Richard Engel (3:07)

Okay, so let me set up the context because this happens to be. We have a home court advantage. This is our network. I work for NBC. And so people who don't work at NBC or don't live in the United States understand. So this program called Meet the Press is a very old program, goes back to 1947. It's the longest running show on network television in the United States. It was really one of the first shows founded after World War II. And the idea was that people in power, it's generally a Washington, D.C. based show, would Meet the Press. They would meet the moderator of this program once a week. It's a weekly show. And they would have a serious conversation about the weekly affairs. And it's been running since 1947. With very few hosts, with very few, they're called moderators. And there was a famous moderator, Tim Russert, who was kind of like the, one of the founders of the show, really made it a big deal. And now it's a woman named Kristen Welker, wonderful reporter, wonderful person, a great colleague, great host of the show. And she got this phone call with President Trump. She kept a, she recorded it. So there's a transcript, but it wasn't, wasn't on air. But it's an important show. That's why he would, you know, call in and, and want to be able to reach this D.C. audience. And they spoke at some length. And you, you could read the, the, the transcript. And he talked about, roughly speaking, Putin. I was angry and sort of interesting to hear him because he hasn't really expressed much anger with Putin. And we're starting to see this, that Putin, it's increasingly obvious that Putin is playing for time and it's playing Trump. And I think it's getting to him and it's getting to people around him that he's made, he's being embarrassed. He's made to look like a jerk by this. So you're seeing that he talked about Iran, he talks about a deal in Iran. It's, it's interesting that it was that front of my mind. I didn't know that that kind of negotiations were that far. And then he talks about this third term. He's like, no, I'm not joking. Which is every time it's been brought up by, by the, by journalists and it was brushed away by members of his staff or his, his supporters or his spokeswoman. No, no, he's just joking. Or that's, you know, metaphorical language. And he's saying, no, no, I'm not joking. And there are ways to do it. And we couldn't talk about some of those ways. And some of those ways are, you know, ways that other countries, including Putin have used before.

Yalda Hakim (5:29)

Yeah, I mean, Richard, I think, you know, we'll get into detail on that. But if we go back to Putin and what he said there about Vladimir Putin, I mean, you have spent the, I mean, we both spent the last few years in and out of Ukraine, but you've been going in a lot the last few weeks. And you know, the fact that after all of that, the blow up in the Oval Office, Volodymyr Zelenskyy being told off and publicly getting this dressing down, you know, and then him saying, okay, I'll agree to all the terms that you guys come up with, you know, even when you have this kind of colonial goal of wanting to extract our minerals, so we pay you back, even though, you know, you're an ally and we are taking on the Russians and dealing with this, the imperial goals of the Russians and the irony of that, that Donald Trump would try and extract their minerals. This needs to be transactional. We will give you whatever you need, bring this war to an end. And we will agree to all of those terms. Extraordinary. Now that, you know, a month or so after that, and you know, we kept talking about the fact that Donald Trump has maintained throughout the campaign, the presidential campaign, I'm gonna end this war in 24 hours. Well, how difficult is it to deal with a Vladimir Putin? And so of course he's angry in a moment where Vladimir Putin a joked about the fact that he held up Donald Trump and he joked publicly at a press conference last week and said, oh, you know, I kept him waiting and laughed.

Richard Engel (7:07)

Yes, that I'm sure didn't go unnoticed.

Yalda Hakim (7:11)

Or appreciated and he enjoyed that. But also in this moment, Richard, Vladimir Putin is leading the biggest drive of conscriptors into the Russian military. We know it's been a major crime. He's rounded up all. No, not North Koreans.

Richard Engel (7:32)

In addition to the, in addition to the North Korean, also sending more north Koreans.

Yalda Hakim (7:36)

Absolutely. 18 to 30 year old Russian men. He's saying we need to do this and we need to complete it by middle of July. Okay. So if you are talking peace and you want to do this peace quite quickly, we're talking middle of July. Yeah. While you're mobilizing and rounding up Russian men. So, of course.

