Unpacking Trump’s Ukraine “Peace Deal”

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(upbeat music) - Welcome back to PodSave the World on Tommy Detour. - I'm Ben Rhodes. - Ben, happy Thanksgiving to you, happy Thanksgiving to all the listeners at that time of the year when Americans famously binge eats turkey. We binge football and then we demand that our allies surrender to the Russian government. - Just so we can digest our food better. - Yeah, of course talking about Trump's Ukraine piece deal. We're gonna get into that in a minute. So you're in New York right now. Are you gonna go to the Macy's parade? - I'm on the fence. I've been three at the last four years, I think. And, you know, it's a bit of an ordeal, but it's usually worth it, so we'll see. I'm seeing if I can score like a rooftop on Central Park West. That's my bag of plan. - Did you go to the one when Spider-Man kind of floated into Uncle Sam's ass and he looked like he was doing something R.F.K. might write a poem about? - Yeah, thankfully I was with my children and I was not positioned at that particular place on the parade route, so I didn't have to participate in a R.F.K. living at sea, Ryan Liza Triangle. - It felt tough. - Yeah, well, I have an early Christmas present for you. - MS now just reported that Trump is considering firing Kash Batel, the FBI director. - I mean, how's it gonna get to those? - You like that? - Yeah, how's it gonna get to those, you know, country music performances that obscure wrestling matches in Pennsylvania then? - Southwest Airlines, buddy. (laughing) Sorry, Kash, I'm excited for that one. Ben, I just wanna say to the listeners, we got a great show for them, but also please subscribe to Potsay the World on YouTube because just last week alone, on Friday we did a bonus Potsay the World on YouTube about this Ukraine peace plan. We also did a full episode on this insane meeting that Trump's ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee had, with a literal traitor to the United States, named Jonathan Pollard. Pollard was a Navy intel guy who sold U.S. secrets to Israel in the 1980s, then served 30 years in prison before being released and created back in Israel by BB Den Yahoo, who got literal heroes welcome. And apparently according to New York Times back in July, Huckabee invited Pollard to this meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, which we unpack all the ways that is stunning, but I wanna hit 200,000 subscribers by the end of the year. So please subscribe to Potsay the World on YouTube. It's free, it's great content. And also, you know, we're trying to, when people search for political news, we want them to find us and not TPUSA, right? - Yeah, we're trying to, you know, we're trying to do our part here. We're making all kinds extra content. People should come to the content verse that is the Pots of the World YouTube. Come to the content minds. We have an amazing show. So we're gonna unpack these head spinning developments that have been happening all day today about this possible U.S. Ukraine, Russia, peace agreement. We'll talk about how on earth this exploded into the public in the first place. We're gonna talk about which Trump officials are actually driving this policy, or at least the ones that are telling the press they're driving the policy. We will look at all the meetings that the U.S. is not attending because we are boycotting, specifically the G20 and the cop climate summit. Nothing important happens there, right? Nothing big discussed. We're gonna see, you know, kind of what it tells us about how the world is moving on without us. We'll explain how former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro maybe tried to escape his upcoming prison sentence, and why he claims, we'll talk about his excuse for what he claims happened, but it's a crazy story. We'll tell you the latest on the U.S. regime change operation in Venezuela. We'll explain how and why tensions between Japan and China have ratcheted way up. And then finally, we're gonna check in on our friend, Candace Owens. She is waging a brave one woman battle against France. The state of Israel a lot more. I mean, she's going through a bend. - It's just a lonely battle that Candace is waging. She's posting through it though, thankfully. So we get to know her feelings as it unfolds. - Yeah, we're learning a lot in real time. We're also gonna tell you how some foreign voices have been boosting MAGA. But Ben, you wanna start with Ukraine? Because we're doing our best to keep up with the story. We'll see if, by the time this episode posts, if it's still current. But so on Friday, we did this pot-take-the-world YouTube where we talked through kind of our initial reactions to this 28-point so-called peace plan that leaked to Axios against subscribe to pot-take-the-world. If you wanna listen to that. But the key things you need to know about that initial 28-point plan is that it was just a full Russian wish list. Specifically, it gave huge territorial concessions to Russia, they got de facto recognition of Crimea, Luhansk, and Denetsk. And that means that Ukraine would have to hand over territory to the Russian government that is not currently being occupied by the Russians. The plan capped Ukraine's military at 600,000 troops. The current forces around 880,000. Ukraine would not be allowed to join NATO and NATO wouldn't be allowed to expand further. But Ukraine could join the EU under this plan. There was a weird provision in there where the US would get 50% of the profits from investments made with frozen Russian funds that were put into investments in Ukraine and reconstruction of Ukraine. Ukraine would have to hold elections in a hundred days after signing the deal. And then the Russians get to rejoin the G8. They get full amnesty for war crimes so they get sanctions relief. So full wish list there. Since that recording, there have been a flurry of talks. There were talks with the US, Ukraine, and European officials in Geneva, and now the US and the Russians are talking in Abu Dhabi. Those talks have evolved and modified this plan a bunch. It sounds like it's down to now 19 points. We have not seen that full revised text, but we're trying to piece it together via press reports. So the financial times, I think, are the most comprehensive piece on this. FT says the most contentious issues had been removed. And they're going to be left for Trump in Solensky to negotiate directly. Stuff like whether Ukraine has to give up what amount of territory and whether it gets a security guarantee. Those talks could happen as soon as this week if Solensky goes to Mar-a-Lago, but then Trump just sent out this random tweet where he said he's sending Whitcoff to Russia first to meet with Putin. Now he's going to send Dan Driscoll, the army secretary who's randomly emerged in these talks. To, I guess, Ukraine to negotiate the Ukrainians who wants to do that before he meets with the leaders directly. So we don't know. The FT also says the Ukrainians have shifted the ceiling on their armed forces from 600,000 to 800,000. And the Washington Post says that like all the bilateral US-Russia issues will be removed from the plan so that Solensky doesn't have to sign off on that stuff personally. And that Ukraine also wants to pull out anything regarding its negotiations directly with Europe or NATO. The Europeans, by the way, put forward their own plan or several plans, which the Russians rejected and it doesn't look like the White House even read. I think Rubio's quote was like, "Oh, I hadn't seen that yet." So Ben, a few hours before we started recording, CBS quoted a US official saying Ukraine has agreed to the deal in principle. A top advisor does Solensky tweeted that the Ukrainian and US delegation has, quote, reached a common understanding on the core terms of the agreement. But the FT says that Russia is unhappy with the changes that have been made and might reject it. I'm gonna pause there. Sorry for that long wind up, everybody. What are your big takeaways on how this thing has evolved the last few hours? And do you think the Russians are gonna accept the deal? Spoiler alert, no, the Russians are not gonna accept the deal. But to wind back the tape here, and the personnel in the Trump administration is really important here because particularly what happened here is a Russian guy went to genius negotiator Jared Kushner and Steve Woodcoff and basically gave them this 20 point plan. And Jared Kushner and Steve Woodcoff thought, well, this is great. This can be the planned and the war, which by the way, as we talked about on YouTube, but is the same plan that Putin basically brought to Alaska, and you summarized it, well, they get everything essentially. I'm actually gonna point out just one thing 'cause we didn't talk about it the other day. It's crazy enough that Ukraine has to give up everything and Russia makes no concessions. There's even stuff in here that like NATO can't expand, not just to Ukraine, but anywhere else, right? So Russia something gets a veto on any future NATO membership, not just Ukraine's. That's a pretty special poison pill. Pretty clearly this thing is immediately mocked, rejected. There's horror about it, even in the Republican caucus in the Senate, there's horror about it in Europe. There's a flurry of activity. not unlike after the Alaska Summit where the Europeans and Zelensk and everybody had to kind of run around and try to talk Trump down from capitulating everything to Putin. Marco Rubio swoops in and he's the guy that is more friendly to the Ukrainians. He sits down with your Mac who's like the second most powerful guy in Ukraine. Zelensk is chief of staff and Vanessa's this plan cuts out a bunch of stuff. I think you know based on reports you know like they remove the or they raise the cap on the size of the Ukrainian military things like that right just making it less humiliating essentially to the Ukrainians. Presently they still have to give up this territory. There's tonight again NATO. And then there's this question you know if you're Ukraine you're you don't want to