages. We, you know, we're going to route them in glorious fashion. That was not the way it was in late 2014, early 2015. It took us pretty much a year to sort out just how we were going to fight the fight. There was a wide scale focus on just conducting the Mosul counteroffensive, which we didn't actually do until 2016, late 2016, because Mosul was the great embarrassment. By losing Mosul, we could not deny that the rise of ISIS was a real threat. And then General Austin had focused just on purging ISIS out of Mosul. If we could do that, then we could go back to ignoring the problem. But that wasn't the case in Syria. It was pretty bleak. I was part of the organization that was charged with what became called the Train and Equip program under General Nagata. It was set up for failure basically from the outset because of that same risk aversion of the Obama administration that I talked about. We had so many shackles and constraints put on what we could do, who we could partner with, what our partners were allowed to do. That while we worked for basically a year to try to create this program of creating a partner force that was going to fight isis, it failed in glorious fashion. And if you remember, famously, General Austin in his testimony said there were four rebels in Syria at the end of it, because the partner force we created was largely ineffective and limited in who we could partner with. So while we were working for a year to try to create this block to isis, the original partner force that we couldn't actually partner with, we weren't allowed to provide direct support to them, were the Peshmerga who had taken the fight upon themselves in Kobani they were fighting valiantly to halt the advance. And remember, their backs were against the wall with the Turkish border. Right. The Turks are nominal allies. No friends of the Kurds would not have allowed them to. They could not retreat across the Turkish border. So they were waiting slaughter behind them, and they had slaughter facing in front of them. They had no choice but to stand and fight. And while we could not provide direct support for them, we could, under the authorities provided in the initial phase of oir, we could target isis. So in other words, we used the Kurds, providing us intelligence for how we could target isis. They had to be creative with the authorities. We weren't allowed to provide support to the Kurds, but we were allowed to target ISIS people that the Kurds identified to us. And that was done through a series of cutouts because we couldn't get ISR UAVs that would provide imagery. We couldn't get ISR over Kobani. We couldn't put people directly there. So no one was able to observe these fires besides the Kurdish peshmer who were reporting them to us. So while our program failed and at the end, we had no viable partners. And largely one of the reasons we had no viable partners is because the United States had ignored the civil war for years leading up to this. For two years, all the viable partners had been killed off or co opted by by other nefarious actors. So there wasn't really nobody left besides the Kurdish peshmerga that stood and fought. And they were able to succeed in Kobani, like I said, largely because of the efforts of Donahue's organization. And once they broke out of Kobani, they then began adopting other Arab partners to make what became known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. That was entirely the creation and possible because of what Donahue accomplished. So our victory that ultimately culminated in the Battle of Bagoos in 2019 was only possible because that partner force survived, broke out, and eventually was supported by the organization that Donahue led.
- [12:52]
A
I mentioned earlier that he's very widely respected. And as I said in conversations that I've had over the past several weeks, there have been, I mean, this has been long rumored, I would say, or people were worried about this possibility. And since it's become known, people are sort of shocked that it's actually happening. You wrote that you had gotten messages and phone calls from people you'd served with who knew him, sort of understood his importance. I think in all likelihood understood what he could bring in future leadership at the Pentagon. And they were sort of angry, frustrated, including people you characterize as huge fans of Trump and generally supportive of Hegseth. What did you hear from them specifically?
- [13:43]
B
Well, I mean, they're kind of two different strains of this. They're the, the direct communications, the phone calls, the texts, the back and forth conversations. Those were largely with people who served directly with him. And they were shocked to find out that he was being purged for lack of a better way to put it. And they were outraged on his behalf, particularly because two people in particular, he had been their commander and they had seen like what a fantastic commander he was both strategically and interpersonally in terms of taking care of his people as, as one of them I quoted in the piece. Additionally, what I found more interesting was people that I had served with that I would describe as very pro Trump were posting, you know, messages of shock on various social media and messages of tribute to CD Donahue. Now, as you said, this was, you know, teased that this might be coming for a while. There are a lot within the Trumpist orbit that blamed Donahue for Afghanistan or the withdrawal from Afghanistan, even though he reacted to what was already a failure. He launched from Fort Bragg to mitigate and oversee the evacuation. There were things people want to blame him for the attack at Abbey Gate, which is not realistic. You can't blame him for situations outside of his control as there was chaos descending all over Kabul. There's also the fact that this is, and this will go to Kevin's piece I think that we're going to talk about. Part of this is also the downgrading of US Army Europe and Africa from a four star position to a three star position, which is part of the larger effort by the DoD to diminish the role of Europe and diminish our support for Europe. Taking the focus off of our transatlantic alliance and communicating most recently through this announced six month review of our commitment that we are going to provide less support that the European allies cannot count on us. And that is beyond everything else about communications about maybe withdrawing from NATO. Maybe the President won't fight for NATO partners who don't meet their obligations, or maybe we'll invade a NATO partner ourself and seize their territory. So it's all part of a larger communication that we don't value our transatlantic relationships and that we don't see the, you know, it's very shortsighted Hegseth, you know, enacting his very short sighted goals without any kind of thought into the larger implications both for the alliance and for the nature of the military he wants to refine. He is going to refine it just in a negative way. He's going to make it weaker.
