Ben Rhodes: Trump Is Getting a Terrible Deal

starts a shopping trip.

I'll show you the first day of shopping.

And the platform makes me no problem. I have a lot of problems, but the platform is not one step away. I have the feeling that shopping trip is a platform where you can optimize everything. Everything is super integrated and balanced. And the time and the money that I can't invest there is no other way around.

For everything in vaccination. Yet, the cost in those tests, I'll shop if I put the DE. All right, everybody, tickets are on sale now for everybody. For our live shows in downtown San Diego and downtown Los Angeles, you can go to thebowlwork.com/events to get your tickets now.

I'm looking up my flights. I'm excited to be back in California. Sam, Stein's going to be there.

“Sarah Longwell, I think Wokeville crystal is going to be there.”

We're working on some others. We're going to have fun. It's going to be fun. Who knows? It's California.

Maybe I'll have a gummy. I don't know. Sarah might never gummy. Who knows? We're going to have a great time.

Come hang with us, come hang with your fellow bowlarky ends as our next guest called us. And we'll see you all there. If you're looking for an excuse to have a vacation, find L.A., come see the show on Thursday, spend a weekend. Go to Venice.

It'll be awesome. Thebowlwork.com/events May 20th in downtown San Diego, May 21st, downtown L.A., hope to see you all there. Up next, then rents. Hello, welcome to the Forward Podcast.

I'm your host Tim Miller.

“I have to welcome back to the show, the former Deputy National Security Advisor for Barack”

Joe Bama, co-host of the show called Pod Save the World. An author of a forthcoming book, all we say, the Battle for American Identity, released in May, pre-order it now, it's Benjamin Rhodes. What's up, Ben?

Tim, awesome to be here, as always.

Thank you so much for doing this. Obviously, the news this morning with the art of the deal from our president in Iran, brings us to an area of expertise and experience for you. Yes. I'm grateful for your presence.

I want to lay out for folks, what we know at the time of the taping here. It's about 11 in the East, Israel, and Lebanon had a 10 day ceasefire that went into effect overnight. That led Iran to say that they would open the street, Trump said that's good, but we're still keeping the blockade until we had a final deal.

We now have a proposed deal that's not finalized. U.S. and Iranian negotiators are likely to meet Sunday and Islamabad that Trump has already due to individual apps about it. Axios reports that lines on freezing $20 billion of Iran assets and the U.S. and the last time it talks was demanding a 20-year moratorium on uranium enrichment or on kind of the five

years.

Now they're claiming that it's due to change for the 20 million.

“We had actually get the uranium, so we'll see if that's how that shakes out.”

That said, there's a second U.S. official talking to Axios. I wonder who that is, a second U.S. official, feels kind of like Jared Kushner to me, because it's not an administration official, it's a U.S. official. Anyway, if it's Brock or V. it's Jared Kushner. Yeah, it seems like it's Jared Kushner.

A little less bullish than let's just say potentially their father-in-law. They're saying that Iran wants to 20 billion in a lot more. They want to sell oil at free market rates without sanctions. They want to participate in the global financial system. They also want to still have their nuclear program.

They want to fund terrorists, and they don't want to give that up enough to get the things we're offering. So maybe the victory lapse of oil early for Trump, TBD, will see. But that's kind of the outlines of the deal. He's tweeting this morning, many thanks to Pakistan, all the Arab states, and he's dunking

on NATO for not helping us. So what are your reactions to the current state of life? I mean, Tim, we are in the most absurd timeline here, because essentially we have to just live with the truth, right? Not the truth, social posts, but the actual truth, which is that Donald Trump launched

a war, thinking that there would be quick and easy regime change. None of that happened. He killed thousands of people with this war. He spent hundreds of billions of dollars. He probably wiped out, you know, trillions of dollars in price increases.

You know, you've got countries where people can't even access fuel. He decimated what was left of our international relationship, the rest of the world Trump looks at us where like a rogue state that could knock anything over at any time. And now he's trumpeting the fact that he has reopened the very straight that was open before he launched the war.

And perhaps he will get Iran to ship out. It's a highly enriched uranium stockpile. And we can talk more about how that's not necessarily at all getting rid of their nuclear

And yet the regime is in place.

They have demonstrated their capacity to close the straight-of-forward moves, which gives them extraordinary deterrence and leverage going forward over the global economy. And no suggestion that they're going to change their approach to supporting proxy groups across the region. No indication that they're going to abandon a ballistic missile program.

I guess we sunk a bunch of Iranian ships and destroyed a bunch of ballistic missiles, but they can manufacture those. So on the scale of what we accomplished versus the destruction we brought, I'm glad this is happening, it's better than destroying a civilization and perpetrating the war. But we must keep the perspective here because there's going to be a tremendous amount

of propaganda that suggests that somehow this was a great deal when in fact this was a deal you could have had easily without fighting the war.

But other than that, pretty good.

So I mean, I'm glad it's happening, I mean, but I can feel what's coming from Trump

“and his echo chamber to use a phrase, and I think we just have to look at reality.”

So I want to break this down a little bit more detail, but I thought it would be useful given that you're the guest on the podcast that you were there for the JCPOA. For people who either tuned into politics in 2015 because of Trump who are listening to this and weren't really around for that, or for those of us who've had a lot of drinks since the JCPOA and so our memories are a little bit fuzzy, just for a basis of comparison

if you could do just a little bit of a 101, like what was the deal between when you guys were in charge between Obama and Iran and then how did that compare to what they're talking about now? So in terms of what the US got out of the deal, Iran agreed to strict limitations on the nuclear program.

Just to go through a few of them, they shipped their stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country. So this thing that Trump is going to be touting was routine under the JCPOA. Like whatever stockpile they accumulated, they had to ship out 98% of their enriched uranium at any given time.

And then they submitted a go. It would go to Russia and kind of it would be blended down and it would go to Russia. And essentially they would get end use of things like medical isotopes, but they couldn't accumulate the stockpile in their country. They destroyed the core of their plutonium reactor so they wiped out their capacity to pursue

a nuclear weapon with plutonium. They accepted limitations on the number of centrifuges that they could be operating. All their facilities were under strict monitoring from the International Autonic Energy Agency, the IAA. Not only were there kind of centrifuge facilities at Natans and Fordo, the two facilities

where they operated centrifuges, not only did they have those limitations and have IAA presence there, including like cameras and you know, it wasn't just like people showing up over a few weeks. It was kind of constant monitoring. But there was also monitoring, and this is important because I'm county skeptical that

this is going to be a part of anything, Trump negotiates.

“There was monitoring of uranium mines, where do they mine the uranium?”

There was monitoring of uranium mills so how do they convert it into something that can be put in the centrifuge. So essentially the entire supply chain of the Iranian nuclear program, from when you take, you know, uranium out of the ground to when you ship that stockpile out of the country was under monitoring and verification.

