506: Will Epstein Files Take Down the British Government?

Love it. As you know, this podcast would not exist if it wasn't a present Obama.

“My career wouldn't exist. I don't know. Yeah, who knows where we'd be?”

I mean, I remember like when I got the job with Edwards, I was choosing between that and going

to work at Club Met as a geo, which meant basically you trip kids while playing street hockey,

your basketball, or whatever. But as you all probably know, we've been inspired by President Obama and his work inside and outside of office. We're excited to announce that the Obama presidential center officially opens this June on the South Side of Chicago. It is so much more than just a library. It is an entire campus geared towards helping everyday people realize their ability to make real-world change. Beyond the immersive museum exhibits, there's an athletic center,

a theater, a media lab, and a branch of the Chicago Public Library. A collection of brand-new commissioned art, world-class performances, and original programming. The list goes on. It's a very special place. I'm excited to see the Obama presidential center hopefully get out there for like, I don't know, yeah, because see it. Playing your visit at obama.org and sign up for exclusive updates and special offer to the Obama presidential center, bring change home.

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“New Zealand. I think it's 21 hours difference here. What time is it there?”

So it is my phone. It is Wednesday, February 11th at 11-07. So you're like, "Wait, yeah." So you get on the plane. I got on the plane of 1030 at night in L.A. Time. And then you land on Tuesday. You just like, Thanos a day. Yep. And Monday. You get it back or exists. If you come back, you'll get it back. You get it back on the way back. Yeah, you get it back.

But it's like basically the easiest way to think about it. It's like negative 21 or you

guys are 21 behind me. But in practice, it's if you're three hours ahead. So I'm just treating you like you're in New York and I am in LA. That makes sense. Well, I mean, I hope you've been able to lick your wounds out there. There's not a lot of people talking patriots, uh, Drake May. I was wondering if you're going to get to this. So I did pack one sweatshirt and it is a patriot sweatshirt. Luckily, it's pretty warm in New Zealand and Australia this time here.

“Yeah, but yeah, stuff. Yeah, you made it. And you have a 20-year-old quarterback. I think it'll be back.”

I think it'll be fine. Listen, um, you know, it's just be grateful you made it there. I guess but apparently the, um, hold, uh, patriot didn't play anyone good, strength of schedule thing. They had a point. Yeah, that kind of borough. That kind of borough. I mean, yeah. And you had the Bonyx go down. I mean, but, uh, hey, you know, you got there. You got, uh, I'm a jet fan like we haven't smelled the Super Bowl since before I was born. So no, you're, uh, you just watch former

quarterbacks when Super Bowl is shut up soon. I know. I know one of my, one of our guys. Yeah. Yeah. Ben, did you see this morning, or maybe it was yesterday, who knows when it was? Trump threatened to close down the Gordi Howe Bridge between Michigan and Ontario. I did it wrong. Two social posts. I just, I want to read you a verbatim quote and tell me if this, um, sort of vives with the intelligence you read about China back in the day. Yeah. Uh,

Prime Minister Carney wants to make a deal with China, which will eat Canada alive.

We'll just get the leftovers. I don't think so. The first thing China will do is terminate

all ice hockey being played in Canada and permanently eliminate the Stanley Cup. Um, are you aware of Xi Jinping being in support of like a hockey genocide? I'm not. No, am I aware of Trump being commissioner of the National Hockey League? Um, no. But maybe, you know, if the Canadians don't want to be smart about it, you know, Wayne Gretzki's Super Maga, hang out Trump all the time. Maybe they should just rename the bridge, the Wayne Gretzki bridge,

and then they keep it open. I don't know. That's a pretty good idea. The Gordi Howe was a badass. He was a badass. Yeah. Um, all right. So we got a wide range of topics today, kind of befitting our 21 hour time difference. Uh, we're going to start in the U.K. We're a Prime

Jeffrey Epstein accountability must be nice. Um, we're also going to tell you about a landslide election in Japan and how those results could permanently change the constitution and character of the country. Trump's got a big trip to China coming up in April. We'll explain how two major issues in the U.S.-China relationship are threatening to derail that visit. We're also going to update you on, uh, these reports we talked about last week about the director of national intelligence

tells he gathered, suppressing this super duper top secret only allowed one copy and a safe whistle

blower report. So since we talked, Congress finally got a copy of the thing and then some details

have leaked out in the media. Uh, and then finally we're going to check in on the Olympics. We got the cheers, the booze, the cheating scandal that somehow involves inflated penises, but not sex. So we'll, um, yeah, tackle that one. The scandal that's rocking the list. The scandal for our times. If ever, there was one. Yeah. Yes. Indeed. Metaphorically rocking this. Uh, and then Ben, you did our interview today. Uh, what are we going to hear? Yeah. I talked to Nielu Tabrizi who's been on before.

She's uh, was actually just laid off from the Washington Post where she was investigative reporter focused on Iran, uh, wrote an extraordinary, uh, book about Iran. Another happening there. So it's a good time to kind of, well, that's, yeah, exactly. I mean, I heard her being fired at this moment, actually points to the absolute absurdity of what they just did there. But we talked about how that went down. What it was like, literally, like, you know, how, how, how do they laugh all this people?

The, what's going to be lost with all these foreign desks, uh, going away, where international news coverage might be going in this period of, you know, a consolidation and layoffs, um, the Jeff Bases of it all and what it's like to feel like you've been light off by a guy that, you know, could have, like, lost the change in his couch that would have paid for the Washington Post of the rest of his life. Um, and it, and also her impression of what's happening around based

on her, her, her conversations with sources. So, uh, really important conversation people should check it out. Yeah. The, the marketing budget on the Melania movie could have saved what like the entire forum heroes basically for several years. So yeah, uh, that's great. Well, I'm excited to listen to that. I'm sorry that that happened to her. Uh, obviously we here at Padsay the World cannot replace like major media institutions, like the Washington Post. But I think that story is a sign that

“they are, uh, billionaires are not coming to save us. So if you want to help support independent”

progressive media, you know, thanks for watching the show. Thanks for subscribing. Subscribe if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe if you're listening to the podcast. Uh, but if you, uh, if that's not enough for you, if you want to, uh, you know, do even more and become a supportive crooked

media itself, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. It really is the single most important

thing you could do to help us grow as a company. You get lots of bonus content, get ad free episode, to get a lot more if you just go to crooked.com/friends for more information. We have experience explosive growth over here, Ben. People are calling us the bad bunny of podcasting. If you want to dip into that, yeah, a little mini scandal from over the weekend. Um, it's like, people that are mad about the superl have to own shows, like just mute it. And well, I don't have to watch

also, like, of absolute banger. And, and a very world-o, uh, half-time show with the end with all the Americas, um, uh, the show. I know it'll tear in the eye on that one. It was cool. It was like, watching like a movie. It was just like, it really, well, and actually, uh, yeah, it was like,

