The Art of the Venezuela Oil Deal

(upbeat music) - Welcome back to Plads Avidworld, I'm Tommy V Torx. - I'm Ben Rhodes. - Ben, have you seen the clip of the like three massive hurricanes that have formed in the Pacific, thanks to El Nino and I guess climate change? - Yeah, I didn't have hurricanes on my list. I knew fires, I should be concerned about earthquakes. But now I guess we have all manner of natural disasters I hear in California. - Earlier this week, there was a report that L.A. might get hit with a hurricane on the Labor Day. - Yeah. - I don't know if that's gonna happen anymore, but what the hell is going on? - We're kind of whistling past the climate apocalypse. - Yeah. - It's all the other apocalypse disasters. - Yeah, there's an AI apocalypse. It's kind of hovering around us. There's climate change apocalypse that I sometimes worry about. I don't know, 31 flavors of nightmares I guess. - Let's just say the roof of my nine year old house was not built for the atmospheric rivers that have been hitting something up for me. So I'm a little worried about stuff dripping. Like I, you know, yes, it's not gonna be good. - And I have a three year old and a two year old and they are outdoor cats and they are not gonna like be an inside if we're dealing with monsters. Anyway, this could be a fun show 'cause we are guys who like to have a good time. - Always. - When things real shitty. So what we're gonna do today, we're gonna review six months of Trump's perfect war with Iran. We're also gonna talk about this resumption of fighting that's kicked off over the weekend and I've gotten a lot worse today. - Yep. - Right before we went in, there was a bunch of, there's an exchange of ballistic missile fire that we'll talk through. We're also gonna talk about how the Iran war's led to some pretty dire warnings from some of the most senior military leaders about the strain the war is having on the US military. Then we're gonna walk you through this truly crazy deal the Trump administration announced last week where the Pentagon is gonna take a stake in a Venezuelan oil company. - That's a real sentence. - Yes, it is. - That's a thing that is apparently gonna happen the Pentagon is getting warrants to own an oil company. Actually, it's based in Barbados. It's not even Venezuelan. It's Barbados. - Those good taxes for the Department of War. - Yeah, save on your taxes over there. So no potential for corruption there. - Zero. - Then we're gonna explain who wasn't, who was not invited to the G20 finance meeting in North Carolina. We'll tell you about the latest on the recovery efforts after this just biblical-looking flood and landslide in Nepal and China, one of the scariest things I've ever seen in my life. Why Iceland declined to join the European Union and then a crazy story out of South Korea that's worth watching. And then, then I did our interview. It's with David E.B., the premiere of British Columbia. We talked about the Trump trade war. We talked about the reaction from average citizens in Canada about all the things Trump has done, spoiler alert, their pissed. - Yeah. - And it's not just this, they're pissed about the 51st date, the annexation threats, the shit talk, the calling, Karni, the governor, like all of it. And interestingly, he is not a member, premiere E.B. is not a member of Karni's party. He's like N.E.P.D. to the left. But there is cross-party support. There is, I think, was a poll we talked about last week, 72% support for Karni walking away. So it just feels like a fight that is destined to get worse and not better because Trump has like so thoroughly enraged average Canadians and awoken the sense of Canadian nationalism that is, I don't know, seems pretty durable. Maybe I'm wrong. - I think you're right, because they have both sovereignty and political incentives to not capitulate to Trump. And I don't even know what Trump's trying to achieve. I mean, that's it's like the Iran War which we're talking about. Like what is his goal in the trade war? Like we don't know other than you got mad. - Good question. Yeah, I don't think it's soft wood lumber. All right, well, let's start with Iran. So we're about six months into the war with Iran. We are going to discuss some of the great achievements from Mr. Trump's excursion into Iran that was supposed to be four weeks. But first, we're just going to walk you through this latest round of airstrikes and fighting. So over the weekend, there was an exchange of fire between the US and Iran for the first time in a month. Scentcom said they fired at Iranian troops that were trying to lay minds in the street of Hormuz. In response, Iran fired missiles at Jordan. All those were shot down by interceptors. The UAE also said they intercepted an Iranian drone over their waters. And the Wall Street Journal said reported that several ships have been struck by projectiles in the street of Hormuz over the past couple of days. But then today on Tuesday, the US conducted a bunch more strikes that they said were intended to reduce the risk of Iranian, you know, Iran firing on ships. And then right before we started recording, video started circulating of Iranian ballistic missiles that have been fired back in response to the US. Here's Fox News' trade yinxed relaying his conversation with President Trump from earlier Tuesday. Let's watch. I just spoke with President Trump, who indicated that if the Iranians respond to these US strikes against their country, the president said they'll be hit much harder. He went on to say today's strikes were a very big hit. And if it goes a third time, they're going to be totally wiped out as a country. Now I asked the president what was hit tonight in Iran, specifically in the southwestern part of the country, next to the straight of Hormuz. President Trump says a lot of radar and added that they were trying to rebuild the radar systems. And the United States was watching. And then just before they completed this construction, that's when these strikes took place. The president says the USS George Washington, that new aircraft carrier that arrived in theater last week, is loaded to the Gills with ammunition. And he indicated that they have enough to continue this fight against Iran. Again, if the Iranians do decide to respond. So we now know the Iranians have responded. Look at a little state media clip there. Yeah, yeah, you know, trade yinx has done some really good reporting back in the day and like coverage out of Tel Aviv. It's real bummer that he's become like a Trump phone call guy. Incredibly like he's going to, how many times has he been about to destroy Iran with the third strike? Right, not a lot of scrutiny on these statements. So on Monday, Axios reported the US was considering this like long-term mode of grass strategy, where they just periodically degrade Iran's military assets in the region. Ben, one might describe that as a forever war. One might. Tell me maybe because it's six months and I'm in a retrospective mood, I'm going to start with one thing, which is, you know how Trump likes to talk a lot about how these other countries are free-loaders? You're, you know, especially allies in Europe and Asia. Do you remember that country that has a prime minister that helped convince Trump to do this and is recently boasted that he was able to get Trump to bomb Iran? Do you remember how at the beginning of this war, Israel was part of it? Yeah. What? Not so much any more. What happened there? Who's the free-loader here? Because near as I can tell, we're in a forever war, BB's running a reelection campaign on how he convinced Trump to do this. That's what he said. That's not me. So anyway, just put a pin in that one. It's a good point. The election is. We never talked about that. And we've kind of memory-holded that they were a part of the war and then suddenly they weren't. And we never talk about that. Yeah, not a deal. Stop, stop. Yeah, look, what's happening here tactically is pretty evident, which is, you know, the Iranians have successfully closed the straight-of-form moves. The Trump administration is going around boasting about the fact that through a combination of tactics, you know, apparently ships in the dark of night close to Oman, the destruction of some of these radars so that the Iranians can see that. We've now won the great victory, Tommy, not of changing the Iranian regime or destroying the Iranian nuclear program or obliterating the Iranian navy or military, or all the other things that have been claimed. We're now claiming victory because traffic to the straight-of-form moves is like out of 40-- 60% of what it was. 60% of what it was. Something like that. So all we're doing now is hitting the Iranians to try to stop them from hitting tankers, to try to eat a few extra tankers to a straight that was open for the war began. And that's not a durable solution because the Iranians are not going to disappear. They live there. And they will continue to escalate, I think, militarily. They have issued some warnings in recent days that they're going to return to hitting all these countries at host US military facilities and places where some of these strikes are taking place from. And so we're just another escalation cycle that is entirely about fighting over this control of the straight-of-form moves. Why is that preferable to just cutting some deal diplomatically that opens the straight-of-form moves and just calling this thing a day? Why do we have to spend tens of billions of dollar or more money? We'll get into the depletion of stockpiles. We need to update on the cost. If they're keeping 50,000 US service members in the Middle East, hundreds of billions of dollars. All these ships are there, like anywhere, we're naked, everybody else. Yeah, let's stick to some of the stats. By the way, though, if you like foreign policy coverage that doesn't just take Trump's phone call and repeat what he says, please subscribe to Potts' equivalent here in New York. We're getting a plug. We are trying to build a progressive counterweight to all the right-wing crap you see from Fox News in particular that is advocating for