And this is what's really important is that, you know, having people on the ground, having cameras, having, you know, the centrifuges that they put in storage were under lock and seals, so if they opened the crate, you know, people could see that. So it was an effort to essentially put a blanket over the nuclear program, and limitations on it.

And response, they got sanctions relief, they got basically their assets on frozen. So the oil that they were selling in the National Market, they couldn't access the resources that were getting for that. So people were buying oil, but then it was getting tied up in your sanctions, that got on frozen.

Now, the criticisms that were going to be fair to the criticisms of the deal, it did not deal with the ballistic missile program, it did not deal with support for proxies. The Iranians were not negotiating that with us, we were negotiating on the nuclear program. And then there were these kind of different durations for aspects of the deal. Some of the more strict limitations of the deal last to 10 years, some of the massive 15 years,

people freaked out about this, but Tim, like to me, that always was, you know, the most,

“I don't know, absurd critique in some ways, because that's how most nuclear arms treaties”

are, right? The US Russia, New START treaty that we negotiated with the Russians during the Bombayers at a 10-year duration, nobody freaked out about that, because that you renegotiate after 10 years, right? You see how things are there.

And I should say that the sanctions on Iran, this is important, to remain in place. The United States did not lift sanctions on Iran. They got sanctions relief, they didn't get sanctions removed under the deal. So again, there's so many more dimensions to this argument. I just a couple of follow-ups, so like the relief was to the tune of about a half a billion.

Like 4,500 million? No, this is a different piece of the deal, but essentially, when we tallyed up how much we thought Iran was getting from the deal, it went up to about 50 billion. They had something like $150 billion, and again, I'm literally going off of my memory from 10 years ago.

Yeah, sure.

“But somewhere in the neighborhood, $150 billion in frozen revenues, right?”

So they've been shipping ore out to places like China and India, and just not able to access their own money, right? So it was passes like payments from us, but in fact, their capacity to access revenue for stuff they've already sold in a way. Now very importantly, the famous $450 million pallets of cash was a separate part of the

implementation of the deal, where Iran released a number of Americans who were detained in Iran, including Jason regime. We both know the Washington Post journalist in response to that, Iran had purchased some weapons from the United States before the Shah was ousted.

And we never delivered those weapons, not unsurprisingly.

And various international courts had found that the United States owed Iran this amount of money. Right. And so, essentially, we were closing to a different accounts of the Iran. And so Iran was paid for the weapons that they never received.

And this became like, you know, one of the most insane freakouts from the Republican Party and the FGD versus those who are nerds when, in fact, it's dropping the bucket compared to what Trump is already in frozen in this war to Sweden, the pot for the earnings. I don't want to get back to the freak out from the FDD crowd at a second, but just a few of just one fact.

“So it's set to expire, like when would that the LGC PLA have completely expired?”

Like when would they have been allowed to start to advance the nuclear program again? Yeah.

So first of all, Iran also said, because Trump always makes this comment that, you know,

they've never said they won't develop a nuclear weapon, like the preamble to the JCPOA was a permanent promise, a pledge, a commitment from the Iranians to never develop a nuclear weapon. So there was a permanent prohibition on Iran ever developing a nuclear weapon or weaponizing their nuclear program.

You know, people think about this as if they get enough fuel and something they magically have a nuclear weapon. Now they have to figure out how to put that on a warhead, right? They have to weaponize the nuclear program. That was permanent.

And there were a number of things in the deal that were permanent, including like, you know, having to submit to IAA inspections. You know, after about 10 years, you know, there were certain, some of the restrictions on

“the numbers of centrifuges that Iran could operate, that that ceiling started to go up, right?”

And the kinds of research and development that they could do on more advanced centrifuges so that they can rich you any quicker, those started to lift. And now this became another source of general freak out to the FDG crowd. I do have to say, Tim here, because Donald Trump pulled out of this deal in 2018, long be full.

So pulling out of the deal, they started, they put the centrifuges back in, they started using the advanced centrifuges, they started to acquire stockpile of a Nigerian. So the geniuses in not just the Trump administration, but at the FDG and these other hawkish places got what they wanted, which is a much faster acceleration of the Iran nuclear program than would have been the case under the JCPOA, and this is one of the

reasons why I try not to think about it too much. And this is important context, because in a lot of ways, Trump too is negotiating against Trump one as we come to this deal, right, because like, you know, not everything about the Iranian nuclear program, or everything about the western festivals or the other stuff they've been trying to get out of this war, you know, change when they got out of the deal,

but Iran advanced the program that we are now negotiating again to get them to stop. You know, if you can think of a deal, it's like, you know, we're Americans, so it's like the football field, like they were able to move the ball further down than it would have been, like had it been status quo. The point is that before this war, because Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, Iran's nuclear

program was more advanced than it was before the JCPOA, never mind with the JCPO restrictions.

They had more of a stockpile of highland rich uranium, you know, we're using more advanced senators, all the things that the critics of the JCPOA warned about, they were doing, because Donald Trump pulled out of the JCPOA 2018, so we essentially went to war against Donald Trump's own policy of pulling out of the JCPOA, which is something that these people will never acknowledge for the rest of my lifetime, but it is the truth.

I can feel your anger building. I want to keep building a little bit more before we started before we start talking about, you know, how the right wing hawks are going to react to this. Just kind of to put a button on it then, you know, based on the countries what we're seeing now, we don't know exactly what will come out of Islamabad, give us a little compare contrast

I assume that if in the goods scenario, right, in the best case scenario, which Iran

makes a deal and this war ends, you know, comprehensively, they'll ship that stockpile out, think of it this way. Iran is more than willing to concede things that they can accumulate, right? And this is something that, you know, we went through negotiations with them. So if they ship the stockpile out, they can, you know, at some point re-accumulate a stockpile obviously. I assume that what you'll get is they'll ship that stockpile out. They'll commit to not

enrich uranium or to a very limited amount of enrichment for some duration of time.

“I think that the Iranians, by the way, think that these years are totally fungible,”

because they've seen that the United States doesn't keep deals. So, fine, they can promise

five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years. They know that these timelines are fairly

artificial. And so I think they'll commit to some limited enrichment limitations on enrichment and shipping the stockpile out and having the straight-of-form lose open. And what they will want in return is as much money as they can get from unfrozen assets. And ideally, what they want is sanctions relief, like the ability to actually normalize our economy, sell, oil on the open market, or to tax the straight-of-form lose and get a fee from the shipping. They want revenue,

essentially. So they'll want revenue exchange for limitation. The other thing I'd say is that the JCPOA had the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council, right? So the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, and the EU,

were all part of the deal with Iran, with the IEA. So you had this kind of international

legitimacy around the deal. You had the inspections and mechanisms. You had the people that