- [16:10]
A
I do want to get to that with Kevin because I think there's actually potentially a distinction to be made between not valuing those allies and actively seeking to punish and distance ourselves from those allies. And I think, unfortunately, we may end up, history will judge us as having done the latter more than the former. But, Mike, in terms of what comes next in the loss of this leadership class, you wrote that Donahue and people like Donahue are effectively irreplaceable. Let me play devil's advocate there. Nobody's irreplaceable. Come on. I mean, just because they've had some combat experience and been in the for, you know, several years doesn't mean that they necessarily have any greater long term strategic understanding or knowledge than somebody who's come up and hasn't served that way. Why should we be concerned about those things? And doesn't Pete Hexeth have a point when he looks back at some of the people who served the high levels of the Biden administration and say, yeah, you know what, they were pretty woke. You know, this was a very politically correct fighting force with a politically correct leadership. Isn't it good that we're at least getting rid of those, if not all of these people, these others?
- [17:25]
B
Well, so combat experience in and of itself should not necessarily be taken as a value that makes someone superior or less of a capable leader in the military or otherwise. There is such a thing as just participation where you weren't necessarily a good leader. I firmly believe Secretary and previously General Austin was a disaster and he had extensive experience. He's probably a good man, I guess, but he made some pretty disastrous decisions, both as the multinational force in Iraq commander, as the CENTCOM commander, and ultimately as the Secretary of Defense. He was not a good commander. He was not a good leader. He was not a good secretary, but he had extensive experience. Additionally, as I say in the piece, the military is designed to lose people suddenly and without warning. Every leader can be replaced for that purpose. Everyone has a deputy or somebody ready to fleet into the wings in the event of a sudden loss. And that's built around the nature of combat, that leaders die suddenly and other people come in to replace them. You are correct. No one is irreplaceable. But in aggregate, we are losing vast swaths of leadership, and that is not necessarily irreplaceable, but it is putting us at a disadvantage that we don't need to endure. We are choosing to endure this disadvantage and build it in for what purpose? Just so that Secretary Hadseth can get people surrounding him to tell him more about what he wants to hear about himself rather than some of the hard truths he needs to hear about what we are doing to prepare for the next conflict or the next threat of conflict. He also, by the way, as I mentioned in the piece, it's not just the generals. He is reaching further down to levels of leadership and command within the army, specifically well across the services that are trying to reshape the nature of officership. It's not just generals. It's the field grade officers, the majors, the lieutenant colonels, the colonels that he is trying to make more into a force that represent him. He is empowered. Stu Scheller, who you may remember as a Marine officer who went made a video critical of President Biden and critical of Marine leadership about the withdrawal from Afghanistan, basically did what we just saw the Air Force major do in front of the steps of the Capitol last week, but did it against the Biden administration and was subsequently court martialed and relieved for that. But that person now with an axe to grind, has been impaneled to review how we do officer promotions and command selections. He's impaneled a committee to look at how the war colleges educate senior leaders, colonels who might later fleet up to become generals, and primarily looking to purge the war colleges of what he defines as wrong think. So he is trying to create a cultural shift in the way the mid grade leaders who will later be the senior leaders are selected and chosen for command. So the effects of this are not just those that will endure throughout the remainder of the Trump administration. The leaders who are being selected to be battalion commanders now will be the general officers in 10 years time and they are the only pool that we will have available to select those general officers. So those that he is, you know, putting his finger on the scale to select today are going to have effects for our military for the next 10 years and potentially 20 years.
- [20:43]
A
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- [21:53]
C
living room as Doug eyes up the match. Say spread. He's reaching for the buffalo wing. Perfect. Hang on. What's this? Oh, he's gone for a can of Pepsi too. Incredible. What a finish. Sensational combination. Look at the delight on his face. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a pack of Pepsi. Zero sugar for today's match. It's poetry in motion.
- [22:24]
A
And we're back. You're listening to the Dispatch podcast. Let's jump in. Kevin, I want to bring you in on this. You have a terrific piece that we published on July 3rd. 3rd Viva Le France was not what I was expecting from Kevin Williamson as a celebration of America's 250th, but it was characteristically wise and extraordinarily well written. And I want to read just two paragraphs of that. There's nothing that brings me quite such delight as reading Gavin Williamson aloud. I don't do it often, but I will do it here. Americans sometimes talk like we are the only people in the free world who will fight, forgetting, if we ever knew, that. To take one example of many, Canada's losses, proportional to its population, were about nine times those of the United States in World War I, and that Canada was in it before we were the Canadians were there in World War II. They fought alongside Americans in Korea, stood with us in the Gulf War in 1991, flew missions alongside Americans over Kosovo. The British have been just as steadfast, if not more so, when much of the rest of the world was walking sideways away from the United States on the eve of the Iraq invasion, the British stepped up, 45,000 personnel in all, including 26,000 ground troops. The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards may sound quaint to the American ear, but they showed up in tanks and fought the biggest armored battle UK forces had seen since World War II. Please do go lecture those brave soldiers about Being, quote, freeloaders on US power, we didn't get to 250 by ourselves. There have been times when the United States has carried the world on its back and times when the United States has been borne up by our friends and allies. We never forget when it's been us doing the heavy lifting. But we are at times shamefully forgetful of what others have done for us. You open the piece by looking at the French and make the argument that we would not be at 250 without the French. What compelled you to write that piece at this time, which was mostly a celebration of us?
- [24:36]
D
I spent an evening with a Lafayette impersonator.
- [24:41]
A
Okay.
- [24:42]
D
I did. Yeah. So you all know our mutual friend Ellen Carmichael, and she had a 250 party week or so ago or two weeks ago. And her company's called the Lafayette Company. She's from Louisiana, and she's a French background, and so she's particularly attuned to that sort of thing. And one of the. Part of the entertainment was this actor whose name I'm blanking on suddenly, but one of his jobs is he. He performs as the Marquis de Lafayette at Mount Vernon and other places. And, you know, the French consul general was there and the head of the Franco American Chamber of Commerce and some other people. And I just felt a little bit bad about my country, honestly, thinking about the history that our countries have together and the way we talk about our European allies in general and the French in particular sometimes. And Americans are shortsighted historically, for good reasons. It's actually part of what's good about our national characters because we are very optimistic and always thinking about right now and the future. We don't have 500-year-old grievances the way a lot of our European friends do.