Richard Engel (7:55)

Which is exactly what he said he didn't want Ukraine to do and why he said he could never agree to a ceasefire because maybe they're going to mobilize. So now he's calling about mass mobilization. Zelensky has played this remarkably well. His weak hand, he's playing it well. You know the, to change the metaphor here. Do you know the boxing strategy? Muhammad Ali used it? Rope a dope?

Yalda Hakim (8:18)

No, tell me.

Richard Engel (8:19)

He Rope a dope. It's a famous boxing sort of metaphor where Muhammad Ali was up against George Foreman, who was a bigger opponent, stronger, was gonna knock him out and probably would have knocked him out. Was a huge guy. George Foreman just passed away and Muhammad Ali had this strategy which he doubled. Rope it up. And he would just sort of take the blows and be moving so none of the blows would be devastating. And he just took a lot of punishment and tried to avoid anything that would knock him out until later in the fight. By then, George Foreman has tired himself out and he comes out with this phenomenal, sort of out of nowhere return. And Zelensky's strategy is a little bit by playing weak, you can expose your enemy's weaknesses and exhaust your enemy, or in this case, make your enemy make mistakes. And you read the, the, the, the transcript. Here's the quote. If you're in the midst of a negotiation, you could say I was very angry, pissed off with when Putin said yesterday that, you know, when Putin started getting into Zelensky's credibility because you're not going in the right direction, you understand? So he's, he was upset about a comment with Putin, but the fact that he says that Putin made about Zelinsky, but the important thing is he says, oh, he's pissed off about Zelensky. He's pissed off with Putin. And I think he's partly pissed off because Putin's made him look silly. And Zelensky says, I'll take your deal. You want a Black Sea deal? Fine, I'll take a Black Sea deal. You want a ceasefire on infrastructure? I'll take a ceasefire on infrastructure. You want a whole ceasefire? I'll take a whole ceasefire. That's fine with me sort of acquiescing to every possible demand. Rope a dope. Just do what you want. Fine, fine, fine. But the other guy, Putin is dragging his feet, is dragging his feet and now it's becoming increasingly obvious. So that's, it's an interesting tactic.

Yalda Hakim (10:11)

It is. Let's just have a listen to Donald Trump who was speaking about this very.

Richard Engel (10:15)

Issue, disappointed in a certain way some of the things that were said over the last day or two having to do with Zelensky. Because when he considers Zelensky not credible, he's supposed to be making a deal with it, whether you like it or you don't like it.

Yalda Hakim (10:31)

He sent a very clear signal to Vladimir Putin. And Vladimir Putin maybe did think that Donald Trump would be a useful idiot for him, but actually Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian people understand what Putin is and understand what his ambitions are. And so when you say that Volodymyr Zelenskyy has played this really well. He has, because he knows the enemy that he is dealing with. He understands the Russian psyche. He knows this is just not about his country, it's about Europe as a whole. And so that's why it's been quite extraordinary actually at different twists and turns, whether it's Signalgate. When we saw that chat group exposed, you know, the cabinet members, nobody got.

Richard Engel (11:14)

In trouble for that. Oh, that wasn't a war plan, you know, that was just, you know.

Yalda Hakim (11:17)

But also when we saw and heard Pete Hegseth describing, and JD Vance describing Europeans as pathetic and saying that, you know, we keep having to bail them out. The theme of that has continued with the Defense Secretary. I mean, there was a leaked memo, a guidance that he had put out to the Department of Defense saying that the Europeans don't and shouldn't rely on us to come to their aid should Russia mobilize. So I think increasingly the Europeans have a strong sense that that is happening. They're working to up their defence spending because this administration certainly in the first term and again in this term have set their eyes on China. They're moving away from Europe. They want to untangle themselves from Ukraine and focus on the great power rivalry with China and look at pressuring Taiwan, for example, to up their defense spending to 10% rather than the 3% that they're working on at the moment.

Richard Engel (12:21)

A lot.

Yalda Hakim (12:22)

Yeah, The Ukrainians, their GDP, I mean they, they, they, defense spending is at 26%. That's the ambition.

Richard Engel (12:29)

Right?

Yalda Hakim (12:29)

Because obviously they're.

Richard Engel (12:30)

Yeah.

