Iranian Regime Massacres Protesters, Will Trump Respond?

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That's 20% off your first order at American-Giant.com. Code WORLD. Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Rhodes. I love the NFL playoffs so much, Ben. Well. Did you watch that Bears game? I did. I did. I was going to say, you like it because your team won. The Patriots game was trash. The games were good. But we did win. The Rams-Panthers game was incredible. Also, I noticed, I was thinking about my buddy Roger Bennett. On Saturday, was it Sunday? The Clásico was on. It was Real Madrid versus Barcelona over in Spain. There's just like a lot of good sports. Good sports weekend. Yeah, it's that time of year, too. You got the NBA going. You got football playoffs. I don't really care about college football anymore. Once they started like making the West Coast teams play in the ACC, I don't like the conference realignment. Yeah, it's where like the Big Ten is coast to coast. Yeah, yeah. Big Ten to me should be like, Midwest, boring, running football. But that's what football was about. Football was about like these different regions. Yeah, no, I agree with you in the rivalries. It makes the travel make no sense, and it's all weird. And I want players to get paid, but the transfer portal is making it so people just leave after a year. Again, it's their right, but it doesn't seem like the best way to run a railroad. Yeah, I feel like it's going to not pan out over time. You want these guys to get a little more coached up. But look, we got a great show. We got a lot of major stories to cover today. We are going to start with the latest on this now weeks-long protest. Last year was a protest in Iran. There are reports this week of a massacre of protesters by security forces. And we'll also talk about what we know about Trump's deliberations, about a possible US military response. We're also going to talk about how the son of the former leader of Iran, who was deposed in 1979, has reinserted himself into this conversation. Yes. And whether he is welcome or not. The Shah has entered the chat. From, where is he, like, Northern Virginia or the suburbs of D.C. somewhere? Probably, yeah. I wonder who he's been paying attention to. We've been paying attention to him for a while. Yeah, good question. Then we're going to update you on how regime change is going in Venezuela. Trump has an upcoming meeting with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Machado. That could be awkward. We'll find out, I guess. We'll talk about why ramping up Venezuela's oil industry might be a lot harder than Trump thinks. What the Russians might think about all of this. Then we're going to talk about Trump's threats to bomb Mexico. His efforts to topple the Cuban government with sanctions and economic pressure. And whether that's going to work. We've never tried that one before, right? And then. And then how a birthday party and an octagon have upended plans for an international summit of world leaders. Stick around for that. I just want to point out that every single topic, with the possible exception of the octagon, involves the United States potentially being in a war. Yep, yep. So that's where we are. And there's a lot of violence in the octagon, too. Yeah. You know, if we're being honest here. That's true. If we're being honest, it's its own kind of war. Then you're going to hear my interview with our friend Jason Rezaian. Jason was the Tehran bureau chief for the Washington Post until July of 2014. When the Iranian regime, a bunch of goons, arrested him and ultimately held him hostage for 544 days. Jason and I talk about his view of the protests. As someone who's lived in and reported on Iran, he's Iranian-American. He's got lots of friends and family and contacts still in the country. And then we talk about his ordeal in Iranian detention and the incredible diplomacy that you were a part of then during the Obama days that got him out. The story is documented in Jason's truly excellent podcast, 544 Days. Which I just can't wait to hear. I can't recommend enough because it's an amazing story in its own right. And it's also like newly relevant in this moment as we're all looking at Iran and trying to kind of understand the machinations in the regime. Well, Avin Prison, where he was imprisoned, is the place where they tend to put the political prisoners. So that prison is certainly very relevant. Do you think still? Although the Israelis bombed it. Yeah, they bombed it. Yeah, which is killing a bunch of political prisoners. So just footnote that. But yes, I'm curious. Yeah. It's an operational matter. I don't know. Yeah, good question. I do want to say a quick thank you to all of our listeners and the viewers out there. We did this YouTube exclusive episode last week on Trump's rambling, bizarre, two and a half hour New York Times interview where he said that only his own morality can constrain him on foreign policy. Check that out if you haven't. Not at all ominous there. That episode got us to 200,000 subscribers on YouTube for Pod Save the World. Not bad, Ben. Only 459 million more and we can get Mr. Beast. Tie that guy. Yeah. Tie his brother. Tie his record. But basically we doubled our audience last year on YouTube and we're really grateful to everybody that listened and subscribed and likes and shares the episodes because it helps us grow the show. It helps us do more of it, which we love to do. And so if you're a casual listener of Pod Save the World on, you know, wherever you get your podcasts, please subscribe. Make it official. If you prefer watching it on YouTube, subscribe there because it helps us grow, gets more people good information in the YouTube algorithm, and it's also free. Both are free. And then again, if you're a super fan of Pod Save the World or Crooked Media generally, or you just want to help out, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to help out progressive independent media and help us reduce our dependence on tech platforms, consider going to crooked.com slash friends, become a friend of the pod subscriber. You get ad free episodes, tons of great bonus content, Q and A's. Ben and I are going to do a Q and A at the end of this show with our discord community that you'll get to hear if you are a friend of the pod subscriber. So again, crooked.com slash friends, but mostly thank you for listening. And also Michael wanted me to point out, Ben, that the Liz Trust show only has 16,000 subs. I mean, who are those? I mean, he's still watching. Are you still watching? Are you hate watching? Yeah. Are you one of the subs? God damn. Who are these people that are subscribing to Liz Trust? Well, we've got one. Because actually 16,000 feels high to me. Oh, so high. Yeah. Like that could fill almost an arena. Maybe just a comical, like hate watching. Yeah. But well, Michael, you know. Yeah. Maybe our staff. Maybe our staff has got like a bot farm in China. Yeah. Yeah. Keep this going, guys. Keep it going. Okay. Let's start with the biggest story in the world right now, Ben, which is Iran. So these protests. We've been covering this for a couple of weeks now, and the protests have only gotten bigger since we last recorded. Just quickly on the backstory. The protests started in late December when shopkeepers in Tehran, they took to the streets to express their anger after Iran's currency, the rial, plunged in value. So the rial has lost half of its value since September. So it's been brutal for anyone, you know, any Iranian citizen. The protests, though, they quickly snowballed into these countrywide anti-government protests in all of Iran's 31 provinces. And what makes these protests so powerful and such a threat? To the regime is that they are broad based. It is not just women and people in cities like 2022. It is people in every part of the country, including like working class, traditionally conservative Iranians. They are all just pissed off. They're pissed off about the economy. Now, I do think we should note it's like, it's really hard to know what's actually going on inside of Iran right now. There has been an internet blackout since last Thursday. Tons of people are pushing different narratives on social media, like definitely some bots out there, moving stuff around interested. Some parties, you know, pushing a different narrative. So I kind of just think that like anyone outside the country doesn't have anything close to a complete picture. But a number of human rights groups say there has been a massive crackdown by Iranian security forces in recent days and a massacre of protesters. On Tuesday, CBS News reported that one source told them that at least 12,000 people have been killed and possibly as many as 20,000 are dead. That number is way higher than other estimates I've seen. Other groups put it between 500 and 6,000 sort of confirmed cases. But either way, I think the government itself said 2,000. Jesus Christ. I mean, either way, it's horrible. Tens of thousands of people are being arrested and we'll never know that number. So also, you know, sources in Iran have told, you know, news outlets like The Times or the BBC that basically security forces are firing birdshot like pellet guns at protesters to blind them. And the ones that fight back, they're just gunning down with machine guns. And like to your point, Iranian state TV released a video from a morgue in Tehran where you can see just dozens of bodies. I don't, do you get why they would do that? Is that like a threat? I think a bit of it is a threat. Yeah. It's to show that we're not backing down and, you know, we were encouraging you to not protest. I saw one person speculate that they were trying to suggest that like outside agitators are responsible for this. Well, they'll say that no matter what, for sure. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, it's awful. But, you know, hospitals are overrun. They're running out of supplies. It's awful. So there's also like, for what it's worth, I mean, the protesters are not peaceful. Like they're. getting very violent, too. I saw a clip. Do you see this of this group beating a cop to death and they light the police officer on fire and burn them alive. So president Trump has, uh, had previously assured protesters in Iran that the U S would quote, rescue them. If there was a crackdown, he has yet to act. Um, Trump has said he might meet with Iranians to negotiate. That seems to have delayed things. Um, Axios reported that Trump's golf buddy turned envoy for everything. Steve Woodcoff has been in touch with Iran's foreign minister. We'll see if that bears fruit. Um, so Trump gave a big economic speech today, Ben, it's funny to think that he's like trying to give an affordability tour. Yeah, it's going great. Uh, he had this message for Iranians in that speech Tuesday. Let's listen. And by the way, to all Iranian patriots, keep protesting, take over your institutions if possible and save the name of the killers and the abusers that are abusing you. You're being very badly abused. If the numbers are right now, he had five different sets of numbers. I hear numbers. Look, one death is too much, but I hear much lower numbers and then I hear much higher numbers, but I say save their names because they'll pay a very big price. Then I've canceled all meetings with the Iranian officials until the senseless killing of protesters stops. And all I say to them is help is on its way. You saw that I put tariffs on anybody doing business with Iran just went into effect today. And, uh, I say make Iran great again. Okay. So, um, sure. That'll do it. Yeah. Not good. Okay. So Trump was going to meet with this team to review options today. Ben, let's try to figure out what those could be. Um, a bunch of news outlets have tried to report out what the menu could look like. They suggest it could range from finding ways to boost anti-government voices online, some sort of cyber attack on Iran's military and intelligence services, more sanctions, and then all the way to direct military strikes on the regime. The wall street journal said Trump is leaning towards airstrikes, but his options may be more limited because he redeployed the U.S. Gerald Ford aircraft carrier from the middle East to the Caribbean. Uh, it sucks when you're trying to do a regime change and you just can't find a aircraft carrier line around. But so we still, we can hit them with the U S uh, long range bombers that can basically fly out of anywhere as we saw, um, last year, especially given that Israel took out their air defenses. So Ben Trump is, he's painted himself into a corner here. He has to do something. The question is what, um, the nuclear site bombs were like, that was a discreet target. There was a clear objective. It's not clear to me. It's not clear to me what airstrikes stop a government crackdown on protesters. Like what are you looking