“I grew up in New York where there were two million, I think, Puerto Ricans. And so I,”

like, I was like, oh, yeah, like that, some of that was familiar to me, but then it was just so deep in that culture. It was pretty extraordinary to immerse in, and, and it like that. So anyway, yeah, to shock that Trump was mad about it. What, what a surprise. Oh, what a surprise. Oh, a kid rock show is, uh, young show today. I love people were, um, people were tweeting out, like lyrics from his songs, sort of like, about, you know, suck on my balls this or that. It's like,

okay, I have fun. Your question. Have to make sure. Yeah, everybody, you'll turn the point to say a contact there. Kid rock hasn't been cool for 25 years. If ever, if okay. So we got, uh, let's start with the UK, because, you know, while our president has faced no consequences for his decades long, close for personal friendship with, uh, disgraced pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, there are growing calls for British Prime Minister Keerstarmer to resign over his government's

ties to Epstein. So some quick context, just to catch everybody up here. Um, until late last summer, the British ambassador to the US was a guy named Peter Mendelssohn, uh, Mendelssohn was once a top aide to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, though, Mendelssohn had a rocky career that kind of was way laid by repeated scandals. But despite that checkered history, despite the fact that it was pretty well known, the Mendelssohn had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Starmer still made him

the ambassador to the US. Now, Mendelssohn was ultimately fired from that post last September,

uh, after the House of Oversight Committee released a bunch of emails between Epstein and Mendelssohn, that showed they remained closed. Even after Epstein had been convicted of soliciting sex

“from a minor. I think, uh, he was emailing him about crashing at his place, like while Epstein was”

in jail or on, you know, whatever that cushy jail he had in Florida. Um, and then though things got

that revealed that Mendelssohn was forwarding Jeffrey Epstein's sensitive government information.

We talked about this last week, but it was like genuinely shocking stuff, like secret details about the US and UK response to the financial crisis internal memos that went to then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, much more. So, Starmer now says that Mendelssohn lied to him and lied to his team during the vetting for the job. Uh, Kier Starmer was pressed on this question of what vetting was done with Mendelssohn during Prime Minister's question time. Uh, here's a bit of that

answer. Uh, and then there's another clip from Starmer apologizing to victims at a separate event. And then you'll hear Starmer's even more defiant tone on Tuesday. Let's watch. Can the Prime Minister tell us, did the official security vetting he received mentioned Mendelssohn's

“on-going relationship with the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein?”

So clearly. Prime Minister. Yes, it did. As a result, various questions were put to him. I want to make sure this house sees the full documentation, so it will see for itself the extent to which the extent to which time and time again, Mendelssohn completely misrepresented the extent to his relationship vetting and lied throughout the process, including in response to the due diligence. The victims of Epstein have lived

with trauma that most of us can barely comprehend. I am sorry. Sorry for what was done to you. Sorry that so many people with power failed you. Sorry for having believed Mendelssohn's lies and appointed it. There are some people in recent days who say the labor government should have a different fight. A fight with itself instead of a fight for the millions of people who

“need us to fight for them. And I say to them, I will never walk away from the mandate I was given”

to change this country. The fight coming up in politics. The real fight is not in the labor party. It's with the right wing politics that challenges that. The politics of reform. So Morgan McSweeney, who is Kierstarmer, is now former Chief of Staff, took responsibility for pushing the select medicine for that job. McSweeney has since resigned. But the question is, will that be enough? And really, will members of the labor party decide that this is their moment

to push out Kierstarmer and make a leadership change that many of them already wanted,

because labor is approval rating has basically been in a heading in a line straight down since

the last election in 2024. According to the Economist Kierstarmer is now the most unpopular prime minister and their recorded history, his net approval rating is worse than Liz Truss at her lowest, the event she was devastated after only 49 days, so maybe it's not a fair comparison. A not-sar-war, the head of the Scottish Labor Party called on Starmer to resign, here's just a bit of what he had to say. The situation in Downing Street is not good enough.

There have been too many mistakes. They promised they were going to be different, but too much has happened. Have there been good things of course there have, many of them, but no one knows them and no one can hear them because they're being drowned out.

“That's why it cannot continue. Kierstarmer is a decent man and it is no secret that I've always”

got on well with them and he has dedicated his life to public service. I have also dedicated myself to public service and I need to decide what I'm willing to accept and what I'm willing to do. Okay, so Ben, so for the top Labor Minister, as we're all sticking with Kierstarmer and backing him publicly, but this challenge is not really about Jeffrey Epstein. It's about for Starmer, it's about getting the economy going, demonstrating a clear vision to voters,

convincing the rest of the Labor Party that you're the guy for this moment. I have to say like, it feels very hard to see how he's going to write this ship and serve out a full term. He might survive this near-term issue, but like, I don't know man, he's got like a dead-man walking vibe, but what do you think? I agree with you and I think it's worth kind of doing the brief

journey to how we got here. And first of all, it's interesting and Alex and I talked about

the symposium of America, Tommy, but the fact that Kierstarmer wasn't even in the Epstein files, right? And yet he may be taken out by one person who's in the files, Mandelson, and all these Americans are baiting all this accountability, including a current president and maybe a former president. I wish we still had a system where shame and transparency, not that the British systems perfect by any measure, but at least that there's still some gravity there.

I know. Like how we're letting it like the commerce secretary. Yeah, he like made up a story

your commerce secretary. No one gives a shit about the commerce secretary. Yeah, continue. Well, no, but that's the point, right? The point is that we don't fire anybody. But look, Morgan McSweeney's central to this whole thing. And I've met Morgan McSweeney a bunch of times, and so I met him right when Kierstarmer became leader. And this guy was like the, you know, David Axelra, David, David, he was the absolute political strategist, like dictatorial political strategist,

labor party. And he orchestrated a very successful for his purposes and Starmer's purposes, reorientation labor party. So it's coming out Jeremy Corbyn, they taken a left turn, they basically purged all that Jeremy Corbyn people made a big show of purging some anti-Semitic elements tacked to the center, rebuilt bridges to the kind of Blair class of the labor party. And that's where people managed to come in, because he's the quintessential version

of, he's not a leftist, he's an operator, you know, he's a guy that is, you know, Mr. Globalization, right, and all the way to the worst part, so Jeremy Corbyn gets all the bankers, has lots of context exactly, yeah. And so where this all comes together is that

“Mendelssohn as ambassador reflected like poor judgment, you know, you should have looked a little”

harder, but it also reflected a choice that Starmer made from the beginning about how to govern,

which is to take that kind of cautious, always look over your right shoulder, tack to the center,

befriend the globalist approach. And, you know, the kind of Peter Mendelssohn politics, that became, I think, to a lot of people, at least, what Cure Starmer is projecting. So it's both the immediate scandal. It's also the fact that this was the play they made. It wasn't just sit in Mendelssohn as ambassador UK, they kind of took on that approach to politics, and it's worked out horribly for them. And the reason I agree with you, too, tell me, is it like if he was

a strong, you know, in the polls, and he was doing well, like I think he could survive this, but but ultimately he's in the toilet with his numbers. And what happens in the UK is they have these bilections, you know, these are kind of our version of off your local elections that are kind of bellwethers for the public mood is. And if labor gets absolutely pasted in one or succession of those

“elections, then I think you might see the final damn break and it's time we have to go.”

