Nicholas Kristof: What a Mess Trump Created

Hello and welcome to the Bullards Podcast.

I'm your host Tim Miller, delighted to welcome back to the show, a columnist for the New York Times. Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize is latest book. Chasing Hope is a memoir. He's also the general manager of Christoph Farms in Oregon.

He briefly ran for Governor Morgan, also in 2022. The bunch of other stuff, it's Nick Christoph. How you doing, man? - Hey, good to be with you Tim. - I'm pumped to talk to you.

You were just back from the West Bank, sort of get into that and maybe some politics, but obviously I want to start with the Iran War stuff. I guess I kind of just want to begin by letting you cook on what you think is the state of play in the Iran War

and how you assess where we are today.

- Boy, I mean, well, what a mess.

We got into this war unnecessarily. And now we're in a worse position than when we started, you know, we're now trying to get the straight of where it was reopened. And I think it's actually more likely

that Iran will end open nuclear weapons to say, you know, three or five years from now, then at the start of the war. At the right before the war, Iran was actually offering a pretty good nuclear deal.

And we turned it down. We're not gonna get as good a deal.

“Now I believe I think Iran is gonna try to really hold on”

to some kind of control over the straight. You know, and meanwhile, we have spent as much on this war term enough that we could have provided a free college education to everybody or every family earning $125,000 or less in the country

and provided daycare to every three and four year old in the country. And so, you know, it is maddening when we do these things that cost lives have a huge opportunity cost

and leave us in a worse strategic position all because we haven't thought through the consequences. - That's pretty compelling to me. It's gonna be like an other mountain Mrs. Lincoln assessment of the Iran war.

I wanna read this kind of one. Mark Dubelitz over at FDD is one of the biggest agitators for the war and supporters of it. And he posted a thread last night that made the case

for why things are going so well. No one would go through a little bit of application so we can share the other perspective. Number one, new programs set back years in Richmond and reprocessing gutted weaponization sites destroyed.

Number one, number two, ballistic missile program crippled. Number three, air defense is devastated. Number four, full economic warfare. Not just sanctions anymore, but military pressure laid on top with the blockade.

Number five, regime decapitation. Number six, the region turning on Iran. Number seven, proxy network shattered.

He goes on from there, but that's basically the gist.

“What would be your counterpoint to what Mark offered there?”

- Well, I mean, some of the things he says are true. The ballistic missile program has been set back. Now, that's partly because they fired ballistic missiles that cause real damage to the US embassy in Saudi Arabia, for example, to US bases that killed some Americans.

So, but do they have fewer ballistic missiles now do they have fewer drones? Yeah, I mean, on balance, maybe half of their missile and drone capacity was used up. Now, at least that much of our interceptor capacity

was also used up, so we're less able to defend Taiwan, for example. But have we badly degraded their missile capacity? Absolutely, have we badly degraded? Their Air Force, their Navy, completely. And now, have we set back their nuclear program?

We did with last year's war, not so much with this year's war, but maybe more importantly, is whether they actually intend to build a nuclear warhead. And in the past since 2003, the US intelligence community and the Israeli intelligence community have assessed

that Iran, they wanted the capability of building one, they did not actually want to build a nuclear warhead.

“Now, I think that may well have changed.”

And it would kind of make sense for Iran to see that nobody messes with North Korea, they do mess with Iran and that it maybe it should make a rush for a weapon. So, I fear that we may be turning Iran into a North Korea. It's also Mark makes the point

that we decapitated their leadership. And that is absolutely true. We, in a sense, do have regime change. We have a harder line regime. We have one that is more controlled by the IRGC,

one that may be more inclined to take over the strain to build nuclear weapons. And one that I think the Trump administration is finding it harder to negotiate with because they're just harder line.

And I think Iran's new leaders feel that the previous leadership

after the Kassemani killing after the war last year. And so they feel they have to re-establish deterrence. They have to make the US and Israel really suffer. And that is not the right kind of regime change. - Indeed not.

Speaking of missile capabilities set back and crippled, it's an interesting New York Times story also turned out as a similar story out yesterday. This is from Eric Schmidt and John Swan and your colleagues. The US has burned through around 1100 of its long range

stealth cruise missiles built for war with China. We fired up a thousand Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly 10 times the number. We currently buy each year. The Pentagon used more than 1,200 patriot interceptor missiles

in this war at $4 million a pop.

This is all leaving inventory's worry, similarly low according to internal defense department estimates that congressional officials, the journal story adds on to that that we basically couldn't fully execute our contingency plans to defend Taiwan at this point based on the stockpile loss.