for? And what do you think might be effective? And then I guess, how worried are you about Iran threatening to respond? Well, uh, we should just start by saying this is just a horrible situation for the Iranian people. Um, and you know, what, what you're seeing is we've had different protests over the years, right? So we had the women life freedom protests in 2022. We've had a variety of other protests every kind of two or three years all the way through the year. back to 2009 when you had kind of systematic protests over an election that appeared to be stolen, I think was stolen. What's different about this is there's basically every reason for people to be protesting. It's not one thing. So at core, it's that the economy is in the total shitter. The Iranian currency is worth like nothing. And there's a sense among people that that's because the incompetence of the regime, the lack of prioritization of the economy by the regime, because they're so focused on foreign policy, the corruption of the regime. And they've just kind of been around too long. They have no answers for people. And so you're not just seeing, you know, sometimes in the past, these protest movements have been kind of younger, middle class, urban Iranians in Tehran. This is everywhere. This is like young people, old people, middle class people, working class people. And it's also very directly about changing the regime. Like past protests have often been about, you know, sometimes been about, you know, last time, get rid of the morality police, let women be uncovered. And yes, some of that was about getting rid of the regime. But some of that was about a more specific objective. These are broad. They cross societal and they're about regime change. And that's huge. And that shows how much this regime is on the back foot and how much Iranians are willing to risk. I mean, the fact that they're willing to go out there and risk their lives shows you the depth of frustration and anger that they feel about this kind of shitty regime that they've been living under for a long time. Yeah. In terms of how the regime can kind of fight back, you know, the Iranian regime, you know, we've lived through some crackdowns when we're in government, seen them since, you know, they have like a variety of different forces, right? There's like police, then there are these kind of the Basij who are kind of these like pro-regime militia type guys who are usually not in uniform and go out and kind of rough people up or kill people even. Then you have the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that's kind of, you know, like the elite security force in Iran that kind of comes in, you know, as the backstop. Then there's the army. But in this kind of situation, the army is like dangerous, right? Because it's got people who probably hate the regime in it, you know? Right. Those are average people, right? Well, they pull the trigger. You never know. You never know. And so, look, before we get into the U.S., the question is, they're going to try to crack down. That's what they always do. And the question is like, did they reach, is there some breaking point, you know, where, like we saw in Syria, where it's just kind of falling apart and people start fleeing, regime elites start to lead the country. And then there's a sense that all bets are off and people stop, you know, cracking down and suddenly they're like storming the fucking, you know, government buildings. I think that that could happen. But like this regime is pretty deep, you know, like it's deeper than the Assad regime. Like there's more characters invested in it with more power and they're spread out in different places. So that could happen. That could happen. That could always happen. But this is a tough one to crack, you know. So we'll see. Now, in terms of what the U.S. can do, I'm just not, like, I'm just informed by the history of the last 25 years. And whenever the United States military is being used for the purpose of determining the politics inside of another country, I've never seen us be able to do that ever, you know. I mean, I assume that the targets Trump is looking at are just a bunch of regime-based targets, you know, a bunch of military targets, military sites, IRGC sites, with the idea being if you just bomb a lot of the regime, you know, assets, that that might bring about that crumbling. People get scared in the regime, they flee, and then people, the protesters get emboldened. But that could happen. But then who on earth, you know, takes, you know, charge of Iran if that happens, you know, like, because it's not like there's some natural government in waiting and we can get to the Shahs. So Trump doesn't have a ton of options here. Like, he put these tariffs on, we're already sanctioning them basically to the point of a total embargo. Yeah, he said he's going to put a 25% tariff on any country that does business with Iran, which, you know, would really hammer the Chinese. Is he really going to do that? Like, I want to see if he really does that, because that's China in particular. And by the way, we already have tariffs on China. Like the tariff threat, it's getting like less valuable. China buys 90% of Iran's oil. So I mean, that would be the most significant country you could tariff. But yeah, I don't believe he's going to do it because the economic impact would be massive. Yeah. So I don't, and by the way, part of the reason that Iranians are pissed by the economy is we've already like emptied the barrel on sanctions. You could do like cyber attacks on the Iranians. That may be something they do, like to just try to like, you know, cripple the regime's communications or something like that. That's, that's, that, that's an option. But I don't, I just don't see, like, I see a capacity to really fuck up the regime with airstrikes, but I, I don't see the capacity to engineer what comes next. One other thing, everybody always says like, give them internet access. That's true. Especially Starlink, which is Elon Musk. That's true. And it's important. I also think it's become like a talking point. Catch all. Everybody, well, we need to get them internet. Sure. You know, but that's not gonna, you know, that might keep them. And communication with each other, but I, it's not, we should be honest. Like, I don't think that's gonna like be the game changer. Yeah. It helps them get heard, especially outside of Iran, but it doesn't necessarily help them topple the government. I was talking to one Iran expert and watcher today who said he was worried that the regime had managed to kind of crush this round of protests because they came out and they massacred everyone Thursday and Friday after Trump made this threat. And like, basically the regime was able to crack down faster than Trump was able to move militarily. I guess, we'll find out. Can I say one thing about that? Cause I mean, Trump doesn't like, can you imagine the shit? I mean, I hate doing this, but like he called. You don't hate it that much. Well, but he called on everybody to get out. He drew a red line. He said, if you kill protesters, I'm going to bomb you. He said, I'm going to come to the rescue. And he told them to protest and they did, and he didn't do anything, you know, and, and already potentially tens of thousands of people have died. And, and he just seems to get a pass on these things. Um, but anyway. No, I know. I mean, I guess like, so the story is not over yet, but yes, I mean, clearly I think make, look, making that threat when you weren't ready to back it up as we learned, you know, can lead to bad consequences. One, one kind of clue I thought, Ben, that I just wanted to run by you. I saw a tweet from Lindsey Graham. Uh, he's just been unhinged. He's so, he refers to Trump as war boner on steroids. He refers to Trump as a Reagan plus, which sounds like a, a, how you want your cook, your steak prepared at a, at a expensive place. Graham calls for a quote, a massive wave of psychological attacks is the meat and bone of help is on the way, which is what Trump truthed. Then he says, destroy the infrastructure that allows the massacre and slaughter of the Iranian people and take the leaders responsible for, take down the leaders responsible for the killing. So again, like I have no idea how you translate that rhetoric into a strike package, but Trump has basically adopted the Lindsey Graham foreign policy. So you have to wonder if, you know, Graham is in his ear whispering like we saw him last week on Air Force One. I will say, what have we learned about Trump, right? He likes to bomb foreign countries. We've bombed a bunch of them. He doesn't like it to last very long, right? And he likes there to be some kind of symbolic act of destruction. That might suggest that if he does bomb, to expect like a very intense but short bombing campaign. So for like a day or two, just try to decapitate the regime, right? Maybe try to kill the Supreme Leader, try to kill the regime leadership. I talked about this with Jason. I mean, his house is in downtown Tehran, I think. Yeah. So you'd be bombing the biggest, you know, urban center of the country. Which he would have no problem with either, right? And so you might see a decapitation type effort, which again is just, this is a, 90 million people, a lot of weapons, a lot of ideology, a lot of regime forces. A lot of terrain. A lot of terrain. Like this is not, I know he kind of keeps playing the tables, and like the worst stuff hasn't happened yet. Yet. Like in Venezuela, we did this, and not everything fell apart. But this is a little different. Like this is a place that these people, this regime, lived through the Iran-Iraq war for a decade with like hundreds of thousands of casualties, sending like kids in like human waves and Iraqi, you know, chemical weapons. Like this is not easy. And if they lose power, they assume they're dead too. Yeah. I want to read you one quote, Ben. So, Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana. You guys have probably seen him on TV. He's sort of a goofball Southern guy who looks like Mrs. Doubtfire. He has a book out where he described Lindsey Graham the following way. If you want to stump Lindsey, just ask him to name a country he wouldn't bomb, Mr. Kennedy writes. Adding later that the South Carolina Senator is also unpredictable. Invite him to dinner. And you don't know if he'll sit down for an intelligent conversation or get drunk and vomit in the fish tank. But that's why I like him. Okay. It's going on in- Sounds like a lot of fun. Like invite someone over to talk about war and vomit. Yeah. It's going on in the Republican caucus. Two quick things. The Wall Street Journal says that Iran is now hunting down Starlink users. So, they're trying to, you know, shut down these videos that are going out. But also their internet, the Iranian regime, like shutting down the internet is just crippling their own economy. So, it's destroying the country from within. The Journal also reported that Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Qatar are lobbying Trump against strikes on Iran. They're worried about it disrupting tanker flow through the Strait of Hormuz where one-fifth of the world's oil shipments go. And then, obviously, like what they're worried about what comes next, whether it's IRGC or chaos. And if you're MBS, Mohammed bin Salman or some other corrupt, you know, monarch in the Middle East, like you really don't want people to start hitting the streets, protesting, calling for change because that's going to hit you next. Yeah. You don't like the idea of a corrupt regime that violates human rights just being broken. So, they're probably counseling against it. That matters to Trump. He listens to those guys. The other two things I'd point out are part of the reason that they don't have options. And again, I don't think they should bomb Iran. Like, and I don't think he should have encouraged people to protest by saying he would bomb in their defense. Because like I said, I don't think that that's going to lead to good outcomes in the long run or even the medium run. But even if you were going to, part of the problem is that they moved all their shit to the Caribbean. So, we bombed, you know, we did regime change in the Americas and we got to like move the armada over to fucking- God, man. I just parked over there. Yeah. Regime change in Iran. So, there's that. I do want to say on this Shah thing, this is fucking nuts. Like, the idea that we're going to reinstall the heir to the Shah, you know, look, I know he has some support, including in, you know, Los Angeles where we're speaking. Can I play a clip that's going to trigger you first? Yes. I just, I'm very excited to trigger you. So, just real quick for the people to know who we're talking about. So, Reza Pahlavi is the 65-year-old son of Iran's exiled Shah. He is from the, you know, whatever, has been calling