Trump Threatens Genocide

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I'm Ben Rhodes. So this is actually the second time we're recording the introduction to the show. Moments ago, we wrapped our recording of the initial episode. And then Trump put out a true social statement announcing a two week extension on his threat to destroy all the infrastructure in Iran, which is obviously a good thing. We're very happy about that. But it does mean we're coming right back to the studio to rerecord the top of this for you guys to make sure this is current. So here's what Trump just wrote. Untrue social. This is verbatim. Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif and Field Marshal Azam Muneer of Pakistan and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the complete, immediate and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz. I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double sided ceasefire. So I think it's like tape. The reason for doing. So is that we have already met and exceeded all military objectives and are very far along with a definitive agreement concerning long term peace with Iran and peace in the Middle East. We received a ten point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran. But a two two week period will allow the agreement to be finalized and consummated consummated on behalf of the United States of America as president and also representing the countries of the Middle East. It's an honor to have this long term problem close to resolution. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump. I've also seen some additional reporting, Ben, that Israel has agreed to this short term ceasefire. OK, so just a few thoughts for me. I'll throw it over to you. Who writes this shit for him? Like, what is this faux legalistic, weird nonsense language? I don't get it again. Obviously, this is good news, like nothing good could have or would have come from some like genocidal spasm of violence on Tuesday night from Donald Trump and Pete Hegsath, and I'm truly grateful that Trump could call a taco, call it a delay, like call a big responsible whatever that he delayed this. I'm genuinely surprised that Iran would agree to opening the Strait of Hormuz for two weeks and kind of lessen. Let's see. Yeah, that's right. Like put a pin in this one. We'll see if that actually happens because it does lessen their economic and political burden than Trump. Again, though, it would be a good thing because as much as I like, I want them to open the Strait of Hormuz. I don't want people in Asia not to be able to farm and like drive. I don't believe a word Trump says here about the US and Iran being, quote, very far along on a long term peace plan or the problem is close to the resolution, I guess we'll see. Finally, like later in the show, I say that I heard from someone that the Pakistani led talks were more for show and were kind of bullshit. I guess I should revise and amend that. Maybe if they help facilitate getting this done, that's a good thing. But what do you make of this this true social post, Ben? Well, it's great news. It again, it doesn't change anything we said, though, because threatening genocide, even if it was part of a madman diplomacy strategy, is just as morally abhorrent. A few thoughts on my number one. I'm genuinely curious about what the Iranian, you know, what to hear from them. But like, who is he negotiating? With an Iran? Does whoever he's negotiating with in Iran have the ability to control the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, who are the ones that control the Strait of Hormuz? What does he mean by he says a full opening of the Strait of Hormuz? I'm very curious if that's true. Where are they going to let all traffic through there, whether they're going to continue to meter it and charge a toll? Because they've turned this into a toll road. And if it's been mined, like who's going to get rid of the mines? Exactly. This is much more complicated than just saying, oh, the problem is solved. I created this problem by launching a war that closes the Strait. And now I've solved the problem and ended a war and now I've ended nine wars like, no, that's all bullshit. So a lot of questions about whether the Iranians have agreed to this in the short term, I mean, they've clearly agreed to something. But whether that's the full opening of the Strait remains to be seen. I'm also curious, Tommy, how much pushback he got today. Threatening genocide, I think probably got the attention of Republican lawmakers. It probably got the attention of world leaders. We don't know what calls were made to Trump today. Yeah, I also genuinely have been wondered and I we didn't I actually didn't say this on the pod, so I'm glad whether the military would follow his orders. I think there's a nonzero chance that, you know, Pete Exseth was giving them the target list or whatever of civilian infrastructure and that I don't know if it's Dan Cain or somebody. We could see mass resignation through like the kind of it's possible that they're like, we won't do it. Yeah, we won't do it. Because, you know, like hopefully there's still some honor in the US. I mean, I hope I believe there is. I just know they've been purging generals. So it's also possible the military is like, we're not going to do this. And and so he kind of scrambled to to do this. Right. We don't know. We'll see. I'm sure some of it will leak out. So it's a reprieve, but it doesn't solve these underlying questions. And again, we talk later in the show about the fundamentally diplomatic questions about the Iranian nuclear program, about the war in Lebanon, which is still ongoing, you know, about the Strait of Hormuz and whether the IRGC is going to control it and charge a toll, whether it's going to fully reopen. So this is not like some victory of diplomacy yet. It's only like yet another delay in Trump's threats, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And like, look, the idea that these objectives that the war's objectives are close to complete is crazy. I mean, again, that's crazy. That's bullshit. The key priority is supposed to be the highly enriched uranium, the 900 pounds of it. It's still sitting in Iran. It's a regime change. The regime change war has gone from one hominid to a younger hominid who is even more hard line. Trump says that, you know, Iran's ballistic missiles have been totally destroyed. We've seen intelligence reports that suggest it might be close to 50 percent destroyed. So like I just and they might have just launched some in Israel, too. Oh, really? Oh, good report. Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. So I just I have a very hard time believing that Bibi Netanyahu is going to be ready to end this war. I want to find an off ramp and save face because he is, I think, looking at polling and realizes that his presidency is slowly withering and dying before his eyes. But as we talk about later in the episode, the Iranians have now found a pretty remarkable source of leverage and possible revenue for them. And a lot of people would argue, look, in many ways, they're doing way worse now that the regime. But they're making more money now off oil sales. They have more power now by finding this choke point in the Strait of Hormuz. So there's all these structural challenges when you look at the Iranian demands and the US demands. uh, for each other that are so, so far apart. It just doesn't feel like we're close to ending this war. And there's one other thing that I think is really important in that post that, you know, might fly under the radar. He refers to the Islamic Republic of Iran, not Iran. The Islamic Republic is the regime. Like it's a de facto recognition of the Islamic Republic. That's the system with a Supreme leader, with the IRGC, that is Donald Trump accepting that the people he's going to be dealing with are the same regime, even if he killed the Supreme leader. And, and that, trust me, like as someone who's worked on this and we were very careful in the Obama administration about when we said Iran or Islamic Republic, um, that's a concession, uh, that he's making, which again is just a bowing to reality. Um, but you know, this, this is no longer a regime change war. Yeah. It's a double-sided ceasefire. Like, uh, whatever that is. Yeah. Like the tape I used to put on my hockey sticks. Uh, okay, Ben. Well, unfortunately for the world, uh, I just, I really don't think this war is close to over there remain all these huge, you know, political and structural problems that could lead to the escalating and dragging out for a very long time. Uh, all those problems still exist. We cover all the big picture questions in this episode. Just know that we recorded most of it, uh, before this most recent true social post announcing the two-week extension, um, on the war crimes, you know, bonanza. So there will be times where we kind of sound anxious and uncertain about what might happen on Tuesday night. You know, we play a clip, we play a clip from Brett bear where he's assured by Donald Trump that there will be no extension this time. Uh, we should have known at the time that it was useful because it shows you the chaos. It shows you the chaos. It shows you that Trump lies and that Fox news is just his useful idea to repeat whatever he says. But here's what we cover in this episode. So we're going to start with Trump's threat to commit genocide on the country of Iran. Literally we'll explain the consequences of that. We'll explain the consequences of these proposed strikes on all kinds of civilian Iranian infrastructure, what that would mean legally, morally, and strategically. Uh, we'll give you the highlights of some extraordinary new reporting by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan at the New York times about how Trump decided to go to war with Iran. Uh, then we'll listen to some clips from an equally incredible monologue from Tucker Carlson, where he really firmly breaks with Trump over the war with Iran on, on a deep moral level. He talks about why he is concerned that Trump could end up using, will end up using nuclear weapons. It's very, a conversation that is very important and worth having. Uh, then we'll talk about all the talks and the secret side deals that are happening with the Iranians. Obviously we just talked about some of the fruits of some of those, but we're kind of looking at signs of things happening diplomatically that could lead to a permanent end game, a permanent end to the war and a permanent path out of this mess. And then we're going to talk about these enormously consequential elections coming up in Hungary and how insane it is that vice president, JD Vance is in fucking hungry on a Tuesday in April, doing a campaign event for Victor or bond. Then I've truly like never heard anything like this in the middle of a war, middle of a conflict. Um, he, you know, in the middle of a political crisis for the white house, JD Vance is over in Hungary. So that is bonkers. We did not have a guest today because we just wanted to go really long on Iran stuff and I'm just getting back from vacation. And so we'll pick that back up next week. Pod say the world is brought to you by Haya. 