Can Germany’s Far Right Be Stopped?

Remi Night Guards are the only FDA cleared and clinically tested at-home impression kit night guards on the market. Not only do they help prevent teeth damage from grinding, but they also help reduce jaw tension and facial muscle strain and improve your sleep quality.

You get the same professional quality and comfort as a night guard from the dentist for 80% less of the cost by taking your own impression at home from the convenience of your home.

Remi saves your impression so you can enjoy the convenience and savings of Remi Club where they ship you a new set of night guards every six months. So here's how it works. After you buy the impression kit, it comes straight to your door and you follow their step-by-step instructions to get your perfect molding, then you send it back so Remi can craft and ship your custom fit night guard and you can start protecting your teeth.

“Remi customer for many, many years now, way before they were a sponsor on this podcast. I was waking up in the morning with soreness and tension in my jaw and I think I've been grinding my teeth.”

And so I found Remi, I got a night guard and I've been getting a new one via their club every six months and it's great. It helps me sleep. I literally just don't sleep without it.

I highly recommend Remi, prioritize your teeth this month with Remi by using the Code PSTW to get 50% off your new night guard with Remi Club that's 50% off at shopremi.com/psttw with Code PSTW. Thank you Remi for sponsoring this episode. There are around 130 of us. We're on the right track. The biggest advantage of Shoppy-Fi for me is that we don't need any technical needs for the company. We can all go back to the front end and start the show and so on.

And so we're going to go to the online shop. If you buy Shoppy-Fi, then you'll get the platform for the actual show. You just see the basic thing. Our whole business is over Shoppy-Fi.

Now let's go to Shoppy-Fi.com. I'm Ben Rood. Ben, you are wise to escape Los Angeles. We don't have to disclose where you are. Ben's over season at the moment. You can disclose if you want.

“But it's literally like a rain forest here right now. It's going to be 100 degrees on Wednesday and the dew point is basically where it is in a rain forest. That's how miserable humid it is in Los Angeles.”

When I left, it was pouring like it was a tropical climate too. You had pouring rain and like scorching heat. There's no climate change or anything. That's not normal Los Angeles. I don't remember El Niño sucking this bad. Is it always a huge nightmare? Apparently. Well, this is supposed to be the mega El Niño, right? This is supposed to be worse than all the other ones. So buckle up. It's not as fun as it is. You move at L.A. in New York and I'm like, I've missed New York and I've just like, oh, but the weather will be great. Now we can say that. Here we are. Well, Boohoo L.A. us, our first world problems. We got some additional problems for the part of the first world that we're going to talk through today.

“Starting with some regional elections in Germany that have rocked Europe. Frankly, rocked a lot more places than Europe. We're also going to talk about the Trump emissaries, Steve Woodcoff and Jared Kushner, their trip to Russia and Ukraine.”

I will talk about the scary resurgence of ultra-nationalist fervor and celebration of genocide in Serbia. Some major news updates from Israel, including a policy change by the UK. I'll talk with the latest in the war with Iran and then finally another massive corruption scandal swirling around far right British MP Nigel Farage. Lots of UK focused stuff then. Then used it or interviewed them. What are we talking about there? So yeah, I talked to Lawrence, right? He's really one of my favorite writers and he wrote the looming tower, which is kind of the definitive book that was about the lead into 9/11.

The failures of the US government and Al Qaeda and its intentions. So we talked about and he's written a new introduction for that book, by the way. So people want to check it out they should. We talk about essentially how to make sense of the failures. There's no other way to put it up to the last 25 years. How do the US get it so wrong? Some of his concerns that actually given all the destruction of the US government and the direction of intelligence agencies to focus on weird Trump priorities, we actually might be complacent. We might be kind of going through the cycle again where we're letting our guard down.

And then really interesting conversations about how do we learn how do we see the world and understand it better so that we don't make the kinds of mistakes we made after 9/11.

Some of the unanswered questions about the 9/11 attacks, including the potential Saudi involvement that has always been something that bugged Lawrence Wright as well as other people.

“And just kind of how 9/11 changed his life and changed the country. So it's a good reflective conversation. I think that as we head up to this anniversary.”

And it's worth checking out. Absolutely, looming tower is truly one of the best books. Also, I think I think it's one of the things that he would always quizzes you on if you go on a show. So make sure you read that before you go on that podcast. All right, then let's start with the weekend's elections in Germany, which were historic for all the wrong reasons, all the worst reasons really. Turned it for Germany, part of the AFD 143.8% of Sunday's vote in the Saxony on halt regional elections. So the AFD now holds 39 of that state's 83 regional assembly seat, which is not a full majority, but it's same close.

In the past, other German political parties have refused to go into coalition with the AFD to keep them out of government, not prevent them from governing.

So called firewall policy, that may happen again here, but the AFD is going to try to convince three members of the conservative CDU party to defect CDU is Angela Merkel's party now Friedrich Merz is party. Or they may go into coalition with this kind of fringe leftist party called the BSW, which share some of the AFD's views on immigration, Russia and the war in Ukraine, despite having communist origins, it's the classic horseshoe.

“If the AFD forms a coalition, it will be the first time a right-wing party held power in Germany since World War II, and we all remember how well that went.”

A little context before people get too freaked out about all this, we are talking about a regional election, Saxony on halt is a small eastern state of about 2 million people.

It has been an economic and population decline for a while since German reunification. It's more conservative and kind of AFD curious than the rest of the country as a whole, also even if the AFD does take power, these regional governments have limited authority. They be able to control education, school curriculum, policing, some elements of migration policy, which is bad, but it's not like being the chancellor, the chancellor being AFD. However, it's still a really big deal and quite bad. The AFD for those who don't know, it's an extreme right-wing political party.

They talk openly about the remigration of immigrants, they want to segregate disabled kids and refugees into separate classrooms. They want to downplay Germany's Nazi past, they have closed ties with Putin's Russia and want to end support for Ukraine. Saxony and halt is a regional, they have a regional intelligence service and there's a lot of fear now that Russia could use AFD politicians with access to that intelligence to penetrate the German spy services and figure out who might be spying for Germany.

The list of concerns goes on and on and on. The AFD has been steadily gaining in the polls nationally, they did well in this election for a couple reasons, a bunch of region. Ukraine in the Saxony and halt region, there is a feeling that the state has been left behind compared to Western Germany, and there's major regional industries like the chemical industry of really struggled recently. The AFD did especially well with male voters, voters aged 35 to 59, and they turned out an estimated 170,000 previous non-voters, turnout was 78% which is massive.

So Ben Noble here that the AFD has improved across the board and that Germans have seemingly gone from treating a vote for the AFD is kind of a solely a protest vote against the establishment to now wanting them to actually govern. The CDU of Merch's party Chancellor Merch's party got routed, he said he was shocked, which is he shouldn't have been everyone saw this coming. And that's the next, the election would have consequences, we don't know if those will be, but he said he will not resign. But the next test for the AFD will be in the Necklenburg Fropoman regional elections on September 20th. So we could see another story like this pretty soon. Ben thoughts on these elections and kind of the rise of the AFD generally so far.

“Well, it's not great, you never like to see the far-right sending in Germany. And I think there are a couple of reasons that I'd underscore about why to be concerned.”

Number one, the AFD is a really a far-right party. I think sometimes people have grown accustomed to say Georgie Muloney, which you got elected to be Prime Minister of Italy, she's been pretty far-right but not like an extreme figure in any sense beyond some of her kind of hard-line immigration policies.

They have moderated. Yeah, they exactly, they've not moderated. If you look underneath the hood, like these guys, they're not trying to kind of smooth off the rough edges.

“They're still hanging out with the Holocaust deniers and the kind of neo-Nazi elements and that's why they were designated as an extreme organization by German intelligence services.”

So let's be clear, like this is not just kind of like a right wing party that we call far-right. This is a far-right party. The other prop, so that's bad, that doesn't mean that everybody who voted for them is a far-right person. And that, that leads to a second point, the fire wall that keeps them out of governance, government, right, they can't be in coalition with other governments in the German system is helping them. Because what keeps happening is all the parties get together, they keep the AFD out and then those parties get blamed for the fact that, you know, the prices are high and, you know, the government doesn't seem responsive.

Frankly, those coalitions are not ideologically coherent. Like, you know, merch is governing with the social democrats in the same way that Olaf Scholz had to govern with the Christian democrats to center right. And so, you're kind of stuck in this doom spiral, where the AFD may be kept out of governance, but then that kind of gives in this outsider status, this anti-establishment status, and everybody else is the establishment, you know. And so that combination of their extremism and this kind of strange situation where the fire wall, which I think is, you know, just necessary, it makes good sense and it puts a journey with their history is kind of collaborating to normalize extremism.

Now, I do think that the message to politicians has to be like pretty fundamental change in how you're governing and how you're communicating.