- [25:42]
B
Or.
- [25:43]
D
I remember when I. When I first moved to India and I was learning about the controversy with that mosque that had been built on the side of an old Hindu temple, and there was going to be a fight about, you know, tearing that down. I was like, when did this. Like, when did this happen? 1273 or something like that long. It was a long time ago. And I was thinking, you know, guys, you kind of get over that. But there is something to be said for having a long historical memory, too, I think, particularly when it points you in the direction of things like gratitude and remembering your friends and allies and what they've done for you over the years. You know, this. We're talking about the. The question whether people are replaceable. And, of course, you know, I'm not a, not a military guy, but people are, are replaceable. But that doesn't mean that you've got necessarily as good a replacement waiting in the wings. And you know, you think about who is the next guy after Dwight Eisenhower to be the leader of our military forces in, in World War II. I'm sure he was great. Whoever he was, whoever would have stepped in there. But there's a particular, you know, set of skills and values and principles and I think in particular kinds of talents that you hear in certain people. And I was thinking about him as an example. Of course, I'm an Eisenhower nerd, as you all know, but a guy without combat experience for one thing, but who had other kinds of experience that were very, very, very important. And when he, when he died, you know, he had thought a lot about his, his funeral. He knew he was going to lay in state because he'd been President of the United States and all that. And he didn't want to go out like Napoleon. And in contrast to people like Pete Hegseth, who are these, you know, swaggering doofuses, he saw to it that he was displayed in a, in a standard issue pine coffin in a field jacket. And the only decorations he wore were his World War II service medal and the Legion of Merit from the French. And he kind of, as I understand it, didn't really want to wear anything other than the World War II Service Medal, but he thought that not worrying the Legion of Merit would received as an insult to the French. And he had spent so much time doing this difficult political work of keeping de Gaulle and Churchill and Roosevelt and everyone on the same page that he didn't want to mess it up in his final public act of his funeral by issuing an unintentional insult to the French at that time. The question I think of gratitude, I think is tied up with the question of self respect in some ways. And when I was reading, reading Mike's piece, I kept thinking about my off stated here. And he probably wishes I would stop using this as an example. But my David French theory about why David French drives certain people crazy. And it's that, you know, he embodies a lot of the things these people pretend to be. You know, David is probably the least swaggering guy any of us know. But he's also, you know, a guy who went to Harvard Law, was a big time corporate litigator, gave that up to fight for free speech rights and freedom of religion, who went through basic training at 36 years old to go fight. And you Know, married a pretty girl, raised a nice family, can hold his bourbon. He's that kind of guy. But he doesn't walk around, he doesn't post videos of himself doing bench presses on TikTok. And I think that Hegseth, who had a lot going for him in life, you know, he's a Princeton guy, went to Harvard Business School. He's smart, pretty, handsome guy. He ended up becoming a cable news clown and a drunk and a guy who now works for a game show host who doesn't know what he's doing. And I think that he looks at these guys, Donahue and people like that and they have to just shame him personally a little bit because that clearly is the sort of person that he aspired to be and maybe would have been if you'd made some other choices in life. And I can relate to that. There are people I look at all the time and I think if I hadn't made some really dumb decisions in life, my life would be more like that. And I admire that in this person. And maybe I'm a little bit envious of them and maybe it would drive me crazy if I let it drive me crazy. But that's a normal human failing. But we're making big policy decisions based on these normal human failings. And that kind of, that sort of sour self centeredness makes, makes one, makes one ungrateful. Which isn't just a moral failing. It's also a failing of understanding where your long term are. And we have a big investment in Europe not just because we like the Europeans, because we a lot of history together, or because our country has European origins, because they're part of our interests going forward, both economic interests, national security interests. A stronger Europe is better for the United States and better for the world than a weaker one is. And there are ways we can go about improving that. Not to say that there's not freaking room for improvement over there. Obviously these guys have a lot of work they need to do on a lot of things and the smarter of them understand this and know it. But to take the sort of sneering, condescending attitude and treating them as freeloaders and free riders and all that kind of stuff is just nuts. And it's one last thing here because it's, it comes up. It's one of these cliches that just needs to be killed. The idea that the Europeans were able to afford these big European welfare states because they relied on the US to do their national security for them. They didn't pay for these welfare states by redirecting national security spending. They have really high taxes, and they've had lots of missed economic growth and lots of misdynamism. Because of that, they pay a very, very high economic price for their welfare states. It's the reason the UK is half as wealthy as the United States is now. And Germany's GDP per capita is only, what, 60% of ours? 65% of ours. Something like that. If that's what it looks like to be a sneaky freeloader and get one over on Uncle Sam. They're the worst people in the world at it, because they are not thriving the way they should be. And I. I hope that something will eventually kick them in their collective ass and wake them up. But even though the Russian war in Ukraine doesn't seem to have quite got them there yet.
- [31:07]
A
Well, they're getting closer, I think, because. Because of that and because that's. That's closer.
- [31:11]
D
Yeah.
- [31:12]
A
How much, Kevin, how much do you think this is tied up in. And I'm thinking here specifically of the piece that you wrote, but also, as you point out, is very closely related to the. The argument that Mike made. How much of this is tied up? Not in broad strategic thinking or even, you know, different ways of assessing, you know, the best path for the country's security or the things that. That we ought to do to protect ourselves or to save our money or what have you, but it's just tied up in, really, notions of identity and how we think about masculinity. And I say that in some reflecting. You know, I open my question to you by making sort of a joke about France. Well, I remember back in the days of the months in the lead up to the war in Iraq, France was a pain in the ass.