lose territory that you haven't already lost. I mean ideally you'd like to get back your territory but you certainly don't want to give up territory that you haven't lost. You don't want to cap on your military because you need insurance policy against Russia invading you again. You want to get back the tens of thousands of children that have been kidnapped in Russia things like that but also you want you know security guarantee. Now the problem with any security guarantee I think is that if it's not NATO if it's not article five or if it doesn't have like a some kind of force right there's a discussion of like a European kind of peacekeeping force as just almost a tripwire like a insurance policy against Russian invasion. Are you really going to trust Trump when he says well it's a security guarantee but we'll basically decide what it means if one Russian fades you. You know you're not going to trust that if the Ukrainians right. So there's all this stuff that they don't like but they probably took out some of the worst stuff. But the other piece of this is that Putin has never signaled that he will agree to anything other than the most maximalist victory for Russia in this war. It's not a peace plan that was released initially it was a surrender plan essentially for the Ukrainians that's been his plan since January 20th when Trump is inaugurated. And so now fast forward all the way to where we are now Marco Rubio does his flurry of work to just get this thing in like a less bad state than it was. But I would presume that it's highly unlikely that the Russians will accept that if they do you know we'll see even if like the Zolansky can get it through etc but I don't know this whole thing feels very keystone copsish. At a minimum I do not think we're going to be eating our turkey with a piece in our time in Ukraine. Yeah I want to get into the backstory in the Keystone cop element of just the weird origins of the plan in one second but I was talking to a very smart expert about all of this earlier today and she made some points that I thought were really worth highlighting. The first is just like big picture Ben we sometimes lose sight of this. The messaging disaster that arose from this plan and the way it was leaked and the way it came out and had you know different officials in the White House and Rubiel like saying different things like that was a disaster it was a disaster any other White House would be killed if there was a policy rollout like this that caused like literally a global freak out and we should just again it's Trump so we're all like a nerd to it but it's worth pointing out. Second like like you just said I mean this person thought that Russia would almost certainly reject the deal because Putin has no incentive to take it. Trump and Wyckoff they keep saying like I think Putin wants peace he cares about the loss of life he wants back into the global economy there's actually zero evidence of that. In fact there's evidence of the opposite like Putin just seems totally cool with losing 35,000 soldiers a month in perpetuity and Russia's economy is surviving because it is now a full-time war time economy. In fact right there's these recruitment bonuses there are death payouts that are basically subsidizing poorer regions of the country. You also have towns and factories that were dead that are now like kind of coming back to life because Soviet era factories are you know revving back up to make more weapons and like Putin can figure out how to deal with more sanctions he cannot necessarily figure out how to create a normal non-war time economy. And then this person finally just pointed out that Carol Demetriv who is the the Russian interlocutor who is now negotiating directly with Jared Kushner and Steve Wyckoff. This person described him as uniquely dangerous because he's like he went to Harvard he's kind of of their age right he's a he speaks perfect English he's a business guy he presents well he seems pragmatic and by the way he controls a sovereign wealth fund Wink Wink not not Jared maybe down the road we could do business together for your little investment thing yes um percent but so right so this guy seems reasonable but the end of the day he's just a Putin guy who sees and can play a couple hapless idiots like Wyckoff or Kushner or again like Dangle some future business in front of their faces so I don't it it like it feels pretty ominous like the the Thanksgiving deadline seems to have been pushed by Trump Lavrov you know was out there on the record the foreign minister kind of shitting on the deal I don't know what we'll see what happens but like it just seems unlikely as you said the Russians would accept this. If if people want to try to understand like what's going on here what Putin is doing is he's fucking with both the US government and the Ukrainian government because what we've seen now for months is periodically the Russians show up with different versions of the same plan they get some useful idiot in the Trump administration sometimes it's Trump himself sometimes it's Jared Kushner and see Wyckoff to essentially agree to the Russian terms knowing that the Ukrainians can never agree to those terms knowing that it's suicide for them knowing that the Europeans will never agree to those terms then there's kind of a flurry of activity and everybody's hysterical and everybody's trying to figure out what's going on and you kind of get back to a status quo anti where the Ukrainians agree to something less than all the Russian demands and the war just continues meanwhile Ukraine just kind of gets weakened along the way right everybody's spending all this bandwidth just to stay above water the US is not providing new military assistance to the Ukrainians so it's not like we're doing anything to try to change Putin's calculus on the battlefield so the Ukrainians are getting weaker as this thing goes on all the US is doing now is selling weapons to the Europeans that they then provide to the Ukrainians so Putin is just kind of playing this out for time you know and look if he can get everything he wins at the negotiating table fine then he wins but if not he just makes us look like idiots he divides us from the Europeans he divides the Ukrainian political leadership internally because they're hardliners in Ukraine they don't even like the Zelensky's negotiating on these terms these corruption scandals have come out about Zelensky I will say this is just one man's opinion I believe those scandals to be true because there's good reporting that they're true it's also possible that they're coming to light because the Russians are very good at getting those kinds of things out you know so it just feels like Putin is just playing Trump over and over again and the other thing we should talk about Tommy and you know you may get to this is there's just all kinds of people in the Trump administration circling around this policy with wildly different perspectives you know from the Whitcoff Jared one which is like we just want to deal that we can declare as a peace deal and oh by the way makes some business deals probably under the table with these Russians on the back end because what the Russians want if they lose that war economy they're gonna need to do some stuff fast to generate revenue well maybe you know Jared and Steve can be a part of that I don't know Trump just wants the war over so he can say he made peace even if it's not really a peace it's a surrender for Ukraine and possibility that they're just gonna get invaded again in a couple years but then Marco Rubio is kind of like the straight man and the whole you know tragic comedy who parachutes in and tries to make things a little bit better JD Vance is like this heavy who comes in and is just hates the Ukrainians it's so it's just fucking chaos and now we got guys that never been heard of who are like parachuting the negotiations but this is the Russians have one plan it's Putin's plan on down Trump's got like all these different factions duking it out the Ukrainians probably don't even know who to call because they can call the people that are more friendly to them but the people are more friendly to them in the White House are not the people making the policy well and then you also got people like Steve Wycoff who's just a hapless idiot who on October 14th I mean Bloomberg got a hold of a recording of his call to a top foreign policy advisor to Putin where he basically Wycoff recommends to him that the way to get a deal done would be to recommend like that the Ukrainians give up the nets so part of the Donbass and do a land swap somewhere else but for Steve Wycoff to do that like on the just before Zelensky was about to visit is very pretty shocking and also he's a complete and total idiot if he's gonna call a Russian official and make an offer like this on an open line and not expect it to get recorded by several intelligent services who then leak it to Bloomberg which is clearly what happened here so Ben you sort of alluded this couple time there's a lot of debate about where this plane came from and like who authored it and who's driving the policy the most confusing stuff came from Senator Mike Rounds or Republican from South Dakota who I've never thought about before and probably won't since but he said at this press conference he was in Halifax this big security conference that he talked on the phone with Marco Rubio I think it was him and Gene Sheen and Marco Rubio and that Rubio briefed them that this 28 point plan was the document sent over to the US by the Russians that was basically their wish list and didn't reflect the administration's position now the rounds says this publicly then the State Department denies it Rubio gets on the phone calls rounds back and is like oh no no you misunderstood be it but like something weird happened there then you had some Twitter sleuths who were looking at the wording of the plan and they argued that like the wording looked like it had been in Russian and that was translated back to English and that suggested that this was like a Russian document that came to the US