for the U.S. to intervene militarily and then encouraging the protesters. This is him talking with CBS's Nora O'Donnell about the protests and what he wants to see happen. I think President Trump is responding to the call that the Iranian people have. The Iranian people have heard his words. They are naming streets after him in Iran. There's a difference. They know he's no Barack Obama or Joe Biden. And that's why they do have a higher expectation. And we'll see what happens. The best way to ensure that there will be less people killed in Iran is to intervene sooner so this regime finally collapses. I've stepped in to lead this transition, and I have a plan for that. I have a whole host of people who are helping us, lawyers, jurists, economic experts. So, we're not just talking about a regime that needs to go. We're also talking about what's the alternative. And in terms of the political alternative, it's a complex question. And I think it's a constitutional process. The interim government will be able to organize free elections so the people can send their representative in a constituent assembly to ultimately debate what ought to be the final form that a future democratic secular system in Iran should take. I'm not here to advocate for a republic or a monarchy. I'm here to be the honest broker above the fray in complete neutrality. So, like, look, the ass-kissing is annoying. The shot at Obama is annoying. I don't care. But the thing that's interesting here, Ben, is, like, in the past, when I've talked to Iranians about Pahlavi, they say this guy's a clown. Like, no one cares what he thinks in Iran. He's a rich guy in America. Like, no one wants him back leading Iran. But, you know, last week, Pahlavi called on protesters to demonstrate at specific times, and it seems like maybe hundreds of thousands of them listened, or at least he timed those calls well because he knew people were going to go out. I've also heard an analyst suggest that these were mostly young people who don't know about the Shah, don't know the history, don't know the culture. I don't know what's going on. I don't know the corruption or the human rights abuses. But Axios reported that Steve Witkoff secretly met with Pahlavi over the weekend. Later in my conversation with Jason, you'll hear that Jason is skeptical that Pahlavi or anyone outside of Iran could, like, assume the mantle and take over. But, you know, in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini was in exile in France before he returned to Iran to lead the Iranian revolution. So I guess there's some precedent here, but I don't know what to think. I think that the couple of things that bother me are in like this time, I'll, you know, be self-critical, right? When Muammar Gaddafi was ousted in Libya during the Obama administration, there was a actually very capable group of exiles who didn't have the baggage even of being, you know, the Shah's son. And if people want to spend some time Googling just how repressive the Shah was, you'll understand how you got an Islamic revolution in the first place. But these people were technocratic. They were wealthy. They were well-connected. They said all the right things. They set up a transitional national council. You know, they didn't have any connection to the people on the ground. They got in the country. The people, if this regime collapses, they're going to be militias. They're going to be people who are armed. They're going to be people with their agendas. And if you're not in the country and haven't been in the country for a really long time- Like literally 50 years in this case. The idea that you can come back in and just kind of run some orderly transition. If people want to say what I, the best thing that could happen is, yeah, like the, the regime breaks, Khamenei flows to Moscow and, you know, moves down the hall from, you know, Bashar al-Assad. There's a hilarious sitcom getting set up here. Bashar al-Assad's like checking his eyes, whatever. Yeah, Maduro's over there. Then you would need some, there are like, you would need some kind of negotiation. There would have to be, and it's not, I don't like this regime. People say online that I, I fucking, anybody who listens to podcasts, I've never said a nice thing about this regime, but you would need some figures who are like, more the remnants of it and the opposition. Like there'd need to be some ability to pull together enough factions to prevent the place from falling apart, to negotiate that kind of transition. There would be a soft, it would have to be a soft landing, not just like we're going to tear up every aspect of this government. Maybe if you can do that, great, congratulations. But the softest landing is some negotiated transition. I would just caution people too. And I mentioned this to you, Tommy, we don't have to get too deep in the discourse, but it gets to your point about it. There's a lot of information out there. I just be wary of the people online who don't find a word to say about protesters in any single country in the world, except Iran, who are suddenly now like fucking virtue signaling as if like, all they care about is human. Where were they on like the Bangladesh protests or nevermind Gaza or Sudan or like, there's a lot of whataboutism and a lot of like embracing protesters when you don't know anything about Iranians or I don't want to see them suffer under regime, nor do I want to see them as just a permanent tool in some geopolitical game involving the United States and Israel. And like, let the fucking Iranian people should be able to just like the best case scenarios that they just deal with this themselves. Yeah, I'm with you. Look, I have our support, but like, I don't trust Trump. So like, why would I trust Trump to do something as complicated as remove the Iranian regime and replace it? If I don't fucking trust him to like govern Minnesota? Yeah, I look, I mean, Trump's terrible, obviously. But like, on the Pahlavi question, it's like, again, the Shah was pushed out by like a massive coalition that wasn't just like no secular it was like labor unions like secular left students clergy was everybody they just hated them so the idea they'd welcome him back so i don't really believe palavi when he suggests he's going to hold a referendum and a new constitution and doesn't want to bring back the monarchy like uh that i found that hard to believe now there is um there's been some polling that suggests about a third of iranians supported him while another third strongly opposed him according to some dutch pollster from 2025 again i don't know i think mostly this is like people in western media yeah know who they need someone to call get him they can book him yeah what i mean he's very bookable it seems but he also he's like kind of been at least clever and how he has framed this because he's been trying to set up this system to offer amnesty to anyone in the regime who will like go on some online portal he says and register their name and he claims to have signed up 50 000 people who you know yeah that's smart he wants to keep in place although yeah it's smart it's like would you ever put your name down yeah yeah yeah you're like yeah i swore regime change i don't we'll find out last thing ben um trump clearly you know keeps saying he wants a deal i'm not really sure what kind of deal would be welcomed right now right like obviously a deal that limits or ends iran's you know nuclear ambitions gets rid of its ballistic missile program that would make the u.s happy and israel happy but protesters might view any deal in this moment as selling them out right because they want regime change right and then on monday iran's foreign minister said uh we are not looking for war but we are prepared for war even more prepared than the previous war we also ready for negotiations but negotiations that are fair with equal rights and mutual respect um so i like we'll find out i mean look but the last time the u.s bombed iran the response was uh for show like literally they called ahead and they said hey we're gonna shoot missiles at you prepare yourself um they did hit some israeli targets uh and did some significant damage and killed some people maybe if you know it's an existential threat the response is stronger we'll find out that's right i thought the last ones were messaging right so the qatar they called them but i think the message was if it's existential for us we're just going to start firing at u.s bases even if they're in gulf countries yeah you know and similar with israel they came pretty close to overwhelming the missile defense and hitting much targets but they wanted to preserve a bunch of ballistic missiles if they just empty the kit you know they could do a lot of damage in israel too so a drowning man is you know dangerous and and if if they are absolutely not going to be absolutely existentially threatened they they could you know the things that that they were kind of measured about they they could kind of uh whether that's like attacking our embassy in iraq you know bombing israel with more ballistic missiles bombing bases and you know terrorism like we could see a lot of that pot say the world is brought to you by strawberry dot meat you know that feeling when a new year starts and you tell yourself okay this is the year work is going to be great and then two weeks later you're burned out and bummed out things suck and you feel just kind of blue no i love my job we've all been there i love my job too if work drained you last year today's sponsor strawberry.me can help you change that strawberry is career coaching that gets you to the real source of your burnout whether it's too much on your plate no boundaries a tough manager or just feeling totally disconnected from the work you do a coach helps you figure out what's draining you build habits that protect your energy redesign your day-to-day life and you're 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glad we're focused on the importance as you say this is when the u.s media just sends me into more consequentially machado is going to have to figure out how to balance pushing trump to listen to the will of the people of venezuela or at least to hold elections with his decision to install nicholas maduro's handpicked vice president delce rodriguez as president and basically leave the entire maduro regime in place over the last week the venezuelan government has slowly started to begin to release political prisoners cnn reported that as of tuesday afternoon 56 prisoners out of the over 800 political prisoners in venezuela have now been set free that is obviously a good thing but again i asked the question if marco rubio is the viceroy of venezuela why aren't more out seems like you should be able to get this done quickly the posts the washington post notes that it could be a sign of a power struggle between delce rodriguez and her brother and the powerful interior minister who actually runs these prisons time will tell there was also some great reporting then about the operation to get maduro out of venezuela in venezuela but there was some great reporting then about the operation to get maduro out of venezuela in venezuela in venezuela in venezuela in venezuela in venezuela in venezuela in venezuela in venezuela in venezuela in venezuela in venezuela in venezuela in venezuela in venezuela and had to quote struggle to stay aloft and deliver its troops to the target the the helicopter did but the this guy managed to drop off these delta force troops and then return to safety which is again a reminder of how like unbelievable these dudes are who are who are fighting right they're courageous and professional and can like gut out something that is unimaginable and i think that's a great point and i think that's a great point and i think that's a great point unimaginably painful but also how close this operation was to a complete disaster you know if that helicopter goes down and those guys all die like this is a very different conversation right now the times also reported that venezuela's russian-made air defense systems ultimately didn't pose a threat to the u.s troops because they weren't even hooked up to the radar that night do you see this story yeah yeah um and then the the russian like s 300 and book m2 systems that venezuela bought in 2009 with all this fanfare um just like weren't maintained some of the parts were just sitting in storage still even though they knew this was coming um so it does seem like an interesting example another example of russia being a pretty unreliable ally if they were supposed to be like the venezuelan benefactor they sold them all this kit and then they did nothing to help them like set it up or maintain it um but ben i'm curious what you make of sort of like what we've read about the the the russian role in all of this and then machado's goal for this meeting with trump and