You can't just govern by saying the AFD is really bad. Like, like, we've been through this in the United States, like the democrats tried to, you know, Trump is really bad. And like, look what we got.

“And I think it's time to really question, you know, how can you demonstrate to voters, sure, maybe you're not going to win over the most extreme anti-immigrant people.”

But, but how can you demonstrate that, like, you know, Merch is really prioritized foreign policy. He's really prioritized kind of like defense spending and countering Russia, which is again, that's good, but like, maybe it's time to kind of put that a bit like on the back burner and actually focus on some of these bread and butter issues. I mean, a little bit, I mean, honestly, like, not in the AFD, not the AFD version of Germany first, that's the scary version, but I do think that we've seen center left pro, I mean, I am shameless plug out of a piece in the New York Times today about the, my beat for the democratic party in this regard, we had this trend of center left parties, or in Germany's case with Merch Center right parties, sometimes kind of becoming these defenders of the establishment and the defenders of the norms.

And you've got to shake yourself out of that and figure out a way to speak to populism, you know, and if you don't, I just worry that you're going to be in the situation where like each election, the AFD is making these incremental gains, and at some point, like, maybe not the national level, but certainly the state level, they're going to start winning majority. To your point, I mean, there's a few things, first there's like a communications problem, which is the AFD is starting to run much more kind of a young dynamic kind of internet literate candidates that are doing well and able to sort of sand off the scary edges of the AFD and present a more exciting version of politics that is enticing people obviously.

Merch is your classic German politician, he's kind of like, he's a big hit at security summits, but he's kind of old. He looks like a technocrat for health. Yeah, to your point about the economic stuff, it does seem like he's doing things designed to further piss off working class. They're pushing, they're talking about raising the retirement age, they're talking about raising the minimum age at which you can retire, they're talking about some sort of tax and health insurance reforms. And meanwhile, like Merch says you said is rearming the country and really committed to Ukraine.

“And people don't like that, and they're sick of the way, the Russian invasion is harmed their economy, and then Trump goes and invades, you know, sort of bombing Iran and that piles on top of the economy. So we're making it worse.”

The flip side of that, though, in text me on hold, 7.9% of the regional population is immigrants, that is compared to 14.9% nationally. So it's a way lower, percentage of the population is actually a migrant. But immigration is still the top concern. And so it's like tempting to be one of the parties that comes in like, you know, Bernie and it's like, well, this is clearly just the working class is getting screwed and to talk about big social services that you're going to provide them, etc.

And they were other leftist parties that were offering them a much bigger social safety net or welfare state and they rejected that in favor of the AFD. So it's like, I think there will be people that try to approach this from like kind of the, you know, the classic lens of like, you know, you got a fight populism with populism, but there is this reality that there's just a lot of people in Germany that are ripshit pissed about immigration. A lot of it goes back to Angela Merkel's decision to allow in lots of Syrian immigrants and what year was that 2015, I think. And you know, we don't either really litigate that, but it's just like clearly that as a very long tail that is help the AFD go from this kind of like just Euro skeptic party to something a lot scarier and a lot more than a phobic that is really helping get ideas like remigration, which is like, you know,

expelling people from the country, you basically nasty potato bunch of different ways to the for. Yeah, look, I mean clearly Germany, like other countries like the United States, there's a feeling that you want to make sure that the borders are secure, it's a little more complicated and you obviously. I do think though that as in the United States, I hear you, and like, maybe the answer is not necessarily economic populism, but it is like the manner in which you do politics, because I think what happens is the immigration concerns get married to this concern that there's just this clobby establishment that is completely out of touch is and is just kind of just not focused on what I care about, you know,

and if there have to be ways, and some of it is communications, but some of it is policy and some of it is like how you show up, some of it is how you acknowledge like what you did wrong, you know, like sometimes you can deal with some of the past mistakes by by speaking more candidly about them, I will say on this Ukraine thing. This is the problem and you know, Trump berating them to spend 5% on defense and now they're rearming and like I'm all for like NATO country spending a little more defense and and obviously for them providing some budgetary and other support to Ukraine, but like I think maybe like not, maybe that's moving too fast, you know, like people, you're going to undermine NATO, you're going to undermine Ukraine, if people are so pissed that it seems like that's all you're doing.

It seems like all you're focused on is that because in that kind of ties into this sense, it's just like the United States, like you don't care about us, you care about these immigrants and you care about Ukraine and you care about NATO and you're doing five year defense plans and and I'm just not happy with the circumstance, right? So there's, you know, I don't claim to have the exact formula, but man, if you look at both salts and marts, they did not seem like the kind of politicians that were like in touch with like what is on the minds of like a working class person, like Saxony, you know, and so you have to get at least part of the way there to just take some of that support.

“The only other thing I want to throw into this mixed time is that, you know, shit, I mean, we've alluded many times to the kind of weaponization of debates about anti-Semitism.”

I'm about anything anybody says about Israel, JD dance, like flew to Europe, this is a thing that happened, he flew to Munich, the place where Hitler had the beer hall pitch and gave a speech to German saying they had to accept the AFD and then met with the AFD and then Elon Musk endorsed the AFD, like if you want to talk about any semitism, let's talk about the fact that like the administration of the United States has been supportive of like far right German political movements, you know.

Like that should be a bigger topic of discussion than, you know, what the latest thing online is that somebody didn't like that somebody said, you know.

Great, and also like the AFD is a totally incoherent organization, if you look into it, like Alice Vital, one of their national leaders is a lesbian in a party that is currently anti-LGBT, she is married to a Sri Lankan woman, they have adopted kids, again, they're like super opposed to migration and they're very opposed to gay couples adopting kids.

“She also seems to spend most of her time in Switzerland, like, this is the person that's beating the entire establishment in Germany, like, how are you losing so badly to these people?”

And that's the part of the point is some of this is you just gotta do politics better, I mean, because in some ways they don't treat the AFD like a genuine political party, which means that they're kind of not like, maybe just you have to kind of start going after these people, not just by saying they're far right and they're crazy. But by some things you just said, like these people are hypocrites, these people are disorganized, these people could never govern, you know, they can capture grievance, not like actually solve your problem, so there's a lot of work to be done here.

Again, so different flags since we're a terrible election outcome, we got another one coming up that we're watching on September 20th. The next national election wouldn't be until 2029. The federal election, but you know, the merch is political standing is not great right now, so pretty unnerving to see this kind of. You know, lack of stability in Germany of all places, you know, it's drift right word at a time when Trump is pushing them to rearm while also undercutting. It's great time. Maybe they'll be rearm just in time for the AFD to win the election.

“Yeah, perfect. Wonderful. That's what we want.”

Positive world is brought to you by Monarch growing up talking about money always felt taboo, so it's no surprise that navigating it as an adult still feels tough. That's where Monarch comes in.

The personal finance app built to track your entire financial picture from accounts and investments to savings goals and daily spending. It takes the heavy lifting and of tracking your money giving you the real-time clarity you need to reach your goals. Without a clear view, silent expenses can drain your savings fast. Monarch keeps you ahead of the game with AI recaps that catch unusual spending spikes before they turn into real problems. Most apps only tell you what you already spent. Monarch helps set goals, map out big purchases and see if you're actually on track before it's too late to adjust. You can ask Monarch's AI assistant anything about your finances like how much did I spend on travel last summer or can I afford this vacation without touching my savings.

It helps you spot things you wouldn't think to look for as you're spending on up or is it just inflation. Going out to dinner with friends, Monarch's bill split tool takes the headache out of splitting a group tab. Just snap a photo of the receipt, tag who got what and settle up seamlessly.

Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code podcast at monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch core half off it just $50.

That's 50% off your first year at Monarch.com with code podcast.

“Ponce of the world is brought to you by simply safe when your home is under threat you need more than a recording of a break in. You need to prevent it simply safe stops break in before they start.”

When a burglar steps onto your property, AI powered cameras alert live US based agents who take actions to deter them and call for police dispatch. Unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after a break in is already underway, simply safe is designed to help prevent the crime before it starts. Simply safe agents assess the threat, they intervene, they speak through the camera to scare off intruders and they call 911 dispatch. Our CEO Lucinda recently installed a simply safe system. She loves it. She said the system was installed in just a couple of hours.

All the components were up and running and running seamlessly in no time. It could help keep track of the people that are coming and going in the house. There is remote unlock capabilities for visitors or family if you're not in the home or just out and about.

“It allows direct check-ins with family or friends as they arrive alongside occasional visits from you know squirrels and other nesting birds.”

But she's really excited about it. It works great and highly recommend it. Right now you can get 50% off a new simply safe system. Go to simply safe dot com slash cricket world that simply saved dot com slash cricket world for 50% off. And when you order, please write in pot save the world and how did you hear about us survey to let them know we sent you. Don't forget, there's no safe like simply safe. [Music]

Okay. Also over the weekend, Trump's two failed peace on boys, Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and then seabed off his old golf buddy. Hit the road. They went to Russia and then also to Ukraine. So in Moscow, the two idiots met with Vladimir Putin. Wittkov said later, Ben, that he's made about eight visits in Moscow to meet with Putin and his team and that Jared is made three. I'm wondering, the about qualifier kind of confused me there. I wonder if there's a ninth one we don't know about and I'd visit.