- [32:01]
D
They can be insufferable.
- [32:02]
A
They were making frustrating arguments at the time and seeming to sort of showboat about it. And you remember there was this push for. For freedom fries rather than French fries. And I look back on that and
- [32:18]
D
not the finest moment in the history of American rhetoric. I don't.
- [32:21]
A
Speaking of quaint. Yeah, I mean, it was.
- [32:23]
D
That wasn't Frederick Douglass.
- [32:26]
A
I understood it at the time. You know, it was like, oh, gosh, they're defining themselves sort of in opposition to us. And there was this sense that the United States didn't need the French. Now, George W. Bush's coalition of the willing looks like, you know, kumbaya diplomacy compared to what we've seen from. From Donald Trump. But how much of this is tied up in notions of masculinity? And the kinds of things that we see from Pete Hagseth which continue from his days as the morning host on Fox and Friends.
- [32:56]
D
Yeah, I think it varies by person. Obviously. You know, Trump, obviously, I think, I don't think even a lot of his admirers would deny that he's a man who's driven by his personal psychology and his personal stuff in life, let's just say, rather than any grand theory of anything. Although, you know, the United States, because we are sort of short sighted and we are vulnerable to national resentment, I think it often causes us to overlook where our real interests lay. Like, you know, if we were a country that really understood its own national interests, you know, in 40 years ago, there would have been essentially a Marshall Plan for Mexico. You know, we've had this problem with Mexicans coming across the border illegally to work in the United States for a long time. We've understood that this is an issue. It's a problem having a poor, badly governed country on your border. And there are ways to work on that. There are ways to improve that as a country. But mostly what we've done is these kind of small, petty, resentment driven things. Well, let's just build a higher fence or treat it as mainly a cartel and drug problem rather than as a larger international economic development problem. Because we feel like we would somehow be being played for suckers if we spent the trillion dollars or whatever it would have cost to turn that around without understanding how much better we off we would be if we had two Canadas instead of a Canada and a Mexico. I think that's a lot of our, our national psychology. So part of our, our style of politics tends to elevate these people who are driven by weird personal demons. You know, it's. And some of those people are very capable people. You know, Richard Nixon's an example of this. A guy who was very smart, patriotic, intelligent, understood diplomacy, understood our national interest in a lot of ways, but was still driven by these, you know, kind of weird demons and insecurities that he had in a lot of ways that it made his presidency end in catastrophe. The more I think about it, the more we move away from it, the more I miss that kind of, for all of its problems, that old fashioned, you know, WASP, George H.W. bush Country Club, New England Republican leadership culture. You had people who were raised essentially and cultivated for these positions of leadership. They were taught about duty and humility and modesty and self sacrifice and all these things that came with a lot of bad things too. And this including a sense of entitlement to political power on the part of this class of people, in the sense, among other classes of people, that they were shut out or they didn't have an equally fair shot. But there is something to having a culture that has, for lack of a better word, a cast of people who are raised for these kinds of jobs. Because even though that's not the perfect way to do it, you think about what the alternative is. The alternative is really celebrity, which is what we see right now. And it's not just Donald Trump, it's other people who are essentially celebrity style candidates who are rising to power in both of the parties. You know, AOC is an example of that. The new mayor of New York's an example of that. I think that some of these Democratic socialists who are coming up through the Democratic ranks are examples of that in many ways, where you're not talking about people who are intellectually or politically serious, who haven't had any particular experience or training, who don't have the right kinds of, you know, sensibilities and personalities for this kind of stuff. But they're good at social media, they're good at, you know, doing pull ups on TikTok videos if you're Pete Hexf. And the pull ups bother me, I guess a little bit because it's like, you know, I feel really good if I can do three, you know, like three pull ups. Feels like I've had a real. I'm on fire if I can do three. So I'll admit some envy and insecurity there of my own. But yeah, I think that it's. When you're thinking about the trade offs, about you doing things this way versus that way, there's a tendency to think that the ideal version of my preferred way of doing things is better than the real world version of your way of doing things, if you've experienced it. But that's not the actual choice. The choice is between two likely realities. And as we've gotten rid of this kind of old capital E establishment way of doing things, what's replaced it has been, you know, Kardashianism. And I don't think Kardashianism is, is a good way to run a republic.
- [37:03]
B
You know, when we talk about identity, you know, I think a lot of this is also born out of complete misunderstanding of French identity and our historical stereotypes about them. You know, there's the running joke that the French are cheese eating surrender monkeys. And that's born out of, you know, the one example of Marshal Petain being, you Know, basically a traitor and leading the Vichy government after German conquest in
- [37:25]
D
if only we had someone close by we could blame for popularizing the phrase cheese eating. Surrender monkeys.
- [37:31]
B
Did. Did someone do that?
- [37:33]
D
It's what you get for taking the day off. Jonah Goldberg.
- [37:35]
A
That's right.
- [37:37]
B
They are, in fact, an incredibly Marshall culture, you know, dating back to the Hundred Years War, through the. The 16 and 1700s, all the way through Napoleon.
- [37:46]
D
And, you know, people forget Charlemagne, for that matter.
