Trump Forfeits AI Race to China

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Returned second time in a month since Cricket Con. Are you crashing into Stephen Miller's house again? Yeah. I mean, you don't get invited to the same white nationalist parties, Tommy. No. All the best ragers with the Miller fam. Well, he's a sexual matador, so, you know, maybe we can get some tips there, you know. Oh, my God, I don't want that. That's the thing that was actually said for those who don't follow. Yeah, that was Jesse Waters, I believe. Yes. God, what a weirdo. What a weird thing to say. Imagine, like, saying that about your. Jake Tapper saying that about one of us. Well, this is the thing. Whenever everybody says, like, MSNBC is the same as Fox, I've never been to Fox. I've never been on Chris Hayes and had Chris call me a sexual matador. No, no. I guess hope springs eternal. Well, Ben, we've got a great show for you guys today. We're going to cover this wild Trump announcement from earlier this week where he said that going forward, the United States is just going to forfeit our advantage when it comes to artificial intelligence and allow NVIDIA to sell advanced AI chips to China. We're going to talk about the new national security strategy. Maybe you can run over to the White House and get us a hard copy. We'll tell you what's in it, what's not in it, the big takeaways, and then we'll debate whether it matters at all. We're also going to cover two major developments that erode Trump's claim to be the greatest peacemaker the world has ever known. And these happen, Ben, right as he received the world's most prestigious peace prize. So tough timing, Ben. We're also, yeah, we're going to fill you in on the latest with the Russia-Ukraine peace talks, a couple of crazy reports about a faked and a failed coup in West Africa, why you and I are very nervously watching events in Yemen, and then former Prime Minister Liz Truss is making a comeback, Ben. Are you ready for that? Are you ready for this? It's going to be right in our wheelhouse, man. She's going to take our audience. The podcast charts will never be the same. Hide your head of lettuce. Then you're going to hear my interview with Anika Wells. She is Australia's Minister for Communications, and she's spearheading Australia's new ban on social media for people under 16. This is D-Day for them. They're basically putting in place this ban and just banning accounts for 16-year-olds and under across Australia. A fascinating conversation, an experiment that is being watched by basically every other country in the world that is dealing with the fallout from Silicon Valley companies. So stick around for that. Hopefully she can come to the Los Angeles school district next because I'm very supportive of what she's doing. Yeah, I think a lot of parents are going to listen to this and think, why can't we do that? Why can't we get our act together? Also, Ben, I should just say for the listeners, last week we recorded a couple of bonus episodes for the Pod Save the World YouTube. We recorded one on all the details that leaked out last week about Trump's double-tap strike on one of these, uh, so-called narco-terrorist boats in the Caribbean along with the long-awaited Inspector General report about Pete Hegseff and Signalgate. Uh, I also talked with Congressman Seth Moulton from Massachusetts about these illegal boat strikes. We also talked about Hegseff's, you know, leadership generally, Ukraine, China, and a lot more. So a long way of saying, please subscribe to Pod Save the World. We are cranking out tons of great bonus content on that channel. Uh, it is very much worth your time. Also, it's free. Yeah, the content gods smell favorably on free content. They sure do. In the stocking. Give your family a, a, a subscription. Maybe, uh, put that in the stocking. Um, all right. Let's talk about this, um, this AI chip announcement, because I think you and I were both pretty stunned by it. So, um, on Monday, Trump really shocked all the China hawks in his party and across DC when he announced that the U.S. is going to let Nvidia sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips to customers in China. That is, as long as Nvidia agrees to give 25% of the profits to the United States government. I don't know how that's going to work, but that's the deal. So, uh, we're going to talk about that. So what makes this shocking, though, is that the H200 chips are exponentially more powerful than the previous chips the U.S. has allowed to be exported to China. And depending on how many of these the U.S. allows exported to China, it could drastically narrow the U.S. compute advantage over China. So there's this great think tank, the Institute for Progress. It's a nonpartisan think tank. They released a big report this week about exactly this issue, this sort of series of chips and what it would mean if they went to China. And they modeled out a bunch of scenarios about what the impact would be and basically depending on how many chips get sold, this decision could shrink the United States' advantage over China in terms of computing power from 50x to 1.2x. So we're just hobbling ourselves for no reason. Our compute advantage basically means our capacity to train more AI models and run more AI models here in the U.S. So the way to think about our advantage over China when it comes to compute is it's not just about the power of an individual chip, but it's about what you can do with them in aggregate. So just to nerd out for a second, Ben, the H200 chip, it's not NVIDIA's best chip. It's like the best of the last generation of chips, which are still really, really good. And so according to this Institute for Progress report, the H200 is about 70% as good as the Blackwell 300, which is their best top-of-the-line chip. But the key point is you can get the same amount of computation performance by just stringing more of them together. So it just costs more money. That's because AI supercomputers are made out of hundreds of thousands of chips strung together. And so if you have access to enough H200 chips, Chinese labs could build AI-training supercomputers that are just as good as the American ones built with the better chips, just at like 50% more cost, which I'm sure the Chinese Communist Party will happily subsidize. I was talking with a smart expert today. He said just the way to think about this sort of relative U.S.-China AI capabilities is four buckets. So one is efficiency of the algorithm. Two is having the data develop and train the models. Three is the supply of energy you need, like plug-into-the-wall energy to power the data centers. And then four is the compute power, i.e. the chips. And so China is basically at parity with us on one and two. They're probably beating us when it comes to access to energy. But compute power, our chip advantage, is the only reason we are winning. And if not for the export controls that were put in place in 2022, we might already be at parity. So, Ben, I'm just going to pause there. What was your reaction to reading this? First of all, I think this is one of the most consequential things that Trump has done, which is saying a lot. And I think we may look back on this era in 20 or 30 years, and Donald Trump will be the B story, to use a Hollywood terminology. You know, essentially, he's the analog, but the real story is what's happening in tech and the kind of concentration of power and the transformative nature of technologies like AI. And part of that is how do you regulate it, which we can talk about at a different time. But a big part of it is who's going to win this competition between the United States and China, both to develop the most effective models, but then also to kind of export its technologies to the rest of the world. And the entire basis under which the United States was trying to win that competition in recent years has been on so-called export controls, so limiting the flow of chips like this into China, limiting certain types of investments into China. If Trump was at all interested in winning the competition with China, he would not be systematically dismantling those export controls, particularly on high-end chips like this. And you had a good list there, Tommy. I'd add to it the other variable for AI development is talent, and the Chinese have a tremendous amount of AI talent. Yeah, good point. Because, frankly, they've invested a lot more in STEM technology and engineering than we have. So they have the people, they have the power, they have the money. The government's prioritized this for over a decade. And the one thing that they're lacking are the kinds of chips that can allow— and they obviously have the data. They have over a billion people, and they have a surveillance state, right? So they have all those ingredients, and the one ingredient they were missing are these kind of high-end chips that can allow them to very rapidly close the gap with U.S. frontier companies that are kind of leading the AI charge. And this just allows them to do it for, like, essentially nothing in return. Now, part of what the Trump people will argue or the David Sachs-type people will argue is, "Well, we're making them dependent on U.S. technology." That's not true. It's crazy. Because, essentially, the Chinese are still pouring money into what they call indigenization, the ability for them to have indigenous capacity to manufacture chips. They're just a few years away from Huawei. tech company being able to do what TSMC, the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer can do, what NVIDIA can do. And so what this is going to do is just allow them to bridge that gap. Exactly. Exactly. So they're going to allow them to kind of catch up with us in the short term and then pass us when they get their own Huawei chips online. They've been very good at stealing intellectual property from the United States. They've been very good at reverse engineering models that are released. DeepSeek, the Chinese language model, Cooley drew on the Facebook model, Lama. I know we're sounding nerdy, but the basic point here is that for basically nothing in return, Trump is giving away our advantage on computing power. And all I can make of this, Tommy, is that these guys, like the guy who runs NVIDIA, like Sachs, like all the people in the tech boom right now are just so hungry for money, right? It's never enough. So now we got to sell chips to the Chinese. They're just looting. They're looting the piggy bank here. And don't ever take seriously when they say the reason we don't need any regulation is because we have to