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You'll get ad-free episodes, you'll get tons of bonus episodes and bonus content. And it's really just the best way to help us grow as an independent progressive media company. So go to Crooked.com slash friends to learn more, or you can do it directly on YouTube by pressing the join button. All right, Ben, so let's get to the show. In the past 20 years, I've been a fan of Crooked. For 24 hours, the president of the United States went from threatening to commit massive clear-cut war crimes to threatening genocide literally on a country of 90 million people. On Tuesday, Trump wrote on Truth Social, quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. So that's something he just put in writing. And then perversely ended the message with God bless the great people of Iran. So what we all assume Trump is talking about there in that post is that a threat to blow up all of the world. So I think that's a good thing. All of the bridges and power plants in Iran, though he could do far worse. We'll get to that in a little bit. But here are some just of Trump's actual comments about the war in Iran from Monday. Then Fox News' Brett Baier is talking about a conversation he had with Trump on Tuesday that I think gives us some more insight into his thinking. And then finally, J.D. Vance waited on all things Iran from Budapest. So let's watch. We have a plan because of the power of our nation. We have a plan because of the power of our We're going to get a response from the Iranians by eight o'clock tonight. We've got tools in our toolkit that we so far haven't decided to use. The president of the United States can decide to use them and he will decide to use them if the Iranians don't change their force of conduct. OK, so a few thoughts. I'll just kick it over to you. So, again, we're recording this a few hours before Trump's deadline, after which he says he'll bomb Iran into the Stone Age. It's not ideal timing for the show or for humanity, frankly. If Trump goes through with this threat, I think it'll take some time to kind of figure out what exactly was hit, like the scale of the destruction, etc. So we're just going to record today, frankly, just assuming that this war is only going to escalate and then just unpack the implications of that escalation, because I think that's important. I mean, there's peace talks are ongoing. There's some, you know, occasional leaks that suggest they're making progress, but it feels like the two sides are very far apart and this is only going up. But again, and also Iran, I think, cut off the talks with the U.S., at least for some period of time. After that genocidal tweet that I just read to you. So anyway, a few thoughts from me, and I'll kick it to you. I mean, first, again, this just is a clear cut war crime to say you're going to bomb all the power plants and bridges in Iran. You cannot indiscriminately bomb civilian infrastructure. There has to be proportionality to any military effort. But let's be honest, like Trump doesn't care about that. He's, you know, the Hague is not going to come arrest him, so he just doesn't give a fuck. So I guess do with that what you will. In practice, though, what it would mean to bomb all of Iran's power plants and bridges is, is mass civilian death. And I think we should just be clear about that. Like every baby on a respirator will die. Doctors will not be able to perform surgeries. There will be no power for a pumps that are critical to getting people clean water. You won't be able to treat water to make it safe to drink. There won't be desalination plants running. There will be no way to move food or essential items around the country if there's no bridges. And there's no way of undoing this step. You know, like millions of people will die. Refugees will flee the country en masse. It will be a catastrophe, a humanitarian catastrophe. And on Monday, Ben, I don't know if you saw this, like Trump made this insane claim that Iran, the only time Iranians are unhappy is when the bombing stops. But then today you're seeing images out of Iran of thousands and thousands of Iranians lining bridges and apparently surrounding power plants in an effort to make themselves human shields to prevent the United States from bombing their country. That sure seems to undercut what he told us on Monday. And then just what is especially scary about all this is this like sense of blood lust you're getting from Trump. Axios today reported that Trump is the most hawkish senior member of his team. One U.S. official said, quote, the president is the most bloodthirsty, like a mad dog. So, Ben, on just a human level, a moral level, a legal level, it's an abomination. It would be one of the most evil, catastrophic things the United States has ever done. And it also just feels like it will get to this in the Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan reporting. It feels like no one is really trying to stop Trump, no one around him in the White House. And that is equally scary to me. Yeah. I mean, I actually think this is an important day in our history because let's just deal with kind of modern history because we can obviously go back and talk about Native Americans. But but we now have a president United States who has threatened as a matter of policy to commit genocide. And I think that the enormity of that reality is something that has been hard for people to absorb in this country. Not hard, by the way, for Iranians to absorb because they're living on the other end of it. Whatever happens, even if he doesn't make good on this threat, just the fact that we are now in a position where the president and commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world is threatening to use that military to commit genocide is something that will change the perception of the United States for a generation to come around the world, because we are now a rogue state. We are functioning as a rogue superpower, threatening to kill countless innocents. It's wrong. The degree of pushback from all both parties, society in general, like needs to be at a higher decibel level. It's just a horrifying thing to read that this morning. I think I think the second thing is the way Trump talks about these things. It's as if they're not people involved. I mean, every person. Listening to this podcast has crossed a bridge, has turned on the lights, has maybe had a parent on a ventilator or, you know, maybe a baby in the NICU. I mean, those people will die if Trump does in Iran, if Trump does what he's talking about and the kind of lack of capacity. He clearly has no capacity to see himself in his own. I mean, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, you know, I mean, there's a lot of, you know, I mean, you know, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of humanity in these people in Iran. And we somehow as Americans need to put aside policy and the stupidity of this war and the insanity of it and the high oil prices and all the rest of it, like threatening mass murder as a form of policy, it puts us in a more dangerous world. It's kind of normalizing a certain conduct that we saw in Gaza, that we're seeing in Iran, that we're seeing in Lebanon, that we saw Vladimir Putin pursue in Ukraine. Like normalizing this to this extent, you know, is truly dangerous no matter what happens. And it also taught me, like, it just made me think, you know, we are now in this scenario where we've got this autocratic leader who is dangerous, who is venal, who, you know, maybe he thinks he's doing some form of madman diplomacy. That's like the charitable version. It's pretty scary. There were only a year and what, two or three months into this Trump term. Like today's the first day, Tommy, where I was like, how are we going to make it through the rest of this term? And, you know, I know, you know, it's kind of resistance fantasy to talk about impeachment and the 25th amendment and the rest of it. But I don't know, if he does this, I mean, you start to wonder, like, who's going to stop him, you know, from doing more of this. Doing literally everything. Yeah. Anything. Because we're kind of in it now. This is not the first war of this administration and may very well not be the last, you know. And so there's a lot that could happen or not happen in Iran. But I do think taking a minute here to just absorb, like, the enormity of this threat and the consistency of it, too, like he did this on Sunday, too. It's really unsettling in a kind of deep way. And I think it's really unsettling. And I think it's really unsettling in a kind of deep way. And it makes you wonder where this country and the world is going. Yeah, it's unsettling. It's an evil threat. It suggests someone who is cavalier and indifferent to the value of human life. And it's not just unsettling to us. I mean, we're going to dig into what Tucker Carlson said about this. Someone who's friends with Trump, who's a huge MAGA supporter. And also, you know, we shouldn't let the threat of what Trump has said he might do hide, like, the horrors that have already befallen the Iranians. I mean, the human rights activist news agency estimates that over 1,600 civilians have been killed in the war since it started, including 248 children. Iran's Ministry of Science and Technology says that at least 30 universities