But as we've discussed in the past, you know, a lot of those Wittkov meetings were one on one with Putin. Often there was like no no taker, no state department, Russia experts were allowed in sometimes he relied on the Russian translator to translate for him too. One time Putin gave Wittkov like a painting, which he said he found really moving in emotional.

So like the whole thing is just weird mess. This was their first visit Wittkov and Kushner to Ukraine, which is strange.

Here's a couple clips of the Wittkov Kushner Zelensky press conference from Keith. Hello, hello everybody. Just wanted to disagree with one thing that President Zelensky said I didn't like the train. I loved the train, President Zelensky had a wonderful time on it. It reminded me of my days taking the train to see my grandmother down to Florida. And it was great. Me and Jared had a great time. President Trump comes from the business world, which in the business world you think about things in the context of win-win.

War is negative some, you know, everyone loses from war, whereas you know, business and peace is positive some, and hopefully you can find big benefits from that in a big way.

“It's just shockingly stupid commentary all around.”

Wittkov, what cops said he was quote very encouraged by the meetings. Jared said he quote learned a lot from the trip, glad to hear it. What Jared should have learned is that things are getting worse and worse and worse through Ukraine. And I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying.

I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying.

I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying.

I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying.

I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying.

I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I'm going to explain to you what you're saying. I don't know, keep these channels open. I guess I am. I'm pro diplomacy in general.

I don't know what's coming of it. It's hard to decouple. I had to just a word on Jared and what cuff. Because there was a comment that what cuff made before the meeting with Putin. It was in like a pool spray.

“I think where he's like, oh, you know, you told Putin that he was just talking”

to the guys outside and saying this and all these great memories. He's getting us job. We were tired of telling these amazing stories and you'll be there. Yeah, we've got this this Florida real estate developer guy who knows nothing about diplomacy. Who's living fantasy camp, like all these Trump people who are living fighting.

You get I'm so glad you had a nice train ride and remind him of going to grandma and, you know, the Ukrainians gave him a good meal and he's fluttered to be in the same room as Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, Jared sounds like a guy who's like taping an audition tape for like a McKinsey job. Like an internship or something like this is how we do business. Like these guys are just like so completely out of their depth.

You know, they're talking to Vladimir Putin who's been like on the world stage for over a quarter century, right? Like you really think those guys can be able to like move Putin on issues. And then they're going to Ukraine, a country that is rapidly running out of business sectors in part because these guys like help start a dumb-worn Iran.

So it's just something like the nauseating that's seen in there. But yes, the problem is we really desperately do need some aggressive diplomatic effort

to try to bring this war to an end or at least to get it to some kind of ceasefire. Because otherwise you're going to have a situation where the Russians are going to escalate in the winter. They're going to bombard Kiev. They're going to try to break them once again in this time. They may have more success because of the low amount of interceptors and just the wear and terror on Ukrainian society. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians will probably respond with like ever more aggressive attacks into Russia.

And ever more targets like pushing the envelope there, which then raises the stakes of the potential escalation in Europe. Like this thing is not moving the right direction.

“I think part of what needs to happen is you need other countries like more aggressively mediating here.”

Like I'm not sure that the United States is up to this. Obviously, United States should be brought in. Maybe we can find some actual diplomats at the state department to just sit in with the Europeans and the Turks and the cutaries and whoever else Fuck can get in there. But I think we need to take this. This should not be a Jared and Wittkov. Like bilateral channel with the Russians bringing in the Ukrainians. They need to multi-lateralize this a little bit more than is the case now.

Yeah, I'd be looking to see if they called their train apparently this time on it. It's a piece express on the train Wittkov and they're driving on the peace train. Yeah, it's totally absurd. To your point, I mean, the Zelensky meeting was about three hours. There was another set of talks that included National Security Adviser from the UK France and Germany.

That's, I think that's good in necessary. But yeah, Trump's policy is basically we're cutting off Ukraine.

We're not going to give them more military support. You're a pest to do it. So therefore, I feel like Europe should have a much bigger role. They should be in the arms, yeah. In the Putin meeting was three hours. Yuri Ushakov, a Putin aid, said it was constructive and useful.

But also that included a potential joint economic ventures between the US and Russia. You know, that's the part that the Wittkov and Jared liked because you know, salivating at that. Putin's been dangling, you know, the sovereign wealth fund guy from Russia in front of their faces for ever long and, you know, possible future deals. And they know they have a couple corrupt marks there. And I don't know if you watched the press conference, Ben Richard and goes there from NBC News.

He was like, he was, why should people have any confidence in your capacity to succeed here?

The Russia Ukraine war is getting more intense and Jared's like, oh, boo, boo, boo. And he said something about how like Gaza was built by NGOs and terrorists and has been a dystopian place for a long time,

which is a nice way to talk about a couple million people, most of whom.

We're just also not treated, I mean, we're started, yeah. But I don't know, like, it was pretty demoralizing the whole thing because you, like, Ukraine has certainly had some momentum. They're kind of deep-strike drone campaign has been effective at, you know, increasing the cost on Russia, but it just doesn't feel like we're any closer to the end of this war.

“And again, honestly, I truly believe that like if you had a normal American administration,”

Republican or Democrat, like this, this, this is a net diplomacy. Like, like, there should be a way to facilitate some kind of multi-lateral track that is trying to bring ceasefires and play. It's trying to put the issues on the table. Like, they've been at this for almost two years.

And they're nowhere further along than they were on day one when Trump said he was in the South of the war, you know? So I really do think that like, maybe the grain shortages, like last time that brought in more multi-lateral frameworks, as a whole world cares about that, I just don't have any confidence in these guys, but I do believe in the diplomacy of it all. And I think you gotta get other countries in the table. And hopefully again, like, just keep Jordan Brickoff in the Middle East, not that they're solving that problem.

Like, just get some other people from the US government that are normies to please do this. I'm not holding my breath. I think it's fair to criticize the Biden team for not having more of a diplomatic track to end the war, but now we're a couple of years into this failed diplomatic effort.

“And the only thing that Trump administration does not try is putting more pressure on the Russians.”

So yeah, I'd like to see the internationalized this and try that. Let's turn to Serbia, Ben, where there has recently been a disturbing celebration of the country's bloody history in genocidal past. So last month, Rekko Malatitch, a war criminal known as the Butcher of Bosnia, died in prison at the Hague where he'd been serving out a prison sentence for genocide. One might think that that would be kind of a solemn if not embarrassing moment for the country of Serbia.

But instead, it's been the opposite. Blatitch's body was returned to Serbia last week.

He has basically been treated like a national hero ever since or like a head of state.

His coffin was flown on the government jet. It was carried off the plane by soldiers. Thousands of people came out to honor him. His casket featured parts of his uniform in medals that he wore when he was conducting the genocide itself. The Guardian reported that the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church said,

"We know that his name will remain deeply etched in the memory and prayers of the majority of our Serbian Orthodox people who feel and nurture a deep sense of gratitude towards him." And then on Sunday night at a soccer match in Belgrade, the Red Star Belgrade fans held up a photo of Blatitch. They observed the moment of silence and they were chanting his name during the match.

Let's watch a clip of that. Maybe a little bit. Pretty disturbing stuff. So, let's talk about why this is shocking but not surprising.

“It's shocking because Blatitch was one of the key architects of the ethnic lending policy during the Bosnia War, the killed over 100,000 people.”

He was found guilty of genocide for the Strebrenica massacre in 1995, in which 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were murdered. It's considered the worst massacre since World War II in Europe. And he was behind the siege of Seriavo and all these other horrific war crimes. But it is not surprising because, you know, look, the current Serbian president Alexander Vuchich is a far-right nationalist, who is himself made genocidal comments in the past, like quote, "For every Serb killed, we will kill 100 Muslims."

So obviously he thinks this kind of ultra-nationalist fervor is good politics for him and his party. So Ben, let's just pause there. Like the combination of the AFD winning, the German elections, Russia escalating the war in Ukraine, these images from Serbia. They're pretty scary if you're worried about kind of nationalism and far-right politics in Europe. Yeah, it makes you worry about Europe and a number of things going on.

One is at Vuchich, the leader of Serbia, is one of these far-right guys, is an ultra-nationalist. You look at that picture, it looks like North Korea, the uniformity in the stadium. I mean, nothing like having a war criminal for a moment of silence for watching the soccer game. Okay, you get the ear, your son will be holding up his scarf, like what are we doing here, is the psychoship.

And this is the thing, first of all, this wasn't a close call with this guy.