- [37:49]
B
True. And Charles Martel, the defender of the West. People forget that. If you ever have the opportunity to go to the American World War I museum in Kansas City, highly recommend it. But the thing that I took away from there, the one memory I had was there's this wall where they have painted these bars, and there's the number of men that were mobilized to fight the war. And then up that bar is a black bar on that gray one that shows how many of them were casualties. The French mobilized 8.5 million men to fight the war and took 4.5 million casualties. You were more likely to be a French casualty than not during World War I. There's a picture that Admiral Stavitas used to show in talks that I think it was the class of 1912 from St. Cyr, right, which was their military academy. And he showed it, and he said every one of these officers would be dead within four years. The French gave all. In World War War I, much of the French continued to fight as either resistance or Free French forces in World War II. The French that fought in Indochina in the aftermath in their colonial wars, for right or wrong, people remember that Dan Bien Phu was a defeat. People don't remember that after Dien Bien Phu was a lost cause, French paratroopers were continuing to jump in to hold the line, knowing that they were going to lose, but because their comrades were under threat. And the French have been with us actually through much of this. The global war on terror was much more than Iraq and Afghanistan. And if you look at the counterterrorism efforts in West Africa, that has largely been led by French sof. Another thing that we forget is the French have often been left holding the bag with us. You know, in the aftermath of the Beirut bombing in 1983, they thought they were gonna respond, and we decided not to. When President Obama famously laid out the red line to strike in reaction to Syrian use of chemical weapons, the French expelled a great deal of political capital to get their government on board to be ready to respond as part of a coalition. And then we decided not to so it's not entirely the French who are opposed to the use of force, and they've been allies with us, obviously, in OIR and, well, as in Afghanistan. So I oppose absolutely the idea that the French are opposed to combat or conflict when the opposite is historically true.
- [40:03]
D
Yeah.
- [40:04]
A
Before we take an ad break, please consider becoming a member of the Dispatch. You'll unlock access to bonus podcast episodes and all of our exclusive newsletters and articles. You can sign up@thedispatch.com join and if you use the promo code roundtable, you'll get one month free. And speaking of ads, if they aren't your thing, you can upgrade to a premium membership, no ads, early access to all episodes, two free gift memberships to give away, exclusive town halls with the founders, and much, much more. Okay, we'll be right back. Welcome back. Let's return to our discussion. So let's broaden this out a little bit. I mean, I think if you look at the ways that our leaders, and I'm including here, J.D. vance, Pete Hegseth, the president himself, the ways that they speak about our longtime allies, even more recent allies, there is sort of this overwhelming sense of disdain almost because they are our allies and previous generations of American leaders have treated them as such. That's part of the break. This is part of the Trump brand, is to say they used to work with these allies. I am no longer going to do this. And you saw this reflected in the private signal chat messages that were revealed when the Atlantic came out. And J.D. vance and Pete Hegseth, both Pete Hegseth actually referred to European freeloading. He called it pathetic. He said to J.D. vance, I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It's pathetic. J.D. vance was suggesting that the US not take certain steps to protect the Suez Canal because he hates bailing Europe out. Again, there's a serious policy argument that is kind of, I think, sometimes buried in there. And Kevin, you made reference to it earlier that our European allies in particular have taken advantage of US Strength, US projection of power, US protection of common interests. But I think there's actually something to some of those arguments that doesn't feel like what this is, though. This feels like a much more sort of visceral disdain. And the question I have for both of you is, can we recover from this? I mean, we are actively sort of embarrassing allies, challenging allies, treating allies with scorn, down, talking allies. And I think after the first Trump administration, when many of these same things took place, our allies looked around and said, okay, that was this one time American mistake.
- [42:43]
C
Whew.
- [42:43]
A
We're glad we're done with that. And then Trump was reelected and we're doing this again. And a question that I've gotten from European friends, I think I've told the story about appearing on Danish public television. I got this question from the interviewer there, said, we always thought that America was the good guy. And then you did this again to us. How do we recover from this? And to what extent will this kind of rhetoric continue to be important in a Republican primary? Kevin, I'll start with you.
- [43:16]
D
Yeah, I think that it is worth emphasizing that as in, as in all things related to foreign policy, that we need to look at this from our own point of view and from the point of view of our own interests. And how you talk about other countries really does matter in important and practical ways, and being mindful of their national pride, their sense of honor, our shared histories, that kind of stuff, it provides real, tangible benefits. And if you are the steely eyed realist that these people always are pretending to be, it might be worth appreciating that it doesn't cost much. You know, it's a pretty easy way to get yourself some buy in from allies who maybe don't agree with you on every jot and tittle, maybe don't see their interest exactly the way you see your interests. Maybe their interests in real terms aren't exactly aligned with yours. But there is this sense that, you know, we are in this thing together and we have been in it together for a long time, that the free world is something that means something and it's not permanent. And it has been defended at really critical and urgent moments by all of us together. That stuff really, really matters. And it can matter as much as how many, you know, aircraft carriers you have and how many of this kind of division or that kind of division you can put in the field. These things really can make a huge difference when it comes to other national leaders who also are elected, who have to go to their people and say, we're going to ask you for blood money to do this thing that the United States needs help with, or where we see our interests as being partly aligned, maybe fully aligned, maybe not quite fully aligned. We have to think about how that plays out, too. And one of the easier ways to influence a country politically is to have the relationship there extant and in good standing before the moment of crisis. You know, trying to persuade, whether it's the UK or the French or the whole European Union or the Canadians or our neighbors to the south, that we need their cooperation with X, Y, or Z. It's a lot easier to do that if you've been laying the groundwork for 20 years beforehand. You've got these relationships that they feel good about, that they feel like even though our interests sometimes depart, we're all basically on the same page, that we see ourselves as part of a community of nations that are working together towards certain shared principles and goals and outcomes, that you're not just someone who shows up, oh, we've got a problem now, and we've been talking trash about you for the last 10 years, but here we are. And we're not going to come to you hat in hand, because we're the United States and we don't do that sort of thing. But you better do what we want or there's going to be trouble afterward. You can do that once or twice, but you can't really do it indefinitely. Much as we like to, you know, laugh at the Europeans, and as weak as they are militarily right now and economically in many ways, too, these are real countries with real resources they've been around for a long time. The Germans ever decide to get their act together, The Germans have a lot to use to get their act together with. The French have a lot of resources to throw at French problems. The UK have a lot of resources to throw at British problems. And they don't necessarily need the United States. They got along perfectly fine just without us for a long, long time. And there are things they can do to get along just fine without us now if they really have to. That's not the optimal outcome for us or for them, but it's possible for them to do so. One of the reasons we should treat them with respect is because they've earned it and they deserve it. They're real countries with real resources, real histories, real capabilities. And, you know, this is not some, you know, television game show where someone, you know, gets buzzed out at the end.
