King Trump Welcomes King Charles

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There's none of the stiff baked goods you'd expect from better for you brands. There's just the soft, fluffy bread you crave. Plus small batch drops of indulgent favorites, like the popular two gram net carb Hero Croissant and three gram net carb Hero Penne au Chocolat. And right now, Hero Bread is offering 10% off your order. Go to hero.co and use code iHeart at checkout. That's code iHeart at H-E-R-O dot C-O. All figures per serving of Hero Bread. See nutrition facts on Hero.co. Welcome back to Pod Save the World. I'm Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Ritz. So Ben, I genuinely thought Trump might stage some sort of like dramatic military operation for the day after his White House Correspondents speech to match the 2011 Obama bin Laden operation weekend. I didn't see this coming. No. Not that it was staged. No. But it was bad. But it was dramatic. I. But it was bad. It was bad. First of all, it's always bad. Violence is bad. Violence is bad. Don't you hate feeling like you have to like always repeat that line? Yeah. It's like, no shit, it's bad. Yeah. When was it ever not bad? And by the way, you're just, it's just, it's idiotic, it's wrong, and it doesn't do anything to help what that guy seemed to say he cared about. No, it's going to help Trump politically. Yeah. I think that, I'm just going to go there, Tommy, like the, this is not a Trump point, actually. I, you and I have been to that dinner a lot of times, and I feel bad that that was like an unsettling, potentially scary situation. It is also the case that that ballroom is like about like a football field walk down a densely carpeted hotel room, past magnometers, down a flight of stairs or an escalator into a heavily secured cavernous ballroom. And so let's just say some of the media is putting itself at the center of this as if they survived, like, you know, the Battle of the Bulge was, that was the part of the discourse that, I mean, yes, I expect the Republicans to cynically blame Jimmy Kimmel or whatever, and that's always frustrating, but like the number of people that acted like they just went through, you know, like literally the Battle of the Bulge here was that much to me. Right. Look, I don't blame the reporters. I'm not being scared. I would be scared shitless if all of a sudden there's gunshots going off. But like the Republicans who were trying to compare what happened over the last weekend to Butler, like that's a crazy comparison. A bullet hit his ear. Yeah. As you said, this guy was nowhere near getting to Trump. He wasn't to the max. Yeah. If he'd done this thing like 30 minutes earlier, he might have had a lot of people in range to fire at. You never know. That's the scary like scenario. Well, this guy clearly had no idea what he was doing. I mean, look, there are serious questions actually that are interesting about why there keep being these. These kind of security breaches, close calls. By the way, there were a bunch in the Obama years. Bullets hit the White House. Bullets hit the Truman balcony. Didn't someone throw a grenade like it got pretty close to Trump or to Bush at one point too? This event, we should just say, is not a very secure event. No. It actually is in the ballroom. I guess from the Secret Service standpoint, they secured that ballroom. That's where the president's going to be. Right. President doesn't walk in through the mags. He comes in through like an underground parking garage or something and is suddenly in a secure ballroom. But the Capitol Hilton is this gigantic complex that anybody staying there, like they don't have to be attached to the dinner. They can wander the lobby. And there's always like little sub parties on the exterior. It's like not not sure that this event like this event is already past its expiration date. It's cursed. And now it's like this is another point that like maybe don't have this event at this big non-secure hotel where lunatics can walk in off the street. And yeah, you may secure the ballroom, but somebody could get that Secret Service. Agent, you know, thank God there was a bulletproof vest. Yeah, it's it's weird. By the way, thank you, everyone who subscribed to Pod Save the World on YouTube, wherever you get the show. We solemnly pledge to you to never attend the White House Correspondents Dinner. And also, if we do and there is an incident, we will point the camera at word at word. Yeah, we'll show you what's happening. Not our old ass faces. Real quick. Are the Red Sox worse than the Mets? I think the Mets are worse. We just fired like our entire staff. The Mets have scored two runs or less. And I think more than half their games and have nine wins. OK, so. And the biggest payroll in Major League Baseball. That's bad. OK, that's really bad. Speaking of bad, do you see Trump's going to put his own face on the U.S. passport? Maybe I do not. Yeah, I I'm just I'm going to check. I carry around a passport wallet in case I need to flee at any moment. And I'm going to check my expiration date. Mine's coming up. And it looks like mine extends past the Trump administration. OK, so I do not have to get a Donald. OK, you're good to go. OK, that's some live podcast. That's good. That's that's hopeful for everybody. So great show today. We're going to start with the peace talks or lack thereof between the U.S. and Iran. What the end game for this war might actually look like. We're going to talk about the latest data about the global economic impact and then more data and concern about the dwindling U.S. munitions stockpiles. We'll also cover Vice President J.D. Vance's very subtle attempts to spin and duck accountability for this war. Have you caught this at all? Have you? Yes. Oh, are you kidding? I delight in this is what the algorithm is feeding me. It's not giving me the White House Correspondents Center. It's giving me like J.D. Vance. It's so funny. I talked to some MAGA people when I was in D.C. last weekend who were all remarking on how brazen Vance is spinning and all the others around Trump are spinning how opposed they were to this war. We'll get to it. We'll also cover the latest from Lebanon. Then we'll talk about King Charles's trip to the U.S., the highlights, the lowlights, the bizarre sexual innuendo, his speech to a joint session of Congress. Can't wait for this. It's actually kind of funny. Then we're going to talk about the spiraling security situation in Mali after the government came under attack from an al-Qaeda linked terrorist group over the weekend. We're going to share with you some more examples of egregious corruption of U.S. foreign policy because it's an endless story. And finally, a wild story about CIA operations in Mexico. Got drug cartels. There was a tragic car accident. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum's kind of delicate balance between sovereignty and nationalism and dealing with Donald Trump. So very fun for her. And then, Ben, you did an interview today. What did you talk about? I did. There's a group called D-Hub Democracy Hub that is releasing an anti-authoritarian toolkit. This is an effort to learn from activists around the world about what's working in the fight against authoritarianism. So I took two people, actually my friends, Federica and Nick, who are both activists themselves, who helped put this together. You know, we talked about the value of this kind of exercise, how they went about it, some of the lessons about how to do social media better, how to have networks of influencers, how to do social media better. How to kind of mobilize people, how to do a kind of distributed form of organizing where you're not trying to control the message everywhere, but you're trying to give people enough guidance that they're coordinated, but enough freedom that they can run campaigns that make sense where they are. So lessons learned that can be applied around the world for how to fight authoritarianism. Got to give them the D-Hub. Dictators. Excellent. Definitely check that out. All right. Let's start with Iran. So this U.S.-Iran ceasefire is kind of holding, right? But there's 900 pounds of highly enriched uranium. Still sitting in Iran. Strait of Hormuz is closed. Huge parts of the global economy are just paralyzed, and there's seemingly no end in sight. Other than that, it's good. On Saturday, Trump canceled his negotiating team's trip to Pakistan. We're going to listen to a clip from him explaining why. Probably heard that we canceled the trip. We have all the cards. We're not going to spend 15 hours in airplanes all the time going back and forth to be giving a document that was not good enough. And so we'll deal by telephone. And they can call us any time they want. Again, we have all the cards. They have no military left, practically. They have no leaders left. We don't know who the leaders are. Nobody knows who the leaders are. I don't think they know who the leaders are, very importantly. We're not going to be traveling 15, 16 hours to have a meeting with people that nobody ever heard of. Traveling takes too long, too expensive. I'm a very cost-conscious person. They are fighting with each other. There's tremendous infighting. They're probably fighting for leadership in many cases. I think they're fighting not to be the leader because we knocked out two levels of leaders. But I'll deal with whoever we have to. Interestingly, immediately when I canceled it, within 10 minutes, we got a new paper that was much better. They offered a lot, but not enough. I love this idea that the cost we're all worried about is like J.D. Vance's Ryanair ticket to Islamabad. Axios reported that Iran has offered a more limited deal. Maybe that was referencing there. That would reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. ends the blockade and ends the war. by punts all the nuclear talks down the road. - That's nothing. - It feels like a problem i suspect this is kind of going to be the kind of deal trump ends up being forced to take but interestingly uh secretary of state marco rubio came out of his uh post-iran war hiding wherever he's a witness protection program he's been in since he went to the sticks on capitol hill and was like israel made us do it and then ran away and then didn't speak again for a month um but here he is on fox news kind of shitting on the kind of deal we just described let's watch if what they mean by opening the straits is yes the straits are open as long as you coordinate with iran get our permission or we'll blow you up and you pay us that's not opening the straits those are international waterways they cannot normalize nor can we tolerate them trying to normalize a system in which the iranians decide who gets to use an international waterway and how much you have to pay them to use it the straits is basically the equivalent of an economic nuclear weapon that they're trying to use against the world and they're bragging about it yeah that's exactly what's happening that's correct