Forever War (Trump's Version)

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with some of the smartest organizers, least annoying politicians and most interesting voices in politics to talk about how to fix this mess. You can present in Obama made a surprise appearance. We're doing it all again November 5th, the 7th in Washington, D.C., even more podcast,

panels and workshops. Plus there'll be drinks which we'll need after the midterms no matter which way they go.

Get tickets at CricketCon.com if you're a friend of the party and discount to see you there. We'll go to the online shop. If you're a shopkeeper, then you'll be the platform that's a real crazy. You're just a big team and our whole business is going to be a shopkeeper. Now, let's start a new test of shopper.com. Kick to the crap out of France in the woke up. I didn't see that coming. I thought France was

pretty much going to kind of glide the wagon. Yes. So, I'm not that I consider my soccer knowledge to be considerable, but I definitely don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I've been watching it for about three weeks, so I'm surprised that I'm wrong, but also it doesn't matter anyway,

“because it's all rake for Argentina. I believe that. I've come to believe that. It's crazy.”

You look at all the replays and clips of bullshit calls Argentina got. Yeah, I mean, that Egypt game was kind of nuts. They disallow a goal. They call it a foul like 90 yards away. Yeah, it's all very peculiar to me. And even Norway, because I was deep on that bandwagon, and I felt like I had some validity on that bandwagon because I was in Norway, which, by the way, was an awesome experience watching them win in a bar. And then watching

10 to thousands of Norwegians walk. So, Tommy, they they walk to where the royal palace is, which is like right in the center of Oslo. Okay. And they sit in formation and start rowing in middle and night. We're going to do some rowing talk. Yeah, and it feels like family comes up. So anyway, but Norway got kind of screwed too. Like they get totally screwed. Like I don't get the penalty that they they was called the disallowed echo. Yeah, the ball like the whole thing. It's just

it's heartbreaking. I like early in Holland though. He looked like he wasn't taking it too hard. He was out at the close of Miami that day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the, you know, stopped record with a healer bottle. He had a good ass time in America. I fully support that guy's moment. Everyone, he deserves it. Yeah. Well, I'm going to be sad to woke up so over. I'd like genuinely not sure what I'm going to do with almost like time now. I feel like it already ended because I'm an underdog guy.

And once you got to the semis, I was like looking around and and I guess I'm rooting for England now. I thought I thought like one underdog might win, but not a single. Not a single one. I wanted that one team to get through. I guess I'm on team England now, but it's not the same. I like to get behind whoever has come out nowhere. Me too. Me too. Well, it's great to have you back in studio. We missed you in the flesh. Thank you for holding it down.

for you guys today. We've got to cover the resumption of the war between the US and Iran.

“Who could have seen this coming then? Honestly, barely paused if we're being honest to sort of”

fuzz always or, but when I talk about the Trump administration's confusing and conflicting statements

about what's happening. And then tell you guys the backstory of how we got here. There's also some interesting new detail about this crazy Israeli plan to install former Iranian president, Makhmud, Ahmad Diddajad as leader of Iran. Tell you about that. We're going to explain about how concerns about security on Air Force One have led to a massive attack on Press Freedom here in the United States. So that's wonderful. We're going to tell you about a story about a bridge to Canada

in the price that we all pay abuse of government corruption. Then we're going to cover the latest from Venezuela. Uh, have terrorists are using artificial intelligence because we need more opposition on the show. Uh, we're gifts at NATO. Some World Cup talk at the end. And then Ben, you did our interview earlier today who you're talking? Uh, I talked to Congressman Rokana. Uh, people may or may not have seen the news that he was on a trip to the West Bank recently

a few days ago. He was threatened by a group of kind of, you know, violent, heavily armed, Israeli settlers. The idea of came and instead of dispersing the settlers, they detained Eos

Congressman for the first time in several decades in any country. And so we talk about a strip,

what happened, what he was trying to achieve there, what he saw there, the reaction to his visit from Prime Minister Nenniau, but also, you know, he had Democrats criticizing him for just going to the West Bank. So we talked about that as well. I was watching him in Fox News yesterday and one of the questions was kind of like, how dare you not do basically the itinerary that the Israeli ambassador to the US recommended you do like how dare you not meet with families of hostages from

October 7th, which I'm not saying is like not something that's totally important and valid to do, but it's like we're letting a foreign ambassador dictate a Congressman schedule while on a codel. What are we talking? There's so many things that piss me off about this, which we talk about a little bit, but the first is that even the Democrats like Josh Godheimer and the DMFI, the Democratic majority of Israel accused him of going on a publicity stunt. What is every single

trip that Apex sponsors, where you go and get photos with Nenniau to a, you visit some place that a rocket landed, you know, at some point. And so they're mad that he went to the West Bank, instead of the photo ops they like. And then they ignore the fact that the West Bank is not Israel. So why should the Israeli ambassador even, you know, be the host when you're visiting what is not recognized as Israel's territory? This is under an illegal military occupation. Right, the people

have saying like, well, it's a closed area under military occupations. Like, yeah, that is the problem, actually, is this sort of the structural challenges you're talking about. And then also people were trying to argue, well, he wasn't really detained. He was just held up for 45 minutes by civilians with M4 rifles. Yeah, you guys all try, well, all you, you know, keyboard warriors at there, I'd like you to go somewhere, get harassed by heavily armed people. And then have a far

military come and, and not allow you to leave and tell me that you're not detained. I don't know what

else that's called. Yeah, and like, I mean, I'm not like, it seems like the idea of basically

“it was like, look, we're going to wait here until the police come. That's how we're going to resolve”

this fine. But like, these random civilians settlers with guns held them up for like 45 minutes, and it must have been incredibly scary. I'm just going to guess, too, that if, let's say, Josh Gottheimer, I mentioned, was in that position, the idea might have been more of a little bit. Does they know who Rokan is? And they know the positions he's taken. Speaking of the West Bank, our friend, friend of the show, Jasper Nathaniel, is doing great coverage of the West Bank. He's been

there for about a month. Check out his sub-stack. It's infinite jaz.substack.com. He was, once again, basically, like, with a group of Palestinians who got roughed up and assaulted by a bunch of violent settlers. Jasper's a big dude. He was with Rokan, the strip. Yeah. So Rokan talked about, you know, some of the, because the other good thing is he talked about the actual Palestinian stores he got. So we, we didn't just talk about Rokan. He credited Jasper with, with him taking the trip and

the trip. Yeah. And, and, like, Jasper's a big dude, like, he's a big jack guy. And this crazy settler was, like, punching him and kicking him and it, like, took all of Jasper's restraint, not to just beat the fucking breaks off this guy. This weirdo, but check out his coverage. Infinite jaz is the sub-deck. All right, Ben. Let's talk about Iran. We're back in war. This conflict that was once billed as a three to four week excursion has now gone on for over four months. And Trump is openly saying that,

now that the ceasefire is over, that it could go on forever. He's calling us the guardian of the Hormuz straits. So we have the brand new forever war in the Middle East. I know you're excited. I can see you by that, you know, by your face, you're pumped about this one. The gardens of the galaxy's

“little, you know, a little big thing bigger. Yeah, I think a little bigger. Um, so check out this”

super gut before we talk about what happened, uh, of the statements that Trump and his team were

although this is regime change. The first regime is gone. The second regime is gone. And I think the third

“regime is more reasonable, but we'll find out. We've got to know him in this phone call crazy people.”

The coolest thing about the progress we've made over the last few weeks is that you see people within the Iranian system, senior leadership, even IRG officials say, you know what? We may have some animosity. We may have some mistrust, but we recognize the way that we've done business with the United States for 47 years as a mistake. Let's try something else. Look, memorandum of understanding with, when you're dealing with, sleeves bags don't mean much.

It's an international waterway. No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That's existing international law. I want to be a reimbursed because we're protecting a very rich portion of the world with spending money. And so what we've done is we are going to be reimbursed for protection. So I put it out yesterday, though, it was good. I was called by different people, different countries, kings, and amears, and all of the people that we all know.

We all love. We'd love to do it a different way. We'd love to invest in the United States with billions and billions of dollars. The Gulf States are going to invest a tremendous amount of money

“into the United States. And that was very satisfactory to me. I think it's actually much better.”

