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1:13

Walk back about save the world and

1:15

time Peter, I'm Ben Rhodes. You made

1:17

a back from Dc with a good

1:19

and absorbed into the the web. Yes,

1:21

escape the clutches once more. Feel this is

1:23

like the slowest police chase in history

1:25

to the blob gonna cry is just

1:27

truth low. Imagine. Losing. Around you

1:29

did you do when I was correspondence over

1:31

to do to no no god no I

1:33

got out of work was not gonna a

1:35

p broader you're sick man for the why

1:37

does corresponds we're going to like not if

1:39

I'm not obliged to be are you didn't

1:41

go to the that the all Britain Garden

1:43

party earlier. The big thing oh gosh. Eight.

1:46

Years of that was a years that Reagan

1:48

was quite enough. The thing that I never

1:50

understood was like. People. Go out

1:52

on Friday than they do the dinner usually Saturday night

1:54

I think right? Yeah then people still good of this

1:56

big brunch on Sunday. It's like aren't you hung over.

1:59

Whether. you're a writer Yeah, it's like the wedding brunch,

2:01

it's optional. Should be optional. Should

2:03

be optional. I mean, you

2:06

know, you're usually slipping it off. Except the

2:09

Sunday they would kill Bin Laden. Yeah. Which

2:12

is also after the day after the wedding. That was eight packs

2:14

White House Correspondents Center. Well, that was not relaxing. Cause I remember

2:16

I went out to brunch that day and

2:18

then I came home to my house and Michael

2:20

O'Neill, friend of the pod, one of the greatest

2:22

people we've ever known was my roommate at the

2:24

time, had multiple roommates. And Michael O'Neill had scheduled

2:28

a cooking class to be delivered

2:30

in our house that day, which was just annoying. As

2:32

one does. And I was trying to watch a Celtics

2:34

game and I actually had a Celtics jersey on. And

2:37

then I got a call from you, I think, that was like,

2:39

hey, you should come down to work. And I remember turning to

2:41

people who were there, I was like, do you guys think I

2:43

can wear this in or is that just too douchey? Oh, you

2:45

should have worn the jersey. That's too douchey, but luckily I changed.

2:48

And then I walked into the Situation Room and there

2:50

was a photo of Bin Laden's face with

2:52

a bullet in it. And I

2:54

thought, huh, glad I had a couple beers before I came

2:57

in. Ooh, that's new information.

3:00

It was one of those days. Well, you

3:03

didn't go to the brunch, I guess. Yeah, you

3:05

know what I remember about that week before that was I remember

3:08

you had been working on some speech and Dennis

3:10

kept desperately trying to find you to tell you

3:12

something, but you were a holdup writing the speech

3:14

and you were stressed about the speech. And then

3:16

all of a sudden you weren't stressed about the

3:18

speech and I knew it wasn't done. Speech got

3:20

postponed, yeah. That was actually interesting because I

3:23

had been trying to work on this speech for days and I couldn't

3:25

find time. And then finally one day I'm like, I'm just not gonna

3:27

come into work at all. I'm gonna

3:30

disappear in a coffee shop. And somehow Dennis found me.

3:33

He's got ways. I guess if you're in the White

3:35

House, and that's pretty. And he called me in for some meeting

3:37

with him and Brennan and it

3:39

was the most stern, they closed the door behind me. I thought

3:41

I was gonna get killed. I

3:44

thought I might get rendered somewhere. I mean it was

3:46

really scary. It was like in that basement office. John

3:48

Brennan, stone face, closed the door behind

3:50

you. And instead they were like, we

3:53

have a lead on Bin Laden's compound. Very

3:56

dramatic. That's cool. Well, this is better than

3:58

the speech I was working on. Way better than writing speech. I

4:00

remember going to Brennan's office in hindsight

4:02

and seeing a finder this

4:04

thick on his desk that said something

4:06

on the cover like a bada bada

4:08

compound rate. In hindsight, I

4:10

knew what that meant. But at the moment,

4:12

I didn't know what a bada bada was. Creative labeling. Anyway,

4:16

probably Nick Shapiro labeled that puppy.

4:18

Just kidding. We know you didn't

4:20

do that. Anyway, we got a great show for you guys

4:22

today. No bin Laden operation. No. But

4:24

we're going to talk about some hopeful news for once,

4:26

Ben, about a possible ceasefire in Gaza. We

4:29

got some sound from protesters at some

4:31

of these campuses in New York that we'll bring

4:33

to you. There's interesting

4:35

reports of intelligence on whether Vladimir Putin

4:37

ordered the killing of opposition leader Alexei

4:39

Navalny. We'll talk through the major news

4:41

that a Tony Blinken visit to China. There's

4:44

been more reporting on assassinations abroad or

4:46

attempted assassinations abroad by India's intelligence services,

4:49

while an Iranian rapper was sentenced to

4:51

death, a major leadership change in Scotland.

4:53

And then you're going to hear my

4:55

interview with John McDermott from The Economist,

4:57

who we both have known for years,

5:00

thanks to my other roommate during

5:02

the moment of the bin Laden operation, Cody Keenan.

5:04

Yes. Yes. Yes.

5:07

They met at Harvard, I think, Kennedy School? Smart kids.

5:09

Yeah. Yeah. Smart

5:12

kids. Smart kids. Anyway.

5:14

Harvard economist. John's the chief Africa correspondent

5:16

for The Economist, and we talked about

5:18

South Africa's upcoming election, the

5:20

30th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide,

5:23

and the UK's plan to send asylum seekers

5:25

to Rwanda and how that might work out.

5:27

So super interesting interview from a very, very

5:30

smart and thoughtful journalist. I

5:32

still have good bro hunting in my

5:34

head now. How about them apples? Do you like

5:36

apples? I

5:38

had one friend who went to Harvard, and me

5:41

and my other buddies would go into the Harvard

5:43

Bar is underage and act like we were local

5:45

town tuffs, but no, kids went to Cornell or

5:47

something. It's all relative. Nerds.

5:50

Nerds is what we were, and they were too.

5:52

All right, Ben, but it was very easy to

5:54

drink underage in Cambridge for some reason. It was

5:56

very easy to drink underage growing up in New

5:58

York City. So as Irish

6:00

bars actually you could be like 16 years old and sitting at

6:02

the bar and then some off-duty cop would

6:05

come like Alright all the kids go out the back

6:07

door Because the cops would call off and tip off

6:09

before they'd raid these bars Oh really and so you're

6:11

just gonna go hang out outside for like 15 minutes

6:13

and then they're like Quote unquote raid the bar and

6:15

then you just come back in corruption for corruption was

6:17

good and like the Underage

6:21

drinking scene where the Upper East Side I guess they

6:23

had canceled for this But yeah, I'm pretty sad of

6:26

course, I was gonna can't be for and drinking when

6:28

you're 19. I'm not give me a break Yeah, come on.

6:30

He's a New Yorker. Yeah, what's 16? We

6:33

won't talk about it on first. That was a great bar

6:35

That's what was that that was on like

6:38

First Avenue and like 89th Street or something.

6:40

Okay, yeah Paddo Brian's

6:42

sure there's some good ones. So the trillion

6:44

of those. Yeah. Yeah Okay,

6:47

let's get to the show so Ben like

6:49

we teased at the top So some good

6:51

news out of Gaza for once hopefully there's

6:53

all these reports that Israel and Hamas are

6:55

close to agreeing on a temporary Ceasefire and

6:57

hostage release deal it would involve

6:59

Hamas releasing 33 civilian hostages

7:01

in exchange for a 40-day ceasefire

7:04

In Israel releasing some number maybe

7:06

thousands of Palestinian prisoners being held

7:08

in Israel There also seems to

7:10

be some sort of agreement about allowing

7:13

Gazans to return to northern Gaza

7:16

Which is a change and hopefully a breakthrough So,

7:18

you know for months this part of this is

7:20

pretty grim for months Israel had demanded the release

7:22

of 40 hostages as part of this But

7:25

they have since I think come to the very sad

7:27

conclusion that some of those hostages died in captivity and

7:29

they lowered the demand To 33 but

7:32

Biden's been pushing very hard to get this done on Sunday

7:34

and Monday He talked with the

7:36

leaders of Israel Qatar and Egypt Secretary

7:38

of State Tony Blinken is in Saudi Arabia

7:41

or was on Monday for meetings and had

7:43

this to say about the negotiations a major

7:45

Effort that's been made over

7:47

the last couple of months to get to that

7:49

ceasefire to get the hostages out and right now

7:51

as you said Hamas

7:53

has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily

7:59

extraordinarily generous on

8:01

the part of Israel. And in this

8:03

moment, the only thing standing between

8:06

the people of Gaza and a ceasefire is Hamas.

8:08

So Ben, obviously, you know, the US wants the hostages to

8:11

come home because we want them to be home. We want

8:13

to also flood Gaza with

8:15

aid during any ceasefire. But

8:17

there's also reports that the Biden team hopes that

8:20

a ceasefire could lead to kind of a de

8:22

facto end of the war or at least make

8:24

it so, so politically difficult for Netanyahu to start

8:26

things back up or do pursue

8:28

this Rafa invasion. Of

8:30

course, right on cue, Netanyahu said today

8:32

that he will invade Rafa with or

8:35

without a hostage deal. Again, for those who

8:37

don't know, Rafa is a city in southern Gaza where

8:39

about a million people are sheltering some estimates say up

8:41

to 1.4 million. So

8:43

Ben, I hope this is just posturing from

8:46

Netanyahu to appease kind of the right

8:48

wing crazies in his coalition who want a

8:50

Rafa invasion no matter what. I was wondering

8:52

what you made of that comment from Netanyahu.

8:54

And I don't know, where is like the

8:56

hope meter on this ceasefire leading

8:58

to a permanent end in the conflict?

9:02

Well, it's the first time in many

9:04

weeks that there's been any positive messaging

9:06

coming out. It

9:09

seems to me, and this makes sense for them

9:11

to be doing it, that part of

9:13

what's happening is all the other parties, you

9:16

know, because you saw a bunch of Arab

9:18

states in these talks, you saw a bunch

9:20

of Europeans in these talks, that

9:23

everybody is trying to take this window

9:26

and really press Hamas to

9:29

accept the terms that Israel is offering. And

9:32

so there's pretty coordinated effort to kind of

9:34

say, this is now a reasonable offer,

9:36

you should take it. And sometimes the optimism is

9:38

a part of that. It's like, we're putting out

9:41

there that there's a deal. And

9:44

I think- Good vibes only.

9:46

Good vibes only, you know, because they've tried

9:48

bad vibes. And

9:50

the question on the Hamas side is,

9:52

you know, who is

9:55

making this deal? You know, because it

9:57

could even be that they've really squeezed

9:59

the- According called political leadership in

10:01

Qatar who are. People.

10:04

Were doing vulnerabilities. you know, there's

10:06

money that can be gotten by.

10:08

should be anyway. Obviously we should

10:10

be cutting out that financing, but

10:12

it it's not entirely clear whether

10:14

those guys can reach down into

10:16

some tunnel and and refined and

10:18

deliver something. And so part of

10:20

what's being tested is both Hamas,

10:22

his willingness to make a deal

10:24

that political level and their capacity

10:26

to at this point in the

10:28

word know I've implemented deal and

10:30

I think the urgency is in

10:32

part around the Rafa invasion. You want

10:34

to try to. This is the last

10:36

window. Perhaps to do this. I think

10:38

there's an assumption that. A. Bunch

10:40

of hostages are probably in Rafah. And

10:44

to once you start another operation their that.