This is the guy literally carrying out the massacres. Everybody denies this happening, they're mass graves. We know those things happened, right? Sure, there's clearly resentment inside of Serbia, they feel some a single doubt, but that's why you need responsible political leadership to kind of keep a lid on this stuff.

The head of the Serbia and Orthodox Church, that's going to have consequences. Serbia wants to be on the pathway to the European Union, like that's not happening any time soon. Like the EU's not going to let in, and you saw these statements from EU leaders. That is not exactly suggesting you're moving the direction of integration with Europe. Yeah, I look at the review part of that.

So the EU statement said, "Any glorification of war criminals genocide denial and revisionism contradict the most fundamental European values in that no place in the EU or in EU candidate countries." And then the EU enlargement commissioner canceled her visit to Belgrade this week. So yeah, this should, I mean, this will likely be a serious robelock to Serbia getting its EU anytime soon. Yeah, and look, it is entirely tied to a lot of things happening in the world.

Like it's tied to the rise of the far right around the world and in Europe. It's tied to the rise of nationalism. But also, let's just talk about the fact that again, he died in the Hague. He was convicted of war crimes. The United States is currently sanctioning the ICC at the Hague for trying to prosecute people for war crimes.

Israel has acted with complete impunity in its conduct of war crimes in Gaza. Well, I'm reputed and is acted with completely impunity with his conduct of war crimes in Ukraine. It felt like a throwback hearing about everybody talking about international law and genocide and war crimes and the Hague. As if they were things that everybody agreed on because they don't.

“And if you want to know why it's dangerous to sanction the ICC and to look the other way when Israel commits war crimes with American weapons,”

it's because you're cracking up in the door to things like this. Because the people in Serbia are probably thinking, well, this is all double standard. This is all bullshit. They only singled us out. The only way that you really make a norm fortified against war crimes is by applying it to everybody. And the moment you start to say, well, it's only for some people.

Well, then you open the door to this kind of behavior.

Because I'm sure what's on the minds of some of those people is way to second.

Like how come us, because we're a small country, Serbia, we get single that. Our leaders end up dying in the Hague, but not Netanyahu, not Putin, right? And so again, it speaks to the need to strengthen international justice international law across the board. And this should be a project for hopefully not going to be a next democratic president. Yeah, I look.

Yeah, look, Vuchich has been a power for the nine years now. He started as an ultra-nationalist, based on more of sort of in the populist vein these days, but that DNA is still there. His, like, he can't run again for a third term, but he's trying to run for, he's nominated to be Prime Minister. The next election was supposed to be in December, 2027. He used this moment to call for a snap election. And this comes after years of massive protests against corruption.

Like authoritarian leaders like Vuchich are seeing ultra-nationalist genocidal political moments like this as their way of, you know, suppressing the will of the people in clinging to power. It is really bleak, scary, scary stuff. Yeah, this is a big story. I mean, because again, it shows you, we talked to Larry Wright about 20 years since 9/11, like the, I don't know, 30 whatever years since the '90s.

“It shows you how far we've kind of fallen in a way, right?”

Because in the way that the system worked, this was the case of the system working. There was a humanitarian intervention. It was a diplomatically broker to agreement to end that war. Then there was international justice against people carried out war crimes. And now here we are in the world of 2026, and we're celebrating the war criminal, right?

And that is a bit of a snapshot of how the international system is unraveled.

Before we take a break, I just have a quick, with big announcement for you. The first episode of our brand new series is coming out this evening, still counting.

Hosted by our friends, Nate Silver, Galen Druch and Claire Malone is up. It's live. You might remember the excellent data journalist behind 538, and with the midterm, just a few months away. We thought it was time to get them back on the air. Every Wednesday evening, Nate, Claire and Galen will dig into the latest in politics and polling. To break down what's happening, why and what we can recently infer about what might happen next.

They'll cover everything from elections to betting markets to AI with rigorous analysis and hot takes, but no spin or false sense of certainty. Subscribe to still counting wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. Potset of the world is brought to you by Quow. Think about the last time you call the business and nobody picked up. What did you do? You called the next one.

If you run a small business, your customers do the exact same thing.

“We've all been there. You need to garage door repaired, or AC is on the fritz.”

You need someone's stat. You can't just sit around and wait for a call back. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quow, spelled QU-O.

The business phone system built so your business never misses a call.

Trusted by over 90,000 businesses who rely on it to stay reachable and look professional every day.

“With a Quow system, all your calls, texts, and voicemails live in one place.”

So anyone on your team can pick up a conversation, see the full history and respond fast. Set up in minutes on any device. Keep your existing number and add teammates as you grow. No IT, no hassle. Quow seamlessly connects with the tools your team already uses. Like HubSpot, Zapier, Claude, and more.

See your team spends less time switching apps and chasing down information.

Money is online, always say hello with Quow.

Try Quow for free plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quow.com/World. That's QU-O.com/World. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Mental health is top of mind for a lot of us these days and for good reason. If there's a persistent problem preventing you from reaching your goals or just living your life,

Therapy can be extremely impactful. Better help therapists have at least 3 years and 1,000 hours of hands-on experience. They also hold all required education, training, and certifications across a range of mental health specialties. Better help makes it easy to get started, answer a few questions, get matched with a therapist based on your needs, and switch therapists anytime if it's not the right fit.

Better is a feeling to find by you. And for Better Help, it's a better help therapist who really gets you. It's a focus on global emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries. It's progress. Look, it's a crazy world out there. There's a lot going on.

The International Politics is scary, domestic politics is terrible. Everyone's dealing with their own stuff, their own life. Whether it's family, friends, relationships, stuff at work, you will benefit from talking with somebody. You will benefit from seeing a therapist. Give it a shot, sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/cricketworld.

That's better.heelp.com/cricketworld. Two updates that come from Israel. So the first actually is out of the UK in Andy Burnham's new government, where the new foreign secretary Ed Miliband announced a major shift in the government's policy towards the occupied West Bank and a speech Tuesday, but let's listen to some of that. The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists.

And all too often, the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this, and worse members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians.

“Now Madam Deputy Speaker, I recognise the gravity of saying this, but the truth is the least the people who face the least, the people who face such suffering deserve.”

And it should be the prelude to justice. Now for a long time, the British government has rightly said settlements are illegal. But we have remained silent on the question of the legality of the occupation as a whole, which in 2024 the international court of justice concluded was unlawful. Today I announce that the official view of the British government is that the occupation is unlawful. The government believes the unlawfulness of the occupation should be reflected in the economic relationships we choose to have with the occupied territories.

So what this means in practice is basically, there's a quote, "Import ban on goods from illegal settlements and the occupied territories"

Section against specific companies and individuals who provide services such as construction, infrastructure financing, or real estate for settlement expansion. I'm reading quotes from him. They also said they'll refuse all license applications for arms and other exports that materially contribute to the occupation, ban the advertising in the UK of illegal settlements. There's going to be some sanctions on extremist settlers, some sanctions on Hezbollah's finance arm.

Millibamm reaffirmed that he opposes BDS and supports trade with Israel. This is just about products coming out of the occupied territories.

“The whole speech is quite interesting. I think it's worth watching.”

It was framed as an attempt to, quote, salvage the two-state solution. And then UK quickly had some folks following their lead here. So the France and Canada said they'd be joining the import ban about a dozen countries, released the letter, explaining their intent to, you know, surpassed laws to follow suit. In practice like this, the ban of these goods from the occupied territories will be very small economically.

I think we're talking about like tens of millions of dollars out of over six billion dollars worth of trade in 2025.

But it's a big deal, symbolically, which you can tell from Israel's reaction, which was quite strong. They are closing the UK's consulate in East Jerusalem. They're banning a bunch of British politicians from entering Israel. They are booting the UK from the International Gaza Support Center. And then the crazy wing of these really government, the crazy or wing of these really government.

The finance minister of Basel of Smotrich, who Militman mentioned in the speech itself, called for the expulsion of Britain's ambassador in the National Security Minister. It's my Ben Gavir said, quote, "It's time for the State of Israel to publicly recognize that the Malvina's islands are Argentine territory under occupation, which the British violently steal from the Argentine people."

And it's really company that's leading the oil drilling project in the focklands.

Then there's a blockbuster story about Netanyahu and October 7 that we'll get into. But let's just focus on this UK policy announcement piece.

“What did you make of Militman's speech in sort of the totality of what they actually announced?”

I actually think this is a seismic moment. I think this is a huge deal, and not just because of what it means about Israel and Palestine. And because look, this is not going to bring about a two-state solution. But what it does, the United Kingdom, let's be very clear. As usually the close-stality of the United States has been like a pretty stalwart supporter of Israel over the years for them to break.

And Militman used language that there's ethnic cleansing, that there's terrorism mapping, the West Bank. It shows that there's really nobody left backing Israel and its government. Then the United States and then kind of like a weird, eclectic group of Trump people, right? And so that matters.