- [46:46]
B
This is not how this works, Mike.
- [46:48]
A
We saw what Kevin's describing in real time, sort of in a compressed timetable, in the debates and discussions over the Strait of Hormuz, where the President said repeatedly and in public, we don't need your help. We don't want your help. We got it. We can control it. And then as soon as we ran into some trouble, he chastised our European allies for not being good European allies and saying, this matters more to you than it does for us. Where are you? He's picked fights with virtually every one of our European allies on the Strait of Hormuz. Is there a country? And I'll ask this question to both of you and then we'll move on to not worth your time. Oddly related in an unintentional way. Is there a either bilateral relationship or a broad institutional relationship that is stronger today with an ally or with an allied, a group of allied countries that is stronger today than it was at the beginning of the second Trump administration? Mike?
- [47:50]
B
Short answer is no, but there's a longer answer. So as you point out, the president, it's not new that he has looked at some of our alliances in a transactional nature. And that goes back to Trump. One, he is complaining about NATO spending, wondering what we were getting out of it. And if other people weren't spending in, why should we contribute to NATO or provide for Article 5 common defense if challenged? I think what you're seeing that's different now is added to that same transactional nature. And we've seen the president, as you said, with the frustration over Iran or the fight with Iran. Sometimes he confuses, I think, the eu, NATO and the component countries within them. So he's taking out his anger directed towards Italy and Spain, at NATO as a whole. Why didn't NATO show up or why didn't NATO allow us to use our bases when in fact, fact it was two countries acting unilaterally, exercising their decisions as sovereign nations? But on top of that, what you also see now is this new added component of advancism where partner countries and allies aren't assessed based on our common interest to defeat or deter a foe. Who is going to provide us the greatest deterrent against Russia or China, et cetera. It's how much they're willing to adopt these cultural fights internally that the vice president and others seem so focused on. It's why the vice president went to the mat to campaign for Viktor Orban, who was in the pocket of our greatest strategic ally, or I'm sorry, adversary on the European continent, but was willing to punish minorities and suppress free speech. So that was of greater value to the vice president than standing up to Russia. And we can see right now that probably our greatest ally on the European continent in terms of of deterrence to Russia, Poland, who is number one leading the way in defense spending as a proportion of gdp. Among all NATO allies, we're only number six. We're actually behind Denmark, slightly behind Denmark as a proportion of our spending. You know, who the president and others like to say are freeloaders. But Poland is reforming their capabilities, increasing the size of their defense and military standing up to Russian aggression and prepared to be the front line of, of NATO against that. And yet we have announced that we're withdrawing some of our support forces that are there. And despite initial claims that it was just a revisit of how forces are going to rotate in there, we have not announced a return of those forces. And we're going to do this six month review and probably see that Poland is going to get less, if not nothing to assist in that. So I think that to your earlier question about whether this is going to be part of republicanism going forward, forward, I think the real question is what the future of the party is. If Vance represents the future of republican foreign policy where it is small, transactional, internally focused, mainly culturally based, then I think this is going to be a problem. And as you pointed out, or I'm sorry, I think it was, Kevin pointed out, yes, the Europeans are finding ways to support themselves without us. They are looking at the potential for a post America European that is not good for us. It is not good for them and it is good for the Russians and others who would, who would seek to influence the European continent for the worse.
- [50:56]
D
You know who it'll be good for if they survive is the Ukrainians. Yeah, I'm not. Mike has not talked about Theodorchism so far, so I'm not going to step too deeply into Mike's territory. But one of the things I think is a pretty well established historical pattern is that you get good at fighting by fighting. And the Ukrainians have learned a lot in the last few years and they have become very, very good at doing a lot of the things that modern warfare requires that other countries don't have nearly as much experience with. And whether that's drones or kind of seat of your pants, defense production stuff, logistics things, they've become very, very good at a lot of this stuff. And if, as I think will happen, they ultimately come out of this in decent national shape, they're going to end up being an important defense provider for the rest of Europe and maybe for the rest of the world. To answer your actual question, people will probably write into me and correct me about this. But I think if there is a country that we have a healthier bilateral relationship with than we did 10 or 12 years ago, you might make a case for Japan maybe, but not an enormously persuasive one, I don't think. But I think the Japanese increasingly see the world in similar ways to us in that they're very China focused and they don't really blame us so much for our mercantilism because they're kind of practitioners of it themselves in many ways. And so they're not, they're not getting too, too offended by that stuff. I think that is a very important relationship that needs to be invested in though. And the irresponsible part of me often thinks that if you really want to change like the geopolitical math for the next 30 years going forward, just kind of let the Japanese off the chain a little bit and say, you know, it wouldn't be the worst thing if you guys had some nuclear weapons. You know, we're not, we're not super pro proliferation, but yeah, we kind of trust the Japanese and let's give the Chinese something to worry about in their own backyard for the next 30 years and let them just see how they like that. I think that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to do, but I'm not a great geopolitical thinker.