beat China. If they wanted to beat China, they would not be handing the keys to the Chinese to catch up to us. Yeah. Listeners to this show probably realize that we think David Sachs sucks and he's annoying and we like to make fun of him. But I tried to like, look, he's a smart guy. He knows tech way better than I ever will. So I really tried to take on board this argument that exporting these chips would get China hooked on U.S. AI technology. But like every expert you talk to, it's just not true. Like China is going to dump money into Huawei. They're going to subsidize the hell out of their domestic capabilities. And like you said, all we're doing here is helping them bridge the gap because Huawei can't make a chip that can match the H200 until Q4, 2027. So we're just going to give them a bunch of our chips in the meantime. I mean, the H200 outperforms any chip produced in China by about 32%. And then like, there's a bunch of different like specs you can look at, but it's like a third. Or 50% better than any other chip. So we're just going to send a bunch of these things over there in the interim and like help them catch up. Like it's almost certainly just going to boost China's aggregate compute capacity. And it also will allow them to export more services, right? Because they'll be able to like allow access to their models that people are using that are they're training off of these U.S. chips. That's exactly right. I mean, and so when you look at what are the concerns about this, you might, because it's like China's going to get caught up in this. They're going to get this technology anyway, right? At some point. But I think the concerns are, first of all, you want to kind of get to some of this super intelligence, AGI, whatever you want to call it first, in part to kind of understand what it does before the Chinese understand what it does. From a security standpoint, right? We talk about national security in this podcast. We've already seen, by the way, Chinese hackers using the anthropic model to literally, like their AI agent launched a cyber attack against the United States, right? So you worry about cyber attacks. You worry about the threats, you know, AI developing new military capabilities. You worry about, you know, God forbid, AI going in a rogue way, kind of developing a nuclear or biological weapon. So there's all these kind of security components that you worry about. You also worry about disinformation and misinformation campaigns, given how AI can look like real life now. But you also, you hit the, you know, nail on the head here. Boy, I'm really struggling to get my cliche. Who is going to win the race to deploy this technology to other regions? Because that is going to make you hugely influential. Remember a few years ago when the first Trump administration was obsessed with getting Huawei out of certain countries? Well, if the Chinese have a cheaper version of AI that is in parity roughly with the United States, when you're talking about Southeast Asia, when you're talking about Sub-Saharan Africa, when you're talking about Latin America, when you're talking about the middle, we're talking about all these places, many of whom are countries that Trump has insulted. If the Chinese are there with us, they're going to beat us to the ground. They're going to beat us to the ground. They're going to beat us to the punch in those places. That's going to create economic dependencies on China. That's going to create security and geopolitical dependencies on China. It is a huge deal. Who is the first to kind of truly export this technology? Trump is pouring it into the Middle East, to the Gulf, because they're just giving him money. But meanwhile, the rest of the world matters, and frankly matters more than just like the Gulf Arabs, except to Trump. And so this kind of step is just going to accelerate China's capacity to both compete with us, and to support us. And so this kind of step is just going to accelerate China's capacity to both compete with us, and to support us, and a security and military standpoint, but also to compete with us for all these other markets. Trump will be gone probably when the bill comes due for that. And so he doesn't give a shit. I mean, I talked to a bunch of experts who taught me, and some scratched their head, and they're like, well, David Sachs must not understand. I don't know. He must understand. It may just be they don't care. Yeah. They just don't care. And to them, it's just like, it's a handful of people getting rich, and it's a handful of people kind of owning the space in the US or their associates. The Chinese are going to be in that race too, but they'll still be in that race. They'll still be just as rich, and maybe they just don't give a shit. Because this argument that somehow the Chinese are going to be dependent on us is absolute bullshit. It is the policy of the Chinese Communist Party for over a decade to not be dependent on anybody for their technology. Yeah. Look, this is just such a major swerve. I mean, the H200 is six times more powerful than the H20 chip, which is the one we last let NVIDIA export to China. Also, just in case you think these guys just hate Trump, all they do is criticize him. On the same day that Trump made this announcement about allowing the export of these chips, DOJ put out a press release announcing they had arrested two guys for smuggling H200 chips to China, and what a huge national security risk it was. So they didn't get the memo, probably because there wasn't one. Pardon coming. Something tells me there's a pardon coming. Yeah, pardon incoming. But I think the point you made earlier about Jensen Wang, the CEO of NVIDIA, is important. But like Jensen Wang and NVIDIA, they're worried that there are all these American competitors popping up, so they need to open up international markets in the long term, or else they'll lose their $5 trillion market cap or whatever. So I'm sure he's doing whatever it takes. He's buying Trump as many ballrooms as possible to ensure that he stays rich going forward. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because NVIDIA, which is a huge part of the AI bubble that we're living through, and God forbid if and when it pops, their short-term strategy is just clearly like just sell, sell, sell, make as much money. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because NVIDIA, which is a huge part of the AI bubble that we're living through, and God forbid if and when it pops, their short-term strategy is just clearly like just sell, sell, make as much money. It's a little overstated, but, you know, we're going to have some fun with it. So let's start with some takeaways. So the first is that Trump wants to revive and rebrand the Monroe Doctrine, which is a reference to a foreign policy statement by President James Monroe in 1823, basically told Europe, like, look, if you stay the hell out of North and South America, that's our domain. We'll stay the hell out of Europe and not meddle in your affairs. Today, the audience for these kind of Monroe Doctrine arguments is really China. But the message is the same, like get off our lawn. Over the years, though, the Monroe Doctrine has been used to justify U.S. interference in the affairs of countries all across Latin America. So it is not the most popular idea. And its inclusion, Ben, in this document makes it pretty incoherent at times because there's also a section about how Trump claims to have a, quote, predisposition to non-interventionism. Not really what I'm reading these days about his foreign policy, but OK. The Asia section is mostly about economic competition between the U.S. and China. It does specifically note, though, that the U.S. policy towards Taiwan hasn't changed. So that's I mean, shouldn't be notable, but it is given that Trump's flirting with changing that policy. One of the biggest departures in the document from past national security strategies is just the gratuitous bitch slapping of Europe. We're kind of like a white nationalist tone, a sort of like a Twitter reply guy tone. It worries about the, quote, stark prospect of civilizational erasure in that, quote, within a few decades that the latest certain NATO members will become majority non-European. But also. Questions whether European nations will, quote, have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies. Again, it's like the tone is like, you know, an Elon Musk reply. Let's talk about what's not in there. Russia barely gets a mentioned and is never condemned for invading Ukraine. North Korea isn't mentioned. Iran is barely mentioned. Cyber attacks from China don't really get a mention. You can't mention everything in these documents or else it's just a list. But those are some pretty big ticket items. So, Ben. What jumped out at you from this document and what's your argument for why this is so important? I mean, I think, you know, three things jumped out to me. One is it truly kind of codifies this hyper focus on the Western Hemisphere, which we've been talking about. But, you know, with this kind of Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, where and I actually read this thing. Me too. Yeah. So I suffered through it. The world doesn't have to. It doesn't sing. It doesn't sing. I think it's that guy, Michael Anton, like who's the intellectual godfather of the Flight 93 essay where we're saving white national civilization or something. I think it's that guy. I was told it was him. And then after he left, I think J.D. Vance's like National Security Advisor picked up the pen. There you go. Which tracks. We can get it to why. Which tracks. But so, first of all, it really does. It basically asserts that the United States should have the ability to. Essentially control everything that happens in the Western Hemisphere. I mean, we've been talking about this, but essentially, like it talks about adversarial governments, you know, which is, I guess, Venezuela and Cuba. And maybe they don't like Petro and Colombia or wherever. But it also talks about the need to kind of control resources. And it talks about the Western Hemisphere as like literally almost like an extension of the United States. Some of that is like their obsession with, you know, migration and drug trafficking. But it was kind of codifying this idea that the U.S. is kind of going back to the 19th century where we, you know, early 20th century or actually maybe even the worst of the Cold War, where we just kind of we can interfere in the politics of the entire hemisphere. If it, you know, if we just feel like it, if we're either upset about migration