In addition to all the costs that you laid out earlier and just how this money could have been spent to otherwise, even from a defense perspective, seems like a risky, risky bet here. - Absolutely, I mean, maybe the worst nightmare

for international strategists.

“Him, I think, is a war in the Taiwan straight.”

I think most people think that's less likely than otherwise, but possible. And Xi Jinping, when he calculates whether or not to a circle Taiwan, whether or not to make a move on, Taiwan is surely calculated what the American response will be.

And if we've used 80% of our patriots, 80% of our thad interceptors, as we appear to have done, that will incrementally increase the risk of an attack on Taiwan, which would be devastating to Western alliance, devastating to the supply of chips worldwide

would cause a global economic depression because Taiwan is the source of more than 90% of advanced chips worldwide. So the idea that we would undermine our capacity to defend Taiwan, undermine our capacity to defend Europe.

We told Estonia that we cannot supply some weapons that it is purchased because they've been used in the Iran war. This is undermining our defense, not enhancing it. So given all the problems and concerns,

the war prowers resolution gives I present the ability to fight this war even without congressional approval for a 60 day period. That takes us to May one when that expires, which is now next week.

The law does provide for a single 30 day extension in the campaign without congressional approval. Certain conditions are met. Just Donald Trump even care about the law. We'll even follow what doesn't matter

or whether he follows those conditions. I think there's a legal question that is coming up in the next seven eight days. But also a potential one about whether the Congress is going to have to weigh in on this.

I think that the beginning of the war that were some Democrats that were indicating that they might even be supportive of a resolution. It's harder and harder to see that every day. And so the question is,

can the Republicans jam it through on a party line basis?

“Pretty, I think important political moment”

coming up in the next week. You know, I would push back a little because I think President Trump will just ignore it. We'll just do it over the fucking one thing. Exactly.

And you know, in fairness, President Obama, ignore it in the case of the Libya war, I think presidents, whatever their political complexion are willing to sail ahead.

Presidents have always been a little skeptical

about the constitutionality of that measure. And so I don't think Trump will view that as a constraint. It's not as easy. I agree with that. It might be an inflection point. It could be if the Democrats choose to make it one

instruction point for them to further solidify like the position and being opposed to this war. And there's been some Democrats have been very clear and strong on this, but there's been a little bit of mix messaging, okay, and it's maybe an opportunity

for them to get a lot.

“Yeah, I mean, I think it's absolutely true”

that politically you can have impact. And this is a very unpopular war, I think it'll grow. More unpopular as supplies of oil that are actually on ships. You know, stop reaching their destinations. And so I think this can be a point to make this very public.

And I also just say one other thing, Tim that we haven't talked about, you know, this started because of the massacre of Iranian protesters in January and supposedly this was somehow going to help them. And you know, I've reported in Iran

and I've seen the incredible courage of some of these Iranian,

some of these Iranian women lawyers. I just, I'm in awe of them of their courage there, willingness to go to prison and suffer brutally

And then President Trump said that, you know,

help us on the way in January that no help was. And now we bomb them, we bomb a girl school, we bomb a volleyball team. And you know, now we've settled them with a more oppressive, harder line regime

that is more likely to be around that in five years than it would have been otherwise. And they are the people who were suffering the most in this. And you know, they've been kind of lost.

“I think in our national international conversation”

and my, you know, my heart just totally goes out to them. We've totally screwed them over. - Yeah, it's important point, both from the humanitarian and human rights perspective for, you know, from for those of us who did want hope and freedom

for the Iranian people and just are opposed to this strategically. It's also important just about the framing and the discussion of the war.

I mean, the administration has really, you know,

tried to create new post hoc rationalizations for the war that are much more limited than what they were at the start. Like the initial, like this is why we had regime change. I forget where that was on, on Diplots' list of good things

that have happened. Like originally the point was, sorry, like the administration said this was that we were going to decapitate the regime and that the regime was cracking down on protesters and that there was BB at least at pitch

that the whole regime could collapse and be replaced by something that's more amenable to us. Trump was obviously interested in more of a Delsea Rodriguez

“type situation and that has been an utter failure.”

- Yeah, and one of the paradoxes is that there actually was kind of a Delsea Rodriguez model back with the JCPOA, you know, that initially empowered some of the more moderate folks in Iran,

more hematocatomi people like that.