“were serving as essential guarantors. You had UN Security Council resolutions. This is like a handshake”

agreement and Pakistan, right? And so it just doesn't have the same legitimacy, legal basis. Someone could walk away from this in six months or a year without the same drama and consequence of walking away from the JCPOA. And so the regime is still in place. If Iran gets this degree of sanctions relief and how the huge influx of cash from their oil sales, I do expect they're going to be spending that money on health care for their people,

or do we think that they're just going to be able to rebuild the ballistic missiles that they have lost during the war? So they will rebuild their ballistic missile capability. The nuclear program, by the way, they may very well say like we're not going to enrich uranium for period of time because part of what they've learned, Tim, is that as long as they have a nuclear program, right? That's an option available to them. And by the way, we don't know what they might

try to do covertly, right? Because if the inspections regime, you're counting on intelligence, and clearly the US and Israel pretty good intelligence, but they could just take that nuclear program underground. But they'll restart their ballistic missile program. What they've also learned though, what this war has demonstrated, is that a bunch of drones that they can build in the garage were actually, in some ways, more damaging than even their ballistic missiles, because they're

able to shut down the Gulf, they're able to disrupt the entire global economy by hitting the largest natural gas field in the world in Qatar, right? They're able to end the Dubai model, we'll see how long it takes for tourism to crank back up there, right? So just with drones in some ballistic missiles, they demonstrated it to turn capability and ability shut down the straight. And so the regime will take that revenue and they'll reinvest in all those different military

“capabilities. Yes, I think they will also rebuild. And be stronger, probably. You know,”

one of the original reasons, I think that's keeps getting lost. It's like, I like to restate it. One of the actual reasons that we did, what we did was because Iran seemed so weak, and BB convinced Trump that we could be able to go in with the help of MBS and his business partners in the Arab states. They convinced him to go in because Iran's regime was so weak in that moment. Like, they'd been weakened economically, they'd been weakened by the attacks. So here we go.

Yeah, I told you it was 86, so protesters in the streets. And so like now, like you come out of this on the other side with same regime, essentially, and an influx of cash and an awareness of their power of controlling the straight and, you know, who knows? Like, potentially being able to invest in more modern drones and other weapon systems. If you don't like the mollus, like, we've strengthened them throughout this process. I think that's exactly right. And look,

they could do that money to buy more effective missiles from China, right? Which they'd be going to do. The Chinese and Russian saw their, wow, look, the Iranians can really bloody the Americans know is not by like directly hitting the United States, but just by kind of humility in the United States, by shutting down this whole Gulf infrastructure that the US depends upon for the supply of the global energy markets. And by the way, we don't even know that damage assessments to our

So you're right, they're strengthened in the sense that they've demonstrated that the

straight foreign moves is like a nuclear weapon in some ways, right? It's not it's obviously devastating, but it is a deterrence capability. Look, the weakness of the regime to me is it's just odious regime hated by most of its people. And what needs to change regime is the Iranian people. And I actually think that this war made that less likely. What it also did is it made the military option look less scary as it was before. In the sense that the United States and Israel have

demonstrated that they cannot change the regime from the air. Right. And so now everybody knows that it would take a ground invasion to get these guys out, or it would take the Iranian people just doing it themselves, but it's hard for them to do it, when their country's being bombed. So

“I think it does change the dynamic in the favor of the Iranians' vis-a-vis where things were before the war.”

You know, getting older is funny. Certain things happened to your body that hadn't been happening before. People start reddit threads about you and talk about whether you have Peter Pan syndrome or not. And you know, discuss your under eye bags. After you go to your lady's weight class, muscles start to ache a little bit more than they used to. Our next sponsor can help you.

If you're experiencing some of this, they've helped over 2 million people prove to themselves that

they still got it. This podcast is sponsored by Juvenon. When you're looking for help with longevity more energy, mental clarity or maintaining healthy blood pressure as you age, most supplement brands try to solve it by adding more. More stimulants, more hormones, more chemicals, more ingredients. That approach treats your body like it's broken. Juvenon doesn't see it that way. It was founded alongside Nobel Prize winning scientists who spent decades studying cellular energy

and how biological systems age, their flagship product, blood flow 7, boost blood flow fast to support healthy blood pressure, energy and circulation. This means steady energy throughout the day. Sharp mental clarity, important for podcasting, warmer hands and feet, and even some bedroom performance benefits. That's something you're in the market for. Plus, every Juvenon product is made in the USA. Remember, Juvenon's promise to you is a simple one, uncomplicated longevity.

So head to bloodflow7.com/doublework and use code the bullwork for 30% off your order. Once again, that blood flow 7.com/doublework for 30% off and make sure you use my promo code to the bullwork. So they know I sent you. Back to the right wing hocks. Because of the JCPLA and the supposed to get pallets of cash, you were docked. Then I personally delivered based on that. You brought them. You're docked. You're called a trader, a terrorist, I was scrolling through some of the old

tweets that John Potter had sent about you. Catamite. I mean, the types of language. Chapo. Yeah. All of that. I'm us. And now fast forward to Trump doing something in the ballpark, essentially the same deal, likely. And as long as I'm about, what do you think? Do you think that

“it's going to, we're going to hear the same type of rhetoric from that crowd? What are you expecting?”

Have you, are you thinking about calling some of your right wing hock buddies to see if they have any, and he thoughts about Steve, what can offer Jared Kushner? This whole thing is, it's a pretty extraordinary life experience, Tim. Setting aside, by the way, that the next target is Cuba, who I also negotiated normalization, do it. Oh, yeah, we're coming to that. There was something at the time that I found genuinely kind of insane and irrational, right? You know, for a while,

you assume that maybe these people have a sincere good faith disagreement about how to reach like a nuclear agreement. But I think part of what happened is there was such a mania about the fact that Obama did this deal and it went through Congress. And it was kind of the

first chunk in, I'm going to be just be blunt. They kind of sense that APEC had to sign off on

“things that went through Congress. So we had this whole fight. And I think they were genuinely”

surprised that like most Democrats, you know, over 40 Democrats in the Senate, which is enough to have the deal survive, supported the deal and went through public opinion was kind of supportive of it. And they needed to delegitimize not just the deal, they needed to delegitimize the people who'd been the face of the deal. And so it wasn't enough to say that, hey, we don't like this deal because the sunset provisions aren't long enough or we're have you. It said,

"I have to become evil and Hamas and a liar and a horrible human being." And obviously, Barack Obama's part of the shady, you know, brown people that are, you know, hate America

velligerity. That value Jared. If you want to go back, this got so insane that

they had a congressional hearing where I was supposed to be a witness, but they didn't actually

“try to get me to come. They had an empty chair. And I think trade goutty and Tom Cotton took turns”

like yelling at the empty chair where I was supposed to be sitting. I mean, this is how weird things got in 2015. A little Clint Eastwood moment. Cash Patel, when I had to test find front of the House and tell them this committee during the, you know, Russian investigation confronted me about some conspiracy theory that I would have been denied a security clearance before the Obama administration because I was an Iranian asset. When in fact, I had been temporarily

denied a security clearance because I had been honest about my drug use. But what's the talk about that? Was it MDMA? No, it's just, you know, it's all in the SF86. Some took place in New Orleans, but I'll just say that today it would be an interesting test of who actually cares about this ideology of ending the Iranian nuclear program versus who just sold their soul to Donald Trump and their Republican Party of maga. And don't, I'm not holding my breath. Most of these people

that gave us no fucking room for era are going to give down Trump a oceans worth of room for era. Suddenly they'll be defending unfreezing assets for the Iranians giving the Iranians tens of billions of dollars, right? Suddenly they'll be saying, you know, oh, he destroyed some some

of the Iranian navy. And so this whole war was worth it. Never mind that they didn't need a navy

“to shut down the street for moves. So what's the point of destroying the Iranian navy, right?”