10:46

Near. The chaos and violence of that I've

10:48

seen makes it more difficult to negotiate something

10:50

and may put the hostages risk. We don't

10:53

know how these houses have been killed. Let's

10:55

hope it works out. I think we should

10:57

have like a heavy dose of caution. With.

11:00

The optimism because so many things can go wrong.

11:02

you're still using I want to say. That.

11:07

Offer. Tony's clip. Why? I disagree.

11:10

With the own spin on a mass

11:12

in terms of this negotiation I get

11:15

a little uncomfortable when the there's an

11:17

underlying logic that if a mosque as

11:19

an agreed a the deal what in

11:21

the rafa being vulgar foreigners in the

11:23

sense it's the rafa invasions and go

11:25

forward anyway and it's a bad idea

11:27

was it is and as we've got

11:29

gotten into a bit of a challenge

11:31

shares it did the the it's not

11:33

as if this Melcher operation is is

11:36

all well and good. It's

11:38

Hamas doesn't agree to this. Hostage really says.

11:40

Because again, purely on equity the

11:42

hostas it's not best Manassas nevermind

11:45

up city mentoring disaster in Gaza.

11:47

And so I do worry little

11:49

bit about. Like a logic

11:51

train. Maybe. Unwittingly being set

11:53

up that. It. There's no deal,

11:55

will then have no but has no choice

11:57

but to continue them. Pretty cataclysmic know travel.

11:59

The good point in it's worth remembering that

12:02

you know the last temporary ceasefire deal was

12:04

in November and then Hamas released a hundred

12:06

five hostages in exchange for two hundred forty

12:08

thousand prisoners as the last time there was

12:10

any significant release of prisoners and over the

12:13

weekend Moss or least a hostage video featuring

12:15

two hostages as proof of life. So does

12:17

there are some sort of like this things

12:19

have a fully stuff that they're circling closer

12:22

to some kind of deal which would again.

12:24

Would. Be great and and in addition

12:26

to getting hostages out and getting aid

12:28

in. I'd. I'd The rationale does

12:31

hold that. You. Know you want

12:33

to use that com said to. Try. To

12:35

make something more durable yeah, terms of

12:37

a ceasefire. The other deal it's being

12:39

constantly circled in the press is this

12:41

potential normalization of relations between the Saudi

12:44

government in Israeli government's This deal, as

12:46

reported, would include the U S providing

12:48

like and Nato like security guarantees to

12:50

defend Saudi Arabia and yeah of attacks

12:52

on Us would also provide them with

12:55

some sort of civilian nuclear program. In

12:57

return, the Saudis are normalize relations with

12:59

Israel and generally agree to reduce their

13:01

ties with China and Russia. And then

13:04

Israel is. Supposed to commit to with the

13:06

New York Times described as a quote concrete

13:08

plan for an eventual Palestinian State. We don't

13:10

know exactly what that means we you know

13:12

you and I pressed Tony Blinken on this

13:15

on this show a while back before October

13:17

Seventh. Ah yeah, He seemed to really. Want

13:20

to assert that it was a firm commitment

13:22

of some sort, but wouldn't say what exactly.

13:24

Here's where things get weird. Been so Hot

13:26

Rats Reported that Saudi Arabia has already decided

13:28

to normalize relations with Israel, but as trying

13:30

to decide whether to do it during the

13:33

by demonstration or the way for Trump to

13:35

be back in office. Basically the sourcing is

13:37

very thin on this article. it's to an

13:39

unnamed foreign diplomats and then it was reported

13:41

the Times that suggested serve the opposite. It

13:44

said that the Saudis are eager to get

13:46

a deal done and they want to do

13:48

it as soon as they can. because they're

13:50

worried about getting it's congress in if

13:52

trump is elected they don't think democrats

13:54

will vote for a saudi normalization the

13:56

alcs armed but everyone is waiting for

13:59

netanyahu to agree whatever concessions are

14:01

required around the Palestinian state. So then a

14:03

couple things like one I mean I guess

14:06

I still I'm call me a cynic I

14:08

still don't really see the political path for

14:10

Netanyahu to get these real concessions because

14:13

I think his ultra right-wing ultra

14:15

religious coalition cares more about

14:17

controlling the West Bank than they do

14:20

taking a trip to Mecca Medina or

14:22

whatever you know relations with with Saudi

14:24

Arabia. But second I mean I'm trying

14:26

to put aside my my

14:29

anti Netanyahu anti MBS derangement

14:31

syndrome which I have and

14:34

just figure out what

14:37

makes this deal worth it sort

14:39

of in the US interests because

14:41

obviously agreeing to a security guarantee

14:44

for Saudi Arabia is no small

14:46

thing nor is providing them civilian

14:49

nuclear infrastructure. Obviously if

14:51

this deal got Israel

14:53

to agree to the creation of a Palestinian

14:55

state with borders and territory and concessions and all

14:57

the things we think it would take to

14:59

make it workable that would be amazing but how

15:01

does that get decided without any Palestinian input in

15:04

these talks so far? That's my big question. Yeah

15:07

I on this one I

15:09

you know another heavy

15:11

dose of caution because we keep

15:13

hearing that we're on the precipice of this agreement.

15:17

I do think that in before times

15:19

right before October 7th I think you

15:21

know Saudi Arabia did want this deal

15:23

I mean that was pretty clear because they were gonna

15:26

get so much out of it you know they were

15:28

gonna get a NATO security guarantee

15:30

they're gonna not NATO but a NATO

15:32

like security guarantee they're gonna get a

15:35

nuclear program they're gonna get

15:37

probably a whole bunch of arms shipments and things like

15:39

that kind of the permanent get

15:41

out of jail free card for MBS not that he

15:43

needs it and I

15:45

do you know I heard from a

15:48

variety of people over

15:50

the last year that the Saudi logic

15:52

was the thing it was in the Times report

15:54

that essentially if they're ever

15:56

gonna make these deals that require

15:59

congressional approval and a security

16:01

guarantee would certainly require congressional approval,

16:04

their judgment was it better to do with

16:06

the Democratic president because if, you know, Democrats

16:09

are less inclined, I think, to vote for-

16:11

Do we have a good government gene? Yeah,

16:13

you have a gene of like, do we

16:15

really want to commit to the defense of

16:17

the kingdom of Saudi Arabia forever? And

16:21

so they felt that Democrats wouldn't

16:23

want to go against the priority

16:25

of a Democratic president. The Republicans

16:27

would want to just circle the

16:29

wagons with MBS and better to do

16:31

it now. It does just feel

16:34

like they're trying to hit some crazy air

16:36

gap here though, right? Because you're not going

16:38

to do this right before the election. It's

16:40

already May. Like, landing

16:43

this plane feels-

16:45

Tough. Tough. Because

16:47

number one, I'm not sold that we should be

16:49

giving the Saudis all these things. Number

16:52

two, I just don't see-

16:54

BBE is not at four Palestinian state.

16:56

And so I just don't understand what

16:58

credible formulation he's going to agree

17:00

to. And then absent

17:02

any formulation of Palestinian state, it begins to be hard

17:05

to see what the Saudis are going to get. I

17:07

also don't know what the US can substantively get

17:10

on this China-Russia point. Me either. I

17:12

mean, they can make statements like, we'll be friends with

17:14

you better than them, but you know, they're

17:16

going to align with the Chinese and Russians on things

17:18

that they think are in their interest

17:20

and they certainly kind of can't give us permanent guarantees.

17:23

Maybe they can be like, well, we'll stop buying

17:25

Huawei for a little while. But five years from now,

17:27

they could buy it. And so I

17:29

just think that this whole thing, we've

17:31

always been Abraham Accord skeptics here. If

17:35

we've learned one thing, I think what we've learned

17:37

is that the pathway to peace and

17:39

harmony in the Middle East is not through the

17:41

Abraham Accords, a bunch of normalization deals, doing a

17:44

far right Israeli government and some autocrats. I'm

17:47

less than enthusiastic that this is the place to

17:49

be putting all our chips, but hey, we'll

17:51

see if they pull a rabbit out of the hat. If

17:54

TDS is Trump Derangement Syndrome,

17:56

is MBS Derangement Syndrome, MBSDS,

17:59

is that what have? Maybe

18:02

I'll just move on. Yes, it is. Well,

18:04

but like this makes it pointed

18:08

like success here is giving like

18:10

a NATO like security guarantee to

18:13

Saudi Arabia, which like,

18:15

you know, before October 7th, I think a lot

18:17

of us are like, I'm not so sure about

18:19

that. You know, just feels like

18:21

a lot. Feels like a lot. In

18:23

complicating all of this are reports that

18:25

the International Criminal Court or ICC maybe

18:27

on the cusp of issuing arrest warrants

18:29

for top Israeli leaders, including maybe Netanyahu,

18:32

along with several Hamas leaders. So we'll

18:34

keep an eye on that. We should note

18:36

that there are reports that more aid is getting into

18:38

Gaza, which is good. It is still

18:40

too early to say if the famine concerns

18:42

have gone away, but there are reports that

18:44

more trucks are getting in. Also, the US

18:46

has started building that floating period to deliver

18:48

relief to Gaza, which is projected to cost

18:50

about $320 million would be nice if BB would let

18:54

us save that money and spend

18:56

it on just, you know, flour or food. Yeah,

18:58

trucks also been on May 8th,

19:00

President Biden has certified a Congress whether Israel

19:02

is complying with US and international law with

19:05

respect to the use of US provided arms.

19:08

There's a lot of reports out there that

19:10

lawyers are skeptical that they are political reporter.

19:12

There's a bunch of lawyers, including 20 people

19:15

that work in the Biden administration that are

19:17

calling on Biden to halt aid. BZ

19:19

IDF is not complying. Reuters

19:21

reported that senior officials and government told

19:24

Tony Blinken that they don't believe the

19:26

Israeli assurances about complying with international law

19:28

are true. So probably

19:30

some intense meetings happening right now. A

19:33

lot. And this just shows that, you know,

19:35

there are consequences for actions. You can't just

19:37

say we're in an accountability free world and

19:40

that you can do what Israel has been

19:42

doing in Gaza for six

19:45

months and that the ICC won't notice

19:48

or that US law deadlines

19:50

are going to be ignored. You know, there

19:53

should be accountability. Like if

19:55

you create a world without accountability, well,

19:58

you know, it's more likely that bad. things are

20:00

going to happen here. And I just

20:02

don't know, you know, we, this

20:05

gets to the Rafa thing too, in the sense of

20:08

blaming Hamas is

20:10

absolutely important and essential for

20:13

Hamas's responsibility for October 7th

20:15

and for obviously the hostages. It's

20:18

also the case that things like letting humanitarian

20:20

aid in are not

20:22

gifts, they're requirements, you know. Under

20:24

international law, you're required to allow

20:26

this aid. You're, under U.S.

20:29

law, you're required to, you know, comply

20:31

with restrictions against war

20:33

crimes. Like, these are not novel

20:35

things and, you

20:38

know, we're seeing you're going

20:40

to have consequences if

20:42

you undertake the kind of military operation that Israel has.

20:45

Last thing on Gaza. So, last week we talked

20:48

about protests that have been popping up on college

20:50

campuses across the U.S. in opposition to U.S. support

20:53

for the war in Gaza or just the war generally.