or we want some resources or something. Second, this white nationalist stuff in Europe is really creepy. And you actually read, I think, the most compelling passage about civilization erasure. And, you know, the reason, you know, it's a new rationale for not caring about NATO. Because they're going to be so weakened by immigration that they won't be credible NATO partners. By the way, that's bullshit, we should say, because, frankly, what aging European countries often need are younger people who can be part of a larger workforce. And that's immigrants. Right. So, I mean, we can do that on a separate episode, making the argument of immigration. But it kind of codifies this J.D. Vance view. Right. The speech he gave in Munich in February that they want to support conservative parties across Europe and they want to support conservative movements across Europe. I kind of admire them for saying it out loud. I wish the Democratic Party had an investment similarly in the success of center-left and social democratic parties around the world. So, those two things. And then the third thing is just what's not in there, which is anything that's kind of recognizable, you know, like a hyper focus on nuclear nonproliferation or climate change or the kinds of things that were in kind of democratic, you know, national security strategies. So, you know, why does it matter? There are two arguments I'd make. You know, I had to write one of these things. It was not the greatest experience of my life. The first Obama one. That's an understatement. You were about to hit yourself in the head with a hammer half of the day. Oh, my God. It made me feel like national security goons running into your office all day long and fighting over clauses. So pissed. And, you know, why isn't this sentence in there? Yeah. But essentially two things. One, it kind of it really signals like this is what we care about. This is, you know, and so in some ways it's a messaging document. Yeah. And, you know, this is what they care about. They care about, you know, exalting Trump. And it has all this language, you know, calling him the peace president. They care about colonizing Latin America. They care about, you know, white nationalism in Europe like this. So it's a blueprint to their ideology that underpins what they do. But then second, in the system, it's technically actually supposed to guide what all the other agencies do because there'll be a defense strategy. And, you know, there'll be some State Department strategy or there'll be. And actually even. Even budgeting. And ideally a national security strategy is supposed to be this kind of framework that everybody consults before they make other decisions. To be fair, to be honest, that doesn't always happen. I didn't feel like the thing I wrote necessarily guided all the budget. But so I think it matters in that regard. And look, it matters. It was a bomb in Europe. I mean, you know, Chancellor Mertz was responding to it. And, you know, like so if nothing else, it made made a lot of ways around the world. Yeah, no, it absolutely made way. So Michael Anton and then Andy Baker is the other person who someone in this. In our world told me was you don't want any Baker erasure had the pen on this document. He advances the National Security Advisor. I think a deputy National Security Advisor to Trump. Before I go to my takedown of this document. Am I wrong, Ben, that like this Monroe Doctrine bullshit is kind of like the biggest surprise to me of the entire Trump 2.0. I don't remember him running on this at all. Am I crazy? Like, do you remember like a big focus on the Western Hemisphere in the campaign? Certainly immigration and like locking down the border, but like dictating the affairs. Is it Argentina? Like this seems kind of new. It does. I mean, when they appointed Rubio Secretary of State, I was like, huh, that's interesting. I bet Marco has an interest in this stuff. But Trump seems to genuinely love fucking around in Latin America, you know, as we've talked about. And I don't know if that's he's in Florida, right? Mar-a-Lago like he's, you know, Bolsonaro is going through there. Mila is going through there. You know, they like Bukele. It may just be that that he got, you know, I again, I think he likes it. He can push people around here. I mean, because actually another thing you didn't see in this is great power competition. Like Russia and China are not. I mean, it's a kind of some token language about the Chinese. But Russia has like four paragraphs, I think. Yeah. This usually it's all about great power competition. This is about like bullying the Western Hemisphere and bullying our allies in Europe. So they until they became white nationalists. Yeah. OK, so look, I'm like doing my response like part tongue in cheek, like any, you know, once every four year document from the White House that's supposed to guide U.S. foreign policy is a huge deal. And you're right. Like Europe, people across. Europe are freaking out. And understandably, I mean, like they are they are treated like the enemy in this document. And it is not only a huge departure from Trump's last national security strategy. It's a big departure from like literally every national security strategy in history. So if I were them, I'd be freaked out, too. The reason I think maybe we could turn the temperature down on the document a bit is because I would start with this. I would argue that there's zero percent chance that Trump read the document before it went out or will ever read it. I would also bet money that he didn't. He didn't work on it in any meaningful way besides people writing down shit he had already said. That's my guess. It's sort of like the extent of his involvement. I suspect this is entirely a staff generated document. They clearly copy and pasted like half of J.D. Vance's Munich speech you mentioned from February. And then it summarizes a bunch of stuff they're already doing and they tried to make it seem coherent. So it is a seismic change for Europe. And I'm sure it's unbelievably jarring for everyone in the EU to wake up and see like this. It's codified in a document like this, but it's not necessarily surprising if you thought Vance's speech was a big deal. I think also like bigger picture, you and I have talked about the fact that there is no national security staff. There is no national security staff process. Decisions are made. There's a Politico story about this the other day by like an ad hoc group of, you know, on an ad hoc basis by this small group of Trump aides that includes like Rubio, Vance, you know, the sort of core group of advisors. And ultimately what Trump decides to do, he makes all the big decisions and ultimately it's the result of corruption or whoever talked to him last. Also, I would just like to point out to you in an attempt to make this thing coherent, it slips into a bunch of gibberish. I don't know if you caught this example. Here's a quote for you, Ben. President Trump's foreign policy is pragmatic without being pragmatist, realistic without being realist, principled without being idealistic, muscular without being hawkish and restrained without being dovish. What? I think that was like trolling. I feel like they're trolling the Brookings Institution or something there. - What is that? take every buzzword yeah take every buzzword in national security geeks and throw it in there look you you have a point a point conceded um that trump did not dive in the depths of this they did put in stuff in there like you know there's a letter from him where he talks about obliterating iran's nuclear facilities like which is not true you know um i don't know it's like everything with trump like do you take it seriously like is there an ideology because if there's an ideology behind it it's kind of this it's this kind of neo-imperialist transactionalism cult of personality white nationalism you know so it's kind of like everything with them it's it's i take it seriously because it is kind of what they're doing and what they're doing is scary yes but you're also probably right that there's you know probably not like a a bunch of ipcs interagency policy committees you know dedicated to the follow through on the national security strategy yeah not a lot of execution yeah but also if you're in europe you know you read this yeah national security strategy and then you read a royal witness report i think the same day that says um u.s officials had communicated to european counterparts that they want europe to take over the majority of nato's conventional defense capabilities from intelligence to missiles yeah by 2027 that's a pretty big deal so ben uh who likes this national security strategy well the russians loved it uh the afd party the right-wing neo-nazi party in in germany loved it um it's also kind of funny though like to lay out this like first of all trump just can't say i like the monroe doctrine he needs his own corollary to the monroe doctrine because roosevelt had one um but it's funny to say like you ascribe to the monroe doctrine which again was like europe don't mess with our hemisphere and we won't mess with your hemisphere and then like throughout the rest of the strategy it talks about how much we love these patriotic right-wing white nationalist parties across europe and we tell them all the reasons their continent is dying i don't know that's very monroean is it no it's very like tucker carlsonian yes yes yeah it's um it is funny these guys remember it was william mckinley at the beginning because yeah you know he launched some imperial wars right took one of the name the mountain after him in alaska again and now it's monroe like it is kind of funny how they shop around for these kind of dead white guys you know i i maybe we'll get an ai james monroe like we got an ai george washington with glenn beck i don't know but um i i i i think it's well actually like to get the like what trump said uh recently like you know europe and ukraine kind of was like the strategy right yeah it was you know so so in a weird way it matters because the people you know put it this way in the first trump term the people who wrote like these kinds of documents were like neocons it was like hr mcmaster and john bolton and you kind of knew that those people were not reflective of trump and so you had two foreign policies you had this kind of like conventional right-wing hawkish one anti-china etc and then anti-russia and then trump i think what this tells you is that the whole game is just you know this is a trump trumpist this whole thing is the trump corollary to america