JD Vance’s Global Humiliation

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Welcome back to proud day to the world. I'm Tony D. Torr. I'm Ben Rhodes. Then the vibes are high in Budapest right now. I should make it like macula. Check out this clip from Sunday. Let's watch. Yeah, the dude with the moves there is reportedly the leading candidate to become the new health minister of Hungary, but he's one of just millions of Hungarians. Celebrating Viktor Orban's

defeat in this past week's parliamentary elections. How much more would you like to hang with that guy than RFK Junior? Oh God, I didn't even thought about it. I'm a dance like that when RFK Junior's out. Yeah, and said you'd be drinking just like raw milk. Yeah. Taking H, H, or whatever bellies, taking working out in jeans, kid rock. Yeah, no, that sounds very fun. We're going to dig into those election results later in the show. Like just absolutely great news story this week that we're going to

cover out a hungry news. We're going to start though with the latest from Iran. Why the peace talks in Islamabad blew up on Saturday? How Trump's blockade of the straight of Hormuz would work or more likely will not work? We'll talk about the growing economic impact of the war on the global economy. The online propaganda wars that are being fought daily on the streets of Twitter. Being one daily in Afghanistan, the Iranians and have a legos became a prominent feature of them.

Along with this associated crackdown and press freedom, then we're going to update you guys on these really bombardment and partial occupation of Lebanon, along with the peace talks, such as they were in DC today. Then we'll talk about Orban Sefeet, what it means for Hungary, what it means for the world. The latest election news at a Canada are neighbors to the north. They're also having a good day. And then what that tells us, Mark Carney's ongoing victories,

Prime Minister Mark Carney about how world leaders could or should react to Trump.

“I think there's a lesson there, there's some lessons. There's some lessons.”

And then Ben, you did an interview this week. What have we got? Yeah, I talked to a non-Gopal who is a writer for the New Yorker and really just extraordinary journalist has a new book out called Days of Love and Rage, which is about the Syrians of a war. And pretty extraordinary, this city and Syria, a man-page that was under, you know,

Assad, then a revolutionary council, then ISIS, then Kurds. And so like the whole civil wars

in this one place. So we talk about, you know, what he learned from that experience of reporting that book about, not just the Syrians of a war, but, you know, how politics is functioned in the Arab world, how far and particularly US intervention has, you know, not worked in that part of the world. What he learned about democracy and writing that book, what we might extrapolate from that experience, you know, VZ was happening around right now. So incredibly

fascinating book and discussion and also, you know, very relevant given we are currently in another war, I'll sensibly to help a protest movement that, you know, I don't think any of us believe we're helping. So check it out. Yeah, that's not really true. He also wrote that amazing piece about like the ISIS family prison right in the nightmares in Syria. So one of those New Yorker

point in. Every now and then you're like, how did you do this? Holy shit, you know, this is,

I forgot that a 10,000-mord magazine piece can like completely, yeah, it's being grossing and just like ripping. Our friends of the pod subscribers will hear us answer some of their questions from the discord community at the end of the show. Stick around for that. If you're a subscriber

“crooked.com slash friends, if you want to learn more about how to become one, by the way,”

we're cranking out tons of bonus episodes on the pod save the world YouTube page. So please subscribe to pod save the world on YouTube. If you're not already, we did an episode last week about the 10-US ceasefire agreement. I think a lot of the concerns we talked about there. Kind of bore out, feels like a ceasefire in name only. Yes. And well, they're not shooting actively, but straight ain't open. When you subscribe to pod save the world on YouTube, you help us get good information

into the YouTube algorithm and displace all the right-wing, pro-war garbage from Fox News, Ben Shapiro, 31 flavors of asshole. Who's listening? Who's left listening to Ben Shapiro? His numbers are way down, I think. I mean, yeah, there's just the audience for kind of neocon, super pro-war. Yeah, pro-war. This doesn't really exist anymore. Anyway, thanks for subscribing to pod save the world as a podcast and on YouTube and sharing it really does help out. So let's turn

to a Ron Ben. So I assume by now our listeners know that the Islamabad peace talks between the US and Iran failed. The US has now gone from a relaxing sanctions on Iran to get more oil into the market. Remember the jujitsu to now joining Iran's blockhead of the straight armus. So you make that one make sense. Yeah, buddy. The failed talks were just one example, though, of where Vice President J.D. Vance got his ass handed to him on a silver platter this past weekend.

So that's the small silver lining. It takes wins. Yeah, this dark, dark cloud. Here's Vance talking about the Iran talks in various media appearances. Let's watch. We're looking forward to the negotiation. I think it's going to be positive. We'll foresee as the President of the United States said if the Iranians are willing to negotiate a good faith, we're certainly willing to extend the open hand. One thing I'll say, Brett, is Iranians are very different negotiators. At least those

Iranians were very different negotiators than we are in the United States. We go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. If it doesn't happen, I'm blaming J.D. Vance. If it does happen,

“I'm taking full credit. That's why Trump's a good politician. That's part of the end there.”

D.J.T. I love J.D. Vance. Talking about Iranian negotiators. He's genuinely learning this

for the first time. So we're learning more every day. Lots of news reports about why the

talks failed. What was discussed. I suspect that the reopening of this trader for Mousse was actually Trump's top priority, even though he says it was the nuclear program. That's because it's causing him in the most near-term political trouble. However, the Iranians have not figured out that closing the straight can basically replace all their previous deterrent strategies. Nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons. Yeah. You can imagine around thinking like, "Why are we

wasting all this money on ICM's and proxy groups?" When we can just threaten to close the trader or Mousse and create, you know, bend the global economy to our will. So there's that. On the nuclear front, though, the U.S. as we suspected came in with maximalist positions. They said no enrichment ever for Iran. Iran will shut down and dismantle its nuclear

“sides around us to ship out its uranium stockpile out of the country.”

Those were positions Iran had already rejected no surprise that they did so again. However, we've since learned that during the talks, the U.S. proposed a deal where Iran would agree to a 20-year moratorium on uranium enrichment along with Iran shipping out its uranium stockpile. The Iranians countered by offering a five-year moratorium and they said they would dilute their uranium stockpile, the U.S. said no dice. So after 21 hours, J.D. advanced walked out and a

half, even though the Iranians said they thought they were making progress. And here we are. So Ben, I didn't expect these guys to get a comprehensive deal done in less than a day. That's crazy. But I did think there was a chance they would maybe get a ceasefire extension, given that the war as a political disaster for Donald Trump and maga and the Republicans. Obviously, that didn't happen. What did you make of the talks? And boy, it was quite

interesting to me that after a decade of hearing that the J.C. P.O.A. was a terrible piece of shit agreement because some provisions sunsetted after 10 years that they offered a deal that would have sunsetted after 20 years. That seems notable. There's so much about these talks that illustrate the incompetence and kind of amateurish approach of the Trump administration.

I mean, the first thing I'd point to is just the fact that they thought they were going to do this

in a day. I was a part of those J.C. P.O.A. in negotiations on the Washington and not at the table. But debriefing with the team after all these sessions, it took us two and a half years. There are bouts. Maybe more. You're including like the very early like Oman secret talks all the way to the end. If you do that, yeah, that's two and a half years.

they're seeking to negotiate are much broader than the J.C. P.O.A. which is just on the nuclear

“issue. They're trying to bring support for proxies into the negotiations, both missiles,”

the Iranians are bringing the straight forward moves, comprehensive sanctions relief. And so the idea that J.C.D. Dance is going to parachute into Pakistan and like end the war and resolve these issues is so fundamentally on serious. And you kind of saw this leaking out that the Americans in those talks were just incredibly imperious. They're a version of diplomacy to show up and make demands. And what's so interesting about that is that that's fundamentally

odd at odds with the actual dynamic and play, which is that Trump administration or the ones that have a sense of urgency about reopening the straight forward moves and the Iranians know that. Yeah, the Iranians time is on their side. I mean, if you think about it, if the status quo just holds, that overwhelmingly benefits the Iranians. Because under the status quo, and we'll get to the

blockade in a second, you know, that is an effort to disrupt the status quo. But under the status quo,

“like they've survived, the regime is in place. They've demonstrated their control of the straight,”

they're getting extra revenue from the sanctions relief from Jujitsu soybean farmer Scott Bessent, the Secretary of Treasury. They're tackling fees on the stock of a holiday came out of the closet. It's fine. It's historic. And meanwhile, what they can see is that Trump is, you know, his poll numbers are dropping, oil prices, gas prices are rising. So what's so weird about this is like you don't have to be a genius to see that time is is playing on the Iranian side. And yet

they show up, make a bunch of demands. The Iranians are like, well, those we can't do, but here's some kind of proposals. And they're like, fuck you, we're out of here. And it's like, okay, and then

what the Iranians benefit. And so I just the the amateurism and incompetence is really catching up

with us. And I should just add to this, like, again, you can dislike, you can load the Iranian regime. These are really sophisticated people, right? But just take the foreign minister, Rachi. Like, that guy was in all the negotiations over the JCPOA. He knows the intricacies of nuclear programs and nuclear fuel, like, Jady Vance doesn't know anything about that. He doesn't know anything about Iran. Steve Wittkov, Jared Kushner, don't know anything about anything except like real estate and

and shaking down foreign governments for crypto investments or investments in their funds. They don't even know what they're talking about. And they're sitting, there's a, and I'm just because there's a racism too. They must just be idiots or we can roll these people or like, again, like just because you don't like them, doesn't mean that they're not quite skillful and sophisticated. And so I just left feeling like I don't, I guess the only positive thing I take

is that to your point, they understand they're not going to get everything they want. Like the fact that they've already moved to something on the nuclear side that sunsets, they know that