20:55

We got some great feedback from listeners,

20:58

including from some students at schools like

21:00

Columbia and NYU who had

21:02

attended protests and in many

21:04

cases were frustrated at how they were being

21:07

portrayed in the media. So,

21:09

to hear from some of these protesters directly,

21:11

we reached out to the brilliant and talented

21:13

Jordan Waller. Jordan is a former

21:15

PODS-A the World producer. She's now

21:17

in school at NYU and she

21:19

agreed to interview some NYU and

21:21

City University of New York protesters

21:24

on our behalf. By here are the

21:26

compilation of some of what they had

21:28

to say. I got involved in the

21:30

movement because I care deeply about freedom

21:32

of speech. So, whether you are on

21:34

one side or the other side of

21:36

this issue, I think it's really important

21:38

that people be able to put up

21:41

posters, tear down posters, shout things. I

21:43

think that freedom of speech is a

21:45

critical property of the university

21:47

and that's how I got involved. I

21:49

think what's happening right now with the media is they're

21:51

either characterizing this as a free speech issue

21:53

or as an anti-war protest and I think

21:55

both of those are wrong. We are here

21:58

as a part of a liberation movement. for

22:00

the freedom of Palestinians and the

22:02

end to the genocide in Gaza.

22:04

We don't think that we're solving

22:06

conflict in the Middle East through

22:08

protesting. We don't think that that's

22:11

what's going to happen. Regardless of

22:13

any one conflict, why would our

22:15

endowment be invested in weapons manufacturers

22:17

and defense contractors? Why would the

22:19

CEO of BlackRock be on our

22:21

board of directors? Why? You

22:24

know? Why are we operating a campus in what

22:26

is currently a war zone? We're all

22:28

religious Jews and we all, as

22:31

our brothers and sisters in Palestine from

22:33

the Jewish community, are extremely

22:35

religious. Therefore, we are extremely opposed

22:37

to the Zionist occupation in its

22:40

entirety. We will never recognize the

22:42

legitimacy of the existence of the

22:44

state of Israel. And what they're

22:46

doing is horrendous and beyond words.

22:48

And we don't have enough words

22:51

to describe our earth and

22:53

our sorrow and our sympathy for the people

22:55

of Palestine and Gaza. We have broad array

22:57

as well to get a free community,

23:00

to make sure, you know, labor relations

23:02

are better, make sure staff are being

23:04

paid properly, get rid of the, you

23:06

know, the adjunctification of the university, where

23:08

you've got these people working short term

23:10

contracts being paid nothing. We

23:13

see that struggle, that class struggle, as part

23:15

of what is going on in Palestine and

23:17

the history of Palestine is also a class

23:19

struggle. I'm very, very glad

23:21

to be here as part of intergenerational

23:23

solidarity, to see the young people, to

23:26

see the students, what they're doing and

23:28

showing the way. It's

23:30

the unity between the Jewish

23:32

students and Palestinian students. It's

23:35

just, it shows the future. So you get

23:37

some students, you got some teachers. As you

23:39

could hear, Ben, there's a range of different

23:41

reasons for why people are involved in the

23:43

protests. Some of them are very focused on

23:45

ending the war in Gaza. In Gaza, others

23:47

have broader frustrations with school leadership

23:49

or the government of Israel or even

23:51

local labor issues. I like my guy,

23:53

because actually, you know, my first job

23:55

at a college, I was an adjunct

23:57

CUNY professor. Oh, really? member

24:00

of DC 37 Union and I Good

24:04

benefits that dude fighting for you that you know

24:06

a bank shot when he was still doing a

24:08

lot of junk dishes But yeah, yeah anyway So

24:10

like I should note as we're recording this things

24:13

have taken the violent turn in other places Students

24:16

at Columbia broke into and are now occupying

24:18

a building there There's

24:20

been a wave of arrests at schools all across

24:22

the country including something got really violent like the

24:24

cops in Texas just being a

24:26

shit out of yeah professor that got

24:28

beat up in Georgia pretty nasty But I think that

24:31

clip we just played gives you a

24:33

sense of what you might hear from thoughtful

24:35

well-meaning protesters who you might totally

24:37

disagree with At these

24:40

New York schools, but also maybe some who would

24:42

benefit from being I think a little more focused

24:44

in their demands But that's just my opinion Yeah,

24:47

I think one of the useful Parts

24:50

of that exercise is just getting a sense

24:52

of the diversity of reasons that people are

24:54

protesting. I mean Everybody

24:57

seems to want to look at these protests and

24:59

paint it with one brush like I

25:02

100% support all these people or all these people or

25:04

any semites or These people don't get it

25:06

because of X or these people don't get it because of Y

25:08

and the reality is if you have a bunch Of protests in

25:11

a place like New York City and then all over

25:13

the country like there gonna be a lot of different

25:15

kinds of people Out there and there can be some

25:17

a lot of really well-meaning people and a handful of

25:19

people and full-ass views the handful of people that are

25:21

assholes and then a handful of people with views that

25:23

you you find abhorrent but like You

25:25

know the the core message here. I think is I

25:29

Think free speech is important and needs to be

25:31

protected I do think that you

25:34

know the war in Gaza if there wasn't a war

25:36

like that going on You wouldn't see this kind of

25:38

mobilization and so there's at core even though there all

25:40

these other issues that are coming into play It's

25:43

it's fundamentally about I

25:45

think you know at core people raising

25:47

legitimate questions about why is the u.s.

25:49

Providing the support and And you

25:52

know what kind of policies and universities?

25:54

Interact with this issue and can we have some

25:57

dialogue about it and and where everybody gets into

25:59

trouble is when

26:01

they are kind of insisting

26:04

on the total de-legimization of

26:06

the people they don't agree

26:08

with. And so obviously,

26:10

you know, I think people cracking down on protesters

26:13

and trying to shut them up and trying to

26:15

clear encampments right away is not

26:17

constructive. It

26:20

nor is it necessarily constructive to go smash a bunch

26:22

of windows and take over a building and

26:25

not kind of engage in some dialogue, right? I

26:27

mean, everybody needs to kind of hear each other.

26:29

I have a bias towards supporting

26:31

protests generally, not just because

26:34

of my views on this particular issue, but because I think it's

26:36

like, if you try to shut young

26:38

people up, I think we saw what happens. Like, then they

26:41

feel like they're not heard and they're actually going to protest

26:43

more or their views are going to become more inflexible. Like

26:45

we need to have outlets for people to be heard and

26:48

to try to influence policy. And

26:50

the last thing I'd say, Tommy, I was thinking about this a

26:53

lot. You know, we, you mentioned this

26:55

last week, in protest, it's meant to be inconvenient.

26:57

You know, like that's part of what it does.

27:00

And I think we as Americans

27:02

have to recognize, including a lot of

27:04

these Republicans and some of the

27:06

Democrats who are on a very high horse kind

27:08

of talking down to protesters, you

27:10

know, when there's a protest movement in another country that

27:13

we see as an adversary, we're usually all for it,

27:15

right? I was a big supporter

27:17

of the Hong Kong protest movement for

27:19

well over a year. They shut

27:21

down airports. They shut down business districts.

27:24

They, you know, I'm sure

27:26

you could find people inside the

27:28

Hong Kong protests who were bad

27:30

actors, but by and large, we're like,

27:32

here's some people making their voices heard. That's a good

27:34

thing. We have to apply that at home

27:36

too, you know? And look, there's

27:38

lines that you can't cross, like Charlottesville, like,

27:41

you know, there's little violence and there's running

27:43

people. Violence is clearly a line. But

27:47

we have this, you know, I really don't

27:49

like this, the

27:51

sense that we can't hear this stuff, you

27:53

know, that we don't like certain chants

27:55

or, you know, like it's part of being

27:58

in a priest's side. Yeah. I

28:00

mean, I think once a movement like this starts, like

28:02

the toothpaste is out of the tube, right? The thing

28:04

is now growing and no one controls it. And

28:07

it also becomes a magnet for people who

28:09

are maybe just on the fringe and have other

28:11

issues and God knows what they're doing and saying

28:13

at some of these New York events. I also

28:15

think free speech is like just unequivocally necessary. And

28:18

the anti-Semitism we've seen, especially at some of

28:21

these New York protests, is really bad and

28:23

really worrisome and needs to be condemned

28:25

and fought. But I'm

28:27

equally worried about the US government

28:30

getting involved in trying to shut

28:32

down curtail in any way a bridge free

28:35

speech because it's just a bedrock principle. And

28:38

we can't curtail speech when we don't like

28:40

it and then demand that it be heard

28:42

when we do, right? So I mean, that's

28:44

like the giant hypocrisy of these Republicans. They're

28:46

like, yes, send Milo Yiannopoulos and Ben

28:48

Shapiro to every campus, but God forbid. To

28:50

provoke some snowflakes. Right. Yeah. And

28:53

the issue should be dealt with too, as a matter of what

28:56

are your protocols? How are you dealing

28:58

with these? Don't say protocol. Well,

29:01

but you guys talked about this up here. Protocol

29:04

being... I'm just kidding. No,

29:07

but to be specific,

29:09

if some guy says he

29:12

wants to kill all Zionists, does that

29:14

cross some line that triggers? For sure.

29:17

The problem is this is all ad hoc. You

29:21

kind of see it and assess it based on

29:23

the moment. And clearly, there needs to be greater

29:25

transparency about rules and expectations.

29:30

All that said, though,

29:32

again, I think you

29:34

have to be comfortable

29:36

being uncomfortable. On

29:39

this issue, everybody wants to kind of

29:41

bathe in the comfort of people who agree with

29:44

them. And I think the value

29:46

of students is that they

29:48

make power uncomfortable. And ultimately, that's the

29:50

good thing about protests. And

29:53

to put on the kind of world-oh hat here for a

29:55

second, it's wrong to have police

29:57

wrestling. professors

30:01

to the ground in Georgia or like

30:03

rolling horses into crowds in Texas

30:05

as we've seen if you don't have to be

30:07

super online to have consumed some of this content.

30:09

Don't think for a second by the way that

30:11

that kind of imagery is not going to be repurposed

30:14

by a Putin, a Xi

30:16

Jinping, a Modi. It's

30:18

all the same. And

30:21

that's just the reality here. We get on

30:23

this high horse about democratic values. We have

30:25

to model them here at home.

30:27

And the way in which some of these protests have

30:29

been dealt with does not feel consistent with democratic values.

30:32

No, no, it does not. But thank

30:34

you again, Jordan, for interviewing all this folk

30:36

for us, making us smarter per usual. Two

30:38

quick things before we go to break. Mark

30:40

your calendars for June 25th because Love It,

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That's unrefugees.org/ donation. Okay,

35:22

a couple updates from Russia. So first,

35:24

the Wall Street Journal reported that

35:26

US intelligence agencies have concluded that

35:28

Vladimir Putin did not order the

35:31

execution, murder, whatever you want to call

35:33

it, of anti-corruption activists and opposition leader

35:35

Alexei Navalny. Obviously that

35:37

does not absolve Putin of responsibility.

35:39

His goons tried to poison

35:42

the guy multiple times, did poison the guy multiple

35:44

times. But it was an interesting conclusion and

35:46

interesting to me that it leaked Ben. I don't know

35:48

what you thought about that. Also, you

35:50

know, in an odd sign of just

35:52

how strange Putin's Russia can be, both

35:55

people close to Navalny and Putin's

35:58

spokesman Dmitry Peskov basically did. dismissed

36:00

the report as stupid and ridiculous. It's

36:03

also worth noting at the same time two journalists were

36:06

recently detained in Russia for allegedly producing

36:08

YouTube content for Navalny's YouTube channel. Both

36:11

have also worked as stringers for international outlets like

36:14

the AP and Reuters. Meanwhile,

36:16

our buddy Tucker Carlson is back

36:18

on the Russia beat. This

36:20

time he interviewed a guy named Alexander

36:23

Dugan, who's a far right Russian philosopher

36:25

who's been called Putin's brain. Tucker

36:27

framed his decision to talk to a

36:29

bloodthirsty nationalist by claiming Dugan's ideas were so

36:32

dangerous that his books were banned and you

36:34

can't buy them on Amazon. The

36:36

Daily Beast checked out this claim

36:38

and they found that of course it's bullshit

36:41

and you can buy at least four of

36:43

Dugan's books on Amazon right now, including one

36:45

that's been translated into English for your Kindle.