Before I've been before you did that story, I'm kind of the proximate causes that got us to this moment. Any thoughts on the incoherent mess of statements we just saw there? I think that the lesson we have to take away, which I don't know why people still need to learn this and your 10 of the Trump decade, is that there's like a very thick layer of bullshit

that overlays like what is actually happening, that like 80 to 90 percent of what they say is just

complete an utter bullshit on any given day. About the success of the MOU or about the one day they're great, one day they're terrible. The Iranian friends who made a long way. Yeah, one day we're standing up for the principle that nobody can told the thing and then the next day we're trying to told the thing, the Iranians, it's cool. It's cool how much you're talking. So awesome how much we're talking. But then they're fucking assholes. And this is the problem

with a lot of conventional media that feels like obliged to run these as if they're kind of credible, argumentation for what the Trump approach is. When the reality has not really changed, the Iranians control the straight-of-war moves, this war is a catastrophe. Trump has no answer on the nuclear questions that were the stated purpose of the war. The regime has not changed. It's if anything, just gotten more hardline. That's been the status quo anti here for months.

And we go in this rollercoaster ride of rhetoric that really means nothing. Yeah. And he talks so much and so often that he gets a pass for saying the exact opposite thing, one day to the next and just the total of the coherence. But it drives me crazy. And it's like it's

“useful. I think to watch it all cut together. It's very useful. Yeah. Because you were reminded.”

So just in terms of how we kind of got to this moment where the war is ramping back up, it seems like there were kind of two things that are worth mentioning. The first was that these rallies passed the long intelligence to Trump that said Iran was trying to kill him. Guess he didn't like that. I wonder about the brassy of the intelligence we'll find out.

I mean, they're like always probably trying to be trying to kill him, but I don't know if there

was some new thing. I didn't think so. That led to the following truth social post quote, "One thousand missiles are locked and loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran with thousands of more to immediately follow should the Iranian government act on its threat pronounced in many corners of the globe to assassinate or attempt to assassinate the sitting president of the United States of America. In this case, me." So that was that. But more importantly,

the U.S. and Iran, as we've discussed have been jocking over who's going to control the straight-of-home who's going forward or remembered before this war started, the straight-of-home who's was wide open and had been open for decades, even at times of great conflict between the U.S. and Iran. But now Iran is a certain control over the straight in preparation for charging tolls in perpetuity. And they've been trying to force ships to sail through a channel that

is closest to the Iranian coastline, but the U.S. has been providing support to ships that transit the straight-of-home who's in a channel closer to Oman. The Iranians didn't like that. They started firing at ships in the Omani channel. The U.S. fired back. We had days of air strikes on targets in Iran. The Iranians were firing missiles and drones at U.S. military bases in the Gulf. And here we are. So Iran, that's points to this really sloppy language in the ceasefire

memorandum of understanding to justify their actions and attempts to control the straight, specifically been paragraph 5 of the MOU says. Upon the signing of his MOU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vehicles. And then later it says the Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration in maritime services in the straight of

Hormuz. The U.S. side obviously says the Iranians do not control the straight because that language

Roger Kushner and Gulf buddy Steve Wickoff didn't draft iron clock and diplomatic language. So Ben,

regardless, oil futures are up like 10% already. The Wall Street Journal reported that the resumption of fighting revive the trading strategy that Wall Street traders are now calling the Nacho trade, which is an acronym for not a chance for MOU's opens. Goldman Sachs put out a report about efforts to build new pipelines and ports that would allow oil to get around the straighter from U.S. but that's like a 2027-2028 project and in the near term, this is the new normal.

It's bad, predictable, predicted, but back at war. Yes, I mean to just take up a couple of

“these things on the, these assassination threats and intelligence. I do I think that maybe there's”

some aspiration that people in the Iranian system have to take a shot at Trump some day, maybe, but do I think that Israel came across like a plot that the U.S. intelligence community didn't uncover and conveniently in the middle of the war that Israel would like to extend and like they foiled something that would be like foil. Now I will say this. One reason that for most of human history, even when countries were at war with each other, even in like world wars,

you did not have assassinations of leaders, is in part people were concerned about the TIT for TAT. People might not remember because it happened four or five months ago that the United States and Israel assassinated the leader Varan. I mean that we may not like the Supreme Leader, but a lot of people in Iran do and I just suggest that it doesn't justify anything, quite the opposite. The point is that there should be a bright line around doing that, but if you assassinate,

it's not just cost them so many, the leader of the RGC that Trump assassinated in his first term,

like he participated in boasted about the assassination of the Supreme Leader Varan. You're setting a precedent. You're setting a precedent. And unfortunately, tragically, not just Trump, but any future U.S. president is now in a different space. I mean, we've not talked enough about how extreme that was to just kill the leader of another country, even again, even an odious leader from our judgment. I also, this loose talk, a thousands of missiles,

first of all, Iran is weathered. Both a lot of missiles and threats to destroy their civilizations. There's no new ideas in that. The true social posts are so designed for American audiences and not Iranians. It's just so that like Trump's lackeys, the dead enders and Fox news are like, "Oh, we feel really tough because you're human." Yeah. Yeah. We're going to kill some Iranians, civilians, and maybe kill some more schoolgirls with these weapons. And we'll blow up the missile

launcher that we already blew up that they rebuilt already. This is not working militarily. And then the one thing I just say about the straight, the problem they have with this is

“Iran, look at a map. They're there. They're not going anywhere. So the only way you're actually”

going to open the straight in perpetuity is through a diplomatic deal with Iran. You can try to muscle as many tankers through for a few months or a few weeks, but like Iran's not going anywhere, and they could two months from now mine the straight again. They've demonstrated that they can do it. And so the only way this ends, and that straight opens in a predictable and open-ended way, it's for there to be a diplomatic agreement. Yeah, I think Trump and his dumb team thought that this

was an economic deal, right? You always hear Jared Kushner and be like, "We think of diplomacy

as a real estate deal. The Iranians did not. They had, they just like Trump and Kushner and what coffee had no understanding of the nationalism and the pride and the rage they created among the RGC and Iranian leaders by bombing the shit out of them," right? And, in fact, that into their ability to get something done. So one thing I'm watching, like last time we saw Trump propose an escort mission like this, "Momb of Insam on the Saudi Crown Prince basically

shut it down by saying you cannot fly through our airspace." I don't know if he's waited publicly this time, but I did see on Monday the Saudis bombed a runway in Yemen in Houthi Territory to prevent an RGC plane that was carrying Houthi leaders from landing there. It was a delegation that was coming back from the Supreme Leader's funeral in Iran. They bombed the runway where

“they were trying to land. I think to prevent them from getting back, but also they said there was”

a bunch of guns on this plane who fucking knows. But it was just interesting to me, Ben, because the Saudis and the Houthis have had this kind of unofficial truce in their war for about four years. And the nuclear option for Iran would be having the Houthis try to shut down shipping traffic in the Red Sea. Boy, you want to see an economic calamity. There you go. So this is one to watch. This is the thing, is this thing can continue to get worse. I mean, if we return to kind

the Red Sea and they're firing things at the Saudis and they're efforts to paralyze the Gulf

“again. The longer this stays in this state of off and on war, the more risk you're accruing”

and the more you're perpetuating shortages of stuff not getting to the straight. There's no way out of the diplomacy. They want to believe that we're one runway bomb or one tough night of strikes on Iran from having them keep headsets statement away from victory. Yeah, you're exactly one more press conference or true social. There's a reality in

then there's what they're saying and the reality is not much has changed since Iran weathered

our assaults close this straight and demonstrated the leverage that they have. Yeah, and just on the cost of this war, one thing worth noting is the Washington Post had this really good piece over the weekend, is deeply reported, expose over the impact of the war in the Gulf. It was the headline with survivors of Iranian attack that killed six U.S. troops, say General's ignored warnings. And it details the series of failures by army leaders

during the war that included moving soldiers from one place that had air defenses to a smaller one that did not. It was poorly, this new place they moved into was like poorly defended, easily surveilled. It talked about decisions by military leaders like prematurely asked soldiers to leave bunkers before it was safe. And then even it alleges that one of the Brigadier

Generals in charge of this unit didn't help rescue survivors after they'd been hit and like

went and hit in a bunker. So it's just, it's great reporting. It's worth your time that details the human cost to our service members who are hurt and killed in this conflict. Yeah, and it's a bit of a reminder, just to, you know, wait through the minefield of this discourse. But there's this kind of thing we do where we throw it clear and we're like, well, obviously, the military did everything right, but Trump's an idiot. I don't know that the military did

everything right. And in fact, when I look at the results of this war, I don't know what they did other than blow up a bunch of stuff on Iran. They didn't secure the facilities. They're not telling us again for the hundredth time, the truth about how badly the damages, we don't know how badly these people are injured, who are hurt. We don't know, we have no idea of like what this strategy is, you know, militarily with the Iranians. Now, I'm so

about that. This is not to impune everybody in the military. I'm talking about the people at the top, you know, who run sent-com and, and you know, raising cane, you know, why we let to believe that a Pete Higgs F. Run military is maximally competent. I don't think it is. And I think we were

