Eddie Fishman: Understanding Iran

Summary

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What Now? with Trevor Noah

Episode: "Eddie Fishman: Understanding Iran"

Release Date: June 11, 2026
Host: Trevor Noah
Guest: Eddie Fishman (foreign policy expert, State Department veteran, author of "Choke Points")
Main Theme:
A probing, often humorous but deeply insightful exploration of recent US-Iran tensions and the broader, underlying mechanisms of statecraft, economic warfare, nuclear proliferation, and international order. Eddie Fishman helps Trevor and co-host Eugene—and listeners—understand the paradoxes driving global politics, focusing especially on Iran as a case study.

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EPISODE OVERVIEW

Trevor Noah hosts Eddie Fishman, a foreign policy and economic statecraft expert, to unravel the complexities behind Iran’s nuclear ambitions, how sanctions and economic warfare now shape global power, why nuclear arsenals are paradoxically stabilizing yet perilous, and how America’s role as global economic gatekeeper is simultaneously a strength and a fracture point. Together with co-host Eugene, they navigate history, policy, personal anecdotes, and playful analogies—making the high-stakes world of international relations accessible and relevant to everyday listeners.

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

1. The Geopolitical Iran Dilemma

[05:46–07:34]

• Eddie describes his career motivation: "I started my career motivated by trying to come up with a solution to Iran's nuclear program that didn't involve fighting another war in the Middle East." (05:46, Fishman)
• The story of US attempts to use economic levers—first via sanctions (Bush & Obama---notably the 2015 Iran nuclear deal), then Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy, and finally direct military strikes. Each approach, Eddie argues, has left Iran ever closer to or more defiant about nuclear weapons.

2. The Nuclear Paradox & Non-Proliferation Treaty

[08:24–13:31]

• Trevor questions the rationale for the US opposing Iran’s uranium enrichment if Iran claims peaceful intent.
• Eddie outlines the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which "regulates which countries can and can't have certain nuclear material," allowing only the US, China, Russia, UK, and France to possess nuclear weapons (09:10, Fishman).
• “At the sort of peak of the power of these countries, they sort of traded in some of that power in exchange to sort of legitimize their access to these weapons.” (09:40, Fishman)
• Iran’s violations (cheating on enrichment limits, secret weapons research with help from ex-Soviet scientists) prompted international condemnation—“So in some ways, for a long period of time, the US was sort of on the right side of international law. But after Trump pulled out ... we’ve sort of been on the wrong side.” (13:23, Fishman)

3. Sanctions, Choke Points & Economic Warfare

[14:45–16:53; 40:24–48:00]

• Eddie shares his experience leveraging America’s status as the center of global finance, using access to the US dollar as economic leverage: “If you keep buying oil from Iran ... we will cut you off from the US Dollar. ... It made it much more likely for the person on the other side of the table to be like, look, ... the UN agrees Iran shouldn’t have a nuclear weapon.” (14:45–16:53, Fishman)
• Trevor asks about the “petrodollar.” Eddie explains the dollar is dominant because oil is “by far the most traded good in the world,” but its power is now challenged by attempts from China and Iran to break away using other currencies (41:21–43:06).
• “The key economic weapon that the US has is the dollar.” (44:05, Fishman)
• Iran, in response, uses its own choke point—the Strait of Hormuz—demonstrating how closing critical supply routes can be used for economic coercion (46:23–47:24).
• “We’re in an economic arms race right now where every country is saying, what are the choke points that we have ... that make us vulnerable? That is what’s happening now.” (48:27–48:59, Fishman)

4. The Tragic Incentive for Nuclear Weapons

[23:39–25:28]

• Trevor and Eddie discuss the “crazy paradox”: countries that pursue or develop nuclear weapons are safer from regime change or foreign attack than those that don’t.
• “Countries that have ... developed some parts of a nuclear program but then didn't cross the threshold have actually fared a lot worse than the countries that have developed nuclear weapons. ... If you look at Gaddafi...” (23:39, Fishman)
• "But you don't want them to get a nuke. But if you don't get a nuke, you might want to get a nuke regime." (24:06, Noah)
• The logic incentivizes proliferation, especially among “authoritarian regimes” who feel threatened by US interventions (54:35, Fishman).

5. Stability vs. Catastrophe: Nuclear Use, Near-Miss, & Accidental War

[25:28–29:20]

• Eddie and Trevor recount how nuclear-armed states have repeatedly come close to war by accident—the story of Stanislav Petrov, who “disobeyed the biggest order” and arguably “saved the world” by refusing to retaliate to a false Soviet missile warning (27:41, Noah; 28:31, Fishman).
• The more countries with nukes, the higher the risk of “accidental nuclear war” (28:58, Fishman).
• “Are you going to have one [Petrov] in every country?" (56:21, Fishman)

6. Why Major Powers Don’t Simply Blow Each Other Up

[49:08–51:24]

• Even when capable (as in Russia’s war on Ukraine), nuclear powers hold back—“it would be the fastest way to unify the entire world against them” and physically dangerous due to proximity (50:01, Fishman).
• Trevor and Eugene humorously discuss the “strongman” phenomenon and how democratic countries with nukes are rare.

7. Legality, “Preemptive Strike” and Policy Decisions

[60:14–65:25]

• How does the US (or any government) decide when a military action is “defense” vs. attack? Eddie: “It doesn’t really matter ... The President is the commander-in-chief. There’s really not much of a check on that, unfortunately.” (61:05, Fishman)
• Trump’s recent strike on Iran is dissected: “Unless there is some classified intelligence that has not been ... declassified, which I consider pretty unlikely ... I do not believe that there was a preemptive reason to strike Iran.” (61:14, Fishman)
• Killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader, intended to stop nuclear progress, may have backfired by putting more hardliners (IRGC) in charge, increasing the nuclear risk (64:08–65:25, Fishman).

8. Diplomacy, Expertise, and the Balance of Old and New Approaches

[71:12–85:36]

• Trevor and Eddie analyze whether US foreign policy always defaults to bombing or whether there have been successful “bring them in” attempts (Bush/Obama era Iran sanctions and deal; US poor handling of post-Cold War Russia).
• They explore energetic, chaotic improvisation under Trump vs. staid protocol under Biden and how both have strengths and risks:
  • “A lot of the progress I personally made was through personal relationships ... trusting relationships.” (82:28, Fishman)
  • “I think Biden, by and large, took a lot of the senior people from the Obama administration and just, like, shuffled their chairs ... But also injecting some new ideas ... is really important.” (84:25, Fishman)
• Trevor’s “football team” analogy: the ideal is a team of experts empowered to improvise as needed (84:37).

9. The Human Cost and the Danger of Propaganda

[86:13–94:12]

• Trevor laments how collective nouns like “the Russians” or “the Iranians” erase individuals and turn populations into dehumanized enemies, which in turn bolsters authoritarian propaganda and global misunderstanding.
• Eddie: “It is sort of a mind-bending experience to see how even people very culturally similar to you ... are perceiving the United States in this moment.” (96:48, Fishman)

10. Escalating Economic Warfare and the Next World Order

[97:41–104:12]

• Exponential growth of sanctions: “Every US president in the 21st century ... has imposed sanctions at twice the rate of their predecessor.” (97:41, Fishman)
• Trump’s second term saw the US weaponize economic tools not just against adversaries, but also against traditional allies, motivating even friends to question and hedge against the US dollar.
• “There are two processes reshaping the global economic system: the economic arms race (choke points), and the scramble for economic security (how do we make ourselves less vulnerable to other’s choke points). ... Globalization is something that we will learn about in the history books; it’s just a moment in time, not the way things are.” (103:38–103:56, Fishman)

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NOTABLE QUOTES & MEMORABLE MOMENTS

• “Countries that have given up nuclear weapons or ... developed some parts of a nuclear program but then didn't cross the threshold have actually fared a lot worse than the countries that have developed nuclear weapons.” (23:41, Fishman)
• (On accidental nuclear war): “Are you going to have one [Petrov] in every country? ... Given the stakes ... nuclear exchange is potentially existential for humanity. ... Nuclear proliferation, I think, is a bad thing.” (56:21–56:38, Fishman)
• “We’re in an economic arms race right now where every country ... is saying, what are the choke points that we have that we could use? ... That is what’s happening right now.” (48:27–48:59, Fishman)
• Trevor: “How does the American government determine what can be called defense versus attack?”
  Eddie: “It ... doesn’t really matter. The President is the commander-in-chief. ... There’s not much of a check on that, unfortunately.” (61:05)
• “If America was seeing America doing what America's doing ... would it impose sanctions on it? Would it invade it? Would it push for regime change?” (97:13, Noah)
• “Globalization—it's just a moment in time, as opposed to the way things are.” (103:56, Fishman)

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TIMESTAMPS FOR KEY SEGMENTS

• Why Iran Wants Nuclear Capability; International Law (NPT): 08:24–13:31
• Economic Warfare & Petrodollar System: 40:24–48:00
• Risks and Incentives of Nuclear Proliferation: 23:39–29:20
• Choke Points—Strait of Hormuz Example: 31:18–32:19
• Stability and Precariousness in Nuclear Deterrence: 36:19–37:40
• Defining Defense vs. Attack: 60:14–65:25
• Diplomacy, Protocol, and Human Relationships: 71:12–85:36
• Identity, Propaganda, and Humanization: 86:13–94:12
• Allies Decoupling from U.S. Dollar/Escalating Economic Warfare: 97:41–104:12

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TONE AND STYLE

• Candid, humorous, probing, and sometimes bleak: Trevor’s trademark playfulness and honest curiosity drive the conversation, with Eddie’s calm, knowledgeable explanations offering clarity in complex topics.
• Pop culture analogies and vivid storytelling: The duo uses stories (the near-miss nuclear calamity, the world cup, even parenting and farts) to make geopolitics relatable and memorable.
• Radical candor: Willingness to entertain paradox, critique past US actions, and point to unresolved, ongoing risks—never offering pat answers.

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TAKEAWAYS

• Iran’s nuclear pursuit is shaped by security, not just ideology.
• America’s economic power rests on global dollar dependence—but that dominance is now vulnerable and contested.
• Nations with nuclear weapons (including those who obtained them illicitly) have greater immunity from foreign intervention—fueling a tragic incentive to proliferate.
• Every escalation (sanctions, attacks) has second-order effects, often empowering hardliners or prompting global hedging (new currencies, new pipelines, new alliances).
• Interpersonal diplomacy and precisely humanizing adversaries matter as much as, or more than, high policy.
• The world is entering an era of weaponized choke points and economic arms races, fundamentally redefining globalization as we’ve known it.

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SELECTED QUOTE HIGHLIGHTS

• “It’s weird. ... All the countries that have nuclear weapons seem like they’re living a more chilled life.” — Trevor Noah (24:38)
• “...there’s a reason why authoritarian regimes have pursued nuclear weapons.” — Eddie Fishman (54:35)
• “For weapons to be taken seriously, oftentimes they have to be used.” — Eddie Fishman (29:39)
• “Are you going to have one [Petrov] in every country?” — Eddie Fishman (56:21)
• “America’s propaganda was so good that it bred a generation of people who now had a complete inability to create new ideas of other countries because of the propaganda that they had been fed...” — Trevor Noah (90:55)

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CONCLUSION

This episode offers a rare, multidimensional lens on Iran, nuclear risk, US strategy, and the global order. With humor, gravitas, and unflinching honesty, Fishman and Noah expose inconvenient paradoxes—leaving listeners better equipped to understand both today’s headlines and the unsettling future being built behind closed doors.

Transcript

[Eddie Fishman]

This is one of the, I think, honestly, tragic lessons of recent history is, you know, the countries that have given up nuclear weapons or that have developed some parts of a nuclear program but then didn't cross the threshold have actually fared a lot worse than the countries that have developed nuclear weapons. Right. I mean, this is. Damn, Eddie, it's bad.

[Trevor Noah]

It's a crazy paradox when you think about it.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, I think there's an incentive. I mean, if you look at Gaddafi, right. I mean the, the crazy paradox when

[Trevor Noah]

you think about it. Everyone who didn't get a nuke, look

[Eugene]

what happened to them.

[Trevor Noah]

Look what happened. But you don't want them to get a nuke. But if you don't get a nuke, you might want to get a nuke regime.

[Eddie Fishman]

Just go on LinkedIn, man.

[Trevor Noah]

This is what now with Trevor Noah.

[Eddie Fishman]

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[Eddie Fishman]

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[Eddie Fishman]

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[Eddie Fishman]

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[Eddie Fishman]

A little bit like, you know, go shopping for my kids. You go shopping for your kids in soho? Yeah, my wife has like this, there's this like kids store there that we like. We walk to.

[Eugene]

You guys go together?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Eugene]

Your children believe in close democracy?

[Eddie Fishman]

My, my, my wife likes to dress my, my kids in fashionable New York clothes. So we go to a place in Soho, I think it's called Ma M A K I E. And your kids

[Eugene]

choose what they like?

[Eddie Fishman]

No, no, no, no, no. They don't get to choose.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

That's what I meant.

[Eugene]

I don't get to choose.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, but it's hilarious though. My kids look like very hip, like you know, Manhattan. My 2 year and 4 year old.

[Eugene]

That's so cool.

[Eddie Fishman]

My wife is really into that.

[Eugene]

She likes dressing them up like.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eugene]

You know when, when wives dress kids up, you're off the hook.

[Eddie Fishman]

That's True.

[Eugene]

Because she doesn't touch your fashion anymore because there's too much paperwork now. Because she has to worry about herself first and then the kids.

[Eddie Fishman]

That's actually.

[Eugene]

Now you stop being a representation of her. Remember before you were a proxy, if she was dressed nicely and then you're not, then she's like, come on, this guy is making me look bad. Then she would focus on dressing you up. Now she's got two kids.

[Eddie Fishman]

Here's the thing, though. That's true. But I have noticed, though, since we've had kids, I just don't get any new clothes anymore. Ah.

[Eugene]

I told you.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

So I care about you.

[Eddie Fishman]

Like, all my clothes are, like, from, like, five. Like. Yeah, it's like this blazer I got when I was, like, 25, and I've definitely gained, like, a solid 15 pounds. So, you know.