war. And when you subscribe to our channel, you help us grow and you also help us get good information into the YouTube algorithm and get good information to people. So please do also, it's free. So just a couple of stats, Ben. The casualty count is now, after six months, 757 wounded 18 Americans dead. We don't know the real casualty count in Iran, but the journal estimates 3,000 dead related to combat operations. Obviously that also, that number is bigger and you include also billions, including well over 100 girls at a school. Despite claiming he was going to rescue the protesters' life for Iranians in Iran is horrible. Inflation is that 80% inflation for food items is way worse. The Guardian reported that vegetable oil in Iran in August cost 383% more than it did a year ago. The price of eggs rose by 294%, chicken by 177% and red meat by 148%. Oil prices dropped 23% in the US gas prices up by 38%. The chief economist at Moody's put the cost of war at over $1,200 per American household between gas and inflation and interest rates. To your point earlier about shipping through the street of Hormuz, so pre-war levels were about 130 shipped per day. This data firm Kepler says that in recent weeks it's about a dozen ships per day going through this trade. So that is way, way, way down. There have been 71 attacks on ships since the war started killing 19 sailors Iran is attacked. Israel, Qatar, Iraq, Syria, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, and Kuwait. So we've ignited this nice little regional conflict creation. I guess the only good thing you can say about the Iran conflict is that it's currently only six months long, but the fighting we saw today suggested we could see in other six months quite easily. Yeah, and first of all, I still find it strange that we think there was something called the 12-day war last year. Because this gets to the cost. We've had an advanced force posture in the region since that 12-day war. This is in some ways more than the 6-1-4, but if you take the 6-month thing, I think the fundamental problem remains the flaw at the outset of the war. Which, I mean, one flaw is just you shouldn't fight wars, you don't need to fight. But the other flaw strategically was, I don't think Donald Trump in his own mind knows what purpose this war is and is serving anymore. You know, it was, he was completely convinced that the Iranian regime would collapse quickly and there'd be some Venezuela-like transformation which we'll get to when we get to Venezuela. And since that didn't happen, like he just can't identify a way to end the war because there's no way to end the war without accepting the fact that this was a pointless endeavor. You know, like there's not going to be some miraculous victory of the Iranian regime surrendering. So it's just going to be tit-for-tat and tit-for-tat until Trump realizes that the best you're going to get is opening up the street or movies, basically. And so it's an absurd reason. It's a truly absurd reason to be fighting a war. The incalculable cost is the extent to which this is like a body blow to whatever remained of America's, I don't even say standing anymore, because long-term this is going to make Middle Eastern countries, you know, see US partnership is dangerous at worst, unreliable at best. It is completely screwed over allies who are going to start to hedge aggressively from the United States and seek other arrangements, whether it's with China or other countries. And just public opinion, I mean, I find myself, Tommy, like not, I don't trust what the Pentagon says, I have trouble. Even it's not that I don't trust, but this regurgitation of Trump phone calls, you know? Yeah, but that's only a few. That's a few reporters and a few outlets. I agree with you, but then a lot of others are doing, like, pretty backbreaking reporting. We'll get some of that in a bit. But it's never good when, like, you have this kind of, a country that already lacked confidence and information. And I think we may look back on this war, it's like a bigger thing than it even feels like now, and it feels pretty big in terms of, like, trust and institutions. And then lastly, I just want to put a pin on this, because you and I text about a lot. The economic disruptions you described are contributing to this anxiety that we see most probably in the bond markets, where you have unsustainable fiscal situations in countries. You've got, you know, growing deficits, growing debt obligations, and then countries are making that worse, because we're having to spend money to fill the gap to try to fight inflation, because of higher energy prices, like this feels like a straw on the back of a camel that, you know, it feels poised to break. And so don't forget to tie whatever economic disruptions we face in the next year to impart this decision. Oh, no doubt. I mean, we talked about it on a recent show, the degree to which increased oil costs have led to all these disturbances in the Japanese bond market, for example. But yeah, I mean, just to put a some data behind that, like the 30-year US Treasury yields are near two-decade highs, that's because people are dumping US treasuries, 10-year bond yields in Japan or above 3% for the first time since 1996. In the UK, their bonds are the highest levels since 2007 in Germany, the highest since 2011. Our debt is $40 trillion. That's 120% of GDP. France's debt is over $4 trillion, which is $117% of GDP. Japanese debt is two times their GDP. So like, I'm not usually like a big deficit debt guy. We've heard so many warnings about it over the year. We need to bring back children bowls here. Yeah. But at some point it becomes the, you know, just servicing the debt, becomes so unbelievably expensive that like investors will lose confidence. One last point on this, it's just likely that the kind of status quo is going to lead to higher costs in terms of, you know, the price tag, but also cost in terms of human lives because USA Today had a report out today about this new Iranian missile, but they had deployed that is apparently the one causing a ton of damage and breaking through air defenses and hitting bases. They call it the castle breaker. It's a mobile lunch missile that has a 900 mile range and the warhead can like maneuver at the, as it's coming down. So it's evading US missile defense systems and they think that that's what killed through US troops in Jordan that can July. So if they have a big stockpile of these things, they start launching them at US bases like more service members are going to die. And this is what happens in every war, right? Adversaries innovate, you know, and they figure out different missiles or different drones that can penetrate different defenses at the same time that we have emissions problem, which we'll talk about. But the other thing that's, you know, notable is that the Iranian President just met with Putin and, you know, the Chinese and the Russians and the Chinese have incentive to help the Iranians innovate and help make this more costly to us. They are a beneficiary of this war, like make no mistake because it bogs us down. It drains our munitions. It drains our credibility. It dries up energy prices, which is good for Putin. So I'd watch that space too. So there's also these concerns within the Pentagon's top top military leadership, the Washington Post reported this out. They had they reported that a twice monthly report called the Secretary Defense Order Books or STOB contained some notable dissent from within the ranks of the military leadership on the direction of the war, who reportedly think that the Iran operation has gone on and it's been quote too much for too long. So this is described by the post, the STOB quote outlines the worldwide availability of U.S. warships, aircraft, personnel, weapon systems. It reflects the president's priorities for the force, which are carried out by the Secretary Defense. So some of the moves Hexath has made that seem to have concerned or pissed off some of the combatant commanders are things like, you know, he's extending the deployment of a bunch of troops in the Middle East until next year. The head of the Pacific command is not thrilled about having to send a carrier strike group, so an aircraft carrier and the destroyers that travel with it from his area of operations in Asia to the Middle East. The post says the Navy in particular is feeling taxed and overextended due to long deployments for the force and then wear and tear on naval assets. We've talked about that in the context of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Ben, I talked to a bunch of people who worked at top jobs of the Pentagon about this post-tory and most of them said basically the same thing, which is like it's not unsurprising or all that rare to have combatant commanders non-concur on an order. Non-concur means, I don't like it but I'll do it. It's like, you know, with your spouse, you're like fine, we can get tied but I'm not happy about it. It's passive aggressive. I do like tie. I do that all. I like it a lot of tie. So, but like the way to understand this is like, you're a combatant commander, you have a specific region, you have a specific job in their scarce resources. So it's no surprise that if you're the guy in charge of the Indo-Pacific, you're going to be pissed off when the aircraft carrier in your region goes to the Gulf again. So they thought that was not surprising, but everyone thought it was extraordinary that this leaked because they suggested a level of anxiety, frustration, and anger about Hexath decision-making that is so high that someone was willing to risk ending their career, getting court-martialed, you know, maybe going to prison to leak this to the post. Yeah, I think, first of all, in the substance of it, look, why does this matter? You know, at the far end, it matters because if we have a reduced force posture, reduced munitions, and all the rest of it, the huge scenarios you can or concerned about are a Russian, provocation, or military action into Europe, which we've been talking about as a risk, you know, the Baltic states or somewhere else, or