They will rationalize this. I don't know who they're talking to anymore except each other. And a very small like Lindsey Graham types on the hill. Like it's it's a they're on a shrinking island, you know, the weekly life liberty and live in watchers. I think that that is right about the domestic costs or critics of you who are happy with what Trump has been doing. I think that they'll they'll rationalize that. I'm not sure if that's going to be true in Israel though, because I

thought I can continue to say like I'm flabbergasted and just outraged that that baby was like in our situation room convincing us to get into this war that was not an acute interest for us at all. It's insane. It's not irrational though from the Israel perspective to believe that this is a real security interest for you given, you know, the way that Iran has funded proxy is and and I think that in Israel there was a view like with Trump. This is the moment. Maybe the last

moment that they'd have an American ally that they could use to eviscerate all of their opponents in the region. That's right. And so that's exactly right. Yes, that Israel is going to be unhappy

“about this and you know, maybe not in the very short term, but I think that that is another element of”

the instability of this deal. In addition to what you were talking about about how China and Russia and the international community is involved. Israel is involved, but like, I don't know, we saw a number of sea fires in Gaza. You know, and I think that these drills interests from the start were misaligned from ours and so we'll see how that reflects in their actions. I'm just kind of wondering what you think about the Israel enterprise of us.

Now, I think that's right. I look, the presentation in the situation which is completely absurd and dangerous for Israel's own interest. It's not a good look if part of what you're fighting against is a perception on the left and the right that you have too much influence over

American foreign policy. The details leaked out and the thing that I always thought was absurd is that

these railies were suggesting that, you know, Reza Palavi, the son of the shock, had moved in. And I do think that these railies believe that they could collapse or regime, you know, and that, by the way, there might be violent chaos, there might be civil conflict and Ron, but that that's better than having this regime in place. And that means that they're not going to be able to do things like develop a nuclear weapon and have like a effective blossom missile program.

And that objective is not going to achieve. So they have like, we can Iran's certain capabilities, but like, for all the reasons we talked about, they've not achieved their military objectives to be Iran. And so that's the, it can be source of, I think, discomfort. They'll spin it. They'll do the Pete Hegsev, Vietnam body count thing, except it's about, you know, the number of missiles that, you know, we destroyed in the number of ships we destroyed. But at core, their interest

is not dealt with. That regime is still in place and in some ways it's more dangerous. I think 11 on, you know, they have, I think, come closer to accomplishing what they want. They say they want to destroy his blood. That's, that's about as likely as the objective of destroying Hamas and Gaza was. What they have done is they've occupied southern Lebanon and I don't think they're going to leave any time soon. And so I think what you have is like a very tenuous cold piece if this actually

becomes a lasting ceasefire, where Israel's probably going to violate the terms in Lebanon, periodically, if they feel like they need to take a shot. And then the big question is, will they show restraint or will they occasionally take shots at Iran? Let's take a full step back here, postdoctor of our seven ten minutes, like, was this worth it? You know, they have decimated a lot

of his blood, but his blood is still there. And they have, you know, set back Iranian capabilities, but the regime is still there. That proxy network, that access of resistance is weaker. Significantly so. But was it worth what has been done to Israel's position in this country and around the world? Was it worth the blowback? Because I can guess that people in Gaza and Lebanon and Iran are not going to forget what happened and are going to be seeking revenge for a very long

time. Was this all worth it? I would argue it wasn't. And alienating, I mean, obviously, just speaking about this and kind of blunt geopolitical terms, you know, obviously there's the human face of this and the cost and the loss of life and all the tragedy, but I just as a blunt geopolitical strategic matter, like, probably alienated both American parties. I kind of decided to go in with

“one and make a bet on Trump. And I think more likely than not, not guaranteed, you know, end up in”

2028 with both parties having a candidate that wants to at some and some fashion, reimagine our relationship with Israel and make it less tight that it has been and potentially having both party nominees wanting to decouple altogether. Yeah, I mean, you have 40 democratic senators voting to call off all arm sales to Israel the other day sales, not just assistance, not just financing. Yeah. And that includes, importantly, every single democratic senator who's considering

running for president, like, I'm not sure Mark Kelly and Alyssa Slocken, I know, but, you know, the short point is that the incentive structure is clear in the democratic party and it's only moving in one direction. Like, there's not some world in which people go back to thinking, like, no, no, let's start giving them all this militar systems and the same thing is happening

obviously on on the right. And, you know, I, I never mind Europe, by the way, I mean, the

million European citizens signed a petition to try to terminate trade agreement with Israel. You have different European governments calling for that. You've got Italy and their Georgia, Maloney, a right wing populist who is at Trump's inauguration, canceling certain agreements with Israel on defense and trade. So, I mean, this is a sea change. Well, in this case, I mean, obviously there's anti-Semitism in Europe, which would say, so there's that, that's a play and

that has deeper its, but in addition to that, like, the costs of this war was like, you're a poor

“the brunt of it. You know, I get's not irrational. Again, like, just like, I think it's not irrational”

for Israel to be concerned about their national security interests vis-a-vis Iran and its proxies. Is that irrational for the countries in Europe to look at this and say, what, what is happening? Like, we have, we have gas shortages because Israel and Trump wanted to, you know, try to to capitate the eye at whole and it didn't work. And we are now suffering. All these like real consequences and you didn't even ask us, you didn't even involve us in the conversation and then

after it all happened, you shit on us and rubbed our faces. Yeah, it's like, okay, good luck. Well, this is the other thing that's happened in this war. As I think that this is the thing that

finally broke the floor underneath Donald Trump internationally, right? You know, in the sense that

nobody outside of this country in Israel believes that this war was necessary. Nobody buys this stuff about, you know, there are two weeks away from a nuclear weapon or what, you know, whatever the, they live in the real war. Come on. And as you said, it's harder for them. Some of these countries are hugely dependent on Qatar, natural gas that is offline, for instance. So they're not just doing with high prices. They're dealing with meaningful shortages.

