Trump Threatens Genocide

We're living in a time when politicians can seem to lead You don't get a second shot at making the right call on taking your country to war or agitate Just ignore them Boring, boring, boring If you want to know what's happening behind the scenes in Westminster and get the best political insight the Guardian has to offer then listen to Politics Weekly with me, Pippa Carrera and me, Kieran Stacey Search for Politics Weekly wherever you get your podcasts every Monday If you guys like Podsave America, please consider subscribing to our Friends of the Pod program So Friends of the Pod get lots of stuff You get more Podsave America, that includes our new show which is called Podsave America Only Friends Where Dan gets naked Where Dan gets full frontal nudity but mostly it's a bi-weekly subscription exclusive podcast that is basically Podsave America but behind a paywall so it's a little bit looser and more fun and it's Love It and Favro and me and Pfeiffer and then other Crooked Hosts who get deeper on the news and cover more stories You also get open tabs which is a weekly behind the scenes newsletter from the show plus you get ad-free episodes of your favorite Crooked podcast and all kinds of other stuff Dan will come to your house and clean it once every quarter Dan is very busy, closed only but along with just getting great content becoming a friend of the pod, joining our subscription community is the number one thing you can do to help us grow to help independent progressive media so if you're ever thought about doing it if you ever wanted more Podsave America consider going to Crooked.com slash friends and becoming a friend of the pod Welcome back to Podsave the World, I'm Tommy Vitor I'm Ben Rhodes So this is actually the second time we're recording the introduction to the show moments ago we wrapped our recording of the initial episode and then Trump put out a truth social statement announcing a two-week extension on his threat to destroy all the infrastructure in Iran which is obviously a good thing we're very happy about that but it does mean we're coming right back to the studio to re-record the top of this for you guys to make sure this is current So here's what Trump just wrote on truth social this is verbatim based on conversations with Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Maneer of Pakistan and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the complete immediate and safe opening of the Strait of Homoos I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks this will be a double-sided ceasefire so you think it's like tape um the reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded all military objectives and are very far along with a definitive agreement concerning long-term peace with Iran and peace in the Middle East we received a 10-point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran but a two-week period will allow the agreement to be finalized and consummated, consummated on behalf of the United States of America as President and also representing the countries of the Middle East it is an honor to have this long-term problem close to resolution thank you for your attention to this matter President Donald J. Trump I've also seen some additional reporting Ben that Israel has agreed to this short-term ceasefire uh okay so just a few thoughts from me I'll throw it over to you uh who writes this shit for him like what what is this faux legalistic weird nonsense language I don't get it again obviously this is good news like nothing good could have or would have come from some like genocidal spasm of violence on Tuesday night from Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth and I'm truly grateful that Trump uh you call it taco call it a delay like call it be responsible whatever that he delayed this I'm genuinely surprised that Iran would agree to opening the Strait of Hormuz for two weeks and kind of lessen let's see yeah that's right like put a pin in this one we'll see if that actually happens because it does lessen their economic and political pressure on Trump again though it would be a good thing because as much as I like I want them to open the Strait of Hormuz I don't want people in Asia not to be able to farm and like drive I don't believe a word Trump says here about the U.S. and Iran being quote very far along on a long-term peace plan or the problem is close to the to resolution I guess we'll see finally like later in the show I say that I heard from someone that the Pakistani-led talks were more for show when we're kind of bullshit I guess I should revise and amend that take if they help facilitate getting this done that's a good thing but what do you make of this this true social postman well it's great news again it doesn't change anything we said though because threatening genocide even if it was part of a madman diplomacy strategy is just as morally abhorrent a few thoughts on my number one I'm genuinely curious about what the Iranian you know we'll have to hear from them but like who is he negotiating with in Iran does whoever he's negotiating with in Iran have the ability to control the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who are the ones that control the Strait of Hormuz what does he mean by he says a full opening of the Strait of Hormuz I'm very curious if that's true where are they going to let all traffic through there whether they're going to continue to meter it and charge a toll because they've turned this into a toll room and if it's been mined like who's going to get rid of the mines exactly this is much more complicated than just saying oh the problem solved I created this problem by you know launching a war that closes straight and now I've solved the problem and ended a war and now I've ended nine wars like no it's that's all bullshit so a lot of questions about whether the Iranians have agreed to this in the short term I mean they've clearly agreed to something but whether that that's the full opening of the Strait like remains to be seen I'm also curious Tommy how much pushback he got today threatening genocide I think probably got the attention of republican lawmakers it probably got the attention of world leaders we don't know what calls were made to trump today yeah I also genuinely have been wondered and I we didn't I actually didn't say this on the pod so I'm glad whether the military would follow his orders I think there's a non-zero chance that you know P.Texeth was giving them the target list or whatever of civilian infrastructure and that I don't know if it's Dan Cain or somebody there's mass resignations through like the kind of it's possible that they're like we won't do it yeah we won't do it because you know what like hopefully there's still some honor in the U.S. military I mean I hope I believe there is and I just know they've been purging generals so it's also possible the military is like we're not going to do this and and so he kind of scrambled to to do this right we don't know we'll see I'm sure some of it will leak out so it's a re-preve but it doesn't solve these underlying questions and and again we talk later in the show about the the fundamentally diplomatic questions about the Iranian nuclear program about the war in Lebanon which is still ongoing you know about the Strait of Hormuz and whether the IRGC is going to control it and charge a toll whether it's going to fully reopen so this is not like the some victory or a diplomacy yet it's only like yet another delay in Trump's threats you know yeah yeah and like look the idea that these objectives that the war's objectives are close to complete is crazy I mean again but that's crazy that's bullshit the key priority is supposed to be the highly enriched uranium the 900 pounds of it it's still sitting and regime change yeah it's a regime change war the regime change war has gone from one hominé to a younger hominé who's even more hard line Trump says that you know Iran's ballistic missiles have been totally destroyed we've seen intelligence reports that suggest it might be close to 50% destroyed so like I just and they might have just launched some at Israel too oh really okay okay that's wonderful yeah yeah so I just I have a very hard time believing that BB Netanyahu is going to be ready to end this war Trump might want to find an off ramp in safe face because he is I think looking at polling and realizes that his presidency is slowly withering and dying before his eyes but as we talk about later in the episode the Iranians have now found a pretty remarkable source of leverage and possible revenue for them and a lot of people would argue look in many ways they're doing way worse now the regime but they're making more money now off oil sales they have more power now by finding this choke point in the straighter homo so there's there's all these structural challenges when you look at you know the Iranian demands and the US demands for each other that are so so far apart it just doesn't I feel like we're close to ending this war and there's one other thing that I think is really important in that post that you know might fly into the radar he refers to the Islamic Republic of Iran not Iran the Islamic Republic is the regime like it's a de facto recognition of the Islamic Republic that's the system with a supreme leader with the IRGC that is Donald Trump accepting that the people he's going to be dealing with are the same regime even if he killed the supreme leader and and that trust me like if someone has worked on this and we were very careful in the Obama administration about when we said Iran or Islamic Republic that's a concession that he's making which again is just a bowing to reality but you know this this is no longer a regime change war yeah it's a double-sided ceasefire like whatever that is yeah like the tape I used to put on my hockey sticks okay Ben well unfortunately for the world I just I really don't think this war is close to over there remain all these huge you know political and structural problems that could lead to the we're escalating dragging out for a very long time all those problems still exist we cover all the big picture questions in this episode just know that we recorded most of it before this most recent true social post announcing the two-week extension on the war crimes you know bonanza tonight so there will be times where we kind of sound anxious and uncertain about what might happen on Tuesday night yeah we play a clip we play a clip from Brett Baer where he's assured by Donald Trump that there will be no extension this time yeah we should have known at the time that was which is useful because it shows you the chaos it shows you the chaos it shows you the Trump lies and that Fox News is just his useful idea to repeat whatever he says but here's what we cover in this episode so we're going to start with Trump's threat to commit genocide on the country of Iran literally we'll explain the consequences of that we'll explain the consequences of these proposed strikes on all kinds of civilian Iranian infrastructure what they would mean legally morally and strategically we'll give you the highlights of some extraordinary new reporting