36:47

The interview was so weird and rambly that we couldn't even

36:50

figure out how to excerpt it so we'll spare you that

36:52

audio. But Dugan seems to

36:54

think that liberalism and transgender people will

36:56

lead us to a future ruled by

36:58

AI robots. So get excited for

37:00

that. Ben, are you as jealous as

37:03

I am that Tucker is just like owning this beat?

37:07

I mean not jealous of hanging out with Dugan. He

37:09

doesn't seem like a good guy. Jealous of

37:11

his lovely time in the Moscow Metro. That's

37:13

true. Yeah, love affair. I mean I

37:17

think that the Dugan thing, this is a guy

37:19

who literally thinks Putin is not like right wing

37:21

enough, right? This is a guy that

37:25

is, and I think probably

37:27

what brought Tucker to him is his daughter

37:30

was assassinated. By

37:33

the Ukrainians. Yeah. And so,

37:35

Tucker loves kind of hoisting the Ukrainians on

37:37

their petard. But

37:40

this guy is a bunch of bullshit.

37:42

It's a bunch of like ultra-nationalist

37:45

justifying of fascism. He's

37:47

not like some deep thinker who's

37:49

doing his own research about vaccines. This

37:53

is a guy that propagates in ideologies

37:55

that are designed to get people killed.

37:58

And this kind of. dance with

38:00

the far right that Tucker

38:02

is doing globally, it just kind

38:04

of continues to reinforce that there really is an

38:06

ideology that is kind of come together. And it's

38:09

kind of a weird pastiche at core. It's like

38:11

a white supremacist, right-wing

38:13

Christian ideology. But

38:15

it's weird how it's very 21st century in

38:18

that like they're mad about cancel culture,

38:21

one in trans rights and LGBT and

38:24

NATO. And it is kind of a Christmas

38:26

tree of just like far right grievance

38:28

that Tucker likes. And then Navalny thing

38:30

shows the danger of it because I don't really

38:32

care whether Putin like ordered like

38:34

that he be killed on X-Date. He killed

38:37

Navalny by poisoning him,

38:39

wrongfully detaining him, having

38:42

him moving around this prison system, finally

38:45

ending up in the Arctic circle. He wasn't

38:47

getting fed. I'm sure that you

38:49

weren't gonna get ahead in the Russian prison

38:51

system by like giving Alexei Navalny a blanket.

38:54

You were gonna get ahead by beating the

38:56

shit out of him and denying him food.

38:58

And Putin created the apparatus that deliberately killed

39:00

Alexei Navalny. And so to me, that's kind

39:02

of almost a sideshow. Yeah, it is weird

39:04

that it leaked. I mean, you

39:06

never know how anything leaks, but it's just sort

39:09

of surprising. Yeah, yeah. It

39:11

is like, yeah, because it's not

39:13

like we're on the verges and rapprochement with Putin. No, it

39:16

seemed like somebody would be closely held anyway. Russia

39:18

was also a big topic of discussion

39:21

during Secretary of State Tony Blinken's recent

39:23

visit to China where he met with

39:25

Chinese president Xi Jinping and other top

39:27

Chinese officials. The Biden

39:29

administration is increasingly frustrated about China

39:31

supporting Russia's weapons industry and supporting

39:34

their war effort. Here's a

39:36

clip from Tony doing a press conference during

39:38

this visit to China. In my discussions today,

39:41

I reiterated our serious concern about

39:44

the PRC providing components that

39:46

are powering Russia's brutal war of aggression against

39:48

Ukraine. China's the top

39:50

supplier of machine tools, microelectronics,

39:54

nitrocellulose, which is critical to making

39:56

munitions and rocket propellants, and

39:58

other dual-use items that Moscow. I was using

40:00

to ramp up its defense industrial base,

40:03

a defense industrial base that is churning

40:05

out rockets, drones, tanks, and

40:07

other weapons that President Putin is using to

40:10

invade a sovereign country, to demolish

40:12

its power grid and other civilian infrastructure, to

40:15

kill innocent children, women, and men. Russia

40:18

would struggle to sustain its assault

40:20

on Ukraine without China's

40:23

support. In

40:25

my meetings with NATO allies early this month and

40:27

with our G7 partners just last week, I

40:30

heard that same message. Fueling

40:32

Russia's defense industrial base not only

40:34

threatens Ukrainian security, it

40:36

threatens European security. Beijing

40:38

cannot achieve better relations with Europe while

40:41

supporting the greatest threat to European security since the

40:44

end of the Cold War. The message

40:46

seems to be like, stop this or we're gonna

40:48

sanction you. Kind of my takeaway.

40:51

Yeah, except does

40:54

Beijing give a shit?

40:56

You know, like that. I don't know. Like

40:58

two years ago when the sanctions regime went in

41:01

place, I think one thing that a bunch of

41:03

smart analysts said, including on this podcast, is

41:05

that what was

41:08

gonna create a huge opportunity for China in

41:10

a way, because China doesn't like the way

41:12

US uses sanctions to begin with. And

41:15

they could basically, by

41:17

ignoring our sanctions, buy a lot of

41:19

Russian oil on the cheap, and then

41:21

kind of turn Russia into a client

41:23

state, because Russia is now wholly dependent

41:25

on China for technology. And

41:27

so there's a lot of advantages for

41:30

China in this. I don't like it. Like

41:32

I wish they weren't doing it. But

41:35

the reality is they're not gonna

41:37

respond to kind of a moral appeal. You

41:39

know, Russia's

41:42

using these inputs to attack Ukraine.

41:45

And so then it's pressure. And I think what Tony

41:47

was trying to kind of indicate is, it's

41:49

not just us, it's the Europeans too that don't like

41:51

this. And presumably,

41:54

like there might be some sanction

41:57

of certain Chinese entities

41:59

that are providing. maybe some of those things

42:01

that Tony listed. I think that specific

42:03

list was a warning shot, and he probably delivered

42:05

it in private too. Like, hey, there might be

42:07

some company that is providing X input

42:10

to the Russian economy. They could be sanctioned. But

42:13

at the end of the day, I'm

42:15

increasingly of the view, Tommy, that we

42:19

need to find ways that are not just

42:21

pressure to

42:23

deal with the Chinese in

42:26

particular. Because what's the incentive

42:28

for them to not do

42:30

this? And again, everything's the same,

42:32

squishy and do your Munich comparison.

42:35

But if everything is

42:37

the US going around the world telling

42:39

people not to do things and sanctioning

42:41

them, and then what's happening is an

42:43

entire parallel global economy is developing that

42:45

has been built to avoid US sanctions.

42:48

And there are big countries in that, like

42:50

China, and Iran, big energy

42:52

producer, and a lot of other countries are India

42:55

that ignores our sanctions, even though they're

42:58

our partner and some other things. And at

43:00

a certain point, you have to have

43:02

some to put on my

43:05

blob hat, there's got to be some carrots, not

43:08

just six. If you want to achieve your objective here,

43:10

which is that China

43:12

is not going to be scolded into not doing

43:14

this. Let me navel chamber in your Munich agreement

43:16

real quick, because this trip also came just

43:19

after Biden signed into law this foreign aid

43:21

bill that included $8 billion to counter China

43:23

and Indo-Pacific. That was billions in military funding

43:25

for Taiwan. And then there was the TikTok

43:27

ban piece of this where that requires the

43:30

TikTok be sold or spun off by its

43:32

Chinese parent company. So I'm

43:34

glad Tony made the trip where we have to

43:36

fix relations that haven't been right since the stupid

43:38

Bible moon bullshit. I obviously don't want

43:41

China to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine either.

43:43

And I want Taiwan to be able to live

43:45

as an autonomous island. I want the next to

43:47

win the NBA championship. But you and I were

43:49

talking about this the other day. This conversation in

43:52

the Western Media gets framed as

43:54

the US responding to Chinese aggression in the Pacific.

43:56

And Of course, that is true. China has the.

44:00

That absurd interpretation of their territorial waters.

44:02

And they claim half of the South

44:04

China Sea for no reason. They've been

44:06

building military bases out of islands. The

44:08

Chinese quote unquote coast guard keeps attacking

44:10

a Filipino navy boats in. That's gonna

44:13

lead to a conflict of we're not

44:15

careful But I think if you just

44:17

imagine you are Xi Jinping for a

44:19

minute, he's probably thinking I'm responding to

44:21

American aggression because the Us as twenty

44:24

eight thousand Us troops in South Korea.

44:26

Sixty thousand in Japan got a base

44:28

in Guam. Now the Us. Is sending

44:30

Tomahawk missiles to open our we just

44:32

negotiated access to all these I air

44:34

and naval bases in the Philippines. There's

44:37

Us marines in Australia thanks to Brock

44:39

Obama and now Biden just negotiated this

44:41

big aka submarine deal where center nuclear

44:43

subs are down a specific region and

44:45

so I'm not saying it's wrong to

44:47

do the things. I'm not criticizing by

44:50

and for doing them but I'm just

44:52

saying like when you look at all

44:54

those Us military assets laid out on

44:56

a map you can see why China

44:58

feels like they're being and circle be.

45:00

Actually they are getting in. That doesn't

45:02

justify invading Taiwan or sinking a Filipino

45:05

fishing boats, but it does make you

45:07

wonder. Is. The Us Navy presence

45:09

deterring China, or that scaring them into

45:11

bolstering their own military hardware. Yeah, and

45:14

I think the answer to that has

45:16

to be like a more focus on

45:18

diplomacy and frankly, even some transactional isn't

45:20

with the Chinese. I think she noted

45:23

we should come back to this because

45:25

it's a really important and probably under

45:27

discuss. Giant. Tectonic

45:30

plate underneath the world's costs

45:32

even thugs and Ukraine in

45:34

the Middle East, but essentially.

45:36

I think I do think she's in pain.

45:38

Came in and he was a particular aggressive

45:40

Chinese leader pressing those claims in the South

45:43

since he harder like being bit more of

45:45

a hard ass at home. Been.

45:47

Hardest across the board and said the

45:49

Us is gonna react to that by becoming

45:51

more artisan or ourselves but. For.

45:53

For people listening, you don't fall the

45:55

intricacies of kind of that foreign policy

45:57

establishment debates. There was this kind of.

46:00

collective decision made kind

46:02

of during the Trump years actually that it

46:05

was wrong to engage China. We

46:07

need to become much more hawkish. We

46:09

made all these miscalculations that China would become

46:11

more warm and cuddly. The

46:13

WTO session would be fake. Yeah,

46:16

yeah. Is that right? And there was

46:18

a lot to that that was correct. Like it was the case that it

46:20

was wrong that opening up

46:22

and working with China, a bunch of stuff

46:24

would lead to them liberalizing their system or something. But

46:27

I think we have now overcorrected a

46:29

bit here. And

46:31

it's very good that Biden people kind of

46:33

reengaged and Biden did a meeting with Xi

46:35

Jinping late last year, Tony just went out

46:37

there. But at a certain point, there

46:39

has to be a positive agenda. What are we working on?

46:42

Are we negotiating things? Are we negotiating around

46:44

AI? We're negotiating around climate change. We're negotiating

46:46

around the global economy. This can't

46:48

just be a like, we have a

46:50

list of things that we demand the Chinese do and they have

46:52

a list of things that they demand we do. That's

46:55

a recipe for kind of conflict. There needs to

46:57

be some positivity

46:59

in the relationship. Yeah, last piece

47:01

of this from this China trip.