“Right. And meanwhile, Trump comes along and says, you know, you have to open the strait and then”

insults them and, and what you're increasingly seeing is when you pay to Sanchez the socialists and I'd say the leader of the European last in Georgia, Maloney, the leader of the European right, the the the the the the most successful right wing politician, both in the same place

fighting Donald Trump, unifraid of Donald Trump. I thought the most important thing the pope said

was I'm not afraid of him. That's what you keep hearing. The fear factor is other than Keer Starmer, who's always kind of a hiding in the corner. Yeah. Like world leaders are not afraid of this many more. They think he's incompetent. They think they've seen him back down a bunch. Yes, people stand up to him. Like there was a period of time where the mad man theory, which isn't which is stupid, you can see the, you know, the end of the mad man theory and what the limits are of it.

Like the, but it did work for a little while. It's, it's okay. It's just acknowledge that. Right. And there are people who are like, this guy's so fucking crazy. We'll suck up to him. We'll give him fake trophies like whatever it takes to be backed down. You know, it backed down on tariffs. He backed down on this wall. He backed down on Jim Holy, backed down on the coat like he just keeps back down and eventually they're not scared of anymore. Back down in the run, back down in the run.

Yeah. I mean, I just say it to say it here. This is Trump this morning. Now that the harm moves straight situation is over, we'll see about that. I received a call from NATO asking if we need some help. I told them to stay away all caps. Unless they just want to load

how that goes. It's a good fine. But that's a point is they don't care. Like NATO doesn't want

to be at the state of Hormuz. Like the other thing people in Europe know is that Putin benefited from high energy prices. Yeah. Putin got sanctions relief. We were literally waving sanctions on Russian oil sales because we were so afraid of the price of gas, right? Putin is much stronger than for this one in the Europeans know that too. So they despair them. The lectures about like, you know, the talking went from 20, 15 to him. I just think that this stick is old. It's 10 years old.

Donald Trump is a laying duck. He's pulling the 30s. Like these leaders are starting to look past them and realizing, yeah, the madman thing maybe we had to give him some tariff deals in the first six months of his presidency. But no more. Did you know that the average employer has to sort through roughly 250 resumes per job opening? Talk about time, consuming. Well, if you're hiring here's the good news, you can now review all those resumes and applications fast or thanks to

Zip recruiters. Zip recruiters. Powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates quickly

and with Zip recruiters new feature, qualified candidates who are very interested in your job show up right at the top of the list. You can also get a feel for their personality, candidates tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job. Cut through the standard and get to the standouts with Zip recruiter for out of five employers who post on Zip recruiter get a quality candidate within the very first day. And now you can try it for free at zip recruiter.com/borek

that Zip recruiter.com/borek meet your match on Zip recruiter. Before you get to the Pope, any just while in the Middle East, any other thoughts on MBS? It's interesting that it's kind of slight changes we've seen from the Arab states and obviously MBS wanted this war too. It's a lot of reporting on that, but you know some talks about them reassessing their financial support for various things seems like they're backing out of the live golf. Some of their other

“investments are starting to back out of. I'm not sure what to make about. Do you have any thoughts?”

I think that this might be the largest geopolitical shift of the whole war because the whole premise of this decade of the golf being at the center of this kind of Maciverse, right? And all their investments injured, Kushner, the whole premise of the Abraham Accords, right? Is that we're going to stand up to Iran together and we're going to give you all these defense capabilities. Look, look, what did they get for all this? They got left out on the cold. We launched

this war on the Iranians. We couldn't defend them against, you know, drones in missile tax. While they were spending down their missile defense that they bought for us in an exorbitant price, we were giving these railways missile defense for free. You know, like they saw that the United States could not protect them. Could not keep the straight open. Could not guarantee that the Dubai models not going to be shattered by drones coming in. And so if you're then, you're

thinking, well, why did I spend all this money on American weapons and paying off your Kushner, you know, having these crazy conferences with Eric Trump and Whitkoff's kid getting, you know, billions of dollars in investments and crypto scams. They bought all this American AI. Guess what the Iranians hit? They hit data centers in the Emirates, right? And so they're,

“they're suffered huge losses. So I think what you're going to see is they're not going to”

like pull the plug on us, but they're going to hedge. They're going to start making deals with the Chinese. They're going to start making deals with the Russians. They're not going to invest if trillion dollars that they, you know, told they lied and told Trump that they've invested in American economy. And so I think that's it. That's going to be a big shift. All right. So with the Pope, with Pope and Trump and a fight, we have JD, you know, who became a

Catholic two minutes ago, telling the Pope to know his role in shut his mouth. I'm wondering what you think about all of that. And does that matter? And obviously there's a domestic political side, but I mean, you guys worked with the Pope on normalizing with Cuba. The then Pope was involved with that. So I'm just wondering kind of how, how you think about like whether that matters, is there an impact to the feud beyond just like them looking stupid and JD looking for me?

“Yeah. Anything that makes JD events look even more ridiculous is good. I think here's where”

matters. Like I was really struck to him by when the Pope gave this speech yesterday. It basically

gave a midterm message for Democrats, right? Like the masters of war spend all this money on bombs and, you know, weapons and get death and destruction and they should be investing in health and education, right? And he did it more articulate than that. That's not direct quote. He was speaking in Cameron. And then he was in a sea of people in the global south. And what I was struck by is at a time of absolute kind of a morality and immorality in the world. When you've got Putin

in bedding, Ukraine, you got Trump like a bull in the China shop of the world, you've got, you know, Xi Jinping is kind of, you know, obviously can bloodless Chinese communist party leader.

as someone who's actually willing to stand up to power. He talked about all these tyrants yesterday in Cameron. That message is going to go down very well among billions of people around the world, not just Catholics. And I think what he's showing us is that the world still has a conscience.

“And it makes people like Trump look small by comparison. And that's what pisses Trump and”

J.D. off is that they can't knock this guy off as pedestal. He will be there after them. Trump will be gone. Hopefully, it will still be there. The Catholic Church will be there. You know, why? Because it's been there for a couple thousand fucking years. And I concur as I'm not Catholic, okay? Catholic Church. And I think it's reminding people, I think it's reminding people of like the absurdity of and the impermanence of people like Trump. And I can tell you when we negotiated the

deal, the normalization deal with Cuba, I went to the Vatican Vatican was kind of the guarantor of the deal. We had to present it there. Pretty good story. I walked in and we had to meet sequentially with the Secretary of State of the Vatican is kind of the number two over there, the Cardinal. And

the Cubans go in first and they go through this whole deal and then I go in and the Cardinal says,

so you guys are normalizing relations and you're reopening embassies and you kind of go through the deal and I was like, yeah, yeah. And he looks at me and he goes, who are you? Does John Kerry know about this? Like I was like, I promise. But anyway, Secretary of the State of the Vatican wasn't watching a lot of the Crusades show. He was not seeing the Crusades show, but what those people brought was like they could have credibility in Cuba and in the United States. They could have

credibility across these divides between left and right, between power and, you know, those are not power between global north, global south. And so I just think that this is served to make Trump look smaller and he will continue to shrink relative to people like Leo.