then we should talk about the trump's efforts to juice the oil sector down there it does feel like there was an inside piece to this operation somebody was like making sure that the radars weren't turned on like it feels like somebody pretty high up you know was probably okay with maduro getting out of there because they may have calculated the best way to preserve the regime is to destroy like come get maduro and you know uh we'll run the show good calculation um the russian piece is interesting because to connect these two conversations the iranian gave the russians a lot of shit for ukraine like all these drones remember these kamikaze iranian made drones and it's not like the russians are lifting much of a finger to help the iranian regime right now um and the same thing so if i'm a russian ally right now um i'm probably not taken to the bank that this is uh you know like take north korea right north korea sent all these troops to ukraine it's with prudent it's got to be a transaction so i guess what the north greens are getting back that's all they're going to get back but i think it's going to be a transaction but maybe they're getting a lot back because they're getting technology and stuff but it does suggest that the russian reliability here is not much there's some other things about the operation that have come out or all like there's this piece about the u.s using a civilian aircraft talk about that so the it is against international law and sometimes like these things are like hedged immediate no it is illegal to like you know camouflage a bombing raid with like as a um there's also a report about and again we have to verify this because you know it was someone who claimed to be there at the night of about the u.s using like a sonic weapon that like debilitated people there. It does just feel like they are not praying any regard to international law and the conduct of their operations, you know, killing people in boats, using potential civilian aircraft, if they did use some kind of sonic weapon, which is the kind of thing we used to allege that our adversaries did. So it also felt like there's just no constraints on what we're willing to do in a military operation. And that, don't think that the Russians and the Chinese won't like take that on board in their future military operations. Yeah. The civilian plane issue was in that, I think it was in September. It was like the first strike on one of these, you know, alleged drug runner boats. It was not an identifiable military plane with military markings and the munitions were not visible under the wings. It was painted to look like a civilian plane and the munitions were loaded out of sight. And some might say like, well, whatever, it's a war. Why would we care? Why can't we trick and fool them? Like, well, you know, you probably don't want some foreign military just shooting at civilians. Shooting down civilians. That's exactly why. Now, the one thing I'd say about Maria Machado to add to this is like her base of support, right? If there is such a thing as like the absolute base of Maria Machado's support in the United States, it's neocons, right? So she's been around. This is one aspect we haven't talked about. We've talked about how she won a Nobel prize and Trump might not like that. We've talked about how she might not be able to get control of the military and Trump wants the military in place. But I actually, I actually think it is a strike against her that all these Republican neocon types like her, you know, and Trump always hates people like that. You know, like today you point out to me, like the John Bolton piece in the New York Times where he's like, what a mistake to not empower the Venezuelan opposition. And it's like, that's the worst thing you can do to help Maria Machado. John Bolton getting prosecuted for having classified information in his house is still writing blistering New York Times op-eds. Still pounding out op-eds, demanding regime, full of Trump. More regime, more regime, more regime. More regime change. It wasn't, wasn't actual regime change. I went all the way. What's more regime change? And he also wants to attack the dude who's like got his fate in his hands. So I think her only ask, he's not going to put her in charge of Venezuela. I get, her ask is going to have to be about like having an election, I think, because that's her best bet is process, a process act, ask an election on some timeline, release of political prisoners. But at the end of the day, and this sets up the old discussion, like Trump doesn't give a fuck about any of that. He really doesn't. He couldn't give a shit. He, he cares about the perception that he like knocked off this bad guy Maduro and he cares about the oil. And so I don't know what, you know, I mean, I guess he'll be, we'll see whether he gives her the Slensky treatment or whether he's nicer. But like, I think she's not really going to be a lead player in the near term. She might in the medium term if they can get to an election, but that's questionable. Yeah. So Trump is moving forward on this plan to steal Venezuela's oil. On Friday, he met with about two dozen oil executives at the White House. So in this clip we play, you're going to hear a little bit from that meeting. It's the first of all Trump, then the CEO of Exxon and then Trump's reaction to the CEO of Exxon on Air Force One on Sunday. Let's watch. We're going to help them out. We're going to make it real easy. They're going to be there for a long time. We're going to be there together for a long, long time. And they're going to be taking the oil and they're going to be bringing oil prices down. They're going to make a lot of money. They're going to get their money back. They're going to be safe. We have a very long history in Venezuela. In fact, we first got into Venezuela back in 19, 1940s. We've had our assets seized there twice. And so you can imagine to reenter a third time would require some pretty significant changes from what we've historically seen here and what is currently the state. If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela today, it's uninvestable. I didn't like Exxon's response. You know, we have so many that want to not probably be inclined to keep Exxon out. I didn't like that. I like their response. They're playing too cute. So what's funny about the Exxon guy's comments is he's describing like the political climate under Maduro, which Trump just said he toppled that government to change to make it easier for oil to get up. He was just like mad at the guy's tone. Well, the funny thing is that guy's tone suggested he doesn't give a shit if he's kept out of Venezuela. So this guy's like, I don't think we can invest there right now. And Trump's like, we're not going to let them invest there. And he's like, well, that's what they want. They don't want to invest. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, I mean, this is the problem with Trump is he needs people to think he's somehow permanent, right? If you're, and I'm no fan of oil companies, but if you are an oil company and you're investing tens of billions of dollars, you're thinking about three years, five years, 10 years from now, Trump's not going to be there. Already you still have the exact same government in place, you know, a bunch of communists running the fucking country. So why would you, and this is why the political prisoners, is actually important. If Trump is running Venezuela, presumably all 800 political prisoners should be released already. Like he's not running Venezuela. He likes to say it because it makes him feel tough. Like he posted that crazy thing online about acting president of Venezuela and his Wikipedia page or something, but he's not running it. And the oil companies actually have to deal in reality and reality and shareholders. And, and that would suggest that this is not the safest bet unless you're like Chevron and you're already there. Yeah. And just context about Venezuela's oil reserves. So like again, the, the off-sighted statistics that they have 17% of the world's oil reserves. I've seen some people question like where that stat came from or whether it's accurate, regardless, they have a lot of oil, but Venezuela currently produces less than 1% of the supply. And the reason is partly because of us sanctions, but also because Venezuela's oil infrastructure has been left to just languish and rot for decades. So you got like processing facilities, they're antiquated and don't work. The Atlantic had a long piece about this. They talked about there being miles of crumbling pipelines. You'd have to read it. And so, you know, I think that's, I think that's, I think that's, I think that's a good thing. And I think that's, I think that's a good thing. And I think that's, I think that's, I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing. Bloomberg says it takes five days to load a tanker with oil versus one day, seven years ago. The machinery there they describe as being ransacked and sold on the black market. One of the main refineries only operates intermittently. All the professional people were fired by Hugo Chavez back in the day. And like, you know, many of them never came back. And so they quoted an expert in the Bloomberg piece who said it will take a hundred billion to get production back up to the 1970s peak, which is 3.5 million barrels a day. NPR cited an even higher figure, 183 billion to get production back to the nineties levels, which about 3 million barrels a day. And like, like you said, Ben, I mean, Trump wants the money for those investments to come from the oil companies, but you know, as the Exxon guy said, like they're anxious about it. And in some cases they are still angry about Chavez nationalizing the industry and taking their stuff back in the two thousands and Exxon actually still wants to be reimbursed for, uh, billions from that time. Um, and at the meeting last week, Trump dismissed the idea of like oil reparations for these companies saying, we're not going to look at what people lost in the past because that was their fault. That was a different president. You're going to make a lot of money, but we're not going back. Uh, end quote. And then on top of that, like Venezuela's oil itself is kind of challenging. It's known as heavy, sour crude, which is expensive to extract and refine. And it's very corrosive. It doesn't taste good. It does not taste good. And the economist says that the breakeven price for the main Venezuelan project exceed $80 a barrel. Uh, but global prices now are around $60 a barrel and Trump wants them down to 50. Um, but if we get down to $50 a barrel, that's going to destroy the U S shale industry. It will no longer be able to be profitable. Um, and it will be a threat to OPEC, especially the Saudis who have dug themselves a giant financial hole with stupid fucking investments, like the line hotel and then, you know, high prices to, yeah, sorry, the line city. Um, you know, they have a ski resort somewhere that MBS is still trying to finish. So we got to keep oil hot there, a little warm. So just a little, that's just context. How complicated this project is, uh, as compared to Trump's rhetoric, Ben and like, I don't know if you're the Russians, an existential threat to you might be $50, $40 a barrel oil, right? Imagine Venezuela gets up and running. Like they actually get this done. There's the Iranian regime is toppled. That oil starts to flow. Like Russia's cooked, right? Like you can imagine some people might throw some sand in the gears. Yeah, this is not going to work. And look, none of the oil executives were like excited about this. Again, Chevron stayed in Venezuela. They're the only ones still there. So they're like, sure. Like we'll take the oil, you know, but there's, this is a pipe dream. This is something that he like saw on paper because it validates his like old critique that we invaded Iraq and didn't take the oil. So now he's going to take the oil, but like, it's not that simple, you know? And the only thing I'd say that an interesting piece that somebody could do, maybe I'll do this one day, but most of these countries that we ended up changing the regime, we've sanctioned the shit out of for years, which then makes it impossible. To rebuild those countries, right? So Iraq absolutely decimated by US sanctions for over a decade. And that was a shit show when we went in there, you know, couldn't just flip a switch and have the economy and the oil industry back online. Libya, same thing, right? Venezuela now, same thing. Like we so, I mean, look, I know Chavez mismanaged stuff and Maduro certainly mismanaged stuff, but I mean, we've sanctioned the shit out of them. And then we get in there like, well, nothing works. Well, like it's literally illegal for them to like refurbish their oil. Well, like it's literally illegal you know, facilities and sell the oil. So then we're surprised when we get in there and it's like, ah, this is going to cost us a hundred billion dollars. Another argument, like our own sanctions have actually undercut like every fucking military operation we've done for regime change in the 21st century. This podcast is brought to you by wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. When it comes to sending money abroad, many providers claim to offer free fees in competitive rates, but don't be fooled. This can be code for inflated exchange rates with the wise account. You can send to spend and receive money in over 40 countries without ever having to worry about hidden fees. Sending pounds across the pond, most transfers arrive in 20 seconds or less. 