Yeah, and they've done a lot of the shuffling stuff. Like, I think it's communications, director of Starmer's Communications, director also quit on Monday. You know, the economist noted that in 19 months, Cure Starmer's lost two chiefs of staff, four directors of communications, and 11 ministers. So they've been doing the kind of internal reshuffle thing that they're getting working. And to your point, like, you know, they campaigned on, you know, taxes not going up,

it's clear they can't really keep that promise. They campaigned hard as it is never to, you know,

sort of defang the right wing on stopping the small boats and cutting down an immigration. They haven't been able to deliver on that in Part B's. You can never kind of outwrite wing the right wing. And so I think I saw Starmer's approval rating is now 23%, right. By the way, then, Axios had a list of like European leader approval ratings. Macron is at the bottom with 16% Yeah, I remember. Friedrich Merz over Germany is at 21%. Cure Starmer is at 23%. But then also,

I said, you go of did surveys attracting European's opinions of the US, and a more than 60% of the population of Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Great Britain now have an unfavorable view of the US. That includes 72% of German's at 84% of Danes. So you have these like, you have these like unpopular European leaders and then populations that are starting to hate America, and just none of this feels good. Also, by the way, like police are also now investigating

whether Prince Andrew broke the law by sharing other documents with Epstein. So back onto your like accountability point. Like, it's only seemingly happening in the UK. There's zero

“accountability back home. Yeah. And I think though that that combination of their actually being”

accountability in Europe and their hatred of America these days, I think is going to motivate really aggressive investigations into the Epstein file follow-ups, including of the Americans in it, some of whom do business in Europe. And so we may be in this kind of strange position where the most aggressive legal and journalistic follow-up through on the Epstein files, including related to Americans, is going to happen in Europe because they're pissed over there. One thing you take

away from all those polls is people are pissed. And Epstein is the worst version of American

hegemony, let's just say, right? Some just monster, who's also got this network of powerful people.

So that's something to watch too. Not just kind of what happens. It can hear him doing is something you should have done for the beginning, which is trying to pick a fight with Nigel Farage

comfortable in the culture wars. He's been very defensive as you say on immigration. Not sure

“that that will work for him. We'll see, maybe it will, maybe he can write this ship. But I do think”

either way, this kind of European anger among publics and elites is going to probably motivate them digging deep on what they can find on Epstein. 100% because in fact, what you're also seeing is the Danish Prime Minister, Metta Fredericks, and her approval rating is up because she told Trump were to shove it, right? Yeah. So when we run popular over there, and you're seeing polling like the leaders benefit in the polls from seeming tough in confronting Trump, like, you know,

where this is going to go. One other update that's the last week we did this big section on, Tulsi Gabor, the Director of National Intelligence. She'd been in the news a bunch because

she was weirdly, like, on the scene at the FBI's rate of the Fulton County election office in

Georgia, which was very weird. It turned that Trump told her to be there. And then there was his mysterious Wall Street Journal report about Tulsi blocking a whistleblower complaint from

“being sent up to Congress in part because it was highly classified, but also seemingly because”

of politics. So since then, the intelligence communities Inspector General has turned the report itself, the whistleblower report over to Congress. This so-called gang of eight, which is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, chairman and ranking member in the House Intelligence Committee, then the Speaker, House Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, and Senate Minority Leader, all of that access to it. There's also been some news reports about the

substance of the whistleblower report. The Guardian says the NSA intercepted a conversation between two individuals connected with a foreign intelligence service talking about someone close to Trump. Now, the sourcing in the story of the Guardian's story is a lawyer for one of the whistleblowers and bizarrely ban, like the lawyer initially told the Guardian that the call was between a foreign intel person and a Trump aid, but then had to like clarify the demon's spoke. So it's all a little

weird. And then the time's kind of followed up on that. And they said it's not clear where the individuals are from, but the discussion itself involved Iran. And the report, the whistleblower report was drafted around when Trump was considering whether or not to strike Iran. So maybe that gives us some more sort of visibility into this thing. The time's also says like there's a debate about the underlying value of the intelligence or whether these, you know, intel people were

gossiping or spreading this information or what, but it does seem pretty clear that Gabbard screwed up either unintentionally or intentionally by not getting this report over to Congress in the time frame required. And while there may have been some complexity to it given, you know, the level of classification and limited reasons to distribute it, she also passed a copy along to Susie Wiles, Trump's Chief of Staff, what suggests there was some like political ask covering happening.

So I don't know, man, like, like, what do you make of this as we're getting these little drips of information? Anything like any clarity? No clarity. I mean, we could jump to the conspiracy theorizing a heavy Steve Whitgoth vibes in here, you know, like maybe not a Trump aide, but he's involved in

Iran, you know, I don't know, but we don't know. We don't know. Here's what jumped out to me, Tommy.

I mean, first of all, people should know. Sure, the NSA vacuums up all these calls. And, you know, I presume that Trump's NSA is probably even less, you know, restrained than the Obama NSA, which got in a lot of hot water. But it's very unusual for there to be a complaint like this. So in other words, you know, presumably incidentally, there might be collection that involves an American with foreigners or

foreign and tell-and-services or governments. There's nothing unusual about that.

“It have to be pretty, you know, alarming for someone to do this, I think. So that's one degree.”

The second point is that Trump's style of decision-making and the kind of loose nature of having like this inner circle that encompasses people in government and out of government kind of lends itself to this kind of problem. Because I actually have talked to people in foreign governments who deal with the Trump administration and what they do is because there's no formal process that works, right? Like just having the meeting with Marco Rubio or the State Department

doesn't work, you just start calling people that are in Trump's orbit. You know, you're calling "Wick off your call and Jared," but you're also calling like somebody you know is going to Marlago next weekend. Hey, Roger Stone. You're calling fucking Roger Stone or you're calling Steve Bannon or people who you think get in the door to see Trump, you're calling Tucker Carlson, you know, and it kind of lends itself to this, you know, we've talked about it. Lends itself to corruption.

It also just kind of lends itself to like potential malign influence, right, where, you know, you're, you're trying to court some foreign intelligence service or government is, you know, this is our guy, let's go to that guy and, you know, meanwhile maybe they're doing business with

that is obviously going to be the case if this is how you conduct foreign policy. Yeah, and like we're seeing this play out in the domestic realm too, I mean there's all these guys

lawyers, former aids, the Trump that are basically setting up cottage industries, where they

start to sell you a pardon, right? Yeah. And they'll get to the right person to get, you know, whoever pardon, one Orlando Hernandez of the former, you know, head of state who is convicted of trafficking 400 tons of cocaine to the United States, like sure, you know, nothing's off the table here. So you're right, this does, it's a, it's a weird story, you know, Tom Cotton, a Republican of market saw is like playing it down saying it's no big deal. He plays out and he did the right thing.

Yeah, I real straight you to there, but I don't hopefully will learn more. This is one of the things we're like the fact that it's classified, I think, kind of leads to so much more lore, like maybe

“if they could just put it out, it might be. It's probably, yeah, that's what they deal with. I love to know.”

I think the big deal is what it says is probably about how business is done, you know, which is this murky, you know, there's a reason you have process. There's a reason you want the people who deal far in government to be employees of the United States government. You know, there's a reason you don't want your Middle East envoy to have a son who's in the crypto business, doing huge deals, right? Like all these things is lend itself to this kind of, this kind of,

you know, ambiguity. Yeah, the Wall Street Journal had a piece out, I think yesterday, about like

that I've heard with the total is like 1.4 billion has been made by the Trump family from their

crypto businesses with like Zack Wickoff, Steve Wickoff, son, in charge of it. So yeah, there's a lot of avenues for corruption. Part of the world is brought to you by American giant. It sucks when you buy a new t-shirt, where it twice, wash it a couple times and it's just gone. Just falls apart, it looks like crap. A lot out of where it's not made to last, and especially when you need it to be warm out.