you know yeah we got a corollary yeah the first term trump and steve bannon was always talking to andrew jackson too they're like what yeah trail of tears we're going with that one um i guess the big question for europe is like when you're gonna fight back guys like yeah this is what he thinks you know he doesn't respect you he's interfering in your political affairs he's talking shit he's pulling support from nato like at some point i've stopped you know lathering with praise would be my recommendation but do try out a little like backbone a little populism you know um because this guy is coming to fuck with you and he's not gonna stop and it's not gonna be fun um all right so switching gears here ben so listeners have probably heard trump repeatedly claim to have ended eight wars in less than a year um we have in past episodes walked through all the ways that is bullshit we're not going to do it again comprehensively but there are a couple major developments we just wanted to highlight um the first one is that thailand is fighting back against cambodia um back in july there was very intense fighting between the two sides on their shared border that killed dozens of people and displaced hundreds of thousands um trump helped broker a ceasefire which was codified at a signing ceremony in october but that ceasefire appears to be collapsing um thailand launched airstrikes against cambodia on monday this was in retaliation yeah very peaceful sounding for what they claim were attacks by cambodian troops the cambodians say the thais started uh rinse repeat right hundreds of thousands of people though have been evacuated from thai provinces near the border so hopefully this will calm down and no one will get killed but this flare-up i think speaks to the reality of the conflict which is one that goes back decades has roots in colonial era borders and nationalism disputes over ancient temples and religious symbols and you just can't paper over that kind of history with some like fake economic agreement and claim you made peace um the second conflict we wanted to mention was fighting between the democratic republic of congo at rwanda so again we won't get into all that history here at a minimum you know several decades in the 1994 rwandan genocide but in the past few years this rebel group called the m-23 has ramped back up its activities and has taken a lot of territory in the congo um and not only does the the rwandan government support the m-23 but there's reports of them fighting alongside their fighters so remember back in june trump announced a peace deal between the drc and rwanda last week he invited the presidents of rwanda and the drc to washington for a signing ceremony at which he fell asleep just flagging that one for everybody event was that the um recently renamed donald j trump institute of peace which used to be called the institute of peace but then elon musk the doge guys doged it and gutted it and then they renamed the empty building for some reason um but the thing you need to know about this peace agreement again is it's a total sham like the m-23 is not a part of these talks they are the primary actor here in problem yes um the agreement in june didn't stop the fighting uh there was fighting hours after this big event last week and trump again he can claim to have like brokered some historic agreement but it doesn't make any difference on to the people on the ground who are getting killed or driven out of their homes uh in fact now we got troops from burundi involved in the fighting because they are worried about the m23 reaching their border so why does this matter ben is it just about you and me like you know talking trump no like he's obsessed with credit and that is why when trump didn't get the nobel peace prize fifa created its own fake participation trophy peace prize to fluff him and i think the question becomes what happens when trump is confronted with the reality that he didn't solve these wars and doesn't deserve the credit that he wants is he going to dig in and fix the problem or is he going to say like you know what i already did that you know like i don't care we're going to yada yada that one away like i i fear it's the latter and like u.s engagement would actually really really help here yeah i mean we are living through like one giant play being put on for donald trump's benefit where he's a peacemaker and everybody has to come together at these ceremonies and literally pretend that something is happening that is not happening like the wars are actually ongoing even the highest profile one gaza like there have been hundreds of quote-unquote ceasefire violations hundreds of people killed right um so you know you have ceremony after ceremony with people just kissing his ass you've got this complete corrupt you know fifa guy um i mean credit to you for having a you know soccer show called world corrupt a few years ago because this guy will literally say and do anything for donald trump you know including inventing a fake prize with a very strange looking trophy um but the fact of the matter is like people are still fighting in all these places and none of these peace efforts tried to do anything to address the underlying causes of what people were fighting about so therefore it's no surprise and why you know if you're kagame the leader of rwanda if you're the head of the drc sure come to the us you know praise trump up the wazoo because you want you know you don't have tariffs and you know you want the photo op and maybe like you're doing some deals on the side but then you're going to go back to the exact same status quo so everybody's just kind of putting on an act it's like he's a child that people have to humor by like puffing him up and like pretending like everything's great and giving him participation trophies and and calling him this and calling that i will say huge fail on the u.s media because i would like to see the amount of ink and air time spilled on just repeating trump's claims to event i know wars i know versus the people saying actually like they're still fighting in all these places so i think a casual american you know viewer of these things probably believes that trump has ended a whole bunch of oh definitely certainly a fox news viewer does but even like a reader of newspapers would think that uh because people just don't do any trump is counting on people's lack of attention on these things to just repeat that he's the peace president yeah look the parties involved in this you know u.s rwanda drc talks are kind of are using the broken process to prevent the conflict from being solved so there's a separate peace process being hosted by qatar which is with the m23 rebels and then there's the u.s process which is just rwanda and the drc but what really needs to happen is like those processes need to merge together and get all the relevant players at the table at the same time but the sides don't trust each other the m23 is making progress on the battlefield so like why would we be incentivized to stop and then you know the rwandans want uh the congo's you know more territorial and more natural mineral resources and stuff right the us wants minerals we have economic interests um we just want mineral concessions from both companies like that's our peace process now like both in ukraine and here is just to kind of um just try to loot these countries then qatar wants minerals too they're the big transit point for uh the drc's minerals and they want to continue the flow of those resources but ben backing up so the world cup they did the world cup draw in dc last week it was at the kennedy center they drew all 48 teams for the tournament and figured out kind of like what your division was, like who are the four teams you play in the opening round. But as part of it, FIFA, as we mentioned earlier, awarded Trump the first ever FIFA Peace Prize. Look at this absolutely ridiculous propaganda video that they created for him that was aired at this ceremony. Let's watch. His leadership has ensured that peace exists between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, India and Pakistan, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan. President Donald J. Trump's actions have also ensured that peace exists between Israel and Hamas by brokering the Gaza peace plan. News to me. And he is making. He is making a continued effort to bring a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine. Like, it's just, it might as well have been a speech. Quite literally, none of those things are true. It's just propaganda. Maybe Armenia and Azerbaijan because Armenia lost. Yes. But like every one of those other things is bullshit. It is like, this is 1984 level stuff. It is. Like there's the final dictate of the party is to not believe what's in front of your eyes. Yep. We are living through an experiment of what it's like to live where. Yes. through. We are living through like a world in which truth just is totally incidental to like some weird corrupt agenda that FIFA has with Donald Trump and his family. Yeah. And there was a report in the Times that like that FIFA created this prize. It took. It was basically like a month from idea to inception. Like Trump didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize. So Gianni Infantino just like made this thing up. And it was like he announced it without telling anybody. It like literally caught his own board of directors off guard. But Trump. Who gets it next year? MBS, Wyckoff, Putin? I don't know. Yeah, exactly. And it's like Trump, like they know what they wanted to stroke his ego so bad that it was a trophy, a medal and a certificate to give him all this hardware. And so the Guardian reported that the process for choosing future winners of this bullshit prize will be shaped by a dude named Zaza, who is the head of the Myanmar Football Federation, who has been sanctioned by the US and the EU and has been described by the State Department as a crony of the junta. So. Great. A military junta that is massacring its own people. Perfect. That's a peace prize for you. That's a peace prize. It's appropriate. Yeah. It's just. It's incredible. Fucking FIFA is the most corrupt organization ever. And by the way, like Gianni Infantino and, you know, the leaders of FIFA, whatever the host country is, they'll kiss their ass. Like Trump is a whole new. It is a whole other level of corruption and sycophancy, but he was like kissing Putin's ass. Yeah. But the apotheosis is that this will be the World Cup in Saudi Arabia. Yes. This has all been leading up to that. You know, that's where this all leads. That's the day we were meant for. All right. We're going to take a quick break. But before we do, Ben, I just want to make sure our listeners down under know that Pod Save America is coming to New Zealand and Australia for the first time ever. Ben, my only trip to Australia was with you, actually. It was Barack Obama. Was that 2010? 