“they don't have all these cards. But the problem is you have to get creative in finding solutions”

and, you know, thus far they've not demonstrated it, maybe they will. Yeah, and Trump, while Jady Vance was en route to the Lama Bad Trump posted the following on truth social. The Iranians don't seem to realize they have no cards other than a short-term extortion of the world by using international barway. That's a pretty big card. Pretty big cards, kind of a guy. He's the spades right there. Yeah, well, that one may call it a straight one can play that one. Yeah, Jady Vance, he told Fox News

that he didn't think the Iranian negotiators were actually empowered to make a deal. However, there's a very interesting article there. I don't think that's true. So there's Iranian magazine, you know, you and I were talking about this earlier. They published this 42-minute discussion about the talks that featured a member of the Iranian media who's with the delegation who offered that perspective. Now, again, take it with a grain of salt. But in this clip,

in this conversation, the Iranians thought that the delegation lacked the technical expertise, the US side, to understand the issues that checks out. They thought that in past talk, what cough and Kushner didn't understand the stuff well enough to communicate it back to Trump. We've heard that before. They said Jady didn't seem empowered to make decisions, which seems to be backed up by Vance, saying like he kept having a call called Daddy, calling Trump back home. They felt that Jady was just

like a sent to assess them offer some maximalist positions. Yeah, they reacted. And then meanwhile, as you said, I mean, Iran's delegation included two previous heads of negotiating teams and that they felt they had a stronger hand given the straight-of-ormous closure, which, again, is clear for all, all to see. So they also feel like Trump does not want to go back to fighting, and they also are smart, and they know that 80% of Iran's oil goes to China. And if China is suddenly

Trump, who has a trip to where Beijing coming up. So it seems like that's another pretty big card.

The other card they have to play that we can get into is whether the Iranians talk to the Houthis, and they say, "Hey, now it's time to choke off shipping traffic in the red sea." That would be catastrophic. So they got a lot of cards that turns out. Yeah. And it's not like they don't know that. It's not like the rest of the world doesn't know that. Because the rest of the world just wants to straight open and doesn't care whether Donald Trump

gets a win of some sort. I mean, this whole thing is so insane. Because even the ceasefire itself, the fact of the Pakistan hosts the talks that's Trump's favorite country, because they nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and they invested in, you know, I mean literally the reason is because they

invested in Whitkoff and Eric Trump's crypto business. And yeah, and you know, you can work with

some corrupt general, you know, been incredibly accused of human rights abuses. We'll just do what you say. But I mean, I'm not, you know, I don't mean for the Pakistanis to catch strays here. But what do they know about mediating talks? Like the harmonies of mediated a lot of talks. The cutter is a mediated a lot of talks. The Pakistanis that, you know, can't mediate between the United States and Iran. The whole thing was kind of thrown together because Trump needed to get out of the boxies in,

“but why would the Iranians do him a favor? Right. I mean, that's what's so crazy. He's just bombed them.”

He's the Iranian delegation flew to the talks on a plane with like, you know, seats for every one of the kids killed in Menab and that school. Like, that didn't seem like they're in the mood to capitulate and give Trump some of the country. No, they did not seem like it. So while these talks were happening in Islamabad, Trump was, uh, take a thing very seriously by attending an ultimate fighting event in Miami with Marco Rubio, America's top diplomat, and the White House

National Security Advisor. So again, good to see them focused. Um, on Monday, Trump delivered some impromptu remarks about the talks in about the blockade, uh, with the door-gram, uh, that one of the strangest things I've seen in my life. Just weird. Let's watch. It's weird. A random, you market it down. A random will not have a nuclear weapon. And we agreed to a lot of things, but they didn't agree to that. And I think they will agree to it. I'm almost sure of it. In fact, I am sure of it. If they don't

agree, there's no deal. They'll never be a deal. A random will not have a nuclear weapon. And

we're going to get the dust back. We'll get it back either. We'll get it back from them or we'll take it. This is the president's horse, the naval blockade is on the surface. What's the end game is that the force you're on back to the mediation of people is it done? Open up the straits so that gas prices ultimately come down. Maybe everything. I mean, both of those things

“certainly and more, we can't let a country blackbell or extort the world. Because that's what”

they're doing. They're really blackbelling the world. We're not going to let that happen. Do you think that men should play in women's sports? I really don't have an opinion on that. You don't how bad you do. I'm here about the tax on tips. We really are. We really are at that stage of the movie where they pull back the curtain and the wizard of Oz is like a, you know, it's not good. Yeah. It's not good. Okay. So to take this, you know, blockade idea series. The idea is to

choke off oil and gas revenue to Iran to see if we can make them blank. And you know, an economic game of chicken. The way this would reportedly work is the U.S. We'll prevent any ships from entering or leaving Iranian ports. There's 15 big U.S. warships in the region. Their task will run in the blockade. The actual operation will span from, you know, intimidating Iranian like ships out of trying to get to Iran to possibly boarding and seizing ships. The boarding

“operations, you have to attempt those far away from Iran as possible. Because, you know,”

that would maybe minimize the very high risk of from missiles and drones. But there will still be significant risk. And these, you, you know, the huge like Navy ships there, the destroyers, they'll conduct missile defense operations. The other ships will do introductions, helicopters, would help with that, too. But it's like, this is incredibly risky. It's complicated in a risky on a normal day. But that risk goes up exponentially if the conflict resumes in Iran and the U.S.

are just like trading shots. And there's also a lot of diplomatic risk as we mentioned before, like 80% of the oil goes to China from Iran. The Chinese have said, we have contracts with these guys. We intend to fulfill them, like, stay the fuck away from our boats. We'll see what Trump does when push comes to shove fire on Chinese boats. Yeah. I mean, interdictum sees them. It's crazy. And then, like I mentioned before, like Iran has another card, it could play,

which would be calling on the Houthi rebels, a Yemen, to close the Bobmelman website, which is a narrow passage between Djiboutin Yemen, the ships that's a pastor, to get to the Red Sea. And if that's closed, this is a, it's a global catastrophe. It's like a one quarter of the world shipping goes through the Red Sea. It's how you gain access to the Suez Canal from the Indian Ocean. It would essentially cut off Saudi Arabia's or severely curtail Saudi Arabia's ability.

this is of any plan of working. What do you, what do you think about this blockade idea? By the way, ramen manual is pitched in this. This is idea too. When you send your company there you go.

“Yeah, that's what it works. I mean, first I want to say, you know, Trump keeps saying”

that they can't get a nuclear weapon, like they, they don't have one. They pledge to not develop one in the JCPOA, they run a nuclear deal. Like if Trump gets them to commit to not building a nuclear global weapon, I just want to set the predicate that that's fucking nothing. Yeah. And that's

something that they've said a million times before. So part of what he may be doing is lowering the

bar there. Another thing that is related to the blockade, the Rubio thing is not unrelated to the blockade because people need to understand that the normal processes, you have a negotiating team and then the national security visor has got a team of experts around the table in Washington and you're going back and forth and you're seriously considering proposals and counter-options. What process are they running? How are they making the decision to blockade?