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at checkout that's 50% off your first order at Sundays for dogs.com/World50. Sundays for dogs.com/World50 or use the code World50 at checkout. All right, Ben, let's turn to Japan, where Prime

turned out to be a staggering success. So Takahichi's party, the LDP, they won this historic

“victory on Sunday. They picked up more than 100 seats outright, which means the LDP has about”

316 seats on their own and then with their coalition partners, they now control over 350 of the

465 seat lower house of the national diet, which is Japan's legislature. So Takahichi basically

pulled a reverse cure stormer here. She got like when she became Prime Minister, she barely got enough support from within the party to get the job. But then a hundred days later, she calls a selection and then she delivered her party a supermajority through it. And the win was because of her, not because of the LDP's popularity. The LDP as we've talked about before, like they basically ruled Japan's in 1955 with two brief kind of interruptions. But after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's

resignation in 2020, the party's been a bit of a mess. They've had a bunch of like terrible candidates for Prime Minister and they've been losing support. And so what Takahichi did is she seems to have almost singlehandily revived the party and in the process destroyed the traditional opposition parties. They just got crushed in the polls. And so the question now is what is she going to do with this power? Takahichi has talked about drastically ramping up Japan's defense spending in Japan's

defense industry. That's an option. She's talked about amending Japan's constitution in particular article nine, which renounces war and codifies Japan as the past of his nation. That language was

basically written by the US and imposed on Japan in 1947 after World War II. She's also talked about

major spending to choose the economy and drive growth. So we just don't know. I guess we'll now wait and see what she decides, be able to be a hybrid, maybe it'll be parts of the parts. But like the thing to know is that basically no one can stop her, like not the opposition environment, not her own party. Ben, what did you make of the results and how she ran and what it means for the balance of power in Asia and the partnership of the US? Well, it connects back to what

you said about the Prime Minister of Denmark, right? Because Takahichi, we said this at the time, like she got in this fight with the Chinese and she doubled down on it. And that nationalism played well. Like we're at a time when people want strong leaders just seem like they're standing up for national interests. And so she's another case in point and she's on the right.

“But I think frankly, you could be on the right order the left. If you people want to see”

kind of strong leadership and she kind of sense that mood, now she's very conservative. And then that leads to what the ramifications of this are. And look, I mean, Japan has been in its constitution, a nation dedicated only to having a self defense, not having any militarism given its past and given the US rule and drafting that constitution. But it also has had this kind of building set of complicated relationships in this neighborhood. It would take a long time to unpack why,

but you know, I think the, from the outside in from the Chinese or South Korean perspective, for instance, it said Japan didn't necessarily atone for its wartime sins in the way even that a Germany has, you know, the ruins are still raw. But at the same time from the Japanese perspective, the Chinese Communist Party has been stirring up anti-Japanese nationalism for a long time. And it is virulent. I mean, I see some of this stuff. And so it's got to be kind of scary

to have this giant country next to you that is getting stronger and stronger and is part of its identity is kind of hating, you know, Japan. And at the same time, the US is not the reliable security guarantor that it has been, because Trump, you know, while he hasn't really, you know, single that Japan this time around, can you really trust that the US is going to be there to defend you against China? And so I think there are some natural things that we're building

over time in terms of the security dimension, the region, in terms of the US alliance. And then along comes, you know, the Margaret Thatcher of Japan. And I think we're going to find out what it's like. And what I, while I think some of this was inevitable, and she may also think maybe I can jump start growth by putting a lot of money into fence, I don't know. But it's a little worsen,

“you know, because you got this flash borne in the Taiwan straight. And that's what got her in”

trouble with the Chinese in the first place. She said that that was, you know, imported Japan's events. And you start to have a more musco, Japan, it's going to freak out the Chinese. And, you know, it just adds to the tender box feeling of geopolitics right now. Yeah, that was one of my takeaways, too. I mean, like just in terms of what she could do, like,

you know, she could take steps to make the Prime Minister more powerful, right? Like you could

she could change it. So she has more power during a crisis. She could lower the bar for future constitutional amendments. She could just sort of like add clauses to the constitution that recognize the self defense provision of the military. There's sort of like, sort of smaller, more incremental steps. She could take the ones I can have laid out at the top. But like, I have

Warntaki cheek, and it's, quote, retracing the road of militarism. And as you said, like, obviously, the Chinese are more than a touch hypocritical here. But it does worry me that one of Trump's, like, core policy things is pushing countries like Germany, Austria, Italy, Japan to invest more in defense spending. Yeah. Right as we were seeing a rise in these like right wing parties in these countries, then it's like, I don't know, guys, that this could end very badly. Yeah. We've seen it before.

Yeah, that collection of, you know, that access is not always been the best in the past. But

“I think that the, you know, foreign policy, sometimes people don't appreciate that success is just”

the absence of worst things happening. And if you look at Northeast Asia, you've got like nuclear armed North Korea divided from US-aligned South Korea, emerging Chinese Communist Party superpower in Beijing, Japan, like there's been stability somehow among those countries, in the sense that there hasn't been a war, and economic growth has been allowed to, you know, explode in people trade, even if they don't like each other. And now, if all of those countries are turning,

you know, with the exception of South Korea for now, in this kind of direction, I don't know, like, can that hold for 10 years? I mean, because, you know, she's got beef with the Chinese, but I'm sure the North Koreans too, been vice versa, you know. And so, if the US is kind of receding from this role of being the kind of security guarantor and we're so big in present,

“then nobody will mess with it. If we're kind of pulling back from that, the concern is,”

you know, there's opportunity maybe having a different balance of power in the world and new rules, but the downside could be giant vacuums and, you know, the road of militarism to quote Chinese propaganda, leading to, you know, uncomfortable destinations. Yeah, in a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Xi Jinping's purge of all the senior leaders in the Chinese military. And again, for what folks even understand, there's like the PLA, the Chinese military, it's not like

the country's military, if the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party. So you're not necessarily elevated because you fought hard or bravely, it's like you grease the right guy, you bribe the right official. So you can have people with like zero fucking actual military experience at the top of the organization who don't really fully understand the horrors of war at a time when you have this rising military in Japan. And yeah, like you said, like sometimes you don't get a lot of

credit as a leader for the dogs that kind of didn't bark or the problems that didn't arise during your tenure, but what you outlined could be a big one. Speaking of China events, so there were

two stories out of China that we wanted to flag. The first is Hong Kong media, local Jibilai,

was sentenced to 20 years in prison under the National Security Law, the China and posts on Hong Kong back in 2020 after the huge protests in 2019 and 2020. So this sentence, Jibilai sentence, is the longest sentence ever given under the National Security Law. And it probably means he will die in prison in less something changes. He'd be like, you know, late 90s when his sentence technically ends. The prosecution is clearly politically motivated. It's an effort to shut down

his newspaper Apple Daily. It's an effort to just crush any lingering hope for press freedom and Hong Kong generally. So that is very bad. The second story is about Taiwan. So the financial time reported that the Trump administration is pulling together another really large arms package for Taiwan that includes some big ticket items like Patriot Missiles. Back in December,

the U.S. approved an $11 billion arm sale of Taiwan, which was massive then. And they say

this next package could be nearly double that size. The number they quote in the story is up to 20 billion. The F.T. says when Xi Jinping talked to Trump on the phone last week, he raised this and they quote sources in the story saying that Beijing has warned the U.S. that the arm sale could derail Trump's visit to China in April. So Ben, I just kind of, I found this