“seeing some evidence that, by the way, the only thing I was saying, it was a time man, the category”

of like, what do you no longer believe? How many times has Trump told us that the Gulf is going to spend, you know, like Dr. Evil and Austin Powers, like, you know, 10 trillion dollars, you know, does anybody believe? So this escort plan, having Navy ships escort all these other ships through the start of a move is it went from we are going to charge some 20% per ship to now. Oh, actually, it's going to be paid for by Gulf countries. Some fictional investment in the US,

but he's already trotted all these Gulf leaders to Washington and have them announced that they're going to invest, like, right, literally a trillion dollars. They said that that's the thing that they said, and does do any Americans feel that money? Are you getting that money? Does that exist in the physical world? Only if you work in like in video. If you work in, in the AI bubble, sure, you know, that's it. Pontevo World is brought to you by Sundays. Have you ever actually looked at the

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One of the things, so a few weeks back, we learned about this Israeli plan to install former Iranian president, Makhmood, Akmedinajad, as president, after the conflict started. For those unfamiliar with Akmedinajad, not a great guy, well known for human rights abuses, stealing elections, boosting Iran's nuclear program and denying the Holocaust. So, you know, not the kind of person. It's not the obvious choice for Israel. In this case, the New York Times had a bunch of new

details about the scheme and how they recruited him as an asset. That's just felt right up your ally then. So, Israel used its ties with Victor Orban in the Hungarian government to get a university in Budapest to invite Akmedinajad. I love it. It's to a climate change conference, because he's just a big guy. But obviously, this was covered a facilitate this clandestine meeting with the head of Assad. Israeli operatives also met with Akmedinajad during a visit he made to Guatemala. We think they

probably did for again a conference about the environment. Their plan to free Akmedinajad was

“to bomb his compound kill his guards, send Assad agents. And I think a few Joe to pick him up and”

take him to a safe house. But I think Akmedinajad did not stay at this safe house. Apparently, he didn't feel very safe. Quickly to solutions. By the rescue operation. And now he's under house arrest. Akmedinajad is he was last seen that the Supreme Leader's funeral surrounded by a bunch of guards. It seemed like very much a decision to kind of show off what had happened to him. So Ben, I guess my takeaway was, look, say what you want about the missile. Like the

the Pager operation, I think you and I talked about the questionable morality of having thousands of Pagers blow up all across Lebanon and potentially kill kids and innocent people all around them. But it was a creative technical endeavor, right? It was impressive in the sense that they're able to pull this off, make a fake Pager company, right? This seems like completely ham-handed and stupid and half-assed. And like, I've no sympathy for Akmedinajad. But that boy is that guy fucked.

Yeah, he's a bit like a, are you 1984 guy? Like when Winston Smith gets released from, you know, the detention. Sure. He just knows he's got his dead. Yeah, he's been a well-deserved

bread that way. Yeah. So, first of all, it is notable, the Budapest angle because, you know,

Orban and Netanyahu's ties were super close. I read about this in my last, or second book. Netanyahu's political consultants on his 2009 campaign. Low and beholdy came Orban's political consultants on his 2010 campaign. And when Orban had people hired black cube, same former misegas despite on me, to try to do sting operations and, you know, project veritas, we're going to record, you know, source linked people talking about how they're going to like

Victor Orban, where they leak it. Oh, they leaked it to the Jerusalem posts and then Orban picked it up. That the symbiotic nature of not just Orban, but kind of the European far-right in Israel is very notable. It's also very seemingly strange because Orban is also kind of an anti-Semite. But it just shows you that Netanyahu and a lot of his defenders don't care about any semitism. So long as the people, you know, they can say all the anti-Semitic stuff they want to their far-right base in the

European politics, as long as they allow, you know, things like this to happen. Right. Then that's fine. I will also say it's kind of like what I was saying about, you know, Sentcom, there's this veneer of competence around the Masad. When what we have seen them being able to do

But their capacity to actually like build something. I mean, under what Senerio

“was an oxidative job going to leave this safe house and assume power and run. Right. The question is”

with what army, apparently, was supposed to be this Kurdish operation, which also never.

Think about how insane that is. Like what game of risk are these guys playing in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv that that Kurdish army is going to come down from, you know, the Nora. And meet up with Ahmadinejad and what storm the, you know, the parliament or something like it's so nuts. And I just, I beg people, like we, you and I have been in these rooms. Like, these people are not as all, I'm knippin' at least smart as you think they are. And if you need

to improve that, just look at the outcome of every dumb fucking war they start. Yeah. That's a great segue to this story about this intelligence that Israel passed along about this Iranian threat on Trump's life. So that intelligence that came from the Israelis, along with Trump deciding to ramp

back up the war against Iran while he was abroad in Turkey at NATO led to him to make a security

decision, which was to fly back to the UK on his way to the US on the old Air Force one and not the new Katari bribe version of Air Force one that he flew to Turkey. He, Trump said, we're sending it ahead so the troops can tour it, you know, in, you know, the basing UK. He made up some bullshit. But the New York Times reported that the decision was made because the new plane is still lacking in security measures, especially missile defense systems. These reports reportedly outrage

Trump, and then just two days later, a bunch of New York Times journalists were like home at nine on the Friday night and they got served subpoenas from I assume FBI agents demanding that they testify in front of a grand jury in like on the next Wednesday, right? And like what five days. So they were issued and these subpoenas were issued by FBI Director Cash Patel after he apparently spent eight hours working out of the White House on Friday focused on this briefing,

you know, I assume, you know, Steven Miller and like the political staff. So on Monday, Hexeth also announced that the Pentagon and the DOJ have created a joint task force to identify and prosecute leakers. So Ben, I can look at this story in on some level, kind of understand why you, look, this is a national security week that I could imagine an administration being upset

“about now. I would argue that I think the lack of defensive capabilities on the Katari bribe,”

Air Force one were pretty well known and also was widely discussed, widely discussed, also widely discussed was what people assumed would be the time frame required to install those on this plane. It seems like they did a rush job and they just, I don't refurbished it to the tune of a

a couple hundred billion dollars for taxpayers like us to pay and then off we go,

Trump was riding on the thing internationally. But in practice, like what this is is a massive attack on press freedom that skipped all the normal steps in a national security leak investigation and went straight to how do we intimidate and potentially prosecute these journalists. And that is a very new and real thing because I know there are people out there who are like, well, actually us and say, well, Obama had like eight SP and Ajax leak investigations or whatever, but it's like

normally what happens there is you use every other means possible to figure out who, you know, like broke the law, the Bush government employee broke the law and leaking the information. You'll go after the journalist. First of all, it's interesting to me that they made this decision. Somebody in the Secret Service and people that look at threat assessments, I've been in the some of those conversations. We used to have pretty intense conversations that obviously

involved a lot of intelligence gathering around, say, the president decided to fly to Afghanistan where you knew there was an act of threat potentially to their Air Force One. And someone approved this plane without the countermeasures flying too Turkey and then didn't approve it leaving Turkey. So something happened, like some intel came in, maybe it was bogus intel too, I don't know. But clearly there was a shift. Well, that shift is clearly going to get the

attention of journalists. So it's no surprise that people notice the president chose to fly on a different plane. I do want to say something about the league investigation point that you made because

“I think anybody that listens with any regularity of this podcast knows how much you and I are”

willing to talk about wrestle with, reckon with things we thought should have done that differently. This is wildly different in very important ways. If you have an open league investigation, because there's national security information that is made public and the way these things normally go as you said is these investigations grind on for years, you and I got fucked by some of these investigations even though he did nothing wrong, because they cast such a wide net. They talked to

journalists. It disappears from the White House. It's all in the DOJ back in the days when

“DOJ had independence and just like, or US attorneys, or US attorneys who who's somehow like”