have now been struck by airstrikes. The World Health Organization says it's verified at least 20 attacks on medical centers. The UN says that over 3 million Iranians have been displaced. So the cost for the Iranian people is massive already in terms of lives. You know, infrastructure that will take generations to rebuild. And one other thing I was thinking about, Ben, I mean, I don't know if you watched the entire, like, 90-minute Trump-Ratcliffe-Hagseff-Dan Kane victory lap on the rescue operation in Iran. We're basically not even going to talk about it because, like, so many lifetimes have happened since then of news. I mean, it's extraordinary. What our military did to find these two airmen is extraordinary. But I kept thinking about a previous press conference with Hagseff when he was bragging, about how the U.S. military sank an unarmed Iranian ship with a torpedo and how cool he thought that was to put, you know, 150 Iranian sailors at the bottom of the ocean. And it just made me think about how those two airmen would have been treated by the IRGC had they been captured, given, like, the cavalier way that Pete Hagseff not only doesn't give a shit about civilian casualties or rules of engagement, but, like, seems to revel again in the bloodlust in the in, like, does his fucking, you know, war crimes beat poetry, Dr. Seuss routine at these briefings. So it was just, I don't know, the whole thing. Again, unsettling is the right word. Yeah. And I think, you know, two things. The university, let's just talk about the universities because there are these, you know, Twitter warriors who've won at war with Iran for 15 or 20 years who, you know, like to say, well, you know, they're scientists that went to that university. And so it's a military target or, you know, and they also say, like, maybe the Iranian military could drive something across that bridge. That's not how this works. You're going to bomb Harvard? You're going to bomb MIT? This is civilian infrastructure. What are you talking about? Yeah. I mean, you could make, under this logic, I mean, you actually do have to put yourself in the shoes of Iranians, which is something that these people seem incapable of doing, except to want to kill them. Harvard does plenty of research, including some stuff that reaches U.S. military. Like, how would we feel if they were bombed by Iran? You know, just some service members might take the train down to a base to deploy. Does that make the train, like, this is such a slippery slope. What are we talking about? Yeah. Who have we become that we're sitting here post-facto? You know what? I can guarantee you that most of the people that went to those universities are just students, like you and I were when we went to college. And probably the most progressive people in the country. Yeah, they're the people who fucking protested, you know? And so I just want to call out how, what bullshit it is. You can find a crazy logic train to make anything a target under that. And there's a reason that international law distinguishes civilian from military targets, you know? It's like so grotesque. Yeah. And it's not even a question. It's just like so self-evidently a war crime. A little bit on just how we got to this war. So again, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan at the New York Times have a book coming out on June 23rd about the new Trump 2.0, the new regime. There's a big excerpt from the book in the Times. It's called The New Trump 2.0. And it's about the new Trump 2.0. And it's all about how Trump reached the decision to go to war. That is just extraordinary. It's like the detail in this reporting is unbelievable to me. So if you think, I mean, Ben and I are coming at this from as news consumers, but also as people who were like threatened every day by Lindsey Graham on Fox News for like allegedly leaking shit. And now that more is leaked about the Trump administration in a few months than has ever leaked about any other administration history. So they got all this detail, Haberman and Swan got all this detail about a meeting Trump held with Bibi Netanyahu on February 11th, where Netanyahu made the case for war apparently this is netanyahu was physically in the white house situation room they zoomed in like the massad guys behind him um and they made their case the israelis made their case for the war and it detailed all these israeli assumptions for how things would go and my god were they catastrophically wrong then um here's a few things that the israelis told trump uh iran's ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks the regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the strait of hormuz the odds that iran would hit u.s interest in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal uh and the massad assessed that street protests would start again they also had plans to help foment street protests and they thought that bombing could then help the opposition overthrow the regime and then you know the israelis as we have now seen reported elsewhere were driving this plan to have kurdish forces in iraq invade iran and basically attack the regime from a second front um so haberman and swan report that u.s intelligence assessed that the israeli claims about regime change in a popular uprising were delusional um but trump apparently dismissed those you know what the u.s intelligence said and said it was quote their problem it's not clear in the book whether their problem means israel's problem or iran's problem but that was how seriously trump uh considered these you know uh this response from his own intelligence services um they also report that while netanyahu's pitch was influential trump was way more hawkish uh on iran than many of his base believed and was like pretty distressed to wanting to bomb um they report that jd vance was kind of all over the place like he wanted trump to enforce the red line that he made in january when the protesters were killed but vance is also reportedly the most opposed to the war inside of the war cabinet um vance initially said apparently tried to steer trump towards limited strikes but then when he realized that trump wanted to do it he made the pitch to go all in with overwhelming force so like great work there jd i guess like profile and courage from you um hegseth was the biggest proponent of the war shocker uh rubio is described as ambivalent but didn't try to talk trump out of it again another profile and courage um and it sounds like tucker carlson was like the only person with any real guts here um and he told trump that the war would destroy his presidency last thing ben um scott besant the treasury secretary chris wright the energy secretary and tulsi gabbard the director of national intelligence were excluded from the war planning uh might have been good to have someone who was thinking about the global economy um so i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i think it's important to think about the global economy i Clearly like just an attempt to put a gloss on this war, to rally around the flag effect, to get people on board with the war effort itself. But like the just lack of long-term thinking is, well, I mean, it's typical for these assholes, I guess. - Yeah, I mean, even if you're a casual observer, of national security issues, or you've seen a few movies about special forces, you know that literally revealing all the sensitive capabilities that we use in rescue missions, which there'll be more of, you know, hostage rescue missions happen, you know, semi-regularly. This is just giving the playbook away to anyone who wants to use it. I mean, clear as day. It also just, there's a hypocrisy that it's so extreme that it kind of comes back to the point that when they would attack people for, you know, leaking, it's just projection because they know that they would leak anything if it would make them look good. And in the same way that Trump is using the military as an extension of his kind of personal interests, whether that's, you know, potentially committing genocide or whether that's purging generals, he sees these capabilities that are not his, right? Like we taxpayers pay for them. They're American capabilities. They're not his to, like the idea that just this might make him, because also the politics, like, do we really think there's gonna be like a surge in approval of Trump in the war because he revealed this supersonic, you know, weapon? I mean, it's, like even the politics of it make no sense. It's literally like a kid who just like wants to brag about something that he had nothing to do with, like, and this, like, Donald Trump had anything to do with what those people on the ground did. He's always like, I ordered them to do this. It's like, okay, well, yeah, that was the hard part. It wasn't, you know, fucking refueling a helicopter at low altitude going around Iran as everyone is shooting a shoe with every weapon they can find. Like, I think that was the harder part. I think that was a little harder. Fucking asshole. Yeah. And also like everything they said, every claim they made about, you know, how the war is going is a lie. Like, the New York Times reported that Iran is still launching 15 to 30 ballistic missiles a day, 50 to 100 drones. Iran is now using cluster munitions to defeat certain Israeli missile defense systems. Like, basically, they're firing ballistic missiles that released cluster munitions, which are like little bomblets at high altitude, which lets you get around some of Israel's missile defense systems, which is why you're seeing those clips of these, like, you know, looks like 50, like, stars kind of sinking on Tel Aviv or whatever, which is doing this damage. And meanwhile, Ben, I mean, I saw a report. It was called the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. It's a D.C. think tank that estimates that UAE and Bahrain have expended more than three quarters of their Patriot missile Pac-3 interceptor stockpiles. And that's one of, like, the core defensive missiles in their arsenal. So, again, that's just a way of saying, like, you know, there's a war of attrition happening here. Iran does not seem to be losing it. And the numbers of casualties and the damage and the economic fallout, you know, is going to go up and up