yep seems like they're doing it guess what they weren't doing that before the fucking war yeah also it sounds like they have a lot of cards as described by marco rubio um so ben as we all know there's nothing better in life than when you have like shitty plans like some shitty dinner and it gets canceled so uh iranian foreman sir boss arachi he used that time he got back to fly to russia he went to see vladimir putin he told russian state media that iran is quote standing up to the world's greatest superpower and that the u.s has a request to talk because it has quote not achieved a single one of their goals and that iran is considering whatever they put forward uh putin said quote we'll do everything that serves your interests and the interests of all the people in the region in order to ensure that this peace is achieved as soon as possible uh also i'm sure you caught ben the german chancellor friedrich mertz yes weighed in saying that quote an entire nation is being humiliated by the iranian leadership especially by the so-called revolutionary guards that nation being ours yes on tuesday trump posted this weird message on true social he said quote iran has just informed us that they are in a state of collapse they want us to open the hormuz trade as soon as possible as they try to figure out their leadership situation which i believe they'll be able to do i love the idea that some iranian official is calling trump being like uncle sir you did it you got us uh i think that message was sent one minute before the stock market opened so congrats to everybody who had some uh futures trades uh put down so ben um two things i'm curious what you make of arachi's trip to see putin in the russian role like russia could be trying to facilitate a deal putin could be trying to sell some weapons either way he seems to be saying i'm here i'm a player in this uh you got to deal with me too and then on the end game like the trump administration seems to think that their leverage is keeping the blockade in place long enough so that iran iran runs out of storage for its oil and basically has to shut down its wells and kill off its own industry uh it's not clear how long that would take how much storage capacity they have left and ultimately this is a game of economic chicken that will crush asian economies poor countries the iranian people but probably won't matter to the irgc because they will enforce their will at gunpoint so i don't know i don't get it but what do you make of this play i think we just have to name because sometimes our media is incapable of doing this show about those guys falling out, I'd watch that. Also, this kind of geopolitical splitting, like the Gulf states tried to project this kind of unified front through the Gulf Cooperation Council, the GCC. And that's Qatar, UAE, Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain. They're now moving in different directions. And again, it mirrors what's going to happen globally, where every nation is just going to increasingly, in this kind of crazy, dangerous, nationalist, transactional world, kind of look out for itself. The Emiratis want to, like, you know, produce more, sell without having to, like, check it through OPEC. The Saudis are trying to kind of keep prices up to fund MBS's Vision 2030 and all these things. Some fake city somewhere, yeah. Soccer teams. But it's emblematic of an unraveling set of global arrangements. And I think that the Iran war will be seen from history as a massive accelerant on the kind of unraveling of all these different institutions and ways of doing things. And part of that unraveling are institutions. Or the belief from other countries that the U.S. can or will protect them. Yeah. And now there's increasing data about concern that the U.S. can't protect itself because of these munition shortages we've talked about in the wake of these repeated conflicts with Iran. So there's some more data on this. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, they released a report that walked through some numbers. Then there was some great reporting. It was first Alex Ward at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times added to it. The major concern is not that we're going to run out of bullets in this war. It's about the next. Especially if there's one with China. For example, let's start with Tomahawk missiles or T-LAMs. These are precision long-range cruise missiles that usually get fired from ships or submarines that could be as far as 1,500 miles away from the target. The U.S. launched at least 1,000 of them against Iran, which is about 10 times the number the Pentagon buys every year for the low, low price of $3.6 million each. It'll take years to replace them at current rates. But also, Ben, they require rare earth elements and other advanced electronic components that China has proven they can. And in previous war games about a conflict between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, they found that the U.S. exhausted supply of Tomahawk missiles in a couple days or weeks. So with a supply already down, that's not good. There is a similar missile, a missile used in similar use cases called the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile. The U.S. has used 23% of that stockpile. These are fired from planes, but they cost, again, $2.6 million each. We fired about 1,000 Atacom missiles in this war. Remember, there was a hot debate over whether the U.S. should give Ukraine Atacom missiles. So those are offensive weapons. And then, again, we're running out of interceptor missiles for missile defense systems. That includes a third of what are called SM-6 interceptors, nearly half of the SM-3 variant, more than 50% of Patriot interceptors, and 80% of THAAD interceptors. That's a lot of jargon and gibberish. Just know that the prices on those bad boys range from $4 million to $28 million a pop, depending on the missile and the variant. All the way. Altogether, some U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal that wholly replacing those stockpiles could take up to six years. So that's a long-term problem that will take a while to fix. And that is apparently one of the things worrying J.D. Vance, who once again dispatched his minions to the Atlantic to tell them he's concerned about the war, from the stockpiles to the accuracy of information Trump is getting from Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon. Again, Ben, I'm blown away by how brave. It's amazing how brave these leaks are. Like, how is this not pissing Trump off? But what do I know? It just shows you that for all the facade of Trump's a genius and we blew up the Iranian Navy or whatever, they know that this war has been a disaster. Because the degree of ass-covering here through leak is, you know, even by Washington standards, it makes you blush a little bit. I think when you look at costs, like I just focus on the practical, literal costs and then the geopolitical costs. On the practical costs, like these numbers, these are billions and billions of dollars. Like, that is. ACA subsidies that are not going. You know, that's real health care that people need. Those are. That's nutrition assistance. That's like, God forbid we ever do get our shit together for, like, a universal basic income. Like, we just spent billions of dollars and are going to have to spend another round of billions of dollars to replace things that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth could fire off in a six-week excursion. Isn't that what Trump called it? To do nothing other than. To accomplish nothing. Close the Strait of Hormuz. So that you can then try to. Reopen it again and declare victory. And, yeah, we blew up a bunch of Iranian things and we killed an 86-year-old Supreme Leader. Like. But, like, the amount we spent is, like, more than what was once the annual budget of USAID. Yeah. Which did tons of good all around the world. Which we heard that was so wasteful, right? Right. That's a really good analogy. Then I just want to, like, hone in on the geopolitical costs because it ties in what I was saying about countries having to make different decisions. What you'll often hear from the national security types, you know, people. You know, I, like, hung out with. I hung out with a lot over the years, that all these munitions, all these systems are really important, you know, in Asia, right? To deal with China and North Korea. And sometimes people hear that and they think, oh, you warmongers, like, you want all these weapons to fight the Chinese. No. They're there as a deterrent. Like, you want those weapons in place to prevent a war. You know, so it's like, hey, this looks super scary for China and you're thinking about invading Taiwan or you're Kim Jong-un and you're thinking about making a move on South Korea. Like, the Americans have all these fancy systems. We don't want to fuck around. Let's just take the one case of South Korea. South Korea is getting hit about as hard as anybody because of shortages, right? They have shortages of petrochemicals. They have shortages of plastics. They have potential disruptions, like, to all manner of different industries from this war. Like, they're suffering economically, never mind the higher fuel prices. Meanwhile, the country that was their, you know, closest ally, the United States, also moved the missile defense systems. They were protecting them from. They were protecting them from potential North Korean nuclear attacks. Yeah, we yanked a THAAD system. The THAAD. We moved that to the Middle East because we needed that for our Iran war. We moved these other munitions. So, we simultaneously left them more vulnerable to the nutcase, like, chain-smoking autocrat that lives to their north or to the Chinese and ruined their economy in the process. If you're South Korea, aren't you going to start making some other decisions about maybe you need to cut your own deal with the Chinese or the North Koreans? If you're Taiwan. If you're Taiwan, how are you feeling about, you know, the American security umbrella protecting you against a Chinese invasion? So, this stuff is going to reverberate for years. And Trump can spin and J.D. Vance can leak. It can't change that. Also, when the U.S. put that THAAD system in South Korea in the first place, the Chinese flipped out. Yeah. And they did all this economic retaliation. They essentially banned Chinese tourists from going to South Korea and, like, crushed the tourism business in the entire country. So, yeah, they got screwed on the front end and they didn't. Screwed on the back end here. One other just dumb thing, Ben. Do you remember that guy Paolo Zampoli who we talked about a couple weeks ago? He's, like, the old, like, 80s buddy that Trump would, like, hang out with at 54 or whatever. He's, like, some model agent. They'd use ICE to deport his wife or his ex-wife or something. Yes, mother of his child. Good guy. Great guy. Apparently, he has been recommending that FIFA kick Iran out of the World Cup and put Italy