[Eugene]

But before, she would have been like,

[Trevor Noah]

if you allow Eugene, he'll end your marriage. Careful. Eugene will expose things that you never wanted to know. She doesn't care. Honey. How was the podcast? I learned everything. I now know the truth. You don't care about me anymore.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. I was wondering. I was like, where are my new clothes?

[Eugene]

No, it's over.

[Trevor Noah]

It's over.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

The one thing she has gotten me are these really nice socks that are super comfy that I've like. Because I've had to dress up more over all those book talks and stuff like that. Oh, yeah?

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

And there's, like, a hole in one of them. And I was like, can I have a new one? Because I loved it so much. And she was like, yeah, but it's like, two months ago, I still haven't gotten it. And I was like, what's going on? She's like, well, Father's Day, she's waiting to give it to me. I was like, I need it now. Like, you know, I need the sock.

[Trevor Noah]

That's amazing.

[Eddie Fishman]

Need the sock.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what she should do? She should give you the new socks now and then, but cut out the part that has the hole. Then fill. Give you the whole filling part on Father's Day. Then you get new socks now. But the part you need to be filled on Father's Day. Why you doing, like.

[Eugene]

I thought I was the problem.

[Trevor Noah]

No, then you get, like, an upgrade. Oh, we're recording. We all good? All right, let's do it. Eddie Fishman, welcome.

[Eddie Fishman]

Good to see you.

[Trevor Noah]

Welcome to the podcast. And welcome at the best possible time to have you on, because I've asked around, and there are a few names that come up More when you, when you request the services of somebody who is adept at understanding statecraft. I believe it's called sanctions, borders, geopolitical skirmishes. You worked for the State Department. That's correct.

[Eddie Fishman]

That's right, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You were instrumental in like, I guess like guiding some of the policy around like the US's sanctions between China and Russia. So I mean, I'm sitting next to the perfect person to ask. And because I don't, like, not that I don't trust the Internet anymore, I just don't know what to search for these days. It's easier for me to ask an actual expert in person.

[Eugene]

I thought you were gonna say, cause the Internet searches for you instead.

[Trevor Noah]

No, it didn't. No, I don't know what to search for these days.

[Eugene]

You think of a dog, next thing you see dog ads.

[Trevor Noah]

You're not wrong, you're not wrong, but everyone has the same question. So I'm gonna ask it on behalf of many of us. What is actually happening in Iran?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, it's a great question. Look, I started my career motivated by trying to come up with a solution to Iran's nuclear program that didn't involve fighting another war in the Middle East. That's why I honestly joined the government after I graduated college. Iran was building a nuclear program, the US was fighting a war in Afghanistan, another one in Iraq, and both of them were going, going terribly. And I thought to myself, there has to be a better way to try to non violently coerce countries that are trying to do things that we don't want them to do, like seek nuclear weapons or support terrorist groups to stop them from doing that. And that had been the US policy for a long time. Right? That's what George W. Bush wanted to do in his second term. It's what Barack Obama did and famously with the Iran nuclear deal. Look, I think Donald Trump, in 2018, during his first term, he made a gamble. He said, if only we had imposed more sanctions on Iran, if we put them in more economic pain, I could get a deal that was even better than what Obama did.

[Trevor Noah]

Right?

[Eddie Fishman]

And he tried that through this so called maximum pressure strategy and it failed, you know, by the time he came back in his second term. So, you know, last year, Iran had enough nuclear material to build 10 bombs, which is way more than they ever had, you know, before, you know, before we actually had that deal in 2015. And so I think Trump was sort of confronting with this, confronting this massive failure which was he had tried maximum pressure to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. It hadn't worked. And so he could have theoretically tried a different approach, maybe pivoted to something more like what Obama did with diplomacy. But instead of changing his goals, he changed his means. He escalated from the use of economic warfare through sanctions and economic pressure to the use of military force. And I think we're now seeing why every president before him had been hesitant to attack Iran.

[Trevor Noah]

So here's what I hope we get to in this conversation. I think. One, I'd love us to all be able to actually understand what's going on, not on the ground, but like, you know, behind closed doors with Iran and the U.S. sure. Two, I would love for us to all understand why you, I guess, sort of shouldn't mess with Iran lightly. Right. Three, I would like us to even understand who sets the rules around who should and shouldn't have things, whether it's nuclear weapons or who decides where border should or shouldn't be enforced, or how you get to enforce that, what attack is, what defense is, and then understanding where America exists in the world now as it pertains to China and Russia, who seem like the other major state players. So let's work from where we are now.

[Eddie Fishman]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

Everything you laid out makes sense to me, but I'm just gonna ask like the, the, the dumb question that, that lingers in my head, and that is, why is America so opposed to Iran building up enriched uranium? And, and I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll say the, I'll ask the full question.

[Eddie Fishman]

Sure.

[Trevor Noah]

Why is America so opposed to it when Iran has constantly said we're not trying to make a nuclear weapon, we just want enriched uranium because we have many other uses for it. We can use it for power plants, we can use it for our energy needs as other countries have. So explain that part to me.

[Eddie Fishman]

Sure. So look, there is this thing called the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. I think it was first agreed to in the 1960s. And basically it regulates which countries can and can't have certain nuclear material.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Eddie Fishman]

And basically the bargain is there are a few countries that legally can have nuclear weapons, right? The United States, China, Russia, the UK and France.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Why?

[Eddie Fishman]

It's, you know, basically who was the most powerful countries after World War II and were able to sort of make themselves permanent members of the UN Security Council.

[Trevor Noah]

That's a great gig. We should decide, Eugene, who between us gets to own a gun. I'm gonna vote for me.

[Eugene]

I was gonna go more for Africom, But look, I mean, non proliferate Yeah,

[Eddie Fishman]

I mean, I do think there's something, you know, there which is, you know, at the sort of peak of the power of these countries, they sort of traded in some of that power in exchange to sort of, you know, legitimize their access to these, these weapons.

[Trevor Noah]

So they. So they made a deal with the

[Eddie Fishman]

rest of the world or with themselves and what the. With the rest of the world.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, okay.

[Eddie Fishman]

The vast majority of countries have signed on to this, and the bargain that they make is that they will not pursue nuclear weapons. But in exchange, they do have access to nuclear fuel, nuclear material, so that they can have nuclear power, which, by the way, we need. Right. And I think, in fact, we should have more of now. It's part of the reason that we're not making more progress getting ourselves off of fossil fuels because we haven't built enough nuclear power. So Iran is a signatory to this Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. The problem is that routinely, you know, as part of the, you know, being a signatory, you're inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency routinely. Iran lied about what they were doing. They were enriching uranium to levels that exceeded what they were allowed to do under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. They had done research on actually producing nuclear weapons in the 90s. They had former Soviet scientists, by the way, who were probably looking for a job after the collapse of the Soviet

[Trevor Noah]

Union, as many of them were.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yes, exactly. Who said, hey, I have something that one really good marketable skill and I can sell that to Iran.

[Trevor Noah]

I will put my profile on LinkedIn and maybe somebody can hire me. That's what one of them is doing.

[Eddie Fishman]

It's like looking for work on LinkedIn.

[Trevor Noah]

He has experience working with extremely volatile materials. We'll not mention which one. Wink, wink.

[Eddie Fishman]

It was a great business. I mean, this is how North Korea also built up their nuclear program.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh. So this was. So basically everyone who is sort of Persona non grata in the geopolitical world, they got their scientists from Russia. Really?

[Eddie Fishman]

Oh, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Eddie Fishman]

It's like one of their main exports, pretty much.

[Eugene]

You guys got your scientist for NASA from Germany.

[Eddie Fishman]

Oh, yeah, the U.S. yeah, exactly.

[Eugene]

Right, yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

Von Braun and then. And then, of course, I mean, Einstein, you know, Oppenheimer, a lot of those guys were Jews who ironically, you know, the Nazis didn't like the Jews and so they went to the U.S. and then they built nuclear weapons. I mean, it's one of the all time great, you know, sort of ironies of history, right, that the Nazis picked on the Jews. The Jews went to the U.S. built nuclear weapons and then won World War II.

[Trevor Noah]

It feels like a perfect parable in a way.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

It's almost like people, in trying to destroy someone, they then create their own end. You get what I'm saying? So they go like, we have to stop them, but they're not doing anything. And then they go on to help the other people who then destroy you, basically, and your empire. Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

Hubris, man. I mean, it's as old as the Greek myths, and it still plays out.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes, it is. It plays like a Greek tragedy. Yeah, in many ways, it really does.

[Eddie Fishman]

So, look, Iran did cheat, and they did do a lot of things that suggested they really wanted a nuclear weapon. And just to address one important thing, because you're saying, why does the US not like what Iran's doing? The un, so the entire UN Security Council on multiple times voted to condemn Iran and saying that Iran did have to stop enriching uranium.

[Trevor Noah]

Got it.

[Eddie Fishman]

Because the whole international community was worried about what Iran was doing. And so that's also, I guess, one of the ironies of Trump's approach is that leading up to the 2015 nuclear deal that Obama and a number of the other world powers signed with Iran, international law was on the US's side. Right. International law, which is what the UN provides, said that Iran should stop enriching uranium. Well, at this point, the US has been the one that unilaterally pulled out of this deal in 2015 that reimposed sanctions on Iran unilaterally, that now has attacked Iran twice in as many years without any international authorization. And so in some ways, for a long period of time, the US was sort of on the right side of international law. But after Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal, which you did in 2018, we've sort of been on the wrong side of international law.

[Trevor Noah]

So correct me if I'm wrong on this, because I've never worked in a State Department, nor do I have any qualifications. I've always felt like America just does what it wants, and then sometimes it's on the right side of international law and then some. But it's not like America's trying to be on a side, and America's just like, listen here, buddy, this is what I'm doing. And if it's on or not on your side of law, then that's your problem. But it seems like every time the un, you know, like. Like, if we think of, like, weapons of mass destruction, totally, you know, Saddam Hussein, all of that, America went against the un. Right. But America Just did its thing. And then when something else is happening, America will do its thing, but it happens to be on the other side of the law. So am I misunderstanding this, or is America just doing what it wants to do? And then sometimes it's for the law, and sometimes it's against international law?

[Eddie Fishman]

I think probably in broad brushstrokes, you're right. Although different presidents, I think, take this to, you know, further than others, and I will say, look, when I was in the US Government, in the Obama administration, one of the things I did was I went to other countries. Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia.

[Trevor Noah]

And sabotaged their countries. Exactly.

[Eugene]

I was gonna say eat their noodles.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, we need more people like you in the world, Eugene. You have goodness in your heart.

[Eugene]

Thank you.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Yeah. Ye. No, you're right. And ate noodles.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, I'm joking. You can.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

So basically, what we would do, and this was when we were putting pressure on Iran in the early 2010s, we would say, look, if you keep buying oil from Iran, you know, you Singaporean company, we will cut you off from the US Dollar. We will use this key choke point in the global economy, which is the US dollar, critical for all international business. And so it was. I mean, I didn't use quite the accent that you just used, Trevor, although I probably should have. It would have made me more credible. And we did sort of give these folks sort of binary choices, which was like, look, if you don't stop buying oil from Iran, you're gonna lose access to the world's most important currency, the US Dollar. What I will say, though, is when you deliver that message to a foreign businessman or diplomat, like, it doesn't usually go over well. They're like, what the hell are you doing here? And so what helped us in those days was to say, look, I am just here because the un, including your own country, has said that Iran shouldn't have a nuclear weapon. And guess what? Their oil sales are directly funding their nuclear program. So I'm just here to help you comply with your international obligations. And that may sound like, you know, glib or something like that, but it actually worked. And it made it much more likely for the person on the other side of the table to be like, look, we are being pressured by the U.S. but truly, like, this is accurate. It's a lot different if I just said that, like, look, the whole international community disagrees with me. We shouldn't be doing this. But still, you should stop doing business with Iran because I told you so. Which is, by the way, that has been what Trump has tried to do with a lot of different countries in recent years, saying like, if you don't do X or Y, I'm just gonna wallop your economy with tariffs or sanctions. But there's no sort of legitimization that helps it go down easier. Which also means not only is it like a more awkward conversation, but like from a very practical, like self interested perspective, that person on the other side of the table is way less likely to do what you want them to do. I mean, it's how it's the same in like human relations. Right. If you try to persuade your kid to do something that they don't want to do, they're much more likely to go along with it if they think that it's just, you're on the sides of justice.

[Eugene]

But they might just end up homeless.

[Eddie Fishman]

That's true. Or you kick them out.

[Eugene]

That's my petrodollar

[Trevor Noah]

is to threaten them with homelessness. So you can do what daddy says.

[Eugene]

Then they grab me. Listen to everybody.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, you gotta use that accent. It works. It's much more effective.

[Trevor Noah]

It really, it really works well. Okay, so. Okay, so this is providing a lot of clarity. So you had a world where Iran. Am I correct in assuming people don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon because it gives them more power, or it's not because they think they'll use it? Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

A great. I mean, I'm glad you brought this up because there's really two perspectives on this. I think like the less common perspective, although some people have it, is that, you know, the Islamic Republic of Iran, like they are literally this messianic regime in which they are so committed to wiping Israel off the face of the earth that even if it means that they would destroy themselves, you know, in the process, that they would go ahead and use that nuclear weapon? I would say that's a minority opinion.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Okay.

[Eddie Fishman]

The more credible opinion amongst sort of national security experts is that Iran is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism. So groups like Hezbollah and Hamas that have killed lots of innocent people around the world, including Americans, are on the payroll of Iran. Iran has basically trained and created a lot of these groups. And so even if Iran wouldn't use a nuclear weapon itself, what happens if it gave some high enriched uranium to Hezbollah and, and Hezbollah said that.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, so that's the cause, that's the real cause of concern.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yes, it is nuclear. I mean, it's weird. I mean, I don't know if you guys were in New York in like the 2000s. But when this issue really came up, it was, like mid-2000s, like 2005, 2006, 2007. And the big fear then was that we would have a nuclear 9 11, that the next terrorist group would. Wouldn't just fly a plane into the World Trade Center. Like, they would have, like, a bomb laced with enriched uranium. And it was a legitimate fear. Right. Because Iran was hypercharging its nuclear program and supporting these terrorist groups.