How are they, how are they giving guidance? And it just feels like we're all on a plane and there's like no pilot. I think that's unfair. You have JD Vance calling note to Joe Rogan who walks it

“over to Trump and you have C-fight and he says go or no go. Yeah. And that's just what's so crazy. But”

I mean, on the blockade in particular, like I just, it seems like Trump fundamentally doesn't understand an obvious thing, which is the Iranians because he launched a regime change war, no matter what he says, it's existential to them. So if they lose billions of dollars and revenue from some US blockade, if it works, this is if it works. This is the best case scenario where we actually do make it so that the Chinese can't get the Iranian oil. Well, they don't care. They will sit there

for two months and yeah, it could be calamitous for the Iranian people that we were supposedly helping, but the regime doesn't give us shit because they're playing for eternity here. They're playing,

you know, for their survival as a regime. And they have a hundred million barrels or so of oil,

floating in storage off the coast of Malaysia and China that they can sell. Yeah. Kind of like keep themselves afloat. So I saw some commentators and again, I had to, you know, have ramcat some stress here, but there are people that are acting like this is a normal administration, like engaging in normal coercive diplomacy with a blockade. Now, these are people who fundamentally don't understand what they started and who they started it with and the fact that all of the

leverage in terms of the damage to the global economy were down to the United States because Iran has already been sanctioned into hell by the United States for 10 years. They know what it's like to live under incredible coercive economic pressure. So all you're doing is like adding to the misery of not just China but our allies in Asia and Europe who are suffering the consequences and people they're paying for like $6 plus gas here in California. And like obviously the RGC,

the they and their families will be the first ones fed. You know, you're just going to further

hurt the Iranian people. Who will know that it's the US blockading and this is the other thing Trump can pretend like he was forced to do this and they were going to attack us or they have nuclear weapons. Everybody else in the world who doesn't watch Fox News or listen to Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin or what are that guy's name is? Like knows that Donald Trump started this it's his fault. It's his mess. Their pistons, are they piss at the Iranians? Of course they are for like

bombing the golf and stuff. But they know it cords. This is something that Trump fucking started. Yeah, they're nice. And the Iranian people know that too, by the way, the Donald Trump bomb them instead of helping them. And so he just doesn't have the leverage he thinks he does. No, he does not have all the cards. Pate of the world is brought to you by Hems. ED is way more common than you guys think. Millions of guys deal with it at some point.

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One other interesting thing with respect to China, Ben, the New York Times reported that China might be helping Iran by shipping them shoulder-fired missiles or otherwise known as manpads. This intel is described as not definitive, but given that Iran just shot down a US fighter jet with a shoulder-fired missile, it would be a very big deal. Also, our ability to punish the Chinese if they don't listen to what we're saying and go abide by this blockade is pretty limited.

Given that the Chinese just won a trade war with the US by cutting off our access to rare earth elements, and guess what we'll need those rare earths for. Rebuilding the stockpile of missiles that we just expanded that we would need in war with China. Not exactly a risk here. And this is why what Trump is doing is he's just shining a gigantic spotlight on the United States as like a declining empire. Because we exist in this world where we think we can

command other countries to do things and not do things. Of course the Chinese are giving them shoulder-fired missiles. Of course the Russians are giving them targeting intelligence.

“I don't like the Chinese government or the Russian government, but why wouldn't they do that?”

They see that the United States just did something incredibly stupid. They see that we're bogged down there and we're getting weakened by what's happening. It's their ally Iran that's under attack. They've seen us arm all kinds of proxies from obviously we've been army and Ukrainians, the Chinese think that us army and the Taiwanese and dangerous air security. Of course you can say to me, oh bad, and it's not the same. Of course it's not the same.

I like the Taiwanese better than I like the Iranians, but that doesn't mean that they're not going to do it. And Trump seems to live in a world where he thinks he can snap fingers. And again, unfortunately he has learned lessons from European leaders, from American law firms university, like all the people that capitulated to Trump, like led him to think that he could do the same thing to Iran or China or whomever. And once you bump up up against these adversaries,

they're literally been handed a geopolitical gift of a lifetime with this war.

“It's through the Chinese. Yeah, they have. We're also getting a lot more data about the”

economic impact of the war so far. So just some data points. The United Nations has warned

that over 32 million people around the globe might be forced into poverty even if a ceasefire

and peace is achieved, just because the price of oil has gone up so much. The IMF says global, the global economy is at risk of growing at its slowest pace since the COVID-19 pandemic. If oil stays at $100 per barrel for the rest of the year, inflation could hit 5.4%. Now, the Philippines declared a state of emergency. They're limiting air conditioning and public buildings and made public transportation free. People are also striking to protest

gas and diesel prices. There's been gas station employees in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan that were killed in robberies or like rage-based assaults because no one can get gas at the pump. The EU was warning that's going to struggle with low growth and high inflation. And they're this looming jet fuel crisis in Europe that could lead to just mass cancellation of flights. Like they literally cannot get jet fuel to power their planes. The Saudis, their oil production

fell by 700,000 barrels a day last week because of attacks on oil fields and their pipeline back pasties, not back online, but that's a huge dip. And then, an under discussed part of this bend is a lot of these countries have all these migrant workers. Like the Emirati says something

like 8.7 million migrant workers, according to the New York Times, that's like 80% of the population.

Those people are being hurt the most as economic activity falls off a cliff. And so tourism, for example, to the UAE, was 15% of GDP in the country before the war. It's like $79 billion in 2025. That it's done to zero, right? And all these people who work in hotels or coffee shops or whatever have nothing. Taxi. And they're not able to say any money back home and they're just getting crushed. So, of course, like the poorest people in poor countries are getting hurt the most,

the fastest while Trump laughs about how whatever will be fine. Yeah, I mean, that's what's so kind of grotesque and offensive about this is, you know, and I,

seems to think that this is just like another show and another thing he's managing through and

“he'll muddle through and he'll kind of lose, but claim he won. But there are a lot of real people”

that are losing, you know, that they're dying or that are suffering or that are suffering, he massive economic hardship. You mentioned the Gulf. We still haven't really seen what's gone on there. Like, there's such censorship of any imagery coming out. We don't know what Dubai looks like. You know, we don't know the extent of the damage to a Gulf energy facilities. We keep hearing its worse than we've heard. And we keep hearing, by the way, to your point about the damage,

that their estimates that it could take up to if the worst stop now, if no more damage is done, it would still take two years for them to kind of crank this machine of energy production up to where it was. So, there will be all these things you said and there's a great laydown. There will also be a massive tale to this. Like, we're going to be living with the ramifications

“of this war for years to come even if it stops now. Yeah. And that was the best case scenario.”

So, along with the actual war between the US and Iran, there is a hot propaganda war getting fought online. I'm sure many listeners have by now seen like the disgusting videos that came out of the White House, initially, that were coming together real footage of US air strikes on Iran with clips from movies and video games. I don't know if those have stopped or not, if I just stop seeing them, but they were the pretty widely condemned. Iran for joineder, though, has come

in the form of Legos. Here are a couple examples, let's watch. [Music] [Music] It's just bangers, left and right. For those listening, not watching,

subscribe to Potsay for the world on YouTube. But the first video featured Melania Trump,

it was a reference to her bizarre press conference last week, where she was like, "I did not know Jeffrey Epstein." Like ran away. But the video's writ large, kind of span a fascinating range of messages. The most common themes of Jeffrey Epstein that Trump is controlled by Israel, but some are focused on history. There were Lego missiles bearing messages like for the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or in memory of the American Indians or more recently

for the children of Gaza. But the majority of the videos are fully rooted in the super online internet zeitgeist of today. The Epstein files, as we just saw, online bedding markets and war profiteering, Pete Heggseth being a drunk idiot with stupid tattoos. We should note that we cut out some extremely anti-Semitic stuff to make this more watchable. There's lots of images of like BB Netanyahu, kind of pulling the strings or controlling Trump in some way, kind of old tropes.

We don't know who, for sure, who is making these. The first one's originated from an account

called Explosive News. That account has been banned from YouTube and Instagram, but the videos are all over Twitter, and have been amplified by accounts linked to the Iranian government, and then Russian state run outlets and plenty of Americans. It's not exactly clear who runs the account, New York Magazine, interviewed someone over there via email. They claim they're independent

“but who knows. That's what they'd say. But that, according to that article, basically these movies”

would launch on an official or semi-efficient account, then move into channels aligned with like Hezbollah or the Houthis, then to the Russian link channels, then to the kind of anti-imperialists, left channels, then they'd be everywhere. But then once the kind of Lego format was established, I think Iran's supporters treated it like a meme, and you started seeing copycat videos from God knows where. I think those ones we just played you were most likely copycat videos, and

all of it is enabled by AI. Obviously, like use AI to make the videos themselves, but I would imagine that these Iranian filmmakers are probably using AI to write the scripts themselves to make them feel as American as possible, and plugged into the zeitgeist as possible. So Ben, I'm quite confident that the world would oppose this war no matter what for all the

reasons we discussed in the first 30 minutes of the show. What do you think the impact of these

videos has been on shaping world opinion? I think that's probably far more significant than

snuff videos. The White House version of this was to show snuff videos of US planes, bombing things. Who does that appeal to around the world? Literally. Precisely nobody outside of Israel in the United States. Nobody else looks at that and feels good, right? And so our propaganda is literally only designed to reach the most bloodthirsty Fox News viewer in this country or in Israel.

