Trump the “Peacemaker”

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Welcome back to Pod Say of the World.

I'm Tommy Vitor.

I'm Ben Rhodes.

Shit is bleak, Ben.

It's real bleak.

Normally, I love doing this show because we get to turn off American politics for a while and use different parts of our brain and talk about new things.

But it's been very hard to focus on kind of anything but yesterday for me today.

I don't know about you.

Yeah, no, my,

let's just say my partially dry January did not hold through yesterday.

I'm a little worse for wear.

20 days?

That's not bad.

Something about the

imagery of yesterday led me directly to vodka,

which felt bad.

Were you California dry, which like it's like mushrooms, candy,

a little weed?

I'm very California dry.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm not dry at all now.

Yeah, that was dark yesterday.

That was bleak, I have to say.

It was dark.

Also, it was endless.

Like, we'll get into it, but the dude did his inaugural.

He did like seven speeches yesterday.

It's like, buddy, you're exhausting us on day one.

And I know that's the plan, but it's the plan.

Yeah, that's the plan.

Well, as you can tell, today we're going to cover the inauguration.

We're going to cover what it means to put on display the new American oligarchy and just show the world all our donors as well as our tech leaders on the dais.

We'll talk about some of the foreign policy elements of Trump's speech.

We'll tackle a few of the flurry of executive orders that Trump signed yesterday and what they mean for climate change, immigration policy, counterterrorism, and more.

And then we will briefly check in on some of Trump's nominees for senior positions in national security.

We'll talk about the ceasefire in Gaza, how it came to be, who gets the credit and what comes next, this TikTok ban disaster, and then the rolling madness in South Korea.

And then, Ben, you did our interview today.

Who'd you talk to?

Yeah, I talked to Sam Rose, who's the acting director of UNRWA in Gaza.

So I think we've had a lot, thanks to Alona and Michael, we've had a lot of good clips from people there.

But

I think this is the first time I was able to interview someone at length.

So please, I know we always say this, but everybody should listen to this interview to just get a sense of what it's like in Gaza, what the mood is, what the scale of destruction is, what the humanitarian effort is focused on now, and the absolute cruel insanity of the fact that Israel has passed a law that is going to ban UNRWA,

ban any Israeli interaction with UNRWA, which would essentially make it impossible for them to do their work because they obviously work at checkpoints and international aid workers won't be able to leave and come back under this law.

So

in dark times, I have to say, if you're sad about Trump, just listen to Sam Rose and think about what it's like to be in Gaza right now.

So people should definitely listen to that interview.

Well, that's a hell of a plug.

Yeah, if you want to be emotionally gutted twice, no, it's important.

Well, honestly, like, the positive of it is, and, you know, I didn't get to tell the guy exactly, but I mean, people like this give you some hope, right?

I mean, he said he's been going in and out of Gaza for like almost 20 years, I think.

And there are good people out there trying to help other people.

And that there's hope in that.

Let's just say.

Yeah, there is.

Ben, do you know,

I'm seeing a lot more images of just how flattened Gaza is.

You know, there were images of northern Gaza that were coming out yesterday that basically like every structure is down.

There were a lot of images of Rafah where we kept hearing that the Israeli military invasion had been partially stopped, but it sure doesn't look like the extraordinary diplomacy of the Biden administration.

They really stopped that invasion that just left the place looking like Hiroshima.

But yeah, but do you know, I mean, are foreign journalists getting in yet?

Do we know?

I've not seen foreign journalists get in yet.

So we'll see.

I mean, there are different phases of this ceasefire.

I mean, Sam was saying that the,

you know, there's still...

You're still not able to go from southern Gaza to northern Gaza.

So there's still a lot of restrictions on movement at this phase.

So we'll see.

Got it.

Got it.

Well, we will get to that and we'll talk about the phases of the ceasefire in depth, but let's start with Trump's inauguration.

So, the events themselves were moved inside because it is freezing cold in Washington, D.C.

And Ben, as much as I would love to make fun of Trump for being a beta wimp and point out how cold Obama's inauguration was in 2009, I'm currently in New York and I just walked here to the studio and I can confirm that it's brutally cold outside.

So, change of locations probably a good idea.

But the moving the events indoors meant a shrunken stage and dais.

And despite all of that, Trump still surrounded himself with this, you know, coterie of American tech oligarchs.

I'd say, starting with credit where credit is due, Elon Musk bought his chair on that stage.

He put $250 million

into the Trump campaign and now is this sprawling kind of white-house portfolio doing God knows what.

But oh, by the way, Ben, did you see that Vivek Ramaswamy already got fired from the Doge for being so annoying?

Well, yeah, since his kind of bizarre tweet about

Screech.

About how horrible, about what was it, Steve.

Say by the Bell or Say by the Bell, yeah, Screech.

Yeah, yeah.

We got to laugh where we can.

Yeah, we do.

So the vague's fire from Doge.

Elon's still running it.

But like, aside from Elon, right, who's like in the club, I mean, on that stage were Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Google's Sundar Pachai, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, OpenAI, Sam Altman, TikTok CEO, Shao Chu.

So

all these guys are just sitting next to the incoming...

Oh, by the way, the TikTok CEO is sitting next to the incoming director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, which I guess shout out to her.

Somebody had a sense of humor in the seating chart there.

She had a real hands-on approach to intelligence collection.

But

like, we'll get into that TikTok stuff later.

But I just, you know, I also spotted Miriam Adelson, who's a huge Trump donor, Sheldon Adelson's wife.

He's passed away, but she reportedly wants Trump to annex the West Bank.

That's sort of like the

price to buy.

Yeah.

For what she wants to buy is annexation.

So I don't know.

I just want to get your takeaway, Ben, from

seeing this new American oligarchy on display at the inauguration.

I mean, again, a lot of the tech CEOs were there because they had to bend the knee to Trump.

And I think he was showing the world, like, look, watch, look at all these supplicants kind of bow down to me.

But it did strike me that, like, the message that sends to the world is the United States mixing business and donor money in a way that just was completely new.

I mean, our political system is disgusting and full of money and it's terrible.

But the optics of having like donors ahead of the cabinet is

pretty on the nose.

Yeah, it kind of felt like a straight line from the Citizens United decision to that tableau.

So the decision by the Supreme Court to allow unlimited money and dark money in American politics kind of leads to this oligarchy quite directly.

So there's no way of fixing it without fixing money in politics, which isn't happening anytime soon.

I I guess my reaction, apart from just being totally disgusted by those people, because they don't, look, if you want to be sympathetic, okay, maybe, you know, you feel like you need to play ball a little bit with Trump to stop him from destroying your company, but you actually don't need to sit up there like that.

No.

I mean, I didn't, you know, not at all.

Like, like, you don't,

as he's running down America and giving this kind of dark apocalyptic speech and anointing himself as chosen by God to save America.

Like, you don't need to sit there.

And I think what I, we've talked a bunch about oligarchs on this show, like, obviously, Russian oligarchs and Hungarian oligarchs and Indian oligarchs.

It's not a new idea that there are people that are powerful and politically connected and own media enterprises and have deep reach in life and, you know, of the people in a country.

I think what's different, though, Tommy, is that we're the United States.

And so our oligarchs are mega-powerful globally, you know?

So

it's not, you know, yeah, Victor Orban has a buddy who was one of his childhood friends.

And I think this guy was like a plumber.

And now he's like a billionaire, you know?

And and so, you know, and then you find this fine.

That guy doesn't control technology companies that influence life everywhere on earth.

And so I think what makes this kind of extra scary is that,

you know, Meta

is the leading experience of the internet and communications for hundreds of millions, if not billions of people around the world.

You know, Sam Altman is, and, and, and, and Google are developing artificial intelligence that

as is meta, yeah.

Yeah,

yeah,

yeah, yeah, that could transform life on Earth, you know.

And so I think what is so unsettling about it is, sure, it's kind of conventional oligarchy, a la Putin's Russia, but

the stakes are just so much higher because it's the United States and there's so much power in these companies and

their personal interests

are clearly

now entangled with Trump's in ways that are deeply worrying.

And I guess the last thing I'd say by way of introduction is these guys are really showing who they are because

these are the kind of guys, some of them at least, who turn up at like climate change summits, you know, or like talk about sustainability.

This guy pulled out of the fucking Paris Agreement yesterday.

Like, as you were bending the knee and slobbering on him and, you know, grinning goofily

in the kind of row of oligarchs, this guy is doing something, you know, that my point is.

Pardoning the January 6th riders that you all said were deplorable.

Yeah, these people clearly don't care about anything except themselves.

And I know that's an obvious point, but it's just worth reinforcing.

Never again believe anything any one of those people says.

And even if they give some money away, they have unlimited money.

It's a fucking drop in the ocean to them.

And so they've just shown who they are forever.

We now know who these people are.

And

it's our challenge to make it clear that this is the actual establishment in the world.