Like the West Bank is clearly going to be the main event in the coming years.

And this is essentially Europe moving collectively, including the major powers, Britain and France and others, to say, "This is ethnic cleansing, this is against the law, this is illegal." And once you start down that road, you usually continue down that road, right?

“And so I think we could expect to see sanctions for them in the future.”

So that matters, it just deepens this kind of isolation that Nenia was created for Israel. But here's why I think it's a bigger deal. Because they're breaking with the United States. Like the United Kingdom does not usually say, "This is really important to you and we don't give a shit." And not only are they breaking with the United States, they're breaking with the United States and bringing other allies with them.

And you're also also breaking with the United States and do this. And that tells me a couple things. One, good for you, Ed Miloban, good for you, any Burnham. We've been hard on labor party like this. They are not doing the kind of cautious tiptoe around things approach secure storm or did.

Where they were trying to kind of flatter Trump and not really weigh in on Gaza and things like this. This is damn saying like declaring independence, right? And so this is a big move for the labor party under any Burnham.

“He's been a good communicator, but this is him taking a pretty big bold step, right?”

And Ed Miloban clearly got in there. By the way, the Jewish son of Jewish refugees in the Holocaust, right? So that matters. And for those, like you look, but you're probably not listening to the show anymore if you're kind of bothered by this policy announcement from the UK. But it's worth listening to the full speech if anything about this rubs either wrong way.

Because like you said, Ben, he talks about, you know, Miloban is Jewish. He talked about his deep connection in history with the Jewish state, you know, like spending time on a cubuts. He calls out Hamas. They talk about sanctions on Iran. He calls out any semitism in the UK and the need to do more to combat it.

Which is not like, it wasn't just throw clearing. You know, it felt like pretty offensive to him. And then he goes into this. As you said, very intense conversation about settlers, he talked with settler terrorism. He said settler settler terrorism, it's rampant.

As you said, he said, ethnic cleansing. Like it was a tough speech. Yeah. Yeah. So that Ben is with the brits.

And then also, again, this watch in the next couple of years, the Europeans are starting to, they're looking at Mark Carney. You know, they're looking at Trump's political standing. And they're starting to go in the other direction, right? And so for them to break on mass, not just the brits.

And you know, it seems like the brits had some leadership here too, which is something we hadn't seen out of them in a while in that fashion.

It's just a sign that the rest of the world is not going to take orders from Trump in the same way that they did the first year.

Yeah. And that matters. And it's happening not long before a big election in Israel, which gets us to the second story. So there was an explosive investigative report out this week from Harats. The details, this stark warning about a potential hummus attack that was given directly to Prime Minister BB Netanyahu shortly before the October 7th massacre.

The gist of the story, and it's a long story, and we recommend reading all of it, is that about a week and a half before October 7th, the president of the UAE, Muhammad bin Zayed, or NBC, warned Netanyahu of a potential major hummus attack on Israel. But Netanyahu, just like inexplicably, did not relay the message to his top security staff. And the warning, it was not derived from like kind of vague intelligence. It stemmed from comments made directly by Yaya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, the mastermind of October 7th,

to a guy referred to in the story as coal eyes who served as this intermediary between the Israelis and Hamas. And this is from the report about some of the specifics of what Sinwar said. Quote, tell the Israelis that if they don't make progress, I'm preparing a huge surprise for them.

Tell them to expect a Zalzal, an earthquake.

“In a second meeting, Sinwar says convey a message to them, these Israelis, that I'm preparing the mother of all surprises,”

is a terrifying operation, something extraordinary, again, he said the word that meets earthquake. Please convey to these Israelis what I am saying, word for word, he demanded. So it's a complicated story of like, you know, this getting back to these really security chiefs, the staffers who are working for NBC and you know, folks should go read it. But like, basically then, I've lost count of the number of stories that we've read like this about missed warnings by Netanyahu

or the sort of Israeli security establishment that could have helped them prevent October 7th. And if you look back, a lot of top defense and military and intelligence officials have resigned. They have taken responsibility for October 7th.

Netanyahu is the only one who is not, he says, he's always says like, oh, now is not the time.

First we win the war, then we look back, blah, blah, blah, blah, but this story implicates him directly. And the timing of dropping this a month before the election was not subtle.

“I think the question is will it have, you know, the impact you think it would politically? We don't know yet.”

This is always bothering me. We've talked about this. There's just something that never felt right about why they're a guard was so down again. Not having the information to tip into the conspiracy theory that like Netanyahu let it happen unintentionally. It is the case that it never made any sense that the Gaza is one of the most surveilled places in the entire world. And the idea that they were kind of caught that flat-footed and didn't respond for hours while was happening, like it really does demand like serious inquiry.

The Netanyahu is not permitted to happen. He's not permitted. He's used the fact of an ongoing war to lead having any kind of commission and any kind of inquiry here. But there's huge fucking questions about maybe he didn't think it would be that big of an attack, but maybe he thought some attack would be convenient. Like, and if you think that's cynical, we're talking about BB fucking Netanyahu, like the most cynical person on earth. Because now we've heard, you know, the Egyptians warned him. We've heard security chiefs warned him. We've heard of reports from inside of Israeli intelligence. It was quite specific about some of the preparations.

They made for Andrew Taken. Yeah. The actual plan, like these are not subtle pieces of warning. This is not like coming up in the 9/11 anniversary. You know, that one PDB article, the Presidential Daily Briefing to Bush, you know, been law and determined to strike in the United States. It didn't really have any specificity. This is like a lot of blinking lights and people telling Netanyahu, "Hey, they're about to attack you and end doing nothing." Right? And that, at minimum, that was massive incompetence.

Like, anything else is much more troubling. The only other thing that I thought was interesting, Tommy. The report is about NBC doing his mom and Zayed, the United States, who's been their best friend, like the closest ally in the region.

“This seemed like it came out if not from the Emirates, like the Emirates must have had to confirm it, you know?”

And it made me wonder whether the Emirates are sick of BB. I mean, I don't know I'm just speculating here, but it's people who've dealt in the kind of... weird machinations of leaks that happened before elections, not saying we've done that. I'm just saying, like, that happens out in the world. It suggests to me that maybe the Emirates were okay with this coming out, like right before the election to harm BB. I don't know. We don't know the answer to that either, but it's worth thinking about, because they've tended to have his back.

And maybe they're just sick of them too. I don't know if it's going to have any impact on him, though, because he's the guy's managed to wiggle out of, you know, anybody who's inclined to believe these things that BB probably wasn't voting from to begin with, but we'll see. Yeah, the whole story is worth reading. It's quite confusing. I mean, Netanyahu gets criticized from every direction in this thing, because, you know, this guy coalized his intermediary

was part of an effort to try to sort of improve relations between Israeli government and Hamas, maybe get to a prisoner release, maybe take some steps on the Israeli side, that make life better for the people. And Gaza and what it sounds like, what the reporting suggests is that Netanyahu dragged his feet on cutting a deal with Hamas, a deal with Sinmar and Sinmar got pissed and issued this warning to maybe, I don't know, threaten Netanyahu, but also you have sort of national security or try to try to go Netanyahu with the acting.

And then you also have national security side staff, like, you know, Ronin Bar, the Shinbet and others, telling Netanyahu that they're worried about something happening by Hamas doing something. And that they wanted, sorry, it says Bar recommended an operational method of a fire extinguishing bomb.

They codenamed for a powerful and sudden attack designed to quickly neutralize a major threat,

or at least implementing strong defensive efforts in Gaza and the West Bank. So on the one hand, you have Netanyahu getting criticized for not getting a deal done with Hamas that could have improved relations.

like, decapitation strikes or something to kind of, I don't know, try to deter or prevent some sort of attack.

“So all around, it's just the worst possible story for Netanyahu, but like you've been, I have no idea if it will not hurt at all in this election.”

Yeah, no, we'll see. A couple of run updates, so the kind of tit-for-tat-air strikes continue around launch missiles at two US Navy ships on Friday. They didn't hit them, but the US retaliated by bombing three Iranian oil tankers, the sent-com commander said, "Let the message to the IRGC be clear. If you shoot at two of our ships, we'll impose an even higher economic cost, taking out three of yours, Trump repeated his threat to maybe bomb, pickaxe, mountain last week Friday, which I'm sure, you know, God, got you healed all excited.

Iran said they're going to announce a new restricted zone in punish ships that enter it. It's not a lot of details on that one, but there seems like they're kind of proceeding a pace on their effort to just take control of the street or her moves. Trump administration announced some new sanctions that specifically on Iranian airplanes. Again, I don't think that. I don't really know, that'll win the war.

Yeah, they'll have a D-day right there. Over the Pentagon, the New York Times reported that 50 people on the military's joint staff were subjected to polygraph tests.

“Yeah, this is because it leaks about depleted US munitions.”