Their videos are on offense. Their videos, first of all, it shows a striking level of connectivity

to at least the online discourse in the United States around everything from Epstein to Israel to insider trading to betting markets, et cetera. But also what it does is, if Iran already,

“you know, if basically I think the status quo anti around the world among global opinion was,”

this is Trump's fault. We don't like the Iranian regime. They're bad guys. They massive Iran people. But Trump's the ADD who started this war. What these videos are probably doing particularly with younger audiences who they are seem very designed for, right? There's a reason no doubt. It's hip hop. There's a reason, you know, like this. Legos, it's clever is no. Iran is standing in for all of you. Everybody who's pissed at Trump, everybody who's pissed at inequality,

everybody who's pissed at Israel. All the things that people around the world are pissed about, Iran is the vanguard of your resistance. Right. And they're giving them a why, right, which is the Trump is doing this to distract from Epstein because he's friends with the pedophile and because these railways are making him do it. Now we're not saying we're doing this right, but that's what the argument is in the video. I mean, if you are, if you are 23-year-old in America, Europe or Asia,

or certainly the Middle East, you're probably going to be very open to this message. And again, it's positioning the Iranians as the standin for global public. And men, that is potent. And they're running circles around Donald Trump. And I should just say, as an aside, it is a little depressing that the IRGC and their cutouts have been better at trolling Donald Trump than the Democratic Party has been for the last 10 years. I know. Do you see, there's also a fake movie

trailer called Straight Atta Hormuz. He's that one. It was not Lego. It was like AI actor. It was like Jake Jilinhal, uh, as Mustafa Hamanay, Liam Neeson, as Trump, as Zach Elfynakis. It's a very hilarious scared Jadi Vans, a Judy Dench, as Kirsta Hormuz. It's a little better than the Kamala Harris, like six, seven, uh, rapid response account. Sorry. Tom, make me think about it. The other part of the PR war that Trump is losing is he decided to pick a fight with a Pope with Pope Leo. And,

you know, that was, in part, verbal, like getting that a Pope Leo for saying, you know,

“we shouldn't genocide Iran. Like that, that's how this kicked off. He was asked to respond to”

Trump saying he was going to destroy the entire civilization of Iran and shocker. The Pope didn't think that was a good idea. Then Trump posted this image of himself as Jesus Christ. I don't know if you saw this, you know, Italian Prime Minister George Maloney responded. She said, Trump's words toward the Holy Father unacceptable. The Pope is the head of the Catholic Church and it is right in normal frame to call out for call for peace and condemn all forms of war. So while the Lego videos

are like exploding, you know, in the online discourse here in the global south, I'm sure in the Gulf, like he's also pissing off all the Catholics, not only 20% of the U.S. citizens, but also people and Italy, people in Latin America, right? Who are we not picking a fight with? Yeah.

Well, that's the thing. I think he is losing altitude very rapidly. I mean, first of all,

“the Pope, guess who's going to be an office after Trump? The Pope, right?”

Guess what Catholics care about more than, you know, Donald Trump's politics, like being Catholic, you know? And so he's picking, he, like, other, I think we are so psychologically broken in this country that we've allowed Donald Trump to kind of assume a sense that he's like permanent, but he's not. He's going to be the clock is ticking. The sand is running with the hourglass. He's rapid losing power and the Pope's not afraid of him and he forces Catholics to choose between

like their faith and their faith leader and Donald Trump's true social fights. He's going to lose most Catholics. The Maloney thing is even more interesting because he clapped back at her and he said something like, can he call an Italian outlet or something? And he say, I said, you know, she wants to run to get nuclear weapon or something and, and she said, don't believe that. Then she came back and said, they're only nine countries in the world nuclear

weapons and the only one to use it is United States. So basically, fuck off. And man, this is someone

I mean, she's throwing heymakers at him now. I mean, I think it's hard for me. He is so weak

internationally right now. He's losing his allies. Orban has been toppled. Maloney's breaking with him. The Catholic Church is breaking with him. They've got Lego videos trolling him. It's actually, this war is the thing that he's jumped into some quicksand and he can't swim out of it by like truth-social people. Yeah. And when you're kind of like veneer of invincibility gets popped, that's whenever they're sick and shot. So you and he just seems weakened. And that we don't

“back to the propaganda, though. I think one thing that's making, as you mentioned earlier,”

making all this propaganda about the war travel even further is how little real information is being allowed out of the Gulf. Yeah. You mentioned the Pentagon is clearly covering up the scope of the damage to US bases in the region, also to casualties. Yeah. The State Department has covered up the damage to embassies and consulates. We talked about some of that, like the Saudi embassy or consulate building. They got hit by two drone strikes and would have killed hundreds of

people if it had been during the day. The US is pressured, commercial satellite imagery providers restrict access to images from the Gulf. Then there's been a crackdown on news reports in social media posts of images on Iranian air strikes within these Gulf countries themselves. And then today Ben on Tuesday news broke that a journalist named Amit Shihab Al-Deen is prominent American and Kuwaiti journalist was arrested and Kuwait on March 3rd. After he published an image of

a US Air Force jet crashing. This was that friendly fire incident early on in the war that sent calm acknowledged. The pilot ejected. The pilot was safe. But Shihab Al-Deen has been in detention since that time with limited access to a lawyer. He's allegedly being charged with these new security laws. They've been put in place to define terrorism as, quote, spreading terror among the people and quote, and then another law that punishes the publication or spreading

of false rumors in relation to military entities with the intent to weaken confidence in these entities. Semaphore had a kind of related piece this week about a similar crackdown in the UAE, including the arrest of a photojournalist on March 17th. This is obviously bad news for press freedom generally. And it's also just wildly hypocritical of these Gulf countries, given how many of them have used social media to self-promote, like pay-influencer's to post

that, like you do buy this. You know, so it's very bad. We should say this rest is outrageous. And this is an American and an equity American, right? Last I checked like Kuwait's not a

“country that usually rests American journalists. What does Ruby have doing to get this guy out?”

What's, yeah, what do we care about that? So first is like we should be trying to get his release

ASAP. But then I would say, look, more broadly, what it's so stupid about this is it is so obvious what has happened. You don't need to be some expert. When they did the rescue of the pilot, we got like a crazy two-hour briefing from Raisin Kane, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, with every single secret detail of the minutia of how they got this guy. And we can't even get a fucking damage assessment of USM's and bases across the region. It's so obvious that they only

are putting out. It's like Vietnam, the height of like the Vietnam dishonesty, it makes this look, it makes that that look transparent by comparison. We have no idea what the American casualties are. We don't have no idea how injured those people are. We have no idea what is the damage to our facilities for Gulf Energy Infrastructure. And what's also so stupid about this is that I know people in some of these Gulf countries, guess what? I can text with them. I've gotten photos sent to me

of the destroyed AWACs. Yeah. Yeah. The cost of the security of the million dollars. I've had people

you know, just be like, hey, here's what's going on. I can't go outside. I went outside the other day

and like, like a drone fell. It's not like we don't know that shit is getting real in places like Dubai. It's crazy. So the idea, okay, we won't have pictures. Do you think that means that we're all going to plan vacations to Dubai? Right. What are you even covering up people? I know it's such

“so stealth defeating. It really hurts more than helps. By the way, if you want to support a media”

organization that will never cover up for Donald Trump or Pete Hexeth or for, you know, broken Pentagon assets, please consider joining Quirk and Media subscription community. You get exclusive access to bonus content like Potsay of America, only friends. You get a deep dive every week into the latest polling from Dan Fyfer. Add free episodes of her shows, including Potsay of the world in Potsay of America. It is the best thing you can do to help an independent progressive

media company like us grow and do more to hold the administration accountable. Go to Quirk at com slash friends to learn more or you can become a subscriber on YouTube by pressing the join button. So thank you for doing that. Meanwhile, Ben, so there's another war happening in Lebanon. Israel just continues to level huge swaths of Lebanon. There are extensively going after Hezbollah, the Iranian-Dact, you know, heavily armed state within the state in Lebanon. But the idea of

is hitting major urban areas. There have been huge numbers of civilian casualties in the images and videos are horrifying. In addition to bombing bay route, the idea if it's established this like

occupation of South Lebanon and they've leveled all these villages there. So far, 1.2 million Lebanese

have been displaced over 2000 have been killed and attacks from both sides of a continued

“through the ceasefire between the US and Iran. Last week, I think we talked about the idea of hitting”

100 targets in bay route in this 10-minute window, which killed over 300 people. A lot of the strikes where I think in broad daylight. One horrific story among many, there was a two-year-old girl who survived a strike on her home last week, only to be killed over the weekend when the idea of struck her father's funeral. So really grim stuff. 12 IDF soldiers and two Israeli civilians have also been killed. So in Tuesday, Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors met in DC for these working

level peace talks under the regime change-loving eye of Marco Rubio and what the times of Israel called the most senior in-person engagement ever between the two countries and their first bilateral talks in 1993. The Lebanese government wants to ceasefire. Israel wants Hezbollah disarmed.