Rod Rosenstein was, the US attorney investigated the league investigation of the Stuck Snaddish in the Obama years. The guy was a very conservative Republican who you were not like safe because he worked for the administration in DOJ with doing the investigation. If you can't say, or if you're so intent on kind of virtue signaling or like settling some score, you feel like you have with like Obama, the duke can't see the difference between the president and United States getting really mad about

a story. And the same fucking day, his FBI director, cancelling his trip to see his girlfriend play a country concert in a parking lot somewhere and sitting up in like the situation favorite detail. Sitting there for eight hours and then within like what, 24, 48 hours you've got reporters getting like the thread like that, that is not happened. And so like let's focus on the thing that matters here, which is the president of the United States directing the FBI director to run investigation

out of the White House that immediately targets journalists, not the people that handle the classified information and information about decision-making around Air Force One, is a total new rubric on that was just crossed in this country. And it should scare people. It's it's fucking prudentness behavior. It's incredibly chilling. Also, there was a reporter whose her name is escaped and me at the Washington Post who had her devices searched not long back because of some

the investigation about a story. I forget what it was. But yeah, I mean, it really does sound like there was direct coordination between the White House and Kashpital on this story and then they literally summoned the guy to work out of the White House workspace to prepare this thing and turn it on fast. One to watch in various area for these reporters. Ben, let's a little corruption watch here. So this one, I want to tell you a story about Canada, a corrupt billionaire, and a hockey

legend named Gordihau. You ready? Yeah. So, okay, there's a brand new six-lane bridge, spanning the Schwit River linking Detroit to Windsor, Canada. It's been ready to go and, you know, have people going across it since June 9th. So it's named after Gordihau, Canadian hockey legend,

“you played most of his career at the Schwit Red Wings. I think he's a big fighter, no? Yeah, yeah,”

Gordihau. Because some of the old school pictures, when they didn't have helmets, too, fucking wild. These guys skidden around, no helmet. No, how many? Very few teeth. Very few teeth. Yeah, I've just been very good player to help a player don't cross that guy. So the opening of this bridge was delayed for weeks because the U.S. and Canada were wrestling over the financial term. So the backstory on this thing is Detroit, uh, to Windsor, that border crossing is really

important. Nearly one quarter of trade via truck go up between the U.S. and Canada moves through that Detroit area crossing. That's like hundreds of millions of dollars a day and around a hundred

billion a year. For years, there have been only two options for getting across the Detroit River.

There's a tunnel, uh, owned jointly by Detroit and Windsor, and then there's this privately owned bridge, the Ambassador Bridge. It's yes, very weird that this bridge is owned by one family. And the bridge is especially important because trucks can't fit in the tunnel, so they all have to go over the bridge, um, and it's super shitty. And so, um, as, as cross border trade, continue to grow, especially after NAFTA, um, the Canadians in particular were increasingly desperate

to find some other means of getting stuff across the border. And they were fought to the nail buy this billionaire troll family that owned the Ambassador Bridge, the notorious Detroit Slumlord named Maddie Maroon, who's also a major Republican donor. And so Maroon, he obviously didn't want competition for his bridge. He was willing to fight dirty to prevent it long, interesting story there that we won't go into. Finally, Canada offers to pay for the bridge itself at the cost of 4.7

billion dollars, and then recoup the cost via tolls, which seemed like a great deal, uh, including

to Trump in his first term. Then you fast forward to this year, Matthew Maroon, the son of the aforementioned, uh, and now, dead Maddie Maroon, donated $1 billion to Trump's a Trump-aligned super PAC. Then he met with, uh, commerce secretary Howard Lutton, a couple of weeks later, and then hours after that meeting, Trump posted this insane screen on true social that you probably

“remember that included a claim that China was going to terminate all hockey being played in Canada.”

You remember this? I don't remember. I didn't get rid of the Stanley Cup, I think. Oh, I knew it meant now I'm going to say that. And that one also said, quote, "I will not allow the bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we've given them, and I'm also importantly, Canada treats the United States with the fairness and respect that we deserve." And we'll start negotiations immediately with all that we have given them. We should

own perhaps at least one half of this asset, right? So that brings us to June, the opening ceremony this bridge is canceled. Trump goes for one chance to shake Canada down on this bridge project

that they paid for in full. Finally, they kind of deal that says, Canada, the U.S. will split the

net proceeds of tolls with the U.S. for 15 years. I mean, Canada will still get repaid because those costs will get recovered before any net profits. And then the U.S. will have to approve increasing tolls by 10% or cutting tolls below comparable bridges, right? So they have this provision for their billionaire donor that just shares this new bridge can't undercut the prices.

Canada, it has become political fodder. So here's conservative leader Pierre Pollyv.

“That gets still round. Yeah, yeah. Followed by Mark Carney, who I just want to warn those who are”

watching that listening. He's wearing kind of an unfortunate cowboy look that you just have to get past.

Let's watch. Canada paid for the entire 6.4 billion dollar price tag. We even

funded the infrastructure on the American side of the river all with the understanding that we would collect 100% of the tolls until we recouped our money. Carney just agreed to give half the tolls to a Michigan economic development body that did not pay a dime to build the thing. This is our brand master negotiator. Carney is a approach of elbows up when he thinks the president is not looking and sucking up to his face is not working. The word net does a lot of work in this. We are

sharing after Canada's paid back. So we get the revenues, then the servicemen, the positive bridge, and paying the debt of the bridge and then what's left over, there's a split of that for 15 years. It's not going to be a lot of net to split. So look, it's a good deal for Canada.

Such an interesting story about how corruption has real word implications, economic implications

for people to throw it in Canada. I saw that all the Senate candidates in Michigan have actually been making content about this issue and trying to highlight it and make a part of their campaign. We'll see if they're successful. But hopefully our guy had a toll on saying it. A toll is making a great video on it. So it's an interesting story, something to watch and just the latest like kind of little sprinkling corruption that we've learned about. God knows what we

have it. Again, for people in the watching YouTube, the cowboy look was a little weird, but Pierre, Paul, you have like, why is he walking? Yeah. Like, I get when sometimes you're, I mean, why is he on the go for this video that he's doing? Like, it's just a little bit of the surrounding.

“Look, the one takeaway you have to have from this, because it does matter a lot, that the”

amount of trade that goes across these bridge crossings in places like Michigan, Canada, is extraordinary. The main takeaway is, in this administration, if you point a camera at something and pause it, you find something like this. Like, if this is happening on this bridge, it's happening on how many trade deals, it's happening on how many export controls and ships getting sold around the world. Like, these guys are treating the entire United States in all of these

ancillary pieces of commerce and trade, like a big fucking fruit to squeeze all the juice out of. So they can get rich, so they're donors can get rich, so they can get contributions to things. It's just a big shakedown operation. It's kind of how, by the way, it's how like certain really corrupt countries in the world are run, where there's not a thing like Russia, like there's not a bridge built in Russia that doesn't have like some kickback for, you know, I'm a prudent

or some friend of his or some oligarch or some local official or whatever. Like, this is now what the United States is like. Yeah, the story is just like, the reason the story was interesting is it's just like one of countless stories like this, some we've heard of, the majority we have. No, that's the point. The majority we haven't heard of, and I also love the fact that there's a

similar cast that showed, like Howard Lottonic is always showing how things like this. His kids are

off in there. Yeah, his kids are there with cough, cushioner, like there's just this kind of inner circle of gifters and corrupt, like crooks, basically, like running the US government, like a, like a, like a mafia family. And, you know, it's like a nice bridge you got there, like

“and how much can we squeeze out of this? Yeah, I think what's amazing is it's how brazen it is.”

I mean, right before we started recording a New York Times story posted with the headline, Trump paid 2 million by South Korean company facing trade execution. It's like, there's so many things. Cut them a check. It was like a not it was described as a non-refundable development p fee in his financial disclosure report. He's not even trying to hide it. People will be writing about disruption for like 100 years because it's we were we are just seeing, I mean, this the

expression holds like this is a tip of an iceberg like the amount of stuff happening and why is there truly not a dollar Pentagon budget up like 60%. Like, well, because it's like a huge trough. That's the easiest money. And the Trump boys are investing in all of these companies that are connected to everything is being monetized by Trump. Yeah. Pot's a world is brought to you by him's. ED is more common than guys talk about the good news,

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and also just like what is life like in a country that is being run from Washington by Marco Rubio literally. So the latest death toll is nearly 4,500 people have been killed in over 16,000 have been injured but as many as 50,000 people could be missing still so that it's almost certainly

a pretty drastic under count. The Trump administration has pledged $300 million in aid

it's being funneled through organizations like the Red Cross in the UN. To damn shame, Ben, that we don't have an entity and organization within the government that does disaster relief in aid in situations like this. Wow. If someone could come up with an idea for how to do that, we may be able to get that Elon Musk thing. It's something. All the political roomifications are kind of playing out in real time. There are countless agonizing stories about

Venezuela and who are like, you know, interviewed by a reporter next to a pile of rubble, they were hoping the government would come and help them rescue their loved one. That loved one is no longer alive. They're hoping for help now for just like body recovery operations. And President Delce Rodriguez, she did herself no favor is by sporting a $1300 ski jacket while out visiting with victims so that didn't go for very well. And there's all like the

times that a story that's said quote, you know, repression turns to rage after quakes and Ben as well. It's about people just like openly criticizing the government and losing their fear. So we'll see if this becomes a political problem. And then speaking of Trump and the times that a big story about how Marco Rubio, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is literally running Ben as well as from Washington. He's not visited the country since the Delta Force operation

did oppose Maduro. But he decides how Ben as well as money is spent. What businesses can operate there. He's even vetting some of Delce Rodriguez's social media and media appearances.