The establishment isn't podcasters and climate scientists as much as right-wing influencers would be to think.

The elites are the richest people on the planet who are sitting next to us.

Those are the fucking elites right there.

That's the elites.

I did, Ben.

You know how sometimes when you buy a ticket on like StubHub at the last minute to Fenway Park or like Shea Stadium,

there are seats with obstructed views.

Like you're behind like a huge concrete pillar.

That was basically where they put Mike Pence,

which I did find kind of funny.

Like Joe Rogan had a better seat than Rotunda, it seemed.

But also,

Trump invited lots of heads of state to attend the inauguration.

He invited Chinese President Xi Jinping,

Vladimir Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, they didn't come, which is normal, but he did get the kind of conservative rogues gallery of right-wing populace.

I think we spotted uh Italian prime minister Giorgio Maloney, who was there, uh, Argentinian president Javier Mille.

For some reason, former British Prime Minister Liz Truss and the Tory former home secretary, Suella Braverman, showed up.

I don't know why Liz Truss comes to all these events.

Like, who wants to see Liz Truss?

It's it's the least exciting person I could imagine.

Well, and I saw like Suella Breverman posting selfies of herself in the freezing cold in D.C.

Like, what is she there to do?

Like, she doesn't run anything.

Like,

this kind of right-wing, you know, lunatic fringe of people that just kind of want to bask in the glow of Trump.

But this is a person with no standing, like, really.

So, yeah, we got treated to all those people.

I'm glad that they had a fun day.

Good for them.

Yeah.

I hope they wore long underwear.

Trump himself, he gave like three different speeches.

There was the official inaugural speech.

There was the MAGA red meat that he did right after to the overflow room at the Capitol, which was even longer and crazier.

There he talked about like Pelosi wanting January 6th to happen.

Then he went to the Capitol One arena for this big rally with supporters who were supposed to go to the parade that was canceled because it was too cold.

Then he did like a 45-minute executive order signing in the Oval Office that was also part press conference.

And it was just this classic like Steve Bannon flood the zone with shit day.

But, Ben, I don't know if you saw this.

At the Capitol One rally, Trump invited a bunch of the Israeli hostage families onto the stage.

And then he went on a rant with them just standing there about the J6 hostages, is what he was calling them, the January 6th insurrectionists who are being held in prison until he pardoned them last night.

And then he did all these tributes to his own family, which is just a very weird thing to do in front of these people who are like desperately trying to get loved ones home.

But back to the speeches, Ben.

This is an excerpt from the actual official inaugural speech for you guys to enjoy.

We will restore the name

of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs.

President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent.

He was a natural businessman and gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did, including the Panama Canal.

We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made, and Panama's promise to us has been broken.

And above all, China is operating the Panama Canal.

And we didn't give it to China.

We gave it to Panama and we're taking it back.

Okay, so a fun transition from peacemaker to annexing waterways and invading Panama.

Ben, we've sort of talked about the facts and the substance of this Panama Canal process before, but any big takeaways from the various speeches yesterday or the rhetoric generally?

I think that,

first of all, the rhetoric, what scared me about the rhetoric, right, is there's this kind of normal, dark, apocalyptic stuff, right, up top.

And then he has this point where he talks about getting shot and,

you know, the bullet ripping through his ear.

And then he says,

he basically says something like, you know, God

saved me, I think, so that I could make America great again or something.

And with Trump, you're always, you know, we'll go back and forth.

Maybe this is all just like he's a show with right-wing politics so that he can like get rich, you know, on his corruption and on his Trump memcoin and things like that.

But then every now and then, you hold open the possibility that he is, you know, what he sounds like, which is a straight-up, scary, right-wing.

I mean, if you read that 20 years ago, you would be like, oh, there's a fascist running the United States, you know, and

so that scared me.

You know, but who knows?

Maybe that's just him being Trump.

And,

you know, I don't want to over crank it.

No, I mean, you're right to mention it because there's a lot of this in his convention speech, too.

I mean, this kind of divine intervention, he's a gift from the Lord to save us.

It's a thing that I think kind of emerged from the kind of evangelical nationalist fringe of the party that he is appropriated.

Yeah.

And it's just never good for someone to think that about themselves, whoever they are, by the way, you know?

On the other stuff, I mean, first of all, like, you know, it had the state of the union feel because, you know, all these members of Congress in a closed space.

Yeah.

The cheers for the Gulf of America.

What a bunch of children, you know?

I mean, it's just stupid.

It reminded me, though, Tommy, like, do you remember that in meetings, there were always some people in the Pentagon that insisted on calling the Persian Gulf the Arabian Gulf?

Like,

because it was like, you know, fuck the Iranians or something.

So there's a history of some of this stuff.

But I have to say, what jumped out to me about the Panama section is it's a big deal, usually, to put something in an inaugural address.

I've worked on inaugural addresses.

Like, you expect every word to be scrutinized.

Now, with Trump, you never know if he is, what he's signaling.

But I mean, there was a lot of real estate in that speech for the fucking Panama Canal.

Interestingly, Greenland didn't make an appearance.

I don't know if the data

got to him or something.

But it seemed kind of scary.

And because he later in the speech, he talks about territorial expansion.

Like at the end,

he was doing a litany of things he's going to do to make America great.

And one was expanding our territory.

That's not something we've heard.

And this William McKinley reference, first of all, if there is an afterlife, William McKinley must be quite confused right now about the comeback of his.

He's having a moment.

He's having a moment.

But William McKinley was there at the dawn of American imperialism, right?

So this is, you know, Spanish-American War stuff, America claiming territories.

And they seem to have been reading up on William McKinley.

And that's what that's about.

I mean, it's not his business acumen.

It's this guy enlarged the United States through overseas territories.

And so I just think whether it's Panama or Greenland, I think this is a part of the agenda.

I just have no idea, you know, is he going to

put tariffs on Panama?

Because Panama is not going to give up the canal.

So I just don't quite understand what the policy is,

but I think, again, we should take it seriously.

Yeah, and it's funny.

They seem to seize on a president early on in his administration.

The first term I remember was Andrew Jackson.

They were constantly talking about Andrew Jackson.

He had a portrait of Andrew Jackson up, and people are kind of like, hey, man, have you Google the Trail of Tears and some of the darker parts of his history?

But yeah, they don't care.

It's almost like a troll.

It is.

Like, I mean, do we think that Donald Trump knew much about William McKinley a few years ago?

Like, someone clearly has like you know pitched him on this idea that he's the modern day McKinley I guess you know

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So he did all the speeches, he did that press conference, he did all those EOs.

And then the New York Times blog, a reporter named Sean McCreesh posted that doing after all that, he said, quote, President Trump is now waving a military sword around in the air while dancing to the village people.

Still an hour to go.

We got the full experience yesterday.

We got the full ride yesterday.

It was quite a day.

But let's get to the substance.

So Trump signed like 200 EOs yesterday.

We're not going to go through all these executive orders that would take all day, but here's a few of the most relevant ones for us.

Trump pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accords and the World Health Organization.

Ben, I don't know if you watched this kind of 45-minute Oval Office signing event/slash press conference, but after he got handed the World Health Organization executive order to sign, he goes, ooh, that's a big one.

He was like excited about it.

It was very funny.

He did a bunch of immigration executive orders.

The impact of those was felt immediately.

There's this unbelievably sad Washington Post story today about a Cuban family that had escaped Cuba.

I think they went through Nicaragua to get to Mexico City.

They waited Mexico City for six months.

where they applied for an asylum meeting through the CBP1 app, which is the app you could download to try to

do the right thing and follow the rules to get into the U.S.

asylum process.

And then their appointment, which was supposed to happen like the first day of the Trump administration, just got canceled.

So this woman had had a C-section 45 days ago.

They had a newborn baby.

They have nowhere to go,

nothing to do, no plan B.

And it was just devastating.

Trump also designated drug cartels as a foreign terrorist organization.

I'm very interested to understand what that means means in practice, Ben.

It's like, are we now at war with them?

Are we going to try to kill them?

Is the U.S.

military going to be launching strikes?

I mean, this was a big conversation during the campaign.

I guess time will tell if it was literal.

The one area where Trump did not deliver on his campaign promises was on the tariffs.

He promised the...

The promised 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada.

That apparently is going to have to wait until February 1st.

And then I think Trump basically told agencies to study further trade issues and tariffs.

So long story short, no 10 to 20% tariffs across the board on day one and no 60% tariffs on Chinese goods.

Given Ben that our mantra for this next four years is watch what he does, not what he says.

What do you think were the most important executive actions that came out of yesterday?

I think even though it was obviously expected, pulling out of the Paris Agreement cannot be overstated.

I mean, it just is debilitating to international coordination to fight climate change.

And you couple that with his, you know, giddy references to liquid gold and drill baby drill in his inaugural address.

And expanded drilling, yeah.