The problem is that the Lebanese government can't deliver on either of those things and Hezbollah

was not at the table. And ahead of the talks, the U.S. Netanyahu for a pause in the fighting, Netanyahu obliged by pausing strikes on bay route but operations since southern Lebanon have continued. The idea for portedly hit a red cross center on Monday. A date earlier, the red cross at a Lebanese volunteer was killed after being directly targeted by an Israeli drone. So Ben, I'm obviously for diplomacy, but it's hard not to feel like these talks weren't just for

show given that the Lebanese government doesn't control Hezbollah. And given that I don't trust Israel's claim that they're fighting Hezbollah. I'm just going to say it. Like, if you've seen the casualties like they're kids, there's medical workers there. Either they're killing

one Hezbollah fighter and a bunch of people around them, which is a war crime, because there's

clearly no proportionality in what they're doing or they have designs on the territory in southern Lebanon. I mean, I don't doubt that Hezbollah's problem for Israel, it is, but like this is just, I mean, if you look at southern Lebanon for instance, one thing is they're not just destroying kind of structures. They're rendering it uninhabitable. So I saw a statistic that they've destroyed something like 60,000 olive trees in southern Lebanon, right? They're destroying agrocapacity to

live there. Is that the world we're now? That's okay. Like, so I'm sorry, I don't see how this is some like credible strategy to like degrade and disarm Hezbollah. When they're bombing they root in broad daylight, because they thought that they're apparently, I was reading one report on this, they were like, the target list got to like Hezbollah hideouts, and if you're there better odds of the Hezbollah individuals who mostly like low level, I think being in those

hideouts during the day, so they bombed during the day, but that obviously meant people were walking to work. They were taking their kids to school. Like, they were tons of civilian casualties

“with killed in wounded. And here's the thing, because I want to say to the, like, anticipate”

some of the pros or arguments, even if we probably don't have that many pros or listeners left, they'll say, well, what do you supposed to do? You know, have you considered the blowback from what you're doing? And if you think that I'm, you know, how long that's going to last. And if you think that's like, you know, a hyperbolic statement, Hezbollah didn't exist in 1982. The last time Israel, or not the last time because they've done a bunch of times, but when Israel,

you know, invaded and occupied and killed a bunch of people in Lebanon, that gave birth to Hezbollah. And here we are 40 plus years later, and Israel's fighting the militia that was created in reaction to Israel bombing Lebanon. Yeah. They're going to be there 40 years from now. Like, like, like this, fighting the next militia that was created because people were pissed about what Israel's doing right now. So don't tell me this is some genius is really military strategy

where they're breaking Hamas and Hizbollah. They're, they're assuring that they're going to be resistance movements forever. And boy, it's, it seems probably beneficial to Netanyahu that the longer the war drags on, he can't testify in court. You know, he keeps seeking these like two week extensions for national security reasons to not testify. Yeah. And he pushes out the election. Yeah. And especially of the time when voters are increasingly in Israel are starting to be dissatisfied with his handling

up the war. It's an interesting coincidence. Yeah. And so people say to me, well, what's he supposed to do about the people in the northern Israel who've had to deal with intermittent Hezbollah rocketfire? Not this, this isn't working. Like, this just bombarding a country is, this breeds resistance, right? And, and so I'm glad they're negotiating, but the negotiations are these kind of unrealistic

“like, you have to eliminate any vestiges of Hezbollah and with the government that does not have”

the capability to do that, like you said, it just, it feels like Netanyahu wants this going to

reelected. And so he makes unrealistic demands. It can't be met in the bombs the country,

and when those demands are met. And that's not a negotiation. Yeah, no. Ponte of the world is brought to you by three day blinds. At this point, we can shop for groceries, furniture, and even cars from home. So why shopping for blinds still stuck in the dark ages?

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All right. Let's switch to the good news second of our show. Yes. It's very good news. As we mentioned the top, there was a truly historic election this past week in Hungary. Victor Orban, the right-wing populist want to be dictator, kleptocratic prick. He's been running hungry for 16 years. Got absolutely smoked in Sunday's parliamentary elections. He was defeated by a guy named Peter

Magyar. This conservative former member of Orban's party who made the race a referendum on Orban's corruption. His failure to address the cost of living crisis. His ties with Russia and just general failed

leadership. There was record participation, 77 percent. The highest turnout ever in a Hungarian election.

In Magyar's teaser party will know how of a two-thirds majority in the parliament, which is absolutely

“essential for fixing what is broken in the country. These are means who will be able to roll back”

changes Orban made to Hungary's constitution and political system that have entrenched his party's power. Then I saw a lot of people online, started to kind of yuck our young by saying, like, actually, you know, Magyar is pretty right-wing. He won't be different. And to them, I just want to say, take the win for like two fucking seconds. This takes on that. Let's celebrate this for a bit, because Orban was the poster child for how you strangle a democracy nearly to death.

He made life awful for the Hungarian people. He was a spoiler in the European Union who helped block efforts to constrain the worst leaders in the world, Putin, Netanyahu, Xi Jinping, buddies with Trump. Also, this was another example of JD Vance making a fool of himself, as we discussed last week, Vance visited Hungary just before the election to stump for Orban, where he wind about election interference from Brussels while doing a little election interference

of his own. I'm sure you've seen the chart of how JD's visit corresponds with the betting market's flipped from everyone thinking Orban would win to lose delicious. So here is Vance

Victor to cruise to an election victory. We went because it was the right thing to do to stand behind a person who had stood by us for a very long time. So this wasn't about Russia. And fundamentally, it wasn't about Europe. It was about the United States and the fact that he's been a good partner to both me and the president personally, but also to the United States. I'm sad that he lost, will work very well. I'm sure with the next prime minister of Hungary, but it wasn't a bad trip at

all because it's worth standing by people even if you don't win every race. For what it's worth, like, if you got a guy somewhere and you want to help win election, like Biominesco campaign form, it wasn't a bad trip because they lost. It was a bad trip because they were stumping for Victor Orban or something for anyone. Yeah. But Ben, you've hated Victor Orban for a long time.

Go off. Go off King. Well, look, because I, I will say, first of all on Victor Orban and then on

the Hungarian opposition for a second. I heard this thing too. Well, Magiar, he's conservative. Like, fundamentally, misunderstanding, fundamentally misunderstands what the danger is that Victor Orban represent. It's not just that he's conservative. Victor Orban was at the nexus of the far-right international. This is a guy that came to power cultivating ties with Putin and drawing from Putin's playbook and westernizing Putin's playbook, you know, which we've talked about a lot,

consolidating control of the media, packing the courts with far-right judges so that they can find in favor of power grabs and reaching a bunch of cronies to find answer politics, you know, intimidating and harassing civil society and NGOs. We drawing parliamentary districts to entrench a party in power, wrapping it up and us versus them nationalist message, building a fucking wall. Like Victor Orban was building the wall before Donald Trump ran for president, right?

So this guy was at the Vanguard and he was part of a connective tissue to BB netten Yahoo, very close to BB netten. Now, benefited from some of those former massade guys and black cube doing campaigns for him, very close to Putin, very close to Trump. And so Peter Magiar is against all that. He's going to stop all that. Like even if I don't let's agree with all of his policies on like taxes and immigration, like he's that's over now. The hungry is not this kind of connective

tissue. It's the center of Europe, the heart of Europe for all these autocratic leaders to fuck around in European politics and western politics. He's not, you know, this guy was at the Vanguard or the playbook that Trump's, you know, the more intellectual people on the far-right,

“including JVD events, have utilized. That's why they cared so much. Like, like, let's just”

look from their perspective, if Peter Magiar is such a conservative, then JVD events wouldn't have been over there desperately trying to help his friend Victor, right? And secondly, on the Hungarian opposition, listen to them, they are fucking thrilled. And I just want to give a shout out to these people, they weathered 16 years of absolute bullshit, especially the people they were activists, some them were harassed, some them were docks, some of them faced criminal charges and like they

kept it up and they went from one election last year and other, they kept reporting on corruption. And by their corruption is the thing that really brought our bond down more than the authoritarianism. Right. There's a lesson in that for us, you know, and so it is a huge deal. It shows that someone who's in entrenched autocrat with his tentacles and all aspects of politics and society can be literally uprooted, like root and branch. And now there's an opportunity to change the constitution

and to fundamentally transform Hungary, not into a progressive paradise, like this with people online need to do better. Better is better. Better is okay. It's better. Yeah, it's better. Yeah, I mean, Nagyara said the country was essentially taken over by an organized crime syndicate.

“That's how it's going to be. Yeah, so he doesn't get it. So he gets it. And since the election,”

Nagyara said he's going to go after what he called the ill-gotten gains of high-ranking fit-as members, he called for the country's president, the prosecutor general, the president of the constitutional court, to immediately resign, wants to amend the constitution to limit Prime ministers to two terms, two terms, or beyond, or bond was going for his fifth, I believe. He said one of his first trips is Prime Minister is going to be a Brussels where he hopes to get them

to unlock about 20 billion in aid that had been withheld because of Orban. The one place I think

there is a pretty big difference on policy is Magyara does not back fast-tracking Ukraine's membership into the EU. He didn't endorse, like, an EU financial aid package to Ukraine that had been blocked by Orban, who knows if he'll evolve on this position over time, positioned over time. But again, on corruption, here's a clip from a guy named Shondor Letterer, the director of K-monitor, a Hungarian anti-corruption initiative who spoke about Magyara's promises in Roblox. He's

going to face in tackling corruption. Let's listen. He pledged to establish an acid recovery office to pursue oligarchs who enrich themselves during the urban system, including the Prime Minister,

“friends, and family members. As that's a key promise, as rampant corruption on the Orban was one”

of the most important topics in the opposition's campaign. It united conservative liberal and

supporters in recent years, especially as high inflation, rising housing costs, deteriorating healthcare system, and economic stagnation, left millions frustrated by the luxurious lifestyle, Orban's elite, and the impunity they also enjoyed. However, the task ahead of Peter Magyara's government are enormous, and he will have to deliver first results in a couple of months by likely experiencing resistance from Orban's allies in state institutions, and also a significant

voter-based behind Victor Orban who already announced that they are going to protect their achievements.