some Chinese action in Taiwan. Apparently, such a risk that the CIA director flew to Moscow by that time. Yeah, so this is like, you know, I don't think it's likely, but at the precise time that we appear to be concerned about, you know, at least one of those scenarios. Then beyond that, like the other thing is that these forces are often used for things like, you know, joint military exercises, like the kind of routine functioning of how we work work with allies, how we do things like freedom of navigation operations and the Pacific and the South China Sea, it just makes it harder for these people to do the kind of routine elements of their job. And there are other kind of things that could happen like natural disasters where you as a military get up out of it. It's just not a good thing in principle to have this diminished to presence. Even if nothing goes wrong, and I should say for what purpose, it's not like we're fighting the Nazis here, it's not even like it's right after 9/11 or something, like why we're doing this because of an episodic decision that Trump made in February on an ad hoc basis. On your latter point, there is a clear sign that there's just no confidence in headset. Even though he's purged people that these are the people who remain after the purges. The people leaking or the ones that survived him firing a bunch of people and not promoting a bunch of people, so these aren't like left wingers, I don't think. And it shows you that they just fundamentally don't trust his leadership and don't think that he listens to them because my sense, the military does not usually leak this kind of thing. And that suggests that they don't feel like they have an outlet to either headset or even frankly to Congress, which oftentimes is an advocate for the uniform military. So it shows you how bottled up things are and how pent up the frustrations are. Pots of the world is brought to you by Helix. Sleep is unbelievably important to me. When I sleep well, I feel great and I feel like I am in a better mood, sharper, able to exercise and do all the things I want to do. And when I got a terrible night sleep like I did last night, everything is harder and worse. And real good sleep starts with the right mattress, upgrade your sleep quality with a Helix mattress. How do you know which mattress is right for you? Take the Helix sleep quiz and get matched with the perfect mattress based on your personal preferences and sleep needs. They have over 20 mattress models so you can find the perfect model for you. Helix delivers your mattress right to your door with free shipping in the US. 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Please support PodSafe the world and tell them we sent you. Speaking of that purge, on Monday we learned that the Secretary of the Army is now out at the Pentagon. This is a guy named Dan Driscoll. He has repeatedly butted heads with Hegseth according to news reports over the last year or two. He's very close to JD Dance. I think there are classmates at Yale Law School. The main beef between them seemed to be Driscoll's objection to Hegseth purging other top military leaders that he just didn't like often because they were women or they were black or they were, I don't know, at a mind of their own. During the April firing of the then army chief of staff, Randy George, a move that Hegseth made while Driscoll was on vacation, very courageous there, Pete, and a position that hasn't been filled. There's also been a bunch of, there's like three other top army leaders that Hegseth forced out. The army is down from 10 four star generals to five four star generals since Hegseth was installed at the Pentagon. I think all of us would agree that there were probably too many like very senior leaders of the Pentagon, but that seems like there's been a bunch of stories about kind of the way the army in particular is rudderless in this moment and Driscoll leaving is going to add to that. Driscoll also reportedly objected to Hegseth firing a couple of black officers and a couple of female officers or at least preventing their promotions. He also was sent to Ukraine for negotiations that made Hegseth feel threatened and also Hegseth seemed to think that Driscoll might be groomed to replace him because he is not up to the job. I don't know. It seemed bad. And also Hegseth apparently wants the Pentagon flak Sean Parnell to replace him, which is the idea of like the assistant secretary in charge of communications taking over as head of the army is like unheard of to me or maybe I'm just wrong, but like that seems crazy. Yeah. Hegseth is there's a Hegseth issue and then a related Trump issue, right? The Hegseth issue is the complete lack of regard for competency in the US military. Like we've seen this in other Trump agencies, particularly in the second term, where they really don't care if positions go unfilled if people are competent or not. All they care about is like extreme loyalty, extreme on message. Like when I say jump, you say hi, how high or when I show up to like do pushups with you for a photo op, you act like a, you know, essentially trained seal. And it's one thing when we hear those stories at like, you know, and I'm not trying to diminish these other agencies, but like, well, I don't even want to name them. But you know, like the EPA or the ones that they want to destroy, you know, the US military is not a place to like do this level of the destruction of competence and purchase. Like, make no mistake. These are again, hundreds, thousands of years of experience like, you know, being sent out the door, being shown in the way, a transformation, the demographics of the senior ranks, the military, like that's bad. The Trumpian piece that I worry about, we've talked about kind of the authoritarian watch on the military, is in the last two years of the Trump administration, I just have a feeling, like, especially if they lose the midterms, like shit can get really weird. Like that, that could be when he wants to like, you know, make a move on Greenland over the objections of Congress, or maybe he'll come back to wanting to put the military in the streets, you know, and it does feel like this effort to come transform the military into some compliant, you know, this guy resigned. It's not exactly like a resistance lib, you know, he's against buddy. And so you makes you wonder, like what the bar is to be in a decision making role at the Pentagon, and A, does that mean they might be more likely to go along with truly crazy shit that Trump asked them to do? And B, like we allowed to look past Trump, like, oh my god, what kind of Pentagon is the next president going to inherit? You know, if you're a Democratic president, you're going to walk into a military that has been emptied out of anybody except the most die hard Maga Loyalists, or yes men, and they're all men. And they will have lost all this capability, and we'll probably also have like hundreds of billions of dollars in boondoggle contracts with like the likes of Don Jr.'s drone manufacturers. Let's get to that. I'm sure many listeners were confused by recent reports of the Pentagon has led an investment into a Venezuelan oil company. You are not alone. Here's what happened and why this idea seems doomed to failed in the connection to Don Jr.'s. So the investment was led by an office within an Department of Defense called the Office of Strategic Capital, so it was called the OSC. The OSC was set up during the Biden administration. The idea was to make investments in defense industrial production. Remember the war in Ukraine kind of exposed shortages and munitions and other technologies that have since been exacerbated further by the war in Iran. The office's loan authority went from about $1 billion under Biden to over $200 billion under Trump. So they got a lot of cash to move around here. One of the earliest moves under Trump was to loan like $600 million to a company connected to Donald Trump, Jr.'s so great start. What the Trump administration announced last week was that the Pentagon now has an option to take a 35% stake in the parent company of a Venezuelan oil company called North American Blue Energy Partners. That company is run by a guy named Alejandro Betancourt. We'll come back to him in a minute. Under this deal, though, the U.S. has the right to buy 20% of the production from all of the company's current and future oil fields at cost with the right of first refusal to buy the rest of the production. Let's say there's some emergency. We can just try to buy all that oil. Concurrent with that deal, the Venezuelan government granted North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year leases on 17 oil fields with reserves estimated up to $65 billion. So a shit ton of oil is the technical term. Trump is trying to sell this to some sort of like cost. win fall for the American people that's gonna reduce gas prices. But in reality, I think there's a couple of reasons to assume that, like, this thing's never gonna get completed. The first is just the political risk. The next U.S. president could kill this deal. Any Democratic president should. This is like corrupt and stinks the high heaven. The next Venezuelan president could, too, if Trump ever allows elections. And many experts think that this deal violates Venezuela's constitution. And they basically just questioned the legitimacy of any deal made by interim government with a leader installed by the United States at gunpoint. And I think that's a reasonable way to view it. There's also the question of political opinion in Venezuela. Trump was very popular in Venezuela right after the Maduro operation. His approval has steadily fallen ever since. Trump has propped up del C. Rodriguez, who has Maduro's number two in stooge. He's cut side deals like this. Everyone in Venezuela sees all the corruption happening around them. And Venezuelans, let's just say they have a history of being a touch heavy-handed when it comes to taking back oil assets that they feel were really taken from. And then there's the oil itself. So without getting too technical, Venezuelan oil is heavy and