Yalda Hakim (12:31)

So, you know, for the Europeans, we've talked about the mad scramble, the hair on fire, the fact that it's not just the rules based order and the world order that they've known collapsing around them, but within that, the reliance on the United States. They've made it very clear behind closed doors in these secret memos that have been leaked. This one by the Washington Post has seen it. The signal gate there, you know, what we saw there was, it wasn't just bravado in public. JD Vance making speech at Munich.

Richard Engel (13:04)

They really think nothing of Europe, which is, is different from that. I mean, maybe people thought that in private, but the, the us, you know, we, we were talking about Meet the Press being founded and in 1947, let's go back to that period. That's right after World War II, Europe was still a wreck. People were still putting their cities back together, trying to find, reunite loved ones, that that's when the US emerged as a superpower out of this, like sort of a phoenix or something. Out of this, out of the, the ashes. And it built its power on that alliance. The first thing it did was help rebuild Europe, not because it felt it was such a great idea, although maybe that was part of it. So that it would have an industrial partner, so it would have another democratic entity to deal with and trade with and make world peace with and collaborate with at the un. That was the function of sort of US policy post war and has been largely successful from the US's point of view and I think also from Europe's point of view. So to throw that away for what? What's the alternative?

Yalda Hakim (14:10)

I guess to throw away the biggest military and most powerful military alliance in history, NATO. And we saw the Europeans come to the aid of the United States after 9, 11, you know, they got entangled in Afghanistan. Afghanistan. They got reluctantly dragged into Iraq. And now when we're seeing war on the continent, the United States, this administration is saying, you can't rely on us, don't rely on us up your own spending. This is your own issue. He's constantly said there's an ocean between us. And now through these memos, through these leaked chat groups, we are seeing that actually, in fact, behind closed doors, you know, maga, America is no longer standing with its allies. We are seeing this split and this sort of focus towards China.

Richard Engel (15:06)

So you mentioned at the top, and maybe we should get to it now. The fact that he said that he's talking about a third term, that he's not joking about it, I think it's quite significant. I mean, it's him sending a message. Also, don't forget the context. He's speaking to Washington. You have in the UK an expression, what inside the M25, right? That's the, the highway around London. So everything, something is inside the M25. It deals with sort of London politics. In D.C. terms, it's called the Beltway because there's a beltway around Washington. So this is a beltway program. And he's saying to the Beltway program, yeah, I, I could run for another term after this. I think he's sending a message to, to the insiders in Washington. I'm here, I'm here to stay. Don't look for other people, don't look for potential successors. Don't think that Vance is going to take my shoe, take my role one day and fill my shoes. I'm here, I'm here for this whole full term and maybe another one after that.

Yalda Hakim (16:04)

We heard murmurings of it. Richard, in his first term, I remember, you know, a couple of years into his first term, he spoke about Xi Jinping, he's going to be leader for life. He abolished the two term limit. We know that he, you know, admires these strong men globally. And so he looks at what Vladimir Putin is doing, what Xi Jinping is doing, what the likes of Erdogan doing, you know, Recepte Erdogan of Turkey. But I just want to read you this exchange, as you say, with Kristen.

Richard Engel (16:38)

Please, please, please, it's important.

Yalda Hakim (16:40)

Presenter of Meet the Press. So she says, you know, so, but I don't hear you ruling like in a very serious way. Do you rule that out? Are you like, I can't serve a third term, it's unconstitutional. What's your think around that? Donald Trump says, a lot of people want me to do it, but, but we have, my thinking is we have a long way to go. I'm focused on the current. She then says, have you been presented with any potential plans that would allow you to serve a third term? He says, well, there are plans. There are not plans, there are, there are methods which you could do as, you know. Well, she says, basic, well, let me throw out one where President Vance would run for office and then would basically, if he won at the top of the ticket, would then pass the baton to you. And then he said, well, that's one. But there are others. There are others. She says, do you want to share that with me? He says, no, I mean, quite an extraordinary exchange that we're seeing. You know, sort of this is very much Allah Putin.