It would have been plausible that when the Supreme Leader L.E. come and A.E. died that somebody, you know, a little bit more moderate might have taken over somebody like Hassan Komeni, for example. And instead, we ended up with the worth scenario

where he was exceeded, you know, by his son who as these IRGC connections, who's just to hard to align that ever. And so, yeah, was there a Delsea scenario? Absolutely, and President Trump killed it.

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in terms of conditions applied. I'm talking about the economic impact both at here and abroad because, as you mentioned, I want the oils that's on the sea, stops getting delivered.

I think that the actual consequences of this are gonna be hitting home for people even more. I may already are with gas prices,

“but the worst is you have to come on that front.”

You're posted about, in addition to that, there's the sulfur crisis that just coming that comes to the straight that impacts fertilizers which means food prices go up. It's metals, plastics.

And a bunch of, there's a bunch of unintended supply chain consequences coming down the pike. And all that stuff might be coming for us last because we make a lot of that stuff here in the US as well, but our global markets.

And so it's gonna come for us eventually. And in the meantime, there's gonna be a lot of suffering in the rest of the world. - And it's gonna be the poorest, most vulnerable people worldwide who are gonna suffer.

because of artificial fertilizer, things like Eurea.

“And without Eurea, the world could only support”

about four billion lives.

And in fact, we have about eight billion people worldwide. And so Eurea already seeing in country, I've had sort of a report to you and they're about malawi's and bobway other countries where food prices are rising partly

because of transportation that to truck food around the country. Now requires more diesel and to win farmers, reduce things and truck into the marketplace, cost more as well.

And as Eurea grows more expensive, then farmers are gonna be less able in poor countries to use it. And so yields will decline and more kids will go hungry. It's just the time that the US followed by France

and Germany and England have been cutting aid to there'll be more kids suffering severe acute malnutrition and less aid to try to ease that hunger.

- Yeah, I just think that the global impact economically

is underappreciated right now. And because you're now talking about these are the poorest people in the world that we're already suffering because of the cuts and last time you're on we talked about your reporting

and Africa on that and now they're gonna face higher prices. But then I just working class people in a lot of countries in Europe and Asia are really gonna be hit hard by this. And I just think that the potential ripples and unintended consequences of there's gonna be

political disruption in those countries. You know, people are gonna be unhappy and some of them are gonna blame the United States but they're gonna blame their own governments and we've already seen a lot of this around the world.

And it's just it's kind of unpredictable who it could empower. But I mean, we have really like kicked a massive economic ordinance and asked that I don't know that people have really kind of processed

like the degree of disruption that's coming down the pike. - You know, I think that's right.

“And I think that there has been a misperception”

that China is hurt by this and it's true that China depends on our all passing through the struggle from those. So there's something to do that. But it's also true that countries around the world

are looking for how they can use more green power and more solar for example. And you know, China totally dominates the solar industry dominates the battery industry. And so it is already getting more orders for,

you know, those kinds of products. And also I think worldwide, you know, people look at the US and GCS as this unstable crazy country that causes problems worldwide and they look at China and they see a more sober,

mature power. And you know, if somebody who lived five years in China and has had somebody for instance, who saw the Tiananmen massacre, I find that just really painful. When Mark Carney in Canada, when Canadian is a reasonable,

levelable Canadians, you know, hedge by building ties with China to balance their dependence on the US, what a mess we've created, what a mess. - So now that you're talking about the, yeah, from like a human rights perspective.

Also, the craziest thing about this is that Trump has a lot of China hawks around him. - Yep, even if you're thinking about it from a great power like military perspective as well, this is just a disaster.

- Total disaster.

- Yeah, I mean, and they always talk about

the importance of defending Taiwan. And you know, meanwhile, they undercut the defense

“of Taiwan and I think, you know, raise the risk”

of this catastrophe, a war, you know, in the Taiwan straight that could draw on the US and you know, theoretically could become a nuclear war. I mean, this is just catastrophic miscalculation. - All right, so as mentioned, you're just back

with the last speaker. I don't want to hear about that, but first, just as it relates to this war, we also have Israel's ongoing attacks and Lebanon. That was part of the ceasefire.

This is what I did. Is it even an agreement anymore? I don't know, Iranians are attacking a couple of boats. The US is blockading. We have a quasi, whatever you wanna call this,

well, I feel like ceasefire is too extreme of a word. Something short of ceasefire, but it's a bit of a fire. Something between ceasefire. Yes, it's a little fire.

Something between ceasefire and act of war. It's a little fire, that's good. And as part of that, Israel started bombing Hezbollah again in southern Lebanon, including those that are journalists that died

and that attack. And Hezbollah now saying that they're back to attacking Israel. And so that theater of this war and this slow fire also seems to be starting to unravel.