Okay, let's basically do the same thing with the JCPLA that we did with Cuba now with Cuba and just

“give us a little bit of like, what was the deal? What's happened since and now what do we think is next?”

The terms that deal were the Cubans released, you know, Alan Gross, who is in prison in Cuba, they released a CIA set down there too. So it's kind of a spy swap and exchange for a few Cubans that had been in prison in the United States. But beyond that prisoner exchange, the Cubans also released I think 53 political prisoners that we had on our list. But beyond that, we agreed to reopen embassies, reestablish diplomatic relations. We couldn't promise to lift the embargo on Cuba because

that's legislative. But we agreed to kind of reopen commerce and travel to Cuba as much as we could from the US side. And they in turn agreed to increase internet access for Cubans and to reciprocate and changes in their economy by growing their private sector where they were letting Cubans own small businesses, restaurants, taxis, things like this. Now those are the terms of deal. The bigger point was we were just betting, hey, look, this policy is crazy. We've had it for 60 years. It hurts

Cubans. They suffer an extreme poverty. It's entrenched. And this is important. The communist party in power. Because they deal well and are medically sealed. But economy where there's no foreign investment. Our bet was you open this up. You let Americans travel down there. You let Americans invest there. This place that's 90 miles from Florida is going to change. Cubans lie so that better. And then ultimately we're not going to be the ones to determine it. We're not going to

be the ones to pick the next leader of Cuba. But we think that will work better than what we've been doing for 60 years. Trump came in. He over time with the urging of Marco Rubio in the first term, basically roll back all of the opening in terms of like travel and you know investment, things like that trade. They kept the the embassies open. So the diplomatic relations piece remained. And then over time they squeeze and squeeze and squeezed. Biden was a chicken shit. And it was

afraid to go back to the Obama policy because he was afraid of Obama. And then as so we somehow got the Trump policy through Joe Biden's administration. And the same way that Biden was afraid to come back in the JCPOA because he was afraid of Obama and then as an FDG for criticizing him. Well that's great. Good thing that we knew that Obama and then this was a great moral arbitrage,

“which is something that is important to give blood to him. Literally that's what happened.”

But the point is that now Cubans are suffering more than they ever have. I think in their history because in addition to the sanctions, there's now fuel blockade on Cuba from the Trump administration. You have people dying because of those sanctions. I think Americans don't like to think about that.

But the reality is when power goes off, babies and the NICU and people and ventilators die in hospitals,

you've got extreme malnourishment in Cuba. So it's a real dire humanitarian circumstance in Cuba right now. And look, I would argue that morally and from the perspective of US interests,

moral basis, but I also argue that on the human rights basis of I actually think like if you ask Cubans, and I don't mean Cuban Americans are Miami. I mean Cubans in Cuba, they remember those two years under Obama as like the time they were hopeful for the future. And now, you know, they're in hell. And so now we have Rallito. Yeah. Rallito going around Marco, apparently, trying to get the Trump directly. And I think that they see that there's going to be a squeeze put in and Trump's going to

try to redo Venezuela and he's trying to identify, you know, who the hand-picked successors,

just like he did in Venezuela, right? Is that basically how we say things going?

Yeah. So I'd negotiate with Al-Hundercaster, who's Ralph Sun. And now we're on to the third generation here, Rallito's a grandson. What's interesting to me about this, Tim, and I talked to people in Cuba and Miami is that nobody quite knows what Trump wants, because it's kind of like the JCPO.

“If you want to have his guy in, that's that. He wants Delphi. He wants a Delphi in the car to win.”

That's what he wants, right? So in 2016, when I was, you know, we still talking in Cubans, obviously, we're in government. They said, oh, we're not worried about Trump because as we know as people well, they've been down here trying to build golf courses in hotels. Wild Trump is a Republican nominee. The Trump organization was in Cuba trying to, you know, build hotels and golf courses. So they thought they could make that deal with them.

Ultimately, Trump decided, you know, and you worked in Florida politics, like he also made

a side in, you know, these Bay Pigs veterans down in Miami, like in Marco Ruby. I'm going to listen to those guys instead, because they delivered some votes for me. Now, if he wants to deal where it's basically what we were trying to do, they opened up the economy, like, but particularly the oil in Cuba is real estate, right? Right. The northern coast, the keys, the undeveloped beachfront properties, people of Miami been salivating over that for years. The Cubans, I'm sure

would be willing to say, like, fine, we'll let the Miami Cubans come down here and develop this real estate. They'll keep the power, put a Trump power. There'll be a Trump, you know, PGA tour event here, you know, and through years, they'll give that away. I'm sure the question is politically, what do they have to give? Now, the funny thing about that is Diaz Canal is the President Cuba, but he's not really in charge of Cuba. It's not even like Maduro, right? Like

Diaz Canal is kind of front man for the Communist Party, but you still got the Castro family, you got the military. So what's even more bizarre about this is like, they could, you know, just can now, could be on the chopping block. And, you know, but nothing would change.

“Right. He's already the delcity kind of. There already is a delcity. He is the delcity, right?”

Yeah, right. And what's funny about this is, and again, it's kind of like the around thing, like, and you know, some of these fighter people, like, is that kind of mean enough for Marco and Jorge Mas, and, you know, all the, you know, right wing Miami Cubans, maybe. But the thing is, if it is, then the whole pre-chance of this was about human rights, it was bullshit. It was about who gets to develop the land in Cuba, you know.

Outer do some big pictures stuff. They only get to the book at the end. But last time you're on, I think we're discussing the ways in which you are moving my direction. I was saying that your last book after the fall was kind of crystalline. It was kind of like, like, Ben Rhodes has built crystal type book talking about all of the terrible authoritarian regimes overseas and, and how we, the US needs to be a leader, so freedom can flourish around the

world. And, you know, maybe you want to regime change wars, but like the other parts, you know, the softer parts of the, it kind of neocon rhetoric. You were, you know, warming up too. I felt like enough to the fall. Now fast forward did this one and many of my, you know, neocon sympathetic

listeners are emailing me about how I'm sounding like Rhodes. I think two critical of Israel

to interested in wanting to kind of Homer and the bushes from the Middle East altogether. And so I'm just, I'm kind of wondering if you've any thoughts on, I'm moving forward, like, where we can find a delicate balance between being a leader and supporting freedom around the world without without some of the recklessness and without, you know, being involved in ways that are our hampering folks. I guess my question is, how would you talk to a, a Democrat 20/28

or about, of unifying those, those instincts? I think what unites you and me and can be confusing to people is I don't like autocrats. Good. And so I don't like Victor Orban. I don't like Nicholas Maduro. I don't like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Donald Trump. I don't like beating Danielle who's a fucking autocrat. Like, and so I, I sometimes get frustrated by the kind of confusion at this.

“It's not from you because you're, I think, very consistent on this. Why is this so complicated?”

