World Cup Logistics and Politics

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That's why WeWork has created a new platform built for a smarter way to work, a composable stack of real estate, services, and technology you can figure for the way your business works today and tomorrow. Our team of experts are ready, building end to end solutions for businesses of all sizes, from Fortune five hundreds to entrepreneurs. Whatever you need, we've got you covered. Unlock the only real estate platform built for a smarter way to work. We work. Made for work, built for your business . Looking for your next office. Discover WeWorks new real estate platform built for a smarter way to work, with forty five million square feet of office space in one hundred twenty cities across thirty four countries. We've got you covered for global coworking to custom office solutions, visit wheatwork. com Welcome back to Pottape With World I'm Tommy VTOR. I'm Denrudes. Ben, I'm sad to say the Nicks lost yesterday . Donald Trump was at the game last night . Here is what it sounded like when they showed his beautiful soon to be asleep face on the Jumbo Tronted MSG. Let's watch. Ben, how responsible is Dining Tea for the next loss? And how glad is Zoron that no one is blaming him because he was also there. No one's saying his oron you New drink James them. So first of all, the best thing about that is that they clearly intentionally showed Trump during the National Anthem thinking that New Yorkers not wouldn't give you a break, of course they will. Do you not understand New Yorkers like the person running that Demo Trump? He's fifty percent or probably sixty percent response because the referees are forty percent responsive like there's a lot of bitterness in Nick World today about the foul discrepancy that Wendby take down of Jaylon Brunson. But yeah, I mean we had, the most incredible karma going. We'd ripped off like thirteen wins in a row. And then Trump has to insert himself and ruin nice things . And that's what happened. Not great. By the way, also with the game last night was our former boss, Rom anuel. I don't know if you saw him sitting on the wood. He was courtside with like his brother it was Larry David. It was Patriots owner Bob Kraft. I talked to Rom for a bit this morning and he was like, what you don't get watching it on TV is like just how violent the game is. These are like the biggest people you've ever seen in your life crashing into each other at full speed and we would just snap in half because we're little babies. I got to sit down there once you know up close where you can really see it and like every time Carl Anthony Towns hit the ground, I didn't know how I was going to get up again. Yeah, these guys are so big and they're just like flying around it's it's yeah, I miss the garden though and I went so much when I was a kid and there's no electricity like that anywhere else I've been in life. You gotta be a friend like Stiller and Timothy Shalomay and see if you can get all one of those seats in between them. Ben, did you notice that during TV time outs, Larry David was reading a book? I think it was called All We say . It's by this guy named it's newly minted part of the New York Times bestseller list that I think you can pick up right now. Larry David must have snagged one on the way in from the best seller list. Yeah, we made number five World Os and that's all because of you. So I really appreciate it . And yeah, it's right up blurry, David. It's Ali, I'm sure . I have to say to Tommy, like it's wonderful to be doing these events at every event . Like a good chunk of the crowd is just world s. Awesome. And you get this glimpse. I think I told you my favorite one was a guy came up to me and said he's a post postal carrier and he listens to us on his route. That's awesome as that, you know? I love that. So I love you guys coming out . I do have this ongoing never ending tour, which is why I'm always remote. I will be tonight Wednesday in San Francisco at the Corta Madeiro Book Passage , which seems exciting and a whole bunch of stuff next week too, which I'll update people on. But thanks for picking up the book. Pick up some more copies . You know, we've got David Siderus in the sight lines at the top of that list. Okay, not sure I'm catching up to him, but I appreciate it. Yeah, go buy a book OSE Ben, buying for your friends, buying for your enemies. For now, we have a great show for you guys. We're going to tell you about the clashes between Iran and Israel over the weekend . There's reports been this morning that Iran shot down a US helicopter and Trump has pledged to respond. We can talk about that. We'll talk about how Trump and Netanyahu are managing all of this. Well, to me, I think just quietly hating each other and getting sick of each other and wishing this couple's trip was over. we Th'enre going to tell you about deserve each other. They really two men who deserve each other. They really do, in the new Supreme Leader. They're going to tell you about this, we'll tell you about this controversial real estate