So we do have this three-week extension of the Israel Lebanon slow fire. And it is, I mean, I'm glad that President Trump seems

to just slow the fire.

“That killing of that journalist you mentioned,”

Amal Khalil, you know, she worked for a newspaper

in Beirut, Kolalakbar. And it sure seems that she was targeted, the car in front of her was hit, then she took refuge under a little shelter. Her car was then hit to his enter,

she was taken into a house, frantically made calls, and then that house was hit and she was buried under rubble. She was still alive. They tried frantically to rescue her.

And then Israeli strikes made it impossible to rescue her by the time they were later able to go. She was dead. I do think the journalist's humanity should stand up for our colleagues worldwide

when they are targeted.

Last year, 129 journalists were killed worldwide,

a record as far as we've been keeping records. And about two thirds of them were killed by Israel, often with weapons provided by us in the US with no accountability. And I hope that journalists will stand up

for colleagues like Amal and create some accountability for that kind of killing.

“And I think that what Israel advocates would say about that”

is that some percentage of those journalists were like quasi-journalists, and they were laundering Hamas arguments into the public sphere. This is not my position at all to defend that,

but I guess how do you sort through that argument? - Yeah, I mean, so there is something to that.

I mean, if you are a journalist in Gaza,

you are probably not very sympathetic to Israel. You're not neutral between Israel and Gaza. You're sympathetic to Gaza and surround you to your family. You can get likewise if you're in Lebanon.

And especially if you're a Shiite in Lebanon, then you may well have lost family members. You were not very neutral as Israel tries to seize southern Lebanon. But it's, I think, a deeply unfair

to portray somebody like Amal Khalil as just say, a Hezbollah'sstuge, per newspaper, Al-Aqbar.

“It's not a Hezbollah's religious organization.”

Hezbollah and Arabic means the party of God. Well, Al-Aqbar is a secular newspaper who's founded by these secular leftists, not by these radical Muslims. And was she, at times has it been sympathetic

to Hezbollah and to the Shiite community and general in Lebanon, absolutely. But is she a Hezbollah'sstuge? No. And likewise in Israel, they're very conservative

newspapers and people who support Netanyahu's carpet bombing of Gaza. But should they be targeted and killed? Absolutely not. Newtrality, I don't think is required

to not be assassinated. Absolutely. That's a good way to put it in. Yeah, full neutrality is not, I don't think the basis for, I think in turn,

was I totally endorse that. That's the same. It's a podcast, right? So I don't think you can kill me and then be like, well, he was pretty mean to the regime.

He didn't critique the regime a lot. So you can understand it. No, it's a horrible. It's horrible, it's horrible. And I'm glad you can provide additional details

with that because I haven't gotten into that this week. Talk about the West Bank. Obviously, this is something that is ongoing amidst the broader conversation of Israel's kind of gun Gaza, Israel, our partner in this war in Iran,

what you're talking about in Hezbollah. But it seems like a huge uptick in aggressive action into the West Bank to wonder what you saw there in your perspective. - Settlers are completely out of control.

And you know, look, I've been traveling to the West Bank since 1982. And I mean, there's been a long time repression. But it has pretty steadily gotten worse over the last 25 or 30 years.

And it's certainly gotten way worse since October 2023. And now, I visited some rural areas where settlers are brutally attacking these Bedowin villagers, stealing their sheep, threatening to rape

It's really part of an ethnic cleansing movement.

And it's scary. I mean, when I was visiting one village, settlers stopped us and blocked our car as we were leaving. And I spoke up at English and tried to interview them.

“And I think that maybe that was why they made some phone calls”

and sort of got nervous and then let us go on. But there is a violence to settler activity. And an increase in the way it is now backed by the Israeli defense forces in a way that, again, I think, makes us, as Americans, supplying that weaponry,

complicit in what sure looks like and attempted ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. And you know, even like one of the communities

that I visited, the school, not exactly a school bus,

it's kind of a school car taking these little kids. It's elementary school kids, just school. And now the settlers are attacking it. This little school vehicle in ways that just have these parents just desperate.

I mean, they've been on this land for thousands of years. They have deep, deep ties to it. And they're terrified that their kids are going to be killed, that their daughters are going to be raped. And they're just randomly trying to figure out what to do.