who knows we know that Wicoff thinks that the Russians leaked this plan initially to Axios because Dee Wicoff again who is a genius tweeted as much in a message that was meant to be a DM there's also all this chatter that like you just said about whether Rubio was cut out of the drafting of the document and then there's this odd inclusion of army secretary day and Driscoll in the talks. And so the reason that matters is, Dan Driscoll is best friends with JD Vance, and there's a suggestion a lot of the reporting that his presence is a bit of a power play by Vance to take control of this process and humiliate Rubio his 2028 rifle. Now, Driscoll also being there also humiliates Pete Hegseth, which is just a nice chef's kiss touch. So the White House has spent in the State Department. They spent the last few days kind of spin a more sanitized version of the story, Taylor Swift stands my college Jared's version. So Axios dutifully reported Jared's version. It goes like this, on the flight back from the Middle East after the Gaza ceasefire, Jared Kushner and Steve Wyckoff, they get together and they say, let's sketch out a Ukraine peace deal modeled on what we just did in Gaza. Then Kushner and Wyckoff meet with Kieril Dmitriyev, the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund that I mentioned earlier, for several days of talks in Miami. The Wall Street Journal described the negotiations in the following way. The three men had similar views on what a proposal should look like, though Dmitriyev had far more specific ideas in mind, official said, which I thought was like a great like deadpan description. So those talks become this 28 point plan. That gets briefed to Zelensky, and then about a week ago to Zelensky himself. And for some reason, then at these like Miami talks, there's some senior Katari official there according to news reports. God knows why or what that person was doing. And then Axios insists that Rubio and JD Vance were like fully right into this process all along, but it sure seems like there's other reporting that like Rubio has reasserted control more recently. And then Trump, it's just being Trump, like he's flanneling away on true social. He attacks Zelensky for showing zero gratitude. Then he set this Thanksgiving deadline, and then that deadline's gotten walked back. So big picture Ben, like God knows what's happening here. But like Trump's theory of the case is certainly, let's just put whatever the stronger party wants on paper. Let's call it a plan, and then let's force it upon the weaker party and see if we can get a deal. And like maybe, but I guess the Russians aren't gonna go along with that potentially here. We don't know. - That's what he did in Gaza, and he got universally blotted for a ceasefire in which hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, which since the quote unquote ceasefire was concluded. Trump just wants to say he ended the war and do some business deals in Russia, right? The problem is Putin will only end the war on not just Maximus terms, like the terms of victory for Russia, which are unacceptable to Ukraine and Europe. Now just to go through, like you did a great job unpacking the insanity that we've all lived through, it's clear that this had an origin in this Russian approach to Jared Kushner and Sebrakov. Like that nobody disputes that, right? Russians bring something to Jared and Woodkov, and suddenly that becomes a US plan. Which is pretty wild if you actually think about that. And let's just be clear here, like we are normalizing a degree of corruption in our foreign policy that is absolutely staggering. Why the fuck is the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund sitting in Miami with the president's son-in-law without the Ukrainians like carving up Ukraine and talking about future business deals? 'Cause this is what's happening. That's their account of what's happening. That's not like the negative account. - That's Jared's version. - Yeah, Jared's version is why are you negotiating with the head of the sovereign wealth fund? What could that possibly be about other than some kind of future business relationship, right? Or some kind of prioritization of getting the Russian sanctions lifted and having some deals on critical minerals or whatever the thing is that Trump's hot for that day or Jared's hot for or Steve Woodkov has an interest in in the future, right? That should not be happening, full stop. And another thing which we haven't talked about here is that Rubio is, remember, not just the Secretary of State, ostensibly he's the National Security Advisor, right? Did I miss something Tommy? - No, any arguments? - Is it against me? And the NSC from everything I hear has been absolutely hollowed out. Like there's just like a, what used to be hundreds of people is like a few dozen policy people like doing God knows what in the White House. They're supposed to be coordinating policy, right? The NSC is supposed to get everybody together, the State Department, the Pentagon, all these other agencies are doing sanctions enforcement, Treasury Department, and the reason you do that is because this is a sprawling policy with different pieces and different pieces of the US government. When there's no coordination, when there's no captain of the ship here, there's no one calling the plays and using too many metaphors here, all you get is this kind of form shopping, which the Russians are very good at. You form shop for the most friendly interlocutor. In this case, it's two useful idiots, Jared Kushner and Steve Woodcoff. And then on top of it, I totally see this JD Vance Marco Rubio. If you don't think that those guys aren't like positioning themselves for 2028, you're not paying attention to kind of like the blood sport that is the competition for the next head of MAGA, which by the way is a sign that Trump's own guys are looking past Trump, which I actually find to be pretty interesting as well. But the net result is we just have this kind of train wreck that we lived through before. Like this is the same dynamic that happened in Alaska. They rush a summit that nobody thought was ready except for Steve Woodcoff and Donald Trump. It happens, it's a disaster and everybody has to hurry up to clean it up. And that's kind of a right back and groundhog day. But meanwhile, the one thing that doesn't change is the Russians are grinding away that front line inch by inch taking Ukrainian territory, bombing Ukrainian civilians and energy infrastructure and weakening them over time 'cause they're not getting any meaningful U.S. assistance. - And just for what it's worth, like the people physically at the table for these talks are Steve Woodcoff, who a year ago was doing real estate deals. Jared Kushner, who is as corrupted as it gets, right? We know about his giant kickback from the Saudis and from the Emirates and all the investment money he's sitting on. So I imagine he's thinking about that next payout. And then this guy, Dan Driscoll, who's just sort of emerged out of nowhere over the last few days, like he's also the acting head of the ATF, which is strange to me too. - Yeah, but he's like a buddy with JD Vance. He seems like highly regarded. I'm sure he's a smart guy. He's served in the U.S. Army for a few years. But like this guy, none of these people are like Russia hands. They have no experience with Russia and Ukraine. At least Marco Rubio is served in government. He was chair of the intelligence committee. Like I'm not a big Rubio fan, but like he's got a little bit of expertise. These other three are just complete and total rubes. Now maybe they'll get the job done. Maybe I'll eat these words. But like, I don't know. I would love someone who has a little familiarity with the issues that didn't start, you know, January 21st of this year. - And the Russians have been running like at least a 10 to 15 year plan on Ukraine. They've been at this, you know? They think in terms of like long sweep of history. Trump thinks in terms of the announcement he can get on television and the plot it so you can get from Fox pundits. And Jared and Woodcoff think in terms of like the deals that could be done with the sovereign wealth fund. They're not thinking about the fact that if you dismember Ukraine, don't get them a meaningful security guarantee and cap their military, well, Putin's gonna wait a few years like cash in all that sanctions relief and then just like reinvate and take another chunk of it. And I'm not, I'm not like, you know, Brett Stevens here. Like I'm not someone who thinks that, you know, Russia's about to invade Western Europe or something. But that's not a hypothetical scenario 'cause it's already happened. Like that's, like Russia's already done that, you know? - And the broader context though, I mean, like whether or not your Brett Stevens, the Russians have been firing drones into European airspace repeatedly over the last couple of months. And the polls accuse them of blowing up a rail line in Poland that was being used to resupply the Ukrainian. So the Russian aggression is getting worse, not better. And yeah, and so people want to, what should happen? It's like, well, you got to generate a little bit more leverage on Putin, you know, unfreeze that money. Those 300 billion dollars in Russian assets begin to make that available to the Ukrainians, provide them with some more weapon systems and write a fucking US plan that is something that we believe that the Ukrainians should live with. And by the way, that's gonna involve them losing territory. That's certainly, you know, they're not gonna get crime me a back. They're not gonna get all the Eastern Ukraine back. They sure as hell low shouldn't have to give up territory that they currently have. They certainly should be able to have a meaningful security guarantee so they know they won't get invaded. I personally don't think that they should accept any infringement on their sovereignty. Not sure, you know, they need a cap on the size of their military. Or that NATO should be told what to do. Or that NATO can't have other members that aren't even Ukraine. I