The fact we're living in a city, Tommy, where it's like burning down because of climate change, and it's 2025.

And we got people pulling out of international climate.

I mean, it's absurd to me that we are here.

And so that will have real effects.

It will diminish America's capacity to participate in, and you'd like to be galvanizing climate action.

It will totally cede the space to China as the kind of clean energy superpower and as the country that is still in this.

And I think what we'll see is European countries getting closer to China.

So

it's an ultimate own goal.

And people can dunk on me for being a lib who cares about climate change.

But I mean, all those people are going to be living on this planet too.

So I don't know what they think they're getting out of it pulling out of the world health organization um you know will it god forbid there's another you know pandemic or any kind of epidemic disease um it will obviously make it harder to coordinate international action in that regard we live in a world as we learned during covid where there's movement of peoples and so not being a part of the global health infrastructure is a pretty dumb thing to do and and i gee i thought we would have learned something from the pandemic that happened under Trump's watch, but obviously not.

I'd just note, Tommy, that after Joe Biden's courageous decision

to remove Cuba from the state sponsor of terrorism list a few days before he left office, Trump obviously put them right back on.

Might have been good to do that a few years ago to give it some space.

So that one

obviously not surprisingly suggests that

Cuba's back in its kind of

in its its destitution.

So that jumped out to me as well.

And yeah, on the cartels piece, in addition to the potential for military action in Mexico,

enforcing those sanctions,

the cartels,

that designation should mean that anybody that does any business

with cartels is government,

Mexican military, right?

Or any, I mean, do you know how many, the cartels are worth billions of dollars.

And

so, you know, they control infrastructure in certain Latin American countries.

You know, they have front companies that do other things.

And so what I'm curious about, like you, is the actual enforcement of just even the sanction.

By the way, a lot of Americans, you know, where do you think they buy the guns, guys?

You know, they get the guns in the United States.

So if they actually want to enforce that in the same way that the U.S.

tries to enforce that with Al-Qaeda

and other terrorist organizations,

you'd be sanctioning a lot of people and entities.

So I'm just curious whether that's a messaging tool or whether they're actually going to do something with it.

Yeah, that one, I mean, it could be so far-reaching because there's all this news reports about very senior Mexican government officials with deals or agreements or ties to cartels, senior leaders in the Mexican military, as you noted, all kinds of business leaders.

So yeah, one to watch in terms of the enforcement.

A couple of stupid petty things, Ben.

I don't know if you saw Trump,

they removed the security clearances from 51 former national security officials who signed that letter back in 2020 that Hunter Biden's laptop had, quote, all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.

Obviously, that letter was wrong.

It was hedged and couched and it said, you know, it was like their opinion at the time, but it was wrong.

But I just wondered, though,

by the way, I just want to say, Tommy, and I'm in a mood today about this.

It was wrong because we were lied to by the Biden campaign.

I mean, I remember feeling like an idiot because they said, oh, this is Russian disinformation.

And so let's just be clear.

Like the, that, that, that, you know, they, they should have owned up to Hunter's laptop.

Uh, but full stop.

Sorry.

Yeah, I mean, maybe if Hunter just told them what he did with it.

But the one thing that just jumped out at me is I don't know how many of those people still have security clearances.

So it just seemed like kind of stupid and petty.

And the other really super petty thing I noticed they did was the Pentagon removed former chairman of the Joint Chiefs Chiefs Mark Milley's portrait from the Pentagon hallway 10 days after it had been put up.

This is the pettiest shit I've ever heard.

Well, that's what I mean by there's like a childishness to some of this stuff.

Like the portrait.

I will say it's an indication of you look for these indicators of how things are different this time around.

And we've talked about the appointments and everything.

Do you remember last time, like something like a year or two into the Trump administration, he revoked John Brennan's security clearance because Brennan was like tweeting like, you scoundrel, you know, and

it was like a big story.

It was like, wow, like they revoked John Brennan's security clearance.

And now we're starting there, right?

So it's where you got a running start here, you know.

And

it's not the thing to be most upset about by any stretch, but like some of those people, you know,

they do jobs that require them to have a security clearance.

Some of them are screwed.

So some of them are actually kind of screwed.

Weird deal.

Anyway, just for folks, just for context,

executive orders allow the president to direct government operations within existing law, but you need an act of Congress to write a new law, to actually amend a law, to appropriate money.

So a lot of these EOs will end up dealing with court challenges.

Some of them could be struck down.

Some of them are glorified press releases, but we'll see.

Some of them will have pretty serious impacts.

And obviously, Trump has packed the court.

But Ben, just a quick update on the personnel stuff.

So Marco Rubio was unanimously confirmed to be Secretary of State.

Not at all surprised about that.

That's kind of like a free bipartisan vote for everybody.

Pete Hegseth passed out of the Armed Services Committee, I think along partisan lines, which suggests he's on track to be confirmed as Secretary of Defense, which is crazy.

The one nominee that is still dealing with some issues is Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's pick to be the director of national intelligence.

Adding to her complications or political problems, the Washington Post has a piece out today that is based off of a bunch of records from her congressional office.

I think these records were turned over maybe to the House Ethics Committee or to the vetting people looking at her nomination.

And it's from the period when her aides were trying to deal with the political blowback from Tulsi's trip to Syria and meeting with Bashar al-Assad in 2017.

Apparently, she met with Assad for three hours, then she met with Assad's wife, and then met with Assad again a day or two later.

But when Tulsi's trip to Syria in Lebanon was approved by the Ethics Committee, her itinerary included no meetings with Syrian officials.

So the very clear takeaway from this story and these emails and these back and forths with her staff and like edits into this Google Doc where they're trying to figure out their spin is that it sounds like Tulsi lied to her own staff about this Syria trip and specifically tried to claim that the Assad meeting just kind of popped up once she got to Syria.

But then there's an email exchange about the optics of her meeting with him literally one hour after she got into the country.

So there's just seemingly no possible way this meeting with the fucking, you know, despot head of state in Syria just kind of happened versus being planned out.

It's very fucking shady.

It is very shady.

And I want to say something nice about a couple Biden people first, though, because, you know, I've been a little hard on obviously Biden himself.

Avril Haynes, who's the outgoing DNI,

you know, really extraordinary person who did under the radar very good work, right?

So I just, you know, note that there's a very good person leaving, and then we've got Tulsi coming in.

Bill Burns, obviously, you know, who we talked about, did a great job at CIA.

This thing about Tulsi

and Assad, what is so alarming about this, Tommy, is that the best case scenario is

that she just decided to have a three-hour meeting with Bashar Al-Sad, an absolutely murderous dictator that there's no reason to meet with.

That's one end of the spectrum.

And then the spectrum runs all the way to like, someone was like running Tulsi, you know, and like setting up the meeting and what's her relationship with Russia.

And I don't, I'm not, you know, like there are serious questions here that I think will be,

one of the things I'm struck by, Tommy, is that, you know, she's been having meetings with senators and the, you know, the same senators that are like, oh yeah, Pete Hexeth, he's great.

They're like, you know, we need him there at the Pentagon.

It seems sober to me.

Yeah, it seems.

Or no, not even that.

Like, haven't you voted drunk in the Senate?

Sober enough.

Some of those same senators seem to be alarmed by Tulsi.

Can we just post it?

What Ben just said is a literal quote from, I think, Mark Wayne Mullen, a senator defending Pete McSeth, who was like, oh, you care that this guy's drunk?

How many of you have voted drunk?

As if voting tipsy for like cloacher on a post office meming is the same as like getting a call about whether or not to fire a nuke back at Russia at three in the morning.

That's a thing that happened.

That's a thing that happened.

That's a thing that happened.

That's a thing that actually happened in reality, to be clear.

But yeah, like the intelligence community would know probably

something about this meeting because Bashar al-Sad is obviously somebody that the U.S.

intelligence community has been watching.

And so what we don't know is kind of

what is in the backdrop of this story.

And interestingly, again, the U.S.

intelligence community and presumably some of the people on the Senate Intelligence Committee probably know.

So it'll be an interesting hearing.

And it just makes, what do you think she's about, Tommy?

Because I don't like, part of me is like, is she just kind of in that weird convergence of the left and the right where you agree with everything Russia says because you just, you know, you're in that kind of weird

Tucker Carlson kind of space?

Or does she just like a kind of attention?

So she wanted to meet with Assad?

Or

what is going on, do you think?

It's so hard to follow because listen, the very charitable version of it is

she served in the U.S.

military.

She was deployed to Iraq.

She saw what a disaster it was and came back very opposed to any wars, including any U.S.

military intervention in Syria.

And I can totally understand that.

But I think she also kind of got folded into the

kind of horseshoe left-right.

place of the people who were opposed to U.S.

government surveillance.

And again, no problem with any of that, but she's already flip-flopped on Section 702 surveillance, which is the authority that allows the intelligence community to get information from all these American telecom companies, right?

Get into emails, get into whatever, texts, et cetera, right?