And again, this is partly because of our American policy. Yeah, my former pod colleague, Kim Kasky,

was also there and told us some more story

about threats that he faced. And it's just, it's just a sense that the violence is really spiraling out of control if people, neutral people, can't even visit without fear. I'm wondering, what you think, what is underpinning

kind of why now? Because it's a sense because of what happened in Gaza, that settlers and folks within the Israeli government feel like this is just an opportunity to kind of rip the band they'd off and try to get as much

as they can while Trump is still in charge. And while they're already being criticized anyway for the behavior in Gaza, is there something else that is underneath why this is growing right now?

“So I mean, I think the fundamental truth is that since the late 1990s,”

how Moss and the Israeli right have mutually supported each other, that was when Hamas started bus bombings and car bombings in Israel, and that led to Netanyahu's election in 1996, that kind of destroyed the Israeli left and then as the Israeli right in Netanyahu took more extreme

and more brutal policies to work Palestinians, that boosted the fortunes of Hamas. And so you have these two extremists, just mutually reinforcing each other and destroying moderation on each side. And then that became more apparent after a group of 7th, 2023.

And the terrorist attack on southern Israel that led to, I think, this sense among a lot of Israelis that we just have to be much more forceful. We can't ever let this happen again. And we have to round up every Palestinian in the West Bank

and cut off red cross visits, enable torture, which is, I talked to detainees, including children, and the torture that is now routine for detainees is just so widespread.

“And so Netanyahu, then I think, you know,”

by bringing in smoke rich in Vancouver into his cabinet, again, send a signal that there is complete impunity. You can do whatever you want. And so you get these board prison guards, you were low-sadest themselves,

and they delight in torturing these Palestinian detainees, including kids. - Now it's horrible not to compare like the torture to these sort of corrupt economic crimes in the US, but your point of Ben Gaveer,

like the incentive structure is similar to the free reign to do white collar crime in here in America right now, right? Whereas just like if you know that the president, the DOJ, our can investigate you. And you know, if you're a supporter of the administration

that you're gonna get pardoned, then like there's just huge incentive to go ahead and get while we get in good. And I do think that there's some bad incentive parallels there. - Delete me makes it easy quick

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and enter code bullwork@checkout. That's joindeleteme.com/bowlwork/bowlwork. - After we've covered all this miserable terrible grant and I offer a little ray of hope. - Yes, I love that. I'm looking at the list of the rest of the topics

I have to talk about, there's no hope. So please, anything you want to inject in there, I'll think, yeah. - So it's been much of my career covering authoritarian nasty regimes.

And there are two things that are so characteristic of them

and they're also characteristic of a trap. And one is that the authoritarians they surround themselves with yes men. And so as a result, they tend to have done economic policies.

Singapore is a rare exception, but in general, because they don't have intelligent critiques, they don't have corrective mechanisms. And so they have done economic policies that lead people to be upset with where things are.

And the other thing they do for the same reason as you just alluded to it is they've come corrupt. If there is a big pot of honey right here and you know you're not going to get in trouble, then you reach in and grab some,

and you win, rich yourself and your family. And you know, fundamentally,

that was why Orban, Orban was pushed out in Hungary

because that economic policies and corruption.

“You know, I think that is gonna be a real toll”

on Republicans in the Trump administration. I wish the corruption were getting more attention to the US. I think that is a potential weakness for Trump because as you say, it's just endemic. They can do whatever they want.

They feel they can anyway. - Yeah, I think the attention will hopefully increase when the Democrats get in charge next year because I do think that focusing on corruption and the investigations is gonna be absolutely there.

Top responsibility, at least assuming they take the house, maybe to send it next year, because it's not like any bipartisan policies are getting done. So it's not as well focused on corruption.

- Investigations, and I do think that there's a lot there. And while the administration is going to be, I think Stonewall, more than any administration in history, when it comes to testimony and providing documents, a lot of these outside business deals

that this administration is doing,

“I think the calculus is gonna be different.”

If you are, you know, if higher done junior to be on your board or put money into the Trump coin or are involved in the deal, I want to talk about the UAE deal that we're getting to.

I do think for people involved in that, they have other considerations. They realize that they'll be a future where Trump is not in charge and I think we'll feel forced to actually participate

and who knows what that's gonna lead to, but we just know that everybody's getting their B-quit. - Yeah, I think that's right. As you know, I live in rural Oregon and a place that is about two thirds of people

voted for Trump and each election and the arguments about authoritarianism don't really resonate with them, but you know, B-prices totally do the social security system not working that does.