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To claim this deal, you must go to HayaHealth.com slash world. This deal is not available on their regular website. Go to H-I-Y-A-H-E-A-L-T-H dot com slash world to get your kids the full body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. All right, so tracking all the places that the Trump administration has bombed or is threatening to bomb, it's getting very difficult. So the, my, has bombed list includes Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Yemen, and Somalia. Let me know if I forgot any. And then the kind of like overtly or implicitly threatening to bomb, invade, or topple the government list includes Greenland, Cuba, Panama, Colombia, Canada, and Mexico. So we're going to talk about Mexico for a minute and then we'll get to Cuba later. Here's Trump talking about Mexico last week on Sean Hannity's show on Fox. We've knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water. And we've knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water. And we're going to start now hitting land with regard to the cartels. The cartels are running Mexico. It's very, very sad to watch and see what's happened to that country. But the cartels are running and they're killing 250, 300,000 people in our country every single year. The drugs, it's horrible. So it sure seems like he's talking about bombing Mexico there. It's not the first time either. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum adamantly opposes any U.S. intervention to Mexico. On Monday, she said she, she, she reiterated that message during a recent phone call with Donald Trump and also told him that Mexico did not support the Maduro operation. The New York Times quoted a senior official in the Mexican government as saying the Maduro operation made them worry that, quote, we are on the list of who could be next and worse, we have been warned. The administration's indictment of Maduro mentioned Mexico 25 times. It claims that the former Venezuelan strongman partnered with drug traffickers, including the Sinaloa cartel, to transfer cocaine through Mexico to the U.S. and to the United States. So it's interesting to see that all the ways the Mexican government is pushing back on Trump and all the irritants here. And, and it just, it feels like the odds of a U.S. strike on Mexico just keep going up and up. But I'm wondering, like, how you're interpreting that. It does feel that, like, the odds are going up and up. First of all, I do just want to sometimes feel the need to point, like, there's 97% of all drugs. Like, he just throws these numbers out. And it is like living in Putin's Russia. Like, I don't think 97% of drugs by water has been stopped because he bombed a few dozen boats, you know. Put that aside. He, he's been talking about this. One of the guides to Trump, which is, you know, a lot of what we're doing is trying to understand this guy, is there are these things that he wanted to do in the first term that he was, like, prevented from doing that he's now, like, that he's in the fantasy camp of his dictatorship he's just doing. And we know from first-hand accounts that he wanted to bomb Mexico in the first term. And the Pentagon was like, that's crazy. I'm not even going to give you the options, you know. And he's been talking about it. And he keeps talking about it. And he keeps ratcheting it up. And so I think it's quite likely that he bombs Mexico, that he goes after these cartels. And, and look, that that's not nearly as simple as he suggests either, because these cartels are deeply embedded in Mexican, you know, society. They're, they, they're complex organizations. It's not like you can, like, take out the leader and it collapses. We've seen leaders get arrested and basically nothing changes. They're also, like, very armed and violent and can cause problems in Mexico or in even other countries in Latin America. So I don't think it's as simple as, you know, there's a possibility that maybe he just bombs a couple of cartels and it's like, goes on TV and says he stopped all drugs coming to the United States because he's Trump and he might do that. But I worry about, like, a war on terror starting, where you're bombing the cartels and nothing's changing. And so you just keep bombing. And suddenly you look up and we've, like, we're just bombing Mexico regularly. And Mexico is starting to, you know, suffer the political instability that comes with that cartel reprisal. Because the cartels might lash out against the Mexican government instead of against the United States. And then you could get a really ugly situation. Yeah. It's crazy that they're doing all these projects at the same time. Like, how can you possibly manage all this? And there's not that many of them. It's like. It's like, yeah, it's like six people making decisions. And, like, Marco Rubio is, like, runs all this stuff. So Trump has seemingly has ruled out military action in Cuba so far, just he wants to do it through economic pressure. On Sunday, he posted the following message, quote, Most of those Cubans are dead from last week's USA attack. And Venezuela doesn't need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years. Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the world by far. To protect them and protect them, we will. There will be no more oil or money going to Cuba. Zero. I strongly suggest that they make a deal before it is too late. Thank you for your attention in this matter, President Trump. So an energy analyst quoted in the Miami Herald said that Venezuela exported an average of 30,000 barrels of oil per day. That was about half of what they needed. Cuba also gets oil from Mexico, as I just mentioned, and also Russia. But it seems unlikely that those countries are willing or able to fill the gap left by Venezuela going down to zero. So the reduction in oil, it's going to impact everything. It's going to impact Cuba's ability to generate electricity, distribute drinking water. Farmers won't be able to run tractors. They won't be able to grow food. The transportation sector could just cease to operate. And before those cuts, Cuba was experiencing rolling blackouts of up to 20 hours outside of Havana and up to 10 hours at a time per day inside Havana. And the tourism sector, which was a huge source of revenue, has been crushed for the last five years by COVID and then hurricanes and now, you know, whatever's going on, the political risk. And the Cuban economy could be even further decimated if Cuban doctors working in Venezuela are forced to leave. And I saw one economist say that the impact of Cuba losing its revenue from like the medical exchange of doctors with Venezuela could be worse than the fall of the Soviet Union when they lost those subsidies, which seems massive. So, Ben, you're seeing a lot of Republicans, again, Lindsey Graham, kind of licking his chops and predicting an imminent collapse of the Cuban government. Do you think they're right? What are you watching for? Yes. I mean, so I obviously worked on this, negotiated the normalization relations with Cuba. Cuba's a shitty economy because of, you know, the U.S. embargo. I worked on Cuba for decades as well as kind of a relatively incompetent communist government. You know, it was kind of hanging on by a thread and beginning to benefit a bit from the opening in the Obama years, particularly in the tourism sector. Our theory, again, was if you open things up, they'll change because there'll be these overwhelming, you know, it's 90 miles from Florida, like this overwhelming influx of Americans and American investment that they could transfer. to transform the country. Now, Trump, undid you know put all the sanctions back in place joe biden uh did nothing he basically carried forward donald trump's policy so even before this i say that because even before this the cuban economy was acutely fucked um like this special period quote-unquote special period was uh what cubans refer to the 90s at after the soviets would do their subsidies when they were on like the nice edge of poverty and collapse and they made it through everybody i talked to who goes to cuba and actually a lot of people who do it say it's worse than it's ever been before the venezuelan thing yeah and what just so americans know because it's our policy that does that is most responsible is the embargo um and i believe that i don't you know they're mismanagement sure but if you can't import anything or get any investment it doesn't matter how well you manage the economy people are malnourished like people like uh you know like they can't deal with the hurricanes like people are dying because of our sanctions already this will make it much worse um and i don't know like on the one end i'd say people have been predicting the imminent collapse of the cuban government since the cuban revolution 60s yeah you know uh and they've figured out ways to survive with next to nothing maybe they'll get an extra plus up in the mexican oil and some brazilian oil and just kind of keep things band-aided together but again it's it's it's like a mini iran in the sense that like what does it even mean for the regime to collapse like um if militarily i guess it means that like the protest movement starts and they you know kill the leaders and then what well then you're gonna have to intervene because this is like a completely destitute island 90 miles from florida with a lot of people that are not going to want to relinquish their power at all because if they do they think they're going to get killed you got a bunch of exiles in miami you think they're gonna go back there and run the place how are they going to get in there and run the place with the army is like the current government and they're going to have to core the regime like this none of this stuff is as simple as it looks and the only thing i'd say about cuba is that they don't even allege that there's a national security threat no like with venezuela they would at least say like you know they're importing drugs you know well fentanyl is a wmd now yeah fentanyl is a wmd like cuba is not doesn't pose cuba does not pose any threat even if you hate the cuban regime and it definitely treats and represses its people but there's no threat to the united states this is the thing i did want to talk about like i i'm not a fan of the cuban government it is a one-party rule there's rampant you know systemic political repression and detentions and activists and journalists get thrown in prison and some people get tortured and there's restrictions on speech and the media it's a police it's a police there's evidence of you know political prisoners maybe some course of labor practices you could say every one of those things about our closest allies in the gulf i bet you could say that welcomed into the oval office 50 countries feted with state dinners and cuba gets crippling sanctions that primarily punish the cuban people most of all it's just like the imbalance of the policy to the problem is so crazy entirely i mean i used to go down there and look if you're running the government you're eating fine you know and yeah maybe you're like you're not living as lavishly as like a gulf autocrat obviously but like the people that are punished by those sanctions are the very cuban people that people like marco rubio constantly say that they're trying to help and all you've done is made those lives miserable and destitute and and we're punishing people for something that happened like 60 years ago or 70 years ago i lost track right and if you ask the american people when we did the cube opening it was like the highest polling thing in our foreign policy like 80 people like that's great i want to go to cuba like the idea that we're gonna like just try to like squeeze the cuban communist party out of power and and then what and then like install some marco rubio approved exiled regime that's gonna have to fight probably to like restore order and like like this is insane yeah it just does not seem like a good use of time and resources like of all the humanity we have an affordability crisis ai is coming online the russians are in ukraine like the and we're