Which, like, in fairness, is a pretty sensitive leak. The kind of thing you might expect to be investigated, but also at the same time, then. Like, think tanks have been tracking this issue way before that war even started. They just use kind of open source data to monitor as best they can to stockpile. So it was already out there, regardless of who may or may not have been talking at the Pentagon, but notable.

Over the weekend, the US Energy Secretary Chris Wright seemed to suggest that they've given up on getting a nuclear deal with Iran. He told ABC, there may not be a nuclear agreement, it may simply be simply destroying their capabilities to do it. The problem may await a next administration. So it sounds like that big success. How we obliterating them.

Yeah, me too. And then most concerning to me, Ben, the fighting between the Saudis and the Houthi Rebels in Yemen is keeps escalating. At least 73 people were injured in Houthi strikes on Saudi oil infrastructure sites over the last couple days. The Houthi say it was in response to previous Saudi strikes, but of course, you know, the Saudis are not preparing to retaliate. This could kick up the civil war in Yemen that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths literally.

So very, very disconcerting. But anything in that kind of Iran news jump out of you is particularly important. The tip for tech such as it just feels very forever worse, which we've been saying. The polygraph thing is actually pretty fucking nuts.

I've never heard of kind of mass polygraph of joint staff members.

These are like senior members. And there's a McCarthyism to this.

“That makes me wonder like, when is the military just kind of say, have you no decency, Pete except, you know?”

So that kind of weird the paranoia and intimidation is just getting weird and weirder and it's only moving in one direction. And I'm curious whether that brings about the opposite result that they want to try to bring them in line. It might have the opposite effect. We'll see. I do agree that the Saudi who these saying is the biggest news of all this. Because if that becomes like anywhere near like a hot war, it is going to just like further destabilize things.

The Saudis, you know, are yes, like frustrated. But at the same time, the Houthis start hitting Saudi oil fields. If the Houthis start trying to mess with traffic and the red sea. All these shortages that we've been talking about that are acute because countries have kind of spent down their reserve capacity to make up for law supply. Certain refineries have been taken offline.

If you just start to see Saudi oil infrastructure get hit. If you start to see disruptions in the red sea, prices are just going to get worse for everybody. The global economic impacts are going to be worse. So that is that's something to watch because there's nothing good about the more escalating between the Saudis and the Houthis, including obviously for the people of Yemen. And what I just wonder is whether the Iranians are watching our political calendar closely and decide to do something to try to kind of jack up.

They will. I bet you they will. That's a very small number. We'll see.

Finally Ben. So corruption allegations have once again engulfed right wing reform UK leader in British MP Nigel Faraj.

For those unfamiliar with Faraj, imagine if kind of an early shitty version of Grok AI wrote a book about Winston Churchill. You soaked it in stale beer and then it morphed into a creepy old man with strong views about immigrants. That's not real for us. The latest scandal comes via this kind of nonprofit investigative journalism organization called verbatim. That was then fact checked and aired by Channel 4. In the report, got too high up officials in reform.

There's a policy guy named James Orr and then Faraj is right hand man named Dan Juke. They are caught on camera, conspiring to break British law on political donations from foreigners. The reform staffers, they solicited money from a guy they believed, was the British based sign of an American businessman. And first, they get the American to pay 30,000 pounds for three polls for reform.

And those results were run in the daily telegraph and other newspapers without noting reforms involved in any way. They also talk about getting a much larger donation, maybe 500,000 pounds in a range of meeting with the fake father and son with Faraj himself. So here is some audio which in video which makes it quite clear that everyone knew that they're doing something pretty shady. Let's watch. I would bring a lot of this to anybody, obviously.

I was a man like that.

He doesn't want you to be a lot of people. What you're doing right now means that you can contribute to amazing sweets by a lot of people that are made.

We have huge impact and it doesn't show up anywhere in the public.

“You're having a pie with the executive leadership, is that the number 10?”

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Is that an executive leadership in a way? Exactly. Obviously the support that we've often so far had to be necessarily private to street.

But the mechanism now for doing it. Next phase is, we've had some discussion for Dan, Jane. It's all about the law. So, no, we're here. Thank you.

So this comes, obviously, as Faraj is mired in a whole bunch of scandals.

We've talked about the five million pound gift that he can't seem to explain that he got from this Thailand-based crypto billionaire.

This new investigation, and this blockbuster report may undercut the brilliant Faraj plan of dropping out of Congress or talking about a parliament rather. And then running against an inter-collactic trash can and being face to try and clear as good name, not sure that one worked as he hoped. Faraj sat down with the BBC to defend himself. If his goal was to remind people that he does not feel shame and will lie about anything, it was a great success. Let's watch a clip from that.

Look, my job wasn't as big as Grant. My job wasn't as big as Grant checked. My job was to turn up on a lunch. Have a glass of wine and shake someone's hand.

“Did you not know that it was illegal for foreign firms to donate to UK political parties?”

I know that. But are you just not paying attention to asking the question? I was told he was giving it to a UK family, trust. Oh, sorry, a family office was based on the UK. You said in your presence.

Laurie, I am not a compliance officer. I was in the middle of the campus in the Platinum by election. I turned up. I frankly wasn't even listening. You were listening.

I just asked. Is it all about board? I was just there to come and say hello. So you weren't listening when you were discussing donations of thousands and thousands. I was told that was a global family office based in London.

It's defensively ugly. I wasn't listening. Not quite the buck stops here.

“So the two A's, orange oaks, they have stepped down pending investigation.”

Forage obviously has not. I don't know man. How is this not the end of this guy? I mean, it's not just this scandal. It's that forage and reform are facing a threat from even more right-wing anti-immigrant party

restore UK, but the corruption is just so brazen. Everything about this story I love.

First of all, great work.

More of this stuff is awesome. This is great and trepid quasi-journalism quasi-neaten fielder live with homes movie happening here. For people who couldn't watch this too, it's the most British thing. Like every is wearing like nanny clothes, they're drinking gin and tonics. People are smoking cigarettes in the footage.

They're in red armor chairs. Like everything you hate about reform actually. Just kind of rich guy sitting around like making crep deals. Getting drunk in middle of the day. Not there's any wrong with that.

But the core point is, the guy's just like hopelessly corrupt. I mean like the scandal after scandal of him just taking money from anybody. It goes back to what we're seeing by BB too. Like his best defense is if he was completely incompetent. His best defense is it like that he wasn't going to touch.

I don't pay any attention. I didn't listen to what I agreed with the person about, which was like saying thank you for your foreign donations. They just need to keep driving this corruption nerve, too, by the way. Just to be pure political brass tax here.

Reform UK is being hopelessly corrupt. It's probably better than saying reform UK is extreme. It's just a matter of prepolitics. Nobody likes corrupt people. Nobody likes people that are double deal like this and then lying about it.

So it's the thing that they should run on. I do think that Nigel could like make up a lot of this money if he just, you know, did more of those cameos, right?

I guess his fees went down.

So he needed to go to the Thai crypto guy and the the sky and the American billionaire or whatever he was supposed to be.

“The only way I feel like this doesn't take this guy down,”

or at least down a couple of serious pegs, is if the rest of the British media doesn't run it. I mean, that's one challenge with forage is he is often gotten to pass. He doesn't get nearly the coverage that, you know, the green party head gets despite being talked about it.

Yeah, like on fleet street, you know, like, can you imagine? They savage people for like tiny things over there. Like, like, let's do it again. So some things, yeah. This is a no-brainer.

Okay, we are going to take a quick break. But when we come back, you're near Ben's interview with Lawrence Wright about the 25th anniversary of 9/11. Where the risks still exist from and attack like that and much much more. So stick around for though. This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace.

Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to elevate your online present and drive your success. Squarespace gives you all the tools to claim your domain, build a professional website, expand your brand and facilitate payments all in one place. With Squarespace's collection of cutting-edge design tools, anyone could build a bespoke online presence that perfectly fits their business.

Start with blueprint AI, Squarespace's AI enhanced website builder, to get a fully custom website in just a few hours, using basic information about your industry, your goals and personality to generate premium quality content and personalized design recommendations. Every dream needs a domain that Squarespace domains makes easy to define the best name for your business.

At one fair, all-inclusive price, no hidden fees are add-ons required.

“Squarespace provides everything you need to bring more of your dream to life,”

whether that means building a website or adding a professional email service, don't wait to claim your name invested in your dream domain today. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch,

go to squarespace.com/world to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

That Squarespace.com/world. Okay, my guest today is Lawrence Wright, his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Looming Tower, Al Qaeda, and the Road to 9/11. Really is, I think, the definitive account of the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks. It's a wonderful, colorful, heart-wrenching, revealing story.

One of many books from Lawrence Wright, of course. The Looming Tower has a new introduction time to the 25th anniversary of the attacks, which obviously come up the next few days, so it's a perfect time to catch up with him. And I, again, encourage everybody if you have not read the Looming Tower, please pick it up. There's no better book to understand what happened before 9/11.