- [52:51]
A
Well, we will move on to are not worth your time today. And as I said, it is somewhat related. We are recording this late morning, Monday, July 6th. The United States will World cup team plays tonight at 8pm against Belgium in a game that will determine who goes to the quarterfinals. It would be quite an accomplishment for the US Men's team to make it to the quarterfinals as I recall. I think it only happened in 2002 and then once before in the 1930s or something. And there has been a lot of excitement around this US men's team and sort of surprisingly widespread excitement about the World cup in general that I didn't anticipate when I am pushed you all with a question on the eve of the World Cup a few weeks ago. But as often happens there is now controversy and it happened over the weekend, but actually it happened before the weekend, but it was accelerated and made larger over the weekend. For those who haven't been following in the United States last game one of the best players on the US team got a red card which meant that he was ejected from the game and received an automatic suspension for the next game, which would be the game Monday night. The call for which he was ejected was I think an objectively horrible call. The referee got it wrong. They improperly used VAR V A R which is sort of video reference to watch the play in question in slow motion. And in slow motion there was a tackle that looked a lot worse in slow motion than it looked in real time. And the official, the referee on the field kicked our player out and he had this automatic suspension. There is no appeals process. And while there was lots of justified complaining over, over the past few days about this call and about this injustice, there wasn't much discussion about reversing it, because that doesn't happen in the World Cup. However, apparently immediately after the ejection of this player and the suspension for the game tonight, Donald Trump and his team began launching a sort of side campaign, I guess we would call it, to have FIFA, the governing body, reverse this call. And Andrew Giuliani, Rudy Giuliani's son, who's the the head of the White House task force on the World Cup. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who has apparently established deep ties with the FIFA governing body. And President Trump himself, the recent recipient of the first time ever FIFA Peace Prize, after he did not get the Nobel Peace Prize, began working the foams. And on Sunday, much to the surprise of everyone and to the horror of European governing bodies, UEFA and Belgium in particular, the team we're playing tonight, the player was reinstated and told that he couldn't fact play tonight. This is Flo Balogun. He's arguably our best player. Christian Pulisic is probably our best player. Baligan's been very good in this World Cup. We would have been in worse shape had he not been able to play tonight. It is not the case, as many people on the left have claimed that the United States couldn't beat Belgium without him. We certainly could beat Belgium without him, but it'll be an advantage to have him back. The Belgians are pitching a fit, the Europeans are pitching a fit. And it's fair to say that the sort of soccer world globally looks at this and sees this as Donald Trump influencing the decision of FIFA. And my question to you. I'll start with you, Mike. What do you do now if you're the coach of the US Men's team, presumably you play this player who's been allowed to play. Do you celebrate that you have him back because what the president and his team did was overturn what was clearly a bad call and an unjust result before or do you lament the fact that the president and his team created an appeals process where there wasn't any and seems to have thumbed the scales to get this player back?
- [57:25]
B
Well, I'm just happy that the president and Howard Lutnick have engaged in corruption on behalf of the country for once as opposed to in individually. So that's, that's, you know, let's take our wins where we can give them. FIFA is a notoriously corrupt organization across the board. You know, we should not. The whole world is playing Captain Renault acting shocked, shocked to find out that they would, you know, be swayed by political influence when they, you know, were swayed by bribes and political influence to award the last World cup to Qatar. In fact, while I would never recommend listening to any other podcast beside one offered by the Dispatch, if one is going to stray, there's one called Lords of Soccer, hosted by my college classmate Connor Powell, all about the corruption that went into the last World Cup. So it's a notoriously corrupt organization and they did seem to sway or be influenced by the political pressure that was exerted on them. Now, part of the problem is FIFA's corrupt and has arbitrary rules. This rule is actually not as unique as people seem to think it is. So it goes back, as you said, there is no mechanism to overturn a red card. So the red card has been awarded. But there has been, since 2019, been a rule that allows the organization to withhold the suspension of gains or the disciplinary action that comes with things.
- [58:38]
A
Suspend the suspension, in effect. Yes.
- [58:40]
B
Correct. Correct. Basically, hold it in abeyance. And this is not the first time this World cup that it was used. Cristiano Ronaldo was actually received a red card and a three game suspension during the qualifiers. So back in November, he elbowed an Irish player in the back, received a red card, was ejected from the game, and was supposed to be suspended for three games. This same rule was enacted to allow Ronaldo to play once he arrived here in North America. So what we're seeing is FIFA absolutely, like the NBA is often accused, will sway the rules based on how famous someone is or how much that's good for viewership. So, and that seems to be in addition to the political pressure that was put on them in this case, what played out here. So the Europeans are to a certain extent entitled to be upset that the rules are applied arbitrarily. But at the same time, FIFA is largely their creation that has been applying the rules arbitrarily throughout. Now, I'm pretty sure all of us here at some point in time have wrongly been accused of Trump derangement syndrome. And I have seen some people who, because the president weighed in and put his fingers on the scale, they are opposed to rooting for our team or anyone who suggests that this was a righteous outcome. I think that's, you know, that's getting letting your political taint skew your perspective on things that are happening. As far as we know, the team didn't ask for this. Logan himself did not ask for this, but this happened. This is the ruling. I think that the coach should play as though he's going to win, play all his players as he would normally. And I think the best possible outcome is that we beat Belgium without a single goal or goal scored by him. That's probably the only way this ever comes to resolution. Although you can never, you know, say if he would have influenced it otherwise.