focused on the cuban government it's real cold war shit here um finally ben um we all know it can be tough to schedule like a big group event doesn't matter if it's a family reunion or a bachelor party or just a dinner uh people were busy you got a wedding one weekend your kids soccer game the next and it turns out that uh leaders of the g7 they're just like us which is why france has decided to delay this year's g7 meeting by a day to avoid stepping on president trump's 80th birthday bash slash ultimate fighting championship event at the white house uh the summit is on avion leban which has a beautiful resort town i'll go on lake geneva yeah it's going to take place now on um june 15th and 16th instead of june 14th and 15th to avoid upsetting mr trump and mr dana white uh the big boss over at the ufc the guardian had a report on this they say that up to 5 000 people might attend the event on the south lawn of the white house and then somehow like 85 000 more are going to watch from the ellipse across the street what i don't know maybe there's a stadium or a screen or something um i'm guessing ben uh none of the g7 leaders are going to make the cut of the trump's invite list he doesn't really like maybe maloney maloney might make it oh maloney might make it that's a good call maybe the she was at the inauguration with dana white the new japanese prime minister might make it to her and she's right wing enough so ben on on one level um it's not the biggest deal right they moved to summit today but uh when you think about like kind of the cascading impact of shifting an international summit like for the organizers the logistics for all the other leaders attending the g7 it really does say something about like the perceived balance of power within the organization at the moment it does and it just kind of reaffirms this point that the europeans like their only play with trump is to at the end of the day kiss his ass you know they may put out like a strongly word worded written statement like asking us not to invade greenland but then it's like oh trump has his ufc fight we better move the g7 you know like like i i it just makes i it makes europe look so small you know it's it's sad and and also like but it to those americans who make makes you feel big we're going to pay the cost for this the do the bill is going to come due for having a president who's so fucking narcissistic and dumb that he wants to have a ufc fight to celebrate his birthday i i do want to ask you this tommy as like a sports fan uh as you are like i guess with the ufc it's not dangerous because their fan base probably skews pretty maga but like going this all in with trump i don't know i like nfl's like which is generally skews probably right as center and then you're like oh i'm not going to do that i'm going to do it has been a little more careful you know bad bodies playing the halftime show like what do you think is ufc merger with maga you know it's a really good question i thought it was really smart of trump to go to all those events early on and just i see what trump gets co-op sports yeah i mean i think like from this one single event you probably get uh global exposure like nothing you've ever done before you know just because it's at the white house and so unique and interesting i i there is some risk there is some risk i think i'd be willing to take it also dana white's a billionaire so he doesn't care anyway i mean i think there's some risk politically for him too right i mean if we're still kind of like inflation's so high affordability is tough and like this asshole throwing a giant birthday party and a boxing match on his lawn like that's not great i mean so it sounds like they're just doing you know a huge series of events around the 250th anniversary of the country which on one level is what you'd expect but if it looks overly expensive and gaudy and absurd i think people are gonna be like do your job which it will i mean this is a summer of a midterm election year that is going to be dominated by concerns about affordability and economy the way trump's going to do up this ufc fight on the south lawn is probably not the message you want but maybe it's good because maybe it ultimately helps democrats uh make that case not that hard to make a case that trump doesn't care about affordability have fun sir step into the octagon yourself um finally we just want to say a big thank you to andrew chadwick our editor on pod say the world has been doing this for the last five years uh many weeks one might say most weeks been and i think it's going to be a lot of fun and i think it's going to be a lot of fun and i think it's going to be a lot of fun and i think it's going to be a lot of fun and i think andrew is the only reason we sound coherent um he has endured an infinite number of coughs burps cleared throats garbled words and then cut them so that you do not have to or ben rhodes misplaced audiophiles uh yeah yeah yeah uh and then he turns the show around fast and flawlessly every time so we just want to say a huge thank you to andrew for everything he's done for us and for the show and hopefully i didn't stumble on this section for once so that he does not have to clean up his own thank you i mean i i owe him a bigger debt of gratitude than you i think given my various habits and um eccentricities and travel schedules so thank you andrew amen all right we're going to take a quick break but we've got some news for friends of the pod or anyone else who wants even more pod save america we just launched a new weekly newsletter pod save america open tabs it's released every thursday morning what it offers is a behind the scenes look at how we put together pod save america what's coming in the next episode and the stories rattling around in our brains before we get into the studio including check out the first issue of open tabs at cricket.com slash sub stack sign up for friends of the pod to get access to this newsletter at cricket.com slash friends if you're already a subscriber to our sub stack or our discord you'll start getting open tabs every week pod save the world is brought to you by rocket money i think we've all had that moment where we realize that our finances are a little bit out of control usually it's a credit card bill often it's a uh overdrawn bank statement or a so-called courtesy fee where your bank let you buy like seven coffees or something and charge you 30 bucks. Not much of a courtesy. Yeah, not very courteous. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money allows you to track subscriptions and cancel them within the app with just a few taps, saving you time and helping you avoid charges. You can even categorize automatic transactions across your accounts, customized categories with tags to help shed light on your spending habits. Like if you try to save up for a big trip or maybe a wedding or maybe saving for school, Rocket Money could be a great way to build a plan. Set budgets and goals, get personalized insights and regular reports on your spending habits. You could even receive real-time alerts for large transactions, upcoming bills, refunds, and low balances. The Rocket Money app can even consolidate your checking, savings, loans, and investment accounts into a single dashboard to give you a clear picture of your finances. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at rocketmoney.com slash world. That's rocketmoney.com slash world. rocketmoney.com. Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Tom Thumb. It's time to stock up and save now through October 27th. Get $10 off when you spend $25 or more on participating items. Just look for participating item tags to earn on eligible items from brands like Red Baron, Simply, Progresso, and Smartfood. Clip once and save through October 27th every time you shop. Grab these hot deals before they're gone. Save on brands you trust. Restrictions apply. See website for full terms. End conditions. My guest today is Jason Rezaian. He is currently the director of Press Freedom Initiatives at the Washington Post and the host of the podcast 544 Days, which documented his time being held hostage in an Iranian prison and all the machinations that it took to get him released. Jason, for those who don't know his story, we'll get into it in more detail in a second, but he was falsely accused of espionage in 2014 while serving as the Post's. Tehran bureau chief. He also wrote an amazing book about his experience called Prisoner. Jason, welcome back to the show. Thanks for having me, Tommy. Great to see you, buddy. So we scheduled this interview a while back because this week marks the 10th anniversary of your release from an Iranian prison, even prison. We want to get to that in a minute and your reflections on that period in your life and everything since. But first, I just have to ask you about these massive protests that we're seeing across Iran. So we're recording this Monday night, January 12th at about 4.30 PM Pacific time. God knows what will happen between now and when this is released Wednesday morning, especially if Trump decides to take a military action. But just first of all, what is your reaction to what you have seen so far out of Iran? Look, I'm always jolted when protests start, but I'm never surprised, right? Because the President of Iran has shown a strong and brutal security apparatus that has shown an ability, a strong ability to shut down dissent, but not to stamp it out, right? They haven't done anything in 47 years to address the core demands of Iranian people for a freer and more open society, a country that's connected to the rest of the world, and, you know, a better economic lot than the one that they inherited, right? There have been moments of, you know, seeming openness or a desire for openness and moments where the economy has done better than at other times. Obviously, you know, not only is it 10 years since my release, but it's also 10 years since the JCPOA was implemented. And, you know, there was a minute there that. There was a minute that things looked set to improve. But overall, the public sentiment has been, we're not happy with this system. We don't like this system. We don't want this system. We also don't have the wherewithal to topple it because they're armed and we're not. So I think every time I see a new round of protests kick off, of course, there's a slightly different spark each time around. But, you know, the core sentiment is the same. So I think every time I see a new round of protests kick off, leave us alone. And, you know, it's not a system that I think is impenetrable or invincible. And it's certainly starting to show signs of a lot of cracks and wear and tear. And, you know, I've been a firm believer for a long time that the expiration date is coming. I couldn't tell you what day, though. Yeah. As long as I've known you, you've been like a. It's not an if, but when guy in terms of this regime getting sent packing. But, I mean, how would you compare the kind of scale and the tenor of these protests to, say, the Women, Life, Freedom protests in 2022 or the Green Movement protests in 2009? And also, are you able to be in touch with people on the ground in Iran? I mean, it might be impossible since the internet's been cut out, but before that, maybe? At this moment right now, it's been five days since we've been able to talk to any friends or relatives directly in Iran. A couple of people who we know. We know here in the U.S. have been able to communicate with folks inside Iran who have access to Starlink connections and have been able to give us a couple of updates from close family members that, you know, they're safe so far. But that's the extent of it. I mean, when we talk about the blackout in communication in 2009, following the contested re-election of Ahmadinejad. And the Green Movement, there was a period of time when the internet was shut down, when SMS service was shut down. And I remember how jarring and disorienting that was because it was almost impossible to communicate with your friends across town or anybody else around the country except by landline. Right now, landlines are cut. We have a whole variety of international phone cards that we use, our U.S. carrier services, our cellular services. We have opt-ins for Iran. We're not able to even get a dial tone or a ring or a busy single, right? So, you know, I think that this is pretty extreme. And, you know, I wanted to mention that because in 2009 and then again in 2022, when these communication shutdowns happened, there's a massive economic loss to that. And it's more and more all the time because just like any other economy in the world, you know, it's driven by online businesses, right? You know, Iran has its own version of Uber, you know, a rideshare system, delivery systems, you know, something akin to Amazon. There's all sorts of trade-offs that the regime has to make to clamp down and make this kind of decision. And so, you know, I think that's a big part of it. So, I think it's just an indication of how seriously they take the threat to their existence and longevity. The other thing I would say is the difference between this round of protests and 2009. 