[Trevor Noah]

Well, okay, this is an interesting question that I have actually, then is. I like your phrasing. Was it a legitimate concern or was it a legitimate fear? Cause sometimes a fear can be legitimate because you have a fear. And I can say that is a legitimate fear. But was the concern actually, like, legitimate as in, was this based on something that could happen, or was it based on the idea that something could happen?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Which I know seems like semantics, but do you understand what I'm saying? Sometimes people are afraid of something. Okay, here's an example. In America, people are terrified that their kids are gonna get kidnapped. Yeah. It just became a campaign in the United States. At some point, kids were going missing. They were on milk cartons. But as a percentage of the population.

[Eugene]

I've never understood that milk carton thing. But anyway.

[Trevor Noah]

But as a percentage of the population, it was huge, right? I mean, it was small, it was tiny. It was insignificant. Not to the parents of those children and not to their communities, but in terms of how it made people feel, they started writing laws that said your kid could not go unattended at a park. They couldn't, like, walk home. If your child is found, like, by themselves, they'll take the child sometimes away from the parents. But they created such a mass hysteria that now they've undermined the very existence of childhood, in my opinion.

[Eddie Fishman]

Right.

[Eugene]

And the freedoms of it.

[Trevor Noah]

The fear was real, but the thing that the fear was based on wasn't necessarily as real as people thought it was. So in that, was it a real issue or was the fear the thing that people were focusing on?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, I mean, I think it was a real issue. Just given the stakes. Right. And given that 911 did happen. Right.

[Trevor Noah]

It had just happened.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. Like, okay, so we had just experienced a terror, a massive, I mean, coordinated terrorist attack. You know, four planes that were shipped,

[Trevor Noah]

not ship, the world.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, yeah, Right. So I do think it was legitimate. And this is one thing that I'm conflicted about. It's also why I think, honestly, evaluating foreign policy is so difficult, is that you don't know the counterfactual Right. You don't know, like, well, what would have happened if we had not done this. Right. And so, like, if you look at the track record of US policy since 9 11, I would say most people, including myself, would say we like over. We exaggerated the impact, like how big of a threat terrorism was. We were scarred by 9 11. It did take away a lot of our freedoms. I remember as a kid, the first time I flew alone, my mom and dad taking me through security and dropping me out off at the gate. And so we have lost a lot of our freedoms. At the same time, we have not had another 911 scale terrorist attack in the United States. And so it's, it's. I'm, it's. I'm just being honest. Like, I'm genuinely conflicted on this. Yeah. Because of government policy. And if you look at Europe, for instance, like, there have been these massive terrorist attacks. Right. I mean, if you remember in the 2010s and Paris.

[Trevor Noah]

Paris, huge one.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, yeah. That Charlie Hebdo and. And they're one once in Brussels, you know, so.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah. It really becomes difficult because on the one hand, you want to live in a world where you don't allow isolated incidents to define how you live your daily life.

[Eugene]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

But on the other hand, you can't ignore them as if they never happened. Do you know what I mean? So it's like you're in this weird place of like, how, how much do you preemptively act and how much do you not and how. So it feels like America's in this place where it's going. We do not want to get to the place where we have to think about preemptively acting or not acting when it comes to uranium or nuclear weapons with Iran.

[Eddie Fishman]

That's right.

[Trevor Noah]

That's essentially where it is. Just as a side note, does North Korea have nuclear weapons?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, they've got a full suite of nuclear weapons.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, okay. But this is interesting. So if they have nuclear weapons, what are they doing with them?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, I mean, so far they've not used them. Right. Thankfully. I think that they feel like they have a sense of impunity. So there's a fear that they could launch some sort of preemptive attack on South Korea. I know South Koreans are generally worried about that. Yeah, all the time. All the time. I don't know if you guys have been there recently, but it's a, you know, Seoul is within, you know, within range of a lot of the artillery and whatnot from. From North Korea.

[Trevor Noah]

So.

[Eddie Fishman]

So Far, the answer is they haven't used them, but there is a fear that it could embolden North Korea over time to act aggressively. So I think that's the other. The other part that's maybe a little bit more nuanced is even if an Iran or North Korea isn't going to use nuclear weapons, you do they feel that by virtue of having nuclear weapons that they can actually push the envelope a lot more below the use of nuclear weapons. Right. So maybe North Korea wouldn't use a nuke against South Korea, but would they feel emboldened to attack South Korea because

[Trevor Noah]

they have a nuke?

[Eugene]

Because they have a nuke.

[Eddie Fishman]

Right. And like, this is one of the, I think, honestly, tragic lessons of recent history is, you know, the countries that have given up nuclear weapons or that have developed some parts of a nuclear program but then didn't cross the threshold have. Have actually fared a lot worse than the countries that have developed nuclear weapons. Right. I mean, this is. Damn, Eddie, it's bad.

[Trevor Noah]

It's a crazy paradox when you think about it.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. I think there's an incentive. I mean, if you look at Gaddafi, Right. I mean, the Libyan.

[Trevor Noah]

It's a crazy paradox when you think about it.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Everyone who didn't get a nuke, look

[Eugene]

what happened to them.

[Trevor Noah]

Look what happened. But you don't want them to get a nuke. But if you don't get a nuke, you might want to get a nuke regime.

[Eddie Fishman]

Just go on LinkedIn, man.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but you see, this is what this is. So this is what. This is what I love about. No, but, but, but, Eddie, this is what I like about your brain and the way you. And the way you think and the way you write and the way you.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

I can't believe you did that to me.

[Eugene]

That was funny.

[Trevor Noah]

No, you. So I think what I've. What I've always enjoyed about your work is that you grapple.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Right. Grappling is necessary whenever it comes to issues of state or anything large, because it's not simple. We want to act like it's simple, but it's really not simple, because what you just said is the ultimate paradox. We would. Many people would argue that we don't want other countries to have nuclear weapons. Let's say, right? We don't want more nuclear weapons out there, but we also cannot deny all the countries that have the nuclear weapons seem like they're living a more chilled life, you know, if you have the nuke versus if you don't, and then the ones who have it on also aren't using it. So if you're working in the State Department and you're looking at this information, at what point does the paradigm shift or does it ever shift? Like, do you have to game these things out and ask yourself if the idea you're working from is correct or incorrect?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, it's a good. I mean, it's a fair question. And there are. I mean, it's an extremely heretical opinion. There are some scholars who believe that nuclear proliferation isn't actually as bad of a thing because it creates more stability. Right. I mean, we used to in the US Talk about trying to do regime change in North Korea. We don't really talk about that anymore. Right. I mean, there's a reason Iran was attacked, but North Korea wasn't. Right. And so I think my own view on that is that nuclear proliferation is very dangerous. I mean, if you look even at the history of nuclear incidents when there's only a very small handful of countries that have nuclear weapons, we've come very close to accidental nuclear war on a number of occasions. Really? Oh, yeah.

[Eugene]

When?

[Eddie Fishman]

In the 80s. You know, I think even in the 90s during the Clinton administration, there was. It was actually after the end of the Soviet Union, I think it was Russia during the Yeltsin period. Their radars picked up that there was

[Trevor Noah]

an ICBM incoming over the North Pole.

[Eddie Fishman]

Right, right. And I think, thankfully Yeltsin was like, this doesn't make any sense.

[Trevor Noah]

Why Yeltsin? Actually, it was crazy. No, wasn't anyone in leadership.

[Eddie Fishman]

Who was it?

[Trevor Noah]

There was one man who was tasked with doing the thing or pressing the button. Yo, the.

[Eugene]

The.

[Trevor Noah]

The story went. This is like one of my favorite stories. Cause I remember watching this and being like, wait, what happened? They saw the ICBM coming. I think it was like over the North Pole somewhere there. They were like, it's coming for Russia. Top chain of command. All goes. It's coming in. The bomb is coming in. What do we do? What do we do? Counter strike. What do we. They agree. We are striking back. We're striking back. We're striking back. You know, everyone has to. Now send codes and codes. All the codes. Get your keys.

[Eugene]

One, two.

[Trevor Noah]

Ah, you got it wrong.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

One, two.

[Trevor Noah]

No, wait. Are you going to say three and then we do it?

[Eugene]

One, two.

[Trevor Noah]

No way. Okay, say three then. Okay, why not say four then? Why not say on four?

[Eugene]

Okay. Okay.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Why?

[Trevor Noah]

One, two, three, four. Yeah, now we got it. You see, I don't know why they do that. So anyway, so what happened then was the Chain of command brings it down. It gets down to one man who's in his bunker, and the job is to launch. And then he went, this doesn't make sense. He just, of his own volition, went. He was like, it doesn't make sense.

[Eugene]

He went rogue under there.

[Trevor Noah]

The guy said, it doesn't make sense.

[Eugene]

He disobeyed an order, my man.

[Trevor Noah]

The biggest order to launch. The biggest order. And I forget what his reasoning was. It was something along the lines of him not understanding why there was only one or why they were launching the way they were. He just was like, it doesn't make sense.

[Eugene]

Something is not right.

[Trevor Noah]

And then he didn't launch. And then after the point when it would have been too late, they realized it was a. A satellite or malfunction or something was causing the reading. And it.

[Eugene]

It was not an interactive.

[Trevor Noah]

It wasn't. There was no bomb coming in at all. And then they phoned him back and they're like, ah. And he's like, I didn't launch. And then they were stuck because now they had to choose between punishing him for disobeying instructions or applaud him for saving the world. Arguably, he saved the world.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yes, he did give that guy the Nobel Peace.

[Trevor Noah]

He should get it.

[Eugene]

Absolutely, he should.

[Trevor Noah]

But then they. They didn't punish him to the full

[Eugene]

extent for disobeying an order, obviously.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. But they disappeared him. And he's like a. He's like a folk hero in Russia. But they just disappeared him. But not like to a gulag. He just. They were like, just go away. Thank you. But go away.

[Eugene]

Wow.

[Eddie Fishman]

Like a witness protection program.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, in a way.

[Eddie Fishman]

In a way that's wild.

[Trevor Noah]

But I didn't know there was, like, multiple times.

[Eddie Fishman]

Oh, yeah, But I mean, like, that whole story, like, imagine. And that's only when you have two countries that have large nuclear arsenals. By the way, China now is in the process of making that three countries. But then imagine if that was 10 countries or 20. Right. I mean, the. Just the risk goes up exponentially the more players you have in this really awful game.

[Eugene]

When did the world ever become scared of the damage that a nuclear bomb can do? Was it Hiroshima? Where, people. Do you think Hiroshima is actually a demonstration of what these weapons can be? You think it was necessary for it to happen, for people to go, these things are real? Because I think had that not happened, we would think maybe this is not real.

[Eddie Fishman]

I'm with you, by the way. And I think this is another sort of broad lesson of statecraft. I was mentioning one is sort of counterfactuals are important. And you have to ask yourself, like, honestly, like, what would have happened had we not done X. Right. Another one is, you know, unfortunately, for weapons to be taken seriously, oftentimes they have to be used. You make the example of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which for sure, I mean, you would not. I mean, I don't think anyone believed the power of these weapons. You know, there's a very closely guarded US national secret before these attacks. I think this is actually relevant for today too, because, you know, the Strait of Hormuz. Right. Even going back to when I was in government, whenever you would sort of war game, what happens with a war against Iran, you'd be worried that they would close the Strait of Hormuz. Wouldn't this be so bad for that

[Trevor Noah]

was in the war games?

[Eddie Fishman]

Oh, for sure. I mean. Cause it's like the key maritime choke point.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay. So it's the most logical thing that they would do.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yes. Although I think one of the suppositions that military planner strategists had for many years was that for Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, they would have to use these sea mines. Right. There's sort of the floating mines that just blow up if you hit them. They've got thousands of them. And the sort of, the like sort of the logic was, well, sea mines don't discriminate. If you're a tanker carrying Saudi oil versus Iranian oil.

[Eugene]

Yeah. The landmines in Mozambique.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, they don't discriminate. And so this would be just as bad for Iran as it would be for all the other countries in the Gulf. Because Iran also depends on the Strait of Hormuz to sell its own oil. So everyone was like, well, maybe they wouldn't do this because it would be like economically suicidal for themselves.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

But what they did in February and March of this year, after the US and Israel struck Iran, they didn't use sea mines. They just used these drones and missiles that cost like 20, 30 thousand dollars a pop. They struck like a dozen or so ships, not even that many. And just for scale before the war, you had like 150 ships going through the strait on a daily basis. All they struck was like a dozen ships. And that was enough then to get like the crews of these ships to be like, hell no, I'm not sailing through that strait. Right. And this is like at a cost of like less than a couple hundred thousand dollars if you add it up. And so what they did was they completely Confounded expectations. They showed that they could close the strait A at very low cost and B, in a selective manner. Right. In a manner where they could sell their oil. They could say like, your oil's good, your oil's bad, like your ship isn't going through, but like we're gonna sell all of our oil. That was the surprise. But now that the world has seen that that is like a killer, killer economic weapon. And like you can't unsee it, right? That's just like a fact from here on out.

[Eugene]

And you know what? Also it exposed the average person like myself, I do not understand how oil gets from one place to another in a steady stream. So when the straight of humus was closed, cuz in my head I imagine this oil gets drilled, refined, gets taken into a tanker, then the tanker makes its way. And then when the tanker reaches that side, they're like, oh, we've got more that are coming. Then they send another one. But actually they go out in almost like a straight line like this. Then it becomes a pipeline, but of ships. Oh, so if the straight closes, doesn't mean the oil does not reach like it, it could take months before a country gets affected because now all of a sudden the, the convoy, the caravan as it were, gets disrupted.

[Trevor Noah]

So that's why we only noticed that it's delayed, the impact is delayed is because the last ship's already left on their way. So just to give him his props, Stanislav Petrov. We should have a world Stanislav, Stanislav Petrov day. Yeah, he was a Russian lieutenant, passed away in 2017 I believe. But this man was literally.

[Eugene]

No way.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was, he was the one.

[Eddie Fishman]

Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

He was a full on. He was the commander of the, of the Soviet military protocol. Oh no, he, he disobeyed the orders. Yeah. Against Soviet military protocol. And this was shortly after there had been an attack on a plane, I guess. But he suspected a false alarm, decided to wait for confirmation. That never came. That never came.