deal that is being pursued by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump that has led to allegations of corruption and explosive protests across Albania. We're going to tell you what to expect from the FIFA World Cup tournament. It's bigger, more expensive than ever before. We'll talk about all the ways that Trump is using the games to piss off half the world, mostly Africa , and then get PR for himself. Chinese President Xi Jinping is visiting a surprisingly economic resilient North Korea this week. I think his trip is wrapping up sort of as we record this. We'll tell you why. We'll also talk about former Trump national security advisor John Bolton plea deal over his mishandling of classified information. There's a story of this unbelievable story, really, of the senior CIA officer who was caught with a bunch of gold bars in his house. We love a gold bar story here . And then there's just an amazing fake and tell you make it story out of Nigeria that I just couldn't resist playing for you at the very end. And then at Ben the end you're going to hear my conversation with the BBC's Will Grant . He was just back from Cuba. We talked about what life is like on the ground for the Cuban people since Trump has cut off fuel supplies to the island. We'll talk about like what a soft US regime change operation might look like, what a military operation might look like, who the Cuban people blame for the situation and much, much more. So really, really interesting conversation with Will. He's a great guy. I used to talk to Will a lot when I was working on Cuba because he's one of those journalists that I would learn more from him than he would probably learn from me. I love journalists like that. Yes. And he just got back and I was in Mexico cities. We also talked a little bit about the World Cup and how it's playing down there because the World Cup is in three countries this time. And also, Ben, just flagging for everybody that we have some amazing video clips this episode. So subscribe to Potsava World on YouTube so you don't miss any of it. Also help us grow the show and get good information to people. And also, if you love the show, if you love crooked media, if you want ad free episodes, if you want bonus episodes of Podsave America, if you want bonus polling deep dives from Dan Feiffer and a lot more, consider becoming a friend of the pod subscriber. Go to crooked. com slash friends. You'll learn more. It's about ten bucks a month . And you know, if you want to help progressive independent media, it's the single most helpful thing you can do to help us grow as an organization and continue to dominate Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire and help me clap back at Mega McCain when she yells at me over made up vote fraud allegations in LA here. I saw that. You've been particularly active online. I was very terrible. I was just I was on a plane. I tweeted like eight times about the referees last night than I like was like, What am I doing myself? I'm not healthy. I actually think that's a much healthier use of Twitter than whatever hell I was doing. And Meg McCain, yeah, that was just Meghan McCain calling you a pod bro and stuff is yeah whatever,. She's like tweeting disinformation. I'm like, hey, maybe this is fake and you shouldn't spread it. You should like Google the actual facts that she gets all mad and whatever. Anyway maybe the people of Los Angeles don't like Spencer Pratt, you know, yeah, not a huge shock. The Magas who like we live in LA, like we have a sense of what the electorate cares about here . fifteen percent of the of the county, I think, or the city is registered Republican. It was unlikely that he was ever going to do well when he was like closing going on Gutfeld and Fox and Friends with like a crazy mega message. But such as life . So Ben, it was another headspinning week in the war in Iran. Let me just walk you through some of the timelines. So Wednesday of last week , a week from when this week before this came out , Israel and Lebanon announced a ceasefire in Lebanon. Then a day later we learned that Hezbollah is not on board with the ceasefire deal, which is a bit of a problem since they're one of the two parties doing most of the f iring . Then over the weekend, the Israeli Defense Forces or IDF said they hit about one hundred and fifty Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon. So Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel. The IDF then responded with strikes into southern Beirut , and we are off to the races. And remember last week, Trump told us that he had gotten Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Bibi Netanyahu to be restrained and stop hitting targets in Beirut. And then Netanyahu goes and does exactly that that. So's when the wheels like fully come off the ceasefire bus and Iran fired around thirty missiles directly to Israel. And then on Monday, the Houthi rebels even got in the game and they fired a missile at Israel and threatened to attack ships in the Red Sea affiliated with Isra el. And so for a while there, you