in. Did you see this? I saw this. Because FIFA needed to be further corrupted and politicized. And even the Italians were like, no, this is completely stupid. What are you talking about? Well, first of all, the Italians flaming out of the World Cup. I mean. Tough. The Italians themselves said, we don't want to, like, get in this way. But also, like, I hate that, like, FIFA's already debased itself so much. They gave Trump that fake Peace Prize member, that corrupt guy. How could I forget?. who runs FIFA. Did you see this item today that he, like, demanded? He wanted a motorcade in Vancouver as if it was analogous to the Pope or the President. Infantino did? Yeah. He threw a hit. Because the Canadians wouldn't give him a full motorcade on the scale of, like, the President of the United States or the Pope or something. Anyway, break, break. Part of what I find so disgusting about this is, like, can't sports be, like, the last refuge of, like, just, like, you start politicizing sports this way where it's, like, not that it's always been pure. It's not. You did a whole podcast on how corrupt the World Cup is. But the idea that you're literally going to say, like, hey, we don't like the Iranians because Trump decided to go to war with them. So we're kicking them out of the world. And, you know, everybody likes the Italians. So let's put them in there even though they flamed out in the European division. Right. Come on, man. Like, let's watch the World Cup. Like, the Iranian, even if you hate the Iranian regime, like, the soccer players didn't have anything to do with it. They earned their way on that stage. It's like bad news bears, man. Let them play. Let them play. Finally, Ben, on paper, there is still a ceasefire in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah. But in practice, it's not really a ceasefire. It's more of, like, a de-escalation of the fighting that is still very much ongoing. Just a lower intensity. For example, the Lebanese government said 14 people were killed in Israeli attacks on Sunday alone. An Israeli soldier was announced that he was killed on Sunday. Two more were wounded on Monday. And the IDF has ordered a bunch more communities to evacuate, including ones outside of the current evacuation zone. So the war seems to be expanding. The leader of Hezbollah said they would not, quote, relinquish its weapons or defenses, meaning they won't disarm. Listeners also might have heard about the killing of a woman named Amal Khalil. She's a well-known journalist. For the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akbar. She was driving with a photojournalist colleague in southern Lebanon. The car in front of them got hit by an Israeli strike. So they took shelter in a nearby building. They were wounded. And they tried to get help. But an hour and a half later, the building they were in was struck again. When the Red Cross tried to help her and her colleague, the IDF fired on them. And they were forced to turn back. So Khalil is also reported receiving a death threat that she attributed to the IDF back in 2024. So this is just, like, this is one of those incidents that. Would have been, I think, a global scandal before the war in Gaza. But now. it almost feels priced in because the Israelis killed so many Gaza based journalists that people are almost numb to it. Yeah. I mean, I spent some time with this one because it was so egregious. I mean, she's a well-known journalist, you know, and, and, and she's trapped under rubble for hours and the Israelis are literally like striking the rescuers trying to get to her. I mean, this is like an assassination. It's indefensible. They know who she is. Like they have such total surveillance control over that part of Lebanon. They know exactly who she is. She's obviously also wearing press. They, they, they murdered this woman in front of the whole world and don't expect any significant outcry beyond people who are already upset about these things. And that's outrageous, you know? And it does, I just, I do wish like there's a, like a very admirable instinct in among the U S journalists to, to advocate for journalists in danger around the world, but it's usually journalists endangered. Inside of geopolitical adversaries of the United States, you know, advocating for Venezuelan journalists or Iranian journalists or Russian journalists, um, or certainly any American journalists, but like these people are doing the same job as you. And yet you just, I like, I, I, and I'm not, some journalists have been outspoken about these things that I'd love. I just like to see like more voices raised. Cause this is like, this is, this is what, this is the worst case scenario. You're talking about political violence. I mean, this is literally saying that like, if we, cause I, some people I saw then say, well, she worked for like a newspaper or media outlet that was, uh, that was sympathetic to Hezbollah. So what? She's a fucking journalist. Like I don't like Israeli newspapers tied to like the IDF. Like you can't kill people. Yeah. I don't like Fox news. I don't think anything like bad should happen to those people. Like, like this is, that's a, that's actually the most deranged possible explanation. Like, so we just now assassinate journalists. So you're admitting you've killed. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, what are we talking about? Yeah. Yeah. It was a horrible, horrible story. Uh, reminded me of Shereen Abu-Akhla, another famous Palestinian American journalist who was killed during the Biden administration and no one did shit about it. Nothing. And it pisses me off to this day. Today's show is sponsored by strawberry.me. You don't have to be unhappy at work to want something more. Success doesn't just happen in the most successful people in the world. Don't figure it out alone. They have mentors, coaches, and people guiding them every step of the way. That's where strawberry.me career coaching comes in. 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That's strawberry.me slash world to get 50% off the first session. Positive of the world is brought to you by Ridge. John, I think we all went through that time in life when we kept a lot of things in our wallet. So much. The Costanza wallet. That's a topical timely reference. You're like a six-inch wallet. Gave you some back problems. Yeah, you have every business card you've ever kept. Some crusty leather brick that was really falling apart. You basically couldn't open it because otherwise it would just disintegrate. And then your back hurts because you're sitting unevenly. And all of a sudden your spine's ruined. Don't let that happen to you. Ridge wallets have unique, slim, modern designs that hold up to 12 cards plus cash. They're made with premium materials like aluminum, titanium, and carbon fiber that come in over 50 or more colors and styles to choose from. All Ridge products have a lifetime warranty. It's literally the last wallet you will ever have to buy. And all Ridge wallets feature RFID blocking technology, protecting you from digital pickpockets. Losing your wallet is the absolute worst. But with a Ridge tracker card, you'll always know exactly where it is before panic mode kicks in. Ridge isn't just about wallets. They create premium everyday carry essentials like power banks, key cases, suitcases, and rings, all built with the same sleek, durable design. No matter what you pick, Ridge has free shipping, a 99-day risk-free trial, and a lifetime warranty on all of their products. For a limited time, our listeners get 10% off at Ridge by using the code PSTW at checkout. Just head to Ridge.com and use code PSTW and you're all set. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that Pod Save the World sent you. Okay, let's switch gears a little bit, Ben. So the Iran tensions we just talked about, those are the backdrop and the background. Then there's a quote, literary event marking the 100th birthday of the children's character, Winnie the Pooh. Really? Yeah. How about that? No word if they'll speak with Prince Harry or victims of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse. A lot of calls on Charles to meet with some Epstein's victims and talk about his brother maybe, but anyway. So this all comes though, as we've discussed, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under attack from Trump on a daily basis for not fully backing or participating in the war with Iran. Recently, there was a report about retaliation. There was a leaked memo, Pentagon memo that was floated, but it talked about punishing the UK and the refusal to further participate in the war by revoking US support for their possession of the U.S. economy. This is also kicked up endless hand-wringing and discussion of the special relationship between the U.S. and the U.K. The Financial Times reported that the U.K.'s ambassador to the U.S. told some students recently, quote, I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States, and that is probably Israel. He's not wrong. Charles also became the first British king to address a joint session of Congress. His mom, the Queen, did so in 1991, but Trump. laid out the distinction in his remarks. Here is some of what he said. The U.S. ambassador to the United States and the U.S. Ambassador to the U.S. Ambassador to the United States said that the U.S. Ambassador to the United States allies lie at the heart of nature. I pray with all my heart that our alliance will continue to defend our shared values and that we ignore the clarion calls to become ever more inward-looking. America's words carry weight and meaning, as they have since independence. The actions of this great nation matter even more. So as you can hear there, Charles didn't totally shy away from policy differences on climate change or NATO or Ukraine. And for context, I think it probably sometimes seems to Americans like the royals are distinct from the government or kind of float above it. In practice, that's not the case. Like a royal visit like this is planned by number 10 Downing Street. His speech is thoroughly vetted, if not written by the government. It is functionally indistinguishable from a, you know, prime minister's visit. They just know that Trump loves the royal family. And, uh, cares more about them and hopefully won't be as much of a dick. So that gets you to me to my question, Ben. I just, I guess I'm, I'm still like, obviously the shooting attempt thing on Saturday that like kind of changes the vibes around all this stuff. And you're like walking on eggshells for a while, a couple of weeks. Yeah. But like, again, I don't get why Starmer's office sent King Charles in the midst of this war when Trump's calling Starmer Neville Chamberlain every day saying he's no Winston Churchill, just like humiliating the guy left, right. When we all know that, I don't know, maybe a snub would lead to some actual fallout on policy, but like failing to push back on Trump is hurting Starmer politically. And he just looks so weak and hapless. And I'm wondering