every day this goes on. So, it's just, it's not a good setup here. And they will brag in detail about the minute details of a rescue operation while simultaneously they are lying or concealing information about the damage that's being done. We get no credible, transparent reporting from the government about the damage to U.S. facilities in, you know, across the Gulf, be they military bases or embassies, some of which are just closed or inoperable, right? Do you see the thing, the Saudi, the hit on the U.S. embassy in Saudi? I don't know if you guys talked about that last week. I mean, apparently the Iranians put two drones on the same spot on the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia. They fired them at night. Because during the day, that area houses, like, 200 or 300 employees. It would have been a mass casualty incident. And the thing was burning for half a day afterwards. And we've heard nothing about it. Nothing. Like, no briefing. I mean, these are the people, remember how much they used to care about embassy security, you know? Yeah, remember Benghazi. We don't know how badly wounded the hundreds of American service members are. Like, they are simultaneously suppressing bad news and then just, like, hyping the shit out of anything they can grab onto as positive news. And that's like a, you know, that's a recipe for Americans to not trust their government. And we pay for these things. This is what I hate about this so much is like, again, Trump acts like this is all his to do whatever he wants with. Like, no, an embassy, a military base. Like, those are, those are national assets, you know, and they're just not leveling with us. Yeah. Well, standing in the world is fucking gone. Yeah, it's gone. And they're, look, they're all doing it because the war is really unpopular. I mean, the public opinion started out opposed to this war. It has been getting worse inexorably ever since. Trump himself is not getting a boost or like a rally around the flag effect like you usually see in wartime. Harry Enten at CNN did a great piece on this. He pulled together some numbers. So George W. Bush got a 14 point bump in the flag effect. And he's not getting a boost in the first month of the Iraq war. His father, Ben, got a 34 point boost in the first month of the previous Gulf War. Even Jimmy Carter was up like 30 points in the first month of the Iranian hostage crisis. But Trump's net approval is actually down four points. That is completely ahistoric. The only sort of like a similar instance he could point to was the month after Biden left Afghanistan when he went down six points in approval rating and basically ended his presidency. And so they also looked at the CNN aggregator, the polling on the war itself. It started 12 points underwater. Now it's 22 points underwater. And I'm positive that's going to get worse, right? Because gas prices are only going up. Other commodity prices are going up. The price of food could go up. The global economy is slowing down. There could be a collapse, but no matter what, it's slowing down. And on top of that, like during the Iraq war, which you and I lived through, it was all cheerleading for the war. But now you're seeing like major voices in kind of the and so today we're going to play for you guys a couple of clips from Tucker Carlson in his most recent episode that I think are quite important and instructive. And for the record, like, yes, we know all the bad things Tucker has done and said, we know he's a flawed person. We know he's a flawed messenger, but he reaches millions and millions of people who are pro-Trump, who are MAGA and who trust him. So what he says to them is really fucking important. And so this first clip is long, but it is worth it. I promise. So again, this is from Tucker's most recent episode that I think came out Monday night. And so the morning of Easter is a uniquely joyful and peaceful moment. And yet that piece yesterday was shattered. That's not an overstatement. It was shattered for many observant Christians by a statement that the president of the United States put out at 8.03 a.m. Eastern time on Easter morning that said this, and we're going to read it in its entirety, not in outrage or self-righteousness, but honestly in horror. Quote, Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Three exclamation points. Open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch all caps. Praise be to Allah, President Donald J. Trump. Now, a lot of people reading that imagined, of course, this can't be real. Did the president of the United States say this? It is maybe the most real thing this president has ever done and also the most revealing. On every level, it is vile. But then the tweet continues. Pardon me. The ironically named truth continues. Open the effing straight. How dare you speak that way on Easter morning to the country? Who do you think you are? You're tweeting out the effort on Easter morning. You'll be living in hell as if hell is a place. Hell is a condition. And this is an example of that condition. Just watch. Praise be to Allah. So obviously you're mocking the religion of Iran. Okay. If you seek a religious war, that's a good idea. This is a mockery, not just of Islam. It's a mockery of Christianity. To send out a tweet with the F word on Easter morning, promising the murder of civilians and then saying praise be to Allah without explaining any of it, you are mocking me and every other Christian because we're Christians. Oh, I get it. We can't support that. So that is a small slice of an extraordinary 45-minute monologue from Tucker. I don't know how to view this other than a pretty firm break from Trump. Maybe he'll come back. A lot of them do. But it is an attack on Trump in the most harsh moral terms. So it includes Tucker attacking Trump for the following. And he starts at the top. He says, Trump's saying that our motive for invading Venezuela was stealing their oil. Should have been a moment where a lot of people said, I'm out. And I think Tucker is sort of using that monologue as a moment for saying he wished he had said that. He talks about how Trump didn't put his hand on the Bible when he was sworn in at his own inauguration, which Tucker said suggests that Trump, quote, affirmatively rejects what's inside that book. And what's inside that book are limits on human behavior. Because if there's one theme that spans all 66 books in the Christian Bible, it's that you are not God and you cannot assume his powers. You may want them, but in the end, they're not yours, end of quote. So Tucker is not at all subtly accusing Trump of thinking he's now God. He goes in on the Easter Truth Social Post, like we just heard there. And then he argues that Trump launched this war because of literal bloodlust, like because he enjoys the killing itself. And then there's the WMD piece that we'll get to in a minute. And so, you know, I think that's a really good point. And I think that's a really good point. And so, you know, Ben, I think both of us, you know, we listen to Tucker now because he's been really compelling on Iran. And it's important to know what he's saying to his audience. We wanted to highlight this because it includes a really, I think it's a strong moral case against the war that's rooted in Christianity. It includes a call for everyone to say that this is unacceptable and unjustifiable and crazy. And then again, most importantly, the message is coming from Trump's literal close friend, a man who spoke at his convention, who is arguably the most important voice in conservative media. And I just think that is a huge, huge deal. And I wonder what you took away from this from this episode. Like you, I've been listening to Tucker because it's interesting since the war started. And what I took away is, first of all, in some of the early episodes, he was strongly against the war. But it was much of his ire was focused on Netanyahu. And there was almost a sense that like Trump was this guy that was like he left the name Trump out of some of his criticisms. The Israelis, you know, kind of pulling all. Yeah. And, you know, for whatever reason, you know, sincere conviction or opportunism or both that felt like a total and complete rebuke of Trump from somebody who is deep, deep within the tent. And frankly, I listened to that and I part of me thought, how come Tucker Carlson can mount a clear moral case? By the way, in. So there's no mention of Israel. Like I'm not here to excuse, you know, platforming Nick Fuentes at all. But the point is that that was a more morally grounded frontal assault on the war than you hear from certainly any elected Republicans other than maybe Thomas Massey and Rand Paul and frankly, most Democrats. Oh, you think you think it's better to make a case on values rather than process? Not coming to Congress? Exactly. Tucker's not saying like, well, we didn't get a good enough. You should have briefed us. You know, yeah. Like and actually, you know, I think you can learn from people who you disagree with. Yes. And I disagree profoundly with Tucker Carlson about a lot of things, including, you know, the nature of this country inside its borders. But I think we can learn just stripping out all the other things and mounting a direct moral case against what Trump is doing lands very powerfully. And frankly, I don't have the standing that, you know, I'm not a Christian in the same way. But the fact that he and Marjorie Taylor Greene and some other people are really entering this conversation through the doorway of Christianity gets it a real weakness for Trump, because as Tucker says elsewhere in that show, he's not personally pious. Like he's never pretended to be a deep Christian, but he's kind of, you know, gaslit Christians and, you know, delivered certain things for pro-life Christians, for instance, overturning Roe v. Wade. But if you if he starts to lose that base of support, evangelical and Protestant Christians in this country, he's not going to be a Christian. He's going to be a Christian. He's pretty fucked. And I should add, by the way, there's the other American who's been even stronger on the moral basis is the Pope, you know, and the head of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in the U.S. put out a withering statement today