So she flip-flopped on that.

So she's already abandoned her position there.

To your point on kind of the best case on this trip, like it seems like, it seems quite clear that she lied to the ethics committee about why she was going to Syria and then was misleading to her own staff about what she did while she was on the ground in Damascus.

And then when she got back to the United States, she was just, I don't know, maybe she just got dug in,

but she refused, like a month later, I think Assad used chemical weapons on his own people.

And she went on TV casting doubt on the

conclusion by the intelligence community that it was Assad who had used poison gas rather than the opposition.

So it's like, what information are you getting?

How are you vetting this in your own head?

All these things are very important for the job.

She also proposed legislation that would have prevented the U.S.

government.

from providing funds or weapons to the Syrian opposition.

Again, like a perfectly reasonable, defensible defensible position, but just strange given all this other context.

And she met with all these like Assad advisors and supporters, Ben, including a Syrian cleric who, according to the Washington Post, had threatened to activate a network of suicide bombers in the U.S.

and Europe if Western countries intervened in Syria.

It doesn't sound like she was meeting with like a parade of peacemakers

to build bridges.

That's right.

To your point, like if she really was earnestly just, you know, we have to talk to everybody because we have to avoid war, why not come out and say that?

You know, why not just say, you know what?

I think we have to talk to our enemy.

I've made the case we have to talk to our enemies, not just our friends.

And so, therefore, I'm going to meet with Assad.

And I wouldn't have liked that, but at least it makes sense.

There's something deeply strange about how she's handled this.

The other thing I just want to point out, Tommy, is that

it took me like a few extra months to get my security clearance just because I was honest about my past drug use on my SF-86.

We're putting someone in charge of the U.S.

intelligence community that any employee seeking a security clearance would totally get nixed for this, right?

Like all day, every day.

Lying about it, because they ask you in all these interviews, you know, have you had a girlfriend or boyfriend from a foreign country?

Like all the places you've traveled.

They really like, you know, go deep on this stuff.

And so literally, what does it say?

I know norms are out the door, you know, but there's this kind of vast enterprise of the US government investigating people to get security clearances and to work in the intelligence community.

But But basically, the person who's being put in charge

would never pass that vet.

It just, it is going to totally upend the kind of, you know, culture.

And look, I think they've been too stringent on things like drug use and whatever.

But there's a lot of dumb questions.

It points to the absurdity.

And I'm not sure it fits with Trump's pledge yesterday in his inaugural address to run a meritocracy.

Also, Ben, Tulsi went to Syria with Dennis Kucinich and they both brought their spouses.

Why would you bring your spouse to fucking war-torn Syria in the middle of a silly?

What are you doing?

I have vacation.

I forgot Dennis Kucinich was alive.

I know.

Remember you ran against Ababa?

Wasn't he in 08 primaries, but he was like on the

gadfly candidate in a bunch of these things.

I don't know.

Very, very strange story.

One to watch.

I think, look, last week, I think I said that most of Trump's nominees looked like they were out of the woods.

Tulsi might be the only one.

She's the only one that seems, you know, but meanwhile, Cash Patel is going to skate right through.

Yeah, he's loving this.

He's loving the, yeah, she's his fullback.

All right, Ben.

So the best news since last week's show is that Israel and Hamas finally agreed to a ceasefire deal.

So far, the deal is holding.

On Sunday, three Israeli women were released by Hamas.

Three Israeli hostages were released by Hamas.

And then shortly after, 90 Palestinian prisoners were released by Israel.

The AP said that these Palestinian prisoners that Israel released were all women or teenagers who had been detained for offenses ranging from throwing rocks to promoting violence violence on social media to more serious allegations of attempted murder.

The agreement itself, the broader agreement, has three phases.

Phase one is six weeks long and includes this gradual release of 33 Israeli hostages, mostly women, the elderly, and the sick, in this phase one, in exchange for about a thousand Palestinians being held by Israel.

In this phase, the Israeli military is supposed to withdraw from population centers.

Gazans are supposed to be able to allow to move more freely through the Gaza Strip and return home, although they are returning to neighborhoods that are completely flattened, as we discussed a minute ago.

And then aid is being served into the Gaza Strip.

The deal calls for 600 trucks per day of humanitarian assistance to go into Gaza.

Phase two is supposed to be six weeks long.

You'd see the release of the rest of the hostages being held by Hamas, along with the release of more Palestinian prisoners.

And the IDF is supposed to fully get out of Gaza.

Phase three is this long reconstruction phase.

But here's the rub: the details of phase two and three have not been negotiated yet.

That process starts on day 16 of phase one.

So this whole deal is very tenuous.

And there's a smart piece in Ha'aretz about Israel's history of making these kind of phased deals, and they never get over the finish line.

They never get completed.

And there's also the political reality that right-wing members of Netanyahu's cabinet have said they will topple the government if the war actually ends, which is why Netanyahu and his top staff have said over and over again that Israel reserves the right to resume fighting whenever they want, basically.

So all of that has families of hostages very nervous, and as people who want to see this war end, very nervous.

Along those lines, we caught up with Maya Roman.

She had one family member held hostage by Hamas, who was released, and another family member killed by Hamas in the fighting.

Here's a clip from Maya.

Everyone

keeps saying it's like finally being able to take a breath because really,

it's so long and everyone is so tired.

So, the thought that it might

be over is is amazing.

At the same time, I kept thinking that Carmel should have been here and her family should have also gotten to hug her and Hirsch's family.

And,

you know, it's hard not to get upset about the fact that we could have been here much earlier.

This deal is...

The first phase is 42 days when there are three people released every week.

During the first humanitarian deal, there were 10 people released every day.

And even then, it was pure torture.

You know, every day the IDF calls you to tell you if your loved one is on the list or isn't.

And it was gut-wrenching.

I cannot imagine what the families are going through now, having waited so long.

And now it's going to go for a full month and more.

At the same time, we all know that the only way...

forward is through.

We just have to get everyone back so that everyone can start to heal.

And I'm not just talking about the hostages or the hostage families, but you know, everyone who was near the South when this happened, everyone who was relocated during this time,

all the soldiers, all the women whose husbands went to war for a year, and all the families of those who died.

It really feels like our country is still stuck on October 7th.

So I really hope we can

get through these next few months and finally be ready to move on.

You know, I think that just sort of perfectly encapsulates just how agonizing even this process is after a ceasefire deal had been reached.

Yeah, I hadn't thought about just that

in this kind of phase withdrawal, that agony of not knowing is my family member going to be in the next tranche or not.

And that's just got to be horrific.

I mean, it's

part of what's so tragic for Maya is that the...

pretty similar terms to the deal that was reached were on the table, those terms, when one of her family members was killed in Gaza.

And that's got to be incredibly wrenching as well.

So you just hope that all of the hostages that are alive are able to get out through this deal, obviously.

Yeah, absolutely.

Hope this deal gets completed.

We can also understand why the families of hostages who might get out in phase two hate this kind of phased approach, right?

A lot of people on the streets wanted sort of one deal that got everyone out at once.

Obviously, that's not what happened here, but you can imagine just how terrifying it would be.

But, Ben, I mean, there's also this, you know, far less relevant conversation in the U.S.

of not just how the deal got done, but who deserves credit for it.

So, the prime minister of Qatar said that this deal, the outlines of this deal have been on the table since December of 2023.

And he said that the parties wasted 13 months negotiating details that have, quote, no meaning and aren't worth any single life that we lost in Gaza or any single life of these hostages, end quote.

It is hard to argue with that, though I think, you know, U.S.

and Israeli negotiators would point out to us that the situation on the ground changed drastically over those 13 months, with Hamas getting decimated, Hezbollah getting decimated, and Iran getting substantially weaker because of the military back and forth with Israel.

But a reporter asked President Biden who deserves credit for the deal, you or Trump?

And here is his response.

Thank you.

Is that a joke?

Oh,

thank you.

He seems like genuinely surprised.

She says, no, it's not a joke.

I was like, oh.

But anyway, look, just to cut through the bullshit on this, like the Biden people clearly did months and months of diplomacy and diplomatic spade work to put together this deal.

It's also clear that this last-minute push from Trump and his envoy, Steve Witkoff, got it over the finish line.

And I also just want to say, Ben, like, hand up from me.

I owe Steve Witkoff an apology.

I hereby apologize on behalf of Pod Save the World and all its listeners because I think you and I scoffed at his appointment.

He was just like a Trump golf buddy, a real estate guy.

But not only did Wickoff reportedly push BB to take the deal, NBC News reported that he's considering visiting Gaza and says he planned to be, quote, a near constant presence in the region over the coming months to make sure it's implemented.

So a lot of this came from an NBC story that was quoting transition officials, but a transition official for the Trump team said, quote, remember, there's a lot of people, radicals, fanatics, not just from the Hamas side, from the right wing of the Israeli side, who are absolutely incentivized to blow this whole deal up.