Richard Engel (17:38)

Yeah. You remind people what, what Putin did, because that's exactly what he did. He was, he couldn't run for, for president any longer, so he ran on the ticket with Medvedev. So you tell people it was an extraordinary thing. It was, it's become known among journalists as pulling a Putin.

Yalda Hakim (17:53)

Yeah, basically exactly that. You know, in a time where Russia was sort of had their own limits in terms of how long you could serve, Vladimir Putin put his prime minister at the time Medvedev in as president, put himself in as prime minister, and then they switched roles essentially. And this is basically what Donald Trump is alluding to.

Richard Engel (18:19)

That's one.

Yalda Hakim (18:20)

Kristen Welker basically asks him that and, you know, replaces the names with JD and, you know, himself and he says, I'm not ruling that method out. But also I think it's important to note that Trump, while we have heard him multiple times joke about it, now he says he's not joking about it and people are asking him to run a third term. This is what he says, not something he is currently thinking about. He says he's got a long, long way to go. They're very early on in this administration. It may feel to us like it's been a long time because so much has happened in the space of 70 plus days, but they do still have, you know, three and a half or so years to go and so four years to go. And so Donald Trump has said he's not thinking about it. And by the way, I mean, while it's unconstitutional, you know, there are multiple hoops that they would have to jump through to get anywhere near attempting to run a third term.

Richard Engel (19:22)

Yes, this is true, but it's, there is something of a precedent in the United States. We had a president after the Great Depression, fdr, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was elected for four terms. And the idea was the US Needed a, needed a New Deal, needed a, a new restructuring of society because the economy had collapsed so catastrophically. And then you had the Dust bowl with an environmental collapse on top of that. Things were so bad that you needed a president, a visionary who could last more than two terms.

Yalda Hakim (19:55)

And it wasn't until 1951 that they decided to put it into the Constitution, the 22nd Amendment, where they basically said that no president can serve beyond two terms.

Richard Engel (20:07)

It's extraordinary. Maybe it's time for a break. And when we come back, let's get into this. I still think from based on all the revolts that I've seen and political movements that I've seen, or even the start of revolts, you see a lot more activity than you are seeing currently in the United States. But that could be changing. Are Americans waking up to this political moment? Or are they still sort of screaming into the wind?

Yalda Hakim (20:36)

We'll have more after the break. Richard, Last week we spoke a lot about demonstrations around the world. We focused on the crackdown on protesters in Turkey, for example, over a thousand people rounded up. You know, it's something that Receptayer Erdogan does. It's something that he's followed over the course of the last 25 years. Every time there seems to be someone who could challenge his power. This time it was the Istanbul mayor. He locks them up and he locks up all of their supporters. A new generation emerged rallying around this particular mayor, and they've been thrown into prison. There's been a crackdown. We talked a lot about that. We also talked about the mobilization in Israel, where people have more or less gone back to October 6, where they were demonstrating against changes that, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to make to the constitution. And I've been interestingly monitoring the situation in Serbia where, again, you know, we've seen protesters rising up, hundreds of thousands of protesters rising up against President Vucic and the government over corruption allegations. And one of the things that emerged from that demonstration was this idea that they had used an illegal weapon, this sonic boom that can burst eardrums.

Richard Engel (22:22)

That was the government used against the protesters.

Yalda Hakim (22:24)

Against the.

Richard Engel (22:25)

They did a sonic boom to frighten people and hurt their eardrums.

Yalda Hakim (22:30)

It's exactly. It's outlawed, it's illegal. It's illegal against Serbian law. They're not even allowed to really possess it.

Richard Engel (22:38)

So, first of all, can I ask you how they. Maybe, you don't know, did they fly a plane above, do it, or have some sort of machine that makes.

Yalda Hakim (22:44)

Basically, the vision that we saw, it was mounted on a police car. And then there was this massive boom and the protesters sort of ran in fear. You see them scrambling in the footage.

Richard Engel (22:56)

Does it actually make a sonic boom or is just. It's just a very loud speaker, or does it.

Yalda Hakim (23:00)

It's almost like it sounds like a loud speaker, but. But enough to burst eardrums.

Richard Engel (23:06)

And more than just sound, it's a high velocity sound.