urging Trump to walk back from his threat. So he's got a problem. And again, if people want to say, does this matter? Like some of the polling shows that MAGA is behind him. Tucker Carlson, you know, I read the Crooked Reads, book by Jason Zengerle, hated by all the right people. And part of what you learn about Tucker is particularly in the last decade, the Trump decade and a little bit before, this guy has seen where the puck was going and skated to it. And so just because the polling hasn't collapsed in MAGA yet, the fact that Tucker is seeing the direction of where the MAGA movement might go or Trump supporters might go, he's always out in front of it. He's always leading it. This is a guy that had the highest rated show in the history of cable news on Fox and then has a giant platform now. And I guarantee you that Republican politicians listen to that show. They also know that Tucker Carlson may be preparing to run for president because it certainly feels like a lane is open now that J.D. Vance is on board with this war. So that's a lot of reasons why this is both interesting. There's again, I hate to say this, something to learn from the kind of moral case he mounts and I think is a real warning sign that if Tucker is, you know, because it's not just him, we see plenty of other people that are kind of following his lead in that kind of podcast space and internet space on the right. I think it's a harbinger that the people are beginning to look past Trump. Yeah. And look, like people will say, you know, there's polls, including by CNN's Harry Enten, who you mentioned earlier that said like quote unquote MAGA voters are not leaving Trump. Well, yes. If you're, if you're self-identifying as a MAGA voter, you're basically saying like you're a Trump fan, right? And those people are going to be the last to go, but he's losing Republicans. But I do think like the war is only a few, it's like a few weeks old, right? 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Finally, Ben, just before we go on to this weapons of mass destruction discussion, I did want to play you one third clip from a MAGA voice who many would argue is more influential than Tucker and the Pope all rolled together. So let's watch. How do we 25th Amendment is asked? The problem is they get the 25th Amendment harder than impeachment. You have to get two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate. So what do we do? Tackle Trump and pretend, let him pretend he's president and publicly. Report that he's going through a health issue and Vance take over. That was InfoWars founder Alex Jones, who's been one of the biggest Trump fans ever screaming. I just thought that was fun. But like, who is he talking to? Is he interviewing himself? I think I assume that guy wrote the Hobbit or something. I don't know if he created like Glenn Beck when he interviewed like an AI version of himself or something. We should put in an interview request for AI. george washington i don't know it's good to laugh about i don't know if anyone listened to alex jones anymore but like it's just him screaming out of a twitter with a man in his ass it's fucking hilarious to me but it's not just them it's also like i don't know if you ever watched tim dylan like sort of uh yes yeah you know conspiracy loving kind of right-leaning comedian who endorsed trump and just, you know, I hated Biden. He didn't Sean Ryan, Sean Ryan, right? There's like a lot of like, it's not just one person. It's like a bunch of voices saying, Hey, you lied to us, right? This is not what you said you would do. Um, and it's a moral case against Trump about his character, not just the policy. And that's what's so meaningful about it. So, um, Tucker's got a chief antagonist on all things. Iran has been a Fox news host named Mark Levin. Levin is very pro war with Iran. Uh, he's a huge BB Netanyahu friend and fan. I think he like literally showed up in the courtroom at Netanyahu's trial for corruption. He advocates for war all the time on his show. He also despises Tucker Carlson and everything he stands for and calls him an anti-Semite all the time. Um, the, they don't like each other very much in this episode. Did you catch when Tucker compares Mark Levin to Jeffrey Epstein? It's a weird way, but he's like, neither of them have any real talent or power, you know, just a mouthpiece. Um, so no love lost there, but so Tucker's, monologue builds to an argument that Trump has exhausted his conventional military options for winning this war, or at least by, for opening the Strait of Hormuz, right? Because you can't just like bomb your way from the air to getting the Strait of Hormuz open, especially when you can mine the Strait of Hormuz and put mines underwater and block it that way. Right. So that is obviously correct in my opinion. Um, but then Tucker's next argument is something that's worth debating, which is that the escalation ladder is going up and up and up in a way that will lead Trump in his, his view to using a nuclear weapon in Iran. Uh, here's a clip. Here's what Mark Levin said on his Easter weekend show about what we ought to do next in Iran. Watch. And the casualty numbers, as horrible as any casualty is, need some context. The Battle of Okinawa. 50,000 plus casualties, over 12,000, nearly 13,000 killed on that island, which is what convinced Truman that we would lose a million men. If we didn't drop the atomic bombs that we did. Embedded in there is something you need to know. It's an argument that is being test driven. And since no one to our knowledge has pushed back against it, maybe in full operation now, it's an argument for nuclear weapons. So, Ben, I don't know about you. I've not seen any news outlets report that Trump or Netanyahu, for that matter, are considering using nuclear weapons in Iran. But I do think we should take the conversation itself seriously, because in any war or any terrorism debate, there will always be people who make some version of the argument that it is acceptable to kill as many of them over there to protect us over here. You can sort of insert whatever country you want there. But that's how you end up dropping 2000 pound bombs on refugee camps in Gaza. That's how you get to Trump threatening to blow up every power plant in Iran. And that is how you could get to a point where the U.S. or Israel in the most staggeringly hypocritical act in history imaginable could argue that it's OK for us to nuke them so that they can't one day nuke us. And again, I know like Tucker is flawed. I'm not going to go through it all again. But like he knows. Trump as well as anyone. And it seems like something is freaking him out here about this issue in particular. And in that segment, he even implores White House staff to make the case not only to Trump not to do this, but to ignore orders to use nuclear weapons if it gets to that point, which is pretty extraordinary when you think about the debate over like seditious six and the way Republicans were attacking Jason Crow and the other Democratic members of Congress who basically made those guys run to something. Yeah, which is, you know, I can't follow. An unlawful order. So I don't know. What do you make of I mean, not just Tucker as part of this. He's clearly he hates Mark Levin. And that's, you know, fueling some of it. But like, how worried should we be about this kind of WMD debate? My headline on this, you know, I mentioned you, Tommy, I've heard from some normies in my life, like the kind of people that don't follow, you know, foreign policy that closely starting to email me or text me like, hey, is he going to use a nuclear weapon? Like it's out in the ether, you know, because of what he's saying, because when you threaten to destroy civilization. You know, and you threaten to commit genocide, like that's the kind of space you're entering. And my headline on this is, I certainly don't think that that's likely. But the fact that it doesn't feel impossible is terrifying. Because, yeah, I could see a scenario, let's say Trump goes through today or two weeks from now or whenever, with this threat to kind of mass bomb civilian infrastructure. And then I don't think anything about it. But the Iranians suggest that they will capitulate. The Iranians bomb a lot of Gulf energy infrastructure and desalination plants. Yeah. Yeah. And we just keep climbing an escalation ladder. And, you know, that's the top of the escalation ladder. And it doesn't feel impossible. And it should feel impossible. It also, you know, there were people on the left who were right during Gaza when they said, this kind of violence is not possible. If normalized, could migrate to other places. And again, if you look at Gaza, it looks like somebody dropped an atomic bomb. Oh, yeah. I mean, every every structure is destroyed. Like you said, they were dropping 2000 pound bombs on apartment buildings to kill one person. And in the process, killing scores of people. And here we are in a place where we've already bombed a girl's school, where we've already bombed a bridge. Like we're going down this slippery slope. Yep. Like, and the girl's school may not have been intentional, but the bridge certainly was. We're kind of once you start saying we can just start kind of mass bombing, you know, civilian infrastructure, it does lead to that. And the Mark Levin argument, there are two things that are scary about it. One is I hate these guys like him and Lindsey Graham, who seem nostalgic for the days when tens of thousands of people died in the battle. Like they literally talk about it like it's a good old days. You know, we used to have the good old days when 12,000 men were dead. Or something. And then, yeah, he's baking. So we had to drop the atomic bomb so we didn't have to put in ground troops. And so, again, I don't think it's likely, but man, the fact that the president United States has sole authority over the nuclear launch codes and that we'd be counting on people to not follow a plainly illegal and immoral order is frightening. And, you know, suggests revisiting again proposals from the first Trump term about limiting the president's sole authority on the use of nuclear weapons. Yeah. And also that like, you know, one of his prime. Area advisors is fucking Pete Hegseth, who's a, he's the idiot. He's