2011? Went to Canberra and Darwin. Yeah. The Darwin ones. Yeah. Darwin's not exactly a tourist spot. Actually, neither of those are. You want to go to Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane. Yes. This is the 2026 Pod Save America. Hopefully just visiting tour. Going to Auckland on February 11th and three shows in Australia after that. Melbourne on February 13th. Brisbane on February 14th. And Sydney on February 16th. You can get dibs on the presale and a chance to see for yourself if we'll be so taken by the relatively normal politicians and universal health care that we end up staying for good. Go to crooked.com slash events now to get tickets and use the code PSA down under to get presale tickets right now. Also, the newest book from Crooked Media Reads is coming out. It's on January 27th, 2026. It's called Hated by All the Right People, Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind by one of my favorite political journalists, one of the best writers in the business, New York Times magazine writer Jason Zengerly, who we both know well, Ben. I've read the book. It is excellent. And the reason I think it's so important to understand Tucker Carlson in the kind of the MAGA media world now is because understanding his arc, I think, is key to understanding the political moment. And the shift in the way that MAGA has evolved. I listen to Tucker compulsively because I find him fascinating. I do, too. I just think he's such a fascinating character. It looks at Tucker's evolution, his rise from one of the best, highest regarded magazine writers in the business who had friends all across the aisle to sort of one of the biggest Trump defenders these days to this independent media journey he's doing up in Maine now. The book comes out on January 27th. But if you order a preorder a copy of Hated by All the Right People now, you can get $50. 15% off with the code Jason15 at checkout. Go to crooked.com slash books and use the code Jason15 for 15% off. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. The holidays are a time of traditions. Some people have many in their family and some have none or just at the beginning of their own. Now is the time to reflect on what they mean to you or to rewrite those traditions and make your own. Incorporating therapy into your new or existing traditions can help you ensure that you take the time for yourself during what can be a very joyful but sometimes hectic and lonely time of the year. 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Spend it with me, Alex Wagner, for Crooked Media Presents live election results. We're going to have Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vitor, Stacey Abrams, Dan Pfeiffer, Aaron Ryan, and many more special guests to be announced. And they're all going to help us make sense of what's happening as the election results roll in. So here's what you need to do. Subscribe to Pod Save America on YouTube and tune in on Tuesday, November 3rd at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. For hot takes, catharsis, and as many results as we can possibly analyze. Okay, so the one, you know, place where Trump has failed catastrophically to make peace is Ukraine. On Monday, President Zelensky of Vladimir Zelensky was in the U.K. He met with German, French, and British leaders at 10 Downing Street. I'm sure they appreciated having that conversation kind of framed by this new national security strategy. Ukrainian officials say Trump is pressing Zelensky to take this Russia-Ukraine peace deal. But after the meeting, Zelensky said, quote, Under our laws, under international law, and under moral law, we have no right to give anything away. And he said that is what we're fighting for. Zelensky is also reportedly working on a counterproposal. At the Doha Forum on Saturday, Donald Trump Jr. once again attacked Zelensky and suggested his dad might abandon Ukraine. So I'm glad that little prick had the chance to weigh in and that we have a couple. Unelected Trump family members kind of setting foreign policy. That's a good way to run a railroad. There's also an intra-European fight over whether to use these frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. The issue is oddly Belgium. The Belgians, the assets are being held at a Belgian financial company. And the Belgian prime minister is worried that Belgium could be on the hook and forced to repay them. If sanctions are lifted on Russia and the Russians try to get their assets back. And apparently this view is like very popular within Belgium. Who knew? But the U.S. is also lobbying against using these assets for Ukraine because they want to kind of dangle it as a carrot to get Putin into the talks. So, Ben, here is some of what Trump had to say about Ukraine and Europe in an interview he did with Politico that was recorded on Monday and released on Tuesday. Is Zelensky responsible for the stalled progress or what's going on there? Well, he's got to read the proposal. He hadn't written really. He hasn't read it yet. The most recent draft. That's as of yesterday. And maybe he's read it over the night. It would be nice if he would read it. Is it time for Ukraine to hold an election, do you think? Yeah, I think so. On Sunday, your son, Donald Trump Jr., responded to a reporter's question about whether you will, quote, walk away from Ukraine. And your son said, I think he may. Is that correct? No, it's not correct. But it's not exactly wrong. Europe is, I'm friendly with all of them. I mean, I like all of them. I have no real enemy. I've had a couple that I didn't like over the years. I actually like the current crew. I like them a lot. But they're not doing a good job. Europe is not doing a good job in many ways. They're not doing a good job. I think they're weak. But I also think that they want to be so politically correct. I think they don't know what to do. Europe doesn't know what to do. So it's pretty ominous for Ukraine there. Yeah. Yeah. Hard-hitting interview. I mean, I. Do you have the political to pull the FIFA and they named Trump the most powerful person in Europe to get access? They listed the 28 most powerful people in Europe. And they made Trump number one, which is like, why? Yeah. Which is not true, actually. I mean, look, the things I take away from that are, first of all, it does kind of confirm what we were saying earlier about the national security strategy. It's basically repeating that worldview. The election thing, how casual he is. Like this guy, they are just cutting the legs out from under Zelensky, you know. And Zelensky had responded and say, well, I'll hold an election if you can secure it. And actually he said like the U.S. and Europe can come in and secure it, right? But this is a Russian talking point that Zelensky hasn't had an election. It's not really a democracy. But the idea that we're on the precipice of a peace deal that will require the Europeans to do a lot of things, right? To pick up all the slack for any credible security guarantee to the Ukrainians, to be punking them and humiliating them and calling them weak. Like to echo something we said earlier, well, why not show some strength, Macron and Starmer and Mertz and everybody else? Like stand up to this guy. Like he respects strength. He just chews away at weakness, you know. And that's what we're seeing again and again. Putin is sitting pretty. He's not changing his plan at all. Trump is just taking shots over here at the Ukrainians and the Europeans. And meanwhile, they're just kind of furiously meeting. It's like come out strong. Come out strong with your own counterproposal and like stick to it and stand behind it, you know. Because right now, it's just with every passing day, it feels like Zelensky's position gets weaker. And the U.S. is just kind of cutting him out from underneath, you know. Yeah, Zelensky's position gets weaker. I mean this corruption scandal is large and growing. There was a great – the Economist had – I'm kind of forgetting the guy's name. It's like Oliver Carroll maybe did a great piece, like a 45-minute episode sort of detailing the whole thing. Over the weekend, it included like either recordings from the corruption investigation or, you know, they recreated them. And the New York Times had a big piece about all the ways the Ukrainian government tried to stymie the investigation that was pretty troubling. Now, I will say I think most observers of like Ukrainian politics aren't surprised that there's corruption within the system. I think the question is do they take meaningful steps to prosecute it and fix it and be transparent about it, right? Like that's the critical thing here. And by the way, like unfortunately there's a lot of corruption in our system at the moment that we're not exactly thrilled about. But yeah, I mean the – it feels very bad for Zelensky. I think the only silver lining is that like Trump just keeps letting these deadlines slip and I don't know. There's no like – what are the consequences? Well, I think what's missing is this is like existential to the Ukrainians. Like Trump treats it like a game of risk. And then the only other thing is on this Belgian point, a lot of work has been done to try to reassure the Belgians that they'll be OK on this. Like this is kind of a weird out. They just kind of don't want to be in the middle of it. Or maybe they see the writing on the wall that like Trump will come down hard on them. I mean this is part of the – if the U.S. is behind doing this, releasing those funds to make them available to the Ukrainians, I'm almost certain that the Belgians would do it. Part of what they're nervous about is being caught between Putin and Trump. Yeah, and the EU has been clear that like they would share the financial kind of burden here. Yeah, exactly. All right. We're going to switch gears a little bit, Ben. So in recent years, we've talked about a lot of coups in Afghanistan. In fact, there's a whole part of the continent that's called the coup belt, unfortunately. But this week, we're going to cover reports about a fake coup and then a failed coup. So the first is in Guinea-Bissau. It's a small country. It's about 2 million people in Western Africa, which unfortunately is extremely well-known these days for being a transit zone