[Eddie Fishman]

Wow.

[Eugene]

And I think he just. Yeah, he just leapfrogged me. Yuri Gagarin, he's, he's up there now because he saved lives. He didn't go up a rocket and go hang out in space.

[Trevor Noah]

So basically what he did was just so everyone has the full story in correctly. What he actually did was he got the message from the nuclear guys to be like, yo, the nuke's coming in, we've got to, we've got to fight. And then he just didn't tell his superiors, cuz he's like if they know we're going to war.

[Eddie Fishman]

Oh, wow.

[Trevor Noah]

That's actually what he did. And then he said no.

[Eugene]

He said, yeah, that's a hero. What's his name? Petrov.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, that's the person we mostly owe. There might not be life on Earth if it weren't for this guy Stanislav Petrov, but is that unspoken Heroes.

[Eugene]

Yeah, until today, huh? Because you just spoke him.

[Trevor Noah]

Stanislav Petrov. We just say his name.

[Eugene]

You just ruined his cover in Miami. Now he's going find a new Cosmos. This domino effect. Or is it just a myth, Eddie, that if one country launches, another one launches another one, will launch another one launch and there won't be life on Earth?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, I mean, I think that it's more relevant in terms of like the US and Russia just because we have these massive arsenals, that there's this concern that once, if the. If Russia were to think that there were incoming nuclear ICBMs, if they didn't strike back before those ICMs.

[Trevor Noah]

Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. Right, exactly.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. So these are missiles that within 15, 20 minutes can go from the US to a target in Russia, as we

[Trevor Noah]

call them in South Africa. Express missiles. Not local or station missiles. These are long distance missiles for New Yorkers. It's also the same thing on the subway.

[Eddie Fishman]

It's express line. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

There's express missiles and then there's one stop missiles.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. I mean, I think the concern is that if you didn't strike back, and it was a big enough strike, it could wipe out your ability to retaliate. And so, yeah, I mean, the whole thing is confounded now too, because you also have nuclear submarines. So you've got these guys on subs that theoretically, even if your entire country was destroyed, they could fire them.

[Trevor Noah]

And they're constantly just circling the globe. Right. They're like hiding from each other. It's a game of hide and seek. There's nuclear submarines everywhere in the world all the time. Just hiding, waiting to get a call to shoot. Nuke.

[Eugene]

That's another propaganda myth that keeps going around that nuclear submarines. You would think they're just nuclear powered submarines patrolling, but they're actually nuclear bombs.

[Eddie Fishman]

Well, they're both. Some of them.

[Trevor Noah]

Some of them. Some nukes, Eugene, not all this guy. Hashtag all nukes. Some nukes, Eugene.

[Eugene]

Some nukes are better than others.

[Trevor Noah]

Eugene is a nuke hater. But this, okay, this to me feels like a. It just feels precarious. It feels like we're living in a world where we are one madman or one wrong decision. Away from everyone being embroiled in a nuclear apocalypse or in a war that didn't even need to start.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. I mean, I think that's, that is reality. And I think maybe just another point, I mean, one of the things that's often guided my own decisions in life, like what to do, is trying to demystify things, what are topics or industries that I think are interesting that I want to learn about. And when I was in college, I really wanted to demystify how national security decisions are made. Part of the reason I went into government too. And I will say to the majority of people who haven't sat in the Situation Room to see how these decisions are made. Even in an administration where I really respected the leadership. In the Obama administration, it was highly professional. Like these are human beings, right? Like they have good days, they have bad days, they're tired, they get sick. You know, like people like, it's, it's not for the faint of heart. I think maybe when you start realizing like the amount that can go wrong and in some ways it's a miracle that more doesn't go wrong. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

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[Trevor Noah]

Let's talk a little bit about the choke points of it all. You know, you famously wrote about choke points, and I think it was one of the most in depth looks at how you can run the world with a new type of weapon. For a long time, people thought the best weapon to win a war with was one that, you know, made someone bleed. And then over time, people started realizing, no, the real weapon you want to use is one that bleeds their wallets. Yep. You know, the US seems like it's in that place or it has been in that place for a long time. And now we're starting to see either the cracks of that system or the beginning of a new system on America's side. Let's break it down into two parts. One, what do people misunderstand about the petrodollar? Cause a lot of people talk about the petrodollar now. Everyone's like, oh, the petrodollar, the petrodollar. And Iran and China's buying oil using the yuan. What do you think people misunderstand about the petrodollar?

[Eddie Fishman]

So the petrodollar is just sort of one part of the broader dollar system. I mean, it's an important part because if you just think about what a currency is, right? Yeah, it's used for payments, it's used for prices. We call it unit of account. Like, if I'm going to sell you something, what price am I going to do it in? And it's also used for investments.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

When you think about payments, you know, something like 15% of global trade is just oil. It's by far the most traded good in the world. I mean, the most traded thing, right? Yeah. I mean, it's wild when you think about the scale, the fact that, you know, the most traded good in the world is priced in dollars and largely paid for in dollars, means that there's more demand for dollars around the world. It's not the only factor about why the dollar is such an important currency. I mean, I think arguably now just as important is the fact that, you know, our stock market in the US is something like 80% of global equity market capitalization. So if you add up all the stock markets of the world, like U.S.

[Trevor Noah]

stock markets, U.S. is 80%. Oh, yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

I mean, you've got a couple companies in the US that are bigger than most other countries. Damn, I didn't know it was that big, though. Yeah. So, I mean. And are bond markets the biggest? So generally, no matter where you are in the world, if you're generating wealth, if you're a country or if you're an individual, if you're a company, you're generally investing it in the U.S. but look, what this all boils down to is that when money crosses borders and the best metric we have for that is what's called foreign exchange transactions. It's when you take one currency and exchange it for another. By far the biggest sort of market of them all, $7 trillion a day just gets swapped in foreign exchange markets. 90% of those transactions have the dollar on one side or the other.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

No way.

[Eddie Fishman]

So, like, I mean, you know, basically trying to travel the world without. Or trying to do business across borders without access to the dollar is like trying to travel without a passport. You just can't do it, you know. So the issue with the petrodollar would be, well, if China successfully takes this 15% of the trade that happens in the world and changes it from the dollar to the rmb, that could be the first crack in this overall edifice that underpins the dollar. The dollar's central role in the global economy is absolutely imperative for our way of life. In the United States, we run these giant budget deficits every single year because we can just borrow money overseas. And that's because there's basically infinite demand for US Treasuries, our government debt. But then to your point, Trevor, when it comes to economic warfare, which, by the way, has become the central way that countries compete with each other today, unlike nuclear weapons, you actually can use economic weapons.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Right?

[Eddie Fishman]

The key economic weapon that the United States has is the dollar.

[Trevor Noah]

So they'll cut you off from the dollar. That. So then explain to me why the US didn't use that for Iran. Like, I don't understand why the US didn't cut Iran off. Or were they not able to cut Iran off. Cause what's happening right now, it seems messy. And the whole world is paying for it. Everywhere from South Africa through to, you know, Australia. People are paying more for their petrol. People are gonna pay more for their gas. They're paying more for the average good. That's happening in America as well. You're seeing gas. I mean, some places as crazy as $9, $6G, generally. Like, it feels like it's messy when you run those games. I'm assuming not all of them are like war games. Are there other scenarios that the US could have pursued?

[Eddie Fishman]

Look, I mean, we did pursue economic warfare against Iran. That was the strategy that originated in the second term of George W. Bush. It was actually kind of interesting. His under Secretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, the guy who oversaw all the sanctions programs, he had heard Bush make this comment where Bush was like, sanctions have no utility against Iran. They're never gonna work. And he sort of took that as a personal challenge. And one day he was actually sitting in a hotel in Bahrain, flipping through the Financial Times, when he came across an article about a Swiss bank that had cut ties with Iran of its own volition. And kind of a light bulb went off with him whenever he was like, hold on a second. Like, maybe I don't need to persuade other governments to shun Iran. I could literally just go to bankers.

[Apple Cash Announcer]

Institutions.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, yeah, bankers in London or Singapore or Frankfurt or wherever, and persuade them not to do business with Iran of their own volition. And if they don't agree, I could threaten to cut them off from the US dollar. This was a strategy that the US started in the second Bush administration. In 2006, this guy, Stuart Levy, was reappointed by Obama. Sort of quaint in 2026America, that a Republican would stay on until a Democratic administration. Yeah, exactly. And he pursued that strategy, handed it off to his successors in the Obama administration. And that was the key to getting the Iran nuclear deal. Right. It was putting Iran under financial and economic pressure that then got them to the table for the 2015 deal. And I think Trump didn't. It wasn't that he thought that the economic pressure wasn't working. It was that he thought if you only put more pressure on Iran, you'd get an even better deal.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

Didn't work. And so he tried to use military force instead. I think the irony of the current situation, though, is that what Iran is doing is they're basically taking a leaf from the US Playbook. They're saying, well, hold on, the US has used its key choke point, which is the dollar, to try to pressure us. And so the way for us to fight back is to say, well, what choke point do we have? We have the Strait of Hormuz, the most important energy choke point in the world. 20% of global oil flowed through this narrow waterway every day.

[Trevor Noah]

That's just oil. We're not even talking about sulfur.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. Helium.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. All the things that you need to grow crops around the world. We're talking about tools.

[Eugene]

Fertilizers.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, fertilizers. And I mean, they really. Are they in a more powerful position than the world thought?

[Eddie Fishman]

Much more. Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the. Like, what we're seeing right now coming out of the war is that Iran may emerge from this war decimated militarily and economically, but strengthened strategically because they've shown the world that they can use this choke point to incredible effect.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

And something. You know, it used to be that the US could, you know, like I said, I used to go to places like Singapore and Japan, and you said, well, look, if you keep doing business with Iran, we'll cut you off from the dollar. Well, now, what happens if Iran says to the Japanese, well, if. Unless you lift your sanctions on us, we won't allow your ships to go through the Strait of Hormuz. And that's what they're doing. I mean, they're cutting deals on a bilateral basis, like with other countries, saying, your ship can go through, your ship can't, but you have to pay me to, you know. Yeah, totally. So, I mean, I think what we've seen. Cause you're asking, like, what era has happened. The whole thesis of my book Choke Points is that we're living in an age of economic warfare. I think for the first 15 or so years or 20 years of that period, we were kind of in this unipolar world where it was like the US had all these economic weapons, but other countries didn't. Well, now we have China with rare earth elements, where they completely shocked the United States last year by cutting off our access. We have Iran with the Strait of Hormuz.

[Trevor Noah]

Cause you need those for everything. Phones, computers, cars, everything. Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

They literally. They imposed embargo on rare earth elements in April of last year in the US and within weeks, Ford had to shut down its factory. That makes the Explorer suv. They just didn't have enough of these. Within weeks. Within weeks, literally, the factory closed. And so, I mean, other countries have choke points, too. We're in an economic arms race right now where Every country in the world is saying, well, what are the choke points that we have that we could use against our rivals? And then what are the choke points that our rivals have over us that make us vulnerable? That is what's happening right now.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, now, at the risk of sounding like the joker, why can't we all just get along? I don't understand why we're.

[Eugene]

I was hoping you don't say, why so serious? I was like, trevor, this is a serious issue. We've used words like embargo.

[Trevor Noah]

No, we have. But I'm saying. Okay, so hear me out. Hear me out on this. Hear me out on this. Hear me out on this. This could be a very naive perspective and a very naive point of view, but it seems like we live in a world where there is, for the most part, mutually Assured destruction. Now, you cannot just blow everything up everywhere. I mean, even looking at Russia and Ukraine, for all intents and purposes, Russia could blow up Ukraine. Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

I mean, they could use a nuclear weapon.

[Trevor Noah]

That's what I mean. So they have nukes. They are not using the nukes. They could also blow up all of Ukraine. Technically, yeah, they have the capability, but they do not do it. Do you know why they do not do it?

[Eddie Fishman]

I think it would be the fastest way to unify the entire world against them.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Eddie Fishman]

And also, I mean, they're close, but I mean, with nuclear weapons, too, it's like they're. It's like if you nuke New Jersey, I think New York is going to get the nuclear fallout.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay. So they're close enough, so.

[Eddie Fishman]

Oh, yeah. I mean, they're right next door to Ukraine.

[Trevor Noah]

Right. So. So they. So then they sort of can't use the nukes on Ukraine, and they also can't blow up all of Ukra because then people will come for them. And then the world also can't blow up Russia because I guess the world just doesn't do that. It feels like. I don't know. I don't know why. It feels like there's a lot of unnecessary posturing going on and things being blown up for no reason. Or maybe the wrong reasons.

[Eddie Fishman]

Definitely the wrong reasons. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. And I don't understand why.

[Eugene]

I think. Sorry.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, no, go.

[Eugene]

I think it is necessary because if you look at the countries that have nuclear weapons, they have strong men that really get challenged during elections.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay?

[Eugene]

So if you have a person that says, I'm the only person who can control this guy, this guard dog.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

I'm the one it listens to. I'm the one who feeds it. Do you really, really, really, every four years want to change the person who's in charge of that guard dog? America, if you look at all of the countries that have nuclear weapons is the only country that does that. And it just looks like the guy who's controlling the guard dog is going, do you think this is a good idea of changing me every four years? I think that's why he was able to make a comeback. Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

I think he subscribed.

[Trevor Noah]

You've actually made me realize to the strongman. Maybe America should just elect its nuclear president separately.

[Eddie Fishman]

Exactly.

[Trevor Noah]

It should be like a Supreme Court thing maybe for like 10, 15 years. You just have one nuclear president.

[Eugene]

NBA commissioner.

[Trevor Noah]

You have nuclear presidents and you have president. President.

[Eddie Fishman]

You can have like a reality TV star as president and then just like an extremely boring lawyer as like a nuclear.

[Trevor Noah]

You have like a Jerome Powell of nuclear weapons.

[Eddie Fishman]

It's not a bad idea. Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And you go like, you are just in charge of nukes. That's all you do. The war can. People can fight the war. But I'm the president of nukes.

[Eugene]

Yeah. Because is there a country that has nuclear weapons that has had free and fair democratic elections running over four years all the time?