by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan at the New York Times about how Trump decided to go to war with Iran then we'll listen to some clips from an equally incredible monologue from Tucker Carlson where he really firmly breaks with Trump over the war with Iran on a deep moral level and talks about why he is concerned that Trump could end up using will end up using nuclear weapons it's very a conversation that's very important and worth having then we'll talk about all the talks and the secret side deals that are happening with the Iranians obviously we just talked about some of the fruits of some of those but we're kind of looking at signs of things happening diplomatically that could and lead to a permanent end game a permanent end to the war and a permanent path out of this mess and then we're going to talk about these enormously consequential elections coming up in Hungary and how insane it is that Vice President JD Vance is in fucking Hungary on a Tuesday in April doing a campaign event for Victor Orban then I've truly like never heard anything like this in the middle of a war middle of a conflict he you know in the middle of a political crisis for the White House JD Vance is over in Hungary so that is bonkers we did not have a guest today because we just wanted to go really long on Iran stuff and I'm just getting back from vacation and so we'll pick that back up next week Pazze the world is brought to you by Haya as parents we worry about the long-term effects that ultra processed foods have on our kids that's why Haya was created to provide a real solution in a market full of vitamins that are basically candy while some brands pack up to seven grams of sugar and petroleum based dyes into every serving Haya takes the opposite approach zero sugar zero gummy additives just clean nutrition working alongside pediatricians and nutrition scientists Haya created a superfood chewable vitamin that packs a blend of 12 organic fruits and vegetables plus 15 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as an independent progressive media company so go to crooked.com slash friends to learn more or you can do it directly on youtube by pressing the join button uh all right then so let's get to the show in the past 24 hours the president of the united states went from threatening to commit massive clear-cut war crimes to threatening genocide literally on a country of 90 million people uh on tuesday trump wrote on truth social quote a whole civilization will die tonight never to be brought back again eight i don't want that to happen but it probably will so that's something he just put in writing uh and then perversely ended the message with god bless the great people of iran so what we all assume trump is talking about there in that post is that i threat to blow up all of the bridges and power plants in iran though he could do far worse we'll get to that in a little bit um but here are some just of trump's actual comments about the war in iran from monday uh then fox news is brett bearer is talking about a conversation he had with trump on tuesday that i think gives us some more insight into his thinking and then finally jd vance waited on all things iran from budapest so let's watch we have a plan because of the power of our military where every bridge in iran will be decimated by 12 o'clock tomorrow night where every power plant in iran will be out of business burning exploding and never to be used again i mean complete demolition by 12 o'clock and it'll happen over a period of four hours if we wanted to it will take them a hundred years to rebuild the entire country could be taken out in one night and that night might be tomorrow night i just got off the phone with the president he said eight p.m is happening whether it's positive or negative we're going to get a response from the iranians by eight o'clock tonight we've got tools in our toolkit that we so far haven't decided to use the president of the united states can decide to use them and he will decide to use them if the iranians don't change their force of conduct uh okay so bet a few thoughts i'll just kick it over to you so again we're recording this a few hours before trump's deadline uh after which he'll he says he'll bomb iran into the stone age it's not ideal timing for the show we're for humanity frankly um if trump goes through with this threat i think it'll take some time to kind of figure out what exactly was hit like the scale of the destruction etc so we're just going to record today frankly just assuming that this war is only going to escalate um and then just unpack the implications of that escalation because i think that's important there's peace talks are ongoing there's some you know occasional leaks that suggest they're making progress but it feels like the two sides are very far apart and this is only going up um uh but again and also iran i think cut off the talks with the us at least for some period of time after that genocidal tweet that i just read to you so anyway a few thoughts for me and i'll kick it to you i mean first again this just is a clear cut war crime to say you're going to bomb all the power plants and bridges in iran um you cannot indiscriminately bomb civilian infrastructure there has to be proportionality to any military effort um but let's be honest like trump doesn't care about that um he's you know the haig is not going to come arrest him so he just doesn't give fuck so i guess do with that what you will um in practice though like what it would mean to bomb all of iran's power plants and bridges is mass civilian death and i think we should just be clear about that like every baby on a respirator will die doctors will not be able to perform surgeries there will be no power for electric pumps that are critical to getting people clean water uh you won't be able to treat water to make it safe to drink there won't be desalination plants running um there will be no way to move food or essential items around the country if there's no bridges and there's no way of undoing this step you know like millions of people will die refugees will flee the country and mass it will be a catastrophe a humanitarian connect catastrophe um and on monday ben i don't know if you saw this like trump made this insane claim that iran the only time iranians are unhappy is when the bombing stops but then today you're seeing images out of iran of thousands and thousands of iranians lining bridges and apparently surrounding power plants in an effort to make themselves human shields to prevent the united states from bombing their country that sure seems to undercut what he told us on monday and then just what is especially scary about all this is this like sense of bloodlust you're getting from trump um axios today reported that trump is the most hawkish senior member of his team one u.s official said quote the president is the most bloodthirsty like a mad doc um so ben on just a human level uh a moral level a legal level is an abomination it would be one of the most evil catastrophic things the united states has ever done and it also just feels like it will get to this in the naggy haberman jonathan swan reporting it feels like no one is really trying to stop trump no one around him in the white house and that is equally scary to me yeah i mean i actually think this is an important day in our history because let's just deal with kind of modern history because we can obviously go back and talk about native americans um but but we now have a president united states who has threatened as a matter of policy to commit genocide uh and i think that the enormity of that reality is something that has been hard for people to absorb in this country not hard by the way for iranians to absorb because they're living on the other end of it um but whatever happens even if he doesn't make good on this threat just the fact that we are now in a position where the president and commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world is threatening to use that military to commit genocide is something that will change the perception of the united states for a generation to come around the world uh because we are now a rogue state we are functioning as a rogue superpower threatening to kill countless innocents it's wrong uh the degree of pushback from and all both parties society in general like it needs to be at a higher decibel level um the it's just a horrifying thing to to read that this morning i think i think the second thing is the way trump talks about these things it's as if they're not people involved i i mean every person listening to this podcast has crossed a bridge has turned on the lights has maybe had a parent on a ventilator or uh you know it may be a baby in the nikyu or i mean those people will die if trump does in iran if trump does what he's talking about and the kind of lack of capacity he clearly has no capacity to see himself and his own humanity in these people in iran and we somehow as americans like need to on a you know put aside policy and the the stupidity of this war and the insanity of it and the high oil prices and the rest of it like threatening mass murder as a form of policy um it puts us in a more dangerous world it's kind of normalizing a certain conduct that we saw in gaza that we're seeing in lebanon that we saw of labrador in persu in ukraine like normalizing this to this extent uh and you know is is truly dangerous uh no matter what happens and it also taught me like it just made me think uh you know we are now in this scenario where we've got this autocratic leader who is dangerous who is venal uh who you know maybe he thinks he's doing some form of madman diplomacy that's like the charitable version it's pretty scary there were only a year and what two or three months into this trump term like today's the first day tom he was like how are we gonna make it through the rest of this term and you know i i i i know you know it's kind of resistance fantasy to talk about impeachment and the 25th amendment the rest of it but but i don't know if he does this i mean you start to wonder like who's gonna stop him you know from doing more of this and so yeah anything because we're kind of in it now we're this is not the first war of this administration and may very well not be the last you know and and so there's a lot that could happen or not happen in iran um but i i do think taking us a minute here to just absorb like the enormity of this threat and the consistency of it too like he did this on sunday too um it's really unsettling in in a kind of uh deep way and and it makes you wonder where this country in the world is going yeah it's it's unsettling um it's an evil threat it suggests someone who is cavalier and indifferent to the value of human life and it's not just unsettling dust i mean we're going to dig into what tucker carlson said about this some of his friends with trump who's a huge maga supporter um and also you know we we shouldn't let the threat of what trump has said he might do um hide like the horrors that have already befallen the iranians i mean again the the the human rights activist news agency uh estimates that uh over 1600 civilians have been killed in the