thick. You don't just like drill a hole and it comes out. You need specialized equipment. You need an enormous amount of investment. By some estimates, up to $100 billion all in to upgrade the pipelines, the power sources, and everything else. And it could take a decade to develop fully all of these oil fields, which is why I don't think we're ever really going to see much of this oil and why most oil and gas companies are looking elsewhere where the investment required is lower and it's just less like political risk generally. So Ben, I'll pause there. And then I think we should really dig into the corruption piece of this. But I think both of us have the same reaction to this. You read it once, you're like, what the fuck? And then you dig into it and it gets even more bonkers kind of like the deeper you go. Yeah, it's basically like a 2026 finance and natural resources version of imperialism. I mean, this is just straight up imperialism. Like we went in, we removed the leader of the country under, you know, as bad as the guys. He was pretty strange dubious purposes. Like, do we really think that was about narcotrafficking? No, it was about oil. So this is straight up imperialism, that's bad. Like we shouldn't be in that business. Like it's wrong. The second thing is let's talk about the Venezuelan people and then the American people. The Venezuelan people have gotten very little out of this whole enterprise. You know, look, you and I mean, probably in particular, because of my role in Cuba, at times have been on, you know, the wrong side or people have been critical who wanted to remove Maduro and want to remove the Cuban government. And my argument has always been not that I'm not sympathetic to your plight living under an autocratic leader. It's that the United States and particularly Donald Trump doing that is not in service of your interest. And in here we are, like months after this operation and nothing about the Venezuelan government has changed. It's run by the exact same people except not Nicholas Maduro. It's still corrupt. It's still authoritarian. Maria Machado, a member of her noble peace prize winner is like nowhere to be seen. They won't even let her go back into the country. So it's, this was like, this was not about. In the same way that the Iran War wasn't about like bringing democracy to Iran. That's not what this was about. And then the American people, you know, I'm sure on Fox, this has been treated as like some big win. And you know, Rubio likes to, you know, pose in the Maduro sweatsuit on Air Force one. But what are we getting out of this? Like nobody can articulate. Like I think it's wrong. But even if you're like don't care about imperialism and stealing other people's resources. Like I don't, gas prices are up. Like, like I don't know. Nobody's explained how this is going to make anything better for Americans. Like it just, this feels like such a strange inside play that is in this pivot's corruption going to somehow end up lining the pockets of a small set of people in Venezuelan United States. Yes, that's what it is. It just does not feel like anything that benefits any larger interest, either Venezuelan or America. Yeah, like first of all, this is a deal that would make Hugo Chavez proud. This is yeah, you know, like just nationalizing these. So Trump is struggling to get major oil companies to invest in Venezuela because it's too expensive to risky. It's ability in the cost. So they have the Pentagon form a partnership with an alleged money launderer that's who this Betancourt guy is to facilitate this deal. We don't know any of the financial terms as far as I can tell. We don't know if there's other private capital that's part of it or like some secret, you know, side deals to divide up the revenue. Ultimately, it's just part of this, like smash and grab job presidency where Trump gets himself richer. He tries to extract as much money as he can from everything and for his family and for his friend and for people who cut him bright. So I think it's really worth watching who else gets involved in this publicly because I think they deserve some scrutiny. And then again, on Betancourt, he's like a princeling in Venezuela. He got rich by getting state contracts from Hugo Chavez. He later, Backstab, Maduro had to flee the country, came back, became like maybe the reportedly the go between between Trump and Delce Rodriguez and Rubio, like during the Maduro operation or after. Again, but he's been investigated for money laundering and for allegedly helping embezzle more than a billion dollars from Venezuela. The Trump administration apparently lobbied the Swiss government to get them to drop the charges and of this guy is the US government's partner on this deal. Sounds perfect. I mean, sounds perfect. He's like Taylor made for the Trump operation and it just shows you, yeah, it's a smash and grab operation. In the absolute best case scenarios, like you said, take a decade to kind of get this thing online, do we really think Trump's singing that far ahead? Like they're just going to squeeze the juice that they can out of this stuff and spread the money around in a small circle while they can. And this just shows you the lack of regard they have for certainly the Venezuelans. Delce, you know, Delce Rodriguez and her brother get to kind of maintain power and I'm sure they get a cut. This guy gets a cut. People around Trump get cuts and and that's about it. It's not like some grand strategy. This is old fashioned smash and grab and perils. Yeah, I just want to know the financial details because what the US gets is warrants in this parent company of Betencourt's oil company. So the warren is like an option where at a certain price, you can exercise it and apparently they're called penny options. So it sounds like we paid literally a penny for these warrants. But then, you know, if the value of the warrant goes to $10, you exercise the option and then all of a sudden you have all this additional value. So it's interesting because the US government is now incentivized to get these oil fields producing more oil, but also to see the value of this corporation go up, right? Because we have these warrants. Right. We have equity in this fucking oil company. And so my question is, who else has warrants? Like does John Jr. have a bunch like to other corrupt people around the Trump administration because like, imagine like having a warrant in something where the US has a vested financial interest in seeing the share price go up. It's just it's the whole thing. Super shady. The fact that this like Barbados base company just got 100 year titles for Venezuelan oil fields. Like, first of all, that's going to be stuck in litigation in perpetuity. Yeah. We know some of the got people who are proxies. Yeah, we do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's in the fact that it's it's clearly opaque by design. But if you just take a step back, like why is I mean, this is like a leftist fever dream. Like the Pentagon taking a stake in an oil company to steal the natural resources of a Latin American country and put in a shell company in Barbados. Like, that's the thing that is happening in the world, you know, that is completely absurd. If Russia was doing this, you know, there'd be seven trillion Atlantic, I was about it. Like, you know, Ann Applebaum would write a book about it. You know, like, this is like, what the fuck is going on here? This is wild. It's wild. Okay. Glad we got that offer, Chess. Meanwhile, the G20, the finance ministers are meeting as we speak in Asheville, North Carolina. Let me tell you a little bit about the guest list. Ben on the guest list, Russia's finance minister. This was his first time at a G20 meeting since 2022 when the Russians invaded Ukraine. I believe that year it was on Zoom in the Germans like stormed out of the Zoom meeting. This got to be his first trip to the US in a long time. That's in like a hippie town in North Carolina. I love Asheville. Asheville's beautiful. My first political job was in Asheville and Bunkham County. I did debate prep of the Obama. Oh yeah, no way. Nice. It's like beautiful rolling hills. Yes. Clouds and stuff. Great, great town. Okay, so Bessent has a bilateral meeting with the Russian foreign minister not invited to this meeting South Africa or their representative. The Trump administration is still mad at South Africa about a non-existent genocide against white farmers in South Africa. So for those of you keeping a score at home, the guy from the country responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine and also his own country invited the guy responsible for the made up fake genocide not invited. Yeah. So that's how this works out. It tells you a lot. I do think I watched this and Bessent, who's kind of going up my power rankings for odious Trump administration officials. Because it makes his shit talking to the hands up. Yeah, the sheen is off from early Trump, market whisperer, Normi, Scott Bessent. He's becoming more and more just a cartoon. But he's out there demanding that these other countries join his non-existent economic d-day against Iran. speaking for them, he's saying everybody agreed, but notably they're not with him. He's doing that by himself and like interviews. He's got trade wars going against, you know, the Canadian finance minister and terrorists on the Europeans like, this is a place, I mean, again, not to come back to an obsession, the G20s where you're supposed to deal with the global economy, you know, that's what you're supposed to be working on there. These issues in the bond markets would be a normal thing. The bunch of finance ministers should come together and figure out how to coordinate measures to deal with that. And instead, he's just jaw-boning these foreign ministers about cutting off the Iranians and forcing them to sit in a room with the Russians, you know, how do you think the Europeans felt about that? Right. It's honestly worse than not solving the problem. It's like the way you solve the problem right now for a lot of these countries is you end the war in Iran. Yeah. So the gas prices go down and instead he's like, why don't you join us in this effort that's going to make everything worse? Because all these, you know, you can call it economic D-Day, but the Iranians are going to respond to economic D-Day with ballistic missiles. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just, you know, it's, it's smashing up this institution, which I got to tell you like whatever you think of, you know, the international system, the G20 is like, that's your place. That's where you can actually get the most done. And it was the most important institution in some ways of the Obama era. That's where we coordinated the response to the financial crisis. And that's that's cool. Not what they're doing. Like they're just kind of taking their short term obsessions and bringing them into this forum and then bringing their racism into it. I mean, they don't get to choose like who's in the G20 South Africa is in there. And they're in there because they were one of the biggest economies in the world. And also because they're representative of sub-Saharan Africa. So they're kind of representing a region too. And it just chose again the other lack of regard. Meanwhile, the the financial time is just reported. Russia's secretly helping Iran develop supersonic cruise missiles, leaks reveal a program behind one of the most significant no transfers of military technology from Moscow to Tehran. This is what I told you. So Putin, you know, earlier today met with the Iranian President. And you know, I speak some Putin. You know, he talked about how he was admired what they were doing in the war. And we're going to help them wink, wink, wink, you know, and that to me is Putin saying like, yeah, there's this kind of stuff is going to happen. The Iranians are going to get armed. I think Putin also suggested he would help them kind of break this blockade like resupply with some stuff like overland. So we're just driving the Russians and Iranians closer together. And you know, Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, we're getting closer. The Indians are moving in that direction. Like that's us being so contemptuous of these other institutions that we built or driving people into the arms of each other and including the Russians in the Chinese. Did you see that Zelensky said that North Korea may send another 50,000 troops to Russia? Yeah. That is a lot of people. That has a lot of manpower. I mean, Kim Jong-un doesn't seem that. No. Worried about that. Been one of the best deals he's made because it's revived the North Korean economy. Yeah. Then as we were preparing for this episode, I was procrastinating and checking out Twitter. I came across a video that had been posted and then deleted by Israeli National Security Minister, Atomar Ben-Govir. Have you seen this thing? I've seen, unfortunately, the algorithm tends to feed me the Ben-Govir content. Okay. So let's watch what this is the concentration gentlemen posted the same. So this is a bunch of overweight Palestinians being marched into what looks like a concentration camp. Now they're coming up skinny and crying. So for those who couldn't hear me over the soundtrack, Ben-Govir was taking a bunch of overweight Palestinians, bringing them into a concentration camp on a train tracks and then they came out skinny and crying. Again, this was posted by the Minister of National Security. He's part of the Israeli government. He's part of the Netanyahu coalition. His party, Jewish power, has six seats in the Knesset out of 120. Yeah. I mean, let's be very clear about this. There's no question that's concentration camp. Like, there's walls. There's, you know, bar wire. There's a kind of guard tower. The inmates are wearing drab, identical uniforms with numbers on them. They're coming out skinny. This is not at all subtle. And this guy is the National Security Minister of the State of Israel. So is he extremist? Yes. But he's an extremist who is in one of the most important positions in the Israeli government. That is in charge of the police. That plays an enormous role in the West Bank that is fundamental to be being in Netanyahu's political survival these last several years. So he's both a fringe character and a mainstream character. And I have not entered this discourse. I will get out of it very quickly. But we've got a lot of people in this country that when it's spent a lot of time pouring over thousands of hours. We're talking about, we're done talking about the soundpiker and fucking twitch streamers when this is a portion amount of time spent talking about a twitch streamer compared to this gentleman who is in the Israeli government. That's my crazy. This is the only thing I'm going to say about this. Like Hassan is about a five minute drive from here right now is what it is in his house doing its stream. And this guy's helping run the fucking Israeli government. It's crazy. This is the actual problem. And people can try to not look at it. People can try to pretend it doesn't exist. People can call you, I mean, if I said, because that objectively looks like Nazi concentration camps. That's what it looks like. That's not by design. That's an objective reality. That's not my opinion. And if you say that out loud, you get resolutions against you in the Congress. And then the National Security Minister of the State of Israel posts that. And we're supposed to pretend like it doesn't exist in the physical world. Crazy stuff. Speaking of defeating right wing psychos then the midterms are coming up. I don't need to tell you that. Vote Save America has identified 12 of the most beatable Republicans up for reelection this year. We're calling them the crooked dozen. I think we already got two of them out. So kick in the crooked dozen. It is very doable, but it's going to take everybody stepping up between now and election day. Vote Save America is here with practical actions you can take to help us win. It literally takes two seconds. Just sign up at votesafeamerica.com. 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It's split off a mountain, fell 4,000 feet and the force from the The fall was so strong that it registered as a 5.2 magnitudes cycle. event and seemingly like pulverized the ice into water, which went downhill and led to this massive flesh flood. The New York Times reported that the flood waters were so strong that bodies have been found literally hundreds of miles away in India. That's how strong these waters were. As of Tuesday, more than 900 people are confirmed dead, several thousand more missing. The Red Cross estimates that 90,000 people have been impacted by the disaster. Nepal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday that over 10,000 people have been rescued so far, including 323 foreign nationals. Rescueers are still trying to free hundreds of workers who are trapped in tunnels at this like hydro power site. We got this message from CNN International correspondent Hanukkah Montgomery about those rescue efforts. Let's listen. The focus of the story has been about the hydro power plant workers and we spoke to about a dozen or so survivors of people who were rescued from those plants and what they saw was truly devastating. I mean, they were in tunnels working when the flood happened and they said that if they hadn't climbed up higher in the tunnels if they didn't hang on to parts of the wall tightly enough and they would have been swept away in the floods and they saw a lot of their co-workers, their friends, their family members swept away in the floods too. I'm also currently right now in Bharatpur. We are about 60 miles south of the worst hit areas but we're in this area because a lot of bodies, hundreds of bodies have been washing up in this area downstream from the Himalayas. So the disaster is also increasing political tensions between Nepal and China and has raised a bunch of questions about whether China was sharing enough information about flood risks and glacier levels. The Chinese have also removed videos and images of the disaster from social media. They've been accused of covering up the death toll into that so kind of very low surprise. Not a lot of transparency. No, no. I remember that COVID thing. It's also a huge challenge for Nepal's brand new government. A couple of months ago, we covered the election of Borlendra Shah, the 36-year-old engineer and rapper who's now prime minister. He took power in March. There were these huge Gen Z lead protests and now he has to tackle this unfathomable disaster. This is just a climate change for dream. This is entirely a climate change phenomenon. That's why glaciers are falling off of mountains. I should say where we come into it, I'll try to pivot this in something firm because there's a lot of negativity today. Nepal was responsible for less than 0.1% of total greenhouse gas emissions. How would you feel if you're living in a country that did absolutely nothing to cause man-made climate change? Because these other rich countries, the US and China, chief among them, did so little to restrain their own emissions, you've now got mass flooding in your country. It demonstrates the moral necessity as well as the practical necessity to take not just actionists to greenhouse gas emissions but mitigation efforts. The idea that we need to help countries prepare for these kinds of things. That leads into the USAID point. We don't have a USAID. Usually that would be the tip of the spear of our capacity to help a country like Nepal deal with this. Once again, we see the cost of big balls on Nusk and their ketamine-fueled fever dream at the beginning of Trump administration. Now, again, the affirmative part is to be like this is when we ultimately can rebuild a different kind of US foreign policy apparatus. We're going to need to think about climate change and climate mitigation and disaster response again. All these things that are happening that we're seeing a lack of response for, we're going to need not just a US space but a collective effort to deal with emergencies like this because they're going to keep happening. There's a great report in the New York Times that said