[Eddie Fishman]

Germany, UK And France.

[Trevor Noah]

Does Germany not have nukes?

[Eddie Fishman]

No, Germany doesn't have nukes.

[Trevor Noah]

Ah, of course. How could I forget?

[Eugene]

Does France have nukes?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. And India. India has nukes.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

India illegally has nukes.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

But not part of the npt.

[Eugene]

I don't see Modi going Nahindra Modi going anywhere anytime soon.

[Eddie Fishman]

It seems like he's in there.

[Eugene]

So let's count all the countries. Do this for me.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Who does have nukes? Usa.

[Eugene]

And then. And then out of all of them, show us which ones are most likely to be out of power or just came into power.

[Eddie Fishman]

So there are five. According to this treaty we talked about, the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, there are five countries that can have nukes.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, so the can haves.

[Eddie Fishman]

Us, Russia, China, France, uk. Okay, there are a few countries that have nukes. They develop them outside of the bounds of international law. So technically illegal nuclear programs.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, got it.

[Eddie Fishman]

India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea.

[Eugene]

Huh?

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, so that's an interesting com.

[Eddie Fishman]

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

[Trevor Noah]

But before you go on, I want to know about these countries who are illegally developing nukes. Can you explain this to me? Like, how did that happen?

[Eddie Fishman]

I mean, a lot of countries have sought to illegally develop nukes, including Iran. Right. The question is, have they been able to be stopped?

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, you've confused me here. Eddie, forgive me. Forgive me. You know, I play video games and I tell jokes, so. Eddie, you've thrown my brain off.

[Eddie Fishman]

You've stoned yourself, man.

[Trevor Noah]

You've thrown your stuff out.

[Eddie Fishman]

What's his name? Petrov or something?

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Tell his love.

[Eugene]

Tell his love.

[Eddie Fishman]

Tell his love.

[Eugene]

So tell us about Petrov.

[Trevor Noah]

So this is. Okay, you've confused me here.

[Eddie Fishman]

You've confused me.

[Trevor Noah]

We are saying that Iran is being bombed and has been sanctioned because it is illegally enriching uranium. Because it didn't agree to it in the terms of the. So what it agreed to in the terms of its contract, it hasn't adhered to. It keeps failing the inspections. Right, okay. But it doesn't have nuclear weapons. But then we are saying that India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. And North Korea do have nuclear weapons. And they developed those nuclear weapons outside

[Eddie Fishman]

of the treaty illegally because they didn't sign. They're not signatories or.

[Trevor Noah]

None of them signed.

[Eugene]

None of them signed the treaty.

[Trevor Noah]

So if you don't sign, nothing can happen to you.

[Eddie Fishman]

I mean, why doesn't you. No, the international community, to be clear, has tried to stop all four of those countries from developing nuclear weapons. But to our point earlier, once they cross the threshold, what are you gonna do about it?

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

So then everyone should. No, no. Now, I'm on not. Let me put it this way. I understand where Iran is coming from. Not as a leadership and not as a. I do not see the incentive to not have nuclear weapons is what I'm saying. Do you understand? No.

[Eugene]

And the incentive, I cannot understand for sure.

[Trevor Noah]

Cause you've just shown me. You've just shown me four countries that have nukes, and now no one can do anything about it. Then I'm like, well, then why wouldn't I get a nuke?

[Eddie Fishman]

Look, I think particularly. And to Eugene's point, particularly country. Authoritarian countries, there's clearly an incentive. Right. Because you're worried that some other country may come and say, you're illegitimate, we're gonna overthrow you. Yeah. I mean, again, if you look at countries that have either given up their nukes or, you know, like Libya was sort of the classic case in the early 2000s. Gaddafi cut a deal with the US to give up his nuclear weapons.

[Trevor Noah]

Boy, oh, boy, did he pay the price.

[Eddie Fishman]

You know, So, I mean, look, I think, Trevor, you're onto something here. There's a reason why authoritarian regimes have pursued nuclear weapons. And I think another. This also gets us to another reason why there's fear about Iran getting A nuke.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

So let's say Iran did successfully get a nuclear weapon. Saudi Arabia, the uae, all these other countries in the region, Turkey, who view themselves as potentially a rival to Iran.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

They're gonna get nukes. So you wind up getting what, a sort of a cascade of nuclear proliferation.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, so now I understand what you're saying. You're saying the secondary effects of people getting nukes might be more dangerous than the primary ones, in that more people having nukes means more opportunities for something to go wrong with a nuke, not even people necessarily launching them.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

So if everyone has a nuke and something goes wrong with a nuke or a nuclear facility or something, then people are just. It's just because there were just more nukes out there. It's the same way if there are more guns in a society, it is more likely that someone will get shot, even if it's a child finding their dad's gun in like a closet or something.

[Eddie Fishman]

I think it's actually an incredibly good analogy. Right. You look at the US like, are all these guns everywhere? Right.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Eddie Fishman]

It's probably why we have such a ridiculous high rate of gun violence.

[Trevor Noah]

Right. And it doesn't mean that all guns are bad, it doesn't mean that all gun owners are bad, but it means that there's a higher likelihood that something's gonna go wrong. Something will go wrong with.

[Eddie Fishman]

I mean, how many Stanislavs are we gonna have? Right. I mean, are you gonna have one in every country? Right.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay.

[Eddie Fishman]

And given the stakes. Right. With a nuclear exchange, it's potentially existential for humanity, or at least for. Certainly for individual countries or cities. Right. You know, nuclear proliferation, I think, is a bad thing.

[Eugene]

I like how you've also phrased it. It's not a nuclear war, it's a nuclear exchange. Cause there won't be a war after the thing. Yeah, there's nothing.

[Trevor Noah]

There's nothing after that. There's nothing. Basically, nuclear war, Eugene, is like. It's a double block on WhatsApp. That's what it is.

[Eugene]

I was gonna say it's like under the same duvet when you.

[Trevor Noah]

It's when you block me and then I block you, and then it's finished now.

[Eugene]

Yeah, I was gonna use the fat.

[Trevor Noah]

You're gonna go with farts.

[Eugene]

Yeah, because there's a couple farts all together at the same time.

[Trevor Noah]

Another duvet.

[Eugene]

And then no one knows who did what. But the thing has happened and then the.

[Trevor Noah]

But there can still be more conflict afterwards.

[Eugene]

Have you ever crop dusted anyone no, my daughter taught me that term.

[Eddie Fishman]

I don't even know. What does it even mean?

[Eugene]

You don't know what crop dusting is?

[Eddie Fishman]

Tell me. Enlighten me.

[Eugene]

When people are chilling at a park

[Trevor Noah]

bench, do you really want to give a State Department person more weapons? You never know where you might need a negotiation. This is truth.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Eugene]

People are chilling in a park, and then you just walk past, but you fart. And then you go, okay.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. That's the only way to do it. You don't want to linger behind your knees.

[Trevor Noah]

You're not wrong, Eddie.

[Eugene]

You just cropped up.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. Wait, what is the alternative?

[Trevor Noah]

It's like. No, there's too much.

[Eddie Fishman]

There's people who fought.

[Trevor Noah]

It's one who fought and hang out, really.

[Eugene]

And then everyone. There's three spider mans going, crop dust.

[Trevor Noah]

If I rule the country, that would be my. My. My number one law. Everyone who farts, you have to stand there where you farted.

[Eugene]

No, it's not like Saddam Hussein until

[Trevor Noah]

the smell has dissipated. No, no. Just so that. Because, look, there's nothing wrong with farting.

[Eugene]

We all know absolutely nothing.

[Trevor Noah]

We've also got to get rid of that in society. Yes. So just stand there so that there's no blame that goes around. Stand there and put your hand up.

[Eugene]

Yeah, exactly.

[Trevor Noah]

If you see someone standing somewhere and they've got their hand up, you know that they farted.

[Eugene]

And you know the person who's guilty in a group of three or four people.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

That farts and doesn't acknowledge the fart is the one that did it. Because people who go, what's that? Are the ones who know they didn't do anything.

[Trevor Noah]

I disagree. I disagree. Some people are very good at acting.

[Eugene]

Wait, wait, wait.

[Trevor Noah]

I've seen some people. Some people spend. Some people. Some people fought. Yeah, I've seen some people.

[Eugene]

Then the first person to go.

[Trevor Noah]

They're the ones to go, mm. What is that? And then other people go, ah. And then they act like. That's the oldest trick in the book. It's the oldest trick in the book. I'm sure there's even. I'm sure in history somewhere people have done this on a. On a state level. What you do is you have a nuclear incident or you have something that goes wrong with, like, a chemical weapon. And then what you do is you go, guys, someone released a chemical weapon. Are you seeing this? And then everyone starts and they go like you were the first to discover it, but you're the ones who actually dealt it.

[Eugene]

Or you were developing a virus. In a lab, and then it's a leaked. And then people were dying. And you're like, what is that?

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

Whoever smelt it, dealt it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yes.

[Eugene]

And whoever denied it fried it.

[Trevor Noah]

Let me ask you.

[Eugene]

Generated. Your LinkedIn is going to be ruined

[Trevor Noah]

after this interview, dude.

[Eddie Fishman]

My career is over now.

[Trevor Noah]

But we'll solve the world. I'll tell you that, Eddie. We'll solve the world. Okay. Okay. Let me ask you some about, like, some of the thinking that goes into the State Department or how world leaders try and remedy a conflict.

[Eddie Fishman]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay. Donald Trump has chosen a specific way with his people. It seems like, and this is only by reports, it seems like many of his people internally said, do not do this.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

They were like, yo, man, don't do this.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

And then he was, like, pressured by Israel, and they said, no, there's an imminent attack. So let's. Let's start with the first part. How does the American government, or any government, for that matter, determine when something can be called defend? Defense versus attack?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Cause when they go like, it's a preemptive strike. I understand the logic behind some of it. So if you're in the Wild west and someone's about to draw, I assume you cannot wait for them to draw before you fire, because the time that it takes, you're dead. I get that. I get that. Okay. So I understand the logic in striking preemptively to a certain extent. But then sometimes I go, how far can you take that back? Is it when the person has got their hands by their side? Is it after they've whistled? Is it that good Whistler? Or is it the. Or is it the pacing? Is it after the 10 paces? Is it when they walk out of the saloon? Is it when they ride into town? Is it when you meet them in the Wild west before we get to town? How far back can you go before you say that this is now attack versus, like, defense?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, I mean, I think the honest truth is semantic, and it doesn't really matter. I mean, the president is the commander in chief. He or she can decide when to use military force. And there's really not much of a check on that, unfortunately. I mean, to your question, though, I mean, Donald Trump has tried to portray the strike on Iran as preemptive. Right. That they were about to get a nuclear weapon. And what I would say is, I mean, unless there is some classified intelligence that has not been either leaked or declassified, which I consider pretty unlikely, because you would think that if there was a smoking gun, there would be a High. A significant incentive for incentive would be the White House to say, hey, we'll look at this. I do not believe that there was a preemptive reason to strike Iran. You could say that they already did have 10 bombs worth of nuclear material. So uranium enriched to a point where you could turn it into a bomb within a week or so. What I would say though is even now, despite this giant attack by the United States and Israel In June of 2025, Operation Midnight Hammer, that took out a lot of their nuclear facilities, plus the war that has happened in February, March, April, May of this year, they still have. Iran still has that, you know, a thousand pounds of high enrichment.

[Eugene]

Even after the bunker busters and all

[Eddie Fishman]

the jazz, they still got it. It's what I think Trump calls a nuclear dust. It is buried under this town called Isfahan in the middle of Iran and we haven't done anything about it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but this is. Okay, again, maybe I'm naive, but if Iran had 10 bombs worth of uranium.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Did not make one bomb. Yeah, nevermind 10. They did not make a bomb. And then they get attacked. And you said in a week they could make a bomb.

[Eugene]

It was threatened.

[Trevor Noah]

Threatened, did not make a bomb.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Nothing.

[Trevor Noah]

Attacked, did not make a bomb. Still do not make a bomb. Then should we not assume that they do not want to make a bomb or is that foolish?

[Eddie Fishman]

So I think one other challenge, and look, I think it's hard not to sometimes we don't appreciate that societies can be complex. Right. And we often have to anthropomorphize other countries and say like Iran did this or that. Right. I think the truth is within Iran, you had different factions, you had different people who said we should have a nuclear bomb, others who said we should at least have the capability to build one quickly if we need it. Actually Ayatollah Khamenei, the senior, the one who was killed, you know, a couple months ago in an Israeli strike, he actually had put out a fatwa, sort of this dictum saying that we should never have nuclear weapons.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Eddie Fishman]

And so one theory, one sort of hypothesis is that the sort of aging supreme leader, I think it was 86 when he was killed and had terminal cancer. So he's probably didn't have much long to live. Even had Israel, not often. I think there's this theory that he sort of didn't want to actually have nuclear weapons. But a lot of these sort of hardline younger, young guys in Iran and the irgc, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, did want nukes. And so I think another sort of double irony here is that in sort of taking out the Khameney senior turned

[Trevor Noah]

out, they've now created the monster that

[Eugene]

they radicalized the whole.

[Eddie Fishman]

You've handed over power to people who are even more harsh line than him. And I think, look, I mean, we all, you know, Eugene, you live in New York, but we all live in South Africa. Okay. You're here hanging out with us. There are a lot of, look, there are a lot of, We all live in New York. There's a lot of, you know, the Iranian diaspora, you know, they're, they're, they're here. And I think there was a lot of hope in that community.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

A lot of earlier this year that, you know, this could be it, you could finally get change. Because I think it's important to note, like the Islamic Republic of Iran, like you're bad guys. They killed tens of thousands of innocent protesters earlier this year. We would all be better off, principally Iranians, if they were gone.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

I think there was high hopes that, you know, there was change coming. When Khamenei was sort of going to die from natural causes, you'd have an internal debate about succession. You might get a more liberal government. Well, guess what? The US and Israel took care of their succession problem for them. Handed it over from Khomeini senior to Khamenei junior who seems to be a puppet of these hardline IRGC generals. And so I do think that it seemed like Ayatollah Khamenei senior, you know, deceased now, did not actually want to cross the nuclear threshold.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

But it's clear that they did want to have the capability to weaponize. And now there's an even greater incentive for them to do so.