If you only dislike the autocrats who are geopolitical adversaries at the United States or ideological opponents of, you know, they're on the left of the right, that to me is what's confusing.

American autocrats. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Or on one, you know, or on the flip side. Of course, yeah. I just don't get what's so complicated. But anyway, I do think that I would advise Democrats,

“and this is where, you know, I'm probably not bullworking. I think what we've seen in Minneapolis”

in Iran is like the final spasms of a war on terror framework filtered through the stupidest, fascist kind of government that we could possibly have under Donald Trump. In other words, yes, Trump was necessary for Iran and Minneapolis to happen. But so is the war on terror. All of that ice infrastructure has been built for 20 years under Republican and Democratic administrations, including ourselves. All of the infrastructure in the Middle East, why do we have

like a million bases there? Why are we, why are we so concerned about the Iranian navy, you know, like that we are going to war over it? Like, it's absurdity to this, that we can control events. And so I do think Democrats should be like, this is over. Like, we are an anti-war party right now. Like, we are not going to get into these wars in the Middle East. We are going to dismantle some of this infrastructure, not all of it, but some of it. We are going to dismantle

parts of the Department of Homeland Security and for the United States. We're ending the war.

Like, like, in at home and abroad, you know, essentially the single most important thing the United

States can do for the sake of freedom and human rights and human dignity around the world right now is get our own shit together in our country. Like, the example that we've set has been corrosive around the world under Trump. Now, if we went after corruption, if we actually went after, not just, you know, like the crimes that Trump has committed, but this infrastructure of the corruption of our foreign policy, the crypto, the way in which big tech has corrupted American

foreign policy, that that's a playbook that the rest of the world is desperately needs. Like, how do we uproot the kind of oligarchs that have gotten their claws into, you know, the global commons on technology and on crypto and all these spaces? So I actually think that if we do a detox in a cleanse at home, that that will actually do far more for freedom in the world than having military bases, you know, encircling Iran or, you know, arming, you know, these really government

to be blunt. I don't think any of that was anti-bullarchy and I'm with you. It's some ways I feel like I'm out flanking the existing Democratic Party established in the last few months. I don't understand

“why there hasn't been more radical opposition to the war. I think, frankly, if this deal does”

come through on Sunday, I think it was a huge opportunity missed for some Democratic 2020-28ers to make, to make upundantly clear that they're not, that their anti-stupid Middle East wars and that they're passionate about it. So I mean, that's my opinion. I could not agree more Tim, like you're speaking, like I have a piece coming out where I talked to Graham Platter and he was making this point that it is not hard to stand up in front of a crowd and say it is absolutely insane to spend

billions of dollars on bombs to drop on girls going around instead of schools and hospitals in the United States. Like, and there was just none of that energy, you know, maybe from like San Fold Murphy, Ruben, like we could name the people, they don't have full people though. We could name them though. The fact that we can name them, like, is crazy. The fact that it's not in the hundreds is insane. Like, this is a huge crisis for the Democratic Party that they didn't take advantage.

And here's what, this is going to be the 2022 midterms over again, because the Democrats will win

overwhelmingly because Trump is such a catastrophe and Chuck Schumer will be like, "Well, what

“a validation of my strategy?" Yeah, all right. The one area where I think it might not be”

people working in a maybe we could have a full podcast, this later, because we're on another time. But I do wonder where I then start to run up against concerns from the anti-war left and where I start to feel like, okay, we're singing the same language on Iran. But now it's like, well, what if Putin invades Estonia in 2019? What if she invades Taiwan? Now I'm starting to flip back to, you know, to Nicky Haley is a nice thing that those are the areas I think that are to be worked out. Yeah, I want to get

to advance. Oh, hey, really quick, you tweeted, we're in the worst case to authoritarianism. Do you actually believe that or was that a rhetorical flourish? I actually do believe it, because

I always worried about war. When I was kind of referencing there is, when the autocrat gets the

war bug, like to me, that's the worst case. Now it may not lead to, you know, the darkest place that that can lead. Yeah. But I don't know, it'll be interesting whether this war neuron chastizes Trump or whether he's like, I got to try again, because this one didn't end up, you know, I'm one for one, Venezuela look good and Iran was bad. And so now I get to do a degree in land and

guard bills put around this ability to wage war. Right. The book is always say the battle for American

identity. It's about, if there's 15 speeches that you got through and talking about what it is to be an American. And in the prologue, you reference like the speech that gets my blood boiling the most from the past five years probably like the clip that gets me the most enraged and radicalized.

“And that's how you start the book. So once again, we're in line, don't something. I want to play,”

it's a little long, but I want to play an excerpt of this speech. It's JD Vance of the Claremont Institute. And then we can talk about it and how it informs the book. If you were to ask yourself in 2025, what an American is, I had to say it very few of our leaders actually have a good answer. Is it purely agreement with the creedable creedal principles of America? I know the Claremont Institute has dedicated to the founding vision of the United States of America.

It's a beautiful and wonderful founding vision, but it's not enough by itself. If you think about it, identifying America just with agreeing with the principles, let's say, of the Declaration of Independence, that's a definition that is way over-inclusive and under-inclusive at the same time. What I mean by that? Well, first of all, it would include hundreds of millions, maybe billions of foreign citizens who agree with the principles of the Declaration of Independence,

must we admit all of them tomorrow? If you follow that logic of America as a purely creedal nation America purely as an idea, that is where it would lead you. But at the same time, that answer would also reject a lot of people that the ADL would label as domestic extremists. Even those very Americans had their ancestors fight in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. And I happen to think that it's absurd and the modern left seems dedicated to doing this to saying you don't belong in America

“unless you agree with progressive liberalism in 2025. I think the people whose ancestors fought”

in the Civil War have a hell of a lot more claim over America than the people who say they don't belong. So this fucking country, Lady Vance, was trying to use that speech to reposition America away from being a nation that welcomes everyone that is willing to come here and be part of a great experiment in this country and position it more as a blood and soil type country. He slightly distances from that, trying to position it more, it's like, we are a other place.

Well, I mean, kind of, like sure, like in the moment, I grew up a place and we should care about the

people that live in this place. But like America has always been about something greater than that.

And if it isn't, then there's really no point in what we're doing. Yeah, I mean, I wrote this book. It spent the last four years on it, because after I finished my

“last one, I wanted to write about this country and I wanted to write about the argument we've been”

having because I kind of thought to myself, this is crazy. This timeline we're living in because in some ways Obama and Trump kind of represent two opposing sides of an argument we've been having since like the beginning of this country. And so I picked 15 speeches in its century, history of the United States, the history of the argument we've been having since the founding through those speeches. But not just the speeches, the political movements that led in and out of them, the events,

the extraordinary people from Benjamin Franklin, the Abraham Lincoln to Obama and Trump, but also people we have in heart of like reassured a black woman abolitionist or Mary Elise, a Kansas populist. And then when I was done, I saw that JD van speech. And I've made that the beginning of the book because it's such a pure distillation of the argument that I hate the most, right? Because he's essentially saying, it's a pretty extraordinary. He says America's not an

idea. It's not a creed. It's not the Declaration of Independence. And if there's always been one

argument that says, we are this kind of blood and soil nationalist entity or we are this kind of more progressive. And I don't mean in the left wing sense. But I mean, we expand rights to more people. We want to live up to the meaning of a quality and the Declaration of Independence. We want to perfect our union over time. Like if that's the argument, vances taking the most retrograde version of it. And it's pretty extreme because he says we're a particular place, but he's standing in San Diego.