climate change could erase as much as 75% of the remaining glaciers by 2100. This is coming in pretty quick. Very scary. Speaking of ice, over in Iceland, Icelanders rejected a referendum to restart talks to join the European Union. It said to be clear, this was not a vote about joining the EU. It was a vote on whether Iceland should restart talks with the EU about membership. Iceland had applied in 2009 but they basically shut down talks in 2013. The vote was 52.8% against 47.2% for with over 82% turnout. Pretty damn good. This all came in the wake of Trump's threats to take Greenland but the referendum was moved up a year after Trump mistakenly said Iceland four different times when he was talking about his plan to annex Greenland. So funny. Funny how things happen. Iceland's already a member of NATO which before the Trump era would help deter others from invading you, especially members of NATO, but things change. The fishing industry campaign hard against the referendum, these would force Iceland to open its territorial waters to other European ships. Not surprisingly, the rural areas where these fishermen live voted against referendum, the urban areas were for it. Iceland's already in the EU single market so they get a lot of benefits of membership without being members. Then any thoughts on this vote? And what do you think about the pitch? I actually asked David E.B. about this that Canada should join the EU. Well, I thought this was interesting. I kind of went into an Iceland rabbit hole in this. Look, Iceland is a fairly bespoke and a unique country, obviously given its geographic circumstances in its industries. But it's a good test case of how does a small country deal with global chaos and instability? Because the fundamental argument for coming into the EU fully is that in a really fucking messed up world where there's going to be a lot of conflict and their trade wars and all the rest of it, and there's likely to be financial instability that maybe it's better off like tucking under the tent here, the EU, and that that can provide us with security. The counter-argument would be the inverse, like in that kind of world, like we need to get a hunker down, do our own thing, preserve our way of life, preserve our identity, avoid these clubs, spare our fishing industry disruptions, that kind of stuff. And so I thought it was like an interesting test case of where opinion is in like a very reasonable country, like Iceland is a reason people. They also had suffered the mightily into the 2008 financial crisis, people remember. And so similarly, it's like, do we get closer to these places or do we stay outside the club? And you know, it's yet another brawmer that people are kind of like clinging to their traditional identities, you know, like there's a kind of sovereignty, conscious nationalism, and that's saying Icelandic nationalism is a little different than other places. To me, that's like what's interesting about it. I'm an integrationist, so I probably would have been like one of those urban Icelandic people who voted to join, but clearly people are not sold yet. And Canada is interesting, because what Karnie has to demonstrate is like, is there some alternative way in which medium-sized countries bigger than Iceland can build trade agreements and supply chains and, you know, regulatory regimes together, or do you just got to like jump in the club that's available? You know, I think he would prefer the former than the latter, but we're going to see if that's possible. Yeah. Last story, we wanted to circle back to South Korea. We covered a lot a couple of years ago because of all the madness there, but we haven't touched on it in a while. So listeners might remember former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yool's declaration of martial law back in 2024. It did not go well for him at the time, and now Yoon is set to spend the rest of his life in jail. His wife now was also in a bunch of trouble. She was the genesis of a bunch of political scandals during his tenure. For example, in 2022, she was caught on camera accepting an expensive Dior handbag. But this year she received both a seven-year sentence and a separate four-year sentence for bribery, stock manipulation, and doling out political favors. But where this gets weird and interesting is that her political downfall has also ensnared an 83-year-old woman named Han Hak-jah, who was the widow of the founder of the Unification Church. Listen to me, I've heard of Reverend Sun Young-moon. He called himself the Messiah. He built this cult-like church following. Han is now the heir apparent of the church. She is accused of giving, this is Kim, the former First Lady of South Korea, about $60,000 worth of gifts. The court said the gifts were bribes to increase the church's political power and influence. The Unification Church has a lot of business interests. The financial times said they arranged from skiing to ocean and golf resorts, construction, defense, and automotive parts. They also owned the Washington Times. Newt Gengrich is a columnist there. He wrote a column asking Trump to intervene in Han's case. Weird shit. The New Republic had a great breakdown of the whole story. They pointed out that the church paid Trump $2.5 million for speeches in 2021 and 2022. Here's a clip of him praising Han. I want to thank the Universal Peace Federation. And in particular, Dr. Hak-jah-han-moon, a tremendous person for her incredible work on behalf of peace all over the world. So the Unification Church, also remember the guy who assassinated former Jeffers Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said he did so because of Abe's ties to the Unification Church. The shooter's mom gave away all her money to the church. That was a big thing with the moonies. You're asked to like, sign away your life savings. So it harmed a lot of innocent people in Japan and South Korea. And then in the US has just these Fuck. in weird, long-standing ties to the Republican Party that I think date back to Nixon. So very weird stuff all around and just kind of like interesting to see, you know, Yoon Suk-yul gets drunk one night to Claire's martial law and it pulls a string that unravels to here. To Donald Trump, like, taping videos in front of strings. From space. Backgrounds in space. Never before, you know there's some kind of profit motive for Trump, you know, I'm just going to guess. We don't know. We have to make that disclaimer. Has he pronounced an Asian name that well? He nailed that one. You know, he nailed that one. There's got to be some incentive in it for him. That's the first point. The second point is these $60,000 and gifts, like, you don't think that in a country where this is what's interesting to me, they put like almost all their former presidents in prison, you know, and they're like, you got this stuff is going to get out. You know, like, how do you think you're going to get away with taking the $60,000 with the gifts? Like is it really worth it, you know, it's got to be the tip of it, right? Like, yeah, there's got to be more to it than that probably. And the only thing I want to say about the Washington Times is it triggered me in a way. You know, I know you had a birthday recently, Tommy, so I had to be birthday and you are not at my advanced age and never will catch up. That's one of the things about father time. But do you remember the days when the right, right wing media in this country was like the Washington Times? Ronald Reagan once said that the Washington Times is the first thing he read each day. You know, I'd love to go back to Switzerland. I know. The Washington Times is the only game in town. Then Fox News comes along and now it's this like 31 flavors of madness. But by the way, to your point, like, Han and her chief of staff, I think they're accused of embezzling $7 million in church funds and then they rated her place and they found $26 million in like a safe in the bedroom. It's also one of these churches, if you go down the rabbit hole, no matter how much you read, you can't understand it. You know, like, I can't describe what they believe. It's this kind of cultist thing that is all these business interests and this like rich guy who likes to spread money around to politicians. It's just a very odd eccentric part of geopolitics. The whole thing is odd. Like the M.E.K. Or something. Yeah. Like two of Han's sons were in January 6th and they also run their own like spin-off fringe crazy church now called the Rod of Iron Ministries, which is like infamous for having the worshipers hold semi-automatic rifles. Like just the overlap of these. What are mass weddings? Yeah. The monies of the mass weddings. The whole thing is just fucking bizarre. Very strange. Cults. And so, of course, the Trump people glum onto it. They're like, "How can I get a piece of this?" Yeah. Any organization with a little like cohesiveness that they think they can bolt on to their political coalition. And a kitty similar. Yeah. Maha, RFK, sure. Come on over. Whatever it takes. All right. All right. That is it for Ben and I portion of the show. Let's stick around for my interview. British Columbia Premier, David E.B., we're going to talk about the U.S. candidate at Trade War. What Trump wants out of it, the reaction in Canada, the economic impact, very, very interesting interview. You will want to check it. So, stick around for that. Potty of the World is brought to you by the new podcast, "Birden of Proof" Luigi Mangione. From our friends at ABC Audio in 2020, "Birden of Proof" Luigi Mangione is ripped from the headlines. You already know the story or you think you do. In December of 2024, shots rang out on a Manhattan sidewalk. When United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead. Luigi Mangione has pled guilty to federal charges, but there's so much more to this story. In his new podcast, "Birden of Proof" Luigi Mangione, ABC News Legal Analyst Brian Buckmeyer goes deep into the case in what it means. He'll unpack the murder itself, the two men at the heart of the story, and how this case has affected the conversation about healthcare