a clown. That's the guy who's in the chain of command. Does that make you feel any better? Right. Like Fox News weekend anchor, who's now the, according to the Haberman Swan reporting, like the loudest voice in favor of war with Iran. You don't think that guy's, that guy's whole identity and place in Trump's orbit and future rests on this war going well in the U.S. being perceived as winning it. You think that like that can't lead you to advocate for some pretty fucking. Evil stuff. I think it certainly can. And remembered his confirmation hearings that came out. One of the things that came out was him like getting drunk and like Channing kill Muslims. Remember that? Yeah. Well, maybe we should fucking pay attention and not confirm sociopathic drunks. Who advocate for war criminals in their free time. Yeah. All right. Let's try to end the kind of Iran section in a way that's a little more hopeful and just think about the ways this could end. Obviously it won't end well because since it, once it started, it can't end well, but and would be good. Yeah. Like, as we said before, there are ongoing talks, um, on the Trump side, those talks are still being led by dumb and dumber Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. So that's not ideal. Um, there's lots of reporting Ben about the Pakistanis facilitating some talks. Um, but I've heard from some plugged in people that the Pakistanis aren't really doing shit. It's all just for show. Um, the Egyptians and the Turks are also facilitating talks. Um, Egypt's intelligence services seem to be the main event here because they have actual IRGC connections. Um, and can really get conversations happening with the right people. Um, at a time when it's, by the way, incredibly difficult to communicate. I mean, Trump himself said this, like it's impossible to get a message to Iran right now because they're worried we're going to kill them. So, you know, they're not going to like pick up their cell phone and talk to us. Right. So they're, you're doing note passing through children is how he described it. Um, there have been reports that the U S has pushed Qatar to facilitate talks, but they have resisted. That could be because both the Israelis and the Iranians are not going to be able to communicate. Um, and the Iranians, uh, bombed them pretty recently. Yeah. It feels like that would make me not want to get more involved. Um, yeah, not, not the best way to kind of make friends. Um, and then obviously I bet there's stuff that's still secret. Like we don't know what we don't know. Um, then there's also like clearly just side deals happening with the Iranians directly. So, uh, for example, Iran recently said that Iraq is exempted from its restrictions on passage through the Strait of Hormuz. They clearly cut some kind of deal. The Philippines said their ships will get through after some sort of negotiation with Iran. Um, there's other reports. That Iran is basically charging a toll in some instances to allow boats through. And then the UK brought together more than 40 countries to build up a coalition to try to figure out a plan to safeguard shipping in the Strait. Obviously that's easier said than done, but long story short, like there's just lots of churn out there. There's lots of people like trying to figure out a path forward. Ben, did any of that reporting or what we've seen so far give you a sense of what an end game might look like or kind of like a path to maybe a ceasefire that gets extended long term? And then I think, you know, getting the Strait of Hormuz back to where it was might not be an option, but getting it functional to the point where it is not going to lead to a global depression feels like a pretty good goal at this point. So like, what are you looking at? I, you know, and again, as of this recording, like the churn was out about the Pakistanis announcing some proposal for a two week ceasefire, um, a two week or delay in Trump's. threat in response to some partial reopening of the Strait. And look, you know, that could happen and that would be great. Just that a civilization, a 5,000-year-old civilization doesn't get destroyed tonight, that would be great. I think what I'm looking at is, okay, what does the U.S. want? What does Iran want? And what does the world want, right? I think Trump at this point, he has to decide whether he needs some more identifiable win, which I don't think he's necessarily going to get, but like seize Karg Island or try to get the nuclear material and say you. But at core, what the U.S. wants is the Strait of Hormuz open, which is, again, ironic because we could have had it open if we didn't start the war. What do the Iranians want? Well, the Iranians have already demonstrated that they control the Strait of Hormuz. They've already demonstrated that they control the Strait of Hormuz. They've already won something from this war and they're already getting tolls. They're already getting fees to let like a dribble of oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz. I think what they will want is some kind of security guarantee that the U.S. and Israel will not attack them again. That probably can't just be the U.S. saying that. Some constellation of countries, China, others may have to kind of somehow be a party to these security guarantees that are given to the Iranians. I think the Iranians will want sanctions relief. I think the Iranians will want, I'm not saying they'll get, the U.S. to pull out of the region, to not have bases surrounding them. So the Iranians have a list, but at core, they'll want the regime survival to be assured and some kind of economic benefit. And they'll have a list from sanctions relief to reparations. And look, the U.S. may be able to reach some part of that deal to just stop the comprehensive reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. We may just see other countries negotiate that. Like Trump is nuts. The Iranians don't trust him. And it may be that Europe and some Asian countries and the Chinese kind of, they're the ones getting together with the Gulf Arabs who desperately obviously want the war to stop and the Strait to reopen. And they just pay a fee going forward. Like if I'm them at this point, I'm like a dollar per barrel of oil. Fine. That's better than like the 30, you know, the 50% increase I'm paying now and like the global meltdown we're about to experience. Yeah. And by the way, what a humiliation that would be to Bibi Netanyahu. Absolutely. The man that said that this would be an easy regime change war, and obviously Trump. Suddenly you've got a regime that is more IRGC controlled, that is profiting more off of the Strait of Hormuz. But again, I just think hopefully we get some kind of partial ceasefire just so that people stop dying and escalation stops spiraling. And then I actually think it's going to take a little bit longer. I think it's going to take a little bit longer. But again, I think it's going to a lot of countries right now. Like countries in Asia are literally weeks away from running out of fuel. You got like Bangladesh had to close schools. They're imposing fuel rations. Ethiopia is putting non-essential government employees on leave. There are like massive, like hundreds of cars and lines to get fuel at gas stations. Farmers can't get fuel to work their crops. And then things will only get exponentially worse as this fertilizer shortage really hits. Because again, remember like helium can't get through the Strait of Hormuz. The fertilizer can't get through. The only positive I've seen then is that there are far right parties all across Europe that are now running from Trump. It's actually interesting to me that Victor Orban, who we'll talk about in a second, would allow JD Vance and Trump into his country at this moment when like Trump has created a massive crisis for them. But like the fucking AFD in Germany, the neo-Nazis are like distancing themselves from Trump. The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Maloney, who remember she was like a Mussolini youth fan, is furious at Trump. She's at the Trump inauguration. Like she's furious because like this is causing a massive economic crisis in Italy. Like the downside of this is that Trump is blaming everything on NATO for some reason. He's once again threatening to pull out. He's like whining about Greenland. So that's not good. Maybe, you know, Marco Ruta can get down on his knees and, you know, do some work tomorrow with Wednesday at the White House. I mean, I remember how many times I called Trump daddy. Yeah, yeah, daddy. But, you know, it's not good. Too far? Marco Ruta is such a, it's comically pathetic in the way he sucks up to Trump. Yeah. Pod Save the World is brought to you by Surfshark. Ever feel like the internet is reading your mind? You search for one thing and suddenly your entire feed is nothing but ads for it? That's because every click you make is being tracked. Surfshark helps shut that down. It encrypts your internet connection and hides your real IP address, so your activity stays private. Whether you're at home or on public Wi-Fi at an airport or hotel, your data is locked up tight. Surfshark VPN also lets you change your virtual location with one click, so your physical location doesn't limit what you can access online. Surfshark's clean web feature blocks ads, trackers, and malware before they even load, which means fewer pop-ups and smoother browsing overall. They've also got tools like an email breach checker and scam alerts to help you avoid phishing attempts. And you only need one account for unlimited devices, phone, laptops, tablet, smart TV, and everything covered. But guys, it's a dangerous internet out there. We got, you know, hackers, state actors, people just trying to buy and steal or sell your data. You need a VPN. If you're surfing the web without one in 2026, you are exposing yourself to lots of unneeded risk. Go to surfshark.com slash PSTW or use code PSTW at checkout to get four extra months of Surfshark VPN. That's surfshark.com slash PSTW, code PSTW. There's a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there's no risk. Surfshark, because of your search history, deserves boundaries. This is Dr. Think setting a beautiful table and making even the little moments feel a bit