This country was founded in fucking Philadelphia with 13 colonies along East Coast. So, you know, Mr. High School Debater, winning the debate is proving the point that we are not a particular

not a particular people. Like just go outside and look around. Even if people have been

your for generations, they came here from everywhere or a particular way of life, Tim, you have the same way of life as J.D. Vance. I hope not. Like, I don't have the same way of life as people live in an hour away and tear a bell in Paris. Yeah, exactly. You know? And which is great,

“which is what I love about America. Yeah, no, I think that's something about it. If they are all”

like us, then that'd be boring, right? And so I think what people need to get their minds around. Those J.D. Vance, how extreme this is, if you told Ronald Reagan that the Republican party would be led by some SMARMY guy like J.D. Vance, shitting on immigrants, Ronald Reagan's, one of the beautiful speeches, and I have a Reagan chapter in the book, I'm very bored of the chapter. I know.

And this last speech was about, if we had to build walls around this country, we'd all have doors

in them. So the people could come through. Like, literally, it's a beautiful speech, people shouldn't read it. And so this is, this is radical what J.D. Vance is doing. And look, that's not to say we should have open borders. It's to say that we are an identity that is not defined by J.D. Vance. We all get to choose what it being American is. And we can't tell people that they can't access that because, you know, they're fucking ancestors in fight in the civil war. The ancestors fight in the civil war is the

worst part of the speech, though. Like it's all horrible. Yeah. The world you is awful, but he specifically goes out of the way to say that you know who is an American. Like you know who's not an American. Somebody who believes that all men are being called. In the death of all the beliefs and the declaration of independence, but lives in Guatemala and is trying to come here and have a better life for themselves. That person does not count as an American. They're not part of our our nation.

Yeah. Who is part of our nation? Somebody whose ancestors fought for the Confederates who lost the civil war who does not believe that all men are created equal. Who does not believe that our rights are granted to us by our creator who, you know, does not connect at all with the American story or the American experiment and they want to be bigoted and hateful towards their fellow citizens. That person, the civil war legacy that hates his fellow Americans,

they count because you know, their bloodline has been here. Yeah. It's the most unimaginable notion that I could possibly imagine. And for him to give that example in particular was not fucking subtle. No. It's not subtle. And it means we must exalt them, too, right? You know. He could have used the example that's like someone who came over on slave ships who doesn't believe in the declaration of independence. Yeah. They're an American. He didn't use that example. It was a Confederates

progeny. They're an American. What I find so offensive is one of things I took away from this project and reading all these words and reviewing all these political movements, you know, part of what you learn is that all this is more complicated than anything in the sense that, you know, just take one example. Like the populous Bernie Sanders economics wedded to Donald Trump's xenophobia. You know, it's kind of interesting threads that come together and then go apart in the American history.

But what I take away from it all is that like what's so interesting and wonderful in some ways what America is that all these people are here. What is so radical and extreme about Trump and bands is that they're saying no, it's only our version of America. Like I do the Trump speech at the end and he's taking custody. It's this is my story. Like I won. It's over. The debates over. When in fact, the debate is what's great, you know, like the fact that we disagree and have different

“views and and that's what the civil war piece is saying, I'm going to rub this in your face.”

It's not just saying like you have to accept those people. I accept those people. It's those people or some are more American than people who got here after them. And that is an insane thing to think and insane thing to say, profoundly unAmerican thing. If my values mean anything, I have to believe that it has no bearing on how American you are. What year your people came over? I mean, some of my people came early, some came late, you know, within our blood, we have people that

came at different times. So give me a break with this stuff. The book is always say the battle

for American identity. We're going to close with three rapid fire questions. Number one, give me a country in the world or something's good is happening. This is my favorite part of the pot save the world. That doesn't count. I want to give me something obscure. I like it, part of the world at the end of the episode where you're like, hey, guess what's happening and

“Peru? Yeah, because I don't know what's happening for us. So you should kind of fall asleep”

during the middle where you're talking about stuff in the news I know and then I kind of wake up from my nap and you guys are talking about Peru and I'm like, oh, this is cool. So give me a fun fact. I would say, you know, if you look over like a fun place in the world right now, Jesus, I'd say at Nepal, Nepal where you, you know, you had, you know, a Gen Z protest that

All right, Nepal. That's great. That was a packet I was looking for. I'm going to do a good

update dive after this. Okay. Number two, probably I was in Cameroon. I didn't realize I yesterday on the podcast. I wanted to issue a correction. Can you issue a single Cameroon fact? Can you tell me

“a single thing about the nation of Cameroon? I think that they have the, I think they have the oldest”

and longest room out of state. Like they have some, they have the longest one serving ahead of state.

I think the one these guys has been in power forever. I mean, I'm not certain of that. Okay, it's good. Yes, Paul Bia. Yeah, president of Cameroon since 1982. That is crazy. Yeah, it's a crazy camera. In fact, yeah, it's a good camera. In fact, you're doing well. I asked

Tommy for the third one and he said he won't support my trivia reign of terror. So we will close

just with nuggets and next talk. Do we, is it possible? Is there hope that that we could meet

“at the can or at Madison Square Garden for the NBA finals? I think so. I hope full about the next.”

I'm hopeful about the next because when they are healthy and kind of dialed in, they can be anybody in the east and the nuggets man, like they close strong and they seem healthy and really, really, really, really would like to see it not be Oklahoma City. I hate, I've come to hate Oklahoma City in a strange way. The way that they try to get calls and stuff like it just bugs

“me. Torrible basketball to watch. I'm with you. We need Peyton Watson to get back healthy. I'm”

also up for the next. That Celtic series is going to be tough. Tidems looking good, but if it happens, ballery, you know, MSG. All right, probably. All right, let's see it. All right, everybody. Thanks so much to Ben Rhodes. We're going to a little long today, but you know, we had some news happening this morning. Yes, it will be back on Monday. It's great. It's a nice pairing. As I mentioned, Ben Rhodes was getting Christian. I'm getting Rhodes and so on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, on Monday, you'll get to hear

from Wokeville, Crystal. And we can reflect back on our conversation today. Anti-anti around more Bill Crystal. Yeah, exactly. Thanks to Ben Rhodes. Everybody else, you have a wonderful week. And we'll see you on Monday. Peace. But he was born up this world. The board podcast is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper and with video editing by

Katie Loots and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.