“It's like that level of micro management. Which is I think what all of us assumed was happening”

on some level. But to read the level of micro management in black and white was still kind of shocking to me. Yeah, but my takeaway from that story is to what end. Marco Rubio's ego is being satiated. But is life any better for Ben as well? No, no, it's the government is repressive and corrupt. It's just now corrupt in a way that probably benefits some of Trump's cronies. Are Americans better off for this? Are you better off? Like, or the price is down at the pump

because of some windfall of Ben as well and oil. No. And so I kind of don't like this. You know, wow, like we're running it with Marco's text chain. Well, running what? Like, can anyone detail give me a list of how things are better for Americans or Ben as well as because Marco Rubio is able to prove del C. Rodriguez's social media and media appearances has

free and fair election Ben as well. Like, like, what are we getting for this other than the kind of

“ego of a late 19th century gunboat diplomacy colonial enterprise? It's just crazy that we have a”

there's a vice-roy. I mean, Rubio is literally the vice-roy Ben as well and he's sitting in Washington. And, but they can't even articulate like what, because del C. Rodriguez is communist, you know, and repressive one at that and a corrupt figure. So like, they can't even explain to us who's interests this is in. The detail I rest on is approving business deals because that probably tells me that there's like Trump, you know, Florida cronies, like people with hangar on Marlago,

who want to like, you know, build infrastructure in Venezuela and they're getting contracts at Marco's like suggesting del C. approved. Right. It's it's it's it's no different than the Canadian bridge, right? It's just a bread. It's the same thing. It's an avenue for brebs. All right Ben, switching gears here is because there's not nothing anxiety in your life already. We want to talk about how terrorists are using artificial intelligence. This comes via a research paper by the

University of Cambridge titled, "God has helped us and so will AI." How the terrorist group

Boko Haram uses frontier AI. So the New York Times got a first look at this paper. I wrote it

up the papers now online. The paper itself includes interviews with 27 former Boko Haram soldiers and commanders who talk about using these LLMs like Claude and ChetGBT and Grock. But what's interesting is they're using it to actually improve their tactics on the battlefield. It's not just like AI for propaganda or recruitment stuff. It's like day-to-day operations. The report says specifically, the group uses AI to plan attacks, design explosive devices,

service and troubleshoot weapons and improve operations security. ISIS has provided AI training for Boko Haram. I guess both groups have dedicated AI units. A couple quotes that jumped out of me then from some of these Boko Haram members. Quote, "We mostly use it three ways. The first one is to learn how to assemble and use guns and how to manufacture bombs." The second one is for surveillance and how to improve our surveillance strategies to monitor what is happening in

our camps and also better understand our enemy and prepare attacks. The third one is to make plans like when we come up with new ideas on how to attack, we ask it for tactics on how to make it work in practice and to be successful. Another person said before, the bomb explosion was not that big, but then they studied it AI told us what chemicals to put in that made the explosive heavier. So, chilling stuff for what it's worth, this is describing activity from 2023 and 2024. All the

spokespeople who were asked to respond to the time story got very defensive and they said,

"Well, the models are more powerful now, but it's all everything is so much safer."

“I don't know that I believe any of that. I guess we'll find out. Then what do you make of this”

kind of nightmare story and what it tells us? It is a nightmare story and it's permanently predictable in the sense that when you first had that quote unquote chat GPT moment when it was released for the first time. One of the very first things people started to talk about and kind of security circles is, "Well, wait a second, why couldn't this develop the recipe for biological pathogens or God forbid dirty bombs or all the way down to the more tactical level?

Just things like how do you create better explosives or how can we get better targeting for some extremist group or some dictatorial leader?" This is what happens when you build technologies without developing the guard bills because you've convinced yourself that you're either in some race against the Chinese or you've got a frontier companies that need to get as big an IPO as possible so they have to move as fast as possible without regulating or

self-regulating because we are building a technology that I don't know how many people are asking for Tommy and not many people my life are asking for it without regulating it without legislation without any international discussion about things like this and how you can guard against it. And by the way in the reporting it suggests they were using American models but even if, even if, Open AI and Thropic if chat GPT and Claude for instance have a better trigger to say,

"I can't tell you about that." If you open source any bit of these models, the replica AI is you're going to be able to do the same thing. So in the same way that there's a dark web,

“there's a dark internet so if you want to buy and sell arms or drugs or God forbid engaging human”

trafficking and pedophilia like people of a dark internet there will be a dark AI and we're just not even having conversations about regulating it. All the conversations are about the scale of investments and the IPO for you know stock market yeah the stock market yeah and this is happening

him Hansa Chaudhary from the future of life institute this this organization that they're like

“trying to raise awareness about technologies like AI or like nuclear weapons and just”

just tier us all away from the stream risk towards you know behaviors that actually benefit humanity and I was just struck by how many different policy touchpoints they're trying to work on in DC there is like securing the AI tack the chips and then the models themselves because like you know you worry about China just stealing the model weights it's another way they can just you know leapfrog us there's like the sort of soft cyber abuse use cases which is like using

AI to supercharge fishing and trying to get your password or financial scams or disinformation then there's like the major cyber operation which we saw with the mythos model the club model which is using it to find zero day exploits go after governments go after big companies and then there's the integration of AI and to military systems which raises huge questions about you know targeting for example right like you're hearing people say well with AI

we can we can generate thousands of targets per day and no one's really asking the question like is there any moral version of war where you're bombing thousands of targets today like is that yeah effective or targeted sequence good that's crazy um there are all the debates on China that you just mentioned and then the scariest one to me band is the is the biothreats because AI hopefully will help us cure diseases and find new drugs and all these good things but like

that same exact technology can make it easier for people to build dangerous biological pathogens and do it faster and maybe even make something novel like something that doesn't currently exist and like we will the process for catching up to that kind of development is just going to

be inherently always be slower than the process for developing this stuff yeah I and and look

to be clear just so we're not all negative at everything here I get it like this this technology

“is going to be developed it's going to have some benefits you know I I think curing disease is”

going to be very high up on that list I'd like to see what it can help do with clean energy and dealing climate change the the issue I have is like the manner in which you develop the technology I don't think we've seen a technology if we take the people's words for it who are developing it a technology that is this transformative that is being developed entirely in private hands with no car real no government involvement really whatsoever the proprietary

information and all the tech companies far exceeds what governments you know about it no guard wheels no regulatory framework around it no legislative regulatory framework around it no dialogue between the United States and China the two AI superpowers and and it's inevitably going to lead to all of these issues I mean just to I'll we can continue to talk about this because it's such an important issue and in other shows I'll just pick up on one for instance if you're running one of these

“companies your interest is like beating your competitor because that's what capitalism is about I'll”

add one to your list like who who's vetting the employees do you know easy would probably be for the Chinese or Russians to try to I won't name a company because I'm not trying to put a spot on but like you know we want to get somebody in the door and oh you know if you work at a national lab associate with the US nuclear weapons you know you get pretty vet it before you

enter that facility um are they vetting who they're hiring like just all there's a million

questions like this you know a coal pearl Roth who is spent like a decade of the New York Times working on cybersecurity digital espionage all this up has an entire series out right now about the North Koreans training people to be like expert coders and then getting them hired at major companies as IT employees yeah so they have like godlike access to these systems exactly these companies are like well actually you know we don't want to fire this guy he's like a really good employee

yeah they're really good software you know but they're they're just this pervasive problem and like they have no idea how deep it goes yeah so I just it's indicative of there's many things like this right uh and and again that I don't in some ways like the companies are doing what companies do in capitalism like it's a government to step in like I'm not I'm actually not even just picking on samolvin here other you know it's the US government and is not performing it's function

in regulating a transformer of technology because it's totally dysfunctional and corrupt yeah and and there's no international community we we in any normal times there would be UN convenes summits with every country in the world like we be in like around 20 than those negotiations if this happened 20 years ago yeah it's crazy that's not happening yeah we we pick up and I sometimes and because samolvin is annoying mostly and because he seems so duplicitous but

response and they and like eat well meta's been you know meta released back and you know not that