I say that to someone who worked with the 9/11 commission. But Lawrence Wright, thanks for joining us. It's a pleasure to be with you, Ben. All right, so I was thinking about this a lot. You know, you and I've talked about these events over the years.

9/11 obviously played a pretty fundamental role in my life. And I read the new introduction a couple of times. And it triggered something that has not at me, as someone who worked in, obviously, National Security, has had interaction with 9/11 even before that time of the White House with the 9/11 commission.

And the question is this, even though Ben Lawdon didn't achieve his kind of stated objectives, right, of overthrowing Arab regimes and driving the United States out of the region, you could mount an argument, couldn't you, that 9/11 is one of the most successful terrorist attacks in history viewed from the vantage point of where the United States stands today in our overreaction. I mean, how do you assess the impact of 9/11, both against Ben Lawdon's intentions,

“and against the outcome that we're living with today?”

You know, there was a question in my mind, Ben, did Ben Lawdon win. Of course, he didn't win. I mean, but he triggered this catastrophic, nearly suicidal reaction in our country. And you know, just think about the lives that had been lost, you know, 3,000 on 9/11, but hundreds of thousands since then.

Yes, there has not been another 9/11, but there have been countless smaller attacks. It's not as if the terrorist movement is dead. But the loss of faith in America is the thing that is really striking to me.

Country is so divided, we've shed the most important allies that we've had.

We're really quite alone in the world in a way that we haven't been in the lifetime of anybody still alive in America. The country is drifting and now being shunned. And the other thing that troubles me is that we're so complacent now where terrorism is concerned.

unprepared. You know, our attention is far away from terrorism and yet I look,

“especially at the new developments in technology.”

And wonder what Ben Laden would have done with such tools as artificial intelligence and crypto money and easy access to cyber warfare. Those kinds of tools are incredibly empowering to terrorists and to tyrants. And I can't help but feel for all the great things that technology may bring to us. We're going to head to a golden age of terrorism, tyranny and crime.

“Because these tools are going to be very well adapted for those.”

Yeah, your, your book obviously trace the story both of Al Qaeda's emergence and its intentions and ambitions and ultimately its success in attacking the United States.

And also the failures of the United States government to effectively defend the country. The failures of information sharing from the CIA to the FBI. You know, we don't have to teach them here. What I wanted to ask you picking up on that last point you made is now we're seeing this administration kind of target the intelligence community.

You know, the FBI is run by cash betel their, you know, agents are doing immigration enforcement instead of counterterrorism.

The DNI was Tulsi Gabbard and now, you know, we've had a musical chairs there. You know, the CIA Trump seems to have an almost adversarial relationship with.

“How would you describe informed by your experience of seeing a series of policy and bureaucratic failures before 9/11 in the looming tower?”

How would you compare the, the things that concern you about the, the state of play today when you look at those same agencies. So same instruments of U.S. government power and intelligence gathering and law enforcement as it relates to the different terrorist threat were facing. You know, it was, I, I formally believed till this day had the, had the central intelligence agency cooperated with the FBI that 9/11 wouldn't have happened. You know, that the agency knew that 9/11, that two future hijackers was in America and we're in America and they came in January of 2000 and the CIA found about about it in March of 2000.

So year and a half they had, you know, knowledge that a, that Al Qaeda was present in America and yet did not tell the FBI. So there's that. There's also the fractures between these, these two institutions, the FBI and the CIA, not only were they reluctant to share information, they hated their, actually hated each other to the point of subversion. And that, it's hard to account for, for instance, you know, you look back at the bombing of the coal in October of 2000. This was, partly of poor planning on the part of the government, to park an American warship and a, a newman harbour, where it's just sitting there as a, as a big prize.

But anyway, he had, was at 17 sailors die and the CIA had information about the, they had actually surveilled a meeting in Malaysia and of Al Qaeda leaders and from there, several of them went to Yemen and with the plan to bomb the coal. And so that knowledge was also present and hidden. Bear in mind, we already had dead sailors, you know, this was a mass murder and, and in my opinion, back starting from then, there should be had been prosecutions, you know, the intelligence agencies had to be forced somehow to work together.

And, you know, it's, it's a pattern that I see in our agencies now that, you know, they are so fractious, right, at this present time. Not so much that they hate each other the way that CIA and the FBI did before 9/11, but there's, they've been curled into partisan ventures and they've turned their eyes away from terror. And really, in many respects, away from the main adversaries toward American citizens.

Yeah, and, and, you know, particularly parts of the population that really are not the area where you would see terrorism emerging from.

“Generally, I mean, I, I want to kind of connect this back to where we weren't wrong, because I think it's kind of related to how you focus things and get them right now.”

Because on the, the story of the failure to prevent 9/11 was not one of the United States failing to kind of invade foreign countries and remove their governments. It was, as you said, it was, like, potentially as simple as the CIA sharing information with the FBI better, you know, or, you know, having better aviation security, you know, regulations as related to, you know, box cutters and, and we could go down the list. And yet the response was to invade Afghanistan, toppled government and stay there in beta rock, toppled government and stay there.

Because I think some people might hear, you know, you'd be talking about the need to focus on terrorism, they go, here they go again, you know. How do we separate out, you know, the need to actually protect the nation to guard against terrorist attacks and not like when did it become and why did it become about your willingness to go fight wars overseas? Like, you know, I remember John Kerry had this almost gath people thought at the time when he said during the 2004 campaign, when you need to get back this being a law enforcement problem, I guess he could have said intelligence and law enforcement, but yeah.

But how do you think about where we went wrong after 9/11 and what the right scope of the governments focus on this is where we're not spending trillions of dollars in fighting wars, but we are defending the country. So there are several different areas, we can talk about one, though, that strikes me is that the invasion of Iraq was perhaps the most colossal diplomatic intelligence failure in American history.

It's just hard to imagine, you know, America has always had a problem dealing with other countries because we know so little about the world.

And the world knows so much about us. It's, you know, it's a total, I mean, we're essentially blinded when we go into a country where we don't speak the language.

“I guess, you remember back when we first work going into Iraq and I forgot the reporter's name, he went through the capital talking to legislators and asked them, can you tell me the difference between a Sony and a Shiite?”

Yeah, they could, it's the most fundamental division in Islam and they didn't even know how to answer the question. And yet we're willing to go fight a war in a country that was so far away from our way of understanding. And so, you know, we should know more about the world, there's no question about it, there's a big issue, but we should know more about ourselves. We should know that we're not good at this, how many wars is it going to take for us to realize that winning wars is not one of the things that we do will.

But damaging our own country is something that we have so much power to do. And America has been badly damaged since 9/11, but not by terrorist. Yeah. Well, you know, part of that, too, is understanding, you know, the rest of the world.

“And also understanding honestly, like who we're fighting against, you know, because like clearly Trump does not understand the Iranian government at all.”

And that, you know, if you did understand the Iranian government, you would know they were not going to collapse because we bomb them for a few days, right?

And I, and I, it always kind of bugged me that, you know, Bin Laden's having a moment, and you alluded to this in the introduction.

You know, on his, his Vatra's of remerge on TikTok and young people are saying, yeah, maybe he had a point. But I do think that, I mean, as someone who was reporting on this at the time, and, and wrote this kind of meticulous account, understanding, and you were traveled to these places, understood. I remember I was assigned by my boss Lee Hamilton, the coach of the 9/11 commission, go read all of Bin Laden's fatwas, you know, because the panels didn't actually want to understand, like what is this about.

And whatever we think of Bin Laden, clearly is absolutely reprehensible violent individual executions or unjustified. He was saying for a long time that what he objected to was our farm policy, you know, and putting yourself back in that time when George Bush was saying, they hate our freedoms, you know, they hate what they see in Congress, and, like, what we learned from the need to actually separate out that you, you can try to understand your enemy and put yourself in your enemies shoes without justifying or celebrating them as people may be doing in TikTok, like, why do we struggle so hard?

I think there's an arrogance there that suggests that we don't need to know all these answers to your questions. We have the power to do what a way every want, and it's true we have a tremendous amount of power.

“And in a way, it reminds me of the old cartoon character, Baby Huey, do you remember? Baby Huey was this 400 pound baby, you carry a club.”

That's the way the world views us. And in many respects, you know, given how powerful and clumsy we are in the world, it's a fair comparison.

But I just want to say about intelligence, understanding the world is what intelligence is supposed to be doing. It's supposed to be gathering information and providing that to policymakers. But in my, when I was roaming around the Arab world in South Asia after 9/11, there was so few Americans or even Westerners in that area then.

And I remember in Afghanistan, I was given a briefing, I suppose, by some CIA guy, but he said to me, "I'd like to do what you do."

I said, "What do you mean? I talked to people," he said, and I said, "There they are, you know, go out the door."

“You can talk to them. I think that, you know, on the ground kind of intimacy with another culture is one of the main things that we like.”