“confluence of issues interesting. Because I think, you know, you and I have said on the show,”

like we both assume Trump only cares about economics and getting a trade deal with China. However, in the past, he is promised to get you to lie at a prison. He actually said it would be easy to do so in an interview with Hugh Hewitt who now is kind of gun quiet on the subject. But like, you know, it's put up a shut up time. And the question is whether Trump will spend any political capital pushing Xi on July or any other human rights issue during this visit,

the cynic and he does wonder, Ben, if like China gives, July 20 years, so they can cut a sentence on the F.T. and Trump can call that a win and they sell their guy in jail, but put that aside. But this arm sale to Taiwan, does that feel like a much bigger hurdle and kind of harder to unwind

what was your read on on what's happening here and like whether this actually

“creates some real turbulence for Trump as he has to Beijing and April?”

I think it does. And first of all, we should say, Jimmy lies a hero. And he's rich enough

that he could have gotten out of there at this certain point and lived a certain kind of life. But he stuck by his newspaper and his principles. Interesting contrast to Jeff Bezos, by the way. Jeff Bezos was not at risk of going to prison at all. Jimmy lied gave everything up for what he believed. All we were asking Jeff Bezos is to do is keep funding something. I mean, it just shows a difference. It's notable. I don't think that the Xi Jinping would let Jimmy lie at a prison.

I mean, if I had to bet on it because he's a hard ass, you know, and I mean, he's, you know, that's, he just purged the military. He's quashed a sentence in Hong Kong. I think he wouldn't want to be seen to be, you know, even doing a favor for Donald Trump in this kind of human right space. Like it's a space where there's usually slam door. I hope I'm wrong. But my sense is that that wouldn't be in the offing. It might have been earlier, you know, at the

beginning of the Trump administration. But, but now, I mean, I think she's all his moves suggest to guy internally and externally, who's moving at a deliberate pace, but only in one direction. And that's, that's a fairly confrontational direction with the United States and certain things. That leads me to Taiwan. Like, I think Taiwan is the issue that we're going to be paying a lot more attention to over the next year, too. I mean, it has not featured yet, but it is the

flashpoint. Um, you know, they, they continue to shovel these weapons out the door to the Taiwanese Trump probably likes arm sales for a variety of reasons. Um, they do, you know, provoke Beijing. And in the past, the way that the Chinese have dealt with that is, yes, sometimes by canceling

meetings, never a presidential visit, though. That would be a huge signal if they actually did that.

I don't think they will. But what they tend to do in response is they'll do some like really aggressive military exercises around Taiwan. You know, they'll fly over their space or fly missiles over their space or, you know, they have like an armata that, you know, is uncomfortably close to the Taiwanese, you know, land. And, you know, that, that always can risk getting a little scratchy, right?

“And, um, and so I think that's what we're going to see is like this kind of a bit of a spiral,”

unless Trump just chooses to kind of throw Taiwan overboard and agree to some formulation that essentially abandon them in terms of the US coming to their defense. Um, either way, I think I think Taiwan is going to be something that we're talking about more and more over the next year, too. Yeah, definitely want to watch as we head to April in particular. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform

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are technically Milan and Cortina. The events are really happening all over northern Italy.

“Breezy Johnson won the first gold medal for the U.S. in downhill skiing. U.S. figure skaters won”

gold in the team competition and part thanks to the quad god, Elya Malon. They say they're right. I don't know. Two great names. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My god. My daughter's run to the quad god. Yeah. Quad god. I mean, that's hard. Because you can do these jumps and nobody else can do. You know, like the back foot. Yeah. Fucking wild. Yeah. There's also been some heartbreak. Lindsey Vaughan, she was trying to come back at age 41 and trying to compete with the torn ACL.

I do not understand how you do that. But I'll have this horrible crash and had to be airlifted off of the course with the tibia fracture, those tough. Speaking of painful things to look at, Vice President J.D. Vance was booed when his face was shown on the stadium big screen of the opening ceremony. But he is not mad about it. Ben, speaking of not mad Donald Trump decided to personally attack a freestyle skier named Hunter Hess for daring to say that he doesn't agree

“with everything happening in the U.S. at all times, basically. Love all the free speech absolutists”

in the White House. And then finally, we have to talk about this ever-growing cheating scandal

that is turning the sport of ski jumping upside down. So the German newspaper built reported that ski jumpers were allegedly injecting their penises with hyaluronic acid to enlarge them. So this is how this scheme would work. ski jumpers were special suits. They're especially made based on the size of the individual athletes' body, including the crotch area. So those measurements are determined by a 3D body scanner

and they're taken in front of a doctor so that the total size of the suit matters, though, these even a small amount of additional fabric or material on the suit can create more drag and more lift and help you fly farther. So the theory goes, you inject your junk with this

acid, it's like lip filler basically. It swells up. You get fitted for a bigger suit with more

surface area. You go further. Now, this story is probably total bullshit. And the junk juicing would have to happen like months ago when the suits were made. So we can't like gut and test it now. But it is one of those stories that is too good to fact check. Then I have not had the Olympics on the last couple of days because I was on a plane for

“7 trillion hours and now I'm in a time zone. I can't understand but what events are you watching?”

First of all, I feel like this last segment is getting Edger and Edger with each passing week. One thing on the JDVans and then the Olympics, the... It is weird and important that we add an Olympics in Europe. We're kind of like the bad guys, you know. We're like like the Soviet Union used to be when they showed up at these places. You know like JDVans getting booed, our athletes poor athletes are having an answer for ice and actually most of them are saying

the right things. But that's like, you know, that's as an American, that should make you uncomfortable. You know, I mean, and the other time, I was on the the US delegation to the closing ceremonies at the London Olympics and you know, they were cheering for American athletes like, you know, there were cousins or something. You know, so that was still, you know, jarring. Yeah, I love the winter Olympics because I like, I watched, I found myself watching curling.

I love the little curling. And they tried to explain that to my kids. It was like an interesting journey. But I like the idea that there's still these subcultures of people around the world that do like one thing, obsessively agree. And then every four years, like you get to see their excellence at it. Box lead is the same way, right? It's like, it will the better athletes over the box lead. I mean, you're sprinting as fast as humanly possible and shelving a heavy S-led. But it's cool as hell.

It is. And you know, I watch the figure skating is on a lot of my asses. I didn't want to watch Lindsay von because I had a sense of foreboding about the ACL film freaking me out. But on the ski jump, junk scandal, the sides being physically uncomfortable thinking about it. I'm bad enough with like injections to begin with in my arm. I don't know what to do. I mean, it is interesting how performance enhancing drugs that used to just be like, you know, professional wrestlers,

juicin steroids, or you know, Mark McGuire, they seem to get like as the rules to capture them

become more aggressive. There's always some new frontier, you know, and then this may be the final

frontier, though. I can't think of one beyond this, to tell you. John Chusey, did you see? Usually the juice shrinks the junk. There was a Norwegian team that was caught at a tampering with their suits to fly farther. So there's there is some precedent here. I feel like we're all getting clicked baited, but it's just too fun not to talk about it. Or they're leaking this so that people think that they've got bigger junk. There you go. I mean, that's why, you know, that's why both of us

I can't say this guy's name. I'm not even in the track. Oh, the guy who made it is guilt? Yeah.