“long ago they were loved ones were like we're gonna release our model and that's the the Chinese pop up”

thank you deep seek and are like yeah like thank you for doing that so there's a lot of there's not there's not one villain to the story ag and overall villain is just that we can't control ourselves we can't we we can't slow this thing down and put some rules around yeah all right that so the when we were in the obama world in the obama administration our track record was not perfect when it came to gifting uh foreign head to state gifts so obama gave uh British Prime Minister Gordon Brown

DVDs ones that were formatted to play only in North America well yeah in Brown gives uh obama pen holder carve from timber from a Victorian era anti-slave ship yeah that was not great they gave it a more thought on that yeah we gave uh the queen and iPod so we like we tend to tread lightly on the subject I thought you're coming back to this brother no it does a good genzy like you know we're going and all the afternoon yeah that's good um but even I was little surprised what I read about

Turkish president type heir to ones gift to all the other NATO leaders who came to the summit in Ankara check out this video it's from Slovakia's president he's opening up his gift from heir to one

“let's watch he's opening up a box there and inside we see a huge gun with a note and then I believe”

there are six bullets next to it this is the more I think the official photo of the gun in ammo that was presented to the leaders at the NATO summit it's quite beautiful so this is a a personally engraved vintage Turkish pistol it's a 357 Magnum with six live rounds because obviously you don't give someone an empty gun that's just rude and so hilariously though then this meant for a bunch of these European leaders they had to figure out like what to do with these things

to avoid running a fell of gun laws in their own countries for example Belgium's Prime Minister realized that he transported to firearm across international lines after he landed back home and had to like hand it to the cops uh Ursula von der Leyen that the European Commission president said thanks and then I think donated it to a military museum other leaders had to leave their guns at their embassies in Turkey with like plans to decommission them according to the Guardian

Canada's Mark Carney quote took his revolver within but left the ammunition in Turkey they did not

explain why so fun fact here Turkey's now the third biggest exporter of small arms in the world

so this is a bit of marketing from Erdogan but what do you make of the gift here is there a subtle message and the inclusion of bullets is quite extraordinary to me because you could actually take the gift and immediately shoot some yeah that's so look it's not the gift I'd go for doesn't scream peace or defensive alliance to me but the inclusion of ammunition is wild to me how quaint that there are countries with gun laws that you can bring in I will tell you what came

into my mind though which again we're getting old enough that we keep revisiting like things from

“the internet but do you remember the Olympics that Turkish guy who looked like a like a aging middleage”

man and and he was in the shooting competition and he was just a colding out of like six two like sideways like totally like people Google that Turkish gun Olympics yeah I'm talking about because it looks like that's kind of what Erdogan was gifting everyone else had like perfect form and was posing and like sniping targets and this guy looked like he had like a heater in his mouth that was just like up and off like side style yeah so it did bring that back to me that's the good

I take away from this but yeah like it's just this the world doesn't feel it's kind of not what you want happening at the need of something you want like a doves released or something yeah yeah

it wants an odd duck all right finally the world cup is almost over again we talked about the

Spain France game on Wednesday the day this comes out England is gonna play Argentina rigged you were in Norway for some of the game so we talked about the the Norway fans doing the Viking row, folks might have seen this they did in stadiums they did it on the street they did it on escalators they did all of the place then did you see the one fan who refused to join me I did I did okay I I consumed all the Norway kind I love this guy his name is a meal honors lapin

here's how he explained himself in an interview with sky news let's watch this is a meal honors lapin in the middle of a crowd of rowing fans but he went viral for refusing to join in a little earlier I asked him why I first of all I just find it really stupid that's that's the thing I thought when they came up with it that it was stupid at the knowing and I didn't want to do it and then it I hope it's a lot of what the island we're doing and it's actually wrong they didn't roll they

saved over death I love it is or is in the background like this guy's pro yeah yeah it was rolling yeah

I mean I appreciate it I always appreciate someone who's not gonna just go with the crowd just like

seem like they have a good time your way fans were having a place like I'm not sure the historical

“accuracy was the point like you know they were just digging it but hey man you do you and if you”

mean what a correct the record on how they get to Iceland like that's totally fine I get it you know one taken point taken we got you last week about so I talked with Medi about the controversy around flow ball again one of the great American players he got a red card you were supposed to have to sit out the game against a Belgium and then Trump called the president I wrote a stepstack about this I know you did and Medi actually called it out on the show and then Trump calls the head of FIFA

the problem is magically solved flow ball again he gets to play against Belgium doesn't matter

and you know for the for the result of the game we got our asses kicks it didn't really matter but it was pretty sketchy and pretty shady check out this in new detail on how it all went down this is from Dan Patrick on the Dan Patrick show when that decision was made to lift the automatic band which is an unprecedented action it was done by one person and one person only from what I'm told chairman Mohammed Al Kamali of the United Arab Emirates the committee was neither informed

nor consulted the UAE is a top tier relation to the Trump family's business interest and government relationships this was one person who made this decision so when President Trump said he is the one that made this happen he probably did but my source said that this this came from the chairman Mohammed Al Kamali of the United Arab Emirates so the committee wasn't even told this the least surprising news ever it's the least surprising thing that the United Arab Emirates

might have somebody in the middle of a corruption scandal associated with both Donald Trump and

international sports like what a shocker you know it's exactly what is amazing but the

Trump is just how easy it is to predict how things went down because this is what I thought I mean not again anybody would know is like where's the corruption it's the golf and if Trump went something fixed there who's going to go through and turn off it's the Emirati chair of some fake committee for you know his sycophantic FIFA president friend I will I will say it's how me to do a little sports media criticism good by the way good for Dan Patrick

because I on my podcast I had a lot of sports podcast I'm not even going to call any of the mouth because not worth it but like I heard some people like actively running away from the

importance of the story you know like hey like we I mean you know you know Trump did that thing

but like we don't need to talk about that I probably wasn't that important and and I sense people being afraid of their audience you know I get you don't like to make sports and politics but fucking president states like clearly intervenes I can tell you who is interested in that story every other sports soccer fan in the world every human being alive every human being on earth following the world come and so we can't like pretend like and by the way like I'll be the

smart like the liberal that people get mad at like no I don't think Trump did one good thing that he he would have if we had won which I won us to do he would have fucked it up because everybody in the world we've been like they cheated and that's the reason they want yeah I look my takeaway was I didn't think it should be a red card I thought it was a bad call

“yeah um I I I obviously would Trump did a sketchy but honestly like I was less grossed out by him”

because on some level like presidents advocate for their countries FIFA is a disgusting utterly corrupt cotton to its core organization and this will be something that is hung around their neck forever and like I think the pushback you hear is like feet FIFA is so corrupt you know there's all the DOJ um there's the DOJ indictments from 2015 there are the allegations of you know taking bribes to give various countries like Russia or Qatar the the world cup

location um that is almost like kind of washes over you because it's such a broken organization but I actually think this was medited too I think this is actually different because it impacted the play of the game during the cup not like who gets a sponsorship deal well that's the thing and you know we you like you know I mean it made it took me back to being a kid and learning about like the ways which the Soviets used to fuck around with like the Olympic judges and stuff you know like

“it when you get into the because I do I think you should have gotten red card no I also don't think you know”

I think Egypt got screwed I think absolutely no we got screwed I don't I bitch about I'm insane people just go look at my twitter feed which the majority my twitter feed for the last six months has been complaining about calls against the nicks and it got so out of hand that I actually went

right so like I get it like complaining about calls bitching about calls but like I would like

the integrity of sports to be settled on the field and I feel bad you know for our guys because they become villains internationally and they didn't I don't blame any of them you know yeah it's sucked and then you know Belgium rubbed it in our face by doing like the Trump dance every time they scored and stuff which was pretty funny we just looked bad not a great outcome all around all right we are going to take a quick break but when we come back you're going to hear

Ben's interview with Congressman Rokana about his time in the West Bank getting detained by settlers and all things that he observed while he was there so stick around for that positive world is brought to you by Helix got a Helix mattress I forgot the exact mattress model