[Trevor Noah]

Don't press anything. We've got more. What now? After this?

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[Eddie Fishman]

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[Trevor Noah]

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[Eddie Fishman]

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[Trevor Noah]

in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments.

[Eddie Fishman]

But that's weird.

[Trevor Noah]

Okay, one judgment anyway, give it a

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[Trevor Noah]

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[Eddie Fishman]

taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail].

[Trevor Noah]

When you know and I'm obviously only asking you from the US Perspective cause you worked in the government. I'm not, I'm not focusing on the US but like when a president or their trusted confidants are trying to figure out how to solve some of these most pressing issues. Are there ever stories or have you ever encountered moments where a president tried to go the opposite way to the direction America seems to have always gone? So and again, I use, I'm using broad language, forgive me. Yeah, but it seems like America's idea of how to solve an issue has often been send in the bombs and things will get fixed. So how do we fix Saddam Hussein? We blow things up.

[Eugene]

Brute force.

[Trevor Noah]

And it's done. And it's like oh no no, now you've got isis. And it's like okay, that's not what we wanted. And it's like all right, how do you fix Gaddafi? Okay, you blow up Libya? It's sorted. And it's like, no, now you've got, like, one of the worst slave trades in Africa and a hot pot of hotbed of extremism. Time and time again. It feels like, you know, even. Even Iran itself, it seems like America is dealing with its previous sins in helping to oust a leader that it didn't like, who, for all intents and purposes, seemed like a good leader for the people. Maybe. Maybe not the most perfect leader, but way better than the leaders that came afterwards. You see what I mean? Like how. At what? Like, is there ever a point where an American leader goes, let's try something completely different? And if they have thought that, has it worked or has it not worked?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, I mean, there have certainly been examples. I would argue that the original approach toward Iran, which was to not use military force, to use economic pressure to cut them off from this choke point, that is the US Dollar, originated during George W. Bush's term. I think it was, frankly, George W. Bush being a little bit humbled after seeing what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. Right. Because I think there was sort of the beginning of his term and after nine, 11, particularly, a bit of a sort of rah rah attitude toward the use of military force. You know, the US Kind of felt omnipotent. And then it became pretty clear after a couple of years of those wars that they weren't going very well, even against these quite small countries.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

And so then when a country right next to Iraq that was multiple times bigger than Iraq, more powerful than Iraq, Right. Namely Iran, was actually developing, you know, nuclear weapons that, you know, wasn't something that Saddam Hussein even was developing, which made it even more ironic. George W. Bush did decide to try to use nonviolent pressure against Iran.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

That was the baton he passed to President Obama. There have been other decisions. I mean, look, one of the decisions that I think Obama took most heat over was the Syria red line. If you remember when he came out,

[Trevor Noah]

when you said, there's a red line in this, there's a sand.

[Eddie Fishman]

If Assad uses chemical weapons, we will attack, we will strike. And I think, you know, basically his whole administration was gearing up, ready to bomb Syria in sort of basically living up to Obama's red line. And then Obama sort of went for a walk in the backyard of the White House and said, you know what? I don't want to do this. And so there have been moments in history when presidents have sort of chosen to go the opposite way. Of their advisors, for good and for ill. And I think, to your point, I mean, we'll see when the sort of definitive history is written on Trump's decision to attack Iran. But it does seem, if you can trust some of the early reports, that Trump was sort of a lonely voice in terms of wanting to strike Iran in February of this year. And unfortunately, his voice is the one that actually mattered.

[Trevor Noah]

Has there ever been a case of the US Cause, you see, you showed us, or you just described two possible outcomes, but they seem to be completely diametrically opposed. One is go in and blow the thing up or ignore it completely. Have there been any instances where the US has tried to bring the other person in? And what I mean by this is like, I'm sure you've seen this because of the world you've been in. Many people will argue that part of the reason the world has the Russia that it has today is because the US Did a terrible job of bringing Russia into the fold post World War II, in and around NATO, the Cold War. The Americans just didn't do a good job of being like, hey, join us. Actually, you're part of this G. You know what I mean? You're part of the G20. You're part of this. Come and come on. You're part of this. You actually have a McDonald's. Let's do this thing. You know what I mean?

[Eddie Fishman]

So, on Russia, I mean, it's something. It's an issue near and dear to my heart. I actually sort of was very interested in Russian history, Russian literature. My great grandparents emigrated to the United States from the former Russian Empire.

[Trevor Noah]

Wow.

[Eddie Fishman]

And, you know, spent a summer when I was in college living in Russia sort of before. Our relationship has gone sideways. I've now, by the way, been sanctioned by Russia, so I can never go back, unfortunately. Which, by the way, I appreciate that when I was sanctioned in 2022, a lot of people sent me these, like, congratulatory notes.

[Trevor Noah]

Anyone losing a piece of their home? Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

I was like, hold on a second. Like, this is upsetting. You know, it's like, weird when a place where you've had friends, where you've spent good times is taken away from. Is taken away from you. So. So, look, I do think that US policy toward Russia in the 90s could have been significantly better. Right. We could have given Russia more of a bear hug than we did. Right. If you look at you sort of juxtapose Russia with some of the other former communist countries like Poland or Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, I mean, all of those countries have generally become successful free societies.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

You know, liberal democracies. Even Hungary. Right. Where we're sort of going in the. In the wrong direction for a long time. They now got rid of Orban and they're sort of back in the. In the fold. I do think we could have done a better job in the 1990s. But look, I think there's also an element of just bad luck and historical contingency. You know, sort of the main successful Russian politician that a lot of people thought was going to succeed Boris Yeltsin, who, you know, sort of famously kind of a drunk, not a particularly effective leader, was this guy Boris Nemtsov. He was very handsome sort of reformer. And Yeltsin, when he was sort of like, you know, very clearly very sick and dying, he was like, who can I put in as my successor that's just not going to, like, prosecute my family for corruption and, like, take away our resources? And so he elevated this relatively unknown deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin, into sort of the Kremlin to be his sort of handpicked successor. And so Putin inherited the presidency from Yeltsin. He eventually won an election, but he inherited the presidency at the end of 1999 from Yeltsin, because Yeltsin was like, this is sort of the most innocuous successor. But if you think about it, had that not happened, right. If you had had. If you had just had a free and fair election and before Putin had come in and sort of that role, you probably would have gotten a guy like Nemtsov. The other thing, I'll say, too, just to give some folks in the US Government a little bit of credit here, because I do think we could have done better policies, and I can talk about those, but we did bring Russia. You mentioned the G20. We have this G7, which is sort of like the close club of US allies.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, yeah, the G6.

[Eddie Fishman]

We did make that the G8. Right. We brought them into the G8, and we brought Russia into the World Trade Organization. And actually part of the reason I was sanctioned by Russia in 2014, when Russia first invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea, I was the Russia sanctions lead at the State Department. So I was the one designing the sanctions and negotiating them with the EU and the G7 to try to put sanctions on Russia back in 2014. And I remember at the State Department, a lot of my colleagues were, like, very against sanctioning Russia. And I think it was because they had just got Russia into the World trade organization, like, 18 months before. And many of them, like career diplomats had spent, like, a decade of their

[Trevor Noah]

lives trying to make this happen on

[Eddie Fishman]

the ground in Russia, working with them to, like, make sure that they're alive, were right, and, you know, getting in place so they could join the World Trade Organization. And then, like, 18 months after, like, the big project of their careers had culminated.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

Where, like, actually, we're sanctioning Russia. And so there was a lot of, like, blood, sweat, and tears poured out to. By US Diplomats to try to bring Russia into the fold. But, yeah, I mean, I think, unfortunately, history just didn't go our way.

[Trevor Noah]

One of the things I've always wondered for. For people who work in your position, or any position adjacent to it in a government, is how much of yourself you have to keep and how much of your patriotism has to take over. Because I can only imagine it's a really complicated situation. Right. On the one hand, you have your views as a human being. On the other hand, the country has its views. And because you are of the country, you are meant to adopt some of, if not all of those views. But at times, your country's doing something wrong.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yep.

[Trevor Noah]

How do you then find the gap between yourself and the country without being seen? You know, because people will be quick to say you're a traitor or, you know, it's treason, but it's like, yeah, but countries can do things wrong, as in, like, administrations or. And we've seen people who will fight against their own country or they will, like, from within the ranks, they will. There'll be a certain level of dissent, not physical fight, but they'll go, no, I don't think this is right. We must change this. And when it has changed, we'll go, ah, thank you for changing it. But if it doesn't get changed, that person will get punished for trying to change it. How do you grapple with that?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, look, I think each individual has their own perspective, their own moral compass. I think it's interesting because for me, I think I would have a lot of trouble serving in an administration whose policies I disagreed with. And frankly, just to be totally candid, you know, I was a career diplomat at the State Department. I could have theoretically stayed and worked through the first Trump administration. And I decided not to, in large part because, you know, I. I really did believe that what Russia was doing in Ukraine was morally objectionable, morally abhorrent. They were literally conquering their neighboring territory or neighboring country.

[Trevor Noah]

Right, right.

[Eddie Fishman]

Which is not something that I think many of us ever expected to see again in our Lifetime. Right. Something like that had not happened since World War II. Right. An actual military conquest occurring on European soil. And then you had Trump elected in 2016 with, you know, the Russian government actively assisting. I'm not saying that Trump.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no.

[Eddie Fishman]

Colluded.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

Not that he certainly. I mean, you know, the Russian government did put its thumb on the scale. And then you had, I think, in the beginning of the first Trump administration, a real effort to say, well, maybe we should just excuse all of Russia's sins. We should, you know, let them have Ukraine. And that was not something I wanted to be a part of. And so that was a big reason why I decided to leave the government. At the same time, when I look at friends and colleagues who have stayed around, I'm extremely grateful. Right. I'm grateful.

[Trevor Noah]

Cause they were a bulwark in many ways.

[Eddie Fishman]

And it's not even that, you know. Cause I think a lot of them, like, you know, it's hard, I think, during Trump's term, you did see, and Trump gets mad about this, Right. That he is sort of the deep state that's fighting against him. But, I mean, even if you're not necessarily a bulwark, I think having intelligent people in the room who have some experience, who can sort of the very least, put their views out there, I think is so important. And look, I think one of the things that has done Trump a disservice in his second term is he does not have a high caliber of cabinet or advisors around him. He has a lot of people who really should not be anywhere near making decisions. There are a few people there I think are quite. They're good, they're credible, but it's a much, much lower caliber than you had in his first term. And I think that's part of the reason you've had, frankly, a less successful policy.

[Trevor Noah]

How do you think we find the balance between having expertise and getting stuck in an old way of doing things? I asked this because I remember hearing one story about how when the Trump administration came into power, first time around, he just told people around him to make calls. He was just like, almost on, like, a childlike level.

[Eugene]

Yeah. Like, you know what's best. Go ahead.

[Trevor Noah]

Not even. He was like, what's happening in South Africa? All right, Eugene, aren't you. South Africa. Phone South Africa. And then it was like, rudy Giuliani, isn't that Italian? Phone Italy. And like. Like, literally. I'm saying it in a very comical way, but apparently it was close to this. He just went, hey, man, do you know you know something? Didn't you go there once? Phone them. You phone them. You phone. And people were just using, like, their normal phones.

[Eugene]

No way.

[Trevor Noah]

That's how the story, like, sort of first leaked out, is that people were conducting state business on their. What do they call, unsecured devices. People were just phoning. But. And this is completely a story that I've heard, so I cannot fact check it or verify it, but apparently that was one of the reasons that the, like, the Saudis and the. I think the Emiratis were able to even, like, get to the table. No. Get to the table. Having a conversation was because Jared Kushner just didn't, like, know this stuff. And he was like, why? Why don't you want to talk to them? And they were like, what are you talking about? We're not. And he's like, why don't you talk to him? And then he was like, yeah, I'll phone him, and you just talk to him. And then the one person just talked to the other one on the phone, and they made progress that they otherwise would have never made if it had been contained within, like, the diplomatic channels of old. Yeah. The static, you know, even things like which country you phone first.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I remember hearing many world leaders were frustrated with Biden's administration because they felt like there was no. There was no reaching out. There was no communication. There was no. And then Biden's team would say, no, we're very. We're choosing very carefully who we will call first.

[Eugene]

Protocol.

[Trevor Noah]

Because it's protocol. Right. Which country we reach out to first. Apparently, bro. As soon as Trump came into power.

[Eugene]

Whatsapps.

[Trevor Noah]

Every country was phoned, like. And when I say every country, I mean every. If you knew a country, the person. Their job was just to phone someone there and just ask someone who asks someone who asks someone who asks someone. And then you would even, like, phone Trump's phone directly. It was.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

It was in many ways chaotic. I don't deny this. But it did give us an insight into the fact that some of the ways that we do things are a little so stiff, you know, and stayed that, like, it holds us back. So how do you. You know what I mean? How do we find that balance between the diplomatic protocols versus new ways to maybe make progress with countries that we disagree with?

[Eddie Fishman]

I couldn't agree more. I think that, you know, in the process of writing choke points, I spoke to 30 or 40 people who were in the first Trump administration.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

And one thing I heard consistently was a feeling that it was Actually exciting because there was a tolerance of risk. There was allowing people to sort of freelance a little bit more than you did, you know, in the Obama administration. It was extremely sort of orderly, and you immediately the process was followed to a T. And so I do think there's something to that. Right. And I think particularly also with diplomacy, like, it is helpful, frankly, to build rapport with other people, to have a relationship where people can just pick up the phone and call you. I mean, in my own experience, a lot of the progress I personally made was through personal relationships. Personal relationships, trusting relationships. So I think there's something there. I think when it comes to expertise, though, I don't think there's really a substitute for it. I do think you do want people in the room who at least know something about the country you're talking to or about. Right. You understand their history. You know, some people there, their culture. Maybe you spent time there. And certainly, like, when you're talking about the uses of power.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

Economic warfare, you should probably understand, like, well, what might happen if we were going to sanction the central bank of Russia.

[Trevor Noah]

Right. Okay.

[Eddie Fishman]

Could that cause a financial crisis in Germany? What would that mean for us? Right. Like, what would happen if you attack Iran? Would they cut off access to the Strait of Hormuz?