And I think whether or not focused on news, I think the corruption issue also resonates. - What do you mean they're not focused on this? It's not getting as much information, right? - Yeah, they're just paying less attention to news

and I think they're less aware of the corruption. I mean, in general, also I think there's suspicious of what they hear, they don't know quite what to believe when they hear things and often they're the news they get is from Fox News, which doesn't exactly,

I let the corruption issues, but some of it does get through. - Yeah, I mean, you've thought about this, having explored a run as a Democrat and as you mentioned living in a more rural area,

in the Middle East and the economic wreckage that's coming is tragedy, and it's just horrible for the country in the world,

“but it also I think presents a political opportunity”

for the Democrats to kind of reintroduce themselves to folks who really did sign up for this

because they thought Trump was gonna care about them first

and not get involved in stupid foreign wars and not do things that made their prices come up and I think that a lot of them feel betrayed right now and I don't think that a lot of those folks are ready to just go sign up for Gavin Newsome or whoever,

or like super, either not exactly huge big things of the Democrats, but I just think this is an opportunity for Democrats to be very clear about their values, particularly about war, particularly about caring about the economic concerns of working class Americans.

- I think they're doing okay on that front right now, but to me, I just like this is a pedal to the metal moment on trying to reshape the brand, no wonder what your thoughts on that would be, if you had a Democratic politician calling you

for your two cents. - So, you know, I think that's right. I certainly see that in my friends, and Democrats in Oregon, you know,

always ask me what they can do

to overthrow the authoritarian leadership

“and I think they tend to think in terms of,”

you know, King's protests, things like that, and you know, that certainly plays a role, but I think the, what Democrats have to do what the country needs is to win the Senate, and that means how do we help share it brown

when this fall? How do we create a possibility for a Democrat to win the Senate race in Montana? And one thing that is maybe more important than any other, I think, is to fix blue places,

because, you know, in truth, we have not done a great job in governance in some of our blue places, and my neighbors and friends, they don't really know what to believe in some of these larger issues,

but they do know that when they drive in a Portland,

they see a mess, and, you know, in one of the last cycles

of voting in Montana, there was a billboard of showing a scene in Portland, a chaotic scene in Portland, and the message was something like, you know, vote for Democrats, and this will come to Montana.

And that just pains me, and we can't just have a conversation about how awful Republicans are. We also have to fix our very real problems in blue places. San Francisco was doing a better job of that than most under the Mayor of Daniel Lary,

but governance, you know, you look at Chicago as well. We have a real problem, and we've got to do a better job at dressing that, to show voters we can govern. - I'm happy you said that. A lot of times Democrats don't like to hear that,

and I mean, there are, of course, good things about California, and there are nice places in Chicago, and you can over critique it, right? And the parody of California that you see on Fox News prime time isn't real,

but just the reality of folks that live in a lot of deep blue places is that they've been priced out.

“I think that affordability is a massive problem,”

that their needs aren't being met. And I had John Luford on the other week, and he was bitching about the, that they're planning a new public transportation program in Los Angeles where he lives,

and he's like, "We're gonna break ground in 2041." So, we'll even have a society in 2041, but we'll Donald Trump and have gotten it out into a nuclear war with AI robots have taken us over by that. It's like, this is crazy.

And I think that as you look at the 28, you know, two of the candidates Gavin Newsson and J.V. Pritzker, who I think seem like good people, and well intention,

there are things I like about both, and critiques I have about both of them, but it's like, do the Democrats want to carry the baggage of Chicago and California, and the fact that they are losing residents,

and try to make the case to the American people, that the whole country wants this. I think it's a hard case to make right now. I just think that's a harsh reality for Democrats to assess.

- I boy, I totally agree. And I, again, this sort of seems with the filter of my neighbors, but it's genuinely true that we overreached, particularly on the West Coast.

You know, in Oregon, we have some of the worst educational outcomes in the country, adjusted for demographics. We ranked number 50 and 4th and 8th grade, Nape scores for English and math. - That don't be adjusting for demographics

'cause I need Jeff Landry to stay at 50. - Right. - And raw numbers, Jeff Landry here on Louisiana is still 50. If it's important to save, sure, yeah, it's okay. - I agree with you that Oregon has done some silly stuff

in overreached in places, but I don't want to take Landry's by just trophy away from them. - Well, okay, well, well, Oregon, you know, I would argue that the demographic

and just gotta think, but in any case,

“so in 2020, this legislature allocated six million dollars”

to put tampons in every bathroom, including kindergarten boys, bathrooms, is very well-manned inclusive gesture to support trans kids, absolutely. But when you put tampons in kindergarten boys, bathrooms, this is self-parity.