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the smartest organizers least annoying politicians in most interesting voices in politics talk about how to fix this mess you can present in Obama made a surprise appearance we're doing it all again November 5th to 7th in Washington DC even more podcast panels and workshops plus there be drinks which we'll need after the midterms no matter which way they go get tickets at cricketcon dot com if you're a friend of the party get a discount to see you there

or not there are there are there are 2013 we're on the right side of the room the biggest advantage of shopping for me is that we're going to need no technical information for you we can all over the back end and the front end and so it was like to go to the online shop we're shopping for the driver to the right then we're going to the platform that's actually the driver you just saw the green flag and our whole message is on the left to shop if i start it now a constant losing test of shop if i pull and come

okay i'm very pleased to be joined by congressman roccana from silicon valley who serves in our services committee the select committee on the strategic competition between the United States and china and on the oversight and accountability committee roe thanks so much for joining us thanks for having me been okay so you know you've been in touch you just got back from a trip to the west bank that drew a lot of attention i want to just start with your decision

to visit the west bank where you were detained by Israeli settlers and the idea of which we'll get to but you know my experience in politics is at most visits to that part of the world or

basically you know in Israeli government kind of facilitated tour of what these really government

wants you to see maybe occasionally you go to remala in the west bank and see the Palestinian authority what what led you to make this decision to center your visit more on the west bank and the conditions there then the more conventional type of an approach that and most members of congress take well honestly i was inspired by your insights and Jasper Nathaniel's insights and Jasper is a journalist on the ground who has done protective presence which is protecting some of the

Palestinian villages from settler violence and you and him and a young guy works for me came

“casky said you the only way you're going to really see this is if you have a tour on the west bank”

we go there and you actually have Palestinians lead it going to Palestinian homes go see have run from Palestinian eyes go talk to Palestinian Americans and so that's what i wanted to do and it's interesting that what's really upset if you look at some of these really government statements was really upset them is that i did not coordinate with them of course we notify them that i was

would dare go to the west bank of the Palestinian led tour and not to make the obligatory stops in

“Israel yeah i know and i i think it it bears saying because i've seen some of the criticism which”

will get to that the west bank is not Israel so you're visiting what is supposed to be under international law Palestinian territory but i do want to let's talk about the incident that you experience while you're there we've had Jasper Nathaniel on too and obviously he's been very

powerful on his journalism people should check him out following on sub-stack he's been recording

a lot of these types of incidents that happened to you now you are sitting member of congress you had a video that you posted online this weekend in which armed Israeli settlers blocked your convoy the idea showed up and basically ended up detaining you instead of dispersing the settlers what happened can you walk us through what your experience was so this was the one part of the tour that actually was not Palestinian led it was led by Nadov of breaking the silence

“and Nadov is a former IDF officer who believes that the occupation is unjust it started breaking”

the silence to help Israel and the occupation and he's taken people there many times before in fact just four five months ago he took members of congress there congressman cast in and congress woman rose at the low row and so we went to zoonada village this is a village that has been destroyed by Yenan levy who is an extremist settler and as an outpost which is illegal even under Israeli law it's a settlement that even Israel recognizes is illegal

and Yenan levy was caught on camera murdering Ottawa palestinian and so they he raised this village and we were taking pictures of the elementary school that he had raised suddenly to put rooms in the around twenty one twenty two come one brandishing an m4 and I'm told get in the van get in the van we all get in the van and they have parked their car outside right in front of our van so we can't believe and our cursing at us wiping our windows video taping us and then

the IDF can have a twenty thirty minutes later I say okay thank you we're going to be free here to go and the IDF actually says no we're on the side of the settlers and we think you're in an illegal area now even the IDF has acknowledged it wasn't an illegal area but we have to wait

75 minutes and finally we get someone on the american embassy uh a great career official uh

David Brownstein or context the Israeli government and the police come and and we are let out but if we were palestinians we would have I'm 100% sure face some violence the fact that they were we were americans they were probably a little bit more careful though so they said we don't care and they didn't care enough to let us let us go and did anybody apologize to you for this I thought what I came back the Israeli government would do kind of what net meah who did which is

say all these are juvenile delinquents and then maybe just say I'm sorry this happened to americans it's not typical of what happens uh this was uh not reflective on who we are and we apologize to not just me but they uh to other americans and the New York Times's photo journalist and others

were uh in our delegation but instead they have uh basically said well I didn't coordinate the trip

they've said that it wasn't a detention because they they they we weren't held at gunpoint yeah we weren't held at gunpoint but having people brandished their guns and blocked the only road out of the zona village you could call a false imprisonment detention you know if I one person said it's just like being delayed in traffic I mean so uh it's just mind-boggling how they have been describing uh the incident let's play the clip of Prime Minister Netanyahu

and how he responded to this on meet the press when he was asked about what what happened you I want to play that and then get your reaction to to the Prime Minister in uh the West Bank and Judy and Sabaria we've had thousands thousands of uh attempted attacks and warnings against terrorist activities against uh innocent Israelis families mother with their children driving along the road they're stopped by terrorists and they they killed them there is a vigilante effort

not by the settler community they're 99.9% uh you know a law biting citizens they work they serve in the army and so on there are 150 a juvenile delinquents that are not part of that community they come from the other parts of Israel and we are working to put them under the law

“but I think if we put things in perspective we should see that we have thousands of attacks”

Israel unlike our neighbors is a democracy and a country of law and we act against those who

dynamic he describes which is that this is like a hotbed of terrorism with a handful of juvenile

delinquents is that the reality you experience not just in your detention but in in what you saw in in general uh during your your visit to the West Bank. Well he's right that it's a hotbed of terrorism against the Palestinians I mean the people who are being terrorized are the Palestinians

“who milk hair the village I was at a home of Salman I remember it's a vividly in settlers”

rattling the windows of his home throwing things at his home is 18 year old daughter saying I can't study I need to go somewhere else and this happening night after night after night and then they planted in Israeli flag over a Palestinian home the I was in one of the rich areas of Palestine where Palestinian

Americans were living who had done very well here worth millions of dollars here having a

beautiful homes there and they said to me we are still treated as brown Palestinians with no standing one father talked in tears about his 14 year old who was killed by the IDF and how he still has the room unchanged in his house in other uh jaman talked about how the settlers came and vandalized his home uh destroyed his car a beetle lady in the car and no justice went to a school

“where there was a school shooting and I saw the blood of the 14 year old who had died now we have school”

shootings in America the difference is even though we don't agree on gun policy we all agree 99 percent at least that the school shooter should be brought to justice here the principal was not consulted about the shooting no one in the school was asked about the shooting I said what happened to the school shooter principal said I don't know the IDF or the police number asked him it is awful you can imagine it unless you experience it the only people in the West Bank that I saw

who were being terrorized were the Palestinians by these extreme settlers and by the idea and I just want to ask you you know you get detained like that as an American member of Congress which you know I can't imagine happening bad just you know and just about anywhere uh in the world at this point but you also know that you go to work in a building where people vote regularly to either through direct financing and assistance or through military sales to arm this government where

their you know regularly resolutions expressing support for this is really government where you know this idea that their democracy including a democracy I guess that you know governs people who have second-class citizenship if that in places like the West Bank or under military occupation what what is that like to to recognize that you are you know at least briefly victimized by the impunity that the Congress where you work has kind of supported with this

blank check of support. That's ironic because I voted uh in the past for the aid that led to arguing my own detention I mean I of course voted against the aid after October 7th and voted against

the $20 billion dollars to net yeah but before that I was a member of Congress who had voted

every year for the $3 billion aid and now it's literally leading to the detention of Americans and the detention of Palestinians Palestinian Americans but it's relevant now because this week we're going to have a vote on the massive amendment to zero out the aid which I support and Greg Kassaur is the chair the progressive caucus actually talks about what happened to me and other Americans saying how can how can we vote for eight and while I don't want to make this about

me I'm glad it's got an attention I'm hoping that we'll actually get to show the Palestinian

“videos and that that's what's going to become the topic of conversation I will just say factually”

as someone pointed this out that the last time a member of Congress was overseas and either shot at or detained by uh people who had guns was in 1978 with Leo Ryan in the Jones Town Massacre in Cayana and so this is not a common occurrence and you would think that Israel would be profoundly apologetic instead of uh hunkering down in their corner and trying to justify what happened yeah I wouldn't talk about the Democratic Party here too though because you know not that's

surprising that you had certain Israeli and Republican voices in this country criticizing you but I also saw the Democratic majority for Israel the DMFI which is kind of like a apac light that spends a lot of money trying to like pros real Democrats come out and attack you and essentially call this like a publicity stunt there wasn't you know I saw Josh Godheimer

somewhere you shouldn't have and at the same time we see these primary results where um you know