in America. Leave your preconceptions at the door and follow "Birden of Proof" Luigi Mangione wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad-free on Apple Podcasts by subscribing to 2020 True Crime Plus. Again, that's "Birden of Proof" Luigi Mangione. I'm here today with David E.B., the premiere of British Columbia Canada. A premiere E.B. Thank you so much for doing the show. Well, thanks for having me. I really do appreciate it. So we're obviously talking about the ongoing trade war that President Trump has launched on Canada. It's been a rocky couple of years in US-Canada relations. Trump has called Canada the 51st state repeatedly. He suggested the US would annex Canada. He slapped tariff after tariff on Canada. He's insulted Canadian leaders in the country. First question. What is the mood in Canada about the US and the wake of all this? And do you worry that public opinion could make it harder in the long run to find agreement on a deal? While people are pissed off, there's just no two ways about it. And you can see it in any number of indicators. Like, we've got friends and family and long-time relationships in the United States as Canadians. And our trips to the US are down more than 25% were buying Canadian products and basically any other product of the American products right now. And there's an ongoing liquor boycott. And I'm not sure that's really gotten through. The noise in the United States to just how deeply unhappy Canadians are with the American administration. And it's a conflict in feeling because we still have good relationships with Americans. It's the President and the White House we're really struggling with and I guess the broader administration right now. Yeah. No, it's a totally understandable decision to boycott US items, but then in practice that hurts the human beings producing those in American just average people who own a winery in California or whatever it is. So it just feels like these decisions by political leaders are hurting everybody on both sides. And so when I talk to trade experts or foreign policy experts about the talks between the US and Canada and why they broke down, they'll tell me it was three buckets. The first was tariff and economic, the tariffs and the economic impact on Canadian industries like the auto industry for example. The second was there were provisions that felt like an attack on Canadian sovereignty and the ability for Canada to make bilateral trade agreements. And the third, the thing they'll reference is these cultural points, French language protections in Canada, etc. But then when I look at the Canadians who are commenting on clips we put out here at Crooked Media about this issue from Canada, they will say nope, like we've been done with you guys in America for a very long time. This is about sovereignty, this is about Canada, just like putting its foot down and not getting pushed around anymore. What's the right answer in your view? Both, if that can be true, at the table were elected officials who were having serious conversations at the federal level about trade negotiations and what the Prime Minister and I think our federal team recently understood to be a trade negotiation that it devolved into something different, you can't have trade agreements with these third countries and also we don't want to see French language on packaging and those kinds of things, which were non-starters for them. So that was true for the elected officials at the table. For Canadians, there were polls that said more than half of Canadian, almost 60% of Canadians said no more concessions to the US. We've all watched countries make concessions to the US to this President and then the President comes back for more. Canada has made concessions to the US. We've stepped back from digital services tax and we've stepped back from other initiatives that the President found objectionable, hoping that that would, and I say we, these were decisions made by the Prime Minister, hoping that that would keep us moving forward, but the President just kept coming back for more and I think everyone just understands that agreements not worth anything, basically from the moment the President finishes signing it, it's what's next and we're just done with it, I think, as a collective group. And so it's fine to say you're done with it. The US is a huge market, we're deeply integrated, trade continues, all these other pieces. But almost to a person, certainly Canadians and elected officials, how do we diversify away from the US, how do we build other relationships, how do we protect ourselves, this relationship is not going back to the way it was before and how do we make sure that we're more independent of the US because we allowed ourselves to get too integrated and failed to keep our on-the-prize of ensuring that we're an independent country that can stand on our own two feet and that's what our project is now. Yeah, I think one poll said 76% of Canadians supported the Prime Minister's decision to walk away from the talks, which is just an unheard of level of support for any issue here in the United States. Last Friday, Trump released this executive order where he renamed Lake Ontario, like America, over the weekend he posted a video of Canadian geese with Trump hair and machine guns, which again, I don't really get how it makes sense because they're Canadian geese, but whatever. Obviously, this is childish and stupid, but sometimes symbolic gestures like this have the most potency and political debates. What's the reaction been so far in Canada to the, like, America nonsense? It's so cringe. It's just deeply embarrassing for us on your behalf, and you think that the reaction would be a rage, but most everyone's just like, I mean, it feels like parody, like it's crossed over a line, and if anything, it undermines some of the seriousness that I assume the president wants to bring to his concerns with Canada. So we just carry on, I feel sorry for Americans right now. You guys, you're grappling like we are with a cost of living crisis. The president seems totally indifferent to it, he's destroying your reputation on a global basis. [BLANK_AUDIO] Canadians are your enemy then who's left and you know it just I feel I feel awful for you that this is happening and and we are losing jobs and this is having impact and this is hurting British Columbians and Canadians and and you know we hope for a brighter day of a better administration but to be totally blunt the Democrats have not been clear whether or not if they get elected they're going to end this like what has been described as the stupidest trade war in history and and I hope they do I hope Democrats come and say look you know if we get elected we're going to end this dumb trade war because we all benefit when we work together as as team North America and I think that's true still. Oh I think I I mean look I've been talked a lot of Democrats about this I think there's almost no doubt that they will want to unwide this madness because it's just going to hurt us economically let's talk about the economic impact Canada's looking at tariffs at about 20 tariffs on about 20 billion U.S. dollars worth of goods and potentially half a percentage shaved off of GDP there was one analysis that found Canada could lose 90,000 jobs because of the trade war the CBC says that these newly terrified them represent about 13% of British Columbia's exports to the U.S. can you understand kind of in practice what this impact would be on businesses and individuals in B.C. if it continues. Sure yeah for us you know we're one of the least exposed provinces to the United States because we're on the Pacific coast we trade a lot with Asia and still the U.S. is by far and away our largest trading partner and the sectors that are particularly hit by the President's action the Southwood lumber sector in British Columbia we've always had a tense relationship with the U.S. under multiple administrations around Southwood lumber but the bottom line is Americans cannot provide as much wood as America consumes and so what's happened with the national security tariffs if you can believe it on Canadian softwood we now have worse market access to the United States than Russia and Europe so you are preferring Russian and European imports to Canadian lumber imports to the United States right now and that means and has led to layoffs of Canadians and the closure of mills the softwood lumber prices are already very low and so when you couple that with the tariffs it has an impact but also it has led us to pursuing with the federal government encouraging them to pursue free trade agreements with India for example that does currently have a tariff on Canadian softwood of 10% and if that's reduced to zero under free trade agreement we're going to have a significant new market there so you know this is having impact we are pivoting and and it's kind of disgraceful in my opinion that that our ally the United States has decided to prioritize Russia and lumber imports from that country over Canadian imports yeah that seems insane Prime Minister Karni has promised basically a dollar for dollar tariff response you've suggested he should go further you've floated ideas like reconsidering the purchase of the F-35 fighter jets you've also encouraged Canadians to kind of like take this into their own hands to avoid traveling to the U.S. to buy local products instead of U.S. options on Canadian shelves how much room for escalation do you think there is on the Canadian side I think the Prime Minister's measure has been a very I mean it literally is the definition of proportionate response but it is dollar for dollar in the same areas except for some seafood areas that would have affected the cost of food for a lot of British Colombians and Canadians and so that is kind of the minimum to protect Canadian business in these sectors and encourage Canadians to buy Canadian rather than American to replace and so that piece is great and it's helpful for Canadian business but I'm not sure that it sends the message about how we benefit when we work together so the idea that you get kicked in