mean, so there are meaningful ways to say, let's generate some more leverage on Putin. Let's make a reasonable plan and try to have that be the basis to get to some kind of ceasefire. And by the way, like prioritize a ceasefire 'cause like the Ukrainians could benefit from not having missiles and drones running down on them. So there is an alternative here. They just haven't even tried it. - They got hit hard last night that Ukrainians did with another massive barrage of missiles and drones. And so yeah, we'll see what, if this fails, we'll see what Trump does. I mean, the only thing he hasn't tried is ramping up assistance to the Ukrainians that might put real pressure on Putin but clearly doesn't wanna do that. So we'll find out. (upbeat music) - Pots of the world is brought to you by Council for a livable world. Let's be honest, few people really wanna spend their days thinking about a nuclear war. It is not fun to think about. Lucky for us at Pots of the world, our friends at Council for a livable world work on avoiding it every day. For more than 60 years, Council for a livable world. world has made improving U.S. nuclear policy its mission. They have helped elect more than 400 members of Congress who support policy that makes sense, keeps us safe and doesn't waste our tax dollars. They've consistently pushed Congress to do its job by asking government and industry tough questions on nuclear weapons, missile defense, and other national security and foreign policy topics. And with the support of people like you, Council for a Liberal World, endorsed candidates and advocacy on Capitol Hill have helped lead to treaties and agreements that reduce the global nuclear stockpile for more than 70,000 at the height of the Cold War to about 12,000 today. That's incredible progress, but their work is far from over. We know that because Donald Trump is out there, threatening to resume testing of nuclear weapons, which is absolutely insane. And guess what? The Russians are like, okay, we'll do it too. So that's that's very wonderful. Nuclear risks are rising again. You can help Council for a Liberal World finish the job through quick and easy action by going to livableworld.org/cricod. That's l-i-v-a-b-l-e-w-o-r-l-d.org/cricod. As we negotiate this deal with the Russians and we try to jam down the Ukrainian's throats, it is worth noting that the rest of the world is at these major global summits that we are just boycotting. The first is the G20 that just wrapped up inside Africa. This was the first time in African nation it hosted the G20 and the U.S. boycott it because Donald Trump thinks South Africa is too mean to white people, specifically white farmers. So these leaders are left trying to coordinate the global economy without the world's largest economy in the world at the table. Also, this Ukraine piece deal leaked during the G20 and there's no U.S. rep there, so they're all scrambling to figure out what the hell is going on, which is a nice kind of insulting touch. Then there was the cop summit in Brazil. That is the annual United Nations meeting to coordinate action to prevent climate change. The U.S. skipped cop for the first time in 30 years. The outcome was extremely depressing. The final resolution did not even mention fossil fuels. A literal fire burned part of the pavilion that served as the venue, which is honestly just fitting. This was the 10 year anniversary of the Paris Climate Accords, which I'm sure you remember well then. We are almost certainly going to miss the targets outlined at Paris of limited global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or even 2 degrees Celsius. There were a few small good things that came out of this years cop. There's 5 billion in pledges for anti-defora station. I think that was about a fifth of what they wanted, but it's some money. There was a resolution calling for more money for a country's facing climate-related disasters and the mitigation. But unfortunately, the bigger picture story of cop recently is just a complete and total failure to meet the moment or come close to addressing the scale of the problem. Then the question is, did these summits matter if the U.S. boycotts them for the next three years? How do you think the world should go on without us? They matter a lot. First of all, we should just say, not going to the first G20 in Africa is just incredibly racist thing to do. That sends a message that we have a racist administration that doesn't give a shit about Africa, which is stupid because Africa is a fast-growing continent and the source of geopolitical rival or the Chinese all these things. Did you see the 11th hour bid that the Trump administration made to try to have some low-level acting ambassador from the U.S. do the handover ceremony from Cyril Ramaphosa to the U.S.? We're hosting the next G20 and they try to get two-bit JV diplomat involved at the last minute in Ramaphosa. Just laughed at the question when he was asked about it, just totally insulting. Totally insulting, right? That's like reputational damage, it'll stick. Second is, I went to eight G20s, which is maybe embarrassing, actually. The reality is that every G20 I was at was both about coordinating the global economy, which is important, particularly now when there's a lot of warning signs in the global economy, there's an AI bubble, there's growth slowing down. But also, you deal with whatever the other pressing issue is in the world at the G20. It's very convenient to be in the same place as at least 19 other world leaders and more than that because they invite other countries. Normally, we would be there at a head of state level talking about Ukraine, talking about Gaza, talking about all these other things. It's just a missed opportunity. Guess what? Our old boss Tom Donald used to say, "Well, when you're not the table, you're on the menu." Well, that means all these other countries are just coordinating their own strategies around us. How do we work around the Americans? How do we work against the Americans? That leads to, I think, the consistent problem, if you're just looking at this from a geopolitics standpoint, is whether it's COP or the G20, our absence, the Chinese are presenting themselves now. They're not subtle about it. They love showing up these summits, talking about the rules-based order, talking about international cooperation. They're increasingly calling the shots on issues around the global economy, on issues around climate change and clean energy, where they want to corner the market, on certain technologies, on certain supply chains. So our absence is just a huge gift to China and anybody else that wants to create an alternative world order to the United States. By the way, I actually think the world order needs change, but I would actually like, in an ideal world, you want the United States to be part of that. The climate piece is the most obvious one, because we're not only not at the table. We are an antagonist. We're lobbying from afar against ambitious efforts to deal with climate change, which is just historically going to be one of the dumbest and most self-defeating things of this era. It's not like a victory to water down efforts to fight fossil fuel emissions and efforts to transition to clean energy. It's just stupid. And actually, Trump is at the same time that he's absentee himself from the cop. He's getting pissed that China has the monopoly on all these supply chains. We've heard him complain that they have all these rare materials and all these inputs for solar panels and things like that. Maybe you should show up at the place where people are talking about clean energy investment. If you're worried that you're getting beat by the Chinese side, it's just stupid. Yeah. The kids and grandkids of Naga officials are going to have to live in a world with more extreme weather and God knows what, too. So yes, it's an enormous cell phone. By the way, while we're talking about Brazil, so the climate summit was in Brazil, actually, in a town that had been really hit hard by climate change and was dealing with flooding and massive rainstorms and oppressive heat. We should note that Brazil is interesting because a Brazilian president, Lula de Silva, because unlike most leaders in the world, has repeatedly told Trump to shove his demands where the sun don't shine, especially when it comes to the prosecution of the former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro. So remember that Bolsonaro was sentenced recently to 27 years in prison for leading this attempted coup against Lula, which included their own little version of January 6th, a bunch of assassination plots, et cetera. It's very ugly. Trump tried to get involved. He tried to tear off Brazil into dropping the case against Bolsonaro, literally 50% tariffs, but Lula was like, fuck you. No. So fast forward to this past weekend, Brazilian police arrested Bolsonaro because they became worried that Bolsonaro was trying to escape before he has to go to prison to serve out of sentence. The AP reported that Bolsonaro tried to remove his ankle monitor with a soldering iron. And that later that day, Bolsonaro's son had organized a protest outside of his father's house. So I think the idea was use the soldering iron to get the ankle monitor off your ankle, create this like, you know, massive scene outside of the house to give you cover to get your dad out of there and help him escape. Now, Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro says this is all misunderstanding. And what actually happened was he took some medicine that made him trip balls. And he thought the ankle monitor was spying on him. So we tried to take it off. So I think actually that tracks that. And you see, Ben's due to face, but I think this is credible. Either way, Bolsonaro is now in the post office, you know, yeah, well, I mean, technically, he's right. The ankle monitor was spying on him, but like, whatever. So Trump got asked about Bolsonaro's plate on Saturday. This is the quote from what he said, Ben, is that what happened? That's too bad. He said, press for further comment. He said, I