If we don't help the Gazans, if we don't make their life better, if we don't give them a sense of hope, there's going to be a rebellion.

End quote.

And Ben, I read that.

I was like, yes.

Thank you.

Finally, someone says this.

Like, am I like a huge Steve Witkoff fan now?

I don't know.

I mean, we're going to wait and see.

Yeah, wait and see.

But look,

Liz Biden's response is totally fucking absurd.

What planet does he think we're on?

Like the ceasefire happened right before Trump came to office.

Like I think I made clear my feelings about Donald Trump.

I don't like the guy.

But like, if you're telling me that this would have happened otherwise, like, give me a break.

If, if, if, if this was

clearly, Trump, because Trump said publicly and privately, we've talked about this.

I was in Doha, by the way.

I talked to some cutteries.

I talked to other people.

Everything you heard was that Trump was telling him, get this.

done, wrap this up.

And all the reporting is that Witkoff was

like squeezing BB in a way that he had not been squeezed the entire time that Biden was in office, right?

So she told him to send a high-level representative to Doha who can make decisions in real time.

And he was leveraging all the things Trump had done for him in the first term and being like, look, we did this for you.

You fucking owe us this.

Now, the dirty, you know, what we don't know is whether he was also saying, and here's all the other things he will do for you down the road.

You know, that's

where he got the deal.

Look,

the bottom line of this is this,

what did the Biden people do?

They negotiated the terms.

But to be clear, Joe Biden stood up in front of the world early last summer and announced that proposal as a, quote, Israeli proposal.

Israel didn't agree to what was presented by the United States as an Israeli proposal until literally like a few days ago, and they had to be dragged there by Trump.

So they were gaslighting us that whole summer when we had kept hearing about how there was an Israeli proposal that Israel had agreed to, and only Hamas is the the outlier.

I'm not suggesting Hamas had agreed to it, but sure as shit, Israel had not agreed to that proposal.

So, what was that about?

Why?

Why were they?

I genuinely don't understand the point of

gaslighting us like that, right?

Well, the point is to run interference for Bibi Nanyao, to say Bibi Nanyao has agreed to this ceasefire when he had not.

So that's one point.

Second point is nobody should get credit for a situation in which Gaza has been completely obliterated and destroyed.

Like the credit, like they, this is like a peace deal after the place has been completely destroyed is, is not exactly, I mean, it's great that the hostages get home.

It's great that trucks are getting in.

And UNRWA confirmed to us that, you know, 600 trucks did get in.

That's all good.

But like this idea, this isn't like a normal, like, hey, we get credit thing because this horrific thing happened.

That's the other thing.

And then the last thing is this is very tenuous.

And Trump yesterday was asked during that kind of rolling press conference if he was confident that the CSAR would hold and he said, I'm not confident that it'll hold.

And you got people in the Israeli government who are kind of saying, wink, wink, like the, you know, and this is where we have to be careful about Witgoff.

You know, we can resume our war, you know,

like what you what you worry about is they get hostages out and then they're just kind of back in Gaza, right?

So there's a lot to play out here.

But

I just think that,

man,

there's something quite cynical about seeing this as an occasion for competing for credit.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm glad the deal got done, but it's just kind of ghoulish.

I'm glad the deal got done, too.

I think like the conversation about credit is gross and ghoulish.

I do think it's worth understanding who used leverage when and how so we can learn from the mistakes of the past in the future.

I'm as worried as you are given some of those Trump comments from yesterday.

I mean, he was doing like the Jared Kushner thing, talking about Gaza like a developer, talking about like the beachfront property, which is ominous if you want Gazans to live there going forward.

You also have to wonder if part of Wickoff's message was like, hey, we'll let you annex the West Bank down the road.

Also, Trump lifted a bunch of sanctions on right-wing settler groups and individuals, I think on his first day in office.

And these are people who committed violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

And right as that happened, the Israelis launched this operation in Jenin in the West Bank, and there were a number of settlers attacking Palestinian communities.

The settlers even attacked IDF military members who were sent to try to break up the violence.

So things are real dicey.

And to your point about, you know, just the disaster that is Gaza, and like, yes, the fighting has stopped, but now people have to live there, and that's nearly impossible with no structures.

We got a voice note from Shrukela, a journalist from Gaza City, who is telling us about what life is like for Gazans who are returning home now.

Here's a clip.

What I'm feeling is

a mix of complex emotions,

a relief that timbered by grief,

a relief over the stopping of the killing and

grief over the losing of my husband, the losing of my home, the losing of my sense of security and the terror that we have been enduring in the past 15 months.

This ceasefire has brought a hope, a window of hope for the people here in Gaza in the future but still the future is uncertain like for example um

like i i've lost the family house uh i lost my siblings homes and my home as well so the reality is is so fragile here as we don't have any place to go for so the displacement circle seems endless basically we are renting an apartment along with five families we are almost 19 persons here in one small apartment, which is quite like it's too much, basically.

The future is still voggy.

The ceasefire is subjected somehow to collapse because, you know, it's just

day two of the implementation of the ceasefire.

And who knows what comes in the future.

It's just an important reminder of how important it will be to not only keep this ceasefire together and implement it and keep both sides sort of on track, but also this reconstruction period because 19 people living in an apartment that is untenable.

Yeah, no, and we talk about this in the under interview.

I mean, there's also a lot of unexploded ordnance in that rubble.

So you can't just kind of bose it, right?

And bodies, right?

So it's going to be painstaking just to clear the rubble.

So you, you just hope that the ceasefire holds, the hostages get reunited with their families, and people just can get some normalcy.

Because part of what they also have to do, and you heard this in her voice,

they have not had time to digest the loss.

You know, they've just been trying to survive, right?

And so they need to take a breath there.

You know, and so let's hope.

I mean,

if Steve Witkoff wants to stay in the region and

get normalcy, great.

You know,

I do worry.

You know, I saw, I just worry about, yeah, what was the quid pro quo.

We'll find out, I guess.

Yeah, we'll find out.

All right, we're going to take a quick break, but as you can tell from listening to this, the next four years are going to be challenging and disorienting.

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Okay, Ben, let's talk about TikTok for a minute.

As listeners know, TikTok was briefly a bit blocked in the United States over the weekend.

Any of the 170 million people in the U.S.

who are trying to use it were denied their TikTok fix when they saw a message that said,

We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.

That was the TikTok is banned message.

And then a little later, when TikTok decided to restore its own service, they saw a message that said, as a result of President Trump's efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.

So, just to summarize, TikTok turned off its own service and then turned it on and credited President Trump in the interim.

The backstory on this, the quick backstory is in his first term, Trump tried to ban TikTok kind of on the way out the door.

Then, according to a bunch of news reports, he changed his mind after meeting with a billionaire named Jeff Yass, who owns a big chunk of ByteDance, which is the parent company of TikTok.

And now, Trump is saying he's a fan of the app.

He's portraying himself as a savior of the app.

Trump was asked about this last night during his Oval Office press conference.

Here is what he had to say.

You wanted to block TikTok.

Why did you change your mind?

Because I got to use it.

And remember, TikTok is largely about kids, young kids.

If China is going to get information about young kids out of it,

to be honest with you, I think we have bigger problems than that.

But you know, when you take a look at telephones that are made in China and all the other things that are made in China, military equipment made in China,

TikTok,

I think TikTok is not their biggest problem.

But there's big value in TikTok if it gets approved.

If it doesn't get approved, there's no value.

So if we create that value, why aren't we entitled to like half?

It's like

this was banning TikTok was like one of the few bipartisan things that happened in Congress.

79 U.S.

senators voted to ban TikTok.

And Trump's like, ah, who gives a fuck?

Yeah, and they've all done like a whiplash on this.

I mean, you know, people that were fervently against TikTok are now fervently for it.

It tells you a lot.

I mean, there is an oligarchy watch thing.

We, in addition to World War Watch, we have oligarchy watch.

The app kind of thanking Mr.

Trump, you know, for saving them is so on the nose, right?

I guess I'd just say, you know, you guys had a good conversation about this on Potsdam America.

You know, the national security perspective here is,

you know,

the data one, the massive data collection, message collection.

And on that one,

I kind of see Trump's point.

Like China's already hacked, like, they were listening to Trump's phone.

Like, I think that the horse is out of the barn on China collecting data on Americans.

Yeah, they're in every telecom company.

Yeah, it may be more efficient to have their own app, but

I don't share that concern.

I do.

worry, I mean, because let's be clear, the Chinese Communist Party ultimately calls the shots for a company like this.

There's a reason they have not sold the U.S.

subsidiary.

The CCP hasn't signed off on that.

And it is a bit alarming that, like, half of Americans, including young people whose minds are being formed, are being fed by an algorithm that is ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

Like, that, that, and, you know, people, TikTokers can, like, you know, roll their eyes at the stuffy national security guy, but that, that's just true.