So Shondor was one of the main characters in my last book. It's just incredible guy.

“He's literally been reporting on this corruption for over a decade. I think what's so important”

there, the lessons that we can draw, that pointy made about corruption. That can unite people, left to right, just disgust. If you look at Donald Jr., day trading on wars, gilded, oval office, ballrooms, that stuff actually travels, and can unite people across need a lot to go spectrum. That's real popular. There's a real lesson for us in that. Also, importantly, Magyara is going to run into Roblox. If he does Orban's party is kind of

embedded, they own a bunch of the media. It's going to be tough. And we're going to accept that better is going to be good. He may not be able to deliver anything. We're going to have to watch just in the same way that Orban was at the Vanguard of building this kind of infrastructure. We should learn lessons as Democrats about how successful or not they are in kind of brooding these systems of corruption. I'm just going to go on a limb-timey and say that like the

Ameri-Garlin did not do that. But again, we have an investment in them. And the last thing I say is what does this say about the future of the far right in Europe? It doesn't mean it's all

“over for them. The French election looms and the national rally there. But I think you see”

first of all, what we can say with certainty is a Trump as an albatross on them, which was not the

case a year ago. When JD Vance was lecturing people in Germany and felt like he had the momentum, now you got Georgia Maloney like literally distancing yourself and taking a wax at Trump because she's a good politician and she sees what happened to Victor Orban. And so at a minimum, Trump has made it harder for the far right. So in a weird way, America is helping the battle against democracy by having such a fucking incompetent fascist running our country that it's discrediting the global

far right. And again, I think what what Democrats, small D Democrats have to do in Europe is learn what worked in Hungary, you know, what could we take away from that by waging these campaigns. And by the way, hang these far right parties on Trump. I'd be running against Trump if I was a French politician. Oh God, because you got to, there's nothing you can do at this point to fix the cost of living crisis in the short term or like the spike in energy prices, all you can

do is message it. And I would be making crystal clear every day that this is Donald Trump's fault.

“That's why I understand what the cure storm is doing. It's like enough of this offering, you know,”

defensive support. I will get to that in the second. It was like very hammered this guy.

So finally, let's check in with our neighbors to the north in Canada, we're Prime Minister. Mark Carney is riding high after winning three at a three special elections this weekend. And Justin Trudeau was looking high at Coachella's weekend. That's been a good ass time. Carney now is a majority government. So remember, the liberal party under Trudeau was really struggling. It looked dead in the water. Like the conservators were going to win. That was until Trudeau dropped

out. Donald Trump started threatening to. And I was kind of the last year. And then Mark Carney came in and rode those threats from Trump in an anti-Trump message to electoral victory, but only to a minority government. So he trouble. What was it? Albo's up. Albo's up. Yeah, Albo's up. So now, Carney will better be able to govern and he won't have to face reelection until 2029, which makes this a very, very sad day for Canada's conservatives

led by Pierre Polyeth. So back in January, Carney threw some punches at Trump during this kind of much heralded speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He expanded upon those themes over the weekend at this liberal party's convention. Here's a clip of what he had to say. Let's watch. Hope is not a plan and nostalgia is not a strategy. Canadians are demonstrating just how strong we are. You know, it started quietly. People choosing a wine from the Okanagan over one from California.

Anyone? Anyone had any bourbon recently? No, no. The days of our military sending

partnerships on four continents in just a year. We are on track to double our non-US exports

over the next decade. That is $300 billion. We are defending Canada and Canadian values with

reliable artists. So it sucks to hear people like whooping in an attack on California wine. Give them a liberal leader from our closest ally in Canada, but that's obviously the way to run right now. If you're dealing with Trump, I talk to I went on a positive the UK. I was talking with Nish and Coco earlier today about all this. By the way, if you're not subscribed to that show, not listening to show, you're only hurting yourself. It is hilarious and funny and the same thing with

hilarious and smart and great. It's a subscriber to a positive the UK. But for the life of us, we just could not understand why British Prime Minister Kierstarmer wouldn't adopt that same approach.

“Especially when his approval rating is 50 points underwater. What do you have to lose to?”

I honestly at this point don't know what planet Kierstarmer is. I mean, because in years of thing, do I like watching like a Canadian banker just like wailed the shit out of my savings?

It doesn't feel good. But actually it does feel good because here's why. It is ultimately in our

interest as Americans that Donald Trump in his incompetent brand of narcissistic fascism is stopped. It really is. And so the best way to stop it is if everybody, people in this country, institutions in this country, you know, foreign leaders of allies, stand up to him and kick him around and cut him down to size. Because that's ultimately good for us. I would have liked to mark Cardi Picked on the state of the California, but that's fine. That's fine. I got it. Maybe I'll talk about Oregon.

I'm glad. But what it shows again is time and again we've seen like if you stand up the

“Trump, like from the first election in the Cardi one, to Albanese in Australia, to what we look,”

you are rewarded for standing up to Donald Trump. And everywhere we see people kissing his ass in like pathetic, you know, Mark Ruta going on Jake Tapper and you know, I mean, that just doesn't. I don't know what people want to strengthen. What time line are you people in? You know, you, they want strength and they want to be proud of something, you know. And good for Canada, like good for the Liberals, good for Mark Cardi, good for Justin Trudeau. Coachella looked like

fun this year. Speaking of things we can be proud of, how about Justin Bieber is kind of polarizing low tech laptop set at Coachella. It's also very funny that he was getting attacked in Canada for using a plastic cup when he tried to be in single use cups. Also he's tweeting about Victor Orban from Coachella. My advice, you guys have this on PSA, I would say go to Coachella or tweet about Victor Orban doing both is probably going to confuse everybody. I mean, usually you go to

a place that Coachella, you're, you're, let's just say ingesting substances that make you think that I'm going to be in a social media block out. I'm just saying, like you're probably not going to want to treat tweet to like, you know, however many millions of people. Yes, about some foreign policy. He's got, well, Katy Perry's got a lot more. Oh, yeah, she's got a child. Maybe they could blend, they could merge social media accounts. And do they have a nickname, like a, you know, I mean, like, there's

a, there should be like, have a benefit. Yeah. I don't know. Tell us, you know, sound off in the disco. Yeah, let's know bad ideas in the French room here. Let's see if we'll talk about it next week. Yeah. Anyway, congrats, Canadian, it's kind of funny because Justin was kind of, um, the right Canadian leader for Trump won and carnies the right Canadian leader for Trump. Like, we need, we

“had like a woke Canadian, you know, he could be like, that's what you know was right. And now we've got”

this kind of like, heart ass banker, angered, controlling California wines. Yeah. And, you know, Justin Trudeau's dad hooked up with Barbara Streisand, now he's with Katy Perry. So here we are. And I guess a drink and Canadian club up there. Yeah. Yeah. Sea Grimm's whatever. Yeah, whatever they drink of that. Oh, uh, Canadian world. I do like. Anyway, all right, that's it for me and Ben Blabin about stuff. Stick around, though, for Ben's conversation with Ananko Paul about his new book about

Syria, uh, it's an incredible book, incredible conversation. Check it out.