war since it started including 248 children uh the iran's ministry of science and technology says that at least 30 universities have now been struck by airstrikes um the world health organization says it's verified at least 20 attacks on medical centers the un says that over three million iranians have been displaced so the cost for the iranian people is massive already in terms of lives and and you know infrastructure that will take generations to rebuild northerly thing i was thinking about ben i mean i was watching i don't know if you watched the entire like 90 minute trump ratcliffe hexeth dan cane victory lap on the rescue operation um in iran um we're basically not even gonna talk about it because like so many lifetimes have happened since then of news i mean it's extraordinary what our military did to to find these two airmen is extraordinary but i kept thinking about um a previous press conference with hexeth when he was bragging about how the us military sank an unarmed iranian ship with a torpedo and how cool he thought that was to put you know 150 iranian sailors at the bottom of the ocean and it just made me think about how those two airmen would have been treated by the irgc had they been captured given like the cavalier way that pete hexeth don only doesn't give a shit about civilian casualties or rules of engagement but like seems to revel again in in the bloodlust in the killing and in like does his fucking you know war crimes beat poetry dr seuss routine at these briefings so it's just i don't know the whole thing again unsettling is the right word yeah and i think you know two things the university let's just talk about the universities because there are these you know twitter warriors who've won at war with iran for 15 or 20 years who you know like to say well you know they're scientists that went to that university and so it's a military target or you know or and they also say like maybe the iranian military could drive something across that bridge that's not how this works you know bomb harvard like this is a civilian infrastructure what are we talking about yeah i mean what you could make under this logic i mean you you you actually do have to put yourself in the shoes of iranians which is something that these people seem incapable of doing except to want to kill them harvard does plenty of research including some stuff that reaches us military like how would we feel if they were bombed by iran you know just some service members might take the train down to a base to deploy does that make the trip like this is such a slippery slope talking about yeah what are we talking about who've we become that we're sitting here post factor you know what i can guarantee you that most of the people that went to those universities are just students like you and i went to college and probably the most progressive people in the country yeah they're the people of fucking protested you know and so i i just want to call out how what bullshit it is to to kind of you can find a crazy logic train to make anything literally target under that yes and there's a reason that international law distinguishes civilian from military targets you know yeah it's it's it's like so grotesque yeah it's not even a question it's just like so self-evidently a war crime um a little bit on just how we got to this war so again Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan at the New York Times have a book coming out on uh June 23rd about like the new trump 2.0 the new regime um there's a big excerpt from the book in the times today that's all about how trump reached the decision to go to war that is just extraordinary it's like the the detail in this reporting is unbelievable to me so if you think i mean Ben and i are coming at this from as news consumers but also as people who were like uh threatened every day by lindsey gramm on fox news for like allegedly leaking shit and now that more is leaked about the trump administration in a few months that has ever leaked about any you know other administration history so they got all this detail hey brahman and swan got all this detail about a meeting trump held with bb net and yahoo on february 11th where net and yahoo made the case for war apparently this is net and yahoo was physically in the white house situation room they zoomed in like the massad guys behind him um and they made their case the israelis made their case for the war and it detailed all these israeli assumptions for how things would go and my god were they catastrophically wrong then um here's a few things that the israelis told trump uh iran's ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks the regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the street of promos the odds that iran would hit us interest in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal uh and the massad assessed that street protests would start again they also had plans to help foment street protests and they thought that bombing could then help the opposition overthrow the regime and then you know the israelis as we have now seen reported elsewhere were driving this plan to have Kurdish forces in iraq invade iran and basically attack the regime from a second front um so hey brahman and swan report that u.s intelligence assessed that the israeli claims about regime change and a popular uprising were delusional um but trump apparently dismissed those you know what the u.s intelligence said and said it was a quote their problem it's not clear in the book whether their problem means israel's problem or iran's problem but that was how seriously trump uh considered these you know uh this response from his own intelligence services um they also report that while netanyahu's pitch was influential trump was way more hawkish uh on iran than many of his base believed and was like predisposed to wanting to bomb um they report that jd vance was kind of all over the place like he wanted trump to enforce the red line that he made in january when the protesters were killed but vance is also reportedly the most opposed to the war and kind of like the war cabinet um vance initially said apparently tried to steer trump towards limited strikes but then when he realized that trump wanted to do it he made the pitch to go all in with overwhelming force so like great work there jd i guess like profile and courage from you hexeth was the biggest proponent of the war shocker rubio is described as ambivalent but didn't try to talk trump out of it again another profile and courage um and it sounds like tucker carlson was like the only person within your gut here um and he told trump that the war would destroy his presidency last thing then um scott besant the treasury secretary chris write the energy secretary and tulsi gabard the director of national intelligence were excluded from the war planning uh might have been good to have someone who was thinking about the global economy energy supplies uh in the intel case i don't know at those meetings but then takeaways from you from from these reports i mean first of all you and i have both over the years uh and over the last few weeks you know been called an anti-semite for suggesting that israel pushed us into this war i mean we now have reporting that the prime minister of israel literally flew to the situation room to give a fucking presentation about why trump should get into the war and that most of his own team didn't even want to do it and told them that the israelis were full of shit i think that's a direct quote from rubio that it's bullshit or something and he did it anyway so can we please put to rest this idea that we're not allowed to discuss that israel and net and yaw in particular were the principal advocates for the u.s doing it it doesn't absolve trump at all of responsibility it makes him even a bigger idiot makes him look like a moron you got played yeah makes him look like moron you're the fucking fool john ratcliffe is not some like you know impartial guy the fact that he was saying like that you know the c i doesn't agree with this tells you a lot so let's i don't want to hear any more stuff about we're not we have to have a conversation about israel is an expansionist power that wants to take land from lebanon and syria and create destruction in iran and somehow has got trump on the caboose of this plan um that's a problem yeah we're not even talking about this week the fact the israelis are are now basically saying that they're going to seize about 15 miles of territory into lebanon but that's part of the i think the plan right is that under the cover of this big war we're going to do this in lebanon and we're going to do all the stuff in the west bank then it's also like it points it's interesting to relive that presentation from the israelis because it reminds you that none of the objectives that trump said are being met there's no regime change there's no popular uprising the nuclear material is still sitting there the enriched uranium is is in is vahan it may have been moved yeah yeah may have been moved so like the stated reasons at like for what israel was pitching and what trump said when he launched us were like those are out the window even in the rosy scenarios if we get a deal somehow don't address those things the regime will be more entrenched it will have demonstrated it controls the straight-of-form moves it can extract fees from countries that export energy through there and and that that kind of like it kind of takes me back to the pilot thing tommy because i had the same feelings you did um and i saw somebody like attack you online and be like you you won't be give trump a win look obviously the people that rescued that pilot here like did their jobs here but you know what no i'm not gonna give trump fucking credit for like it's the same thing if if he opens the straight-of-form moves we're gonna have to hear about the greatest whenever when this straight-of-form moves you know when was open before the fucking war you know and and we've seen this pattern where he creates messes and then he celebrates fire yeah yeah yeah he sets something on fire and he puts out part of the fire and once like the Nobel peace prize like no that pilot shouldn't have been there that's my first well that pilot shouldn't have been dropping bombs it's not his fault he's got the orders but like on a rainy universities but then he shouldn't have been in that harm's way as you said and and the straight-of-form moves like the fact that we're frantically trying to negotiate its opening just tells you how much trump has fucked up this war that should not have been fought the other thing if people were saying to me like not to be in my twitter mentions that people are saying like the people who oppose this war are upset that the pilot was rescued it's like i'm sorry what do you talk about i think if i'm upset that he was shot down i was said to you shut down but like if you oppose this war literally the worst thing that could have possibly happened was a hostage crisis where the irgc yes had one or two american pilots and like like because then trump would have just raced up the escalation ladder you know that's what would have happened yeah and the