Yalda Hakim (23:09)

Exactly. And it is considered a weapon. And, you know, the United States owns it. It is outlawed across Europe. Serbian law doesn't allow you to use it, certainly not against the civilian population.

Richard Engel (23:21)

I've been in a lot of demonstrations. I've never had. I've seen sonic boons, you know, where the jets will fly overhead. That happened in Turkey. That happens, you know, or helicopters will buzz overhead, which, by the way, these are intimidating, scary things. But I haven't had. I haven't seen one where they flip on a speaker on a. On top of a van, and it allows, you know, some power. Audio is. Is put out. I've never seen that.

Yalda Hakim (23:42)

Thousands of people scrambling. And so I confronted the Serbian ambassador to the UK about this. I said, you flipped and flopped. Your government first said you didn't own one of these weapons. Then they said they have it, but it's kept in the national assembly, and they don't use it on the civilian population assembly.

Richard Engel (24:00)

So that, what, in case somebody was at the door, they would just, you know.

Yalda Hakim (24:05)

And suddenly vision appears all over the press of this thing mounted on a car. Let's just have a listen to that clip from the ambassador. This is an illegal device.

C (24:18)

Well, no, because it is present in so many countries.

Yalda Hakim (24:22)

I mean, if you know this under. It's prohibited under Serbian police law, the use of it.

C (24:29)

Well, it is a thing that. How to say was at that time, was not used. So that's the fact of today. If we will wait for the independent experts to come to see what happened, then we will. I repeat it, I am repeating, then we could continue this discussion.

Richard Engel (24:59)

So he's saying, well, it was illegal then, but we didn't need to use it then. So that was then. Yeah, but we didn't need to use it. You don't understand. And, you know, it's like the law means. Means nothing.

Yalda Hakim (25:10)

But, Richard, do you know who's investigating it for them? They've got external investigators.

Richard Engel (25:15)

I was gonna say themselves.

Yalda Hakim (25:16)

The fsb.

Richard Engel (25:18)

Oh, they have the fsb, of course, the Russian intelligence agency. So they're investigating themselves.

Yalda Hakim (25:23)

They're basically investigating themselves, but they've brought in American officials as well from this administration to come and have a look at whether they used it or not.

Richard Engel (25:33)

Or are they wanting to look to see how well it worked. These, let's call them riot police weapons are also learning experiences. People learn because you notice them. If you see drones dropping tear gas in one country, you see them in another. So I'm anticipating, if we're hearing. We're hearing about these sonic boom weapons now, and people are studying them, they want to know what happened or were they legal or not. You don't need to send a delegation to figure that one out. If it's illegal and you turn it on, then you broke the law. But I think that people want to know what these. What these things do. Before we get to some questions. What was the tipping point in Serbia? What brought the people out on the streets? Because I think that's what's sort of missing in the United States right now is this tipping point moment. A spark, I usually call it a spark. And you know, there's tension, there's fear, there's angst, there's anxiety. People are feeling that they're losing control of their, their, their political universe and maybe they're the world around them too. But there hasn't been that spark that brought people out on the streets yet. What, what was it in Serbia? Well, it's usually small.

Yalda Hakim (26:37)

Yeah, well, as you know, Richard, you know, with all of these sorts of demonstrations that can actually lead to, you know, upheaval. You remember during the Arab Spring, it was one man in Tunisia setting himself alight over austerity measures. I think he was selling apples. And that turned into what became the Arab Spring, the Arab uprisings, the toppling of regimes. This was a, what started off as a small student led demonstration against government corruption and creeping authoritarianism. And it's now mobilized to hundreds of thousands of people coming out onto the streets demanding change from these leaders that won't budge, that have dismantled institutions. For example, in Turkey, in Serbia, we're seeing that play out. In Israel as well. You know, there is this kind of movement that is building a sort of revolutionary movement. And we saw this over a decade ago in the Arab world that we're still feeling the ripple effect. And now in European countries.