just think it's too bad. So it's good to see that bond is holding up. I mean, first of all, both things can be true, right? This was a Keystone cop operation to like remove the ankle monitor and flee the country on some private jet in chaos. And he could have been tripping balls and try to move the ankle monitor. Yeah, why not? But let's just give, you know, people are constantly asking us like, well, how do you better fight authoritarianism? I think the Brazilians have given this a pretty good example, because it was two and a half years ago, essentially, that Brazil had their own January six. And Bolsonaro tried to overthrow the results of an election. And what have they done? They've managed to prosecute this guy. They've managed to send this guy. And they've managed to now to put him in prison, right? And the time that it took like Merrick Garland to figure out like where the men's room was on the Justice Department. Thanks, Merrick. So I don't know. It's like a pretty good example that if someone is guilty, as Bolsonaro was, of trying to overthrow the results of democratic election, maybe you should actually hold that person accountable on a credible timeline. It's a good idea. I will also say lesson for how to deal Trump, all these Europeans who've been sucking up to him and calling him daddy and like coming to the Oval Office and kissing his ass, they keep getting the rug pulled out from under them on Ukraine. They keep getting tariffed. Well, you know, let's look at the other strategies, right? Lula gets 50% terrorist and demand you have to like let Bolsonaro go and he tells him to fuck off and Trump's not doing anything. And like those terrorists are coming down because guess what? Like Americans don't want to pay that extra price is just to suit like, you know, Bolsonaro and his son's political ambitions. Yeah, in Zora Mandani's like damn right. He's a fascist and a despot and shut up. - Yeah, yeah. - Zylam Donnie didn't change any of his positions and he's getting gazed at in a way that lovingly he's ever really looked at me. Like, she's a pain, she's a pain told Trump to fuck off and ratchet up tariffs and cut off rare earth materials and the trade deal that was announced was better for China than before the tariffs. So message to maybe US universities and law firms and all these other people that bend over for Trump. You seem to do a little bit better when you actually have some backbone with Trump and just kisses ass. - When Macron's like, "Oh, Donald, you are genius." - That's bad French accent. It's gonna give me a job. We're gonna get the Candace in a minute. Ben, speak and say in South America. So we're gonna check in on our little regime change effort that we're kind of starting with the Venezuelans. So it's still pending kind of, you know, the US, we have officially designated this group, the we're calling them the cartel, De La Solz. We just designated them as a terrorist organization. The State Department says that it's headed by President Nicholas Maduro, the Venezuelan president. A small issue with that designation is that cartel De La Solz is not a real thing. It's a term that Venezuelan journalists use to describe corrupt members of the Venezuelan military who either profited off of or turned a blind eye to drug trafficking. But it refers to the sons that are on their military uniforms and the term actually predates both Maduro and Hugo Chavez's tenure in government. But as we know, facts don't really matter to this administration. If they look no further than their efforts to call Antifa, some sort of organized terrorist group and then go after them. So, but you know, as Pete Higgs have put it, labeling Maduro as a kingpin or a narco terrorist offers a whole bunch of new options to the United States to respond. Some of those may involve the CIA. Now we've talked about the CIA's sort of finding or authorization to do covert action in Venezuela in the past. Reuters reported that the US is on the cusp of a new phase of Venezuela-related operations in Venezuela. They cited anonymous officials who said the first moves the US makes for regime change would be covert. Now that story has not been confirmed anywhere else. So I'm a little skeptical. But there was previous reporting by the New York Times that Trump had given the CIA go ahead to operate in Venezuela. Either way, on the overt side, the US continues to have this huge military buildup in the Caribbean, Dan Cain, the chairman of the joint chiefs, went to Puerto Rico on Monday. He was meeting with troops there who were deployed as part of the largest buildup of naval forces in the region since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Did that one go well for us? - Yeah, it turned out well, but that's as we didn't go to work. - Oh, that's right. - That was some real diplomacy. - That's fair, that's fair. So finally, Ben, Axios reported that Trump is planning on talking with Maduro directly. So to quote our president, I guess we'll see what happens. - I think that what it feels like is happening to me is they want regime change. Trump wants it because he hates Maduro and he wants the oil in Venezuela and he wants to basically run Latin America like he's the emperor. Marco Rubio is a long one of this ideologically 'cause he has some domino theory too where Venezuela goes and Cuba will go because Cuba depends on Venezuela for an oral subsidy. The Maria Machado, the Nobel Peace Prize winning courageous but very right-wing opposition leader once the US to House Maduro and his telling Trump and Rubio that oh, I can step in right away and we have a plan. And I think what's happening here is that they're trying to do this on the cheap, right? They're trying to blow up these boats and intimidate everybody, show a force, send the aircraft carrier that has nothing to do with pulling up boats by the way to the region. But then try to do this. Old school, US Latin America style, like get some COVID operations going, get some people on the ground, do some maybe sabotage, like try to turn some military officers against Maduro or something, I'd be very curious whether there are any kind of off-books US special forces types who are in Venezuela, that's certainly a possibility. But then that becomes a bit of a slippery slope because I don't think Maduro is going anywhere. I don't think this guy is the kind of guy that will end up wanting, and by the way, if I'm wrong, you know, I'm wrong. But it doesn't strike me as the kind of guy that wants to be living in Moscow, like down the hallway from Bashar al-Sad and whatever apartment that guy's in. He's a pretty ideological guy, it's existential for him. And so if he sticks around, well, then they keep trying to do more, right? And then you get on the slippery, and then maybe we're bombing targets in Venezuela, thinking that maybe that will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. And then on top of this, if you even get him out, then this place implodes because this kind of corrupt military that is involved in all kinds of stuff, not just narcotraficant, but kind of owns pieces of events where economy, they're not going to want to go along with like Marine Machado's like transition plan. And so you're going to have these groups fighting out in Venezuela, and we're going to be there and we're going to get sucked in. I mean, this is, there's two options here. You either try to have a regime change operation that leads to a war in violent chaos, or Maduro's there. I mean, the other option would be to actually have a diplomatic strategy, but they're not doing anything diplomatically. They're not even trying to like get other countries together in Latin America and have some process. So this feels very ominous to me, Tommy. The last thing I'd say about this is that as things get worse for Trump politically, you know, as like, you know, the resignation of MTG in Congress, and he's beginning to be a lame duck, and the, you know, judges are throwing out his bullshit cases in court. This is when like, autocrats do dumb shit, or scary shit, like invade countries, right? Like when Putin was starting to have political problems, that's when we get an invasion of Ukraine, right? And so I do worry that, you know, what may seem irrational could become an option for Trump because he needs to do something dramatic somewhere. - Yeah, I kind of agree with you. I think in an ideal world, Trump would be able to bluff Maduro into leaving the country, and into some sort of transition that makes him look like the hero, and that probably comes along with some deal for US, you know, oil companies to get it to Venezuela, and, you know, Trump gets enriched off of that. The question becomes when Maduro doesn't leave, does he have a bunch of people around him saying, the United States can't bluff sir, and you've moved all these assets to the region, and this thing sort of like takes on a life of its own, and you're right, like I've heard, not only heard them read Machado, you know, they've said publicly they have like a hundred-hour transition plan, and they talk about how easy a leadership turnover would be, how all these migrants who'd fled Venezuela would return home, and it would solve all the problems in the region and in the world, that seems verily unlikely. And then also I've heard Ben that Machado was maybe whispering to Trump that in fact, the Venezuelans did help rig the 2020 election. Like, remember all the Hugo Chavez's ghost was in the voting machine and shit. Like I've heard first some people that she might be kind of whispering that stuff into Trump's ear. So, like I just worry about, you know, this stuff kind of becoming self perpetuating, and all of a sudden, like even though Maga hates it, we're in a regime change war in Venezuela that no one really wanted. - Yeah, and she's even saying some of that stuff publicly, like I've seen interviews where she's kind of made intimations about, well yeah, we gotta look into what happened in the election, you know, like she's, like, and of course she's doing that. Like, but I will tell you, like the Venezuelan opposition, it's kind of like the Cuban opposition that's out of the country, like they make this sound much easier than it would be because you've had, you know, 25 years of Chavez Maduro rule there, like the whole economy is set up around the mill, in part because of our sanctions too. Like the whole economy is black market economy, the military owns a bunch of stuff. Sure, there's some rich opposition figures who are out of the country, but why would the people there who have guns, like the military is armed? Why would they just be like, yeah, we're gonna relinquish all of our economic power and let the Americans come run our oral industry as a part of a hundred hour plan or something. I just don't see it. (upbeat music) Positive world is brought to you by built rewards. It's almost 2026 and you're still paying rent without built, we can't have that. Built is a loyalty program for renters that rewards you for your biggest monthly expense rent. With built, every rent payment earns you points that can be used towards flights, hotels, lift rides, Amazon purchases, and so much more. When you pay rent through built, you can unlock access to exclusive benefits from a network of more than 45,000 merchants. 