when is labor going to cut the cord on this guy? It's yeah. It is a fucking disaster. It is destroying the labor party. It really is. I mean, the, he, the reason Trump keeps coming back is because he smells weakness. Like this is the most obvious thing in the world to see. Keir Starmer presents, as the weakest guy, he presents as scared of Trump. Even when he stands up to Trump, he seems scared about doing it, you know, just, yeah. Why is, you know, King Charles is here as part of like the Starmer plan to charm Trump. Like it's, it's, they're, they're literally threatening to like try to give the Falkland Islands to their buddy, Javier Mele down in Argentina. Like they've so little respect. And, and the lesson time and again is like, Trump, will respect you more if you punch him in the face, you know, then if you are continually scared of him, he's just going to keep coming back. I think the sad thing about that speech is every clip that we played is absolute pablum like we've heard this for you know our whole lives and politics 80 years and nato is important they sound downright edgy you know right the fact that it sounds edgy that king charles is like and we shouldn't turn inward and let's cooperate and nato is important and we support the brave people of ukraine like like basically the most anodyne things that you'd expect from your like liberal friend on online like sound like like you know king charles is picking fights you know um and and that's a that's a that's so if starmer's fault is his weakness that speech is in is a good capsule of how much donald trump has reordered the world in a year and a half because we're not for any the united states is not for any of those things we're not for nato we're not for 80 years of cooperation we're not for like looking outward we're not for agreeing to disagree about things like that's crazy that we're so extreme that he's like he's like talking to your like his completely alcoholic family member and saying like remember how much fun we used to have taking walks together we're for drinking after five we're for not being drunk at breakfast yeah um that's a really good point i i previewed some sexual tension at the top so trump did this event they like welcomed charles to the white house and he gave a little speech uh and trump said something like like how he was talking about his mother and how she would say look at charles he's so cute my mother had a crush on charles uh charles is 77 trump is 79 well i would say also though that's a little epstein seeing charles up there you know he looks so young compared to joe biden and donald trump i mean it's good to have a young vigorous man up there young sausage fingered gentleman trump also couldn't help but do like a churchill bus shout out there was a funny because he's so online like if you get the reference you're too online you are way too online speaking of state visits ben uh cricket con is back and bigger than ever get your calendar out pause that positive podcast pencil in a trip to dc november 5th through 7th bigger stages more panels bigger stages hotter speakers maybe even king charles probably not though uh there'll also be live taping of shows you know and love a lot more go to crooked con.com to sign up for updates it'll be fun we had fun last time actually i really like good god i had a great time we had a good ass time yeah yeah we did a fun panel uh okay let's talk about uh the security situation mali so over the last several years we have covered this wave of coups across northern africa especially the sahel region started in mali in 2020 and guinea in 2021 it's a little outside of this to help you get my point uh burkina faso in 2022 then niger and gabon in 2023 these were distinct events across a large geographic area but there were some common threats like anger at corruption uh weak and ineffective governance anger at foreign military presences especially the french french and the threat from islamist extremist groups uh and as this process went on with a little wagner group sprinkled yeah well as it went on the french and the u.s security forces we got pushed out of the region uh the russians came in at the time it was the the wagner mercenary group uh they got renamed after their uh their boss had a little aerial accident isn't that crazy thing that happened when pergoson tried to have a coup against buden marched on moscow and then mysteriously thought he's gonna get away with it and then oh what funny a grenade went off that's the thing that happened yeah that's that's the thing that happened yeah that's the thing that happened yeah that's the thing that happened yeah that's the thing that happened yeah that's the thing that happened they called it the africa corpse which is what it's called now so in 2024 uh the military leaders in mali burkina faso and niger they pulled out of echo was the regional alliance they formed their own little alliance and i think ben it's fair to say um that the u.s french approach that predated all of this was a disaster like terrorism in this hell was getting worse not better um the security extremist situation was getting worse not better but um things now in mali are really really bad so i think it's fair to say that the u.s french approach that predated all of this was a disaster so over the weekend an al-qaeda-like extremist group called j and i am they launched this coordinated series of attacks across mali including the capital obamacore uh they attacked the president's house they attacked and killed the defense minister there were militants like videos of these militants just driving around big parts of the capital with no real you know opposition um and these j and i am fighters also attacked the uh the russian troops the africa corps troops who have proven uh over time to be worse than useless partners against his counterterrorism partner uh and in fact they've been fighting for a long time and they've been fighting for a long time but in fact probably helped fuel the insurgency by just killing lots of civilians um in the past few days the russians they got pushed out of some key parts of northern mali that they had helped to retake back in the day so it's a total humiliation so this is very bad uh this group j and i am they were established in 2017 it's considered an al-qaeda affiliate but in this case they also coordinated with a separatist group representing the toreg ethnic minority it's a traditionally nomadic group that got screwed out of political representation by french colonial lines because um they got divided up and they had no one no political representation so uh they have been you know basically waging an insurgency ever since um it got all got way worse again and momar gaddafi used to hire these toreg fighters and when libya collapsed many of them returned to mali in nigeria with their libyan weapons and supercharged that insurgency so another reason why that uh adventure yeah obama years was a disaster too so ben i guess the question is like you see these images on tv they look scary it's horrible for the people living there especially women and girls um i wonder how much of a threat it poses to the u.s whether j and i am is just focused regionally whether we should worry about them being more expansive like al-qaeda and whether there's anything the u.s should be doing about it i mean yeah first of all i i do think that the you know mali was a place where you know around in the aftermath of libya in part and also just in part because of you know some extremist elements like around 2012 2013 things were getting very hairy there and it was a french intervention literally you know french special forces were going to be there and they were going to be there and they were going to be there and went in they kind of pushed out these jihadist groups they kind of formed the kind of backbone of uh propping up a government there and then you know there was kind of this model where the u.s had some counterterrorism capabilities you know we had drones and um you know intelligence gathering and probably a light footprint of some special forces in that region and then the french were kind of the bigger footprint training security forces things like that clearly didn't work uh you know was a little too self-interested created um you know its own forms of corruption and you described well the dynamic these coups i i guess look tommy i i i'm sure that there's some nexus to some people with wider ambitions beyond this part of africa but at the end of the day i think one of the things we've learned about these countries is like these are at the end of the day inherently like local dynamics you know that that there are there are a lot of things that are going on in africa that are going on in africa that are going on in africa that are going on in africa that are going on in africa that are going on in africa there are militias some of them are more extremist some of them like buy into like an islamist ideology that is like repressive and but i i i i think part of what has kind of contributed to the factors that have you know made this region more radicalized and violent is seeing every group of armed guys in land cruisers as like isis you know core or osama bin laden what is needed are strategies and approaches that fit these countries and deal with their politics and i don't claim i've seen tremendous humility i don't claim to know the exact formula to bring to mali i i don't think it helps and this i look i could be proven wrong maybe this will become the next iteration of isis i just don't think that's right though i i think that these countries have internal dynamics and need different solutions rather than being seen as like a front in a global war on terror certainly hasn't helped just have the only security relationship between the u.s and these countries to be like intelligent sharing or selling them weapons well yeah because you fed the conflicts yeah i mean and i know i'm about to offer a solution that is not currently available but i think that it also didn't make sense for the former colonial power to be the one that comes in because that feels an awful lot like colonialism if you're in mali right this is why you need a united nations like this is why you need credible international institutions that can do like retro 1990s era missions like multinational peacekeeping and conflict resolution and negotiation like this is a proving case and by the way it'd be good if the african union did some of that which they don't because they don't really function either and so i i think what's really needed is is multilateral systems and institutions yeah and until then uh not great yeah until then i think it's going to be this kind of game of thrones yeah pretty bad pod save the world is brought to you by oraframe 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Named number one by Wirecutter, you can save on the gifts moms love by visiting auraframes.com. For a limited time, listeners get $25 off their best-selling Carver mat frame with the code WORLD. That's A-U-R-A, frames.com, promo code WORLD. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Pod Save the World is brought to you by Built. Whether you're renting or paying a mortgage, one of your biggest monthly expenses should be working harder for you. That's where Built comes in. Built is the membership for where you live that rewards you with points on every housing payment wherever you live. Built started out rewarding members on their rent. Now, as of 2026, Built members can also earn points on mortgage payments wherever they live. Every housing payment earns you points you can use toward flights with top travel partners like United and Hyatt, Lyft rides, Amazon.com purchases, and much, much more. They have a ton of options where you can redeem your points. 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So last week we did a big section on this, the rampant corruption within the Trump administration and how it's hurting U.S. national security. I wanted to follow up because there were some examples that were so egregious and absurd that it was worth highlighting again. So first, Ben, this is just a quick clip of Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo. Maria Bartiromo congratulating Eric Trump after his company was awarded a $24 million contract from the Pentagon. Let's watch. And the company's chief strategy advisor, Eric Trump, President Trump's son. Congratulations to you both. Thank you so much for being here. So Eric Trump is like, apparently like the chief advisor to a robotics company. And she's like, oh, that's totally normal. So thank you, Maria, for that hard-hitting journalism. And then also, Ben, we had discussed previously how some anonymous person had made more than four, $400,000 by betting on Polymarket that Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro would be deposed. Sure enough, it happens. That guy cashes out. It turns out that the individual involved was a master sergeant with the U.S. Army Special Forces who participated in the operation itself. He apparently was also not the brightest bulb on the tree since this guy transferred the money to Polymarket and back via his own Coinbase account, which is a U.S.-based crypto company that verifies your identity. So you're going to get it. Not hard to track that one. So that said, Ben, I am going to place a bet on Polymarket that that guy gets pardoned after watching these comments from Trump. Are you concerned that federal employees are betting on these prediction markets and potentially getting rich? Well, I don't know about it, but was he betting that they would get him or they wouldn't get him? It sounds like he was betting on his removal from office, that Maduro would be removed. It sounds like he was involved in the operation. That's like Pete Rose betting on his own team. It's a little like Pete Rose. Pete Rose, he kept him out of the Hall of Fame because he bet on his own team. Now, if he bet against his team, that would be no good, but he bet on his own team. I'll look into it. Yeah. So the indifference. It's still 80s, man. Pete Rose references. The indifference there could be also because Donald Trump Jr. is an advisor to both Polymarket and his number one competitor, Kalshi. So good stuff. Both of these things speak to a tip of an iceberg of corruption, right? And we get into. This is in the anti-authoritarian toolkit, the need to spotlight corruption, but also to explain it. So the Eric Trump thing, there is a degree of corruption happening with the Pentagon budget that we have no idea. $1.5 trillion. If the Democrats get control of Congress, I would burrow in here because they want a $1.5 trillion defense budget. You got Eric Trump suddenly getting in the drone game and getting contracts from the federal government that his father controlled and his father's sycophant, Pete Hegseth, is in charge of this Department of War. But it's not just that. All these tech guys who suck up to Trump, Alex Karp, the head of Palantir, all these defense tech guys, probably with Peter Thiel investments and stuff, they're just feeding at the trough. And the stuff they're throwing Eric Trump's way is a ton of money to you and me, a few hundred million dollars here, a billion dollars there. These guys are probably walking away with tens of billions of dollars. Billions. Billions. So we got to look at the defense budget. And then on the polymarket stuff, it reminds me of Abu Ghraib, where this guy is guilty as hell, but they're going to punish the service member. How many people were making bets on polymarket? Do you think. Or how many people are shorting oil markets before Trump posts something? I hope to God that there is some investigation by the SEC or some New York State authority on the stock market manipulation, the oil market manipulation. Because otherwise, what's the point of. having these agencies? Well, and do you know. I don't even know the answer to this. Why isn't every Democrat, like, campaigning to shut down all these prediction markets? I don't know. Are they? I think some are. I think it was. Honestly, I've not dug into everybody's platform on this, but I think it's a terrible idea. This is a piece of. Like, every single Democrat should be for showing. You cannot find a more acute manifestation of corruption than the people that are controlling the government have the capacity to bet on their own actions on a prediction market. And most of the actual. the actual business on these platforms is just an end run against state bans on sports betting. That is, like, their primary revenue. So, yeah, it's a terrible idea. I do not support it. Finally, Ben, let's turn to Mexico. So, because U.S. involvement there in a counter-cartel operations, they have created this huge headache for Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. The story starts on April 19th, so the two Americans and two Mexican investigators were killed after their car reportedly plunged off a cliff. I don't really. It's hard for, like. I feel like there's more to the story we don't know, right? Yeah, I mean. Did they just drive off the edge? Did something happen? Yeah, yeah. It's like, there's so much we don't know. Yeah. But they were returning from a drug bust operation on a meth lab in the mountains of northern Mexico in the state of Chihuahua. So, it has since been confirmed by some U.S. officials who spoke to the AP, among other news outlets, that they were CIA officers. This created big political and legal and foreign policy problems for Claudia Sheinbaum. Under Mexico's constitution, foreign governments cannot conduct law enforcement. Or intelligence operations on Mexican soil. It's very sensitive. At least not independently. They need to be with the government or registered. It's a very sensitive sovereignty issue. It dates back many decades. There have been all these terrible incidents. And this became an intense focus under President López Obrador, who a couple years back, like 21 or 2020, passed legislation further restricting foreign law enforcement and intelligence agents in Mexico. So, again, fast forward to when this story broke earlier this month. Sheinbaum initially says that she was not aware that she was a Mexican. That American officials were participating in the operation. She's basically held to that story. So far, she's asked the U.S. for more detail or clarification, but mostly blamed officials in Chihuahua and threatened to reprimand them. I think it's helped that the governor there is from the opposition party. So, Ben, I'm trying to figure out how to read this. Did the U.S. really not tell the Mexican federal government about this operation or register these individuals? We don't know. Was this like a don't ask, don't tell situation? Where the U.S. is doing a lot of stuff. Sheinbaum gets told some general strokes, but not all of it for deniability on the specifics. Like, big picture, it's like definitely an example of how she is trying to balance between nationalism and sovereignty and then all the things Trump is demanding. Because as we've talked about before, Trump has threatened to conduct airstrikes on cartels in Mexico, on Mexican territory. There's reports that the CIA has been flying surveillance drones over Mexican territory. God knows what else. The CIA and the DEA are doing in Mexico that we don't know about. And so, Sheinbaum is trying to fend off these crazier ideas while, like, not getting tariffed to hell. What did you make of this story and how, like, to read between the lines? I thought it was really important. I mean, the suggestion out of the fact pattern that we see is that there were two CIA agents that were down in this state, in Chihuahua, and they were not there under the approval of the Mexican federal government, that maybe they'd made some side deals with local officials or the governor. And that they were in some operation and then something went wrong. And I, you know, I do wonder how the car plunged off a cliff. And by the way, a reason for that could be that the U.S. thinks that the federal officials are corrupt and the state officials are on the up and up, so they go around them. I don't know. Yeah, it could be that they think that if we tell the federal officials they'll tip off the cartels or it's just faster to deal with it. Or it's kind of like how we deal with, I don't know, hypothetically, like, Pakistan. You know, it's just rough out there and we're just going to have to do what we have to do and, you know, we'll let them know generically we're doing stuff over here in your tribal regions, but, you know, we're not going to tell you about what we're doing. Now, here's why I think this is important. If there are these two CIA guys doing this, that tells me that this is happening. This is not the only place that there are probably CIA guys. That's my assumption, too. And so it suggests to me that we have moved the war on terror paradigm. into Mexico, where you've got on the ground CIA presence. Some of that is partnered with local security forces. Some of that may be freelance. Some of that may be coordinated with the government, but that there's a kind of much more active confrontation with drug cartels. Now, people may say, well, that's good. We're fighting drug cartels. The war on drugs paradigm and the war on terror paradigm, neither of them have worked. And so fusing them is a little disconcerting to me. And I feel like I saw this and I thought, and I was saying this to our producer, Ilona, before we recorded, like Mexico dropped off the war list. It's like, well, Cuba, Greenland. Good point. This kind of reminder, like this, I think Mexico is going to come up more. And this question of what are we doing? Are there covert operations happening? Are there CIA operations? Could that lead to military action against the cartels directly? And then related to that, what does this mean for Colombia? Because she does not want to have that happen. She's made very clear she doesn't want US military engagement in her country. And one