Yeah, this dude, Sterla Holm Lager, I don't know. It's one of those names where the two of the vowels are attached. So he won the bronze in the 20 kilometer by Athlon, then he used his post win interview to disclose that he cheated on his girlfriend and was our broken one together back. Here's the quote. I told her a week ago and it's been the worst week of my life. I had a gold metal in life and there's probably a lot of people out there who look at me differently now,

but I only have eyes for her. Sports has taken a bit of a backseat these past couple of days. Yeah, I wish I could share this with her. I'm not ready to give up. I hope the committing social suicide might show her how much I love her. Social suicide there. I think it's meaning like

bearing his soul on Norwegian TV. That's one way to give a speech.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's interesting. These athletes, this is like the one moment, you know, every, you know, maybe in their lives that they're going to have a camera pointed at them and have large audience. And some choose to like have political protests. And this is a different choice.

“But to me, that's what it reinforces. Like what do you say if you get one shot to make some”

announcement to the world? And I don't know. I'm curious if there's any follow-up on this story, because I don't know if you had, yeah, this is like the Will Smith slap of Olympic speeches. Also, dude, you won the fucking bronze. You know what I mean? You're stealing the shine of the girl. This woman must be so pissed. She's like, you're, you're air. Well, now, yeah, now you're

very, it's like the Reynolds pamphlet and Hamilton now. I sound like a total lib.

But you're just, you're just kind of humiliating this woman all over again in front of the world. I don't know. It seems like we're judgment. I will say, I love that at that. And when I, like the idea that you're going to ski and shoot things. And, you know, so that's the winner lib fix. That's what the kind of stuff I like. These kind of sports it make no sense. Is that one of the ones where you like, you cross country ski, isn't it? And then you're like,

“hard as exploding than you laid down. If like, she did it. I think that's what it is. I mean,”

I can be wrong, but I think that's what it is. Yeah. And I love that sport, because like, who invented that like some some fins fighting out the Russians or something. That's exactly right. Yeah, it's like two's up and fins battling like so be a troops and the trees and world world world world world world world. You know, you're like, you're against really good, you know, you're like, you're like, you're like, oh man. Yeah,

I love the Olympic two man. It is fun when you're like with a group, you know, the kind of like nationalism, the juices get flown, and you get a good USA, USA, chain going. It does just suck. Like, these poor athletes are being asked, they're up. They're doing press conferences because they have to. They're getting asked political questions. They're trying to offer like really measured responses. And then the president of the United States, fucking unloads on, it's a policy.

A tweet from Jake Pollard. Yeah. What are we doing? Yeah. What are we doing? Come on. I mean, she says. It's just like, everyone's just got to be mad about fewer things. Like, I'll vote for presidential candidate that promises to like not tweet about the half time show the Super Bowl to ban gender reveals, just like a cup of like just to shut up after like 8 p.m., you know, like no like white nationalist videos about the Obama's, where you like turn them into monkeys,

like how about that? That's like all I'm asking. Well, I had to tell you Tommy, like, I got me thinking about, I mean, I thought this before too, but we've got the Olympics here in LA in two years, and Trump is going to be the fucking president. Yep. And that thing is going to be a nightmare, 'cause he's going to be like, on his way out, mad king, you know, rosebud moment for citizen

“Kane, like, like, what should be a really exciting thing to have the Olympics coming to Los Angeles?”

I have like this foreboding about, you know? I do too. Yes, I mean, he's got the world cup, and then he has the Olympics. You know that like that asshole is going to like crash the podium when some American wins a gold medal and just like stand up there and like take it from them and assume that he actually won the 100 meter, whatever, like Marie and Machado, them. Go be in a war, like a Twitter war with the men's basketball team the entire time or something.

Yeah. We'll bomb Canada half a year. That's an uplifting close. Well, look, I love Olympics. Very fun talking with you from all the way over here. I will not be on the show next week because I don't even remember why I apologize. We're flying back that they are something, but Ben's got a great guest host lined up for you. Do you want to announce an hour? You guys holding that. Yeah, we're going to miss you, Tom. Maybe we've got a great guest host.

I'm in a royal dean who you know, I'm in just right unbelievably smart about the world, about the Middle East in particular. I'm sure we're going to be able to cover a lot of that ground. So we'll miss you, but I'm going to be here. I'll be in Munich this week for the

To the world, I'll be, I'll, I think I'm going to like, sub-stack through this

“Munich Security Conference here, you know, impression. I love it. I love it. I was actually”

at what's happening with a German lawmaker who is the one who is interviewing AOC at the Munich Security Forum. So she's all pumped and I'll be great. I'm glad you're doing that. By the way, she was, AOC some props. I don't know if you saw her like she, she, she's been

thrown hand-makers. So she stood up for the Cuban people. And if you saw her pointing out, she basically

pointed out the unbelievable humanitarian crisis that we are creating, you know, whatever you think of the Cuban government, why is it normal that we're just like starving people to death collectively punishing these people as part of this kind of regime change strategy? She took a massive whack at APEC after that New Jersey race. So I like this AOC moving into our space. She's usually been domestic. I like World OAOC. She's great. She's really smart. She's one of the best speakers

we got in the party. All right. Well, that's it for the news portion of the show. Thank you, guys, for listening. Thank you for enduring this time change. But stick around after the break. You're to hear Ben's interview. You look to Breezy about getting laid off from the Washington Post, like what that experience was like, what we're all missing out on, now that the Washington

“Post is, you know, no foreign news coverage. So very important conversation. Don't miss it.”

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I'm very pleased to welcome back to part 2 of the world in Best Dead Reporter and author Nilo to Breezy. She's also co-author of the book for the son after long nights. The story of Iran's women let uprising, which we've recommended before, but truly especially given what's going on around everybody should pick it up, but Nilo, it's so good to see you. Thanks for joining us. Yeah, great to see you. Okay, so let's just start with the big event in your life, which is

a you are part of the massive layouts of the Washington Post. Sorry, we're sorry for you for that. I'm sorry for the world for not getting the reporting of you and your colleagues. I mean, to just begin, I guess there was some sense something was coming. Were you still shocked by the that this happened to you at the scale of this kind of described the lead into that event? Yes, so while I was reporting on a story about a massacre in Rush in Iran,

that's when I started hearing about these big layoffs that were coming. This was, you know, two and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago. We heard they were coming. We started to hear rumors and we had heard at first that, you know, management went to the head of the international

of the foreign bureaus would be shut down. And we had heard that Peter Finn, who's the head of