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who ever slept on it says, "Wow, that bed is amazing. Where'd you get your mattress?" I tell them

Helix and it's so easy. It ships right to your house. Uh, it's totally affordable and they'll match you with the mattress of your dreams. We love our Helix mattress. Hurry here first. Go to HelixSleep.com/world for 20% off-site wide. That's HelixSleep.com/world for 20% off-site wide. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout. So they know we sent you HelixSleep.com/world. All right, I'm very pleased to be joined by Anan Gopal. He is a writer for The New Yorker. He's

one a national magazine word for his writing on the Middle East. He's twice been a Pulitzer

“finalist for his reporting. He's the author of a no-good man among the living America, the Taliban,”

and the war through Afghan eyes. His new book that we're going to talk about is Days of Love and Rage, a story of ordinary people forging a revolution. Uh, Anan, uh, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. So the book is Days of Love and Rage, a story of ordinary people forging a revolution. Um, and really what this book does is it traces the lies of a number of people that became involved on the beginning of the Syrian Revolution in this city, man-bage, and inside of

Syria, that experienced both the drama of confronting an ultimately, you know, kind of shaking off

the rule of the Assad regime. But then experienced both a form of direct democracy and a revolutionary

counsel, then a rule of ISIS, then a rule of the Syrian Kurds at the United States and others were backing, and then ultimately, obviously currently living under Ahmad Al-Shara. So it's a tells the story of the entire Syria in civil war, kind of through the prism of people in man-bage. I want to start by asking about your process by which you wrote this, because I was really struck in reading this that we live in a time when, you know, journalism is kind of under siege,

and this kind of true long-form in depth reporting is, you know, kind of disappearing, uh, not entirely, but too much around us and people are getting news on social media, and here you are completely immersed in the lies of these characters who went through this extraordinary ordeal over the course of more than a decade. How did you, because you basically recreate, you know, people's, what's happening in their heads, in dramatic events, what's happening in rooms that,

you know, people like me, you know, have never been in. How, how did you go about reporting this,

and, and recreating essentially the lies of all these people? Well, I started with just interviewing as many people as I can, and eventually settled on the six people who become the principal protagonist of the story in the book. But in doing so, I very quickly realized that when asking about people's memories from events that happened 10, 15 years ago, often there are

“traumatic memories that people will miss remember, or they will select to be remember. Of course,”

I was also interviewing people in the context of civil war, so there's contrasting interpretations of events. So pretty quickly, I realized that, um, you know, by myself, I simply wasn't able to access the level of detail I wanted to be able to tell the story. Um, and so I started recruiting Syrians, uh, other individuals who were, uh, to, to pardon some of many of the events described in the book, so people who took part in the revolution against the dictator, and, uh, hired them as,

as research assistants, and so they ended up interviewing their own friends and families, their own comrades who they shared time on the barricades with. And so, that it was a, that opened up people, they were more willing to talk about more intimate moments to their friends and families. Um, in addition to doing that, I was also able to make use of this a really voluminous archive of, of newspapers and social media documentation that took place throughout almost all the events described

in the book, because Syria was probably the first social media war, uh, so people are going out and building things on their cell phones and, uh, the country was under dictatorship for 40 years, in which there were essentially two state-run newspapers, the dictatorship is overthrown in the city that I describe in the book, and all of a sudden overnight, all these newspapers appear, uh, from left wing, conservative papers, and people are going on at the street corners with the

immunographed newspapers and can't get out and reading it, etc. So I was able to kind of get like a almost day, daily blow by blow account of what was happening. So with all of this, both, um, you know, the social media archive, the print media, and then the, the interviews, we conducted almost

And so, uh, was always able to get, and in any scene, it was always able to get, like, multiple

witnesses to it. So I can be confident to put it down on the page. So I want to ask you about

“revolution itself, and in particular, one of the things that I think is really useful about your”

method is that we meet a number of your characters kind of before the revolution, uh, we kind of go back into their lives. And they're really, you know, I don't want to use the word ordinary, because part of the point of the book is everybody is extraordinary in some fashion. But in the sense that these are people that, you know, they're, they're, they're vendors running stalls or their students, or, you know, they're not, you know, the elite or they're not, uh, people that you would think of as

revolutionary leaders. And what I want to ask about is, um, what, what, since you got, there's a character, ode, for instance, who's one of your main protagonists, who, you know, seemingly, you would not think this person is, you know, going to be a leading revolutionary, and yet he finds himself repeatedly in circumstances, early in the revolution, where there's a crowd, they're quiet, they didn't want to do, or they're literally even standing in front of, you know, military police, that they know

are going to, to beat them potentially to tame and torture them, and he finds himself shouting, you know, revolutionary slogans down with the regime, or, you know, um, and why do you think it is

“that some people do that and others don't? Like, why, why did ode find it in him to do that?”

Because I, you know, to me, you always wonder about who, who has the ability to be at the vanguard. Did you learn anything about what, why him and not other people in the crowd in Manbij, you know, who are willing to do that? Yeah, it's an interesting question. I think, uh, one of the things we tend not to think about often is the nature of character, meaning, or a one's character traits, the virtues one might have, whether they're tend to be courageous or loyal, etc.

And somebody like Ode, who I would think when we meet him in the book, he starts as a sort of a political, uh, lay about, uh, smoking hash on rooftops, etc. And slowly gets inducted into the

uprising and finds himself becoming a revolutionary leader. You would have never predicted, I think,

beforehand, that that's where he would have ended up. But there was always a kind of brashness to him that if one really studied his character, prior to the revolution, it may have shown itself in different ways the way he, he, he rejected the tyrannical rule of his father, for instance. And when those personal characteristics are given the right context, sometimes they can become a politically meaningful. And we have another character in the book, Abdel Hadi,

who somebody comes from very poor background, always had a chip on his shoulder, somebody who, uh, felt, festering resentment towards some of the more wealthier, uh, citizens of, of his city, just a fairly common feeling, but all of a sudden put into the mail stream of revolution, that character trait of being resentful ends up manifesting in a kind of dark

politics, uh, as we go on. So I think it's one of those things you can never know in advance,

what you're looking for. But once ordinary people are thrust into extraordinary circumstances, sometimes these kinds of character traits really shine. Yeah, and the other, the arc of these characters, let's just take those two. And again, you don't have to read the book to even, uh, kind of get

“why these threads are interesting, but, uh, but you should read the book. Um, but one of the things”

you describe that is remarkable, and I think not fully understood is that a place like managed, um, after the civil war really started and the sad regime lost control of some territory, it was kind of, well, what, it was effectively self-governing with this kind of revolutionary counsel that, uh, your main character is a number of them participated in. And you could understand the similar impulses to, uh, or the different impulses that could lead those two characters, Ode, and

Adohadi to, uh, to participate in revolution. But then they become quite different, um, in the orientation when it comes time to govern. And, and you describe what began as a very idealistic exercise, you know, something that, uh, all of us, you know, even, uh, who have not, you know, been to Syria, could, could see ourselves in the impulses to, you know, we're going to self-govern and we're going to set these different councils, and it's going to be great. And we're going to have freedom,

but quickly dispute some urge, you know, and Ode is the kind of guy who ends up frustrated and disgusted with the whole thing. And Abohadi is the kind of guy who ends up literally like making, his own peace with ISIS, and we'll get into that as they come in. I mean, what did you learn about democracy itself and how individuals who've never experienced it act when, you know, the revolution

everybody was marching and risking their lives for this idea of freedom. Uh, there was no question

“in their minds what freedom meant. It was just freedom meant being free from the dictator.”

As soon as they did free themselves from the dictator, now a new question of what, what does freedom actually mean in the context of governing oneself arises? Um, and there was some in the city, especially those from middle class and upper middle class backgrounds who are particularly under the vision of freedom, which was something like we want freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of markets, freedom meant kind of being left alone by the government. And on the other

hand, you had people tended to be more on the poor and working class side of the community, who said, well, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, that's great, but at the same time we're facing the affordability crisis in our city, um, to, uh, bread, which is a basic staple price of bread is going sky high. Lots of people were fleeing from other parts of Syria, two, and so therefore

“rencer, uh, increasing. And so for them, they were, uh, arguing for some form of price controls.”

So freedom was not just to be left alone, but freedom was to be given the resources to live your best life. And, um, one of the lessons I drew from reporting this out was the way in which democracy really depends on, they'll maybe the latter conception of freedom, which is one in which people have, have a sense of an equal say, which they can only have to have enough to you to have, uh, they can make their rent every, every month. And if they don't, then people will very

quickly tend to grow disillusioned with a kind of very limited democracy while not having more substantive, uh, form of self-governance, and that, that, um, tragically, and in this case with a dictatorial movement, ISIS taking over the city. Yeah, and, uh, uh, uh, what, it's also interesting is you meet these people, they're, they're familiar to us even if they're, you know, the circumstances that are lies might be far in us. They want the same things. They want to fall in love. They want

to raise a family. They want to make a good living. They'd like to be free in terms of being able to say what they want. And we see them living under, you know, a bathist Arab nationalist regime

of Bashar al-Assad. We see them living briefly under this revolutionary council that kind of dissolves

and defactions fighting each other. We see them live under ISIS. Um, and then, you know, kind of Kota is into the Syrian defense forces, your democratic forces come in and, and, and then we'll get to the, the, the very end of, of Assad regime. But, but really, you know, we see Arab nationalism as Islamist chaos, and yet they're the same people, you know, underneath that. I mean, it felt like a miniature what's happened to the region, you know, all these different ideologies imposed on people and then

trying to figure it out. I mean, what did you learn about, and how did you see the experience of these people of Manbij as representative of kind of the, how these ideologies fail to deliver what people want? And how do you do you compare them to each other? So, you know, most of the region for 30, 40 years lived under some version of Arab nationalism, which on the one hand was secular. On the other hand, there was a kind of agreement or a social contract that underpinned a lot of

these Arab regimes, which is that we will give citizens a modicum of economic opportunities. Usually that meant some kind of minimum welfare state, essentially, in which people could have some social mobility. Maybe your children can have a slightly better life than you had. A lot of millions of farmers move from the countryside to the cities and you had to grow it to the middle class. All of this happened from the 60s to the 90s. But in exchange for that

basic economic opportunity, you had to surrender all political rights whatsoever. So, this is the kind of the fellstone pact that was at the heart of all of the Arab regimes. What happens beginning in the 1990s is one by one that that pact gets undone because of widespread privatization of the economies in a lot of these countries. And so now, by 2011, people lost a lot of the economic sort of social safety net, and yet they still didn't have any

“bloke rights. And that's what was the basis of the uprising in 2011 across the region.”