We just didn't, and this true journalism too, Ben, you know, there used to be, you know, news bureaus all over the world, you know, like ABC of one point had like 40 around the world. No, it's, yeah, they're handful of news bureaus in the world, American news bureaus. And how, and so what happens, you know, we, somebody like me parachutes in with no history of a region, or was also true is we accept the news that the governments of these other countries are putting out, like whatever is on Saudi television.

We don't have anybody there, so we'll broadcast their view of it. That's not journalism, you know, that's essentially we're allowing other points of view to dominate our thinking. And we don't have, we need to have independent intelligence gathering both by reporters and by our own intelligence agencies.

Yeah, I always, one of my, you know, when I look at the biggest failures of, you know, my time in government, I look at like a Afghanistan.

And when I think back, because I've gotten to know a lot of Afghans over the years, and what every single one of them tells me is any one of us, if you just talked to a smart, normal Afghan, they could have told you, you were backing all the wrong people. Yeah, you're making all the mistakes, and then I thought about it, and in all those rooms, I was in the situation where people were making decisions about Afghanistan, they're never any Afghans there. I mean, I do wonder, you know, a big part of your story takes place in Afghanistan.

It feels like there's an effort to kind of just forget that that happened, you know, we're four years after the collapse of Kabul, the Taliban is back in control. I'm wondering how you feel about that. I don't know if you still have contacts there.

“How do you put in context of all these different pieces of the 9/11 story, like how do you digest the experience in Afghanistan?”

And what do Americans, you maybe continue to owe Afghans at a time when, you know, down Trump is having ice-deport people that worked with our military and kind of not really doing anything to help a humanitarian crisis there. You know, our longest war, you know, can you, would you have ever predicted that we would have been tied down in a 20-year war in Afghanistan? It's just, and the Taliban was not our enemy, you know, they harbored Al-Qaeda, yes, but they were not, you know, our enemy, they were not waging war against America.

So, from the very beginning, we had no business invading Afghanistan. I remember when I was there, it was a kind of hopeful period. It was a brief interlude, you know, the same like, you know, they were, the Taliban had been put to bay and, you know, this, it looked, I remember the sound of hammers and saws, you know, as they were began to rebuild. I was very hopeful that that would happen. If there's anything we should get from this is that we have not got a solution that works, our diplomacy doesn't work, our warmaking doesn't work, so what works?

That's a great loss to humanity, and, and then, of course, the individual loss to families and lovers and so on, it's just, it's hard to imagine the heartbreak that we spread across the world.

And not the other countries have responsibilities, of course, on this, but I, but I look at the, you know, we could easy to think about the $8 trillion that we lost in Afghanistan and Iraq, but all the Americans, the Afghans, the Iraqis who have perished in this experience. It's just a catastrophe that I don't think we've really taken in in part because I don't think we want to absorb the responsibility that we have.

“Yeah, well, and, I mean, one way, you know, is to also think about the alternate history, like, what if we didn't do those things, like, what do you know, it's been a trillion dollars on, right?”

Yeah, I would America be different today if we didn't make those mistakes. I think it's a profound question, it's not one that is being asked these days, and all the things that, you know, even the democratic socialist, you know, their entire agenda could be, could be an acted,

and there still be plenty of money for rice and beans, you know?

It's just, it's just not, it's, it's a heartbreaking thought to think that we could have spent that money on educating our children, and in, in scientific advances, curing cancer, whatever. We could have been so much better, but we spent all that money so fruitlessly and with such devastating consequences. So, you loot in your introduction, you know, as someone who knows as much about, you know, the history of the 9/11 attacks as, as anybody certainly was not, wasn't in government, and probably more than more than people in government.

“You loot, the fact that we still don't know the full story, right?”

There's some unanswered questions that people will continue to raise about Saudi involvement most notably. Frankly, we still can't seem to prosecute people for 9/11 because we tortured them, and their confessions are in admissible and court. What do you think the, as someone, you know, who's probably finished your book with some questions in your mind, what do you think the unanswered questions are? Well, I think there must have been some kind of conspiracy between the Saudi government and the operatives of 9/11.

And to me, the most damning recent evidence is that cardboard box that was in the FBI warehouse, and had come from the investigation of it went on by the FBI in England.

“There were a lot of jihadies living there, and they've stored all this stuff in a cardboard box, and somebody in the bureau was going through to see, you know,”

cleaning out old stuff that's no longer needed. And there was this box, and it full of investigative notes from 9/11. And so he called one of the FBI guys who was still around, and said, "Would you like this box?" Oh, sure, send it over. And inside there is a lot of the material from Omar Abayumi, who was a 40-something-year-old Saudi student who didn't go to class, and he was on the Saudi payroll.

He is a, he's the guy who met with the hijackers after they arrived in January of 2000. And he met them in a, in a halal restaurant in Los Angeles. And he said he overheard the Gulf Arabic being spoken, you know, and just cycled up to them and said, "Let me help you. I'll get you a place in San Diego in an apartment in my building. I'll pay you rent." And then some of the, you know, there are these videos, and one is of him introducing these two hijackers to members of the Islamic community in San Diego.

Now, on the 9/11 commission, you might have seen an edited version of that video, but the full version is much more damning.

And it's always struck me that, with the cases never really been made, but they were introduced to the Imam of the mosque in San Diego, who was Anwar Al-Lawki,

And eventually we killed him, but these kinds of scraps are on the table.

“And, you know, by Yemen, he was also had, he is one video that looks like he's a newscaster, standing in front of the Capitol.”

And, you know, pointing out, you know, and here's the airport over here, and so on, and he's actually giving a stand-up report about the, it appears, a prospective target. And, and there's, whether it's more to it, but the FBI took the box, looked into it, said, "Oh, my," and put it away for years. Yeah.

And that, you know, this, when we start thinking if we'll ever hold anybody accountable for the errors that took place both in the FBI and the CIA,

“you know, there's, there's more to the crime, and then we have, then we have solved.”

And, you know, you point rightly point out that go on Tautomo is a problem in terms of getting to the bottom of some of this, but there's so much, there's so much that we could know, but it would require holding not just foreign terrorists responsible with members of our own intelligence community. Yeah, and a degree of transparency that Amanda and I deserve to do what I'm downy releasing all these files today that show that New York City was covering up their air quality. I mean, transparency is something that people usually encounter with.

Yeah.

“Last thing I was going to ask you is that, because I think this is on a lot of people's minds, certainly on mine right now, how did, how did 9/11 change your life?”

Oh my God, there's Larry before 9/11, Larry after, you know, it was, I guess one thing, years ago I made a vow that I would only do things that were important or fun. I didn't want to have, you know, lose the joy, but at the time I was sort of drifting and I was thinking about becoming a movie director or something I had, you know, vague dreams of Hollywood and and then suddenly I had a mission and it wasn't just a reporting job, you know, it was from the very first day I was on the case and I just knew that this is the most important thing I'll do with my life.

And, you know, that afternoon David Rimney called us with, it was a small group of New Yorker writers that he delegated to go out and try to collect stories and he would put it into what became the famous black issue. And I had the good fortune of finding this young reporter named Kurt Jelsson, who was a wrote for an investment magazine and he was supposed to have an appointment that day on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center.

And he, for the first time as life, slept through his subway stop and so he got off the next station ran back to the Trade Center.

And if you remember the elevators were up a flight of escalator and so he rushed up the escalator, got into the elevator and a woman was coming across the lobby and she was moving too slowly for him and she stepped into the elevator and he noticed it on her ankle. She had a rose tattoo and the plane struck and the elevator doors accordion and nobody knew, I mean he was a nurse quick, you know, he just nobody could a fathom what had happened and Kurt stepped into the lobby. And there were objects around the size of a shoe box or office desk, you know, very probably bits of plaster that had fallen out of the ceiling.

And his eerie smoking environment, he saw trees and went to get outside and of course he was up a flight of stairs and it was a plaza and so he walked out into the plaza and there were hundreds of shoes. And there were objects that he thought were luggage but they were human torsos and his journey to try to get back home to Bronx became the book end of the New Yorker Black issue. And I count that as a moment that I became the whatever I am now, you know, that's when I made that decision that I was all in on this and I had to get to the bottom of it.

So people should check out the looming tower if they have not ready to check out your other work and we could have talked I mean there's so many things to talk about this but we covered a lot, so thanks so much for joining us.

“I enjoyed it quite a lot but it's good to catch up with you.”

Yeah, good to see you always.

Take care.

“Thanks again to Lawrence Wright for joining the show and talk to you guys next week.”

Pause the world as a quick and media production. Our show is produced by Alona Minkowski, Michael Goldsmith and Inisha Bonnergy. Our team includes Matt Degrope and Hethcote, Jordan Canter, Kenny Muffet, David Tolls and Ryan Young.

Our staff is proud of the unionized with the writer's field of America East.