Richard Engel (27:50)

Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's so important that people, people hear this, understand this, because this is the way it always happens. There's tension, tension, tension. Tension builds up like, sort of like the earth's tectonic plates. Pension builds and then there's a snap. And when that snap happens, there's a lot of energy unleashed and there's a political realignment. But what causes that snap is often a little thing. As you mentioned, in Tunisia, which started the whole Arab Spring, it was one fruit seller who was tired with corruption. He set himself on fire. Protests start all across the Middle East. In Hong Kong, it wasn't just the fact that they were now being taken over by China after the British mandate period ended and they handed it back to, to mainland China. It was the National Security Law. It was about the specific jurisdiction that people could be arrested in Hong Kong for violating Chinese law. So it was a relatively, it's a big deal, but it was one particular law in Ukraine, when they went out in Maidan because of a EU association agreement that the, the government failed to pass. And it was sort of a symbol that, that the current Ukrainian Government at the time wasn't allowing them to, to join Europe and, and rejected this association agreement. A relatively minor bureaucratic issue that probably could have gotten resolved in other ways. But it was that. It was that spark in, in, in Turkey. Initially it was, it was Gezi Park. Now it's the arrest of the mayor. Will that spark come in the U.S.

Yalda Hakim (29:24)

So, Richard, to that point, we talked about this a little bit last week and I talked about the Tesla vehicles that people were setting on fire. They were keying these cars. There's a whole movement that is developing called the Tesla takedown movement and they've called for global sort of.

Richard Engel (29:46)

That's not gonna be it. There are not enough Teslas.

Yalda Hakim (29:48)

Well, the showrooms. The showrooms. Tesla showrooms. They're going after Tesla showrooms.

Richard Engel (29:53)

Never gonna do it.

Yalda Hakim (29:53)

It's never gonna do it. Something like 2. There was protests in something like 250 cities around the world outside these Tesla showrooms, where people are expressing their anger and grievances towards the Trump administration via Elon Musk. Now, I've got some questions from, from listeners because last week you were skeptical about these small protesters, but you felt that there wasn't enough being done. Is that correct or have I misquoted you?

Richard Engel (30:21)

I always have enough being done. That seems superscriptive. But if people, I mean, I see. It's the, it's the silence. It's the, it's the not silence. It's the lack of activity. I hear a lot of grumbling, a lot of talk, a lot of hand wringing, but not a lot of action.

Yalda Hakim (30:38)

I'm going to put those comments to you.

Richard Engel (30:39)

Please do.

Yalda Hakim (30:40)

You should add some response.

Richard Engel (30:42)

You can burn a couple of Teslas here and there. You can whine on, you can rage on the Internet as much as you want, or on social media. Nobody's going to get toppled because of a tweet or because of some burned fancy car. The only way you have real political change is when, like in Serbia or in Turkey, when hundreds of thousands of people go out and say, we're not going to take this anymore. When the balance of fear shifts, where people are more afraid of the leader than what the leader claims to be protecting them from, that's when you get revolutions.

Yalda Hakim (31:13)

Well, Richard, we were talking earlier about how Donald Trump is pissed off of Vladimir Putin. These listeners are pissed off with you. I'm just going to put, put Joanna from California.

Richard Engel (31:24)

That's called engagement. I love it. People are thinking about these things. We won. We won. As a podcast. All I want is for people to think about things.

Yalda Hakim (31:32)

Joanna from California via email, she says, I was very disappointed with your comments. And Joanna, you know, is genuinely upset. She said, you said something like, where is the American uprising? In my small Northern Californian town, we protest every Friday near our absentee Congressman's office. 200 plus and growing. TRUMP is coming at us at such a rapid pace that it's hard to decide where to start. We are trying. And Dennis via Spotify says, I appreciate and partially agree with Richard Ari rising up against present policies, Trump and Musk. But so many issues are going before the courts. How long will that take? Appeals, high courts. And by that time, Trump, Musk will have already accomplished what they wanted. Okay, so that's someone agreeing with you. And it's also someone saying, we are.