last thing that kind of connects all these things we're talking about is it is interesting to hear that trump was the kind of bloodthirsty one and because the worrisome thing and we saw this with putin right uh sometimes you get these autocratic leaders they're getting older they're thinking about like the sweep of history maybe their domestic agendas run out of gas um this is what happened putin like he he didn't care anymore about the russian economy or whatever he's like how can i enter history you know yep uh well by taking territory and uh what worries me is that trump has got the aging autocratic bug where it's like the way i go down in history is not the big beautiful bill you know which is cuba probably doesn't care about iran it's yeah it's i'm gonna conquer cuba i'm gonna conquer i'm gonna break Iran i'm gonna conquer greenland like this is why this is so dangerous is he seems to have caught this you know this bug that we've seen plenty of other autocrats catch of powerful nations you know where i i can i can use the military as this extension of my sense of vengeance and grandiosity you know yeah it's really it paints a very scary portrait of trump i'm eager to read the rest of the book again there's on this excerpt i mean look you and i both had jobs where we were charged with trying to explain to the country kind of like national security issues and decision making while also guarding secrets and every time we did the former we got attacked by like john mccain and lindsey gramm and other people for so-called leaks even when it was just like basic like press briefings and things like after the bin laden operation right everyone lost their mind and act like you know somehow all this secret information was put out and it's like i don't really think that's true but whatever the shit in this book the shit in this excerpt is stunning like literally direct quotes of what the chairman of the joint chiefs said to trump in a meeting of like eight people something that happened a few weeks ago about the most sensitive decision making around iran um again i i it's press conference yesterday like it seems so ill-considered the way the trump and hexa and ratcliffe went out and did this victory lap and like disclosed all the ways that they rescued this pilot because god forbid another pilot goes down they have to do this again but you know the new york post today then um said that they found the second airman using a secret tool called ghost a murmur to find the weapon system officer this is how it's described the secret technology uses long range quantum magnetometry to find the electromagnetic fingerprint of a human heartbeat and pairs the data with artificial intelligence software to isolate the signature from background noise two sources close to the breakthrough said it's like hearing a voice in a stadium except the stadium is a thousand square miles of desert a source briefed on the program told the post in the right conditions if your heart is beating we will find you um that sounds pretty fucking cool it also sounds like the thing you probably don't want out there but trump was like essentially disclosed this when he talked about the ability to pinpoint the second airman from 40 miles away on the top of a mount um the cia was also talking about running a deception campaign within iran to fool the irgc into looking in the wrong places for the missing airman it's like there was just so much they were leaking from this press conference it was so irresponsible and it's clearly like just an attempt to you know put a gloss on this war to to rally around the flag effect to get people on board with the war effort itself um but like the just lack of long-term thinking is uh i mean it's typical for these assholes i guess yeah i mean even if you're a casual observer of national sturdy issues or you've seen a few movies about special forces you know that literally revealing all the sensitive capabilities that we use in rescue missions which there'll be more of you know hostage rescue missions uh happen you know semi-regularly um this is just giving the playbook away to anyone who wants to use it i mean clear as day it also just there's a hypocrisy that it's so extreme that it kind of comes back to the point that when they would attack people for you know leaking it's just projection because they know that they would leak anything if would make them look good and in the same way that trump is using the military as an extension of his kind of personal interests whether that's you know potentially committing genocide or whether that's purging generals he sees these capabilities that are not his right like we taxpayers pay for them they're american capabilities they're not his to like the idea that just this might make him because what also the politics like do we really think there's gonna be like a surge in approval of trump and the war because he revealed the supersonic you know weapon i mean it's it like even the politics of it make no sense it's literally like a kid who just like wants to brag about something that he had nothing to do with like and this like it's like don trump had anything to do with what those people on the ground did he's always like i ordered them to do this it's like okay well that yeah that was the hard part it wasn't you know fucking refueling a helicopter at low altitude going around iran and everyone is shooting a with every weapon they can find like i think that was the harder part i think that was a little harder the fucking asshole me and also like everything they said every claim they made about you know how the war is going is a lie like the new york times reported that iran is still launching 15 to 30 ballistic missiles a day 50 to 100 drones iran is now using cluster munitions to defeat certain israeli missile defense systems like basically the they're firing ballistic missiles that released cluster munitions which are like little bomblets at high altitude which lets you get around some of israel's missile defense system which is why you're seeing those clips of these like you know looks like a like 50 like stars kind of sinking on televiver or whatever which is doing enormous damage and meanwhile ben i mean i saw a report it was called the jewish institute for national security of america it's a dc think tank that estimates that ua e and barrain have expended more than three quarters of their patriot missile pack three interceptor stockpiles and that's one of like the core defensive missiles in their arsenal so again this is just a way of saying like you know there's a war of attrition happening here iran does not seem to be losing it and the numbers of casualties and the damage and the economic fallout is going to go up and up every day this goes on so it's just it's not a good setup here and they will brag in detail about the minute details of a rescue operation while simultaneously they are lying or concealing information about the damage that's being done we get no credible transparent reporting from the government about the damage to us facilities in you know across the gulf be they military bases or embassies some of which are just closed or inoperable right do you think the saudi the the hit on the us embassy in saudi i don't know if you guys talked about that last week i mean apparently the iranians put two drones on the same spot on the us embassy in saudi arabia they they fired them at night because during the day that area houses like 200 or 300 employees it would have been a mass casualty into it and the thing was burning for half a day afterwards and we've heard nothing about it nothing like no no briefing i mean these are the people remember how much they used to care about embassy security you know remember being gone we don't know how badly wounded the hundreds of american service members like they are they are simultaneously suppressing bad news and then just like hyping the shit out of anything they can grab on to as positive news and that's like a you know that's a recipe for americans to not trust their government yeah and we pay for these things this is what i hate about this so much is like again trump acts like this is all his to do whatever he wants with like no an embassy a military base like those are those are national assets you know and they're just not leveling with us yeah well standing the world is fucking gone yeah that's gone and and they're like they're all doing it because uh the war is really unpopular i mean the public opinion started out opposed to this war it has been getting worse inexorably ever since trump himself is not getting a boost or like a rally around the flag effect like you usually see in wartime um harry antin at cnn did a great piece on this he pulled together some numbers so george w bush got a 14 point bump in the first month of the iraq war his father ben got a 34 point boost uh in the first month of the previous gulf war even jimmy carter was up like 30 points in the first month of the iranian hostage crisis but trump's net approval is actually down four points that is completely a historic the only sort of like a similar instance he could point to was uh the month after biden left afghanistan when he went down six points in the approval rating and basically it ended his presidency um and so they also looked at the cnn aggregator the pulling on the war itself it started 12 points underwater now it's 22 points underwater uh and i'm positive that's going to get worse right because gas prices are only going up other commodity prices are going out the price of food could go up the global economy is slowing down uh there could be a collapse but it no matter what it's slowing down um and on top of that like during the iraq war which you and i lived through uh it was all cheerleading for the war but now you're seeing like major voices in kind of the maga media ecosystem loudly opposing this one and so today we're going to play for you guys a couple clips from tucker carlson in his most recent episode that i think are are are quite important and instructive um and for the record yet like yes we know all the bad things tucker has done and said we know he's a flawed person we know he's a flawed messenger but he reaches millions and millions of people who are pro trump who are maga and who trust him so what he says to them is really fucking important um and so this first clip is long but it is worth it i promise um so again this is from tucker's most recent episode that i think came out monday night and so the morning of easter is a uniquely joyful and peaceful moment and yet that piece yesterday was shattered that's not an overstatement it was shattered for many observant christians by a statement that the president of the united states put out at 803 a.m eastern time on easter morning that said this and we're going to read it in its entirety not an outrage or self-righteousness but honestly in horror quote tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in iran there will be nothing like it through exclamation points open the fucking straight you crazy bastards or you'll be living in hell just watch all caps praise be to a la president donald j trump now a lot of people reading that imagined