“international, who's been a mentor to so many of the post that he said, I'd rather be laid off than”

be a part of this plan. And so that sort of trickle down and so we started to put the pieces together just with people talking in the newsroom. And we learned, you know, that sports likely was going to get cut. International was going to get cut. But everything that happened was so much more severe than any of us prepared for. I mean, I was on the investigations desk. This was not a desk that was supposed to be cut or any of the rumors that we were hearing. And we lost a good number of people

on my desk as well. So how does this happen? I mean, so there's just, just practically speaking, you're all called on to some Zoom and they announced these layoffs and then you're packing up

your desk. I mean, is it was it just a sense of the rug being pulled out from under you and how did

they how did the person who did this explain why they were doing this? Yes. So the run up to the lead off was really shocking. So I had my last story published in the newspaper on a Tuesday. It was about the buildup of vessels and aircraft in the Persian Gulf. So it was work in a really precarious time. We get an email that evening that everyone has to be on a Zoom at 830 in the morning, Wednesday morning. And we are told not to come into the building and that there's going to be

a significant restructuring and refocusing. And so all of these set off alarm bells early zoom, not being told to come into the building. And the way it was presented to us, it was a 30 minute zoom call where Matt Murray, our executive editor said that there had to be a significant reshuffling of the

“post. Still unclear, even when I think about that call, I don't really understand the vision”

or what they're trying to do. And then our HR rep came and we were told after this meeting,

you're going to get an email from us that will let you know if your position is eliminated or retained. And I was one of the more than 300 people that got an eliminated email. And this is, you know, layoffs, unfortunately, are part of our business, right? This has happened. I was laid off from vice 10 years ago. And it really pains me to say the way I was laid off from vice was so much more humane than what I just, when I experienced it the post, because at vice,

we were called in. It was also a mass layoff, our entire team was laid off. But I had the opportunity to, you know, look at who was laying me off and actually be able to speak and have a conversation. But we got these cold emails. And there's people that have been there for 27 plus years of service. There were also laid off in this subject-line email. So it was really, yeah, it was a, it has felt completely destabilizing and has been very ungrounding. And it's, I'm lucky, you know, I'm a U.S.

based employee. I'm a member of the post guild. So, you know, I have some type of protections and things like that. And then I have the safety of the guild. But I'm really concerned for people who don't. People who are international staff that are not U.S. based employees. Contractors, translators, drivers, all of this different local staff that supports a reporting. I mean, this is something that's being felt for so many people. And also, it's a horrible look in the

industry. You know, other companies can look at this and decide that they may want to follow suit. Well, what's the, yeah, I mean, give us a sense of the scale of what was lost in terms of foreign coverage. That's obviously what people come to this podcast for. You know, what is being lost with those bureaus, both in terms of the reporting and the ability to get stories and communicate what's actually happening in places around the world. And also, like you said, I imagine the

ripple effects are beyond the people laid off. It's the local fixtures and it's the, you know, local stringers that may be not show up on the balance sheet. But if the, if the foreign desk is gone, that's probably, you know, hundreds of other people that are gone too, right? Yes, we're still trying to understand that. Exactly how many people are affected. But this is a huge loss for our industry for people who read our paper. I mean, so many

“important policy makers read the Washington Post. And so I think the ripple effects will be,”

you know, will be fell all over. So they cut the entire Middle East team. And they cut they cut the Ukraine team. So we had two, we have reporters that were there. We had Francesca Bal, that was based in Russia. She was our Russia correspondent. She was also cut. I, like, like, names that for me were the byline defineders of the Washington Post sort of no longer there. Like, I had come to the Washington Post from New York Times because I loved the coverage

of the post. And I loved, you know, Louise, a love-lock, love-day Morris, Korean film, you know, like, I could go on people that have really inspired me. And we are all, you know, worse off, not being able to read this reporting. And even right now, I mean, the area that I specialize in covering Iran, it's a really confusing moment, right? This is a story that is really important. It's in flux, you know, even the last story that I did about Iran was our extremely high traffic

middle of what's going on there. And so for me, there's people that took the rest to speak with me for work that I have to hit pause on right now. And that's something really difficult to tend with. Yeah, actually, I want to ask you about that because, you know, yes, people might think this is terrible. There's just, there's already been a consolidation of a lot of farm bureaus, right? Like,

“the LA Times used to have them, you know, the Baltimore Sun used to have them, right?”

Now it's basically the New York Times has them in the Wall Street Journal. But to your point,

I read the Washington Post when I was in the White House, you know, it's like, like, I read an intelligence report, you know, like, it taught me something that was going on, or your book, which, you know, kind of grew out of, I'm sure reporting you're doing it the paper. One of the reasons people should read it, what's so extraordinary about is, like, you see these protests and Iran, but you don't really know what's going on there. Or even people, you know,

Iranian Americans, and maybe they can talk to their family, but you found literal journalists who would collaborate with you, take risks on the ground to get this story. And I read this, you're reporting in your book and I'm like, well, I understand this movement, the women

like freedom movement, you know, much, much better with much greater nuance and understanding

motivation than I would just kind of formulating an opinion based on what people have in X, you know, like, and so what do you think the textures of our ability at time when things are so complicated around the world, how much are we losing with these kinds of layoffs? I mean, I don't even think we'll be able to grasp that until the some real consequences come out from the fallout of this really, you know, short-sighted and and her effect decision. I mean, for example, if we just look

at Iran reporting, right, that's mostly what I was doing at Visual Forensics. My colleague, Yeghane, was the Iran bureau, was the, yeah, there are Iran correspondent based in Turkey. She too was laid off. So both of us were laid off during this incredibly pivotal moment of reporting, right? I mean, over 6,000 close to 7,000 confirmed deaths of protesters, Iran that were killed in this latest uprising. This number will continue to climb.

We're still trying to understand more about people who were killed, what the future of the Islamic Republic looks like. This is a really tenuous moment for Iran. And we don't have anyone there, right? We haven't had anyone based in the countries since my colleague Jason Rezion was unjustly imprisoned, and it was his tenure anniversary of being released from Ewing Prison. And so we've had to figure out creative ways to do journalism from

“afar and do important accountability based reports. So what that's looked like for me in the”

context of reporting on Iran over the past month has been verifying extremely grim visuals and being able to take in all of these videos we're seeing from my witnesses and actually put together a story or a piece of analysis or an investigation from that. And I'm really crushed that our audience is going to miss out on that. And as well, policy makers who are reading our paper and trying to understand more about what's going on, they don't have access to that anymore.

And there's just fewer and fewer places that do this really important work in foreign work on Iran and other countries like the pool is shrinking. And healthy competition is really great for reporters. There's a camaraderie among reporters and there's also a shoot I wish I could have gotten this story. And there's a really important dynamic that is there. And once you cut that all off and it's just one or two news organizations that are robustly covered in area, I mean everyone

loses and that's really, really disappointing. Yeah, I always felt like when I was in the White House

like the Times Post Journal competition was very useful because they they kind of push each other. Well, look, they elephant in the room here is Jeff Bezos and we don't know what's in Jeff Bezos's head. What we do know that it's indeniable is that whether, you know, some years the post was turning a revenue, some years it was losing money, but couch cushion money for Jeff Bezos. So what is that? I mean it's one thing, you would almost understand it more if it was like some

family run newspaper that you know, survived on the revenue and you could then tell yourself well these people like literally can't afford it. Jeff Bezos literally could afford to lose a billion dollars a year running newspaper. What is your, both your, what is that like to know that there's someone who could have kept these positions and chose not to and does anybody have any indication as to why that might be, you know, we clearly changed the opinion section to suit Trump,

but I don't know why I facilitate foreign coverage unless maybe maybe he doesn't want people to know what's going on in places like Iran. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I wish I had an answer.