special. These days, I've been using the Berry serving platter for from Simon Pearce. It's a hand-thrown piece of pottery, with a weight and character that tells you that someone made this. A piece that's unique enough to remind me to be a bit more present, even when I'm just having an everyday dinner. That's what Simon Pearce has been doing for nearly 50 years, making glass and pottery by hand in the United States that bring something genuine to the moments that matter. Pieces designed to be used, passed down, and present for every gathering they're part of. See all my favorite designs at SimonPearce.com. That's S-I-M-O-N-P-E-A-R-C-E.com. Simon Pearce, made by hand, one at a time. This is Jana Kramer from Wind Down with Jana Kramer. I had this moment the other day where I thought, why am I waiting for my next piece of pottery to be made? And I thought, why am I waiting for my next piece of pottery to enjoy life? Just a day to rest and recharge would be amazing. There are hundreds of hotel resort pools, spas, and private beaches that you can be enjoying today without spending the night. I booked a one-day pass at the Four Seasons Hotel in Spa, Nashville. And I'm like, wow, why am I just learning about ResortPass? I found myself settled in into a cabana, just smiling. Umbrella drink, my favorite book, lunch brought right to me. And I'm thinking, this is exactly what I needed. Luxury resort day passes start at just $25. It's a great deal. Go to ResortPass.com slash Jana and use my code Jana to get $20 off when you spend $100. That's code Jana at ResortPass.com slash Jana. All right, let's talk about Victor Orban, one of your favorite people. The Mago world's favorite dictator who is currently the prime minister of Hungary. So Hungary has parliamentary elections on April 12th. So coming up soon. And for the first time in 16 years, Orban appears to be in some serious political trouble. So he's facing a major challenge from a guy named Peter Magyar from the TISA party. Reuters reported that Magyar is polling at 56% while Orban is at 37%, which is the most serious threat again to Orban's rule since he took power in 2010. Magyar's political views are not totally clear. I bet our audience would not love them if they saw like a, you know, kind of punch card of policies. He's not a progressive. He's not a liberal, certainly center, right? But he used to be an Orban ally and a member of Orban's Fidesz party until Magyar quit the party in 2024 amid this massive, awful scandal involving like horrible sexual abuse of children. And then the way presidential pardons were used to pardon the head of an organization that, you know, turned a blind eye to that abuse. And then Magyar's ex-wife, who was a former president of Hungary, who was wife in her role. It was like very salacious stuff that involved like leaking audio tapes he made of her, et cetera. But anyway, according to the Associated Press though, Magyar is really running hard. He's campaigning. in six towns a day he's hammering orban for corruption and by corruption in this case we don't just mean like this you know standard corruption or the ways that orban has enriched himself or his family and friends but like he's talking about the ways orban and ben you can expand on this the way orban is uh just upended hungary's political system the media the courts the economy to make it a way to just further consolidate his own power uh for himself for the fidesz party um so orban obviously as you'd expect is not taking it well he's pulling out all the stops to win votes that includes threats that includes bribes uh magyar has accused in the past orban of blackmail and plotting to release a secret sex tape of him a police officer recently released information about a secret operation by orban's domestic intelligence service to get data from magyar and the tiza party's it systems there have been several instances of election interference with ties to russia including maybe like a false flag bomb threat over the weekend the serbian president alexander vucic you called up orban and said that the serbian army found quote two packages of explosives with detonators in northern serbia that was close to a pipeline that feeds natural gas from russia to hungary um and beyond and so you know magyar says this is a false flag i guess maybe someday we'll find out uh and then finally ben there is the blatant election interference campaign being run out of the white house um here is vice president jd vance who as we mentioned before is in hungary in budapest today tuesday uh on the stump for victor orban let's watch i love hungary and i love that victor i'll tell you he's a fantastic man we've had a tremendous relationship the president of the united states the vice president of the united states and the american people we admire you and we want you to make a decision about your future with no outside forces pressuring you or telling you what to do i'm not telling you exactly who to vote for will you stand against the bureaucrats in budapest will you stand for brussels will you stand for sovereignty and democracy will you stand for western civilization will you stand for freedom for truth and for the god of our fathers then my friends go to the polls in the weekend stand with victor orban because he stands for you and he stands for all these things so to answer your question yes we're certainly aware that there are elements within the ukrainian intelligence services that tried to put their thumb on the scale of american elections on hungarian elections this is just what they do this is this is part of the the cost of doing business within some elements of their system uh okay so i knew this is gonna trigger you so what you heard there was is a jd vance at a rally at the very beginning he like calls uh trump on his cell phone and puts it on speaker and holds it up um and then at the very end that was a clip from a press conference that jd vance did with orban where he was asked about something and ended up blaming the ukrainian intelligence services ben i'd love to hear your thoughts on all of this the vance visit um that bizarre clip of him blaming ukraine there and then why you think like peter magyar seems to have a a chance while others don't and what it would mean if orban actually lost this time yeah so one book plug ago so my my last book after the fall um i wrote about hungary um and i'm not just saying this uh to reference the book one of the characters so i profiled some people in opposition um and one of the three or four hungarians that were kind of characters in my book that i spent some time with in budapest is a investigative journalist named uh saubolch panyi uh writes for an outlet called direct 36 he's a great investigative journalist and i mentioned him because he got charged by orban and the hungarian authorities with espionage um so it's kind of weird you know to write about somebody who's a journalist and then see them being accused of you know colluding with the foreign government it's all bullshit right but it was part of the what what what saubolch panyi had reported on is all the russian interference in the hungarian election which is obvious i mean like they're projecting onto ukraine what russia is actually doing yeah right yep and and it's bogus and people have called out that but i what is so interesting about this is again hungary can seem like a smaller country victor orban is both an ideological leader of this far right brand of i don't even call it populist anymore like this kind of far right blood and soil nationalism that we've seen he has been a propagator of the playbook uh to enshrine authoritarian power in hungary that the republicans have copied here he's at the fulcrum of efforts by russia israel the united states putin uses orban to sow disunity inside the eu related to ukraine policy bb uses orban to sow disunity in the eu around israel and any potential sanction of israel and trump and vance use orban as a fulcrum inside of europe to to fuck up whatever they don't like about the eu and that could be anything from you know potential tech regulations to to just i don't know having liberal democratic policies right and so it is quite interesting that this man who's been in power this time around since 2010 um that putin bb and trump all the worst people are desperate for this guy to win because he's a tool of their efforts to upend european unity and bolster the far right across the continent um so the stakes are very high here now magyar has a chance where previous that we've seen in past hungarian elections is that the the center to the left is very divided um and some of that is again almost not their fault some that's kind of by design like there's a lot of like influence operations by the hung by the fidesz party of orban by the russians and others to turn people against each other to create you know their version of dems and disarray there um some of it is because the legacy was of very deep disgust with the governing center-left party orban right so there's kind of a stink around uh some of the kind of more conventional parties and so to have a guy like magyar who is a defector from the conservative movement in hungary um creates a new political opening because obviously you have the lefts is willing to vote for anybody to get orban out but then you you know win over some of the independents but also orban hasn't delivered right like if you look at hungarian standards of living hungarian poverty levels victor orban has enriched himself and become some big international celebrity to the far right but life for hungarians it's not like he's like not even like the chinese communist party where they can say we raise standards of living like this is not working and i think also just people are sick of this guy after 14 years it feels similar to like a little bit like navalny too right like in that the navalny in many ways was a nationalist and attacking not attacking putin from the right but was not like trying to be some big squishy liberal he thought that yes his path to uh taking down putin was not a good one it was a bad one and he's not going to get away with it and so he's going to be trying to get away with it and so he's not going to get away with it and so he's not going to get away with it and