know, Sunday night, Monday morning , it felt like we were on the cusp of returning to full scale warfare and that Netanyahu was going to authorize some like massive retaliation on Iran . But Trump seems to have called him to try to chill things out. And we know this because first Trump called Axios in the Financial Times and a bunch of other news outlets to let them know that BB was, in fact, his bitch , and that the U. S. called all the shots. That's almost a direct qu ote. And so ultimately, the Israeli response was relatively restrained. They hit like a petrochemical plant, some other infrastructure, but both sides are sort of standing down for now . But Ben, I did think this was a remarkable and very important a moment an inflection point because it just shows, again, like we can bump along, the stock markets can ignore what's happening. The oil markets can fluctuate, but like the war is not close to over. And then big picture, I think this shows that Iran is not at all deterred. In fact, they're emboldened, right? And they have directly linked the fighting with Hezbollah to the conflict between the US and Israel and Iran in a way that is not going to make Netanyahu very happy. So just curious what you made of these events and in particular the Iranians deciding to just launch a massive ballistic missile barrage into Israel once again . I think that the thruple of Netanyahu Trump and the new supreme leader is not exactly designed to de escalate circumstances because if you look at the three parties we've talked a lot about what the deal would be. Everybody knows that the deal would be, right? Straight for blockade for revenue, for some nuclear concessions, for more revenue for Iran . Israel does not want that deal . Even if they're kind of forced accept that they can't keep bombing Iran, they'll escalate in Lebanon because Hezbollah is never going to accept an outcome in which they totally disarm and that's Israel's pretext to occupy Southern Lebanon and do as much damage as they can. So Israel is not exactly looking for or interested in a peace deal. Trump is trying to save face and present whatever happens as a victory, but that's just not possible because he's not meeting his objectives and the Iranians aren't pitchulating the negotiating table. And so he kind of stays on the precipice of getting drawn back into things . But importantly, he doesn't want to get drawn all the way back into like the kind of full blown war that we were in earlier this spring, which the Iranians know, which brings to the Iranians, which is they don't feel like people that are desperate for a deal either. I think they want to appear to have really bloodied the nose of the United States and Israel to establish deterrence so that the United States doesn't launch another war. They recognize how isolated Israel is internationally . And so if Israel is doing things in Lebanon, they kind of want to spotlight that by launching their own attacks. And so even though the only way the war ends is for all three parties to just kind of accept that none of them are going to achieve all their aims here , I think the leadership of the three countries , the Supreme Leader and the IRGC and Iran, Trump and Netanyahu just kind of can't seem to bring themselves to say yes. And maybe the only thing that will get them there is if the global economy really does just start imploding and it's unsustainable. Yeah , it does seem like that would be maybe the only thing that gets everybody just to take some tough steps politically. I mean, it was remarkable. Tuesday morning we learned that Iran shot down a U. S. Apache helicopter patrolling the Street of Hermuse . There was, you know, the Pentagon, I think told some journalists that they believe it was Iranian drone, but they weren't sure that it was on purpose, which is like first of all, what the fuck you talking about? Of course, it was on purpose. And one of those things if that had happened during the Obama administration, we would have been accused of like the most pathetic capitulation in history, right? And then I saw just before we started recording that Trump called the Wall Street Journal and said that the helicopter the incident quote wasn't a big deal and that the pilot was fine. So this is this an Apache helicopter that was shot out of the sky. The crew spent hours in the water like in the dark . They were only rescu ed by some sort of like unmanned drone system that happened to find them. But all of a sudden that's no big deal. Like look , I don't want us to resume full scale warfare, right? Like this is what sucks about being a Democrat and being responsible because Republicans would just rightly call that statement out for being unbelievably weak and feckless and pathetic , but that's what it is. Well, I remember you could pick any event. Do you remember when like some U. S. sailors got they veered off the wrong waters, right? They veered off in the wrong waters and pretty briefly they were held by Iran, but then they were released. John Carry called We heard about that, right? Yeah. John Kerry