of course this can't be real did the president of the united states really just write that and it is real it is maybe the most real thing this president has ever done and also the most revealing on every level it is vile but then the tweet continues pardon me the ironically named truth continues there will be nothing like it open the effin straight how dare you speak that way on easter morning to the country who do you think you are you're tweeting out the effort on easter morning you'll be living in hell as if hell is a place hell is a condition and this is an example of that condition just watch praise be to a la so obviously you're mocking the religion of iran okay if you seek a religious war that's a good idea this is a mockery not just of islam it's a mockery of christianity to send out a tweet with the effort on easter morning promising the murder of civilians and then saying praise be to a la without explaining any of it you are mocking me and every other christian because we're christians oh i get it we can't support that so that that is a small slice uh of an extraordinary 45 minute monologue from tucker that is a i don't know how do you view this other than a pretty firm break from trump i mean maybe he'll come back a lot of them do but it is um is an attack on trump in the most harsh moral term so it includes tucker attacking trump for the following pen uh he starts at the top he says like trump saying that our motive for invading venezuela was stealing their oil should have been a moment where a lot of people said i'm out and i think tucker sort of using that monologue as a moment for saying he wished he had said that um he talks about how trump didn't put his hand on the bible when he was sworn in at his own inauguration which tucker said suggests that trump quote affirmatively rejects what's inside that book and that and what's inside that book are limits on human behavior because if there's one theme that spans all 66 books in the christian bible is that you are not god and you cannot assume his powers you may want them but in the end they're not yours end of quote so tucker is not at all suddenly accusing trump of thinking he's now god uh he goes in on the easter true social post like we just heard there and then he argues that trump launched this war because of literal bloodlust like because he enjoys the killing itself and then there's the the wmd piece that we'll get to in a minute and so you know ben i think both of us you know we listen to tucker now because he's been really compelling on iran and it's important to know what he's saying to his audience we wanted to highlight this because um it includes a really i think it's a strong moral case against the war that's that's um rooted in christianity uh there it includes a call for everyone to say that this is unacceptable and unjustifiable and crazy and then again most importantly the message is coming from trump's literal close friend a man who spoke at his convention who is arguably the most important voice in conservative media and i just think that is a huge huge deal uh and i wonder what you took away from this from this episode i like you i've been listening to tucker because it's interesting uh since the war started and what i take away is first of all in the some of the early episodes he was strongly against the war but it was much of his ire was focused on nanyahu and there was almost a sense that like trump was this guy that was like he left the name trump out of some of his criticisms was israelis he's you know kind of pulling all the strings yeah and and and you know for whatever reason you know sincere conviction or opportunism or both that that felt like a total and complete rebuke of trump from somebody who is deep deep within the tent and frankly i i listened to that and i part of me thought how come tucker carlson can mount a clear moral case by the way in there's no mention of israel like i i'm not here to excuse you know platforming nick pointus at all but the point is that that was a more morally grounded frontal assault on the war than you hear from certainly any elected republicans other than maybe thomas massie ran paul and frankly most democrats oh you think you think it's better to make a case on values rather than process not coming to congress exactly it's tuckers not saying like well we didn't get a good enough you should have briefed us yeah yeah yeah like and and actually you know i think you can learn from people who you disagree with yes and i disagree profoundly with tucker carlson about a lot of things including you know the nature of this country inside its borders but i think we can learn just stripping out all the other things and mounting a direct moral case against what trump is doing lands very powerfully and frankly i don't have the standing you know i i'm not a christian in the same way but the fact that he and margie taylor green's mother people are really entering this conversation through the doorway of christianity gets it a real weakness for trump because as tucker says elsewhere in that show he's not personally pious like he's never pretended to be a deep christian but he's kind of you know gaslit christians and you know delivered certain things for pro-life christians for instance overturning roby wade but if you if he starts to lose that base of support evangelical and protestant christians in this country he's pretty fucked he's does and i should add by the way there's the other american who's been even stronger on the moral basis is the pope you know yeah in the head of the conference of catholic bishops in the u.s put out a withering statement today urging trump to walk back from his threat so he's got a problem and again if people want to say does this matter like some of the polling shows that maga's behind him tucker carlson you know i read the cricket reads book by jason zangerley great he did by all the right people and part of what you learn about tucker is particularly in the last you know decade the trump decade and in a little bit before this guy has seen where the puck was going and skated to it yeah and so just because the polling hasn't collapsed in mag yet the fact that tucker is seeing the direction of where the maga movement might go or trump supporters might go he's always out in front of it he's always leading it this is a guy that had the highest rated show in the history of cable news on fox and then has a giant platform now and i guarantee you the republican politicians listen to that show no they also know that tucker carlson may be preparing to run for president because it certainly feels like a lane is open now that j.d. vance is on board with this war so that's a lot of reasons why this is both interesting there's again i hate to say this something to learn from the kind of moral case he mounts and i think is a real warning sign that if tuckers you know because it's not just him we see plenty of other people that are kind of following his lead in that kind of podcast space and internet space on the right i think it's a harbinger that the people are beginning to look past trump yeah and look at the like people will say you know there's polls including by cnn's harry ensin who you mentioned earlier that said like quote-unquote maga voters are not leaving trump well yes if you're if you're self identifying as a maga voter you're basically saying like you're a trump fan right and those people are going to be the last to go but he's losing republicans but i do think like the war is only a few it's like a few weeks old right and i think when gas prices continue to go up and when you have people like tucker carlson or joe rogan or others repeatedly condemning the war in terms like these or mtg uh that opinion can change over time and slowly erode and again like in american politics like trump's never trump will probably never get down to a you know 10 approval rating but if his approval rating drops a couple points five percent say that could lead to an electoral landslide in the midterms or other elections so it's 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off at shop remi.com slash world use code world thank you remy for sponsoring this podcast this episode is sponsored by better help whether you are navigating anxiety depression or relationship hurdles or just need an objective professional to help manage daily stress better help connects you with the right support better help therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the us better help does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals a short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences in their 12 or more years of experience in industry leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time if you aren't happy with your match switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored wrecks with over 30,000 therapists better help is the world's largest online therapy platform having served over 6 million people globally and it works with an average of 4.9 out of 5 for a live session based on over 1.7 million client reviews look it's a scary world out there there's a lot going on wars in our professional lives there's stuff in your personal life there's work anxiety there's kids there's everything you need to talk to someone and have a therapist and get your mental help in order when life feels overwhelming therapy can help sign up and get 10% off at better help.com slash cricket world that's better h-e-l-p.com slash cricket world finally ben just before we go on to this weapons of mass destruction discussion I do want to play you one of their clip from a maga voice who many would argue is more influential than tucker and the pope all rolled together so let's watch how do we 25th amendment assassin the problem is to get the 25th amendment harder than impeachment you have to get two thirds of the house and two thirds of the what do we do uh tackle trump uh and and pretend let him pretend he's president and publicly report that he's going through a health issue and vance take over that was um uh info wars founder alex jones uh who's been one of the biggest trump fans ever screaming how do we 25th amendment his ass I just thought that was fun but it like who's he talking to is he interviewing himself I think um I assume that guy wrote a lot like alex jones or something like I don't know if he created like like glenn back when he interviewed like in the south or something dude we should very high george washington so we should put in an interview request for a i george washington yeah yeah I don't know let's get the laugh about something I don't know if anyone listened to alex jones anymore but like just him screaming I don't have a twin of the men in his ass this is fucking hilarious to me but I did such a damn it's also like I don't know if you ever watched tim dylan like sort of uh yes yeah you know conspiracy loving kind of right-leaning comedian who endorsed trump and just you know hated biden hated and shon ryan shon ryan right there's like a lot of like it's not just one person it's like a bunch of voices saying hey you lied to us right this is not what you said you would do um and it's a moral case against trump about