Richard Engel (32:21)

Trying, we're trying dying. But there's 200 people and growing in Chico, California. That's, that's not, that's not going to do it. You know, that's not what we're talking about. It, it's, it's, you know, I guess it's great that these people are being politically active and they're taking responsibility for their politics. And I don't know what they're doing, their protests. But if there's a protest movie, you're not going to miss it. And it's not going to be in Chico, California if you're gonna, if you, every time, and I've seen, personally, I don't know, dozen of these things that have brought down governments or, or at least locked up the city in everywhere, from all across the Middle east, but also in Ukraine, European cities. I've seen demonstrations where they really, really want to bring political change. You don't miss it. You don't not notice it. It locks down the city, it locks down the Capitol. There's a way to do it. It's happened in other countries, it just hasn't happened in the US and maybe.

Yalda Hakim (33:21)

They'Re not angry enough.

Richard Engel (33:22)

People don't know what it is. They haven't done this in a long time. And maybe they're not angry enough. They're more angry with Elon Musk. And if you look at opinion polls, Trump supporters are still with him. They still seem to be with him. So maybe there's not enough people who are angry enough or they're not angry enough yet, or that spark hasn't come yet. But a little demonstration here, a few smashed up Teslas, that isn't it. When it happens, you will know it.

Yalda Hakim (33:49)

Well, I think you know where I would come And I'm gonna play devil's advocate with you a little bit, Richard, in terms of this is what the American people voted for. You know, he won the popular vote this time around. Is it that this is what a part of America now wants? They want to Trump to, you know, he's using tariffs, for example. I mean, tariffs aren't a strategy, it's a tool. But Trump is turning it into his strategy. And we've got Liberation Day, the so called Liberation Day where Donald Trump says he's gonna slap tariffs left, right and center, you know, against all of those countries that are ripping America off. Is it that this language is resonating with the American public? Because Americans, when they've wanted, you know, have come out onto the streets, they have demonstrated against conflict and against policy. And you'll remember the Black Lives Matter movement and the Defund the Police movement. And it seems to me that America's left now are still licking their wounds and they're not quite sure where to begin or what to latch onto or what to go after. And it could be that once it starts hitting American pockets and the breadbasket and food on the table, that could be a moment because Donald Trump promised those things that he's going to work on building a stronger economy.

Richard Engel (35:16)

And when these things do work, it's not just one segment of society because then it's easily dismissed. Cairo, that was one of the most iconic ones. I was in Tahrir Square watching the protests happen. Happen. If it had just been the core group of pro democracy activists, then it never have worked. It never would have worked because they'd be dismissed as kind of lefty liberal poodle loving people. By the way, that's what happened in, in Turkey when the protesters went out, they were mostly left wing kind of students and intellectuals. And Erdogan dismissed them all as cat lovers and the people who like little dogs and their, their hedonists and deviants and pro western. So if you have one group of society, like if it was just the same Black Lives Matter groups or the same defund the police groups, they would be dismissed, they'd be labeled as antifa, they'd be ignored, terrorists, whatever. The only reason it worked in Egypt is you had millions of people out. And they were not just the intellectual lefty elite. They were factory workers, they were students, they were nurses, they were everybody body. They were student you, they were not student use, they were industrial unions as well. People who had the power to shut down the ports, shut down the production of, of major industry. So it was it was only when it became broad based and disruptive and massive that you saw real political change happen. And I don't know, maybe it's coming in the U.S. maybe it's not. Maybe half the population says we like this, this, we want this and this is the prescription. We voted for this and we're happy with it. That's why there's, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll see. There's different electoral battles coming up in the US in some, some low level political campaigns or political races up, coming up that are seen as a, as a bellwether, as an indicator.

Yalda Hakim (37:15)

But Richard, you know, in, in an Egypt there was decades of dictatorship and finally it spilled over and anger on the streets right across the Middle east and North Africa in America. Will people do it through the ballot box? Will they show their anger? I mean that's, you would assume that, you know, if you're angry with the situation, you're not gonna go out onto the streets. You're going to wait 11 months till the midterms and depends how angry you are. The Democratic Party will get their act together by that stage rather than waiting for Trump to sit sink himself. There's frankly no leadership on the other side. And therefore, you know, are they just going to wait and say, well, the American people can decide, you know, based on the ballot box.