so he's not going to get away with it and so he's not going to get away with it and look we should just say like these guys have put victor orban if he wins it's because you know he's got the media completely on his side in hungary he's god knows what corruption is happening he's got the russian intelligence services helping him who if he wins and ekes out a win like that's kind of status quo anti if victor orban loses this election it is a seismic event it is a fucking earthquake in global politics and we should and and by the way we should insist that it is one because you know what these guys put all the chips on him jd vance flew there to bolster him in the middle of a war string like a yeah like like he's campaigning for a midterm election yeah congressional district right before the election so this would be humiliating to trump it would be a huge setback to the far right in europe it would be wind in the democrats in small d democrats in europe particularly in central and eastern europe where they've been fighting some tough battles um so like you know uh the pod saved the world endorsement is with maggie r like such as it matters yeah it would be seismic it would be incredible for the european union it'd be great for the continent it'd be great for like some wind in the sails of progressives all over the world okay i want to um i just want to quickly trigger you if that's okay um i was watching uh the vance orban press conference and i was and i wanted to play you a little clip uh that i enjoyed greatly um this is uh again our vice president in budapest today i just want to say something one final observation about this election what has happened in this country what has happened in the in the midst of this election campaign is one of the worst examples of foreign election interference that i've ever seen or ever even read about the bureaucrats in brussels have tried to destroy the economy of hungary they have tried to make hungary less energy independent they have tried to drive up costs for hungarian consumers and they've done it all because they hate this guy but i think that what the people of hungary what i would encourage them to do is ask themselves the question not who's pro or anti-europe not who's pro or anti the united states of america but who is pro you who is pro the people of hungary uh how about the absolute incredible of the Vice President of the United States going to sue stump for victor orban and then complaining about foreign election interference by the way with all the context that we know about trump you know remember when he offered argentina a 20 billion dollar bailout and told voters there that like either you know vote with javier malay or else like the u.s would cut off support like these guys are brazenly interfering in elections all over the place and he's still jd vance is still like his he's a one note like tiny little man fucking pathetic little baby loser and he's whining about bureaucrats in brussels because that's like all he can that's his entire playbook at this point yeah i mean you hit that point only i'd add is on the substance victor orban and his cronies have been stealing eu money for years the the the eu provides billions of dollars in assistance to hungary because it's one of the poorer countries in the eu for things like infrastructure projects and all the money just gets skimmed off the top and goes to the u.s. to enrich orban's cronies and finances politics so if he's got problems with brussels yeah part of it's that he's way out of step with the europe on things like ukraine but part of it's that he's been fucking stealing from europe right and that's why they don't want to keep shoveling money to the guy um so not that jd vance cares about that uh so i mean for him i mean the ukrainians are being bombed and invaded for him to to accuse it is such an atrocity like that this guy is sitting there taking pot shots at people that are a million times tougher than he is uh and have sacrificed a million times more than he has for democracy spare me the lectures about election interference from budapest jd the other weird comment he made ben is he said like he was doing some weird bit about how orban's leadership is a model for how other european leaders should be dealing with the energy crisis in europe which as far as i can tell like orban gave like huge government subsidies or basically just like forced like state agencies to do that and he's like you know i don't even know what the hell you're talking about i don't even know what you're talking about i don't even know what you're talking about i don't even know what you're talking about i don't even know what you're talking about i don't even know what you're talking about i don't even know what you're talking about i don't even know what you're talking about i don't even know what you're talking about i don't even know what you're talking about i don't even know what you're talking about then they were super pro-russia and they just like advocated either for purchasing oil and gas from the russians or removing sanctions from the russians and now they're sucking up to trump even though he is creating this new massive energy crisis via the war with iran it's just like what does he think vote like i guess he thinks voters everywhere are stupid maybe that's just the answer he does i mean he thinks he can like jd vance them you know and uh this shtick is just growing really old because like you know what who in america the only people that give a shit about this are like the ideologues at like the claremont institute you know like it's like far-right intellectuals like it's not like you know working folks of ohio that jd vance represents or claims to represent or sitting there you know in rural ohio being like you know what we really need we need an orban victory in the hungarian election you like yeah you're who's the fucking elitist cosmopolitan like give me a break jd vance go to back to ohio and like actually talk to people who can't afford their bills instead of like spending taxpayer money to fly to stump for somebody that probably nobody in ohio has heard of it is very weird and there is also by the way i mean remember tucker carlson did his week of programming from oh yeah yeah that's where we break from tucker yeah big big time big time um the the way you The way politics is kind of getting reshuffled right now is very interesting i mean this was probably inevitable and bound to happen in some ways because trump is essentially a lame duck president and everyone's kind of you know jostling for uh their spot and figuring out what's next but there's no doubt that tucker was right when he told trump that you know the war in iran would end his presidency and would be the undoing of him uh and potentially the naga project and it does feel like we're at the beginning of that happening and it's happening more rapidly and then frankly i would have expected but i'm not sad about it not sad about mondays not sad about okay well uh that's it for us today thank you for listening thanks for subscribing to pod save the world uh wherever you get your podcasts or here on youtube and we'll talk to you guys soon pod save the world is a crooked media production our senior producer is alona minkowski our producer is michael goldsmith our associate producer is anisha banerjee we get production support from our executive producers are me tommy v. and ben rhodes the show is engineered mixed and edited by jordan canter audio support by charlotte landis thank you to our digital team ben hefcote mia kelman william jones david tolls and ryan young matt degrote 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 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 post takeovers and other community events please subscribe to pod save the world on youtube for access to full episodes bonus content and much more and if you're opinionated like us leave a review our production staff is proudly unionized by the writers guild of america east this is dr laurie santos from the happiness lab research shows that social care is a very important part of our lives and it's a very important part of our lives and it's a very important part of our lives and it's a very important part of our lives is important for happiness and something that research comes back to again and again is that the little moments together matter more than we think and that's why i'm such a big fan of rituals think about the glassware you use for all your dinner parties ones that make your events feel right without even thinking about it and that's why i've been using the woodstock tumbler from simon pierce they're hand blown one at a time with the kind of character you only get from a human hand something made that slowly has a way of reminding you to savor the moment that you're that really matter find yours at simon pierce.com that's s-i-m-o-n-p-e-a-r-c-e.com simon pierce made by hand one at a time hey it's ryan seacrest for albertsons and tom thumb fall is coming which means cough and cold season is almost here get ahead by stocking up on all your favorite cough and cold essentials now through september 29th shop in store and online to save on products like allegra tablets halls drops mucinex kickstart zyrtec allergy relief tablets tylenol liquid gels one a day men's health and vicks dayquel and nyquil combo packs offer ends september 29th restrictions apply offers may vary visit albertsons or tomthumb.com for details this is janna kramer from wind down with janna kramer i had this moment the other day where i thought why am i waiting for my next vacation to enjoy life i don't need a week off just a day to rest and recharge would be amazing and so i went to resortpass.com there are hundreds of hotel resort pools and hotels that are open to the public and i'm going to show you some of the hotels spas and private beaches that you can be enjoying today without spending the night i booked a one-day pass at the four seasons hotel in spa nashville and i'm like wow why am i just learning about resort pass i may have only been 15 minutes from home but it felt like a whole different world i found myself settled into a cabana just smiling umbrella drink my favorite book 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