- Well, they're dirty, they get dirty. You can use it to kind of clean off the dirt on the face, after you get off the playground. - I'm sure that, you know, maybe it may at least ingenuity among the five-year-old boys.

What could you do with this tampon? And I just think that it's an urgent issue for Democrats. So like, they both need to use this moment to offer a clear message about how, if they do get back in power,

they're going to care more about working everyday

Americans and less about this adventureism overseas and recapture that. It was very successful message for Barack Obama in 2008. - Yes, the Democrats have lost and they

“decimultaneously do that with fixing some of the business”

in blue cities. I want to go back to just a couple of the issues that we glazed down before I let you. The UAE bailout is in the news today. And that's kind of related with the corruption

and underpinnings of what's happening in the Middle East. And I guess it also could be related to the Democratic messaging that could be useful. But it's pretty wild what they're discussing with the UAE. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on that.

- Oh, it means it's unbelievable. I mean, UAE is one of the richer countries worldwide. It's where billionaires who don't want to pay taxes somewhere else, where they go to flee. And then we're unable, Sudan is the world's worst humanitarian

crisis right now. Kids are starving every day in Sudan. Yemen brutal situation. We don't provide an evade to save kids in those places. We current humanitarian aid situation.

And the Lancet said this year that nine million people

will die unnecessarily because of aid cuts worldwide. And meanwhile, we're talking about providing aid to the UAE, one of the wealthier countries in the world. And magnifying that is this corruption issue, as you say, the UAE signed this deal to enrich the Trump family

by half a billion dollars, which you'll look like a retainer for just this kind of situation. It's just mind-boggling, it's so frustrating when we have these kids dying unnecessarily worldwide for lack of such simple interventions.

And then we're talking about bailing out the UAE is maddening. - Yeah, the geopolitics of the Arab States, too, it's going to be a super interesting of the next year as well, because we're already seeing their suffering economically for the Saudi

has talked about pulling out of some of their American investments, including the Gulf Tour.

“I think they were propping up some nonprofits here as well.”

The hitters, they had their hands and everything in order to try to get in our good graces and it worked to a certain degree. But I think now, kind of similar to Canada in a weird way, might start looking at this and saying, oh man,

like we need to hedge a little bit more as well with China. And it's a complicated geopolitical scene right now. We're there simultaneously paying off the Trump family and also feeling the pinch of what's happening in our arms. - I hope that the message goes out

that when you think you are buying friendship and support from the Trump family, that you're not necessarily getting loyalty back, partly because of the confidence issue. And partly because that loyalty doesn't run very deep.

And I hope those who were trying to ingratiate themselves with Trump understand that. - One of the stories I wanted to talk about that I said and been able to get to this week and that something you've reported on and care about

is the way that we're treating the Afghan allies and those who are trying to flee Afghanistan after we pulled out. And since then, Afghan refugees who had been helping US forces and turpenters, things of this nature,

they've been stranded at a military base in Qatar. And now, the Trump administration is making them choose between either returning to Taliban, rural Afghanistan, or sending them to war-torn Congo. Let's like 1100 people.

It's totally insane and offensive and depraved that this is what we're doing to folks that try to help us in prosecuting them out war. - I mean, depraved is exactly the right word. I mean, these folks, they saved American lives in Afghanistan

and because they worked with Americans

they and their families are at risk in Afghanistan

if they are returned, they will suffer brutally. Some will be killed. And then sending them to Congo, you know,

“you remember that as one of the wars that Trump solved”

that for which he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, you know, it hasn't been solved. And Rwanda is laying waste to in Eastern Congo. It's a place that is close to my heart, part of Lake, is we held it by one of the militias in Eastern Congo

because I happen to come across the massacres and then chase through the jungle for the next five days in Eastern Congo. And it is a mass idea that we would stand here a little bit more of that.

Actually, you can't just throw, this was close to my heart because I spent five days being chased through Congo. I just, I like the reader's die just version of what happened there. - So the quick version, so I was reporting on the beginning of the Congo Civil War in 1997

and in trying to fly into Kiss and Ghani or plane crashed and everybody, the plane was destroyed, everybody in the plane survived, but one person was killed on the ground. And so after that experience getting into Congo,

I don't know, maybe I'll instead of flying out, I'll drive out. So I was in Kiss and Ghani. I looked at the theory, there was this kind of road going through Eastern Congo.

So I hired a vehicle that had probably been stolen in the Civil War from somebody or other. And we drove out. And the first day, we ran into this rewind a back militia that was massacring Hutu.