his character not just the policy and that's what's so meaningful about it so um tucker's got a chief antagonist on all things iran has been a fox news host named mark levin levin is very pro war with iran uh he's a huge bb netanyahu friend and fan I think he like literally showed up in the courtroom at netanyahu's trial for corruption he advocates for war all the time on his show he also despises tucker carlson and everything he stands for and calls on an anti-semite all the time um they don't like each other very much in this episode did you catch when tucker compares mark levin to jeffrey eppstein like this weird way but he's like neither have any real talent or power you know just a mouthpiece um so no love lost there but so tucker's monologue builds to an argument that trump has exhausted his conventional military options for winning this war or at least by for opening the straight of horn moves right because you can't just like bomb your way from the air to getting the straight of horn moves open especially when you can mine the straight of horn moves and put mines under water and block it that way right so that is obviously correct in my opinion um but then tucker's next argument is something that's worth debating which is that the escalation ladder is going up and up and up in a way that will lead trump in his view to using a nuclear weapon in iran uh here's a clip here's what mark levin said on his easter weekend show about what we ought to do next in iran watch and the casualty numbers as horrible as any casualty is need some context the battle of okinawa 50 000 plus casualties over 12 000 nearly 13 000 killed on that island which is what convinced Truman that we would lose a million men if we didn't drop the atomic bombs that we did embedded in there is something you need to know it's an argument that is being test driven and since no one to our knowledge has pushed back against it may be in full operation now it's an argument for nuclear weapons so bet i don't know about you i've not seen any news outlets report the trump ordnate and yahoo for that matter are considering using nuclear weapons in iran um but i do think like we should take the conversation itself seriously because in any war or any like terrorism debate there will always be people who make some version of the argument that it is acceptable to kill as many of them over there to protect us over here you can sort of insert whatever country you want there and but that's how you end up dropping 2000 pound bombs on on refugee camps in Gaza that's how you get to trump threatening to blow up every power plant in iran and that is how you could get to a point where the us or israel in the most like staggeringly hypocritical act in history imaginable could argue that it's okay for us to nuke them so that they can't one day nuke us and again i know like tucker is flawed i'm not going to go through it all again but like he knows trump as well as anyone and it seems like something is freaking him out here about this issue in particular and in that segment he even implores white house staff to make the case not only to trump not to do this but to ignore orders to use nuclear weapons if it gets to that point which is pretty extraordinary when you think about the debate over like seditious six and the way republicans were attacking jason crow and the other democratic members of congress who basically made those guys grow into something yeah which is you know it can't follow an unlawful order so i don't know what do you make of i mean not just tucker as part of this he's clearly he hates mark levin and that's you know fueling some of it but like how worried should we be about this kind of wmd debate my headline on this you know i mentioned you tommy i've heard from some normies in my life like the kind of people that don't follow you know foreign policy that closely um starting to email me or text me like hey is he going to use a nuclear weapon like it's it's out in the ether you know because of what he's saying because when you threaten to destroy civilization um you know and you threaten to commit genocide like that's the kind of space you're entering um and and and my headline on this is i i certainly don't think that that's likely but the fact that it doesn't feel impossible is terrifying because yeah i could see a scenario let's say trump goes through today or two weeks from now or whenever with this threat to kind of mass bomb civilian infrastructure and then i don't think anything about the iranian suggests that they will capitulate the iranians bomb a lot of gulf energy infrastructure and desalination plants yeah yeah and we just keep climbing an escalation ladder and you know that's the top of the escalation ladder and it doesn't feel impossible and it should feel impossible it also you know there were people on the left who were right um during gaza when they said this kind of violence if normalized could migrate to other places and and again if you look at gaza it looks like somebody dropped an atomic bomb oh yes i mean every every structure is destroyed like you said they were dropping 2000 pound bombs and apartment buildings to kill one person and in the process killing scores of people um and here we are in a place where we've already bombed a girl's school where we've already bombed a bridge like we're we're going down this slippery slope yep like and the girl's school may not have been intentional but the bridge certainly was um we're kind of once you start saying we can just start kind of mass bombing you know civilian infrastructure it does lead to and the mark levin argument there are two things that are scary about it one is i hate these guys like him and monsy graham who seem nostalgic for the days when tens of thousands of people died and he would gmail in the battle but like they literally talk about it like it was a good old we used to you know we used to have the good old days when 12 000 men would die or something um and then yeah he's baking so we had to drop the atomic bomb so we didn't have to put in ground troops and so again i don't think it's likely but man the fact that the president states has sole authority over the nuclear you know launch codes um and that we be counting on people to not follow a plainly illegal and immoral order is frightening and and you know suggests revisiting again proposals from the first trump term about limiting the president's sole authority on the use of nuclear weapons and also that like you know one of his primary advisors is fucking pete hegseff who's a he's the idiot he's a clown that's the guy who's in the chain of command does that make you feel any better right like fox news weekend anchor who's now the according to the haberman swan reporting like the loudest voice in favor of war with iran you don't think that guy's that guy's whole identity and place in trump's orbit in future rests on this war going well in the us being perceived as winning it you think that like that can't lead you to advocate for some pretty fucking evil stuff i think it certainly can and remembered his confirmation hearings that came out one of the things that came out was him like getting drunk and like chanting kill muslims remember that yeah well maybe we should fucking pay attention and not confirm sociopathic drunks uh advocate for war criminals in their free time yeah uh all right let's try to end the kind of ron section in a way that's a little more hopeful and just think about the ways this could end um obviously won't end well because since once it started it can't end well but um and would be good so like as we said before there are ongoing talks um on the trump side those talks are still being led by dumb and dumber jared kushner and steve wittkopf so that's not ideal um there's lots of reporting ben about the pakistanis facilitating some talks um but i've heard from some plugged in people that the pakistanis aren't really doing shit it's all just for show um the egyptians and the turks are also facilitating talks um egypt's intelligence services seem to be the main event here because they have actual irgc connections um and can really get conversations happening with the right people um at a time when it's by the way incredibly difficult to communicate i mean trump himself said this like it's impossible to get a message to iran right now because they're worried we're going to kill them so you know they're not going to like pick up their cell phone and talk to us right so they're you're doing note passing through children is how he described it there have been reports that the us has pushed qatar to facilitate talks but they have resisted that could be because both the israelis and the iranians bombed them pretty recently yeah feels like that would make me not want to get more involved pretty good uh yeah not not the best way to kind of make friends um and then obviously i bet there's stuff that's still secret like we don't know what we don't know um then there's also like clearly just side deals happening with the iranians directly so uh for example iran recently said that iraq is exempted from its restrictions on passage through the strait or hummus they could clearly cut some kind of deal the philippines said their ships will get through after some sort of negotiation with iran um there's other reports that iran is basically charging a toll in some instances to allow boats through and then the uk brought together more than 40 countries to build up a coalition to try to figure out a plan to safeguard shipping in this strait obviously that's easier said than done but long story short like there's just lots of churn out there there's lots of people like trying to figure out a path forward then did any of that reporting or what we've seen so far give you a sense of what an end game might look like or kind of like a path to maybe a ceasefire that gets extended long term and then i think you know getting the strait of hummus back to where it was might not be an option but getting it functional to the point where it is not going to lead to a global depression feels like a pretty good goal at this point so like what are you looking at i you know and again as of this recording like that churn was out about the pakistanis announcing some proposal for a two week ceasefire um a two week or delay in trump's uh threat in response to some partial reopening of the strait and look you know that could happen and and that would be great um just that's a civilization a 5000 year old civilization doesn't get destroyed tonight that would be great i think what i'm looking at is okay what what what does the us want what is the ron one and what does the world want right i think trump at this point you know he he has to decide whether he needs some more identifiable win you know like which i don't think he's necessarily going to get but like seize carg island and or try to get the nuclear material and say you you know but at core what the us wants is the strait of hummus open which is again ironic because we could have had it open if we didn't start the war what are the iranians one well the iranians have already demonstrated that they control the strait of hummus they've already won