And that, that, that is alarming.

And you'd just rather a U.S.

because

we don't even know how the algorithm works, right?

Like, we, it's not, uh, you know, it, it's, it's, it's proprietary information in China.

And what selling it to a U.S.

company would do is at least, you know,

now

there'd be more credibility for the U.S.

government if we regulated our own tech platforms that are poisoning our young people.

So it's not like Meta's is a healthy platform, you know?

So I don't know what happens here.

You know, it seems like there's probably not a reality in which TikTok is going to go away entirely because Trump has decided this is now politically useful to him.

And he's got this kind of tech kitchen cabinet.

But I'm sure what he wants is an oligarch of his own to buy it.

And so if this was Hungary, I mean, this is a test I'm going to apply a lot to the Trump administration.

What they try to do is consolidate all the media underneath the Orban oligarchs.

And so I'm sure the outcome Trump is trying to get is Elon or somebody who's Trumpy owns TikTok and then he controls it, you know, and splits the profits of the Chinese Communist Party.

It's perfect.

Yeah, I think he's trying trying to force a sale too into the hands of one of their more favorable allies.

I also did enjoy the sort of interim period where all these American users were downloading another Chinese social media app called Red Note and looking all about

Chinese centers.

Not exactly subtle, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, no one cares.

Whatever.

Welcome to America.

The Chinese just must be laughing at this thing, too, though.

Like, it's humiliating how much they're having a blast, I'm sure.

Yeah, how scared we are of an app and how it's royal to U.S.

politics.

Speaking of which, Ben, let's talk about the rolling mess that is happening in South Korea for a minute.

So listeners will remember that chaos has reigned in South Korea since President Yoon-suk-yule declared martial law in early December.

After a couple of tries, he was appeached by South Korea's National Assembly, but that is just the beginning of the saga.

His impeachment isn't official until it's approved by the Constitutional Court in South Korea and the president is removed.

So they're in this weird sort of like, you know, purgatory.

Last week, police were finally able to bring Yoon-suk-yule in for questioning on these separate criminal insurrection charges that had been challenging.

Initially, they ended up having to bring, I think, I heard 3,000 police officers to the president's house to get him to finally turn himself in.

Did he answer any questions when the cops were interviewing him?

No, but I guess showing up his progress.

And then over the weekend, Yoon was officially arrested.

He got the mug shot and all.

But even that...

created problems because his supporters were very pissed off and dozens of Yoon heads stormed the Seoul Western District Court, smashing windows and mirrors and just like generally causing chaos.

The Guardian reported that 90 people were arrested and 51 police officers were injured.

So Yoon and the current president condemn the violence, but it doesn't mean he's, you know, he's not participating in this investigation.

In the criminal case, Ben Yoon says that this body that is investigating him, the Corruption Investigation Office for High Ranking Officials or CIO, doesn't have the authority to even investigate him or talk to him.

So they're at an impasse.

South Korea's president does not have immunity from these insurrection charges.

He could face the death penalty or life in prison if he's convicted, although South Korea has not executed anyone in 30 years.

So it's very unlikely that will happen.

On Tuesday, Yoon made an appearance at his impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court.

There, he claimed that he did not order the military to remove legislators from the assembly after he had declared martial law, and that his order to enact martial law was a formality that was not meant to be executed.

I don't really know what that means.

Either way, this is a total mess, Ben.

This legal saga, you know, there's an impeachment and a criminal case that's going to be this rolling process for Yoon-suk-yule for a while.

But let's say Yoon is impeached and removed.

South Korea holds elections, and the opposition Democratic Party is elected.

The opposition leader is this guy named Lee Jai Meng.

He will likely...

take South Korea's foreign policy in a totally different direction, especially their willingness to work with the U.S., to work with Japan under this kind of anti-China framework that both the Biden administration and the Trump administration supports.

And it's likely that Seoul will then be much friendlier with North Korea and Russia.

So it's like a bit of a careful what you wish for situation for the Trump folks because either they get this very damaged political leader in Yoon-suk Yule, although his supporters are surprisingly rallying to him through all this madness.

Yeah, it's got kind of J6 choir vibes, you know?

Totally.

Yeah, it's very Trump-y, actually.

I mean, he might get just end up back in office.

Or they get this guy from the Democratic Party,

Lee Jai-myung, who will just disagree with them on a lot of policy.

Lee Jai-mung was a guy who was stabbed in the neck about a year ago.

Do you remember that, Ben?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

South Korean politics, man.

It's wild.

So, no question there, just a lot of no.

I mean, you know, yeah, my only take would be, you know,

because this is just playing out and it's insanely dramatic

and clearly is, you know, a massive stress test for South Korea's political system to just come out the other end of this thing.

And I just, this isn't one where it's going to be interesting what Trump does.

Because,

you know, he, he, South Korea, remember, his only real interest in South Korea was wanting them to, like, pay us more money to have troops stationed there.

And he canceled joint exercises between the U.S.

and South Korea as like a gift to Kim Jong-un.

So he's not particularly South Korea-friendly in orientation.

And you could see a world in which he likes this guy, you know, because this guy is being persecuted by his own deep state or something and could ruil South Korean politics that way.

Or, you know, what is going to be the Trump outreach to Kim Jong-un?

You know, if the Democratic Party does get in, you know, last time Trump had somebody who was more favorable towards engagement with North Korea, and that kind of actually made it easier for Trump to do his diplomacy.

So he might not mind

that guy.

So you just don't know because Trump's orientation is so weird.

I think the thing to watch in general, as with Europe, Japan, South Korea, Canada, I guess,

is the degree to which Trump kind of pushes countries into different orientations.

You know, these countries that have been very dependent on the U.S.

for security and for political support and in some cases for trade, whether they just kind of realign.

I think Trump is going to set in motion that.

So for South Korea, we're going to have a tough time anyway.

If everything was totally normal in South Korea, the Trump administration would be a big challenge to them given his orientation towards North Korea.

Now, they actually have incentive, I think, to go the way the Democratic Party.

Hey, we might need to get closer to the Chinese.

You know, we might need to figure out how to live with Kim Jong-un.

That's what I would probably expect to see coming out on the other end of this.

Yeah.

So another one to watch for just the general.

you know, uncertainty in the world right now.

Finally, Ben.

So it's 2025.

By now, everyone should probably know that posting the wrong thing on social media can get you in trouble from time to time.

But

I still think it's incumbent on us to call out the kind of cancel culture scolds when they go too far.

Which brings us to the story of a Spanish man named Juan Bernabe.

He lives in Italy, where he is the Falconer who handles the Eagle mascot for the Lazio soccer team in Italy.

It's a Serie A team.

Juan posted photos and videos of his own brand new prosthetic penis on Instagram, and he got fired for that.

The Associated Press described the prosthetic surgery as, quote, for non-medical reasons.

I wasn't sure how to read between the lines there, but luckily The Atlantic had us covered.

They quoted Bernabe as saying, quote, I had the surgery to increase my sexual performance because I'm very active.

My erection is normal, but with this device, I press a button that allows me to be able to perfectly control both the erection and the duration.

But you know what, Ben?

That got him fired.

This poor man just posts his dong on on Instagram.

He basically RFK Jr.

the thing and he got fired.

But you know what didn't get him fired, Ben?

The time back in 2021 when the same gentleman was filmed doing a fascist salute and chanting Duque, Duque, in honor of the late fascist Italian leader, Benito Mussolini, at a soccer game.

So I don't know.

Cancer culture giveth and taketh away.

First of all, kind of remarkable that you found that in the August pages of The Atlantic.

The athletic.

The athletic, okay, okay.

I thought you said the Atlantic.

The athletic, okay, that's better.

I mean,

they might do cock covers.

They're growling a lot.

I was like,

is Elliot Cohen branching out in his

writing Radio Free Tom

on the Falconer beat?

Look,

I will say, I thought Trump was going to fix this.

I mean, like, he's not delivering, right?

Where's the free speech?

Where's the free fucking speech?

Like, we heard yesterday that free speech is back, cancel culture is over, you know, obsessions with gender.

And, and, you know,

so you know what?

We're 24 hours in the Trump administration.

And so long as this guy is canceled, it just feels like Trump did not bring the change he promised.

You know?

Yeah, let this guy, you know, hang some prosthetic

something out there for whatever it is for display.

This guy's a, this Eagle is named Olympia.

They play at the Stadio Olympico.

He's also a big fan of the Vox Party, the Far A party in St.

Guy's outstairs.

This guy just keeps getting less sympathetic with each piece of information.

That's every word.

But

I will say that the whole thing has RFK Jr.

vibes.

You know, from the Falconing to the...

Well,

is that...

I was going to say something about New Age medicine, but I guess a prosthetic penis that follows your command structure is something different.

I don't really know what category to put that in.

This is the first I heard of that being a thing one couldn't wear.

Apparently it's a thing.