47:03

So Tony's trip also took

47:05

place with another backdrop, all these espionage

47:07

cases in England and Germany. There's been

47:09

a total of six people who have

47:11

been charged with spying for China. And

47:14

there's growing evidence that China is attempting

47:16

to influence the upcoming US presidential election.

47:18

So China is being accused of using

47:20

spies to influence the democratic processes in

47:23

Europe, something China experts say

47:25

is not new, but that awareness of it

47:27

is growing. Tony was asked

47:29

about reports of China's attempt to meddle

47:31

in the US elections by using fake

47:33

social media accounts to bolster

47:35

support for Trump and whether he thought

47:37

this violated President Xi's commitment. He

47:40

had this to say to CNN's Kylie Atwood.

47:43

President Biden was very clear about that

47:45

with President Xi. And I repeated

47:47

that today in my meetings.

47:49

You repeated what? Any

47:52

interference by China

47:55

in our election is something that we're

47:57

looking very carefully at. is

48:00

totally unacceptable to us. Look,

48:02

it's something we're tracking very carefully. I can't speak to

48:04

these specific reports. I

48:07

can say that as a general matter, we've

48:10

been very clear with China, don't do it. But

48:12

they're not violating the commitment yet as far as you can

48:14

tell? Well, again, I'd have to look at the specific

48:16

reports that you're referring to, but we

48:19

have seen, generally speaking,

48:22

evidence of attempts to influence

48:27

and arguably interfere, and

48:29

we wanna make sure that that's cut

48:32

off as quickly as possible. Kylie Eywood from

48:34

Data Mask, by the way. No.

48:36

No big deal. No big deal there. It happened in my city.

48:38

Ben, if every country decides to interfere in

48:41

our elections, do they accidentally cancel each other

48:43

out? How do you think? I mean, in

48:45

an open information space, this

48:49

is more normalized, and I think China's

48:52

become more aggressive in kind of

48:54

information and disinformation campaigns, and it's

48:57

quite likely that they're bringing that into

49:00

our election. And the question is at what

49:03

scale, with what intent? A big deal, yeah.

49:05

A big deal. That's always the

49:07

hard part. I mean, ironically, I genuinely believe

49:09

that the Chinese would prefer Trump to win

49:12

because while he's an

49:14

unpredictable actor who talks

49:16

trash about China, he

49:18

also has kind of a man crush on Xi

49:20

Jinping and is so

49:23

disruptive and erratic that

49:25

he's the best thing for China in terms of their

49:28

desire to build a parallel world order. Their

49:30

desire to go to Europe and say, hey, the Americans

49:32

are too dysfunctional to deal with us. Their

49:35

desire to take things like the BRICS and build it

49:37

in the institution. So I'm sure

49:39

the Biden people, it sounds like

49:41

they're seeing some stuff that is probably in

49:43

the information space, but you

49:45

hear Tony's warning, and then it's

49:47

kind of like, well, or what? Like, what is

49:49

the US gonna do if they see this? So

49:52

they're gonna call, I think calling out is important,

49:55

at some point, and I'm sympathetic to Tony, we've

49:57

all been there. At some point though, you're

49:59

gonna have to be specific. I think naming what

50:01

the interference is is step

50:03

one and then if it continues then

50:05

you consider what consequences Yeah, and if it's just Twitter

50:07

bots, maybe it just doesn't rise the agenda Also,

50:10

yeah, I mean certainly the Chinese know they could buy

50:12

some of that DJT stock and yeah

50:14

get curry Trump's career favor with Trump

50:17

switching gears been just staying in the Indo-Pacific

50:19

though, of course, the Washington Post had a

50:22

amazing story about the

50:24

attempted assassination of sick

50:26

activists living abroad by Indian

50:28

intelligence services So we covered

50:31

a similar but unfortunately successful

50:34

assassination of a Canadian man sick

50:36

activists in June of last year

50:39

But this new report in the Washington Post is

50:41

about a plot to kill a man

50:44

living in New York and the final

50:46

instructions were relayed By intelligence operatives Indian

50:48

intelligence operatives to the would-be assassin During

50:51

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state

50:53

visit to the US think

50:55

about that for a second during the state visit

50:58

They're like, yeah off this fucking guy Luckily

51:00

US law enforcement and intelligence services prevented

51:02

this from happening But the

51:05

post says the plot by India's research

51:07

and analysis wing or raw that's like

51:09

the best Intel name out there

51:12

WWE Raw went all the

51:14

way to the top that it was signed off by the head

51:16

of raw And that Modi's National

51:18

Security Advisor was probably aware of the

51:21

general plan to take out these six

51:23

separatists Or activists all over the

51:25

planet the post piece notes

51:28

that while six separatists were responsible

51:30

For a lot of violent incidents

51:32

back in the 80s including the

51:34

assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi

51:36

The threat is now wildly overstated

51:38

and overhyped by Modi probably for

51:40

nationalist reasons Everyone should read the

51:42

story because it's way too long to summarize here and

51:44

it's great reporting, but they also Mentioned

51:48

that you know law enforcement has had to

51:50

break up raw intelligence efforts in Australia Germany

51:53

and the UK so they're doing this everywhere.

51:56

The post said the Biden administration's response has

51:58

basically been to get in India to

52:00

deal with the matter internally rather than make

52:02

it public with expulsions or sanctions or other

52:04

penalties. They sent Bill Burns over there to

52:07

deliver the stern, we know what you did,

52:09

clean up your shit message. Ben,

52:11

I know going hard at India

52:14

right now is complicated geopolitics for all the

52:16

reasons we just talked about about China, but

52:19

there's no doubt that if the Saudis did

52:21

this, people would be calling for the US

52:23

to sever relations basically. Or the Chinese did

52:25

it. I think that

52:30

Modi seems to have internalized what you just said, that

52:32

oh, because of geopolitics, I can basically do whatever the

52:34

hell I want. The

52:36

fact that this is happening during a state visit

52:39

is the ultimate indicator that they feel

52:41

like they can do whatever they want

52:43

and there's no consequences. I

52:46

do think it's not unlike what we're just

52:48

thinking about China. One starting point actually is

52:50

to just blow the whistle on this publicly

52:53

and put it out there. This

52:57

should be embarrassing that they do this and

53:02

they didn't like it when ... I think this

53:04

is something good Trudeau did when he blew the

53:06

whistle on what they did. They flipped out. The

53:08

fact that they flipped out tells you that they

53:10

don't want it to be known that they're doing

53:12

this. One

53:14

step that is short of moving

53:16

to sanctions or things like this is just

53:18

being like, hey, wait a second, we're going

53:20

to expose this because cut it out as

53:22

a tactic of dissuading you

53:25

from doing it. The

53:27

worst thing you want is for them to think they can just

53:29

start killing people with impunity in New York. We

53:33

can't tolerate that and whatever has

53:35

allowed them to feel that impunity is not okay. No,

53:37

it's not okay. You don't think they got a raw

53:39

deal in Canada? I'm

53:41

sorry. I'll move on. I'll

53:43

move on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well,

53:46

they got kind of cooked. Okay,

53:48

let's turn to Iran. Okay, so

53:50

listen, if I remember back in 2022, there

53:52

was a huge wave of protests all across

53:55

Iran in response to the murder of a

53:57

young woman named Masa Amini by Iran's so-called

54:00

police. She was arrested for

54:02

improperly wearing her headscarf, the hijab. I'm sure

54:04

she was properly wearing it and these assholes

54:06

just picked her up and then they killed

54:08

her. At the time an Iranian

54:11

rapper named Tumaj Salahi released

54:13

music critical of the Iranian regime in support

54:15

of the protesters. He was then

54:17

arrested in late 2022 and sentenced

54:19

to over six years in prison. For

54:22

some reason he was briefly released and then

54:24

re-arrested after publicly saying he'd been tortured in

54:26

place in solitary confinement for 252 days. So

54:30

CNN has a great write-up about all of this if you want

54:32

to learn more. Fast forward to last

54:34

week. Salahi's lawyer announced the

54:36

shocking news that his client had been

54:38

sentenced to death for his

54:40

participation in these protests. Participation I

54:43

guess meaning releasing a

54:45

music video. Another Kurdish Iranian

54:47

rapper was also arrested during the protest

54:49

movement and given a five-year sentence. So

54:51

officials in the US and Europe have

54:53

denounced these sentences. Artists

54:55

and officials in the recording industry have been speaking

54:58

out as well. There have been protests in a

55:00

lot of places all over the globe. But Ben,

55:02

I just think it's a reminder of I think

55:04

the brutality of the Iranian regime but also

55:06

how weak they ultimately are. If they

55:09

think that killing a rapper for releasing

55:11

a song about a protest movement is

55:14

the way to go forward. I mean it

55:16

doesn't speak to a country that feels confident

55:18

in its decision-making. Yeah

55:20

and they stick to the

55:22

crackdown. Part of what

55:25

this shows is that they're still trying

55:27

to squeeze and squeeze around the

55:29

different elements of Iranian society that

55:32

kind of join that movement. And so you know

55:34

there's a the Iranian

55:36

cultural sector. They're trying to

55:39

send a message to any other musician in the future

55:41

that might want to think about doing something like this.

55:43

And that's what's so abhorrent about this. I do think

55:45

to your point you know

55:47

this illustrates that like the real

55:49

vulnerability is how they treat

55:52

their people. And

55:54

I say that because the Iranians are probably

55:56

like nothing more than this to be a debate

55:58

about like the recent foreign policy. issues in the

56:00

region. Right, yeah. How tough they are

56:03

on Israel. Yeah, exactly. If

56:05

your objective is illuminating,

56:09

challenging, confronting the fundamental nature

56:11

of the Iranian regime, I

56:13

do think the most effective

56:16

directional challenge to that is

56:18

around how they treat people, how they treat women,

56:20

how they treat people exercising

56:23

speech. And

56:25

in a weird way, not letting them make

56:28

this a debate about whether they're standing up

56:30

to America or Israel or whatever. Because

56:35

sometimes the people that claim to be

56:37

supporting human rights in Iran are mainly

56:40

focused on foreign policy issues. What

56:42

was so powerful about that movement is it was about the

56:45

regime, its true character, and how it treats

56:47

its people. And that's where people

56:49

can continue to focus, especially women, obviously. Two

56:53

more quick things. So in Scotland,

56:55

Hamza Yousuf has resigned as the Scottish

56:57

National Party leader and Scotland's first minister.

57:00

His tenure lasted less than a year and

57:02

ended unexpectedly after tearing up an agreement with

57:04

the Green Party in a battle with the

57:06

party's lawmakers over climate change policy and differences

57:08

in what they

57:10

wanted to set in terms of the targets going forward. The

57:13

S&P set one of the most ambitious climate targets

57:15

in the world. They wanted to cut carbon emissions

57:17

75% by 2030 from 1990 levels. But

57:22

Yousuf said last month that the goals were set

57:24

before he came into office and were beyond what

57:26

we were able to achieve. The

57:28

Green Party then held a vote of no confidence, a

57:31

move he did not see. Yousuf did not see coming,

57:33

and one he addressed in his resignation speech, which we

57:35

have a clip from. Unfortunately, in

57:37

ending the Butte House Agreement in

57:39

the manner that I did, I

57:42

clearly underestimated the level of heart

57:44

and upset that caused green

57:47

coats. For

57:49

a minority government to be able

57:51

to govern effectively and efficiently, trust

57:54

when working with the opposition is

57:57

clearly fundamental. A

58:00

route to the speaks motion of

58:02

no confidence was absolutely possible. I

58:05

am not willing to treat

58:07

my values and principles or

58:09

is it deals with whomever

58:12

simply sort of teaming power.