“And I asked these child soldiers, what are you doing?”

And they said, oh, we're killing all the Hutu. I mean, they were usually unapologetic about it. So I asked them, can I interview your chief, your boss, your warlord? And that was a dumb thing to do

because they took me to the warlord. And he, I just said it was a bad idea to be giving interviews about this.

One of the basic rules of journalism is you never lie.

When you're being held by a warlord who's busy massacring people, you lie. So I told them that I had the approval of his over warlord. He tried to reach that guy on the radio. He could not.

So after an hour or so, he let us go later that evening, he did reach the warlord who had never heard of me. And so we sent a truckload of soldiers after me. And so that unfolded over the next five days. - We shut.

- How did you end up getting out? - So we were ahead of them. We got stuck for hours at a time because the road was so bad, but so did the truck. We had a somewhat better vehicle.

And we got to the Uganda border. And then the vehicle turned around that immediately ran into the soldiers, but the only people in it were my interpreter. And the driver at that point,

and they did not bother the interpreter in the driver. - And the idea that we're sending these Afghans to a place like this. - So given that story, it doesn't seem like the place to send 1100 Afghans

to try to help us in the war. - Absolutely not. - I can crazy. Okay, well, I wonder. And like we did last time with a little convoy

on Christophe Impact,

“but does there anything that I didn't ask you about?”

Any reporting you've been doing? Anything that's on your mind, you wanna leave people with? - You know, I do just hope that Democrats make a real push for winning back working class voters, both those of color and the white working class.

I think that one of the real mistakes

in the first Trump administration

was that we were so outraged that he that Trump pushed us to the left in ways that made it harder to win those working class voters. We seem less sensitive to them. And in particular, too often I think concluded

that every Trump voter is a racist and a bigot. And it is really hard to win votes from people whom you're accusing of being racist and bigots. So so much as it's stake right now

in terms of the future of the country. And I just hope we will do better and be so focused on winning Senate races in Ohio and Arizona, Georgia and Maine and the last Iowa. Yeah, Iowa is now when play it looks like, you know?

- Well, we could not be more aligned on that. The next time you're on, I'm gonna find something that we can fight about. - Oh, right. We'll pin on the war.

- Yeah, oh yeah, that's right. Last time, I fucking hate pin on a war still. We didn't notice it's disgusting. Okay, if I wanted to juice Fox, I'd have one. I'm drinking petnats and oranges.

Do you make any orange wine, are you doing any orange wine? - No, we don't. We make hard cider, though. Really good hard cider. Some of the best hard cider I've ever seen.

- And that's on our wine tastes.

We're gonna find another issue, though.

“Besides Pino no aren't hard cider to disagree on.”

I do want to close it as you posted yesterday that you're 2025 pissed off.

Impact Drive raised 52 million for three nonprofits,

which is really unbelievable. We try to do this as well for time to time with the vorks, support certain advocacy groups or people that are in need. The art listeners like yours really love to do that.

I want to feel like they are having an impact and helping. So if you have an organization, you want to shout out now. I would love to put that in the show notes and direct people to it.

- Yeah, and maybe there's a way to partner

in the semform with the next drive.

“I believe it's a me called Solutions Journalism”

where you not just point out problems, but also point out solutions and give our audiences a way to try to address the problems. And so that's how this evolved. The three organizations that I supported this year

were one is the emergency response rooms in Sudan,

which are this grassroots approach to deal with a famine there.

Another is Helen Keller International, which does God's work in fighting malnutrition and hunger.

“And then the third works in the U.S. Vision to Learn,”

which gets glasses and hands of low income kids, especially in early grades, who can't say a blackboard. And how can you learn to read, if you can't see the blackboard, just to three great organizations. And if we internalism, if we give our audiences

a way to step up and help, I'm just all I'd buy my audience and how willing they are to step up. - We will put the link to the Helen Keller charity in the show notes,

because I made a Helen Keller joke this week. So I feel like that was needed for Carmichael. - We can get everybody balanced to the world. So we'll do that. Nick Kristoff, I really appreciate you. Thanks for coming back on the show,

and we'll do it again soon, all right? - I look forward to that with a glass of peanut water. - Next time. - Okay, now I'll bring my old Pat now. - Everybody else, we'll see you back here Monday.

It's Monday, so it's Bill Kristoff. Have a great weekend. ♪ Take my hand now, love ♪ ♪ Down the stairs, your father walks ♪ ♪ I will lead the way ♪

♪ This air is falling, great ♪