way to do that is to look the other way and just kind of not pay attention to what the US government may be doing. But this episode makes that kind of untenable for her because she doesn't want to look feckless, right? And not in charge. And so it's going to create potential, you know, difficulties for her to manage through too. This is one of those stories you put a pin in and say, I have a feeling we're gonna be talking more about Mexico. I have a feeling that there's more happening in Mexico than we're seeing. Yeah. And like, so far, she's given Trump a lot of concessions. Like, she extradited a bunch of drug leaders for prosecution. She put National Guard troops on the border. I think she slapped a big tariff on the Chinese to be in line with US tariffs. She cut off oil shipments to Cuba. So like, she's given Trump a lot of what he wants. But even when there have been major cartel operations, like down to that guy, El Mencho, that we talked about a while back, Trump's reaction wasn't to praise them necessarily. It was like, he got mad at the images of violence and chaos that were on TV afterwards, and started demanding that the Mexican authorities do more. So she's like, just in this squeeze. And you know, there's an interesting piece, I think it was a Wall Street Journal had a great profile on her in this moment. And like all that she's doing to manage this guy, talked about how she has a security meeting at 6am every day, then she does this 7:30am press conference every day, and then just like works into the night. Like she's like, grinding, and is getting pressured by Trump, but also getting pressured by President Lopez Obrador for her like political benefactor mentor, who is, you know, on paper, left the scene is writing a book, but he's pressuring her to break with Trump to cut deals with China to cut deals with Canada demanding more nationalism. And she's like met with Trump once, but had nearly 20 phone calls with the guy. So there's clearly all this behind the scenes, like management happening. And there's a relationship that actually seems genuinely cordial. But, you know, as you know, with Trump, like, you're always one comment away from the thing being vended. Yeah, no, I she's just trying to manage through it. And she's been firm with Trump when she needs to be. I like Claudia Sheinbaum a lot. And by the way, AMLO, you know, Lopez Obrador, her predecessor, kind of rich for him, because he was pretty chummy chummy with Trump, too. Like, he was like, Mr. fellow populist, I'm just a leftist populist. So but I get it. Like, he's reflecting the kind of left wing nationalism that you would expect from that political party. Mexico, I should just say, the problem is that this strategy won't work. Like the drug cartels are deeply entrenched. Trump's not going to defeat them in two and a half years with some CIA operations, you know, like, like, and people want to what to do. I mean, Ricardo Zuniga has been on with both of us to talk about this. I mean, a strategy that far more aggressively just kind of goes after all their money sources, like they depend on global financial networks, they have sprawling business and empires. that go beyond Mexico. They control ports in different parts of the world. There are other ways at trying to shrink the cartels. By the way, you could legalize drugs in this country to kind of take away the revenue that goes that way. I personally favor that. But this isn't going to work. The idea that some CIA operations. Mexico is a big country. The drug trade is decades established. It employs tens of thousands of people. You're not going to beat them with CIA operation after CIA operation. We're just killing off leaders. The kingpin strategies don't seem to work. They create chaos. They create instability. Look at the Sahel that we just talked about. We killed a lot of terrorists there. Al-Qaeda number three, down again. Yeah, it doesn't always work. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, you're going to hear Ben's interview about how to fight authoritarianism. We've got a playbook for you, so stick around for that. 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Plus, small batches of hero bread and drops of indulgent favorites. Like the popular 2 gram net carb hero croissant and 3 gram net carb hero penne au chocolat. Okay, I'm very pleased to be joined by two friends of mine, Federica Vinci is a program coordinator and Nick Antipov is a project associate for Democracy Hub, D-Hub, a group that works to counter authoritarianism. They have created an anti-authoritarian toolkit, which is going to be a resource that activists and political leaders can use to defend against and ultimately overcome autocracies. So we're here to talk about the release of that project that I've had some interface with over the years. Just a couple of brief notes about you guys. Federica is also a board member for the Volt There Foundation. She worked on campaigns. She's increased women's participations in politics. Nick is a co-founder of Make Out, a project on gender, sexuality, and anti-discrimination in Belarus that empowers the LGBTQ community there. Has also been an activist against the authoritarianism in Belarus. And I met you both because you're both also Obama Foundation Europe leaders. So Nick and Feta, thanks. Thanks for joining me today. Thank you, Ben. Thank you so much, Ben. So before we get into the toolkit, I do want to just kind of introduce people a bit to your journeys. And I guess I'll start with you, Feta. Talk about how did you come to D-Hub? You know, how did you take a journey from being kind of a politician to someone who's more in this kind of activist space? Thanks a lot, Ben. So I still remember the moment in which I realized that authoritarians were not the only people who were organizing all around the world. I was leading a transnational political party. It still exists. it's called Volt. And I remember that at one moment, all different authoritarian slash far right parties were presenting in different countries around Europe, a piece of law that forced women to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus before abortion. And I was shocked because I could see that like in they were presenting it in Hungary, and then at the same time, they were presenting it in Italy. And at the same time, they were presenting it in Spain and in Portugal and in France. And we on the other side, we were trying to organize a transnational political party. And we didn't even know how to make people talk that people that didn't talk the same language, they didn't speak the same language. And I was like, there must be something here that they're doing that we are not. So while I was thinking about this questions, I was also deputy mayor of my hometown back then I was doing politics at the local level. I come across D-Hub or whether better D-Hub, Nika Kovacs that we both know comes across me. And she talks me about this organization that had as main aim, the objective of creating a democratic playbook. So something that people that were fighting for democracy could use and replicate exactly in the same way that authoritarians were doing for their own autocracy. So I thought that this exactly made sense. And when she came to me, and she asked me to join D-Hub, I was like, look, I've heard I felt on my own skin that we needed something like this. And I was really more than happy to join this fight and starting writing. I was really happy to join D-Hub, I was really excited to be here. And I was really excited to be here. Okay, so Nick, you had like a different experience. I think Feda, you described well, the kind of awareness of this right wing, far right, authoritarian kind of coordination. Nick, when I met you, you were dealing with a much more kind of visceral form of authoritarianism. Lukashenko, the autocratic leader of Belarus has cracked down the opposition, you literally had to kind of exile at first Lithuania. Describe your journey from being in Belarus, running an organization to D-Hub. Yeah, thank you. My journey, yeah, my journey to the D-Hub, it's a bit different. You know, born and raised in Minsk and under the regime Lukashenko, going to schools, washed with all propaganda. Somehow I found this, I don't know, courage and some, I don't know, meaning in a way that something is not right, something is that doesn't make any sense. And obviously, maybe it's connecting with my with my sexuality and queer identity. I found this idea of liberation inside me, liberation of my sexuality, liberation of my community and liberation of my own country. Because back then, I didn't understand how everything is so connected. And the fight for LGBTQ plus rights, it's also the fight for democracy. Now, five years later, yeah, I lost kind of, I lost my country, I lost my ability to see my loved ones, lost my meaning, basically, you know, to influence on my community and to try to push it. And living now in Berlin, I kind of realized, especially I realized that when, especially when Trump started getting into power, people sometimes started talking about, oh, my God, this is new new world order. And then I was like, Wait, wait a second, is it? Or maybe it's already authoritarian playbook, which already was built and actually just transformed in a new wave. So I'm kind of was happy that my journey and my journey of like a small community also in a country which sometimes also overlooked in the big politics. I tried to take, all the lessons from all these years of democracy defenders in my region, and kind of also share it with my with my community and community worldwide. So yeah, the D hub. Now, we're creating this Ontario Tyrian toolkit, which connect all practices in some kind of kind of readable and hands on, hands on book, and not book, and it's a normally publication, to make sure that we're making sure that we have all the knowledge and all the strategy how to fight back. So and eventually, I hope it will bring my region to democracy. So I've interacted with you guys through D hub. And so people understand, you know, essentially, your network that works with, you know, small D democracy activists, not just in Europe, but but around the world. I mean, it's a global perspective that you're taking on this authoritarian challenge that all three of us have interacted with in our own ways, you know, I've, I've dealt with Trump here in the United States, from the perspective of politics and media. Fede, you've been a politician and activist yourself, kind of feeling the rising tide of a certain kind of far right politics in places like Italy. Nick, you had the most firsthand experience of losing, you know, at least for the time being, your country. How do you describe the process by which you put together this anti-authoritarian toolkit? You know, who did you talk to in order to put it together? And I guess to begin, Fede, with you, can you explain, I want to start pulling out lessons. One that we talked about when I saw you in Costa Rica was putting broccoli