58:15

There for after spending the weekend

58:17

reflecting on what is best for

58:19

my party for the government. And.

58:22

For the country I read, I've

58:24

concluded that repeating a relationship across

58:26

the political debate can only be

58:28

dumps the someone else had the

58:30

hell. I have therefore informed V

58:32

S M P's National Secretary of

58:34

my intention to stand out as

58:36

party leader and asked if she

58:38

commands is a leadership contest for

58:40

my replacement as soon as possible.

58:42

So I don't know all the

58:44

ins and outs of what happened

58:46

here. I'd I'd. I'd start

58:48

with use of was pretty inspiring leader him

58:50

in the way he talked about family have

58:52

been trapped in Gaza was was moving Are

58:55

you with the first nonwhite head of the

58:57

Scottish government? But pretty shocking. Development

58:59

your i'm it's there is also interesting

59:01

to see what this will mean. Ah

59:03

in terms of the Snp supports Visa

59:05

Be Labour and the upcoming elections. Yeah.

59:08

Above us noom their I'm in. There.

59:10

Was a pretty principal. Statement. Of

59:12

resignation you know. Ah, so

59:14

be continues. They demonstrated degree

59:16

of self awareness and eloquence.

59:18

It is missing in a

59:20

lot of political life and

59:22

world's that said. Ah. The

59:26

two thoughts I had her first. I mean this.

59:28

The stars are just really a whining for labour.

59:30

The Himalayas. I'm and I'm not saying that a

59:33

semenya have you ever since. I guess you know

59:35

where partial to labor. but I mean the tories

59:37

are complete shit show. A greasy soon

59:39

i can barely whole bad thing together. He's

59:41

holding it together with dumb shit like this.

59:43

Rwanda deal with shoot Tiger interview. Then.

59:47

in scotland is summer where labor needs

59:50

to win made some losses to the

59:52

snp mutineers the snp seems like it's

59:54

a bit of a massive difference in

59:57

this can will reinforce that at so

59:59

politically in terms of a UK general election at

1:00:02

some point this year, like it feels like

1:00:05

this is yet another data point that

1:00:07

suggests labor is gonna have a good election.

1:00:09

The other thing, which I don't claim to

1:00:11

know enough about, right, so I don't wanna,

1:00:14

but the SMP, it's interesting, it's both

1:00:18

a nationalist party, right, and they supported

1:00:20

Scottish independence in the past, and

1:00:23

it's kind of a progressive party, you know,

1:00:25

and the emissions target, which is pretty

1:00:27

fucking ambitious emissions target, kind of

1:00:29

seems representative of that, and

1:00:32

they had some issues, remember, around trans

1:00:34

issues, and it does feel like

1:00:36

there's a, and again, I don't, I say this

1:00:38

as a totally an outside, the

1:00:41

tension between your nationalist

1:00:44

party and ideologically left-wing party, like it does

1:00:46

feel like there's a bit of an identity

1:00:48

issue that needs to be

1:00:50

sorted out within Scotland. Yeah, that's a good

1:00:52

point. Because they kind of keep getting into

1:00:54

these strange controversies around pretty ideological issues that

1:00:58

are not just about Scottish decision-making

1:01:01

and autonomy. Yeah, that's a

1:01:03

good observation, but we'll see how this plays

1:01:05

out. Okay, last thing, then.

1:01:07

So I think I found

1:01:10

the Isaac Chautner of New Zealand. Oh.

1:01:14

Isaac Chautner. I've been looking for that. So

1:01:16

Isaac Chautner. He

1:01:18

does these amazing Q&As for The New Yorker. Well, amazing

1:01:20

in part because he gets people to agree to talk

1:01:22

to him, who he's clearly gonna humiliate. Who's the fucking

1:01:24

war criminal that did all the coups in Latin America

1:01:26

that he just got? He just had Elliot Abrams. Elliot

1:01:29

Abrams, thank you. Yeah, he just had Elliot Abrams agree

1:01:31

to do an interview with Isaac Chautner. And just finds

1:01:33

a way to logic trap them every time. So

1:01:36

the Isaac Chautner of New Zealand writes

1:01:38

for a site called Newsroom. You can

1:01:41

find it at newsroom.co.nz. The

1:01:44

literary editor of Newsroom, a guy named

1:01:46

Steve Branius, I'm sorry if I'm butchering

1:01:48

your name, decided to interview

1:01:51

another guy named Todd Stevenson. Todd

1:01:53

Stevenson is an MP in the

1:01:55

New Zealand Conservative Act Party. And

1:01:58

he was recently named the art. spokesman

1:02:00

for the party. One

1:02:02

might assume that means he has interest

1:02:04

in or knowledge of the arts. One

1:02:07

would be wrong. He doesn't

1:02:09

know anything about it and he doesn't give

1:02:11

a shit. So Steve did this

1:02:13

interview and I thought maybe we could do a quick

1:02:15

dramatic reading Ben. So I just sent you a little

1:02:19

transcript here. So I'm going to be

1:02:21

Steve, the literary editor. I'm in bold.

1:02:24

You're Todd. You're the conservative art spokesman.

1:02:26

Ben is reading this site on

1:02:28

scene everyone. I'm not going to do the accent there. Okay

1:02:30

good. What's your experience or knowledge of

1:02:32

the arts? I'm going to say other than as

1:02:34

a consumer, very limited. There's

1:02:37

some parts of the art sector I'm personally

1:02:39

interested in but yeah, it's an area I'm

1:02:41

wanting to learn more about and I'm slowly

1:02:44

getting to know. I'm conducting this,

1:02:46

this is Steve again. I'm conducting the interview in

1:02:48

my hat as the literary editor of the book

1:02:50

section at newsroom. So what about literature? What's your

1:02:52

experience or knowledge there? Yeah,

1:02:54

I'm going to be pretty straight up with

1:02:56

you Steve. I mainly read nonfiction to be

1:02:58

honest. So it's been a while

1:03:00

since I read a novel. What about New

1:03:03

Zealand books? That's an

1:03:05

area I want to kind of learn a

1:03:07

bit more about. You're delivering the shit out

1:03:09

of these Todd. Are there any New Zealand

1:03:11

authors you have read? It's

1:03:14

been a long time to be honest Steve. I'm just

1:03:16

trying to think of the last one I would have

1:03:18

read. Can I come back to you on that? But

1:03:21

you don't have individual tastes yourself, do you?

1:03:23

You're kind of an arts ignoramus really by

1:03:25

your own reckoning? No, I

1:03:27

certainly have individual things that I like to go to. We

1:03:29

talked about that earlier. You've been to see Hamilton. Well,

1:03:32

I was just giving you an example of the

1:03:34

things I like to do. What are your tastes

1:03:36

other than musicals? That's

1:03:38

the main one in the creative sector and

1:03:41

I watch movies. I

1:03:43

watch TV. I watch TV says the

1:03:45

act of spokesman for the arts. Creative

1:03:48

things are on TV. Are they not Steve? That's

1:03:50

my favorite line in this whole thing. So

1:03:52

there's really not more to ask you, is there? I mean

1:03:54

you just don't know your subject. Well,

1:03:57

that's right. I've absolutely. Absolutely

1:04:00

no more questions for somebody who has absolutely no

1:04:02

knowledge of their subject, but I appreciate your time.

1:04:04

Yeah, and as I said, Steve, I'm out there

1:04:06

trying to learn more. And as I go through

1:04:08

the rest of the year, I'm sure I will

1:04:10

learn more. My door is always open to talk

1:04:12

to people. That's one thing you'll find about me

1:04:14

and all the portfolios I'm engaged in. My door

1:04:16

is always open to talk to stakeholders. I think

1:04:18

there would be very few people in the arts

1:04:20

and literature who could be bothered opening the door

1:04:22

to talk to you, John. That's

1:04:25

your opinion, Steve. As I said, I've actually had some

1:04:28

very fruitful engagements so far, and I'm looking forward to

1:04:30

continuing that and talking to more people in the year.

1:04:32

All right. Thanks for your time.

1:04:34

Maybe I'll talk to you later in the year, Steve.

1:04:37

I don't see why. Bye. I

1:04:40

don't know if that's our first and probably

1:04:42

final dramatic reading. I don't know who Steve

1:04:44

Bronnius is, but he may be my favorite

1:04:47

interviewer ever. Well, I don't know who Todd

1:04:49

is, but I know that this right-wing New

1:04:51

Zealand party came to

1:04:55

power, trashing just into our durn with

1:04:57

a lot of disinformation and misinformation. So

1:04:59

we don't like these people. We're

1:05:02

still just in a stand-up. This guy is such a

1:05:04

clown. It's actually much longer. He's

1:05:06

like, what musicals have you seen? I

1:05:08

saw Hamilton a couple of years ago.

1:05:11

He doesn't read. He only reads nonfiction books about

1:05:13

campaigns. He couldn't think of a novel. He couldn't

1:05:15

think of the New Zealand author that he liked

1:05:17

for a while. They're not exactly

1:05:19

building a Camelot over there, are they? No.

1:05:23

Not great. But okay, that's

1:05:25

it for the news section of the show, for

1:05:27

our dramatic readings. When we come

1:05:29

back, you will hear my interview with John

1:05:31

McDermott from The Economist about a lot of

1:05:33

fascinating things happening in Africa, talking about the

1:05:36

South Africa elections, the 30th anniversary of the

1:05:38

Rwandan genocide, and how the US is getting

1:05:40

pushed out of the South region while Russia

1:05:43

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for more information. That's

1:07:37

netsuite.com/podcast25. Joining

1:07:46

me now is John McDermott. He's the African

1:07:48

correspondent for The Economist and actually someone I've

1:07:50

known for many years. Great to

1:07:52

see you, man. Thanks for having me on. How

1:07:54

are you? I'm doing very well. We were just commiserating

1:07:56

before we started recording about life

1:07:59

and all things children. but I will get to

1:08:01

the news because that's why people are here. So this

1:08:04

month marks two very different

1:08:06

but momentous 30th anniversaries on the

1:08:08

continent of Africa. It'll be the

1:08:10

30th anniversary of the first democratic

1:08:12

election in South Africa that

1:08:15

officially ended apartheid. And earlier this month

1:08:17

Rwanda commemorated the 30th anniversary of the

1:08:19

1994 Rwandan genocide. I want

1:08:21

to ask you about both of those

1:08:24

events and as well as some of the

1:08:26

ways the US standing in influence

1:08:28

in Africa seems to have diminished. But let's

1:08:31

start in South Africa because you're based

1:08:33

there currently. On May 29th

1:08:35

South Africa will hold national elections.

1:08:38

The African National Congress or ANC which is

1:08:40

the party of Nelson Mandela has been in

1:08:42

power for all of that those

1:08:44

30 years. But recent polls seem

1:08:47

to show their support slipping a

1:08:49

bit. Are political analysts anticipating a

1:08:52

major political shift and what do you think

1:08:54

is driving voter sentiment at the

1:08:56

moment? Yeah the elections on

1:08:58

May 20th are going to

1:09:00

be a big deal but

1:09:03

I don't think they're going to

1:09:05

be the dramatic shift that many

1:09:08

were speculating a few months ago. Back

1:09:12

then there were some polls

1:09:14

that were suggesting the ANC might be

1:09:17

on kind

1:09:20

of 40% or upper 30s which for

1:09:22

many political parties would be a fairly

1:09:25

decent showing. But given the

1:09:27

ANC has never not had more than 50%

1:09:29

of the vote it would be it would

1:09:31

have been a disaster.