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Could they do that?

[Eddie Fishman]

What would that do to oil prices? What would that do to fertilizer? How about, could we have a famine in part of Africa? Right. Because, like, and those are subjects that you need some level of knowledge. I think at the same time, like, I don't. Having some sort of an ossified class of experts, I also think is not good either. Like, I think you should have people changing seats at the table. I think Biden, President Biden, by and large, took a lot of the senior people from the Obama administration and just, like, shuffled their chairs.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

And I don't think that did him much service, frankly. I think, like, having some of those people back, for sure. Right. Very good people. But also injecting some new ideas, some, you know, fresh perspectives, I think is really important.

[Trevor Noah]

In a way, I think of it. It's. It's sort of like. It's sort of like football, in a way, is. You have some football teams, soccer, some. Some teams where the coach moves every single player on the. On the pitch like a chessboard, and the team can become so stiff that they can't respond dynamically to changes in the game plan. And then you have other coaches who don't have a game plan, and then that's chaos. But then you have coaches who go, I spend all my time picking the right players and putting them in the right positions. And then I trust that when it's game time, everyone will know what they need to do. And in a way, it's like, I feel like that could be like a perfect balance is you find experts because they've taken the time to become experts in these fields, but you also give them a little latitude to say, hey, go out there, make friends, make decisions, move the ball, like, switch things. Cause I just think we take for granted how much the small interpersonal relations shape the big geopolitical relations.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

You know?

[Eugene]

Yeah. The big picture.

[Trevor Noah]

One of the saddest stories I ever saw was the story of how the Israel, Palestine negotiations essentially didn't come together. And then did. Just because Clinton forced the two leaders to be in the same room. Really, they didn't even want to talk to each other. It was like straight up, like, I don't want to talk to them, they don't want to talk to me. We're enemies. This is this. And Clinton said, you're going to sit in the same room. And he did it arguably for selfish reasons, but in a good way. He was like, I'm going to solve this issue.

[Eugene]

Mm.

[Trevor Noah]

You're gonna sit in the same room. And he was like, neither of you wants me as your enemy. We're gonna sit in this room and we're gonna go. And they didn't. They refused to speak to each other for a long time. They just didn't speak to each other. They didn't speak to each other. They didn't speak to each other. And they would have meals and everyone would meet up and. But they. And then one day, one day, the story goes, one of them just turns to the other and was like, how's your family? Literally Palestinian leader, Israeli. Yeah. One of them just turned to the other and said, how's your family? And the conversation evolved and the conversation. And then the next time they spoke more and the next. And they never spoke about the actual issues each time, each subsequent meeting. And then one day one said to the other, do you actually wanna get into. Do you wanna discuss this? And that's when they made the most inroads. No, that's when they made the mo. Yeah. Until that suicide bombing that happened. It looked like there was a path to a two state solution. It looked like there was a moment in time where Israel, Palestine wasn't gonna be what it is today. But the biggest breakthrough for me came in the fact that two Human beings, interpersonal relations. Two human beings saw each other as human beings and no longer as, like, a country's name. And because of that, they began the journey and, like, it got ripped away from the world. I argue, but I even think about that when we use, like, words like, the Russians.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, totally.

[Trevor Noah]

I'm a little sad sometimes because I go, I have nothing against Russians. I've been to Russia. I went there for the World Cup. I've met Russians everywhere in the world. Russian people forget what they've given us in the world. Like, you know, art and ballet and math and, like, lots of things, but as human beings. Yo, man, Russians are some of my favorite people I've ever, ever, ever met. But then we say the Russians as shorthand for the Russian government.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

And I think what we do is we create the perfect propaganda for the Russian government to use on its citizens to say, look, the whole world hates us.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yep.

[Trevor Noah]

And it's like, no, no, no. Actually, we have nothing against the Russians. We have an issue with Vladimir Putin's government. Does that make sense? And I sometimes, like, that's why people are like, hey, congrats, you got banned from Russia. And they're happy for you because they don't realize that you knew human beings there.

[Eddie Fishman]

Totally.

[Trevor Noah]

They think that you're cut off from the government. But you didn't lose the government. You lost humans, you lost friends, you lost family members, you lost your history, you lost your culture. And that's. That's the thing that I think we forget sometimes when we're having these, like, geopolitical disputes in the world is even when people like the Iranians, hey, man, I know people from Iran. Some of the most fun you'll ever, like, amazing human beings. You know what I mean? But we then go, the Iranians. And it's like, no, bruh. I wish we were more specific about, like, the country and that administration in particular. The same way no American wants to be tarnished by the Bush years. They call them the Bush years. In particular, if you say to an American, oh, man, what you guys were doing in Iraq, they're like, ha, yeah, the Bush years. Then you're like, ah, the American years. Americans would be like, no, no, those were the Bush years. Because they want to separate themselves and America from that moment. You get what I'm saying?

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yeah, yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Like, I don't know. I feel like there's, like. There's, like, a world where we could try and, like, stitch the interpersonal just a little bit more.

[Eugene]

It almost feels like the propaganda machine Needed a villain all the time.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, definitely.

[Eugene]

So I think when you look at the. I. I love. I love reading about the Vietnam War. When you look at the Vietnam War, there was no. Really. There was not really a villain that the Americans can look at in Vietnam. There was no name in Vietnam that people could say. Vietnam started becoming synonymous with the war that never ended. But there was no human being.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You couldn't find the person.

[Eddie Fishman]

Right.

[Eugene]

But then when Iraq happened, then there was Saddam Hussein. There was branding.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eugene]

When 9, 11 happened, there was Osama bin Laden, you know, and obviously Africa becomes synonymous with dictatorships. So. But when you point the camera or the lens back at America and go. You could be going through a dictatorship yourself or Europe, and you go, the same what IDI Amin used to do to people not wanting to be voted out. Elections that are prolonged interference and whatsoever, then it becomes difficult for people to. To kind of ingest in their own country because it has become synonymous with something that happens over there.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. It becomes. It becomes. Apart from the thing, I. I even wonder, actually, maybe, maybe you're best positioned to speak to this. Do you ever wonder if. No, no, no, no. Did you ever work in a State Department?

[Eugene]

You can take.

[Trevor Noah]

You've worked in departments like, not at the State Department.

[Eugene]

Stores.

[Trevor Noah]

Department stores, the vegetable department, many departments. This guy, traffic department.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Hey, Eugene.

[Trevor Noah]

Many departments, not the State Department. Do you ever wonder if America's propaganda has been too good? And what I mean by that is, is it possible that America's propaganda was so good at a time when I argue it needed to be, Every country uses propaganda. So no judgment. This is just us looking at it as objectively as possible. Is it possible that America's propaganda was so good that it bred a generation of people who now had a complete inability to create new ideas of other countries because of the propaganda that they'd been fed? And I'll tell you where I bring this from. When you look at the Cold War and Russia and the U.S. it is fascinating to me that after, you know, World War II, the two nuclear bombs are dropped by the United States. The allied forces panic, go, what the hell has happened here? We didn't. As you said, it was a secret. We didn't know you guys had this bomb. What the hell is this? America goes, calm down. We've got the bomb. We'll protect you. The world's like, we. We're not comfortable with this. This is scary. Right? Everyone starts to panic. Russia then says, america has this bomb, and we don't like that they're the only ones who have it. Maybe we should also try and make one. They then posture as if they sort of have a weapon, but they don't. America then says, russia has a bomb. They then start acting like Russia has a bomb. Russia then goes like, yeah, yeah, we might have a bomb. America acts more like Russia has a bomb. And then they push Russia to have a bomb. And I'm not saying they forced Russia or. You know what I mean, I'm not simplifying it to that extent, but. But it feels like the, the, the, the. The idea that you can have of another country can be so powerful that even subsequent generations who didn't realize that it was propaganda, you know, watching cartoons like Popeye or Superman or any of these, when you get into government, you're like, I don't trust the Russians. Why don't you trust them?

[Eugene]

Buy movies.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but why don't you trust them, the kgb? Cause from the time you were a kid, you were taught not to trust the Russians as a whole. And I'm not saying you should just trust Russia, the country, or the administration, but do you ever wonder if, like, that propaganda is so powerful that it has limited America's ability to see beyond its own propaganda that it created?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. I mean, I think also, you know, the United States, despite the fact that we are and have been for a long time the world's most powerful country, we underwrite all of these international institutions. We've had sort of embassies all over the world. Our country, pop culture, as you say, is all over the world.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

We are relatively geographically isolated, and the vast majority of Americans don't travel overseas. They don't live in cities like New York, where you have plenty of friends who are Russian, Iranian.

[Trevor Noah]

Anyone can walk by.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. Yeah. So it's very easy to caricature other people from other countries. And I think that oftentimes does us a disservice in foreign policy.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. Because it just limits your ability to, like. I don't know how you negotiate with somebody if you don't see somebody to negotiate with is what I mean. How do you even begin that conversation? What do you, you know, you just give them a broad label and then. And then you bomb away and then you hope for the best.

[Eugene]

Yeah. Treat them like Uber eats. Delivery guys take your goods and wish them well.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, that is definitely one way to think of it.

[Eddie Fishman]

Is that what you do? Usually I invite them in and, you know.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, really? Sit by the fire and he's Like, I'm sure you were wondering who the second set of fries were for.

[Eddie Fishman]

You are a really unfriendly guy, Eugene. Can you believe he does that with the Uber eats guy?

[Eugene]

If I was a diplomat, this would be a dim.

[Eddie Fishman]

I say, that's rough, man. But look, I mean, honestly, you know, I wrote a book about economic warfare and been traveling the world talking about it, and honestly, something I never expected. One of the countries where there's the most interest in economic warfare and choke points, where I've been going routinely over the last year plus, is Canada. Because the Canadians are like, what is going on in the United States? Why are you hitting us with these massive tariffs? Why are you threatening to make us the 51st state? And I go there and people are. They're looking at us and sort of, to your point of like, you know, Bush era America, they're like, are you the enemy? And oftentimes the message I have there is like, hold on, no. Like, we are still effectively the same cultural. And ultimately, I am still very bullish on U.S. canadian relations over the long term. But even very cosmopolitan, powerful people in Canada are reassessing whether they can trust the United States. And I think that's because if you're in a place and all you really do is consume another country by virtue of what their political leader is saying, which, by the way, is now how a lot of the world is consuming the United States, right? It's no longer right, you know, Michael Jordan and the Backstreet Boys or whoever, you know, like the 90s, right? It's like Donald Trump, like, is like the, you know, like the avatar of the United States. I think it has changed a lot of perceptions. I mean, even I don't know if you've had this experience. Like, when I've been to Europe in the last couple of years or, sorry, I guess the last year and a half since Trump came back. Like, a lot of my friends, like, we'll be having dinner in, like, Berlin or something, and they'll be like, are you okay? And I'm like, just. Because, like, they're just like, their only notion of American life right now is, like, seeing what's on the tv, which looks so chaotic. And, like, little do they know, like, you can walk around the West Village or SoHo or Brooklyn and be like, hold on, hold.

[Trevor Noah]

Cleveland, Ohio, anywhere, Like, Oklahoma, or you name it.

[Eddie Fishman]

And maybe in a way that's also troubling in that your society can be taking a really dark turn when on an individual level and, like, a family level. You don't really experience it.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

But yeah, it is sort of like a mind bending experience when you see how even people who are very culturally similar to you, who are your friends in other countries, are perceiving the United States in this moment, who you'd expect

[Eugene]

to know better, in fact. Yeah. So you can imagine what other people think.

[Trevor Noah]

It almost makes me wonder just hearing you say that. If America was seeing America doing what America's doing, what would it do to America?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

Like literally, if America was witnessing the United States doing what it's doing now, would it impose sanctions on it? Would it invade it? Would it push for a regime change? Would. You know, it's an interesting way to think of it because if your allies are saying to you, you are not yourself, it's almost the same as your friends calling you in for an intervention to be like, hey, you're not the person we knew you to be.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah, no, I think that's right. And look, I mean, in some ways, Donald Trump, at least when it comes to economic warfare, is part of a consistent Trend where every US president in the 21st century, from Bush to Obama to Trump's first term to Joe Biden to Trump second term, has imposed sanctions at twice the rate of their predecessor.

[Trevor Noah]

Really?

[Eddie Fishman]

So you've seen an exponential rise in the use of economic warfare across party lines. So in one sense, we should appreciate that he is sort of part of this trend. On the other hand, you know, previous presidents, including Trump during his first term, when they were using economic warfare, it was against Russia and Iran and North Korea and China. It was a small group of countries that, for better or for worse, a lot of Americans viewed as sort of these pariah states. Yeah, right. Trump, during his second term, has waged economic warfare not just against those countries, but against Canada, against Mexico, against India, against Japan, against the entire world, at

[Eugene]

some point, threaten Lesotho.

[Eddie Fishman]

Right.

[Eugene]

I mean, who does that?

[Eddie Fishman]

Right. He did. Right. I mean, they got hit with tariffs, Liberation Day.

[Trevor Noah]

They've already been surrounded by South Africa.

[Eddie Fishman]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, what are talk about a choke point.

[Eddie Fishman]

Right.

[Trevor Noah]

That's a real choke point.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. No, so I mean, like that. Yeah. I mean, that's not normal behavior. And I think it does have really long term consequences for the United States. Because if you go sort of loop back to our conversation about the dollar, like after we imposed sanctions on Russia in 2014, and I was involved in this, it was actually in 2014, before we had any sanctions or export controls or tariffs on China, that Xi Jinping said, hold on a Second, if this can happen to Russia, it can happen to us.

[Trevor Noah]

Damn.

[Eddie Fishman]

So it was in 2014, long, long time ago, that China started trying to build alternative payment systems to the dollar so that they could buy oil in RMB or clear their trade through programs that didn't go through the West.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, damn.

[Eddie Fishman]

But it wasn't like Canada was doing that or Japan or South Korea or France. Right. It was like countries that saw themselves as potentially allied with Russia or, you know, they might do something similar to Russia.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Eddie Fishman]

I don't think anyone in France is right now thinking about an imperialist war in sort of the way that, you know, Russia has invaded Ukraine, you know, so they don't see themselves, like, potentially the Russians. But now you do have, like, that shadow of a doubt. Yeah. All around the world, including in, like, the U.K. you know, including in countries that are like, our very close allies who are thinking, how do we build security against America?