in the rice. I like that you guys try to have these, you know, phrases that they're punchy and clever, but that actually speak to something important. Like, how do you get from talking to a bunch of activists to a point like put broccoli in the rice? Thanks so much for the question. So basically, we, as you were saying, we're activists ourselves. And we started from our own people to start understanding what was the ground. So what were we talking about when we were talking about rising authoritarianism? What was their playbook? And from people like us and from our own contact, we started to talk with other activists. First, to understand what was the playbook of authoritarianism. And from this, the authoritarian playbook was born. But then we just, we didn't want just to give another diagnosis of how the world, the world was working. We really wanted, to get into how do we fight them? So we started talking with activists from literally all around the world. We have case studies going from Thailand to South Africa, to Kenya, to Argentina, talking about with them about what were the different strategies and tactics that allow them to win possible authoritarianism. Also, because here, I think it's important to say that we are talking about elected authoritarianism. So people that almost fairly win the elections, but then get into power and dismantle the institutions of democracy from within. So we needed to understand first, how do we do in order not to have them elected? So how do we win elections? But it was not just about election. It was about building movements. It was about building, creating an opposition inside different parliaments. So we started talking with people that managed to do it successfully. A good example with this, of this, where, for example, our friends in Brazil or our friends in France, where they just have beaten the far right and the parliamentary elections a couple of years ago. So we started talking with these people and they gave us different strategies and tactics in order to fight back. And one of the strategies and tactics is exactly what you were talking about, which is the strategy of broccoli and the rice. So what we do here is that within our volume of digital comms, which I happen to have it here, we talk about several tactics that can fight authoritarianism. And we have a grand strategy. One of the tactics, for example, is network of influencers. And when we talk about broccoli and rice, we ask these influencers that might talk about several things like makeup or gossips, we ask them to put into their pages some piece and bits of political content in order to start shaping the idea of the people that listen to them and that see them on social media in a democratic way. This is a play that authoritarians have developed so well all around the world. An example is Bukele who has more than 1,500 YouTube or Facebook pages that talk about everything and include his politics in his social media. We need to start doing the same and we wrote it exactly that. How do you do it within your own people, within your own communities, to put broccoli, so things that people might not generally like, like politics, into the rice, so the nice content about makeup, so that you start changing the discourse yourself? Yeah, no, it's a really important point because after the last election, I mean, this is why we're on a podcast. So it's one of the reasons I brought up this point. After the Democrats lost in 2024, there was this kind of pretty predictable freak out. Oh, Trump won, you know, by going on all these podcasts, you know, Theo Vaughn and Joe Rogan and people like that in the United States. And the Democrats are like, maybe we have to go on the podcast too. And I think what they missed is, you know, Joe Rogan is a comedian. And a UFC commentator, right? He's not, he didn't start in politics, like he started with the rice. The thing that people were attracted to was his kind of curiosity and his background. And, you know, he's funny, they think or whatever. And then, you know, that gives him more credibility in some ways. You know, politics is downstream from culture, as you would say, to when he has a political conversation, he's built up a credibility with the audience. And I think that's an important message for us. Now, this is, you know, one of many, you know, lessons you have embedded. Nick, I want to ask you, though, to this question of messaging, you know, one of the things that Trump and other authoritarians have done is they kind of talk about a corrupt system and then they themselves are phenomenally corrupt, you know, and we've seen corruption become, you know, a tool that has worked against authoritarians. It just worked against Viktor Orban in Hungary. What lessons do you take from how corruption can be a way of going on offense against authoritarians and what other lessons are there about the forms of messaging that can help drive arguments against authoritarians who are kind of trying to control, in some ways, the media space? Oh, it's a good question. I think, you know, it's also very, I need to point out that the authoritarian populism rises not because people love it, but also because democracy failed to meet their needs. They're talking about corruption also because of it. But the problem with authoritarians is that they changed. And yeah, maybe they no longer rise with tanks and stage coups, but now they build popularity and win these elections. But the problem with people not realizing that once they elected, they erode democratic institutions. They destroy independent media and concentrate power and weaken civic spaces. So they slowly, like a frog in slowly heater water, by the time you realize it, you are already in autocracy. Building this toolkit, we wanted to show that the time, that progressives needs to learn also. And sometimes we are also doing wrong. And when we're talking about democracy, we not need only to defend democracy, we also need to renew it. And yeah, these 10 volumes, as Fede mentioned, they are two core volumes. Yeah, they are authoritarian playbooks, which helps identify and understand authoritarian tactics, and democratic playbook, which brings together the all best knowledges from all our sector of our toolkit. But talking about, yeah, talking about public conversation. Yeah, I think the progressives needs to change how they do it in the digital environments, because the authoritarians, actually, they are the first one who understand this, these spaces, and they have a clear advantages, like Bukele, as mentioned in El Salvador, or even even in even Orban in Hungary, but he lost. Yeah, I mean, this is influence no longer works through the single message or messengers, but the through ecosystems. And this is what we did in our data, actually, it's mentioned in our authoritarian playbook, that we need to put a broccoli into rice or working with working with influencers, this has to be renewed. And the our message needs to be also simple. We need to stop be very preachy. Yeah, so that's my that's my thought about the changes. Well, in federal, what do you what do you take? I mean, there's a lot in here, what would you want to highlight for people as some of the key learnings that you're seeking to kind of spread to other like minded people, people are asking us whether we want a different way of doing politics. And this is what we're thinking about when we talk about the authority and the authoritarian toolkit. So we are bringing new practices into what has been hold and talking about the several lessons that can be learned. First of all, as Nick was saying, is how do we manage digital communication? So we were talking about putting broccoli in the rice, but this is not the only thing we need to, for example, have networks of influencers, change the way in which we talk about politics, come and talk about real values. You were talking about corruption before, Ben, there is one thing really important that I want to say about corruption. Authoritarians use corruptions as their main enemy from the other side. So when they're discovered as the corrupted one, this is the moment in which they start losing. One of the things that we have to do is exactly exposing this corruption and see how the moral authority from which they're coming to expose the other side is corrupted. It's actually the one that is breaking them because they're not. And an example that you were giving about Marger and Orban, well, Marger won exactly because he managed not only to expose this corruption, but also to go on the ground. And he visited like more than 1000 little places during his own campaign, so that while he was attacking on the other side, he was meeting people one by one and building a vision. This is another thing that we have seen in several campaigns that really worked like the Mandami campaign. We're not talking just about exposing what is wrong from these authoritarians. We're also giving people a vision of what is it that word that we would want and that we would like. So all of this, together with working with the whole digital ecosystem. And what I mean by that, we generally think that democracy is protected either by politicians, either by journalists, either by civil society. What we say here is that we what we say here is that we don't have those are not three words that work separately, we need to put together the whole democratic ecosystem that is built on these different pillars and make and let them work in a way that they support each other. We have one whole volume and place on how the political side can actually work and collaborate with civil societies and journalists in order not only to win campaign, but to expose corruption to expose the authoritarian race. And so be stronger together. This is I think something new that we have that we have seen with all our researches and interviews, that it is the moment in which we have the whole democratic system working together that we can actually win. And every thing can be found in our website, anti-authoritarian.com. So if anyone listening to us is interested, you can just think go and give a look to what we're putting up together at anti-authoritarian.com. And so you've got I mean, just to pull out the things we've talked about, you know, the idea of building networks of influencers, the idea of engaging people on the things that they're interested in, then working your way into politics, that's the broccoli into rice, the need to spotlight corruption to kind of turn the tables on the authoritarians, the need to show up everywhere, like you said, Magyar did to get out into the field to go to places maybe that progressives haven't been showing up before. Nick, are there any lessons that you want to add to that from the work that you've done about how do you mobilize people? How do you get people out to actually vote? And also, one other thing that you guys have is, is examples of where this worked? Are there case studies? Are there places, you know, Fed mentioned, you know, Mamdani in