1:09:33

Now I think most polls are

1:09:35

showing the ANC closer to 45%

1:09:38

which under the South African system of proportional

1:09:41

representation which is a bit like Germany or

1:09:43

Israel will require them

1:09:45

to get coalition but that should be fairly

1:09:47

doable. So I think the consensus

1:09:49

view at the moment is that they will scrape

1:09:52

by battered and bruised but

1:09:56

in some ways it's kind of astonishing that they've

1:09:58

fallen so far. far. I mean,

1:10:01

in 2019, under President Stilwell-Ramiposa, they got 57%

1:10:03

of the vote. So this will be

1:10:06

the biggest drop from one election to another. And

1:10:09

I think this gets to the other thing

1:10:12

you were talking about, which is the

1:10:14

30 years of democracy in South Africa,

1:10:16

which in many ways,

1:10:18

if you're stepping right back, has

1:10:20

been something of a game of

1:10:22

two halves, which is a bit like kind of my

1:10:24

football as opposed to your football. And

1:10:27

in the first

1:10:29

half, so kind of the 15 years from 1994,

1:10:32

when Mandela came to power through the

1:10:34

Tabu Mbeki years, life

1:10:36

generally got better for almost every South

1:10:38

African growth was ticking

1:10:41

along, not spectacularly, but pretty good. The

1:10:43

ANC built up a basic welfare state.

1:10:46

And there's a general sense of catharsis

1:10:48

after the decades, if not

1:10:50

centuries of white supremacy. But

1:10:53

in the second half, which

1:10:55

coincided with Jacob Zuma, but some of the

1:10:57

problems predated him, things have

1:10:59

been pretty bad. I

1:11:01

mean, GDP per capita is essentially the

1:11:03

same as it was in 2008. And

1:11:05

unemployment has gone from kind of horrific

1:11:07

to atrocious. And that's

1:11:09

had a big impact on how South Africans

1:11:12

view the ruling party. And that's why they

1:11:14

will take a bit of a battering. I've

1:11:16

seen some statistics from the World Bank, which

1:11:19

said that South Africa was the most unequal

1:11:21

country in the world in terms of wealth

1:11:23

distribution. 80% of the population is black.

1:11:26

And there's a 35 point gap

1:11:28

between black and white unemployment. I

1:11:31

mean, is the frustration you're seeing in the electorate,

1:11:34

kind of because of that glaring

1:11:36

inequality and the continued racial divide

1:11:38

despite apartheid ending 30 years ago?

1:11:40

30 years

1:11:43

after the end of apartheid, South

1:11:45

Africa remains deeply, deeply unequal. And

1:11:48

to some

1:11:50

extent, what has

1:11:53

happened over the past 30 years has been

1:11:55

that a

1:11:57

minority of the

1:11:59

black majority has been able to

1:12:01

enter the middle class

1:12:04

and to a lesser extent the top stratum

1:12:06

of society. But the

1:12:08

majority has still been

1:12:11

left outside of

1:12:13

that progress. And interestingly, in

1:12:15

South Africa, there's a big debate as to why

1:12:18

that is. And for some people, there's

1:12:20

something of an original sin that happened

1:12:23

back in 1994. Occasionally, you

1:12:25

hear this notion that Nelson Mandela sold

1:12:27

his act. And I think what

1:12:29

people mean by that is he

1:12:32

won as political freedom, but not

1:12:34

necessarily economic freedom. Now, I

1:12:37

happen to think that's unfair,

1:12:40

unfair and incorrect. Unfair because a guy

1:12:43

who spent 27 years as a political prisoner

1:12:46

is hardly a sellout. And

1:12:49

incorrect because the

1:12:53

enduring inequality is partly because of apartheid legacies.

1:12:55

I mean, you don't erase these overnight, of

1:12:58

course you can't. But it's also because of

1:13:00

deliberate decisions that ANC has made, especially

1:13:03

in that kind of second half of democracy,

1:13:05

it's increasingly focused on the kind of redistribution

1:13:09

of wealth and

1:13:11

the creation of this

1:13:13

black elite through various

1:13:16

race based economic policies, as

1:13:19

opposed to what it was

1:13:21

doing in the first 15 years, which seemed to be kind

1:13:23

of trying to grow the economy as a whole and then

1:13:25

use the proceeds to build up this welfare state. And

1:13:28

I think that's why you're starting to feel that

1:13:30

both economics and politics is hitting

1:13:33

a bit of a dead end. Yeah,

1:13:35

I mean, it certainly sounds similar to

1:13:37

problems the US has had in terms of

1:13:40

economic inequality, even after Jim Crow or after

1:13:42

slavery. Speaking of the US, I

1:13:44

mean, I noticed that the US and South Africa

1:13:46

have been on the opposite sides

1:13:48

of some pretty significant geopolitical issues

1:13:50

lately. The Biden administration is the

1:13:52

biggest backer of Bibi Netanyahu in

1:13:55

the war in Gaza, whereas South Africa brought

1:13:57

the genocide case against Israel at the ICU.

1:14:00

or the ICJ, I should say. The

1:14:02

US and South Africa have also had

1:14:04

some dust-ups over the war in Ukraine.

1:14:06

Last year, the US ambassador accused South

1:14:08

Africa of providing weapons and ammunition to

1:14:10

the Russians. What's your sense

1:14:13

about where relations are at the moment

1:14:15

between the US and South Africa? It

1:14:17

felt pretty prickly for a period. I

1:14:20

think there's been something of a course correction in

1:14:22

the past few months. I feel

1:14:24

like on the American

1:14:26

side, there's a

1:14:29

realization that South

1:14:31

Africa matters. For

1:14:33

all its stagnation, it's still the largest

1:14:36

economy on the continent. It

1:14:39

plays an outsized role in

1:14:41

Pan-African diplomacy. As

1:14:43

the case before the

1:14:45

ICJ shows, it's also taken on something

1:14:48

of a moral leadership

1:14:50

amongst the global south. I

1:14:53

think its claims to be able to

1:14:55

do that are somewhat dubious,

1:14:57

but it's true

1:14:59

nevertheless that that's what it's doing. I

1:15:03

think the United States has recognized

1:15:05

that and also

1:15:07

understands that South Africa, for a

1:15:10

combination of historical reasons and self-interest,

1:15:12

will always want to be non-aligned.

1:15:14

I think what the United States

1:15:16

is trying to do is ensure

1:15:18

that it's a genuine policy of

1:15:20

non-alignment as opposed to one that

1:15:22

is rhetorically non-aligned but is actually

1:15:24

helping enemies or

1:15:26

adversaries of the United States. I

1:15:29

think that's where some of the actions

1:15:31

vis-a-vis Russia crossed the line in the

1:15:34

eyes of the United States, both with

1:15:36

this slightly odd issue

1:15:38

of the weapons that may or may not have

1:15:40

gone onto a ship near Cape Town, but also

1:15:43

for instance having military exercises with

1:15:45

Russia and China on

1:15:47

the same week that Ukraine was

1:15:49

commemorating a year of the invasion

1:15:51

by Russia. I think

1:15:53

things have taken a bit of a course

1:15:55

correction and both

1:15:57

the United States and the EU. seems

1:16:00

to kind of be plodding

1:16:02

along, trying to make the best of it. That's

1:16:04

good. A course correction seemed

1:16:06

needed. Moving north, the

1:16:09

U.S. military just got pushed out of Niger.

1:16:12

Chad is reportedly threatening to kick out U.S.

1:16:14

troops. Over the past several

1:16:16

years, there's been this wave of coups

1:16:18

in the Sahel region of Africa, and

1:16:20

one consistent feature of them seems to

1:16:22

be that an outcome is that Western

1:16:25

countries like the U.S. and the French

1:16:27

get pushed out or lose influence generally while

1:16:30

Russia or the Wagner group, the Wagner mercenary

1:16:32

group, they gain influence. What is

1:16:34

your sense of why

1:16:36

this is happening and what it says about shifting

1:16:38

power dynamics in the Sahel region? I

1:16:41

think there's a couple of things going on. One

1:16:43

is security and the other is sovereignty. So

1:16:47

take security first. This

1:16:50

is one of the most

1:16:52

conflict-riddled parts of the world. Before Gaza,

1:16:54

nearly 50% of all

1:16:56

conflict-related deaths were in the

1:16:58

Sahel, and that's excluding Sudan, which I know you've

1:17:01

talked about on the show before. So

1:17:04

there was always a potential

1:17:07

for governments to

1:17:09

come to power who could claim, however

1:17:11

rightly, to do a better job of

1:17:13

providing security than the previous guys. The

1:17:17

other aspect, and I think this is often lost

1:17:19

in the Western talk

1:17:21

of these countries as

1:17:23

part of some geopolitical game, is sovereignty. If

1:17:26

you actually listen to any of these millennial

1:17:30

military men that are now making up a lot

1:17:32

of the juntas in the region, they talk about

1:17:34

this all the time. When the

1:17:37

coups happen, they tend to be

1:17:39

more popular than many people assume.

1:17:41

Sometimes the guys on the streets waving

1:17:44

Russian flags are plants, but sometimes it is a

1:17:46

kind of genuine outpouring of support.

1:17:49

When the Russians

1:17:52

have come in in various guises, what

1:17:55

are they doing? They are

1:17:57

providing security for the regime. And

1:18:00

crucially, they're fighting the guys that the regime

1:18:02

wants to fight. And often there was the

1:18:05

perception that the French or the Americans were

1:18:07

fighting the guys that Paris or

1:18:09

Washington wanted to fight. Now,

1:18:12

they're also the Russians

1:18:15

far more willing to commit heinous human

1:18:18

rights abuses than Western Bank forces

1:18:20

ever were. But to

1:18:23

get yourself into mindset of the people that are

1:18:25

now running these countries, what matters is that they

1:18:27

have partners that are doing exactly what they want.

1:18:30

Now, I happen to think all this will end

1:18:32

in tears, but there is a certain grim logic

1:18:34

to what they're trying to do. No,

1:18:36

that's a really good point. I mean, the US

1:18:38

policy was overtly to go after jihadi

1:18:41

groups that had designs on attacking the US

1:18:44

homeland. So of course, you know, that doesn't

1:18:46

feel like it's in the interest of the

1:18:48

host country. You mentioned Sudan, we

1:18:50

have talked a lot about the civil

1:18:52

war in Sudan, in particular, how the

1:18:54

United Arab Emirates is feeding that conflict

1:18:56

by sending weapons to one of the

1:18:58

two warring parties, the RFF, this paramilitary

1:19:01

group. On Monday, the US

1:19:03

ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield warned

1:19:05

that quote, history is repeating itself

1:19:07

in Darfur in the worst possible way. And

1:19:09

she said that a major city in Darfur

1:19:12

was quote, on the precipice of a large

1:19:14

scale massacre. She also specifically

1:19:16

called out the UAE, as did UN

1:19:18

sanctions monitors who said it's credible that

1:19:20

the UAE is funneling arms into Sudan.

1:19:22

We should note that the UAE denies

1:19:24

providing assistance to any armed group in

1:19:26

Sudan. Why do you think the UAE

1:19:29

is getting involved in Sudan? And I know you've been

1:19:31

watching how they've been investing in Africa more broadly. What

1:19:33

have you seen? I

1:19:35

think it's fascinating what the

1:19:38

UAE is doing across the continent. And

1:19:40

it's part of a broader trend

1:19:42

where not just China, not just Russia,

1:19:45

but these kind of more assertive middle

1:19:47

powers are becoming more

1:19:49

influential in many African countries.