2009 was very much an urban set of protests, you know, by and large, Tehran and other large cities. This is, you know, cities and villages all across the country. And it's not, you know, defined by region or ethnic group or size of town. This is broad swaths of all segments of the society saying, you know, we're mad as hell. We don't want to take it anymore. Yeah. And so, President Trump has threatened to respond or retaliate militarily if there's a major crackdown on protesters. It seems pretty clear from reports over the weekend that at a point in time, you know, there's been a lot of horrifying videos of, you know, the morgue stacked with bodies. I mean, it's just awful stuff. I'm kind of struggling to understand what an intervention to stop a crackdown on protesters might look like. I'm wondering if you have a better idea. And do you think that, I mean, it's hard to answer, but the average protester would welcome a U.S. intervention? Is it a distraction? Like, how are you thinking about it? So, I think that if we go back to June and the 12-day war between Iran and Israel and the United States, Trump made similar comments. And he also made comments like the ones he did yesterday that he was open to negotiation. You know, he said that the night before the U.S. bombed Iran's nuclear sites. I think that there's certainly people in the country that would cheer that on. But I also think that, to me, what do you get out of that if it doesn't upend the system? What you get is more repression, more brutality. And then you think about it in another way. If strikes were not going to target military or nuclear facilities, and they were going to target, you know, the homes of officials, right? You know, in June, there were a series of pretty outlandish and incredibly well-implemented assassinations of top regime officials. Um, if they were going to go after, say, the Supreme Leader's compound, that's going to be That's in the heart of Tehran, like right in the middle of the city. You couldn't do that without killing lots and lots and lots of innocent people. So, you know, I don't think that that's the answer here. I also don't think, you know, and you know very well from my positions, you know, for many years that I'm a pro-engagement guy when it comes to Iran and really when it comes to, you know, all countries in the world, friend and foe, right? I don't think of diplomacy as a weakness. I think of it as a tool, especially when wielded smartly. But this time around, I think any sort of deal that would provide concessions or cover to the Revolutionary Guard is not in the interests of the Iranian people. And I don't think it's in U.S. interests either, right? What scares the hell out of me, Tommy, is that, you know, as much as I. I do think that the regime will collapse at some point, I don't think that there's any sense of a reliable, feasible, or realistic replacement at this point. You know, one of the things that they've been incredibly good at for 47 years is snuffing out dissent, right? And imprisoning, executing, and exiling anybody who takes hold in the population. So, you know, there are not a lot of great options here. The one thing that I think that the U.S. could do, and you know that the U.S. has been promising to do this since before 2009, is figure out how to keep these people online, right? And every single time, exactly what we're seeing right now becomes the issue. And people like me come out and say, hey, you know, let's do more to keep these people online. It's not only their best shot at telling us what's happening inside the country, it's also their best opportunity to know that the outside of the world understands what's happening and supports what they're doing, right? Yeah. And I don't fucking know why we can't figure that out. Well, see, it seems like people are doing it with Starlink, right? I mean, it seems like, you know, sprinkling a bunch of Starlink bases throughout the country. Yeah. And I've, you know, read a couple analyses over the last few days saying, you know, the U.S. doesn't necessarily. want to uh you know truck in a bunch of uh of of starlink uh terminals because you know that could undermine our existing you know intelligent routes you know our smuggling routes and whatnot if not now then when right right you know strike a deal with uh with with starlink with with uh elon musk to produce you know a couple of million of these and let's drop them by air i mean israel controls iran's airspace at this point and has since last summer right like i i don't think it's as complicated as we're making it yeah well so you alluded to my next question which is everyone's trying to figure out what like who might lead the next iranian government obviously it is it is unknowable but just to keep like float some names i keep hearing about i mean it seems like the current president president pozashkin is kind of trying to position himself somewhere between the supreme leader uh and the protesters and sort of a middle ground i don't know if that'll work then you have you know reza palavi the former crown prince of iran you know the i think the son of the shah who has inserted himself into these conversations from overseas he's called on people to take to the streets now iranian friends of mine have been very cynical about him in the past but um it does seem like he was able to you know have some influence maybe in the country so i don't know uh obviously the military the irg you see they're going to have a lot of sway like the guys with the guns tend to do well uh after a regime is toppled so i don't know what are you watching and what are you watching for like which individuals and entities so i i think that the the the last um option that you just mentioned is the the unfortunately most realistic one and the worst one right uh clerical regime is toppled supreme leader dies you know there's chaos and the military steps in and the military steps in and and uh you know brutally cracks down and and is able to maintain order and somebody from within you know that part of the apparatus um emerges i think a more optimistic uh take would be that you know there are thousands of iranians who have not only put their life at great list risk over you out in protest but others you know among them really thoughtful people who have um committed themselves to uh democratic i don't want to say reform because the system's not reforming but you know democratic ideals the idea of a rule of law and accountability and you know organizing to try and change policies like you know very famously the nobel prize winner winner nargis muhammadi who's in prison right now she led a years-long campaign uh against the iranian government and against uh the death penalty in iran right uh it's what ultimately landed her in prison and she's stuck with it so i think it's disrespectful to the many people vying for change within iran and putting their life at risk um to think that anybody that's sitting in uh you know the suburbs of washington dc or london or dubai or you know anywhere else outside of iran's borders uh to for us you know to think that that that would be a viable candidate to help lead a future free iran and yet there isn't a single person that that i or you or anybody else can credibly point to right now i think that that person will emerge over time but i think we'll have a better time figuring out who it is if instead of listening to uh people like me and you know other journalists journalists and uh and folks in the diaspora and and try and cultivate relationships with change makers inside iran they're there right and they're knowable and they're out there on social media they aren't on social media today because they can't access it but they have been right and you know we're the united states of america we still have more resources than anybody else it's always been shocking to me how under resourced we were in government on iran right uh you know i knew the the guy who did strategic comms uh you know for the uh iran office at at the state department you know there's only one of them right china russia brazil india probably belgium they all have many multiple people working on on these and you know we've we've stuck a a flag in the ground to say that iran is kind of top three adversary and has been for the last half century and yet we pour almost no resources into uh cultivating really good solid intelligence and relations with dissidents inside that country that's kind of shocking yeah no i agree with that and like i didn't point taken on the diaspora is probably that's not where the leadership's going to come and you know you know how how has that worked out for us and the folks that we've helped topple regimes yeah no not not well but it's also you know it does seem like there's some there's some big debates within the diaspora and sort of infighting that sometimes springs up in moments like this i mean are there can you help us understand those debates like what are what yeah i mean look i mean i think that there are you know it would be um not true to say that um there isn't a a strong contingent within the diaspora and probably within iran that is nostalgic for uh the the previous monarchy um does that mean that it's a realistic option i don't think so right you know they rejected monarchy 50 years ago uh i don't really think that it's what most people want um you know then there is this kind of marxist uh cult group the uh the mek the mujahideen which um you know was on the state department's terror list uh for many years until um until they were taken off in 2011 uh you probably don't think that it's a realistic option i don't think so heard about um someone who is suspected to be a member of that group uh driving a u-haul truck into a bunch of protesters in los angeles just yesterday so you know that's not the kind of person or group that i think um is able to lead and you know the one piece of this that i i think people don't fully understand or appreciate as much as the united states and iran have been estranged from each other hundreds of thousands of people have been estranged from thousands of people in the iranian diaspora in the united states in europe australia asia the uk canada travel back and forth every single year there are lines of communication there are touch points right um and i think a big part of this for most folks in the diaspora is a desire to be able to have a normal relationship with their homeland the way that somebody from you know any except a handful of countries is able to have, right? I mean, at this point in time, if a friend of mine, right, a non-U.S. citizen, non-Iranian friend had attended Yegi and my wedding in Tehran 12 years ago, and they want to visit me in Washington, D.C. today, they have to go get a visa, whether they're from the U.K., France, Canada. It's like a black mark on your record if you've even stepped foot in this country. I don't think that helps anything. I don't think that it, I don't think it opens doors. You know, it closes them. That's ridiculous. Last question on the protest. So, I mean, obviously, if the regime falls, the protesters, the people on the streets deserve all the credit. But as you know, there will be others, outsiders, rushing to take credit, especially Donald Trump. Especially Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. What role, if any, do you think the Israeli strikes on Iran and Hezbollah and then the U.S. military strikes on Iran played in kind of maybe emboldening or leading to these protests? I don't think that they led to these protests. And I think people are always waiting for a reason to go out. But I do think that it exposed a lot of weakness. You know, there was this, a false narrative for many years that the Revolutionary Guard and the security apparatus of the Islamic Republic have been protecting Iran from external invasion. If you look at the history of the last 15 years or so, there have been many instances of Mossad taking out Iranian nuclear scientists, right? And, you know, that, you know, was multiplied many fold during the short war last summer. So I think it really showed people that this system is not impenetrable. It's not invincible. But, you know, I would really ask people to kind of slow their roll when it comes to giving too much credit to any external force or action. Yeah. So, you know, I've been living and working in Iran for a long time. And I think, you know, I've been working in Iran for a long time. And I think I've been working in Iran for a long time. Yeah. Right. All right. Let's get to your story that you memorialized both