something from this war and they're already getting tolls they're already getting fees to let like a dribble of of oil and gas through the straight of form moves i think what they will want is some kind of security guarantee that the us and israel will not attack them again that probably can't just be the us in saying that uh some constellation of countries china others may have to kind of somehow be a party to the security guarantees that are given to the iranians i think the iranians will want sanctions relief i think the iranians will want i'm not saying they'll get the us to pull out of the region to not have bases surrounding them um so the the iranians have a list but at core they'll want the regime survival to be assured and some kind of economic benefit and they'll have a list from sanctions relief to reparations um and and look i the us may be able to reach some part of that deal to just stop the conflict where it is but i actually think the more comprehensive reopening of the straight of harm moves we may just see other countries negotiate that like trump is nuts the iranians don't trust him and it may be that europe and some asian countries and the chinese kind of they're the ones getting together with the gulf arabes who desperately obviously want the war to stop and the straight to reopen and they just pay a fee going forward like if i'm them at this point i'm like a dollar per barrel of oil fine that's better than like the 30 you know the 50 increase i'm paying now and like the global global meltdown we're about to experience and by the way what a humiliation that would be to bb netton absolutely the man that said that this would be an easy regime change war and obviously trump um suddenly you've got a regime that is more irgc controlled that is profiting more off of the straight of our moves but again i just think hopefully we get some kind of partial ceasefire just so that people stop dying and escalation stops spiraling and then i actually think it's going to take a lot of other countries kind of trying to land the plane here on something that it reopens the straight of our moves and it's probably going to have to involve the iranian regime being assured in its security and having more revenue and that's extraordinary that's how far trump has moved things in the wrong direction on his own objectives from before the war yeah way to move the uh overton windows sir and like yeah like the stakes are so high and look it it sucks for us in california paying six dollars for a gallon of gas but like this energy shock is an absolute crisis for a lot of countries right now like countries in asia are literally weeks away from running out of fuel you got like bangladesh had to close schools they're imposing fuel rations um ethiopia is putting non-essential government employees on leave they're like massive like hundreds of cars and lines to get fuel at gas stations farmers can't get fuel to to work their crops and then things will only get exponentially worse um as this fertilizer shortage really hits because again remember like helium can't get the shoot through the straight of your moves uh the fertilizer can't get through the only positive i've seen been is that there are far right parties all across europe that are now running from trump it's actually interesting to me that victor orban who we'll talk about in a second would allow jd vance and trump into his country at this moment when like trump has created a massive crisis for them but like the fucking afd in germany the neo nazis are like distancing themselves from trump uh the italian prime minister georgia maloney who remember she was like a musolini youth fan uh is furious at the trump inauguration yes it's a trump inauguration like she's furious because like this is causing a massive economic crisis in italy uh like the downside of this is that trump is blaming everything on nato for some reason um he's once again threatening to pull out he's like whining about greenland so that's not good uh maybe you know mark ruta can get down on his knees and you know do some work tomorrow with wednesday at the white house i mean i'm wondering how many times to call trump daddy yeah yeah daddy but uh you know it's not good too far mark ruta is such a it's just comically that it can weigh sex of the trump yeah pot's say the world is brought to you by surf shark ever feel like the internet is reading your mind you search for one thing and suddenly 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get ad-free episodes of your favorite crooked podcast and all kinds of other stuff dan will come to your house and clean it once every quarter yeah close dan is very busy closed only but along with just getting great content becoming a friend of the pod joining our subscription community is the number one thing you can do to help us grow to help independent progressive media so if you're ever thought about doing it if you ever wanted more pod safe america consider going to crooked comm slash friends and becoming a friend of the pod when it's time to scale your business it's time for Shopify get everything you need to grow the way you want like all the way stack more sales with the best converting check out on the planet track your chachings from every channel right in one spot and turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities take your business to a whole new level switch to Shopify start your free trial today all right let's talk about victor orban one of your favorite people um the mago world's favorite dictator who is currently the prime minister of hungary so hungary has parliamentary elections on april 12th so coming up soon and for the first time in 16 years orban appears to be in some serious political trouble so he's facing a major challenge from a guy named peter magyar from the tiza party Reuters reported that magyar is pulling at 56 percent while orban is at 37 percent which is the most serious threat again to orban's rule since he took power in 2010 uh magyar's political views are not totally clear um i bet our audience would not love them if they saw like a you know kind of punch card of policies he's not a progressive he's not a liberal certainly center right but he used to be an orban ally and a member of orban's fidesz party until magyar quit the party in 2024 amid this massive awful scandal involving like horrible sexual abuse of children and then the way presidential pardons were used to pardon the head of an organization that you know turned a blind eye to that abuse and then magyar's ex-wife and her role it was like very salacious stuff that involves like leaking audio tapes he made of her etc but anyway um according to the associated press though magyar is really running hard he's campaigning in six towns a day he's hammering orban for corruption and by corruption in this case we don't just mean like this you know standard corruption or the ways that orban has enriched himself or his family and friends but like he's talking about the ways orban and ben you can expand on this the way orban is uh just upended hungry's political system the media the courts the economy to make it a way to just further consolidate his own power uh for himself for the fidesz party um so orban obviously as you'd expect is not taking it well he's pulling on all the stops to win votes that includes threats that includes bribes um magyar has accused in the past orban of blackmail and plotting to release his secret sex tape of him uh police officer recently uh released information about a secret operation by orban's domestic intelligence service to get data from magyar and the tizaparty's it systems there have been several instances of election interference with ties to russia including a maybe like a false flag bomb threat over the weekend the serbian president eleczandr mucic called a borbon and said that the serbian army found quote two packages of explosives with detonators in northern syria that was close to a pipeline that feeds natural gas from russia to hungry um and beyond and so you know magyar says this is a false flag i guess maybe someday we'll find out and then finally ben there is the blatant election interference campaign being run out of the white house um here is vice president jd vance who as we mentioned before is in hungry in budapest today tuesday uh on the stump for victor orban let's watch i love hungry and i love that victor i'll tell you he's a fantastic man we've had a tremendous relationship the president of the united states the vice president of the united states and the american people we admire you and we want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do i'm not telling you exactly who to vote for will you stand against the bureaucrats in brussels will you stand for sovereignty and democracy will you stand for western civilization will you stand for freedom for truth and for the god of our fathers then my friends go to the polls and the weekend stand with victor orban because he stands for you and he stands for all these things so today's your question yes we're certainly aware that there are elements within the ukraine intelligence services that try to put their thumb on the scale of american elections on hungarian elections this is just what they do this is this is part of the cost of doing business within some elements of their system okay so i knew this was going to trigger you so what you heard there was is a jd vance at a rally at the very beginning he like calls uh trump on his cell phone and puts it on speaker and holds it up um and then at the very end that was a clip from a press conference that jd vance did with orban where he was asked about something and ended up blaming ukraine intelligence services then i'd love to hear your thoughts on all of this the vance visit um that bizarre clip of him blaming ukraine there and then why you think like peter magyar seems to have a chance while others don't and what it would mean if orban actually lost this time yeah so one book plug ago so my my last book after the fall um i wrote about it hungry um and i'm not just saying this uh to reference the book there one of the characters so i profiled some people in opposition um and one of the three or four hungarians that were kind of characters in my book that i spent some time with in budapest is a investigative journalist named uh saubolch apani writes for now like i'll direct 36 is a great investigative journalist and i mentioned him because he got charged by orban and the hungarian authorities with espionage um so it's kind of weird you know to write about somebody who's a journalist and then see them being accused of you know colluding with the foreign government is all bullshit right but it was part of the what what what saubolch apani had reported on is all the russian interference in the hungarian election which is obvious i mean like they're projecting onto ukraine what russia is actually doing yeah right yep and and it's bogus and people have called out that but i what is so interesting about this is again hungry can seem like a smaller country victor orban is both an ideological leader of this far-right brand of i don't even call it populist anymore like this kind