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I love making our shows with the smart creative people who work here and hearing from all of you who listen every week. But the thing that I'm proudest of is that video we made of you Beck Ramaswamy grunting while hitting baseballs. No wait, sorry. The thing I'm proudest of is the work we do through votes in America. See, we don't want our shows to only leave you feeling anxious about the state of the world. We want to give you something you can actually do about it. Just this year, our listeners have raised millions of dollars and filled thousands of volunteer chefs to help candidates and causes into 2026 midterms. And we have no plans to slow down as we head into 2028. 8. As far as I know, there's no other media company that does what cricket does. We make entertaining, thoughtful content that brings people into politics, and then we give them a direct way to get involved. And if you believe in that mission, one of the best ways to support us is by becoming a paid subscriber. Your subscription helps us keep making the shows you love in building a media company that doesn't just talk about with politics, but helps people change them. And if the mission sounds great, but you feel like you need some sweet subscriber benefits to get you over the finish line, we've got you covered. Researchers get ad-free shows, plus excellent exclusive podcasts, newsletters, and much much more. So thank you for listening and supporting what we do. Head to Crooked.com/FriendsToday to learn more and become a subscriber. Okay, Ben, a couple of troubling updates from Israel, Lebanon, and Gaza. So the first is that the Israeli military launched some major air strikes in Beirut itself. That was the first since June, five people were killed, including Hezbollah's chief of staff. He's one of the top three ranked leaders in the organization. So this strike came about almost exactly a year after Israel and Hezbollah officially announced the ceasefire, though the IDF has routinely hit targets in Lebanon since that ceasefire happened. I didn't realize just how many been, but the Wall Street Journal says there has been more than 1,000 air strikes since the ceasefire. So it's, again, really stretched in the definition of that word ceasefire beyond all recognition here. So on that same Wall Street Journal story reported that intelligence agencies in both Israel and Arab capitals believe that Hezbollah is reconstituting its forces and stockpiling weapons. And they say that the Lebanese government is refusing to do anything about it and take steps to disarm them that they had agreed to. Aritz reported the IDF is considering what's described as a "day of battle," which they say is a short period of focused clashes with Hezbollah to have a send a message. So I guess it's just like a mini war. Things are also pretty bad in Gaza, I know. Things are pretty bad in Gaza too. Last week, UNICEF said that since the ceasefire took effect in October, 280 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, 67 of which are children. That includes 20 people killed in air strikes just this past weekend. The humanitarian situation is better, but still quite bad that the UN World Food Program says that a quarter of households in Gaza are eating one meal per day. In development, we didn't really have time to get to. Last week was the UN Security Council approved Trump's Gaza Peace Plan. They got a 13-0 vote with Russia and China upstanding. So not basically, the UN has codified this continued occupation of the Gaza Strip. There's always reports that these rallies might only redevelop the parts that the IDF is still occupying and nothing where Hamas still exists. So it's pretty ugly. And then the key step here is getting in place this international security force that is needed to provide security in Gaza that doesn't currently exist. And Hamas is going to refuse to disarm itself until there's a Palestinian state. So it's like there's a big chicken at the egg situation because a bunch of these countries that Trump wants to be part of a stabilization force are not going to send in troops while Hamas is still there and fighting and armed. So Ben, I guess bigger picture, I guess as long as the relevant parties are willing to call what's happening in Lebanon and what's happening in Gaza, a ceasefire, the press will still say there is a ceasefire or the ceasefire is holding. But the people in Lebanon and the people in Gaza are still living in war zone and they're dying all the time. They're getting bombed all the time. It's crazy. Yeah. There's not a ceasefire. I mean a ceasefire means you've ceased firing. There's just been hundreds of strikes and hundreds of people killed. If this was measured, sure, if this measured against the height of Israel's assault on Gaza, there's this is like a lower boil war. But if you measure this against like a normal status quo, like this would be a shocking amount of violence. Like that's just how much we've been numbed to this. It's almost like the ceasefire exists mainly to just like try to get it off the headlines. Like people don't have to worry about this as much we call that a ceasefire. So I'm very worried about this because if you also see the direction of Israeli politics, like the right wing of BB's coalition is still holding him hostage. And so by the way, he may be happy with that situation. So he's still, you know, he's taking these shots in the Gaza, he's taking these shots in the Lebanon, the West Bank, we've seen a huge escalation and settler violence in the West Bank since the quote unquote ceasefire. That's them showing like, well, if you know, we don't like the ceasefire over here, we're going to make things worse in the West Bank. So I just find it all very tenuous. And I think the one thing I would say constructively, which I don't think they'll do is, yeah, there's this chicken and egg dynamic that you described on a stabilization force. They're not trying to do anything that I can tell to develop an alternative Palestinian leadership because that's the missing piece here. You've got like a sclerotic Palestinian authority with no credibility, with like a machimutiboss is pushing 90 in the West Bank and the FMAS. Like why aren't we just trying to build and invest in different Palestinian leadership? There's really talented people who are more technocratic or there's civil society or they're in the diaspora. Like, there's no, we try to answer that question of who would run Palestine. And that's because they don't want a Palestinian state. And even these meetings that we hear about that the U.S. is having about a stabilization plan with the Israelis, there are no Palestinians even in the meetings. Yes. It's a occupation plan. Right. Exactly. Netanyahu keeps reaffirming that he does not believe it a two-state solution, does not believe in a Palestinian state. So yeah, you're right. There's no effort to figure out what governance could look like because the governance in his mind will just be the Israelis controlling things. And like Russia with Ukraine just grinding away, taking more land, like annexing the West Bank chunk by chunk or like not leaving that half a Gaza you're in. Like that's what I would watch, kind of slow motion annexation. Yeah. Me too. Okay. A few weeks back, we covered the election of Japan's new prime minister, prime minister, so not Yutaka Yichi. And somehow been since that show, she has managed to push Japan to the brink of conflict with China, which is quite impressive, if you think about it. Yes. Here's what happened. So on November 7th, in response to a question posed to her in Japan's parliament about what situation will qualify for collective self-defense, i.e. what would allow Japan to mobilize its military under their pacifist constitution. She replied that Chinese action against Taiwan might meet that threshold, so a blockade or an invasion of Taiwan, quote, could constitute an existential threat, no matter how you look at it. It was her quote. The Chinese took this about as well as you'd expect. In other words, they went nuts. So the Chinese foreign minister said, she quote, "Cross the red line that should not have been touched." The Chinese UN ambassador said, "If Japan dares to intervene militarily in the Taiwan straight situation, it will constitute an act of an aggression." And then the China's consul General Nusaka wrote in a now deleted post, quote, "If you stick that filthy neck where it doesn't belong, it's going to get sliced off. Are you ready for that at the hot one?" So the Chinese media has used this issue to stoke anger about Japan's history of aggression and war crimes during World War II. The Chinese government has retaliated economically by canceling flights to Japan. They discourage tourism. They blocked the import of seafood in certain films. Takaichi is refused to back down. Her span is basically, look, I'm just repeating