And then, so it then goes through a period of, I would say, like, experimental democracy for 18 months, which are trying out different versions of democracy. I think I'm kind of more quintessentially liberal democracies, one version of other kinds of participatory democracies. And indeed, there are examples of this throughout the region. But one of the things that the liberal democracy failed to deliver to people, not just the members, but in the early period of the Arab

spring and Egypt and in other places was the way in which it didn't always address the needs

but not enough about economic opportunities for the poor. And this opened the door for,

what I would consider, more right-wing forces to make a plan. In this case, the right-wing forces were missing this group, who did promise more economic opportunities for people. And so, in that way, members kind of tracks the trajectory of the region overall. And, you know, in the backdrop, I mean, you don't focus on the United States that much, but even just listening to your description, it feels in a way like every single thing we

exported or imposed failed. Like the Arab nationalism was kind of some of it was an extension of Cold War politics from the West. The privatization certainly was the kind of invogue idea after the Cold War. The kind of secular freedom and democracy liberalism that appealed maybe to certain middle-class didn't deliver for people's pocketbooks as you're saying. In the war itself, administration, I was a part of, it felt like everything we did was wrong.

You know, if we were not arming the opposition, we were not supporting them, and then when we were arming them, it was not coherent or as a wrong people. I come away with a sense from my own experience and from reading this of like, we tend to make things worse, you know, even if our intentions are good, or even maybe if they're not good, obviously. I mean, how do you evaluate US policy in this region, you know, Syria in particular, but I really the whole region, in terms of what would actually

be helpful to people? Is it just to butt out or is there something we haven't tried? Like how do you

“come away from all your journalism and writing this thinking about that? Well, I think the, when people”

in the region in Syria in particular think about the US and the American power, there's probably

three main features that the loom heavily in their imagination. The first, as I mentioned briefly,

is the American mode of capitalism, privatization, kind of, a very, very pro-market policies to the detriment of a living standards of many people in these areas. The second is the Iraq War, the shadow of the Iraq War, rooms very large on what happened in Syria for a number of reasons, one of which is that it was out of the chaos in the middle of the Iraq War that ISIS first appears and asserts itself across the border in Syria. And the third is US support of Israel. And so

what that meant was there was a period early on in the uprising in which people, and I described some of this in the book, we're debating, like what should the foreign role be and some people wanted arms to protect against bombings from the aircraft? Nobody really wanted a boots on the ground, but there was a lot of suspicion in these ranks because they said, well, how could it be that the US is supporting Israel, the US causes chaos in the Iraq War? They're not really here to support

our interests. Whatever US administration is actually doing, that was the perception on the ground. And it's hard for me to imagine sort of turning around sort of decades of distrust just from

“one particular policy at that moment. So what was much more important was that on the ground,”

there was a brief period where maybe these rebel groups could have been armed, but very quickly these groups turned to banditry because they didn't have outside support. And this created the grounds for Islamist groups to come in, Gulf States started to pour in their support and weapons and fragmented the politics in the country. So at the same time, it's important to remind ourselves that the Assad regime would not have been able to do what it could have done if it didn't have

its own form of external foreign support from Russia and Iran. From the outside, it seemed like a happy ending when Ahmed Alshara and his forces marched into Damascus and Assad was forced to flee. I'm curious, and you know, you hint at it at the end, you take us all the way up through that, but for the people that your characters, was that a happy ending? I'm curious, did you have you been to manage since the fall of Assad and if so, or if you've even just been in touch, like what

“is the people hopeful about the future? Do they feel like the revolution in some way succeeded?”

Or do they just feel like, okay, this is the new reality we're dealing with it? I did go to a member shortly after Assad fell, and I was able to talk to some of the

characters in the book about their experience. The first thing is nobody expected this to happen.

Everyone had assumed that the revolution was completely lost, and it had been dormant for years at that point. It was a kind of perfect storm of events that led the regime to collapse, and I think the

rebel group that is in power, and they are, I would describe them as would-be authoritarians,

perhaps lack the capacity of the previous regime, the Assad regime, to be in the control of the country in the way that the bath is did. But the experience that tens of thousands of Syrians have of getting a voice through protesting, through building alternative structures or governance, that experience has not been easily afaced, so that while the the new authorities have committed massacres, and they have attempted to delay elections, today there is still freedom of speech and

freedom of assembly in Syria, it's embattled, but those freedoms are there, and that is a direct

“legacy of the revolution, and I think for some Syrians who are more looking at a more generational”

sense, I think this is not, the struggle for democracy in Syria is not something that just happened for two years in 2011 to 2013, it's something that's going to take a generation of two, and there may be several uprisings, several forms of social mobilization, that will ultimately lead to what some Syrians hope would be a more just democracy. And so these people we meet as young people who are not middle aged, it's a lifetime's work, not just at moment on the barricades.

Exactly, it's a lifetime's work, and they, if they themselves perhaps are now attending to their families, they're also conveying the memories of what they went through, and there's new generations of activists, when I was in Bimbabes last just a month or two after the fall of Assad, I saw, and I just grabbed this in the book, I saw a new protest, and these are most of the people in

that protest had never before protested, but maybe their parents had or their uncles had or their

friends had, so you can see them bequeathing this legacy of resistance to a new generation. So just a couple more things, we're obviously speaking in the midst of the Iran War or the pause in the Iran War. What do you take from your long experience reporting this about, you know, one of the pretenses, I mean I don't believe it, but of this war was that we were somehow coming to the aid of these protesters and can end this regime. How do you evaluate what's happening

in Iran now, and how do you evaluate what would actually be most helpful to the people that we've seen in various movements for change inside of Iran? Well, it's interesting, there are several parallels between what's happening in Iran and Syria, because Iranians have risen up repeatedly again,

“since 2009 against a very repressive regime. And I think if the reports, we can trust reports out of”

Iran, initially in the very, very early stages, there was widespread support for regime change, but very quickly people realized exactly what you said that the current war was a pretext, and it's not a war of liberation, and more recent reports send a lot of people in Iran now after seeing the devastation that the US is causing in that country have reconsidered, because and you saw this often in Syria too, that while people are opposed to the dictator,

the one thing that's possibly worse than dictatorship is civil war, and the chaos of civil war, and the US intervening in the country without a real plan for what to do on day two is a recipe for chaos in disaster, and I think a lot of Iran needs to see that today. And last thing I want to ask you is just how did your own views about, let's say, democracy or freedom change in reporting this

“book? Well, I think in the beginning I had, what I would think is a fairly standard view of”

democracy, democracy is something that happens when you get to choose your leader, choose your representatives every two or four years, and happens for five minutes, and what I saw on the ground is a different kind of democracy in which there was all these formations, which were called assemblies and clubs that appeared overnight and to part in the sort of democratic life of the city, and it was clear in a kind of microcosm, how important the question of who gets to rule is,

and if you go back to the original idea of democracy, ancient Greeks, demos means non-elites, actually, and so democracy is the rule of non-elites, and I mean the rule of ordinary people, and you can, I think one of the experiences of reporting this book is it led me to reassess democracies around the world in terms of to what extent to ordinary people have power over their own lives and to what extent is it vested instead in billionaires and judges and consultants and others,

and I think that's a way to assess the health of a democracy. Yeah, actually, one of the

thing I want to ask is it always sticks with you when you read a book like this, and I know I think

how do they feel about if they read it? I mean, I'm, you know, because it's so personal, you know,

I mean, I'm curious, I always sometimes wonder like when you have subjects where you go this

into their lives and the events are so dramatic, I'm curious what the reaction is of your subjects to the book. Well, none of them are read as start to finish yet, importantly because it's only an

“English, but I have read out parts, sort parts of it, to them, after the book came out. And I think”

several people will quite move because they talked to me years ago at this point, because it took

a long time for the book to come together, and so it brought back a lot of the most intimate memories in listening to these stories. Yeah. Well, I think you honor them by, you know,

“showing such complete portraits of them. The book is Days of Love and Rage. I truly, you know,”

can recommend it enough on and thanks so much for joining us. Thank you.

Thanks again to a non-go-poil for joining the show. We'll talk to you guys next week. Potsy of World is a crooked media production. Our senior producer is Elona Minkowski.

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