New York, we've talked about Hungary, are there are there places that you would spotlight where we can learn from progressive successes against authoritarians? Oh, of course, the whole of the whole toolkit is designed to be adapted. Yeah, I we always say that, take that works for you, adapt the rest and, and use whatever it in whatever you are. So I wanted to, you know, when I just wanted to amplify this is the huge of work which was done by, by not only by the D hub, but by democracy defender worldwide, because we spent almost two years and talked with doing like 100 interviews with the people, you know, the people of the D hub, but but democracy defender worldwide, because we spent almost two years and talked with doing like 100 interviews with the people of the D hub, but but democracy defender worldwide, because we spent almost two years and talked with doing like 100 interviews with the people of the D hub, because like we spent almost two years and talked with doing like 100 interviews with the people of the D hub, because real people who was fighting for democracy who fought or who lost in their battles, and we really wanted to create some kind of not a publication, this is not a publication, this is it's a, it's a hands on resource designed to be used by the people right now. I, this is, this is, I cannot say right now this is, this is, this is, I cannot say right now that there is something which we can work for that there is something which we can work for that there is something which we can work for instance in United States or it was with the instance in United States or it was with the instance in United States or it was with the best what works in for Hungary or in best what works in for Hungary or in Poland. Poland. Poland. But this, but the thing is like, But this, but the thing is like, But this, but the thing is like, people can connect. people can connect. people can connect. We are as progressives sometimes We are as progressives sometimes We are as progressives sometimes losing the hope that we can win. losing the hope that we can win. And we finally have something And we finally have something And we finally have something which can help us to continue. which can help us to continue. I coming from the background when I, I coming from the background when I, I coming from the background when I, I don't need a hope. I always say that I I don't need a hope. I always say that I don't need a hope to continue to fight don't need a hope to continue to fight don't need a hope to continue to fight and to resist. This is what I was and to resist. This is what I was taking from from the queer community in taking from from the queer community in taking from from the queer community in Belarus because we were we were we were Belarus because we were we were we were Belarus because we were we were we were existing before existing before existing before this concept of hope. So now I think this concept of hope. So now I think when we have this material which can be when we have this material which can be when we have this material which can be used and implemented in different used and implemented in different used and implemented in different societies or different regions, societies or different regions, societies or different regions, that's kind of impressive. This is what that's kind of impressive. This is what we that this is what we wanted to do. we that this is what we that this is what we that this is what we that this is what we wanted to do. And also this is like is what we that this is what we that this is what we wanted to do. And also this is like non-stop process. non-stop process. non-stop process. This is like the toolkit will be updated. The toolkit will be The toolkit will be The toolkit will be like like we will be updating through like like we will be updating through like like we will be updating through our website. It's a podcast. It's our our website. It's a podcast. It's a podcast. It's our video. It's it's everything. So Fede, video. So Fede, video. So Fede that might be either replicated or that might be either replicated or that might be either replicated or adapted to other places. So I take your adapted to other places. So I take your point, Nick, that the that it's not going point, Nick, that the that it's not going point, Nick, that the that it's not going to be exactly what happened in Hungary to be exactly what happened in Hungary to be exactly what happened in Hungary and New York City is going to work in and New York City is going to work in and New York City is going to work in Italy, for instance, but that there are Italy, for instance, but that there are Italy, for instance, but that there are lessons you can take and then apply and And that just there's something empowering about the sharing that you're doing in that regard. Do you, when you look around the world the last couple of years, the time you were working on this, where did you see democratic campaigns? And I don't mean the democratic part in the U.S. or Italy, for that matter. I mean, you know, small d democratic campaigns. Where do you see the most innovative strategies that we can be learning from in the battles to come? Let me add something on exactly that, not only the most interesting strategies, but what ATK is needed for. So as Nick was saying, as you were underlining, we cannot take plays and exactly use them in one country. But I give you like a very specific example of a play that I thought was extremely interesting. And now people like me in my own country or like a person, one of the people that wrote the Antediluvian toolkit, Agustin is right, is using in his country, is the play of distributed, distributed organizing. So this was a play that was developed from one of our friends, friends in France, right before the parliamentary elections in France a couple of years ago. So Macron calls for elections three weeks before the actual elections. So people didn't really have the time to organize around the elections and understand what they could do. So what they did is that all of these people came up into a into a Zoom call. And they started organizing in order to have a get out the vote campaign and also to understand who they had to move in terms of candidates to allow for the Front National not to win. And so what they developed was like a central team that was like very, very small and that was not controlling. But this central team was basically managing the communication of what is it that they can communicate to people that it's going to work and then share the messages with thousands of organizations, influencers, people that could actually move the base and so that this message could get to a wider public as possible in a way that was not coordinated. I mean, that was coordinated, sorry, but that was not controlled. So the main part of the message was there, was developed by central team. But then everybody from influencers to organizations could adopt this message and communicate it in the best way that they needed to in order to reach their own target. And in this way, they managed to do these two things, develop a huge GOTV campaign that allowed them to not have the Front National and so the far right party in France win, but also to then have a massive influence on candidates. So which were the candidates that needed to go down in order for have at the local level, let's put it like this, in order not to have Front National win and they did it. And so now what we are trying to do here in different countries for elections that are coming, it's sort of like replicating the same play, but in a more organized way. So we are adapting this play. And we're trying to put together from now influencers, civil societies, journalists that want to have specific topics to talk about for the elections and then have a GOTV campaign run on these topics that will be supported or we hope are going to be supported by central left party/democratic parties that go against the far right. So what we did here was taking the example of what was used in France and worked, wrote it in the AATK, into the anti-authoritarian toolkit as a play, so a tactic. And then now activists like me are taking it, changing it and adapting to their own national country and context. And this is just one idea, but on anti-authoritarian.com people are going to find 10 volumes on 10 different topics, all of them with plays and more than 150 cases of what worked in the AATK. In different countries and literally and how to, so how can you do this play from one to seven steps, including tips to make it work in your own context? So the idea is that really this is something live. We want people to take it, use it, make mistakes, but at least try and have something from scratch, like from to start from. Because I remember that as an activist, it was really hard because you had no idea from where you had to start. And now, at least. We have something that tell us those are the things that are working around the world. You can take it, you can change them, you can use them. This is what we're looking for. Yeah, no, I think the distributed organizing is an important point. And I mean, it resonates here in the United States because I think Democrats sometimes are trying to figure out the perfect set of talking points or, you know, the one message that's going to work across the country or are we moving to the left or to the center? But the idea is if you have some core arguments and. Core values and core anti-authoritarian messages like, you know, Trump is wildly corrupt and is actually looting the government for his own purposes, not trying to fix a corrupt system that you then allow for a coordinated dissemination of that messaging that, you know, Zohra Mamdani is going to have one message in New York City, but James Tallarico is going to have a different version of that message in Texas. There'll be a common DNA, but there'll be this distributed organizing where it's different in different. Parts of the country. And that's kind of part of what needs to happen around the world. I mean, just to wrap this up, I just say the main thing is that there needs to be coordination among politicians, activists, civil society, even sometimes journalists, as you say, independent journalists, but also just among like minded people around the world because the far right has been very networked, very coordinated. You guys have experienced that in your own lives and work. We're all experiencing that around the world. It's a starting point for trying to create a kind of living resource for people. So, again, we'll put this in the show notes. I encourage people to check out the Anti-Authoritarian Playbook, the Toolkit and D-Hub in general. So, Nick and Federica, thanks so much for the work you've done on this and for joining us today. Thank you, Ben, for having us. Thank you so much. Thanks to Nick and Federica for coming on the show. And we'll talk to you guys soon. We'll talk to you soon. 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