“I mean, I think that's why I really important media reporting is crucial in this moment.”

I've been waiting to see, we have fantastic media reporters at the Washington Post and I'm

something that's really alarming. But I mean, yeah, you're right. It's poorly leadership.

It is really hard to know. It's just really hard to contend with the fact that someone who does own our paper could fund it, right? I mean, that's been brought up several times. But also the leadership that has been in place has just not been sufficient. You know, our, you know, will Lewis, who was our publisher, those recently, recently, left. I mean, he came to the newsroom once in the, in his tenure. He made one speech to the newsroom. And generally, many of us did have

feel that he was very engaged beyond that. Not exactly Marty Bern, you know, who? Yeah. No, I mean, and that's, you know, the culture of the, it's a, it's a really, really special place. Like, when I, it's the newsroom that everyone collaborates with each other. And even, like, there really isn't desk, desk on desk trying to out scoop each other. Everyone's working

“with each other. And that's a really defining feature of the post. And I think that this is”

really been harmed by this action. And if the, I'm trying to, again, read the tea leaves as much as you are, even though I was employed there, I'm trying to understand the strategy. Part of the strategy I'm hearing is, oh, we want to focus on national security. Well, your national security task is only as good as your foreign dust, right? Because it's collaborative and our foreign reporters

will report out storylines collaborate with, with the national security of dusk and do incredible

robust reporting. So I just feel like this was, yeah, it's, it's hard to make sense of this decision because it feels completely irrational. Well, I want to ask you about this and maybe this relates to what, I mean, I also want to ask you what you're, you know, maybe too early, but if you, if you have thought about what you're going to do, but what the point you're making is, it's so important. Now, I want to emphasize it. Sure, you, you keep the Washington reporters who are reporting

a national security. I either calling people like me in my old job or, you know, they're, you know, getting in the intelligence community. I'm not diminishing that. That's really important. But I used to sometimes, I could feel like, because I was there during the period of media

consolidation. And I used to find it was interesting that I would have Washington-based reporters

“calling me to ask me what was going on and Egypt, you know. And I think why don't you call”

someone to eat you? I haven't, I can tell you what we think is going on, but, but that is such a wrong way at looking at the world, right? I mean, if you only look at Iran, the country you've focused on from the perspective of Washington, it's about our interests, it's about our politics, it's about, you know, it's not about people in Iran or even the leadership of Iran, right? So, what do, what do the question I want to ask is, I'm sure you agree with the premises,

where is that kind of reporting going to go? Because increasingly, there are these kind of independent journalists who are like doing pretty extraordinary stuff online by themselves, but they don't have the infrastructure of a newsroom. There's the smaller giant or not smart. There's a smaller number of giant organizations like the Times at BBC. There's TikTok, you know, and just, you know, someone in Iran uploading a video that, you know, we can watch, I mean, how do you think we're going to

“get that non-washington story about the world? I think there are fewer and fewer places that we're”

going to get that from, right? Like, you set it yourself. I mean, the Times is reporting robustly and, like, looking at foreign stories, so it's the BBC, but that's kind of it now. And doing this type of work is really, like, it is a team effort, right? Because, you know, I'm verifying a video, I'm interviewing eyewitnesses, I'm writing the story. Well, every story that I've worked on has been made better by the people of part of it and by the editors who are part of it. And many

international editors who were also mentors were let go. And also, you know, you need, you need safety and infrastructure to do this work responsibly, right? You don't want to just send people into the middle of conflict zones without any training or any type of safety. I mean, that's really dangerous. So this, you know, unfortunately, just limits our access to information and makes it really dangerous for people who want to pursue this, you know, individually. And do you have any

sense of what's next, your next chapter is or is still digesting this, I'm sure. My Oprah is next chapter. I still, you know, the one right part of this is that people have been so incredibly kind, like people that I admire, companies that I love have reached out. I've been having great conversations with people. I'm also conscious of the fact that I've been going really full speed for the past year. So I do, you know, I do want to continue my investigative work,

I want to keep reporting on Iran. I still want to do open source work. There are fewer and fewer open source teams, too, to do this type of work. But yeah, I know I have some ideas, but nothing set yet. And last thing, I mean, since I have you, just what is your impression of what's happening in Iran? I mean, we know kind of the machinations here, but kind of building on a conversation, do you have any sense of the mood in Iran at this kind of ten-year point where the protests have kind

Yes. I mean, I can say confidently, you know, there's been a little bit more internet access

“the past few weeks, which is nice. So I've been able to communicate with sources more. I have”

never encountered people with such a cross-the-board, like just deep trauma that people are living in.

I've interviewed people on their worst days, but this is just awful. Everyone that I speak with, that I speak with just says, like, they can't even form thoughts. You know, one of my sources who's incredibly childish said, "Next time we talk, maybe I should come up with a list of things I need to talk with you about because my brain can't process or bring in information." Or another source of mindset, it was the first, no, a Tehran a few weeks ago, and you could still

see blood underneath the snow. Like, people are now living in this, just, yeah, just like completely unprocessed trauma of the massacres that they have witnessed and have happened to their friends and

loved ones. Everyone that I know, every source that I know, knows at least one or two people who've

“been killed. And that's just like, it's extremely difficult to process that. So, and everyone that I've”

talked to has extreme anxiety, they say, you know, we're waiting to be bombed at this point. Do you think it's going to happen or do you think it's not? And the other thing that's really difficult is this protest moment sparked out of a currency devaluation, right? But the shut-off of the internet and everything that happened in the last month, I mean, the job situation is even worse. It's not like the currency has leveled out. It's continuing. So, by the government just

shutting off the internet, well, a lot of people rely on the internet for their job and their

livelihood. And that door has been, you know, really shut to people. So, it's really, it's grim.

It's a population of people who are in deep trauma and grieving and feel increasingly stuck and are waiting to see whether or not they're going to be hit with air strikes. Well, those are the kind of stories we need to hear. Neil, where can people follow you in the meantime, or are you kind of going to be on the social media cleanse? No, you can follow me on acts at end to breezy. Okay. Well, look, I'm so sorry about what happened to you and your colleagues

on like a personal level, but also just kind of a reader level, you know, and my hope is that you will find a way to do the kind of reporting you're doing and the evolving iteration of a media that doesn't just become so inward-looking. But people want more. I really encourage people to pick up for the sun after long nights. You will meet extraordinary people. You will see a protest movement from the ground up. You will understand Iran better, much better by reading that book. It's really

kind of a classic, actually, of a different kind of reporting that I'd seen, which is you collaborating with people on the ground. So thanks for that, and thanks for joining us to talk about what I'm sure has been not so great a week for you. Awesome. Well, yeah, it's great to chat with you anytime. Thank you so much. Great. Thanks. Thanks, Neil, for doing the show. And I guess I won't see you next week. Save travels, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy, man. Well, I'm safe. I mean, you'll be safe in

Australia, and you'll be safe. Fun travels, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney. I had a great night out in Brisbane at the G20. Nice. Kind of one of these epic Cody Keenan nights. Oh, yeah. I saw the sun rise my friend. Awesome. All right, guys. It's sexy. Potitive world is a crooked media production. Our senior producer is Elona Minkowski. Our producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our associate producer is Enisha Bonnergy. We get production support from Saul Rubin. Our

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