for cocaine en route to Europe. Guinea-Bissau has had four successful coups since 1974. But in this case, a day before the results of Guinea-Bissau's latest presidential election. Right. That's the result. The results were about to be released. Shots were heard across the capital. And then the president was arrested. And the military gave a televised speech saying they'd uncovered a conspiracy to manipulate the election results. Masterminded by, quote, some national politicians with the participation of a well-known drug lord and domestic and foreign nationals. So this all seemed like a coup, sounded like a coup. But the coup was conducted by President Mbalo's allies. And the new guy in charge is a close confidant, an advisor. To the president. Also, during the coup, the president was allowed to speak to journalists. And then he was quickly put on a plane to Senegal, which is not like your typical treatment of someone who gets deposed. Like, usually you end up jail or worse. So it was very strange and kind of fishy. And what seems to have happened here is President Mbalo knew he was going to lose. So he orchestrated a fake coup to keep his people in charge of the country while he leaves and calls the shots from abroad. Or it could be that the military stepped in because both candidates were. Were claiming victory and they were worried it was going to get ugly. But we'll never know because the bunch of armed men raided the election headquarters and destroyed the election results. And since then, the army chief of staff has been sworn in as president for a one year, quote, transition period. We'll see if that's an accurate duration. So coup number two was in Benin, which is a larger and generally more stable country. It's about 12 million people. It has been more relatively stable since the early 90s. On Sunday morning. A group of soldiers calling themselves the military committee for a refoundation showed up on state TV to announce they were deposing President Patrice Talon in dissolving the parliament. But their attempt was thwarted by Sunday afternoon when Benin's army with air and ground support from Nigeria stepped in. So as of right now, the country is still on track for presidential elections next spring. And Eka Was, the economic community of West African states, has deployed troops there to help stabilize the situation. Ben, was there anything about preventing coups? In those three paragraphs in the NSS about Africa that you can recall that might address the situation? I don't think so. In fact, if anything, like, you know, I would expect that by year four, the Trump administration, you know, like Eric Prince will be running coups or something. I mean, part of what's sad about this is we've seen this kind of norm against, you know, coups, like just collapse in particularly West Africa. And we've seen the organizations like Eka Was, that's a regional organization in West Africa or the African Union, just kind of be either passive or passive. Or delegitimized or incapable. Now, Benin, they did step up. And so, I mean, I, you know, the tip of the hat on the tactic of the fake coup to stay in power. Clever. Hopefully, J.D. Vance, you know, wasn't taking any notes on that one. Yeah, good point. Yeah, you know, like Trump flies down to Mar-a-Lago and suddenly, you know, J.D. Vance is in there. But that's the problem is, like, people wonder about norms and do they matter? Well, yeah, because when this is kind of the absurdity that you reach when the norm against coups. Coups, you know, is so eviscerated. Another situation where it's hard for us to lecture anybody when Trump attempted one of his own. Yep, gigantic glass house. Yeah, we've had our own false coup attempt here. Tough. Two more quick things. So, one story we're watching very closely is, we're not going to dig deep on today, but we're watching is, there's some very disconcerting reports out of Yemen that make it seem like Yemen's civil war may be heating back up. There's a group called the Southern Transitional Council. They are backed by the United Arab Emirates. They've taken control of Mosul. Most of Hadhramut, which is a resource-rich province in eastern Yemen that borders Saudi Arabia. I think the question now, Ben, is whether the Saudis aggressively moved to counter the STC. So, previously, listeners might remember that Saudi Arabia and the UAE had fought together against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. That led to a civil war that was just a humanitarian catastrophe. Now, the Saudis and the UAE are increasing on different sides of proxy wars around the world, including in places like Sudan. So, a very, very bad situation. If this civil war kind of kicks back off again. Yeah, and we can come back to this. I mean, the two things I point out, though. We've talked about the Emirati backing for the RSF in Sudan. That included, by the way, I think, did you see this week, Tommy, the strike that killed, like, dozens of kids at a kindergarten? Yes. From the RSF. Horrific. A drone strike. Horrific. And then, now, this in Yemen. I mean, the Emirati, who are, you know, darlings of Trump and huge recipients of U.S. military assistance or acquisitions. I should say. You know, this proxy fighting, you know, with that regard to humanity is, you know, whether it's in Yemen or Sudan, like, this is a problem. And it's not talked about enough. Then, the other thing that bears watching is Mohammed Salman, the ruler of Saudi Arabia, or de facto ruler, and Mohammed Zayed, the ruler of the UAE, used to be really tight. And, if anything, MBZ presented himself as this kind of mentor figure at MBS. Clearly, those guys have had a falling out. Yeah, what happened? And that is. Super interesting. And that is worth watching very closely because it used to be that it was, you know, that's how they did the blockade of Qatar, right? It was Saudi Emiratis against the Qataris. Well, now, there's splits there in the Gulf. And so, that's just, put a pin in that, you know. Absolutely. Final story before the interview. So, you guys will probably remember Liz Truss. Or, actually, you probably don't remember Liz Truss. But, back in 2022, Liz Truss was prime minister of the U.K. for 49 days before stepping down. But, she still managed to tank the British economy in the interim. And, her longevity was famously compared to a rotting head of lettuce. And, then, to top it all off, Ben, she lost her seat in parliament in the 2024 labor election wave. Well, now, she is back as a YouTuber. The Liz Truss show debuted last week. And, the reviews are incredible. The independent notes that Truss' delivery has, quote, the charm of a wet towel. There's a one-star review from The Guardian titled, Hapless Ravings from a Cupboard. Where author Stuart Heritage describes Truss' debut as including, quote, one of the most barking, mad opening monologues in recent memory. It was an episode that her team also inexplicably published an hour late. The going theory is that she forgot to set her clock back. He also wasn't a big fan of the camera work and the production, noting that the first interview, quote, the camera lingered on her for a full 40 seconds. I don't know if you've ever spent 40 seconds looking at Liz Truss wordlessly blinking and gulping. But, it was a genuinely disturbing sight. I wouldn't wish it on anybody. So, basically, it seems like Truss' goal is to endear herself with the American right to say, things like you know dei anti-woke blah blah blah so she gets invited to c-pack and can kind of hoover up those mega speaking fees um the comments are equally terrible though ben one says well done liz this is properly fucking mental and another simply notes she used to be the prime minister of the uk dot dot dot so um i've not seen these clips that we're playing today ben here's a taste though of the opening monologue that will surprise you me and the audience i assume welcome to the first ever edition of the liz truss show you'd have to be watching the fake news bbc or living on elon musk mars mission to not know that britain is going to hell in a handcart despite the valiant efforts of a certain prime minister to get things on the right track in 2022 this country seems to have a death wish we're now poorer than mississippi it's like huckleberry finn without the steamboats this calamity the fall of britain the fall of england the fall of london you as being presided over by a governing elite who hate our country it's not just the dismal labor party in the charisma free zone that is keir starmer it's the conservatives in name only who wanted to be the heirs to blair it's the communist greens zach polanski who is the british answer to new york mayor mandami without the american teeth oh revolution and see how this can be achieved in britain we'll be talking about the fact that britain is going to be talking to the leading lights of the MAGA movement we'll be dissecting project 2025 ladies and gentlemen welcome to the home of the counter-revolution welcome to the liz truss show why is it so slow that is so bad why is she why is she so obviously like just reading a teleprompter poorly like it's and who the fuck wrote that it sounds like like someone put like tucker carlson and steve bannon and nigel farage into an ai and like came out weird yeah they blended it with between two ferns what did they realize you can they know you can edit videos right like why did they leave in producing this we may need to aliona and michael may need to go over there you know like uh like this is uh this is this is really bad this is not good okay that was the that was the opening monologue okay so then she interviews the three guests um one after the other while providing no context for who they are or why she's talking to them so one of them is introduced as quote britain's number one substack as well as being an academic who's a specialist in these subjects got it uh another simply famous podcaster and bitcoin expert and friend um it's just to give you guys a sense of the the journalistic acumen here's uh are her opening questions to each guest again ben and i haven't seen this yet so we're going to enjoy it with you matt what is the state of britain today and exactly how bad is it just tell us about what you think the state of britain is now alex how bad is it thank you for joining me oh this is great editing okay what was the budget for that set huh well what is the budget for this whole enterprise like who's bank rolling this why is it happening like why does this need to exist in the world why is the former prime minister of a country like talking to some