- [60:30]
A
Kevin, I know you're not watching the World cup, but have you followed this controversy at all? And where do you come out?
- [60:38]
D
I gotta tell you, I'm on the struggle bus here a little bit. I'm having a little challenge, and I'm gonna spill a little tea here, some inside Dispatch stuff. So every now and then, I'll get a note from my immediate supervisor at the Dispatch, who always writes to me like I'm a potential mass shooter. You know, it's always this very polite and sort of gingerly. And the most recent one was, could you please recalibrate the what would Steve Hayes do? Setting on your profanity filter and try to dial it back a little bit? Because, you know, we want to keep this certain kind of, you know, tone that Steve wants to have. And I always try to be cooperative with that sort of thing because I'm basically a team player. But for the second time in two podcasts, you're trying to get me to talk about soccer, Steve Hayes, and I'm having trouble managing my vocabulary at this moment. So as a compromise, what I'm going to do is not talk about soccer.
- [61:36]
A
You're going to talk about Trump. You can talk about leaning in on the. On FIFA, on corruption, any of those things. Actually, I kind of concerned that our European ally. You're pro Europe now. We've established that over the course of the past 55 minutes. Our European allies are outraged here. Kevin, do you share their outrage?
- [61:56]
D
Well, I was kind of hoping that implied exclamation point would be where we ended the podcast this time around, but since Steve wants to milk the joke here a little bit, let's just keep going. You know, the thing about this sort of thing is that everything Trump touches gets befouled and besmirched, and it doesn't matter what it is. And there's just, like, David Foster Wallace has this great line about alcoholics of the sort who've been drinking so much that on any given day, it doesn't really matter whether they've actually been drinking. They're just sort of, like, diminished. And Trump is so corrupt and so banal and so petty that One should just safely assume the worst about these kinds of situations. And even if you don't personally assume the worst, it's pretty safe to assume that everyone else will assume the worst, because everyone else is possessed of eyes and ears and can read, and it is not as dumb as we always often think they are. So, yeah, it's kind of gross, I suppose, but I'd like to just reiterate here how much I don't care about it.
- [62:54]
A
All right, point taken. Point taken. Let the record show also that of the three of us, only one of us used an expletive on this podcast, and it wasn't of you. So I'm not. I'm not that uptight, although I sometimes can be. Look, I think the problem here is there was clearly an injustice with the initial call. Anybody who saw it understood that I have been consuming this. Unlike you, Kevin, I have been watching this. I've been following this. I've read everything I could get my hands on over the weekend. And I have heard precisely one person defend the original call that got our player a red card and got him suspended. And it was the Belgian ambassador. Yeah, right. It was some espn. Even the Belgians in, in their outrage about this, haven't defended the initial call. They've complained about the process. So I think, you know, in a sense, in sort of a global sense of justice, having Flo Baligan be available to play tonight is the right outcome. But it sucks how this happened. And it's not just that, people. You know, this was announced initially, and my first thought when the news broke Sunday, I think midday, was, I bet Trump, the recent recipient of the FIFA Peace Prize, had something to do with this, because the initial report was just, Flo Baligan reinstated. He is going to play. And my first thought was, I bet Donald Trump used his influence to make this happen. Whether it was these sort of mafioso, you know, nice little tournament you've got here, Gianni Infantino, who's the head of FIFA, or whether it was more direct. But of course, in a way that's, I think, typical of the way the Trump world operates, they immediately followed up and bragged about the fact that they had gotten together, this group of outside lawyers, and Howard Lutnick was involved. And Donald Trump called the head of FIFA and insisted that they revisit this decision and that they reverse it. So the Trump administration was going to brag about this either way, and it didn't. You know, we. Initially, I wasn't planning to talk about this because it was going to be speculative. Now we know that they actually did this. I guess I net out. I think your scenario, Mike, is probably the best one because I think now, no matter what happens, if the United States wins tonight and by the time most people are listening to this, will know the outcome or, you know, and if the United States continues its run, I mean, I think people expected them maybe to get this far. They're favored tonight against Belgium. But if they continue this run and they keep going, I think it will have an unmistakable taint about it. And that's unfortunate for the players. It's not the way that it should have been and it's not the way that it needed to be, even if it was correcting a bad injustice on the front end.
- [65:56]
B
Yeah, you, you, you point out he posted the president posted just this morning as we're recording this, right before we came on a video of, of the ref giving him the red card and then Balogan responding with a trump red card. So he's, he's, it's not even an attribution that we helped the legitimate rules play out. It's, they did this because I wanted to, you know, he's, he can't help but take credit for it and pointing to the corruption of it and.
- [66:22]
A
Yeah, and it might be right. I mean, and, you know, we spent 50 minutes talking about serious things and actual disregarding of allies or even sometimes shitting them. A lack of appreciation for allies. It's the kind, this is the kind of thing that actually might shape public sentiment more than anything else in Europe and elsewhere. Having said all that, go usmnt. That's US Men's National Team. Kevin for you.
- [66:52]
D
Creative name.
- [66:52]
A
Yeah, that's right. Look forward to resuming this conversation with you later this week, Kevin, when the first topic will be a detailed analysis of whether the US Team effectively used flow. Val.
- [67:07]
D
I'll be going on vacation.
- [67:11]
A
Thank you both and thank you all for listening. We will talk to you next time. And finally, if you like what we're doing here, you can rate, review and subscribe to the the show on your podcast player of choice to help new listeners find us. And as always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns or corrections, you can email us@roundtableispatch.com we read everything, even emails from people who still eat freedom fries. That's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in and thank you to the folks behind the scenes who made this episode possible. Noah Hickey and Peter Bonaventure, thanks again for listening. Please join us next time, Sa.