literally called the foreign minister and let him go. But we heard about that incident for the rest of the Obama presidency. And like Trump and Ted Cruz were like making it part of their like stump speeches in the campaign. So there's absolutely no obvious ly consistency with these guys. I think like the two things that stand out from that incident are the Iranians are pretty determined , however this war ends to kind of leave the distinct impression that they have the capacity to control that strait. So even if they reopen it, you know, the subtext is we can close it again . And so that's, you know, where they're focusing , you know, their military efforts . And pretty, you know, pretty brazen and to shoot down a US helicopter like that. Yeah, so much repeat hexf telling us that, you know, they'd taken out all their military capacity, right? Those briefings feel like a long time ago. Oh yeah, we destroyed their navy and their missiles . But we talked about this, but they're just so full of lies and they don't get called out because Iran's military capabilities, you know, clearly just fine, unfortunately And look, the reality is that Trump doesn't want to get all the way back into this thing. Like he sees the writing on the wall of the markets. That's why he's so frantically calling Axios to or having Witcoff call them or Jerry to say there's a deal every Friday before the market's cl ose. And frankly, he can pretend like he doesn't care . But I'm sure that Trump is aware of like Tucker Carlson and Meghan Kelly and some of these other people. Like he's losing his base . He's already lost independence . And so I think he knows that if he goes all back into war , you know, he could he could really crater even more than he already has. And that gives the Iranians a lot of leverage, frankly. And just as we're recording this, Senkom put out a statement that they've begun some sort of self defense strikes against Iran. We don't know exactly what it is, but they said it's in response for the downing of Apache helicopters. So they're saying it's proportional in response to whatever Iran did. Who knows , but I mean look they can try to be measured and try to keep it proportional, but the cycle of violence continues. There is no ceasefire. Trump was saying earlier that there could be a deal done in two to three days , Ben CNN counted up the number of times. Trump has said we're close to a peace deal or that Iran is desperate for a peace deal. You want to guess how many they found ? I'm gonna guess eight. thirty eight. thirty eight. thirty eight. Oh my . time. Oh my god So it's going good. I have to go back through Barack Ravid's Twitter feed. I mean, look, we're in this kind of state of like it's a semi frozen conflict with these episodic outbursts of violence and more sustained violence in Lebanon . And that's, you know, one of these times a stop clock will be right because the only way this thing ends is in a deal . So nobody's gonna surrender here. Or the Iranians, I mean, like if they drone shot down Apache helicopter. I mean, thank God that the American pilots weren't killed, but eventually some will be, and that will lead to the escalation ladder going up. Yeah. Yeah . Something like that may happen and then what that does to public opinion in this country too. I think we'll be leading more in the direction of let's get the hell out of there than in the direction of look let's just dive back in. Yeah . Another victim of this war bene has been the English language. Here's President Trump kind of explaining the problem to us. Let's watch. How do you find ceasefire? How do you find ceasefire? Pretty much the way it is. It's a different part of the world. You're not saying in that part of the world, ceasefires when you're shooting in a more moderate manner . They put up a blockade, and so we blockaded them and we have the ultimate blockade . I don't consider that a war, but if you want to define it as such, I guess you can. Well, how do you define it? I don't define it at all. I don't think about it. I just do what I have to do. During your twenty sixteen campaign , you called the Middle East a quagmire. What makes you so sure this won't become a quagmire? We're not gonna be there. You're convinced this won't become a quagmire. It's not a quagmire. The official name is highly enriched uranium . And I call it nuclear dust because it seems to be nice and everyone understands it better and it's sort of cute and people picked it up. So Ben, I honestly laughed at Trump's definition of a ceasefire because he's kind of like accurately capturing the absurdity of the way the term is being used. But just my advice to every reporter is like just stop letting this man redefine words. Like there is a dictionary definition for a reason. A ceasefire means that everyone has stop shooting, a blockade is an act of war. The Middle East is a quagmar, or has been for the U. S. The U. S. is one hundred percent still at war no matter what Trump says is happening right now. So is Israel and the highly enriched uranium, it's not dust. It's uranium. You