“there are a lot of reasons why we've seen five incumbents defeated in primaries but you know a”

throughline at all those is that uh the challenges to those uh incumbents took a different position on on support for Israel when you see those kinds of attacks from your colleagues in the Democratic Party do you talk to those people privately do you reach out to them um uh what is that like I haven't seen Josh I know Josh well we came into Congress together we usually have a pretty good rapport I was surprised by him and I was surprised by Kathy Manning we had a decent

rapport I would have just thought they would say look this violence shouldn't have happened and uh

we're glad Congress would kind of save we disagree with his views we don't think that this was deliberate

on Israel's part it was a mess but we understand settler violence is bad but you know they they're attacking me is not just an attack on my policy positions on Israel they've said genocide or then I've said the facts on the ground or a part that they want to discredit uh my character they want to say he's a liar he's just in this for publicity he's just doing this to further his own ambitions he has no credibility uh because they're threatened by the narrative and they know is a

Indian American of Hindu faith who's not Muslim who was a supporter of Israel for many years in Congress who represents Silicon Valley who worked for as a junior person for the Obama administration that they can't just paint me as fringe they can't just say all this guys out in left field and so what they're trying to do is show that uh yeah this guy's not in the mainstream he's not to be trusted uh to to discredit my criticisms of Israel and it's a very cynical strategy but it's why

members of Congress are reluctant to speak out it's not just the impact money it's the assault that you face in terms of your character and and your values now what we've seen though is politically at least in some of these primaries being attacked by some of these folks actually is one of the biggest markers to the progressive base and young people that that you're willing to fight and it's almost a badge of honor yeah what frustrated me is I I can accept you know a policy

differences there was like a willful effort to to discredit even the idea of visiting the west bank uh as if that's somehow you know it's it's it's a publicity stunt to go to the west bank but not to go and get your picture taken with you know bebenenia or something by the way and written in

“rub and no one no one and I nor do I think it is but no one is like ramen manual you know”

that's a publicity stunt to go to Tel Aviv and give a speech to run in 2028 right where he's he was explicitly giving a speech outlining his vision no what's going to be that a publicity stunt but going to the west bank is so uh foreign to these folks how can you do it and the reason they're attacking me is they don't want other people to do it they they want people to see the Palestinians and what's going on there I you know this is clearly going to be a huge issue

it already is in this cycle it's going to be in the presidential primary I saw Hakeen Jeffries come out today in support of you know you know he would not support an anti-military assistance Israel what what do you make of that that they're having a leadership that feels so out of step with where most Democrats are yeah I was disappointed and and surprised obviously I'm going to support it I'm a collied of that amendment with with with Massey I will say Hakeen

at least you know he reached out to me and if day after the whole incident happened it was

“very very supportive but I I think that the party is not understanding where the base says”

and they're underestimating how important an issue this is I'm not sure clear veldez Bradlander certainly Darrylisa Milatt Analylia or Adam Hamawi would have won their races if it weren't for this issue not saying they don't have other great attributes to them but this was one of the biggest issues and the reason it's become a big issue is people are saying if you if you can't be honest about what we're seeing in our with our own eyes and willing to take on

this power structure how how can we trust you so it's become a director test not just a question of the details of are you for calling it a genocide or apartheid it's are you willing to take on power to fight for a more just world and I think a lot of the our political base is just out of touch about where the party is on this where the where the base to the party is yeah and I I clearly it's it's also a threshold test of whether you're willing to

take on powerful interests like a pack or whether you're willing to say what's happening in the

looking at the west bank and obviously experienced settler violence you've talked about the need to ban military assistance what about the settler issue in particular what what what kind of policies do you think could be used to introduce some accountability for this violence and to try to create some leverage over what is seemingly an unaccountable situation in the west bank of settlers feeling like they have impunity oh we we should have sanctions on the banks we should have

sanctions on the construction companies sanctions on the government officials pushing this policy

right now that as you know they're subsidizing basically the settlements of here is really

and even if you don't have a sense of the greater Israel you can get just cheaper land and free childcare and government assistance if you move to the settlements and there needs to be and into that but on a very immediate basis a new administration should come in and say within a hundred days here's the people we want to rest it you know on levy there are a number of these other extremist settlers or terrorizing folks here are the outpost that we expect

“the idea you have to destroy within a hundred days and this is not some kind of dialogue or peace”

plan this is what the United States expects you to do because the Palestinians that I met they

first just need to stop being terrorized they need to stop feeling that they could be subject

any whim any moment to the whims of the settler and we have all this I guess this is the thing that I saw on the ground we have all these grandiose ideas of will it be a two state solution or a confederacy will it be how do we get to peace and what do we do with Hamas and right now a lot of these folks they just want to live a normal life and the they see the United States is not having lifted a finger to to make that possible and what they want is to see some action to stop

their harassment and threats on a daily basis well last thing I want to ask you then is is there something that a Palestinian that you met with said to you or that you saw in terms of their

“experience that that stuck with you that you'd want to share with people about what life is like in”

the West Bank. Well sure two things I mean I will share walking down the street a headbron where shop owners were like pointing up top and saying here's where they throw the metal parts and the rotten vegetables and then when we put a stronger barricade so that the settlers above ground level couldn't throw that at us they started urinating on us and and putting acid on us and I just sort of how dehumanizing how utterly dehumanizing and then the fathers couple of fathers I met

whose children were either detained or killed in felt totally powerless they go to the one of them whose son was detained in American citizen so there was no trial he was detained for ten months he went in looking like a normal healthy kid came out totally emaciated and scarred and went from Florida but I'll tell you what struck me because they they invited me into their homes there were so warm I was there with in some parts with Jasper's Jewish American and Cam caskey a young

Jewish American Parkland survivor and they welcome us they give us a mobile loop this yuck delicious dish and they hugged Cam and they hugged Jasper and I and all they had for us was love in decency and warm and I said no bitterness towards the Jewish Americans I was there in one time there was in Israeli and the dog with us no bitterness towards Israeli they just want peace they want a better life and that gave me hope because I was inspired by Cam and Jasper and the commitment

I mean Jasper's literally pulling his body on the line every night as a as a Jewish American for

protecting Palestinians Cam is you know he's always pushing me is saying I'm not strong enough

on the issue is anytime I equivocated in the slightest you'll send me a long email he's 25 years old so they see the the the the possibility of peace and the Palestinians I believe won't hold a bitternet they're not going to be resentful there there's a large population that would embrace

“that and so that's what gave me hope that something better is possible and you know I'm not”

wanted to romanticize the younger generation but on this issue they certainly have it much more right than past generations have well that's a great note and on Rokana thank you so much for the trip you took and for coming on to share some some reflections on it so we'll continue to watch what you're doing people should follow up doing it social media and other spaces and we'll keep in touch thank you Ben thank you for your work on this thanks again the Congressman

guys later in the week Ben and I are going to go hang out with some some blobby friends out

“now spend asking security conference see if they'll let us in I kind of think there might be”

trolling us yeah yeah it's nice to yeah it's nice to you because I want to be in Colorado this

summer exactly yeah positive world is a crooked media production or show is produced by a loan

“of in Kovsky Michael Goldsmith and Inisha Bonders our team includes Matt Degrope and Hethcote”

Jordan Canter Kenny Muffett David Tolls and Ryan Young her staff is probably unionized with the

writer's guild of America east hey it's Tommy from Potsay of America and Potsay of the world last year

“2500 people joined us at CricketCon the conversation to some of the smartest organizers”

least annoying politicians and most interesting voices in politics to talk about how to fix this mess you can present in Obama made a surprise appearance we're doing it all again November 5th to 7th in Washington DC even more podcast panels and workshops plus there'll be drinks which we'll need after the midterms no matter which way they go get tickets at CricketCon dot com if you're a friend of the party and discount to see you there hello my name's Stephen Frye today it's my pleasure

to be your guide on this quite interesting tour of London find out how big bed keeps accurate time with the help of a handful of pre decimal coins like pennies father some shillings from 1933 and that London's classic red phone boxes were actually based on a tomb join Stephen Frye and the makers of QI for fun filled and fact laden GPS enabled audio tours enjoy on location or at home to get started visit qi dot com slash walking tours