the back by a friend and then you turn around and you spend $12 billion on fighter jets from that friend and integrate your military further is like how does that make any sense we've got a great proposal from Europe for a bunch of jets from SOB they're going to build a bunch of factories in Canada to put them together let's just move on with that let's deepen our ties with Europe and the rest of the world instead of the United States this is what we should be looking at as well and it doesn't mean this isn't what's going to happen but I'm encouraging the Prime Minister in that direction and at the reasons I think speak for themselves for listeners at home to just understand that you're not in Prime Minister Carnie's political party there has been broad support though for his response so far including from conservatives as well as folks to his left as these tariffs bite and citizens get hurt more or pissed off or you know it's sort of maybe there's cracks in how different politicians think we should Canada should respond to the US the political waters can get rockier how durable do you think you know kind of the support for Carnie is right now in the sense of nationalism and unity you know that one of the great defining characteristics of Canadians that we always point to is that we are a different country from America this is like and you're like well what is that it is a defining thing we think about as Canadians what are we as Canadians well we're not Americans and having that identity as a separate country under direct attack by the president I mean it it might seem silly to Americans or but this is very important to me it's important to all Canadians that we're able to set our own destiny including a destiny that's closely tied with the United States so we can choose that as Canadians and and that's what's under attack and that's what the president and JD Vance and all these guys love to bring up the 51st date and all this in Canada she just they want to be the benefits of the state without becoming a state and on and on it is constant energy for this Canadian movement and the willingness to make sacrifice for it and Canadians have had enough and I think there is a lot of juice in the tank for this obviously as the the cost start start to mount there will be reckoning in Canada on this question but ultimately there is a significant majority that supports this and and also the lesson that we're not going to go back to the way things were before which is an important lesson for Canadians to have taken from this and one that needed to be taken from it. So yeah I mean Prime Minister Karni's sort of core argument was laid out during this speech in Davos I forget when earlier this year last year who knows anymore what times a flat circle he said time for Canada move on from America it's time to build this broader alliance of so-called middle powers I think that makes a lot of sense in theory if you're Canadian it's a little more challenging in practice how do you think he's doing and also one idea I've seen floated is that Canada could join the European Union and diversify away from the United States of that way what do you make of that proposal? Well you can see what the Prime Minister is doing in my opinion he's quite transparent about it including in his speech at Davos is that he is seeking to deepen our relationship including with the EU but also with India with Asia the APEC meetings are going to be happening in China a candle will have a strong presence there seeking relationships with other Asian countries we are a Pacific trading country and Asia Pacific will be crucial for us and that's where a lot of growth is happening so I think what you're going to see going forward is Canada seeking to to deepen relationships around the world the Prime Minister has negotiated a number of additional free trade agreements and there's more to come and and we're just going a different direction than the United States in terms of our global relationships it will be a long-term benefit to Canada we can never replace the US market and both of those things can be true at the same time it would be great to have a strong productive positive relationship with the US again and at the same time we can't assume that that will be the case and bluntly I don't expect it. There's a referendum coming up in Alberta where Albertans will decide whether to hold like a Brexit style referendum on independence from Canada. Earlier this year it came out that some Alberta separatists met with Trump administration officials a move you called treason. I'd love for you to unpack your your feeling on that meeting and also give listeners a sense of whether you think that separatist movements like the one in Alberta are likely to come to fruition in the level of political support there. It's an unfortunate thing that's happening in Alberta and I think that most Canadians are concerned about it. I having watched Brexit I think that anyone who says that this is a foregone conclusion that Alberta will vote a certain direction needs to give their head a shake. It is a serious threat to the sovereignty and the integrity of Canada and I think everyone should treat it that way and we'll watch to see what the results are. Currently the polling suggests just like it didn't Brexit that the vast majority of Albertans will not support this but it is what it is and people will be voting and polls have been wrong before so I certainly feel anxious about it. The concern that I had that I have is that the United States is actively involved in an interfering in the referendum which is like an astonishing thing for me to say and and you know I there's always been concern around the influence of American culture and politics on Canada just given the scale of the United States compared to Canada but actual meetings with separatists and they say assurances made to them about what life would look like in a post-separation environment in terms of relationships with the United States and the 51st day reference and so on and maps being released that show Canada's part of the United States and whatever, like it is deeply concerning to me and I think just beyond the pale and just way beyond anything that we've seen in our relationships previously. And a departure that doesn't get noted or commented on particularly and in a worrying way because if that bridge can be crossed with little apparent public conversation then you know what else can we reasonably expect in Canada and do we need to consider our relationship with the US in terms of interference here on the same plane as we do consider interference from China or from Russia or from other countries and in terms of protecting Canadians. One element that was apparently on the table in these talks was the Prime Minister Karni reportedly revived the keystone pipeline or put that on the table in some former fashion. What's your reaction to that? Do you think that should be something that is negotiated still? I understand why it's part of the conversation. You know the President's adventurism in the Middle East has led to incredibly high oil and gas prices, Canada's reliable. Provider of oil and gas products to the United States and I can understand why that's a priority of the President's and certainly it's something that the Prime Minister has been open to. The thing that strikes me is the bizarre assurances from the administration that Americans don't eat Canada in terms of energy because you've got Venezuela. You know Canada produces five times more oil and gas than Venezuela tests in terms of a stable partner for providing energy and the British Columbia provides a huge amount of electricity down the west coast Ontario to the Eastern parts of the United States. I just can't fathom that President is leading you in the direction of ever higher energy prices and rely on some unstable energy partner but I mean that is where he is taking things and it seems strange to me. In terms of oil and gas and climate change and and overall concerns about that I think you know if we need to be doing important work together that has been completely abandoned since the end of the Biden administration and has completely changed the conversation about carbon emissions internationally unfortunately in a way that is quite damning given the wildfires we saw this past summer in British Columbia in the United States and across Canada and in Europe. So hopefully the US assumes a leadership role again at some point on this important issue. Yeah the weather weather patterns are losing their mind. Europe is being baked all summer. The report that next weekend here in Los Angeles we might have a hurricane which is not something we're used to here so yeah I wish we were talking about bigger things like climate change and artificial intelligence and not stupid AI photos of geese by our President. Let me just end with a statement which is that to you and to anyone listening from Canada a lot of most Americans think this sucks too. We find this embarrassing as well. We want the President to stop threatening our very friendly neighbors to the North. So sorry for this bullshit but hopefully you know we can get past this guy together and I appreciate your time coming on the show. It's that plane speaking that endears Americans to Canadians and thanks for that. Thanks for having me on the show and to the Democrats out there send us a strong message that we'll rebuild our relationship if you're elected in the midterms and generally that would be a positive thing we look to that kindly from Canada. Well said thank you. Thanks again to Premier EBE for joining the show and I want to see you with a Unification Church on Sunday Ben. I mean is there a cut? Yeah I'll get to pick up. I'll get some gifts. I'll get you some cash don't worry. Okay thanks. Potsay the world is a cook and media production. Our show is produced by Alona Minkowski, Michael Goldsmith, and Minesha Bonnergy. Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Heffko, Jordan Cantor, Kenny Moffat, David Tolls, and Ryan Young. Her staff is proudly unionized with the writers killed of America East.