of far-right blood and swirl nationalism that we've seen he has been a propagator of the playbook uh to enshrine authoritarian power in hungary that the republicans have copied here he's at the fulcrum of efforts by russia israel in the united states pooton uses orban to sow disunity inside the e u related to ukraine policy bb uses orban to sow disunity in the e u around israel and any potential sanction of israel and trump and vance use orban as a fulcrum inside of europe to to to fuck up whatever they don't like about the e u and that could be anything from you know potential tech regulation to to just i don't know having liberal democratic policies right and so it is quite interesting that this man who's been in power this time around since 2010 that pooton bb and trump all the worst people are desperate for this guy to win because he's a tool of their efforts to upend european unity and bolster the far right across the continent so the stakes are very high here now magyar has a chance where previous one of the problems that we've seen in past hungarian elections is that the the center to the left is very divided um and some of that is again almost not their fault some that's kind of by design like there's a lot of like influence operations by the by the fidesz party of orban by russians and others to turn people against each other to create you know their version of dems and disarray there um some of it is because the legacy it was of very deep disgust with the governing center left party before orban right so there's kind of a stink around uh some of the kind more conventional parties and so to have a guy like magyar who is a defector from the conservative movement in hungary um creates a new political opening because obviously you have the lefts is willing to vote for anybody to get orban out but then you you know win over some of the independents but also orban hasn't delivered like if you look at hungarian standards of living hungarian poverty levels victor orban has enriched himself and become some big international celebrity to the far right but life for hungarians it's not like he's like not even like the chinese communist party where they can say we raise standards of living like this is not working and i think also just people are sick of this guy after 14 years it feels similar to like a little bit like nevalny too right like in that the nevalny in many ways was a nationalist in attacking not attacking putin from the right but was not like trying to be some big squishy liberal he thought that yes his path to taking down putin was focusing on kleptocracy and also just coming at him from like a far more conservative perspective that's right and that's exactly right and look we should just say like these guys have put victor orban if he wins it's because you know he's got the media completely on his side in hungary he's god knows what corruption is happening he's got the russian intelligence services helping him who if he wins an eeks out of win like that's kind of status quo ante if victor orban loses this election it is a seismic event it is a fucking earthquake in global politics and we should and by the way we should insist that it is one because you know what these guys put all the chips on him jade events flew there to bolster him in the middle of war string like a catastrophic war like he's like like he's campaigning for a midterm election congressional district right before the election so this will be humiliating to trump it would be a huge step back to the far right in europe it would be a wind in the sails of democrats in you know small d democrats in europe particularly in central and eastern europe where they've been fighting some tough battles um so like you know the pod saved the world endorsement is with mac you are like such as it matters yeah it would be sized give me it'd be credible for the european union it'd be great for the continent it'd be great for like some wind in the sails of progressives all over the world i want to um i just want to quickly trigger you if that's okay um i was watching uh the vance orban press conference and i wanted to play you a little clip uh that i enjoyed grayley um this is uh again our vice president in budapest today trying to say something one final observation about this election what has happened in this country what has happened in the midst of this election campaign is one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that i've ever seen or ever even read about the bureaucrats and brussels have tried to destroy the economy of hungry they have tried to make hungry less energy independent they have tried to drive up costs for hungarian consumers and they've done it all because they hate this guy but i think that what the people of hungry what i would encourage them to do is ask themselves the question not who's pro or anti europe not who's pro or anti the united states of america but who is pro you who is pro the people of hungry uh how about the absolute incredible hypocrisy of the vice president i'd say it's yeah going to stump for victor orban and then complaining about foreign election interference by the way with all the context that we know about trump you know remember when he offered argentina a 20 billion dollar bailout and told voters there that like either you know vote with havi malay or else like the u.s would cut off support like these guys are brazenly interfering in elections all over the place and he's still jd vance is still like his he's a one note like tiny little man fucking pathetic little baby loser and he's whining about bureaucrats in brussels because that's like all he can that's his entire playbook at this point yeah i mean you hit that point only i'd add is on the substance victor orban and his cronies have been stealing e you money for years the the the e you provides billions of dollars in assistance to hungry because it's one of the poorer countries in the e you for things like infrastructure projects and all the money just gets skimmed off the top and goes to enrich orban's cronies and finances politics so if he's got problems with brussels yeah part of it's that he's way out of step with the europe on things like ukraine but part of it said he's been fucking stealing from europe right and that's why they don't want to keep shoveling money to the guy so not that jadie vance cares about that so i mean for him i mean the ukranians are being bombed and invaded for him to to accuse it is such an atrocity like that this guy is sitting there taking potshots at people that are a million times tougher than he is and if sacrificed a million times more than he has for democracy spare me the lectures about election interference from budapest jd the other weird comment he made ben is he said like he was doing some weird bit about how orban's leadership is a model for how other european leaders should be dealing with the energy crisis in europe which as far as i can tell like orban gave like huge government subsidies or basically just like forced like state agencies to absorb a bunch of costs then they were super pro russia and they just like advocated either for purchasing oil and gas from the russians or removing sanctions from the russians and now they're sucking up the trump even though he is creating this new massive energy crisis via the war with iran it's just like does he think vote like i guess he thinks voters everywhere stupid maybe that's just the answer he does i mean he thinks he can like jadie vance them you know and this shtick is just growing really old because like you know what who in america the only people that give a shit about this are the ideologues at like the claire mont institute you know like it's like far right intellectuals like it's not like you know working folks of ohio that jadie vance represents or claims represent or sitting there you know in rural ohio being like you know what we really need we need an orban victory in the hungarian election like yeah you're who's the fucking elitist cosmopolitan like give me a break jadie vance go to back to ohio and like actually talk to people who can't afford the bills instead of like spending taxpayer money to fly to stump for somebody that probably nobody in ohio has heard of it is very weird and there is also by the way i mean remember tucker carlson did his week of programming from oh yeah yeah that's that's where we break from tucker yeah yeah big big time big time um the the way the way politics is kind of getting reshuffled right now is very interesting i mean this was probably inevitable and bound to happen in some ways because trump is essentially a lame duck president and everyone's kind of you know jostling for their spot and figuring out what's next but there's no doubt that tucker was right when he told trump that you know the war in iran would end his presidency and would be the undoing of him and potentially the maga project and it does feel like we're at the beginning of that happening and it's happening more rapidly than frankly i would have expected but i'm not sad about it not sad about it one bit not sad about okay well uh that's it for us today thank you for listening thanks for subscribing to pod save the world uh wherever you get your podcast or here on youtube and we'll talk to you guys soon pod save the world is a crooked media production our senior producer is alona minkowski our producer is michael goldsmith our associate producer is anisha bonderji we get production support from saul rubin our executive producers are mi tamibitur and ben roads the show is engineered mixed and edited by jordan canter audio support by charlotte landis thank you to our digital team ben heffcote mea kelman william jones david tolls and ryan young matt de grote is our head of production adrian hill is our senior vice president of news and politics if you want to listen to pod save the world add free and get access to exclusive podcasts go to crookin.com slash friends to subscribe on supercasts substack youtube or apple podcasts don't forget to follow us at crookin media on instagram tick tock and twitter for more original 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and all kinds of other stuff dan will come to your house and clean it once every day again clothes dan is very busy clothes only but along with just getting great content becoming a friend of the pod joining our subscription community is the number one thing you can do to help us grow to help independent progressive media so if you're ever thought about doing it if you ever wanted more pods of america consider going to crooked.com slash friends and becoming a friend of the pod mom can you tell me a story sure once upon a time a mom needed a new car was she brave she was tired mostly but she went to carvana.com and found a great car at a great price no secret treasure map required did you have to find a dragon nope she bought it 100 online from her bed actually was it scary honey it was as unscary as carmine could be did the car have a sunroof it did actually okay good story car buying you'll want to tell stories about buy your car today on carvana delivery fees may apply the world 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