in Prisoner in 544 Days. I've been in Iran for about five years, first as a freelance journalist. And, you know, for a long time, the only American raised and born U.S. citizen working as an accredited journalist in Iran was hired by The Washington Post in 2012. My wife and I were working as a large percentage of the English language. Media in Tehran. And in the midst of the nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers, we were arrested at gunpoint from our home and taken to Avin prison. It was not clear to me for some time that I was being held hostage. You know, there were a lot of cover stories and, you know, accusations leveled at me and many, many months of pretty brutal interrogations, deprivation, solitary confinement. But at the end of the day, in my reading of it was that I was taken by a faction within the Iranian state that didn't want to see those nuclear negotiations come to a deal. And so I tell people, you know, I would urge listeners to, to give 544 days a listen. I think it's the best podcast that they probably haven't heard yet. But, you know, for me, the nuclear negotiations were the thing that got me arrested. And they were also the thing that got me released. So, you know, as far as the resigns are concerned, it's kind of a wash, right? But there's a year and a half in the middle. That's a pretty fucking good story. Exactly. At the time, it really sucked. And I'm glad that I can laugh about it now. But yeah, it was an incredibly trying and unjust thing that my family and I were put through. But I also think, you know, it showed a lot of what works in the U.S. government when people get behind something. You know, you know, the efforts that went into that, the, the hours of time and energy and negotiations and intelligence gathering that went into, to that effort to get me and others out of Iran. And I think, I think it's a, it's a pretty good, pretty great example of when America gets something right, how they can take care of their own. I gotta say, it's a great, it's a great podcast. It's an amazing story. It's, it's a story of your, your time in prison, but it's also a love story. It's a story about, you know, America, kind of all the things that were happening behind the scenes, but also very newly relevant because it's surely provides an incredible window into kind of what we're seeing now on the streets and what we're talking about now. But, you know, since then, Jason, you've been very involved with these, these issues of wrongful detention for like the last 10 years. How are you seeing the kind of the number of these cases? Is trending, uh, how they're being handled diplomatically? Like for a while, it definitely seemed like Trump really liked kind of like hostage return, you know, it sort of, I think scratches it for a headline, a discreet thing, a victory lap, a sense of success, even if it was kind of, um, you know, a piece of a puzzle, uh, and the rest of the puzzle is unsolved. But what are you seeing? I think he's still very committed to, to bringing people home and we've seen that he's helped, um, get a number of Russian and Belarusian, uh, prisoners freed, uh, through negotiations. He's gotten dozens of Americans out. Um, you know, I, I do a lot of, of work in this space and have been trying to, um, inform the policy conversations on a long time, for a long time. Um, and I think both Trump, one Biden and now Trump too, are, are all, we're all very committed to, uh, to this issue, but the issue has only gotten worse. And, you know, a lot of people would say, will say that the reason that it's gotten worse is because we're negotiating releases. And, um, I think that's wrong. I mean, I think that the reality is the reason that countries like Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela have done this and continue to do it is because they're not doing it right. And I think that's because they get away with it. And there's really nothing credible standing in the way, right? We have lots of laws in place around this, but, you know, because, uh, folks, uh, are arrested and detained through, um, kind of opaque judicial rubrics, the U S approach has been, we don't want to step on another country's sovereignty, right? We can't undermine the, uh, the idea of independent judiciary. And you know what, that's being weaponized against American citizens. We have dozens, if not a couple hundred cases of this, uh, in the last decade to point to. And I think that there's been incredible change on it. And I've, you know, I've, I've led several initiatives around it and this is not a partisan issue, right? You know, senators, Senator Shaheen, Senator Coons, but also Republicans like Mike rounds, right? Uh, secretary of state, Blinken, Trump's national security advisor, Robert O'Brien, Roger Carsten, who's the hostage envoy for Trump in until, uh, Biden was elected who Biden kept on for his entire turn. This is not a partisan issue. This is an American problem. And one that I think, um, is one that we can, um, attack in a, in a nonpartisan way. And there's very few issues like that left. And if you look at the reporting on these cases today, compared, compared to when I was released, if you remember, there was a lot of talk about, you know, the, the, um, elements of the deal that got me out, pallets of cash. And, you know, all of these, you know, we're appeasing terrorists, we're paying ransom. Those conversations don't happen anymore, right? You know, I think people have gotten the message that when an American who has been taken and held because they're American is able to come home because the U.S. government sprang into action and got them released, that's something to rejoice over, right? And I think that that's something that we can build on. I hope that is true. I was talking to a friend today, actually, that one of the things that I will like tip my hat to Donald Trump on and say, you know, hope those changes stick is he does not care about this sort of like old, stupid, we don't talk with our enemies. We don't talk to our terrorist bullshit. Like Adam Bowler, his special envoy for hostage affairs, talked directly with Hamas. I think that's good. I also think, you know, I do think he approaches hostage negotiations like you just said, like it's a good thing to get these Americans home, period, paragraph. I will never forget kind of the feeling of when Bo Bergdahl, a U.S. service member who had been held for five years by the Taliban, came home and it devolved into such an ugly, partisan. fight in a way that shocked me. Now, some of it was, you know, service members who served with him expressing their anger about the situation, his walking off their base, put them in. So, I mean, I think that's totally justified. But I also fear that, you know, the next time a Democrat is in charge, that we might see some of the same sort of partisan, your weak attacks from Republicans. But I'm trying to be hopeful that that won't happen. Look, I think you saw it in the Brittany Griner case, you know, in particular, right? But when Evan Grishkovich and several other Americans were released, you know, that was on Biden's watch as well. And it was hailed as a kind of a incredible feat of international diplomacy because so many countries were involved, right? And, you know, there was a lot of feeling that that would all fall apart because it was so centered on the premise that, you know, Navalny had to, you know, he had to do something about it. And, you know, he had to do something about it. He had to be, you know, released and then he was murdered. And folks thought, okay, none of these people are ever going to get out again. And then they did, right? And, you know, I share your concern, but I think that we have turned the page on this a little bit and there is more and more coverage on these issues that's smarter and more nuanced. And there's a whole crop of people who are kind of experts in it now, right? And, you know, I'm not going to take credit for, you know, leading that stampede, but it's certainly something that, you know, I've tried to stay the course with since the day I got out of prison. Yeah. Well, it's a welcome and need to change. That's for sure. I just want to close with your talk about your work on press freedom. It's very difficult out there for journalists. I mean, the International Federation of Journalists says that 128 journalists and media workers were killed in 2025 alone. On this show, we've highlighted the Jimmy Lai conviction in Hong Kong. We've talked about all the journalists who were killed covering the war in Gaza, Gazan journalists, that is, among many other stories. There's the gutting of the Pentagon press corps here at home. Are we at an all-time low, in your opinion, in terms of like journalist safety and freedom? Yeah, I think we are. And I think we're also strangely at an all-time low in terms of trust and credibility. Although we're able to tell more accurate stories, more verifiable stories, more nuanced and data-driven stories than ever before, there's less and less confidence in what we do because there's so many attacks against us by, you know, governments around the world. I think, you know, we talk a lot about journalist protection. Right now, I'm worried about the protection of journalism as an institution, as an idea. And I think there's always going to be a place for storytelling around what current events and what's happening in the world and holding power to account. So I think our place is solid. But, you know, the tools of repression, we're watching it in Iran right now. There's no independent journalists on the ground reporting from Iran, right? And, you know, our understanding of that situation is suffering because of it. So a big part of my work right now on the press freedom front is developing tools and ideas about how do we reopen our windows into societies like Iran, like China, like Russia. I think of them as the big three. But, you know, if you look at the assessments of you know, groups like Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists, the vast majority of the world now lives in a country that is inhospitable to journalism, right? We need to kind of turn that back around. 15 years ago, that wasn't the case, right? And I think these things can change very quickly. But once you lose that freedom of expression, once you societies, from independent journalists, really hard to get them back. Yeah. I also think there's just so much ignorance in the US about what a journalist is and does. I mean, I saw people, I saw a bunch of people on Twitter over the weekend, including like smart people that I respect saying things like, boy, you log on to X and it feels like the Iran protests are the biggest story in the world and they're being covered and talked about everywhere. And then you go to the mainstream media and you're not seeing that. And I'm just like, guys, like retweeting a protester's video is easy and it's great. And I'm glad you're doing it. And the algorithm feeds you more, but like journalists can't go to Iran because they'll get thrown in prison like my friend did. It's exactly. And I agree that our coverage is lacking, but it's not, you know, we didn't create that problem. Right. I have a whole long list of folks who would fly to Tehran tonight and report for the Washington Post, the New York Times, for Crooked Media, for CNN, for everybody else, if they were able to do that. Right. Right. And, you know, I think you're right. I mean, there's this trope about, you know, the mainstream media and, you know, we're this big evil cabal. We're just a group of humans trying to effectively and honestly and accurately tell people important stories about what's going on around the world. And I think, you know, the tools that we have at our disposal should make that a reality. And I think that's what we're trying to do. And I think that's what we're Thanks again for subscribing and talk to you next week. I'm your vice president of news and politics. If you want to listen to Pod Save the World ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers, and other community events. Plus, find Pod Save the World on YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and much more. And if, like us, you're opinionated, leave us a review. Our production staff is proudly unionized by the Writers Guild of America East. As someone tuned into politics, you've probably seen the constant bickering about who belongs in the pro-democracy movement. Well, we think it's best to have these conversations in person, and hopefully it will also be more productive. CrookedCon is right after the midterms, and it is going to be the first time we come together to hash it out in person and kick off the 2028 debate. We just posted a ton more info about what to expect. So, check it out at CrookedCon.com and get your tickets now. 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