Anyway, good luck to our friends in Italy.

Okay, we are going to take a quick break.

We come back, though, you'll hear Ben's interview with Sam Rose, the acting director of UNRES Affairs in Gaza.

Please stick around for that.

It will be a much more thoughtful, serious conversation than the one we just had for the last five minutes.

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Okay, so I'm very pleased to be joined by Sam Rose, who is the acting director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza.

Welcome to Pod Say the World, Sam.

Thanks a lot, Ben.

Great to have me on.

Let's just start.

Let me just ask you, you've been in Gaza

for the last year and worked there for a long time.

But

what is the mood there since the announcement of this ceasefire agreement?

How are things on the ground there in terms of the mood of the people?

Yeah, look, I mean, the mood is complex.

I mean, I speak to a lot of people.

We've got a lot of staff, and I can't speak for everyone.

But, I mean, what was really noticeable the first day, so what was that?

We're Monday today.

Are we Monday, Tuesday today?

So on.

On Sunday, when the ceasefire came into effect, there was this immediate sense of relief and and release people you know sounds of kind of normal sounds on well normal sounds on the street the bombs dropped silent the drones dropped silent children were out playing that was the kind of the most noticeable sound on on sunday a sound that you'd not really heard at all i mean you hear it momentarily but parents were very you know kind of uh anxious and apprehensive about having the children out of their sight.

So families stuck together and families stayed indoors because of the constant threat of bombardment and and attacks that that vanished almost immediately so people were quite kind of there was there was release and there was relief people could breathe somebody told me they just wanted to go into a room for two days to have some privacy and cry but you know people have were feeling something that they'd not felt for 16 months or let's say until since November 2023 when the first ceasefire came in in into effect.

The crossing point between North and south Gaza is still not open.

So people, you know, I don't know, a quarter of a million people have fled south.

They've not been able to go home yet.

But what we have had in the past couple of days is people have, in the south and in the central parts of Gaza, have been able to go back to their homes.

So as the kind of initial euphoria has subsided,

you know, it's been replaced a bit with

with, I guess, kind of trepidation and just uh kind of a

i don't know a

how best to put it a kind of gaping hole in people's stomach as they realize and they start coming to terms with the enormity of what what's happened to them even when the ceasefire hit people were had this mix of fear hope and trepidation but what we've seen from people the last couple of days is you know people are a bit more downhearted they've gone home they've had confirmed with their own eyes that that their home is no longer there some people have retrieved bodies from from the rubble of their homes.

And it's just starting to dawn on everyone just, you know, how bad things were.

These kind of emotions that people kept bustled up inside, compartmentalized in part of their brain, because they were just focused on the day-to-day business of survival and certainly our staff working, blocking out what was inside.

They're now, you know, starting to kind of come to terms with that.

And it's going to be a long and difficult process.

Yeah,

I mean, I truly can't imagine.

I mean, speaking of the needs, UNRWA's obviously been, you know, one of the only lifelines to the Palestinian people in Gaza.

The ceasefire agreement called for 600 trucks of aid to get in a day.

What are you focused on right now as an organization?

Like, what,

because I can't even get my mind around the scale of the challenges.

What is most needed to get in for the people of Gaza?

And what is UNRWA doing to help facilitate that?

Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

This, as you'll know from the start of the war, this one of the main narratives of this conflict has been about trucks and about supplies

getting in.

It's not ideal because it dehumanizes the people, but it's a fact that it's been incredibly difficult to get those supplies in.

So, yeah, day three is

Disfar and the numbers that we're meeting those targets.

That is the target of trucks entering from Israel into the crossing points inside Gaza, whether that be in the south or in the north.

What we're actually bringing into Gaza and distributing is something slightly different.

But regardless, there's large volumes of aid that are coming in, and that's great because we've not seen that for several months.

But what's coming in right now

are essentially supplies that have been outside Gaza for several months because the crossing points were so choked, they were so constrained by a mixture of things that there was just a large, large backlog of things outside.

What we're focusing on and the bulk of that is food.

It's flour to get bakeries running.

It's food parcels that we ordered for populations on the verge of famine.

And it's basic shelter items.

So, you know, in the humanitarian toolkit, we bring in mattresses, we bring in blankets, we bring in tarpaulins, plastic sheets, things of that nature.

So this is critical to get this in and get it out in large volumes just to take the edge off thing because people haven't had food, you know, on the verge of starvation.

People are living in the most squalid and appalling of shelter conditions.

But a lot more needs to be done beyond that initial phase.

And as UNRWA, we would look initially to

rehabilitate and repair our critical infrastructure so that alongside provision of basic humanitarian aid, we're also able to resume some of our basic services.

Now,

everything is made more complicated by,

well, by firstly by the situation facing UNRWA, maybe that's something we'll come to in a bit, but by the kind of prerequisites to

safe delivery of aid right now in Gaza.

And two things...

come to mind in relation to that.

One is what we do about all the unexploded bombs and the munitions.

I mean, it's been an incredibly intense bombardment for 15, 16 months across most of Gaza.

So people who are returning to their homes, their buildings, there's lots of ordnance there.

And we're not yet in a position to safely take that ordnance away.

It has to be done through the national authorities.

But we do lots of raising awareness, mine risk education, education on explosive remnants of war, things like that.

It's sadly been a part of what we've been teaching kids in Gaza since 2008, 2009.

So since then, we've had a cycle of what,

five conflicts.

So it's something that we have in hand.

We have it in Arabic.

We have the multimedia capability to get the message out.

UNRWA, we've got over 10,000, 12,000 staff.

So we've got staff on the ground who can disseminate those messages.

So a key thing that we need to do

as a prerequisite

for aid and safe returns

is

that awareness raising.

We also need to keep track of where people are and where people are moving to, because a lot of the aid operation in Gazra has been focused in Mawasi, on the west, on the coast.

And that's where the services have been

structured around, at least the kind of temporary humanitarian services, aid trucking, water trucking, things like that.

As people move back, we have to support them

where they're going back to.

As UNRWA, we have boreholes in refugee camps that we can restore.

We have wells in our shelters that we can also restore.

I mean, restoration of water is critical to get people

to return.

But people won't be returning permanently in large numbers right now.

That requires a massive effort in terms of rubble removal, in terms of, like I say, the removal of the ordnance and the munitions and things like that.

So it is going to be a gradual long-term process.

I mean, yeah, you mentioned a lot there about shelter.

I mean, you know, the imagery that we're seeing, which you're obviously seeing on the ground, but I mean, North Gaza looks like, you know, Hiroshima.

I mean,

there's just, you know,

no structures standing.

It's just all rubble.

I mean,

where are people going to live?

How do you even think about the scale of the short-term housing needs versus the kind of obviously longer-term reconstruction effort, assuming peace holds.

Just what is the sense of

how, I mean, do you have any sense of

what percent of homes are left after this horrific bombardment?

Yeah, I mean, it is, the scale of it is vast.

Northern Gaza has essentially been obliterated and the vast majority of homes and buildings have either been destroyed or

badly damaged.

Now, we face wars in Gaza before, but nothing like this where entire neighborhoods

have been wiped out.

And it is quite striking.

You drive around northern Gaza or Gaza City and amongst the rubble, you will find a house or

that somehow remains standing or within a multi-story building, a room that has washing hanging outside.

So people are

living in it.

But even where these buildings are standing, people can't get to them because of all the rubble, all the

stuff on the ground, because Gaza was so overcrowded.

I mean, Gaza City was quite high-rise, that even for those buildings that remain standing, for people physically and safely to kind of get there and come and go and for services to be restored

is a massive task.

And look,

what we're looking at is people being out of their homes for a long, long time.

And there's a number number of things that

we can do.

We can move from the kind of very temporary, very basic shelter, which comprises tarpaulins, plastic sheets, basic mattresses and things like that, to provide people with a bit more stability.

So that if they're out for some time, at least they are in somewhere that's a bit more comfortable.

The problem that we've had in Gaza, one of the problems we've had over the past 16 months is that there have been these repeated cycles of displacement.

We had people moving, you know, people have been displaced five or ten times.

They've been constantly taking with them these rotten plastic sheets and reinstalling them where they are.

So for the people who are unable to go home, it's about making that shelter more

comfortable so that they can live

in a bit of dignity in conditions that are fit for humans to live in, recognizing that they're likely to be there for quite some time.

But what we will also see is people,

you know, if people's houses have been burnt or damaged, there may be one or two rooms that still remain standing.

So,

and people here, it's an extended family community.

So, typically,

the father of the household will live on the ground floor.

When his children get married, his sons get married, they would build an extra story on top.

So, there's kind of multiple generations of the same family living in the same building quite a lot.

And there may be one or two rooms that are fit for habitation.

So what people will do,

or what we assume they will do, is that they will start from there.

There'll be lots of people living in one or two rooms and families will just start to rebuild themselves bit by bit.