Richard Engel (37:58)

Yalda, everybody waits. It's the default. If you give people two hard options, and these are hard options, do nothing. Which is hard to stomach if you believe that your democracy and your freedom of speech is being ripped away from you. So deciding to do nothing is hard. Hard. Deciding to go out and take on the state that has the guns and the surveillance and has all your documentation and can, you know, pick you up is also a brave decision. These are tough. Both of these are hard. Doing nothing is hard. Going out and acting is hard. Hoping that maybe if 11 months from now this will all take care of itself in a normal smooth process where you can vote. Who wouldn't take that option? That's the best option. But, but you might not get there. And I think that's what if you listen to the political, the increasing comments from, from some of the Democrats you've been, we've been talking about and you've been interviewing. Is there worried you're not going to get to the midterms because the, the system will be rigged or be locked, locked in place or there'll be laws that have been changed or undermined to make the, the process not as open and transparent and REPRESENTATIVE by the time you get to the midterms. But yeah, doing nothing and hoping it'll get better and you could just vote them out. I think that's what, that's what 99% of the people would prefer to do, if that's an option. If those who hate, those who want change, the people who are with Trump obviously are going to fight that.

Yalda Hakim (39:24)

Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, a grim outlook. And let's get to predictions then, Richard, in terms of what is going to happen in the future. And of course, every week we sort of think about what's going to happen perhaps, perhaps in the next week, perhaps in the, in the future. Is there something that you're watching at the moment and you're seeing sort of unfold?

Richard Engel (39:45)

I'm watching the Middle east and, and I'm watching not just the demonstrations in Israel, but watching what, what Israel has sort of done in Lebanon and is doing in Lebanon and Syria. The ceasefire is breaking down in Lebanon, too. It already collapsed in Gaza. The Israelis have been bombing more frequently in Lebanon and they've occupied territory in both Lebanon and Syria that, that very few people are talking about. It's kind of gotten swept into the, the chaos and maelstrom of the news. And I think that's going to be, long term, a potential problem for Israel. Israel took it so that it could create a buffer zone, but just because you can take something and can hold it doesn't mean it's going to necessarily help you in the long term. They the Israelis already were for, for decades in southern Lebanon. It caused, it caused really the birth of Hezbollah and caused nothing but problems for them. Now they're occupying an extended period, extended piece of land inside Syria with a new government there. It seems like both of these are, are potential ticking time bombs. And the Israelis are setting up new outposts every day, they say, to protect themselves. I wonder if the opposite is going to be the result.

Yalda Hakim (41:00)

Yeah, I think, Richard, that Kristen Welker raised the issue of Iran with Donald Trump and he's been upping the ante. He initially talked about wanting to negotiate some kind of agreement with the Iranians around perhaps another nuclear deal and sort of wanting to sit around a negotiating table. His rhetoric has become more extreme. No doubt Benjamin Netanyahu has been chewing off his ear. So I'm watching the situation in Iran and seeing what response there is from the Iranians, how the Americans handle the problem that is and continues to be Iran for the region, but also globally. And the other thing that I'm going to be watching is obviously how far and how big these tariffs that Donald Trump says he's going to unleash on Liberation Day, what that's going to look like. And I'm currently also watching Sudan because the Sudanese military has said that they have moved into Khartoum and have started to liberate parts of the city. So I'm watching to see whether that war continues, the biggest humanitarian crisis on the planet continues, or it sort of grinds to some kind of halt and some kind of negotiation. Negotiation. We'll certainly be discussing it on the podcast going forward.

Richard Engel (42:21)

Yalda, always great to see you. Always fascinating conversation. So much to talk about. Until next time.

Yalda Hakim (42:27)

Until next time. Richard, really good to see you. And goodbye to all of our listeners.

Richard Engel (42:52)

Donald Trump is heading back to the White House. Together, we can truly make America great again. We are in for an unpredictable but fascinating four years and we're going to be following every twist and turn for the first 100 days. We'll be bringing you the latest updates and the NOW analysis first thing every morning. So join me, James Matthews, me, Martha Calneck, and me, Mark Stone for Trump 100 every weekday at 6am wherever you get your podcast.