[Trevor Noah]

Damn.

[Eugene]

How do you create our unchokable points?

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. I mean, look, Canada. I mean, to the choke points. I mean, Canada is a petro state. Right. I mean, their vast majority of their exports are oil and gas. To your point about the convoys, right. Canada sells their oil largely via pipelines, and those pipelines are fixed infrastructure. And they only go one direction. They go south. They sell all their oil and gas to the United States. And for a long time, that's been a very profitable business. They've got a very large market for their energy. Well, right now they're like, hold on, what happens if the US Sanctions US or puts tariffs on US and so they're investing billions of dollars to build pipelines to the coasts so they can sell their oil and gas through China to Europe so that they can't be just dependent on the United States.

[Trevor Noah]

You know, what I'm hearing you say in this conversation is it's so interesting how history will repeat itself, but essentially, in trying to create a stranglehold on, like, every country and every leader in every moment, it feels like the US has done the exact opposite. You know, like an overbearing parent that tries to control every single aspect of their child's life. Now their child has a secret phone and has secret friends and has a secret life. It feels like that's sort of what's happening to the US now is now Canada's going, oh, can I build my own pipeline? Can I make new friends? Can I grow? Yeah. And then Brazil is going, can we sell, you know, food to China? And China's going, can we buy food from these people? It seems like it has in some ways created the thing in the same way that you said with the Germans at the beginning of this conversation. They were like, oh, we're gonna go after all of these people. And those people, because they were. Went after. Went to America and created the machinery that then took down the German. Do you get what I'm saying?

[Eugene]

Hundred percent.

[Eddie Fishman]

Wow.

[Trevor Noah]

This has been fascinating. This is. I mean. Cause it's ongoing.

[Eugene]

Yeah.

[Trevor Noah]

I mean, like, it's not. There's no. There's no like conclusion in your book. There's no like. And then they lived happily ever after. That's what I mean. It's just. We're just there.

[Eddie Fishman]

There are two processes right now that I sort of see as like, what's fundamentally reshaping the global economic system, the whole international order.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Eddie Fishman]

You have an economic arms race in which countries are looking, what the United States has done with choke points, with the dollar, with semiconductors, you know, that we've put an embargo on to China and saying, well, what are the choke points we have that we can weaponize? Because economic warfare, it's a good way to compete. Right. Compared with nuclear weapons, which you're never gonna use, you actually can use choke points. And so they're doing that. And then the other thing they're doing is this scramble for economic security. It's what are the choke points that make us vulnerable that China could use against us? And that's why right now in the US we're investing tens of billions of dollars in our domestic critical minerals industry, because we don't want to be vulnerable to this Chinese choke point on rare earths. But also now to the United States, where we mentioned Canada, we mentioned China with the payment system. I mean, Europe, you know, they're now thinking, can they build alternatives to cloud services? You know, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, they dominate the global Internet. They build all the infrastructure that the Internet runs through.

[Trevor Noah]

Right. And Europe wants their own now. They want something that they can rely on.

[Eddie Fishman]

Exactly. And so I think these two processes, the way I see it, are just going to keep playing out until we have a fundamentally reshaped global economy. Until globalization is something that we learn about in the history books.

[Trevor Noah]

It's just a moment in time as opposed to the way things are.

[Eddie Fishman]

Exactly. I think that's what's happening right now. And there are different ways that could go. Right. We don't know what the endpoint is, but I'm pretty confident that those two forces, this economic arms race and the scramble for economic security are going to continue to play out until we have a fundamentally new global economic order.

[Trevor Noah]

Then, Eddie, you're just going to keep coming back, my friend. We're just going to keep having you back on the podcast, and we're just going to. We're just going to follow it step by step. This has been riveting.

[Eddie Fishman]

Thank you.

[Trevor Noah]

Thank you. Like, really. This has been your insight, the way you. The way you share things, the way you grapple with them.

[Eugene]

The way you explain.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, the way you explain. Can I tell you? Keep doing that, because I think we take for granted how many news stories people consume on a surface level, but we never actually get an understanding of. And I think you do a really good job with that. So thank you very much for joining us.

[Eddie Fishman]

It's my pleasure. I enjoyed hanging out with you guys.

[Trevor Noah]

This was lots of fun. Man.

[Eugene]

Good to see you the man.

[Eddie Fishman]

You, too. See you in the department.

[Trevor Noah]

This segment is brought to you by Verizon. So, Joe, most iconic World cup moment ever. What has to be in the list? Throw me.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

So many. But as a Messi fan, as someone who has been given so much joy by Messi, I think 20, 20 World Cup. Seeing football finally give back to Messi something that he has wanted for so long, and winning that World Cup.

[Trevor Noah]

Let me know when I should pull out my violin, please. Look. Let me know when I should put.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Look, this man had come so close in 20.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, but it's not like the most iconic moment.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

It was seeing him.

[Trevor Noah]

No joke.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Come on. Come on, Messi. Okay, okay.

[Trevor Noah]

Here, I'll throw. I'll throw one at.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Wait, let me first go. Messi has been. Has been hunting for this World cup for forever.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. This is his story.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Imagine you've been sliding into a girl's dm.

[Trevor Noah]

Ask people.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

You've been sliding and sliding and sliding, and finally she says hi back. That's what it felt like.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah. For you, no one else cares about your DMs. That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying no one cares about Messi's win. I'm just saying as an iconic moment, I'll throw one at you. That I think is more iconic. Roberto Baggio missing his penalty,

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

that was iconic. But it was also very traumatic for me. It's the first moment. It was the first moment that I realized how high the highs in soccer

[Trevor Noah]

can be and how low.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

How low the lows can be.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what was crazy about the Bajo thing for me is how it connected us in a world that didn't even have social media. Yes. Right. No one had social media. I was in school.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

And kids were talking to each other. We, you know, we called it the bajo from the balm.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yes, yes.

[Trevor Noah]

If you kicked the ball over and you missed the crossbar, people you called yourself bajo.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

When you did it, you would kick it.

[Trevor Noah]

You'd be like bajo. Imagine being one of the greatest attacking players of your time.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

The best player in the world at the time.

[Trevor Noah]

And then after one action defines you become becoming the verb for missing a ball.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

He was a player of the tournament. He had dragged Italy again, kicking and screaming, to the final. He had fans all over. Madonna had a crush on him.

[Trevor Noah]

Maradona.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Madonna.

[Trevor Noah]

Oh, Madonna.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Madonna.

[Trevor Noah]

The Material Girl.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

No, no, The Material Girl herself. She had been photographed time and again.

[Trevor Noah]

You're lying.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Wearing his jersey at concerts, out jogging. So you know, you're really. You've really made it when the Material Girl is objectifying you.

[Trevor Noah]

She hasn't worn that shirt since then.

[Eugene]

Yes.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

And then to go from that.

[Trevor Noah]

She hasn't worn that shirt since.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

So I can give you.

[Trevor Noah]

That's up there. That's okay. Okay, wait, here's another one that I think could be the greatest, the most iconic moment. Luis Suarez, handball against Ghana, South Africa, 2010 World Cup.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yeah, I can see why you picked that home World cup, but no, forget home World Cup.

[Trevor Noah]

Take South Africa. Okay, okay, I know I'm biased. Take South Africa. Picture the moment. Ghana is on the cusp of doing what no African team has ever done before.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Reach the semi final.

[Trevor Noah]

Reaching the semi final of the World Cup. The whole world is now like. We were all supporting Ghana.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Right. If we're honest, the whole world.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yes. Apart from Uruguay.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yeah. It was Uruguay on their own against the world.

[Trevor Noah]

It was Uruguay. And then the world was support because Ghana was like a Cinderella team.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yes.

[Eddie Fishman]

Right.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

So you had South African, American World Cup.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, it was the. And it was. It was Africa's. Like Shakira said, it's time for. It's time for Africa.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yes, right.

[Trevor Noah]

It was time for Africa. Ghana's in this Cup.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Ghana is the only remaining country.

[Trevor Noah]

They are about to go through a

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

header, comes in, bound for the net.

[Trevor Noah]

And then the hand. Not of the goalkeeper.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yes.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

The hand of Suarez.

[Trevor Noah]

The hand of Suarez and bro. The craziest thing was I loved Luis Suarez.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

He did my pretend.

[Trevor Noah]

That's another thing. He didn't lie. He just put his hand up, knocked the ball out.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

I'm taking one for the team.

[Trevor Noah]

Takes the red card.

[Eddie Fishman]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Do you think he Knew his goalkeeper had a chance of saving him.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

No, no, no. The goalkeeper was beaten. Goalkeeper was.

[Trevor Noah]

No, no, I'm saying. No, I'm saying the penalty.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Oh. I think the thing is, if you're in the 93rd minute and your country is on the verge of going out of the World cup and the keeper is beaten and the ball is goal bound, you're going like, you know what? I'm taking my chances and I'm hoping. I'm hoping. Because the thing is, if I stop it now, at least it doesn't go in.

[Trevor Noah]

He's an instinct player.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yeah. He played the advantages.

[Trevor Noah]

Suarez. Suarez is an instinct player. I think that's part of what made him great.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

I think most other players would have hesitated. And I think that's the thing you're saying. He was unapologetic. He didn't hesitate and he knew the punishment that was coming. And he went like, you know what? I'm going to Gamba and risk it.

[Trevor Noah]

I wonder if he's ever been to Africa ever since.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

No, he's public enemy number one.

[Trevor Noah]

He can't do.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

He's the entire Africa.

[Trevor Noah]

He can't. Because what happened was Suarez connected us in a way that no leader ever could.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

He didn't just connect Africa, he connected the diaspora.

[Trevor Noah]

That's what I'm saying.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Everyone in the world, everyone who was

[Trevor Noah]

walking together against Luis Suarez. And the crazy thing is like, I still love him. He still. I loved him from Liverpool. I love him as a player. He was at Barcelona. So he's like, it's. He's this lovable.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

You love him when he's on your team, especially.

[Trevor Noah]

That's the best way to put it.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yeah. You'll always love him.

[Trevor Noah]

If Suarez did that for your team,

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

he's like Draymond Green if he was a bit more talented.

[Trevor Noah]

I don't know who this is a slam. Who was a bit more talented.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Draymond Green had the talent of self carrying fired.

[Trevor Noah]

I don't know where Draymond Green is, but shots have been fired from Uganda all the way to Draymond Green.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

No, because what makes. What makes it even worse is. So Suarez gambles.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

And then he wins.

[Trevor Noah]

Yeah, he did win.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Because the penalty, you know, again, Asamwa Gian almost does a baggio, you know, he hits a crossbar. The penalty doesn't go in. So Ghana. The game goes into extra time. Ghana is eliminated in the penalties. But what made Suarez even more of a villain is once Asamo Yan misses the penalty.

[Trevor Noah]

The way he celebrates.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

They cut to him on the sidelines celebrating like crazy while the entire Africa was going through this trauma.

[Trevor Noah]

You know what it also left me with is like, everyone has. Everyone says sportsmanship, but I always wonder, if you do something that is part of the game and you're willing to take the punishment, is that not part of the game?

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

It is.

[Trevor Noah]

Cause it's not like Suarez shot someone.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

No, he didn't.

[Trevor Noah]

Right.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

And the thing is, he was greeted in Uruguay as a national hero, obviously. But we also taught from when we were young that crime doesn't pay or the villain doesn't win. We are taught like Hollywood teaches us this, fairy tales teach us this. And in this one moment, all that was turned upside down because Suarez actually did win. Crime actually did pay. Suarez missed the semi final, which means they actually. It's part of the reason why they lost to Holland, because Holland made the final in Spain. Suarez would have been the difference, but

[Trevor Noah]

it probably would have been the difference.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yes. But you could see in that moment when Africa, when you talk to Africans about that moment, you can see them having flashbacks.

[Trevor Noah]

I think, my friend, we are all.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

We are still people are still in therapy.

[Trevor Noah]

That was our greatest hope, that moment. But maybe that's why we should be grateful to Suarez. Right. As Africans, we've always needed things that connect us as people. We're always looking for moments that bring us together as a nation. Right. South Africans have never felt more African than in that moment.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Right. Which is what we need more than ever. So in. In many ways, I would argue Suarez might have robbed Ghana.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

But what he gives to Africa, long time. Yes.

[Trevor Noah]

Long term thinking, no.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

He united Africa more than, as you said, more than anyone. But also the funny thing about Luis

[Trevor Noah]

Suarez, the Nelson Mandela of Africa.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

No, the funny thing, the funny thing about that moment.

[Eddie Fishman]

The funny thing.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

Nelson Mandela is funny. The funny thing about that moment is in that particular World Cup, Scipio Shabarar had scored the goal that made. Which Shabbara's goal felt like the moon landing for Africa, like one small kick for man, one giant kick for mankind. Yes. And then Suarez brought us back down to Earth. Same World cup, two very contrasting emotions. And I think if you're talking about bringing together incontinent or bring. Shabala gave us the delirium. And then Suarez gave us, like the

[Trevor Noah]

depth of despair, true despair. But man, he gave us one of the greatest moments of his life.

[Soccer Fan/Commentator]

What a moment to pick as an African, Ah.

[Trevor Noah]

As an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 2026. Verizon is bringing once in a lifetime experiences to their customers, including free tickets to matches and pitch side access during gameplay. If you're not with Verizon, no sweat. Stop by Verizon store to get in on the action and learn about their offers for new customers. What now with Trevor Noah is produced by DayZero Productions in partnership with SiriusXM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin and Jess Hackle. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiou. Music mixing and mastering by Hannis Brown Random other stuff by Ryan Harduf. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of what Now.

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[Eddie Fishman]

Hey everybody, Ted Danson here to tell you about my podcast with my longtime friend and sometimes co host Woody Harrelson. It's called Where Everybody knows your Name and we're back for another season. I'm so excited to be joined this season by friends like John Mulaney, David Spade, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms, and many more. You don't want to miss it. Listen to where everybody knows your name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Sometimes, wherever you get your podcasts.