A room here, a room there, putting windows back in, etc.

I mean, people aren't going to do that right now, given the uncertainty over the ceasefire prospects and given the lack of basic materials on the ground, because we're bringing aid in right now.

We're not bringing in large supplies

for reconstruction.

And we need equipment.

We need tractors.

We need bulldozers.

We need all these things.

And the other bit I would say is that right now, there are a couple of hundred thousand people sheltering in UNRWA schools.

I mean,

we have 300 schools in Gaza in about 200 school school buildings and close to 100 of them are functioning as emergency shelters.

And right now, we've got a couple of hundred thousand people living in those shelters.

Again, some of those people will be able to move out and move back home, but we can anticipate that there'll be a lot of people that

need to remain for a long time because they've not got anywhere else to go.

And the challenge

with Gaza is on yeah on the one hand you've got all this rubble that needs to be removed and some of the estimates run into years in terms of how long that that's going to take but in general that there isn't much space it's a very very overcrowded piece of land so the idea that you can kind of decant people out of one structure move them move them somewhere else is uh is is is not feasible because the land simply isn't available so some of the high-level thinking has gone into this but not

not all the lower level thinking yet because it requires a complete urban regeneration.

It requires working at community level to understand with families, with notables, what is going to be acceptable to them.

And all this can really only happen when there's a functioning governance structure in place to kind of oversee that redesign.

Yeah, well, I mean, looming over this is the fact that Israel has passed a ban on UNRWA that is supposed to begin

in a week or two, I think.

And I mean,

you've already alluded to how deeply embedded you are in the society.

I mean, hundreds of schools sheltering hundreds of thousands of people, getting food to people, over 10,000 employees.

What happens when this

ban goes into effect?

I mean, how are you ⁇ what does that mean for you?

How are you preparing for it?

And what would it mean for the people of Gaza if it went forward?

Yeah, we don't know precisely what it will mean.

The ban covers

our activities in the occupied Palestinian territory.

And

what it prohibits is UNRWA's activities on the sovereign territory of Israel, number one.

And number two, prohibits interaction.

uh and engagement between unra and and israeli officials now gaza isn't the sovereign territory of israel but we come and go through israeli borders we bring our supplies in through Israeli borders.

When there's a conflict, we coordinate and notify Israel of all our movements and we engage with them when there are critical incidents, if staff are stuck in certain lo locations.

So if the if the bills come in uh and are implemented to full effect at the end of this month, it makes it incredibly difficult for UNRWA to keep operating in Gaza.

Our international staff, myself included, wouldn't be able to come and go.

Interpreted to the letter of the law, we wouldn't be able to bring supplies in and others wouldn't be able to do that on our behalf.

And this would be catastrophic at any moment in time, given how central UNRWA is.

as a mechanism for delivery of aid and provision of basic services.

But right now,

it's catastrophic for the entire population of Gaza.

This

now, with the ceasefire in effects, it isn't about UNRWA.

This is about the humanity and the values that we stand for as a humanitarian community in terms of meeting the needs of the population of Gaza.

If you rip out UNRWA, then you rip out the largest single actor with the wherewithal and the capability do that.

We work with others.

There's a very strong, a very vibrant humanitarian sector here.

We work closely.

We work in partnership with UN agencies, NGOs, civil society, etc.

We're not alone, but we are a singular entity

that doesn't exist in other parts of the world.

There's an instrument that the international community has at its disposal that covers half the response.

You know, 13,000 staff we have in Gaza.

The rest of the aid community, we're looking at, you know,

a few hundred.

Half the food, we provide two-thirds of the primary health care.

We provide,

you know, 85% of children in Gaza have received some kind of psychosocial support and mental health care from UNRWA.

We vaccinated a quarter of a million children against polio

in 2024.

And right now we've got a ceasefire that is already fragile.

We accept that given the complexities and given the savagery of what happened on October the 7th.

And since then, it's already fragile.

But if you take out the largest single actor capable of supporting and delivering on the response, you make it

close to impossible.

You send a message to the people of Gaza that whilst there are humanitarian commitments linked to the ceasefire, we're abandoning them.

They are being abandoned.

And what signal that will send

for the stability

of the situation here, the shock, the trauma, the grief it will cause, but it also risks having more regional impacts.

So for the sake of the ceasefire, it's absolutely catastrophic that this is happening and that this is happening now.

And we're trying everything within our means.

to halt it, but we're a UN agency.

We can only work through the member states.

So we're calling on member states to do everything that they can to make sure that we are not ripped out of here at the end of the month because it's a situation that absolutely no one wants and no one needs.

Yeah, no,

it's kind of

boundless cruelty.

I don't know how to even get my mind around it.

I mean, how many do you have any sense of how many unre-employees have been killed in the last year and a half?

Yeah, I mean, it's 250, 260.

I don't have the exact number today.

I believe it's somewhere over

260 personnel that we've lost now since the 7th of October.

And it's colleagues

that we know, colleagues that we work with,

just going about their business just in the wrong place

at the wrong time,

on the road, in their home, whatever.

The nature of the

conflict is such that it's such a built-up, overcrowded area in in and you know and

placing overcrowded placing guards that the the the munitions that are being used it's inevitable that large numbers of people are are are going to be killed and and it's not just staff who've been killed it's their family members as well.

I mean, every single person here has suffered immeasurably in ways that we can only begin to comprehend when we drive around, when we see the photos, we see the drone footage, etc.

The depth of the destruction of

physical structures, but also of people and communities is really, really hard to get your head around and quite shocking.

Yeah, well, the last question I wanted to ask you is,

you've been working in Gaza for a long time, in and out.

Obviously, that's part of your vocation as a humanitarian.

worker, but also presumably because

you care, obviously, about the people there.

And there's so much dehumanizing

rhetoric, whether it's obviously the way in which

people in not just Israel, but in the United States, kind of cast,

everybody's a terrorist or everybody's Hamas, or even people that are well-meaning, it's always, as you pointed out earlier, it's numbers, right?

It's X number of people have died or X number of trucks are getting in.

What would you want people to know about

the human beings

you clearly know so well in Gaza and what they've been through.

I know that's kind of an open-ended question, but that's kind of, I wanted to leave it to you.

What is the world not seeing here about the humanity of the people that have just been through something

that is beyond belief, really?

Yeah, no, it is beyond belief.

And people of Gaza have been through a lot before this, but this is on a completely

different level.

And, you know, we'd want to say that they're normal people.

I mean, what they've gone through is is completely abnormal and what's become normal is completely unacceptable and and and abnormal but the

you know people here want what we want most people here are children half the population let's say is under 18 you know quarter of the population under 10 they're they're they're the the colleagues that i know the people that i work with

They want what everyone else wants.

They want safety for their family.

They want to be able able to go to sleep at night and not worry about what's going to happen to them.

They want to watch the latest football teams and have a laugh.

And they want to be able to look to a future that isn't measured in, am I going to get a liter of water today?

Am I going to get a bag of flour today?

But is

what everyone else wants.

And they want

to

understand

why

this is happening to them they've there's nothing they can do about the situation that they're in and we've got people here that have just seen the world watching this constantly for the last 16 months and not been able or willing to do anything about it but people here want the same that we want they've they want to i mean they're they're very family oriented here it's a close-knit community people stay where where they are a lot of them are refugees so they have contacts in diasporas around the world but people have pretty modest expectations here but they want to work

they want to do well they want to be educated they want safety they want freedom and quite frankly they want to go to the beach and they want to have a swim and they want to put on clean clothes and they want to laugh and they want to cry and they want to have everything that's that's normal that all of us expect and they don't want to be treated differently and they see right now the fact why is it that these human rights that we talk about i talk about as a as a humanitarian why is it that they don't apply to them they just want to live a normal life they want a quiet life they want all of this to go away the worry is right now that a lot of people will just want to leave right they they see that the future here is so difficult in terms of how long it's going to take to rebuild this place.

So if you're a parent with children in school,

when is your kids going to get back to school?

If you're an 18-year-old that wants to get a university education, what are the prospects for you getting that university education

in Gaza, given that the entire tertiary education sector has been wiped out?

So, yeah, people have kind of modest ambitions.

They work hard.

They're diligent.

They are respectful.

They have the same problems that we all have, but they just want a normal life.

Nothing special, just, you know.

Yeah, well, um, that should not be asking too much.

Um,

well, look, thank you so much for what you do, for what everybody at UNRWA's doing.

Um, and

everybody listening who, you know, wants to

whatever influence you have, this would be a disaster to lose UNRWA right now.

Um, so uh, people should support its uh its work.

Sam Rose, thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks a lot, Ben.

All the best.

Thanks again to Sam Rose for doing the show.

And

look forward to seeing you back in the studio next week where it will be warmer.

Here we are.

Second Trump term.

I'm ready to make some content with you, Tommy.

Giddy up.

All right.

See you.

Stay warm.

Thanks, buddy.

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