1:19:52

And I think you have to almost divide the

1:19:55

continent in two from the perspective

1:19:57

of Abu Dhabi. There is the

1:19:59

whole Horn of Africa stretching into

1:20:01

the Sahel. So the Horn of

1:20:04

Africa is kind of Ethiopia, Sudan,

1:20:06

Somalia, the Northeast corner. And

1:20:08

that's very much the neighborhood

1:20:10

as perceived by Abu Dhabi. And

1:20:13

what it appears to be doing is establishing

1:20:16

a series of client leaders. Abiy

1:20:20

Ahmed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia is

1:20:23

probably the most powerful of those. But then

1:20:25

also there's the warlord that

1:20:27

is fighting the traditional Sudanese army,

1:20:29

kind of General Hermeti. And

1:20:32

I don't know if UAE itself knows what

1:20:35

the ultimate objective is, apart

1:20:37

from having people who can be

1:20:39

their clients in

1:20:43

a region which it sees as kind of

1:20:45

increasingly important. And going back

1:20:47

to the Sahel for a second, I mean, the Sahel

1:20:49

kind of bleeds into Sudan

1:20:51

through Chad. There's

1:20:54

an election in Chad

1:20:57

next week and the UAE has

1:20:59

been with the

1:21:02

French and the US, they've

1:21:04

been kind of backing the

1:21:07

strong man there. So it's

1:21:09

interesting that in some cases you

1:21:12

find the UAE on

1:21:14

the side of the United States and the

1:21:16

West in Africa. And in some cases you

1:21:19

find them on the opposite. And I think

1:21:21

that and the fact that Africa is often on

1:21:23

the bottom of the agenda when Jake Sullivan or

1:21:26

Anthony Blinken or whoever is meeting with Emirati

1:21:28

leaders is why it's

1:21:30

been quite complicated for the United States

1:21:33

to go hard on the UAE for

1:21:35

its alleged role in Sudan. I mean,

1:21:37

I think that's weakened cowardly

1:21:40

in many ways, but there is kind of other

1:21:42

things going on. So if you have the Horn

1:21:44

on one side, then

1:21:46

the kind of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa

1:21:48

where the UAE

1:21:50

is becoming a bit

1:21:53

more like a new China. So

1:21:55

if it's acting a bit more like Russia in the

1:21:57

Horn, picking up client

1:21:59

states, funneling. arms and so on. In

1:22:03

relatively stable countries

1:22:06

like Zambia, it is becoming an

1:22:08

increasingly important source of capital,

1:22:12

as in some places China

1:22:14

becomes less important. So

1:22:16

in mining, for instance, the UAE, in

1:22:18

addition to the Saudis, are

1:22:20

becoming the go-to place for

1:22:23

investment outside the traditional major

1:22:25

mining companies. And from

1:22:29

the African perspective, what

1:22:31

the UAE offers is a bit like

1:22:34

what China has offered for a long

1:22:36

time. It offers money, no strings

1:22:38

attached, and speed. Right. Yeah,

1:22:41

I think you really can't overstate

1:22:43

that speed point compared to US processes

1:22:45

and Congress and funding cycles and oversight,

1:22:47

et cetera, et cetera. I'm sure we're

1:22:49

a nightmare to work with as compared

1:22:51

to someone like the UAE. The last

1:22:54

country I want to ask you about

1:22:56

is, at the top

1:22:58

I mentioned how this month marked the 30th

1:23:00

anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide.

1:23:03

For those who don't know, that was when our militias

1:23:05

from the Hutu ethnic group massacred

1:23:08

hundreds of thousands of members of

1:23:10

the Tutsi ethnic minority group, along

1:23:12

with many moderate Hutus. I

1:23:14

know you were recently in Rwanda. What

1:23:17

did you make of that visit and

1:23:19

how a country can recover from

1:23:21

an event that horrific, prevent it

1:23:23

from happening again, and also

1:23:25

maybe use the legacy

1:23:28

or prevention of another genocide

1:23:30

for political purposes if you're

1:23:32

a political leader? It

1:23:35

has always fascinated me that

1:23:38

you have in Rwanda this incredibly

1:23:40

population-dense place, so many

1:23:43

perpetrators and victims'

1:23:45

families living side by side. I

1:23:49

think under those circumstances, how

1:23:51

could you not, if you are the

1:23:55

Rwandan government, have

1:23:57

a very assertive, let's just

1:24:00

say approach to reconciliation and

1:24:02

re-education. And

1:24:05

to some

1:24:07

extent it has worked, right? There's not been another

1:24:09

genocide. Anecdotally

1:24:12

people kind of rub along and they complain about

1:24:15

the Bose bureaucrats. But

1:24:17

I do think there's been kind

1:24:19

of like a massive, massive overreach

1:24:22

which has less to do with

1:24:25

preventing another genocide and more to

1:24:27

do with perpetuating Pol

1:24:29

Kagame's stay in power. I

1:24:31

mean, this is a guy that kind of

1:24:34

rescued Rwanda from the genocide and there's a

1:24:36

whole series of wormholes down which you

1:24:38

can go if you want to learn

1:24:40

about what happened during

1:24:42

the genocide, before the genocide, after the genocide,

1:24:45

causing all the Congo wars and so on.

1:24:48

But there's no doubt that Rwanda

1:24:51

in addition to being kind

1:24:53

of this clean and efficient place

1:24:55

nowadays also has a very kind of

1:24:57

sinister edge because in the name of

1:24:59

the genocide, there's also been huge

1:25:02

curtailment of free speech, going after

1:25:04

dissidents, commentators,

1:25:06

YouTubers, etc. So, you know, there's

1:25:08

going to be elections in Rwanda

1:25:10

on July 15th. And

1:25:13

I think the only question is whether Kagame is going to win

1:25:15

by 98 or 99% of the vote. Yes,

1:25:20

nice North Korean numbers. Yeah, nice

1:25:22

North Korean numbers. But just the

1:25:24

kind of one final thought on

1:25:26

Rwanda, which is, you know,

1:25:30

in the, you

1:25:32

know, maybe the first 20 years after the genocide,

1:25:35

I think a combination of a sense in the West

1:25:38

that rightly they didn't do enough to

1:25:40

slow or avert the genocide. Plus,

1:25:42

the fact that it was actually an

1:25:44

African country that was spending aid money

1:25:46

well, meant that people

1:25:49

in Washington, Paris, London forgave a lot

1:25:52

of the sins. Now, I think that

1:25:55

Western policymakers have largely kind of wised

1:25:57

up to the truth about the Kagame.

1:26:02

But what he's done, and this reflects a kind of

1:26:05

change that's happening across the continent, is

1:26:07

that he's worked out that geopolitics is

1:26:09

changing and that the influence

1:26:12

of the West isn't what it was and

1:26:14

that you

1:26:16

can have kind of these different

1:26:18

partners. So he has a close

1:26:20

relationship with China, with Turkey, with

1:26:22

Qatar actually as well. And at

1:26:24

the same time, he's very, very

1:26:27

transactional. So he's kind of helping

1:26:29

the French or helping the EU

1:26:31

out with fighting jihadists in northern

1:26:33

Mozambique. He's doing this kind

1:26:36

of morally horrific asylum seeker

1:26:38

deal with the British. And with

1:26:42

the Americans, I mean, he's still seen

1:26:46

as something of a steady security partner and

1:26:48

going back to the Sahel, it wouldn't surprise

1:26:50

me if you see some more

1:26:52

kind of Rwandan fighters there one day. So

1:26:57

I think he's gone from being a bit of a

1:26:59

donor darling to being a kind of African master of

1:27:01

realpolitik. Interesting. Yeah. Final question

1:27:03

for you. And I want to ask you

1:27:05

about that sinister

1:27:07

edge you described in Rwanda and

1:27:09

this asylum deal. So the UK

1:27:12

is planning to start deporting asylum

1:27:14

seekers who arrived via irregular

1:27:16

means. Usually it's via small boat

1:27:18

from France. I saw

1:27:20

this week, I think a top minister, a top

1:27:23

Tory minister said, they expect to deport 6,000 migrants

1:27:26

to Rwanda this year. These are

1:27:28

people who almost certainly have no

1:27:30

connection to Rwanda. They have no

1:27:32

family there. They have no type of people from

1:27:34

Afghanistan, from Syria, from all over the place. The

1:27:37

plan has been controversial to say the least. Britain's

1:27:40

Supreme Court found Rwanda to be unsafe

1:27:42

for refugees. So British lawmakers passed a

1:27:44

bill that essentially said, actually it is

1:27:46

safe. And that's how they resolve the

1:27:49

problem here. What is your sense of

1:27:51

the security climate for migrants who

1:27:54

may start to begin arriving from

1:27:56

the UK sometime

1:27:58

this year? What have people in

1:28:01

Rwanda make of this deal that their government has cut

1:28:03

with the UK to take in all these folks? I'm

1:28:06

tempted to conclude cynically that

1:28:08

there's so much attention on the

1:28:11

deal that Rwanda

1:28:13

has a huge interest in making sure

1:28:15

that these asylum

1:28:18

seekers are not mistreated.

1:28:22

I mean, it's almost impossible

1:28:24

to find out what ordinary

1:28:26

Rwandans think because of the

1:28:30

fear that they have about speaking

1:28:32

truthfully. What

1:28:34

was quite interesting though is amongst the

1:28:36

Rwandan elite, there was almost

1:28:39

a sense of kind of buyer's remorse about

1:28:41

the deal. So, you know,

1:28:43

Rwanda, I'm not sure how much this gets

1:28:45

across in the US, but they're obviously putting

1:28:48

a lot of effort into branding themselves

1:28:51

in a new way. So they sponsor Arsenal

1:28:53

Football Club, they sponsor Paris Saint-Germain. There's

1:28:56

lots of kind

1:28:58

of paid advertising in magazines like

1:29:00

kind of Nat Geo

1:29:02

and stuff like that, Come See the Gorillas, it's

1:29:05

all fun, you know, Ellen comes and all that,

1:29:07

all that stuff. So there's a sense in which

1:29:09

they want to kind of portray themselves as a

1:29:11

kind of luxurious

1:29:13

product in a way and having

1:29:18

a lot of heat for being a

1:29:22

repressive dictatorship that abuses

1:29:25

human rights and will mistreat asylum

1:29:27

seekers isn't exactly good for the

1:29:29

brand. So while I

1:29:31

think Kagame is in too deep with it, there's

1:29:34

certainly to the extent that you ever get any

1:29:36

dissent in Rwanda, some murmurings that this may have

1:29:38

been a bit of a mistake and underestimated the

1:29:40

potential heat they were going to get. Fascinating.

1:29:45

John McDermott, thank you so much for doing the show.

1:29:47

Everyone should subscribe to The Economist because it's just an

1:29:49

excellent publication. Also, you guys have a bunch of great

1:29:51

podcasts. Anything else you want to plug? No,

1:29:54

that's fine. Thanks, Tommy. Thanks

1:30:00

again to John McDermott for joining the show and

1:30:03

I guess that's it for us this week. Thanks

1:30:05

to Steve and Todd. Oh, and I have one plug.

1:30:08

For those interested in Ukraine, Friday

1:30:11

I'm doing a virtual event for

1:30:14

KOR, you know, the Sean Penn's charity

1:30:16

is starting in Haiti. They're very active in Ukraine, as

1:30:19

you'll remember Sean Penn, usually being in Ukraine at

1:30:22

the Day of the Invasion. Anyway, Friday it's

1:30:24

me talking to a bunch of people in Ukraine on the ground

1:30:26

doing good work for them to help

1:30:28

support that organization. So you can check

1:30:30

it out at KOR's website. Excellent. If

1:30:33

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1:30:55

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