tatted up guy like what the fuck is going on over here i mean the thing is i actually because i like i you know i don't know i don't know i don't know i i try to do my maga pill like i need to understand these people tommy did you listen to any of the tucker carlson like tours the uk pods no because they're pretty amazing because it's like tucker being like well it's used to be a great civilization but what happened you know like it's and it's just like tucker talking to all these people about like the death of like how unsafe it is in the uk yeah and the immigrants and everything and the you know abortion and everything but it's actually like better content like what he's a good broadcast liz trust podcaster is such a sad window into the the actual decline and fall of the united kingdom like why is that happening you gotta have some risk you gotta have some energy you gotta have some personality you gotta put a little effort into the production you can't just have one fake plant in a maga hat like kinda on the wall in front of like are you in a just a it looks like just a sterile office building she's she's just destined for cameo and not for nigel farage's fees you know no he's gonna but i hope it sticks around for a little bit so we get some content out of it yeah me too i mean nigel farage again like i don't like the guy in fact i i think he's pretty abhorrent but uh he's got some personality which is the reason he went super viral on cameo but as does tucker like you know like tucker is much more compelling talking about the collapse of civilization this video uh as of this recording this first episode has 57 000 views so um you know who are those people i don't know i mean half of that is hate watchers or like you know snarky guardian columnists who want to write about it you know or people like us you know in a view a reminder of you is about 30 seconds so we'll see uh how many people stay till the end or get to the second one uh okay we are going to take a quick break when we come back you're going to hear my interview about australia's new law banning social media for kids under 16 a very important topic i talk with australia's minister for communications annika wells so stick around for that you positive the world is brought to you by aura frames aura frames is the answer to every holiday gifting moment never struggle again to find the perfect holiday gift look everybody wants to be a good gift giver it's not easy to do you need an idea you need some inspiration need some time need to search but i've uh i just solved that problem for you give the gift of an aura frame i've actually given several family members aura frames they all love them you 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order yours now and get it in time for the holidays support the show by mentioning us at checkout terms and conditions apply on election night we will all be feeling a lot of feelings do not spend it alone spend it with me alex wagner for crooked media presents live election results we're gonna have john favreau john lovett tommy vitor stacy abrams dan pfeiffer aaron ryan and many more special guests to be announced and they're all gonna help us make sense of what's happening as the election results roll in so here's what you need to do subscribe to pod save america on youtube and tune in on tuesday november 3rd at 9 p.m eastern 6 p.m pacific for hot takes catharsis and as many results we can possibly analyze it is a momentous week in australia where the labor party is officially instituting a ban on children under 16 from having social media accounts with me today is annika wells she is australia's minister for communications she is spearheading this rollout and through the magic of time traveling and time zones i think we're actually talking on wednesday the day it goes into effect although it's tuesday here in los angeles this is going to break my brain minister wells thank you for for joining the show greetings from the future how are you i'm good i'm great i mean honestly this is um a really interesting um experiment a law you're putting into place so let's just start with the basics can you just talk about how this ban works and how you will enforce it yep so the ban came about because we had 120 000 australian parents run a campaign called 36 months let kids be kids and they asked because the official policy of these platforms as you know is that the they start users from 13 even though we all know in real life that is not at all policed and there's people much younger than they're on there but given the premises people will be there on there from 13 let's give 36 months back to teens let's delay the start of their social media account usage till 16 and give them 36 more months to build real world connection and to build awareness and awareness and digital literacy about what awaits them online so the australian law comes into effect today which is wednesday here the 10th of december which means all social media accounts belonging to under 16s must be deactivated by that social media platform and the onus here is on the platforms not on the parents or on the teens the onus is on the platforms to find these accounts deactivate these accounts stop people from getting around these accounts and also have some kind of complaint reporting process so if someone accidentally gets caught up in it there's a way out for them tell me a little more about how you guys arrived at 16 as the cutoff i could imagine you know an argument for 18 or you know 21 is the drinking age in the u.s right there's a lot of different places we could go and then also can you give us a sense of how you the criteria for which platforms you decided were subject to the law yes so it's 36 months is the is the campaign so we arrived at under 16 because 13 to 16 is 36 months yes you're right lots of other countries and jurisdictions are looking at slightly different ages All of the data and evidence that we now have in as public policymakers to analyze this suggest there is probably greater utility, but the particular development that you go through between 13 and 16, that emotional stage in your life, you would have known Jonathan Haidt and his book, The Anxious Generation, that propelled the parents, the hundreds of thousands of parents to ask us for 36 more months. So that's how we got to 16. With respect to the social media platforms, basically all social media platforms could be considered an age-restricted social media platform if they fall under three particular criteria, which is, are they primarily a place for social interaction? Can you interact and link with other users and can you upload content? So, for example, YouTube would make the argument that they are. Like Netflix and that they are a video streaming platform. However, we feel the difference is that YouTube uploads 500 hours of content every 60 seconds and Netflix obviously does not. Netflix is subject to the National Classification Scheme here in Australia that is regulated by independent arbiters about the quality and content and appropriateness of that content. Obviously, YouTube is the wild, wild west, 500 hours of content every 60 seconds. So we have a new safety. Commissioner, she's the independent regulator. E-safety here in Australia is 10 years old. It was a world leading, essentially a shop front for digital safety. They are the regulators in this space. So they have been working with the platforms for them to identify themselves as a social media platform. I guess, assess them as a social media platform where arguments have been made that they should be accepted and now come D-Day, today, regulate them and make sure they comply. You're getting at the complexity of this, right? Because there's a lot of there's wildly popular platforms like Roblox, which are games, but they're also social networks and places where kids hang out and there's chat platforms. And there have been really awful cases of adults chatting with and grooming minors on Roblox and then meeting them into like discord and offline communities. I mean, figuring out how to draw that line must have been really tough. Yes, I do get a lot of parents asking me to add Roblox in to the list. Roblox isn't in at the moment for that first primary criteria, which is kids would still be on Roblox if it didn't have a place to interact socially, didn't have a place to connect with other users, didn't have a place to upload your own thoughts and comments, because it is primarily a gaming platform. So on that basis, it experiences an exemption as a gaming platform. But we do have our eyes on Roblox. We have in recent weeks and months. Targeted Roblox and they have now put in place additional safety measures to stop exactly what you're talking about. Predators who are of an adult age targeting under 18s on that platform. This isn't obviously a cure. This ban is a treatment plan. We aren't banning the Internet. And something I like to say is we can't control the ocean, but we can police the sharks. And this is a really important step in policing the sharks, given the harm. That we have documented that Australian kids suffer online. Yeah, I mean, Roblox in particular waited way too long to put in some of this age gating. And boy, there was an interview with the CEO on the Hard Fork podcast, the New York Times podcast, where he crashed out really hard and really embarrassed himself. That's worth listening to if you want to understand the mentality of these CEOs. So there's an organization in Australia estimated that 96% of Australian teenagers under 16 have social media accounts. Let's say I'm one of them. I'm. A 15 year old. Does my account just disappear? Can I get it back when I'm 18? And like, are you worried about a marauding band of teens and tweens visiting your house sometime in the next 48 hours and kind of taking matters into their own hands? I went to a I went to Humpybong State School, and I say that just because I presume your global and American audience appreciates Australian names. Humpybong State School yesterday to talk to the teens that are being impacted today. And yet certainly there was. In some cases, a hostile reception. But I don't mind. I don't mind being the bad cop. This is so important. And if it gives parents another tool in their arsenal in this fight that they're having in their households every single day, I'm pleased to do it. We have it's 9:30 in Australia on D-Day, on Band-Aid at the moment. We've already heard that 200,000 TikTok accounts have deactivated overnight. That's 200,000 lives that we've already impacted. And as we speak, the breakfast TVs, as