longstanding policy. The Chinese are also very mad about the separate Japanese-planneded deploying missiles to an island that's like 60, 70 miles off the eastern coast of Taiwan. How big a deal do you think this is, or the Chinese overreacting because anything that touches Taiwan is just a major red line for them and they punch you as hard as you can so you never do it again? Or do you think there is a real risk of conflict here? I think this is an enormous deal. We're going to do a little World War Watch here, right? Because we've got the European War and the Middle Eastern War. This is like the flashpoint. Taiwan is the flashpoint. You now have a more right-wing and nationalist Japanese prime minister. She changes the status quo language, which is super talmudic in Asia when Taiwan formulations matter a lot. She turns the dial up a bit. I think the Chinese are sensing that the U.S. Trump doesn't give a shit as much about Taiwan as he does about how many soybeans they're buying. The Chinese have more credibility internationally than the U.S. does right now with a lot of countries, given everything we've talked about today. Their military modernization is such that in the next year or two, they're going to have some real military options vis-a-vis Taiwan. They're just trying to pound so much he said to overwhelm just the Japanese, but any sense that the countries will come to Taiwan's aid. Xi Jinping called Trump, and I'm sure that this was the lead of his agenda. What was interesting is that the U.S. readout of that call from Trump on true social was like, "Great call. I invited Xi Jinping for a state visit, and I'm going to go visit China. It's going to be great." The Chinese readout was like, "We basically lecture Trump about, like, we are the stewards of the international order, and she needs to butt the fuck out of Taiwan matters." Then she had to call Trump, right? But if they're counting on Trump to being the one to avoid tensions, like, "I don't think this guy gives two shits about Taiwan," so I worry about this because the more tensions ratched up around Taiwan, the more you might get some blockade scenario that just develops or you might get some incident in the Taiwan Strait, right? Remember, we've got a lot of troops in Japan, so this is not just something we're watching from afar. Like, in Taiwan scenarios, if the U.S. does get involved, like those troops are getting bombed by China, you know? - Yeah. - Now, the last thing I'd say that's interesting is she's not backing down and her approval rating is ticking up because Nationalism works in both directions, right? And she sent her defense minister down to that island that's 70 miles from Taiwan. And so I just think this is gonna, we should get used to the fact that we're gonna be living with some tensions over here in Asia as well as everywhere else. - Yeah, her approval and way up, that is disconcerting if you're thinking about political incentives here. - Interestingly about that, that she called to Trump Ben. I mean, the journal, you know, our old colleague Evan Madero's just was pointing out how it is actually unusual for Xi Jinping to initiate these kinds of calls. And the Chinese read out of the call or whatever was in state media talked about Taiwan and it talked about the history of the US fighting side-by-side against fascism and militarism during World War II. So not a subtle reference to Japan there. But I guess Trump's read out did not mention Taiwan. He was like, oh yeah, we talked about the war on Ukraine fentanyl and soybeans and other things. Which is, it's a little ominous to me, right? 'Cause we've talked about this in the past. There's been some reporting that Xi Jinping is hoping he can get Trump to trade changes in the US position on Taiwan. Either going from strategic ambiguity to opposing Taiwan's independence and supporting, quote unquote, reunification. So a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in exchange for like, I don't know, probably by swore soybeans or something or some sort of economic deal. And the fact that Trump would take the call, do a read out, not mention Taiwan, but then the Chinese make it the focus of everything they say about this call. I don't know. It's just another data point that worries me about us selling out Taiwan. And he's gonna try, Xi Jinping is gonna try to flip Trump. You know, if he's got these big, if the meetings do go for next year, like Trump visits China, she comes here. His argument's gonna be like, we're more important than the Japanese. Like our economy's bigger. In any normal US president would be like, well, they're a treaty ally of ours, you know? But like Trump doesn't give a shit about that. And if people are like, well, why does it matter? It matters it, you know, because it's the wrong thing to do, but also because the Taiwanese will not agree to reunify with China. It's like a same situation as Ukraine. Like, so there will be a military conflict, you know? It makes conflict more likely if China believes that Taiwan is totally isolated and no one will come to their defense. Because then they might decide to do something. - We are gonna take a quick break, but before we go, I just wanna tell you guys, I know that it's really hard to sort through all the news out there. At Crooked Media, we try to make that our mission. We try to cut through the noise with facts and humor and good conversations. And if you like our shows, please consider subscribing to the friends of the pod community to support our work directly. Your subscription helps us keep making shows, newsletters, deep dives, you enjoy. It also unlocks perks, like ad-free episodes, and exclusive content like Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer. Plus, it's a great way to support independent progressive media. And if you need another reason to subscribe this holiday season, we are offering 25% off annual subscriptions now through November 30th. So go to Crooked.com/friends to subscribe. You can even hear a special episode of our subscription show, terminally online, with the pod safe world team. It's very funny, very loose. Also, the holidays are coming. So we have another big merch sale for you. Go to Crooked.com/store to shop the sale you can get gifts. You can get new friends of the pod. Hoodies, stocking stuffers, all the stuff you want there. Go find some Crooked merch. Go to Crooked.com/store. (upbeat music) Pots of the world is brought to you by soul. When the holiday season rolls around, it feels like there's a party every weekend. All the sugary drinks add up. The season reach for souls out of office gummies instead. The same fun vibe, lone calories, and zero hangover. Soul is a wellness brand that police feeling good should be fun and easy. Soul specializes in delicious, Hump-to-Rive THC and CBD products designed to boost your mood and help you unwind. 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Take advantage of Soul's Black Friday Cyber Monday deal right now. For a limited time, get 40% off your entire order. Go to getsole.com and use the code world. That's getsole.com promo code world for 40% off. Don't miss their best deal of the year. Hey everyone, my name is Elijah Cone. And I've been a producer here at Crooked Media for a decade. I love making our shows with the smart creative people who work here and hearing from all of you who us in every week. But the thing that I'm proudest of is that video we made of your vegramas while me grunting while hitting baseballs. No wait, sorry. The thing I'm proudest of is the work we do through Votes Ava America. Just this year, our listeners have raised millions of dollars and filled thousands of volunteer shifts to help candidates and causes into 2026 midterms. As far as I know, there's no other media company that does what Crooked does. Your subscription helps us keep making the shows you love and building a media company that doesn't just talk about politics, but helps people change that. Subscribers get ad-free shows, plus excellent exclusive podcasts, newsletters, and much, much more. (upbeat music) All right, we've got two more sort of fun stories. The first is just, you know, it's you and me snorting a big fat line of raw, uncut crazy. So this one comes courtesy of podcast or Candace Owens. As listeners might recall, Candace has recorded dozens, maybe hundreds of hours of episodes of her podcast alleging that Brigitte Macron, the first lady of France, is in fact a man, specifically Candace alleges that Brigitte Macron is a man named Jean-Michel Trogneau, who again, I feel crazy when I say this explanation, 'cause it's like, I love you. You're like so expert on this. So Jean-Michel Trogneau is Brigitte Macron's older brother, who was alive and lives in France still and has been photographed at public events with his sister, including the inaugurations. Those facts notwithstanding, the allegations were so crazy and so repeated that the Macron's are now suing her for defamation. But did this slow our girl down? Absolutely not. In one recent video that Michael and our team flagged, Candace has said about trying to prove that Brigitte, then Jean-Michel Trogneau was part of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Are you familiar with this, man? No, I'm not. I'm sorry. Okay, so you probably learned about this and psychology 101 in college. It was this infamous experiment. Okay, so this infamous experiment for listeners, you don't know, the researchers at Stanford did. They recruited like 20, 24 male Stanford students. They made some of them the guard, some of them the prisoners, and then watch them as the guards turned into like completely sadistic lunatics. It's actually quite fascinating. People are so fascinating. Yeah, it's fascinating. It's worth reading about. But I think Candace seems to think that Jean-Michel Trogneau was one of these 24 and then he later transitioned into Brigitte. What a coincidence. It's real. Wow. You know, the reinforced gum kind of there, every part of history. But that was not what caught my eye, Ben, from Candace over the weekend. Listeners might know that Candace also does not believe the official story about Charlie Kirk's assassination. She is not so subtly suggested that Israel was behind Kirk's death or maybe just a group of people who rhyme with the blues. But this is like the good stuff right here from Candace's tweet over the weekend. So she says that a high ranking French government official, close to the Macron's, called her and tipped her off, that the Macron's have, quote, executed upon and paid for her Candace's assassination at the cost of $1.5 million. She says an elite French law enforcement group is gonna do the deed. The team is composed of a French female assassin and of course a male Israeli 'cause you gotta have some representation in there for your people, Ben. She also claims that Charlie Kirk's assassin trained with the French foreign legion. So that's new. She says that Candace said she relayed this plot to the White House into some counterterrorism agencies who have confirmed receipts, which is a very funny way of being like, uh-huh, got it. And in case you think that Candace is lying, I did notice that some crazy woman who works for the My Pillow Guys TV network, which is a thing that really exists in the world said she has confirmed Candace's story. So take that fact checkers. Also Pavel Dorov, remember that guy that found out in Telegram? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Briefly detained in France by the French government says, he says that Candace's claim, are plausible, and our boy Mike Flynn says there's plenty of truth to the accusations. So, I guess Ben, the question is, if this is true, when do we declare war on the French? I mean, she's just asking questions. She's just doing research and she's uncovering all kinds of shocking things here, you know. I just want this to go on. I just want this to continue. It's like so good for content that Candace is heroically taking it upon herself. I mean, I do, you know, the original sin here beyond Candace's insanity was this lawsuit because it's just kind of giving her this platform to just pull the thread on like her, you know, wildest conspiracy theories. And people like us are obviously paying attention because she's getting sued by the President of France, which kind of, you know, like PR 101 is that like if there's something like insane like this, maybe you don't shine like the brightest possible spotlight on it. So I'm not quite sure like why the macrons have gone down the lawsuit strategy. Candace seems to be just fine with it, but suffice to say, I do not believe that the French foreign Legion trained Charlie Kirk's success and Nord, I think, you know, I don't think Candace is saying to worry about from the French government other than this lawsuit. Well, what is this suggestion? Is it like the French were so mad about Candace's reporting on Brigitte that they took out Charlie Kirk to punish her? Like someone she was like a strange from. Also, I, she also just, she tweeted again, just another standalone tweet. I would like again to stress that there was a French female assassin, but also a male Israeli assassin that were selected to kill me. So she just wants to make sure you didn't miss in her longer tweet that there was a Jewish person involved who was trying to kill her. No, that is definitely not the center of all of this. There's a core any semitism here that is kind of like interesting to look at because it's so old fashioned because if you, if you actually, you know, I did go down the rabbit hole in this one before and the whole idea was it a manual Macron is some kind of Manchurian candidate working on behalf of kind of like the one world government, right? Kind of enterprise led by, you know, Brigitte Macron, the man, you know, and the Jews, right? Like so it kind of all goes back to like old-fashioned, you know, Rothschild kind of stuff. And actually, I think there's Rothschild involved in her theory. There's Frankus too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's all, it's it's all there. I went to her Twitter today, just sort of like see what she was up to when she was tweeting about. She, uh, she repeated, she was retweeting that guy, uh, Duke and what's his first name, the kind of blood. Oh, yeah, the Russian, yeah, yeah. Russian propaganda. She's tweeting about the Frankus as well. It's a weird world over there. I don't recommend it. Speaking of weird stuff on Twitter, Ben, I did notice that Twitter or now X, they rolled out this new feature that lets you see where an account is located and when they joined Twitter. And this is sort of led to this, I think long suspected, but hilarious revelation that a lot of these really big Naga fan accounts are actually just Rando's based way outside the United States. So the Daily Beast looked into this. They found that there's a account Naga Nation X, which has like 400,000 followers in a bio that's like patriot voice for we, the people they're based in Eastern Europe. There is a user named America first that has like a ton of followers in the profile picture of Carolyn Levitt, uh, that's based in Bangladesh. There's an Ivanka Trump fan account with a million followers based in Nigeria. You get the point. A few other weird tidbits, Ben, the BBC found that multiple accounts promoting Scottish independence were actually based in Iran. That's sort of a surprising one. And then there, this location tool, it's a little, it seems a little bit buggy. It can certainly be fooled by VPN. So for example, the bulwark that's some great reporting on all of this. And when they looked at their location, it was saying that their tweets are coming from Germany because of some sort of, you know, tech tool they use or whatever. But it also showed that the Department of Homeland Security's account was based in Israel. And boy, let me tell you folks, um, that answered a lot of questions that people had on Twitter about that when there's some, some big theories that got that borne out just because of that. Anybody alert Candace Owens to that? Oh, yeah. Oh, she's on it. I mean, these are things like I, I don't know. I don't really trust X or Groc or that much. Is it the case though that they're these huge fan accounts? Absolutely. And like what's so dumb about this is Trump's, you know, whole Russia hoax thing has somehow made it continually like revelatory that there's massive foreign influence operations designed to boost MAGA because MAGA makes the United States dumber and more divided. You know, like that, like that's something that we've actually known to be a fact for like eight or nine years. But like there's like half the country that still doesn't believe that there was an influence operation. And by the way, it wasn't just in the 2016 election. It's an ongoing influence operation that has has never ended, you know. Actually, there's one last thing I had left in the cupboard, Tommy that I just want to throw at you, which is, you know, now that I mentioned 2016. Jared, do you think he's engaged in these contacts with the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund on government email? Oh, absolutely not. I mean, the shit you read about these people, like all of them are just using signal all the time. Yeah. Remember when the number one issue in Trump's entire ascent to political power was the use of private email servers? No, it's absurd. None of the rules are being followed. They're all breaking the law routinely. You can only imagine like the absolutely corrupt outrageous shit that we would be learning if there were ever to be a FOIA request and things were happening the right way. But no, it's worth noting then that like a lot of, I think a lot of this stuff that's happening on X is based is getting driven by the fact that Elon Musk kind of changed the way the service works and made it so that you can get paid off of views. So like a bunch of the accounts boosting far-right neo-Nazis, like Nick Fuentes are people from like Bangladesh and foreign accounts, or from like New Zealand. Now maybe they are, they're just vile racists over there and that's why they're doing it. But I think it's more likely that this is people just trying to make a buck. Yeah. But yeah, unfortunately, this synergy between the people trying to make a buck and the people trying to like destroy society is a huge, that's a perfect circle, that overlapping then diagram. Yeah, that's good stuff. All right, that's all we got for you guys this week. We're going guest list because it's a shortened week to holiday. We had way too much we wanted to talk about ourselves. We will be back next Tuesday. But again, please subscribe to Potsay the World on YouTube and also wherever you get your podcasts. Why not subscribe both. Yeah, throw it down. I review, you know, five stars. Right, right. Smash the five stars. Throw us a review. Roast us in the reviews. Have a great thanksgiving. Thank you for listening and we will talk to you guys soon. Potsay the World is a crooked media production. Our senior producer is Alonam and Kofsky. Our associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vittor, and Ben Rhodes. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cancer is our audio engineer. Audio support by Kyle Segglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to our digital team, Ben Heffkoat, Mia Kelman, William Jones, David Tolls, and Ryan Young. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Adrian Hills are Senior Vice President of News and Politics. If you want to listen to Potsay the World, add free and get access to exclusive podcasts. 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Just this year, our listeners have raised millions of dollars and filled thousands of volunteer chefs to help candidates and causes into 2026 midterms, and we have no plans to slow down as we head into 2028. Your subscription helps us keep making the shows you love and building a media company that doesn't just talk about politics, but helps people change them. Subscribers get ad free shows, plus excellent exclusive podcasts, newsletters, and much, much more. Head to crooked.com/friends today to learn more and become a subscriber.