you expect, are roaming around the country spot checking under 16s to see whether they their account has been deactivated or whether they're trying to get away around it. We've always said this is going to look a little bit untidy. Big reform always does, particularly culturally, cultural change that comes with big reform. We didn't expect 100 percent perfection today, nor do I expect in the days or even weeks to come part of the way that we're monitoring the effectiveness of this law. But what we've seen is over the next six months, social media restricted platforms have to report in their user numbers each and every month to eSafety to demonstrate the downward trend. So jokes aside, I mean, one thing critics of this law say is that social media can be a really important way for kids who feel lonely or marginalized to find their own community. In particular, you know, see LGBT advocacy groups raise concerns about what it might be like to be a gay or lesbian kid in a rural area and lose their sense of belonging. What's your response to those arguments? Well, I think, you know, the Butterfly Foundation looks at disordered eating, people who are impacted by disordered eating. We have, in the budget running up to this reform, bolstered those organizations. And they, in the weeks leading up to, in months, I guess, leading up to this reform, I've been working with those organizations alongside my counterparts to make sure that they are ready to support teens from today. All of their websites, landing pages have places you can go. And we've been asking people in the run up to the reform. It's a funny thing. I don't know about you, but back in my day, we had one landline. It was in the lounge room. You know, you had one phone number. And when you called your friend, you kind of took your chances on who was going to answer at the other end of the line. Kids these days don't even have each other's mobile numbers. They just interact on social media. So part of this has been that national debate around how we use our time online and how this is going to look in each family's household. And simple as that. Simple things like your child getting the mobile numbers or the landlines or a way of connecting with their friends that isn't on these platforms so that they continue to do that from today. Yeah, we had one landline. We memorized each other's numbers. When I started using dial-up AOL, my mom would pick up the phone. I'd scream at her because she'd screw up my chat room or whatever the hell was going on. I feel very old now. I mean, we're millennials, I think. And we had the one landline. We had the one computer. We had the one computer that was maybe in the living room. The one phone, the one television. And, you know, you fought with your siblings over what you put on television on the one screen. One landline, you took your chances. One computer, you had to dial in, you know, limited time. If you had a mobile, you probably only had $30 credit a month to send text messages. So there was a scarcity to everything that you did. Whereas these days, tweens have in their pocket that phone, mobile, computer. And they have an unlimited supply. And they are on platforms where the design feature has been to get them addicted. So this is a law that steps in to help. Yeah. So the law requires the platforms to take what are called reasonable steps to enforce the age ban. If they don't, they're subject to fines of around $33 million. Is that per violation? Is that total? And then how do you assess, like, what is a reasonable step? That's for a systemic breach. So that is. It's if a platform was found to have been systemically breaching the law. And there has been a run into the law where we have asked them for a compliance plan. We have asked them to self-assess. Like I said, tomorrow we're writing to the platforms to say, what were your user numbers on the 9th of December? What are your user numbers today on the 11th of December? We will do that monthly for six months in order to track downward trend. And I would say it's been a huge turnaround from. The initial reaction and recalcitrance, I guess, Tommy, to, as of yesterday morning, the big 10 platforms who are impacted by this law had all indicated to us that they would comply. They might disagree, and that is their right in a democracy to completely disagree with our law. But as of yesterday morning, I mean, when I was first made Minister for Communications, what I was dealing with was the hope, I guess, that from these platforms, from big tech, that we just wouldn't. We wouldn't pursue the law in the second term of our government. And then when I made very clear that we would be continuing with the law. the threat that they would leave our shorts, the threat that big tech would leave Australian shorts as a result of this. So to go from that six months ago to the day before the delay kicking in, all 10 platforms indicating to us that they would comply has been a huge turnaround from where we were, huge progress in this space, and hopefully it gives hope to other jurisdictions who are attempting things like this out there. I mean, it's surprising too, right? Because look, $33 million is a lot of money to any normal person, but Mark Zuckerberg could flush it down the toilet and not notice the difference the next day and do it every other day until he dies, right? So I mean, I guess I'm a little surprised that there's been so much compliance and willingness to work with you given that there are probably pretty high financial stakes involved for them from the ban that might outweigh the aggregate fine. Absolutely, and that has been put to us as well. And that fine is commensurate with other fines in that sort of portfolio space in Australia. You're right, we absolutely worried about the risk that platforms would decide to just pay the fine and continue to flout the law. The response to that has been that ultimately these are big corporate citizens, big global citizens. They want to be seen as good citizens. They feel that a number of them have made huge improvements in safety features. Over the years, and that that isn't acknowledged in this kind of blunt force ban. However, I honestly think that whilst Australia is the first to do it, I think in a couple of years' time, five years' time, this will be right across the world. This will sweep right across the world. And all of the arguments and all of the ways that this has been criticised in the past 12 months isn't dissimilar to putting seatbelts in cars. You know, it wasn't that long ago. That auto manufacturers said that making seatbelts compulsory would bankrupt their business model wasn't possible. These days, car manufacturers compete to be the most safe car manufacturer. You would put your family in the safest car you can. There's no reason that big tech couldn't be like that too and that families choose to allow their children on the safest platforms and that platforms compete to be the safest platforms with the best records. That's a future that seems a long way. But that's a future that starts with laws like we're putting in place today. Yeah, well, so let's talk about that future. Let's say you and I hop on another Zoom a year from now, tomorrow, but today somehow. How will you judge whether this has been a success? Like, what are you looking for? Well, firstly, we think it already has been a success because it has kicked up an enormous national debate here in Australia about all of our practices online, our digital hygiene, how much we all look through a screen rather than, you know, over the screen at each other at the dinner table. This has been a fight that has wearied many households for many years and I think this law is another weapon in the arsenal for parents in that fight. But it also makes parents, I've heard lots of parents saying, I'm doing a digital detox as well in solidarity with my team. And that's a good thing. So the fact that we've already had that discussion around something that has sort of crept up on us in our modern lives, we see as success. Secondly, we went to the United Nations, during high level week, we had an event there about our world leading law. The president of the EU came, a number of different world leaders came. And since then, you would have seen that almost 10 countries now have signaled that they will go the way of Australia. We went to the UN to build allies in this space. I don't think this is something you can do on your own. Like, we've gone first and we're proud to do it. But we need allies in this space. We need jurisdictions to move together and support each other. And that's what we did at the UN. And I think, we see as a measure of success the fact that since UN high level week, so many countries have come out and said that they will do this too. The final measure will be not just the downward trend in user numbers that platforms are required to keep us abreast of in the current, in the coming six months, but we're doing a two year study with users that will track the mental health benefits, behavioural patterns, migratory patterns that will allow us to make better laws. And work on new initiatives in this space to support this. Well, Minister Wells, I wish you the best of luck here. It's something I think about and worry about a lot with my kids, even though they're a long ways off. We want it to work well and I'm grateful to you for making the time. And good luck with the rest of the rollout. Thanks, Tommy. It's been a pleasure. Thanks again, Annika Wells, for joining the show. And good talking to you, Ben. Good luck in D.C. Don't let the blob get you. Stay clear. Keep my head up. Head down. Run away. Pod Save the World is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Alona Minkowski. Our associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor, and Ben Rhodes. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our audio engineer. Audio support by Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to our digital team, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, William Jones, David Tolles, and Ryan Young. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Adrian Hill is our senior vice president of news and politics. If you want to listen to Pod Save the World ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked Media on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers, and other community events. Plus, find Pod Save the World on YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and much more. And if, like us, you're opinionated, leave us a review. 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