know, it's like we don't have to repeat this bullshit spin. It's embarrassing for everybody. Well, there is an original sin in the media which is, that they kind of repeated, you know, Trump says he ended eight wars. Like nobody pointed out that he didn't end any of them . And some of them are ongoing. Some of them ended a long time ago, right? The ceasefires are not fragile , they don't exist, you know , so there is an absurdity to this, but it matters to your point because it kind of creates this veneer that things aren't happening that are happening. I mean , for instance, how much does it cost the United States taxpayer to sustain this massive military blockade of Iran and all these other four deployments and all these missile defense systems we move there. Like by acting like there's a ceasefire, you're ignoring the fact that not only is there ongoing violence, not only is there an ongoing war, but we're spending billions and billions of dollars doing it . And so that's why it's so important to be factual about this because there's a deliberate effort by people like Trump to misinform you. Like don't look over here. There's a ceasefire. You know, there are talks, there's almost a deal , like when none of those things are happening. The Prime Minister of Lebanon says Israel has carried out three thousand five hundred air strikes since april sixteenth when the so called ceasefire was agreed to. Yeah, it's not yeah, it's just not moderate . It's not even close. Is this straight up not a secret nonsense ? This podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the Allen one website platform designed to elevate your online presence and drive your success. Squarespace gives you the tools to claim your domain, build a professional website, expand your brand and facilitate payments all in one place. With Squarespace's collection of cutting edge design tools, anyone can build a bespoke online presence that fits perfect ly with their business. Start with Blueprint AI, Squarespace's AI enhanced website builder to get a fully custom website in just a few steps using basic information about your industry goals and personality to generate premium quality content and personalized design recommendations. 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All right, Bill, let's check in on America's most corrupt couple, Jared and Ivanka Trump. Here is Ivanka on one of those podcasts that I think just does like softball interviews with various business found ers, let's watch. I'm working on an incredible project with my husband in the Mediterranean. It's massive in scale. An unbelievable, beautiful fourteen hundred hector private island in the middle of the Mediterranean . We were on a friend's boat and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that's how we found it. We swam to the islands. We went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top and we were just captivated. For me, this is it feels more like a challenge than anything else. A lot of reflection on how I want to live , how I think people increasingly are wanting to live and trying to really build something that's a tangible manifestation of that. , so Ivanka is talk about a little island called Sezan. It's a colonizer dressed like a Pepisma. It's called Sezan. It's in the Adriatic Sea, it's off the coast of Albania. The history is interesting. The Soviets had a submarine base on the island until the nineteen fifties. It's apparently still filled with Cold War era bunkers and tunnels and stuff and fortifications. The island was closed off to people until twenty fifteen, until it was opened for some limited tourism, largely because the area, the broader area as well as protected protected ecological reserve. It's home to hundreds of bird species , in particular flamingos and pelicans and there's seals and turtles and other wildlife. Sounds beautiful. In twenty twenty four, the Albanian government suddenly and suspiciously removed those environmental protections and preliminarily approved tourism development and everyone in Albania is trying to figure out why, which brings Jared Ivanka into our story. So our Christopher Columbus here and Christine Columbus say they discovered this island that is, again , just in the Adriatic Sea that's been, you know, people have lived there for thousands, thousands of years . They discovered it when they were putsin' around on a yacht owned by a member of the Rothchild family, literally Ben. Jared told this story on the all in podcast like you just can't make this shit up . So shortly after they discovered this island and they went on their swim and their barefoot walk, Eddie Rama, the prime minister of Albania, surprisingly, joined Jared and Ivanka on the Rothschild yacht, fast forward a few years, and Jared is somehow leading this effort to develop a one point six billion dollars luxury resort on this island that reportedly has up to ten thousand hotel rooms and villas . Albania's anti corruption organization. called It' SsPAC. They smell a rat, they're investigating . They're looking at just how this region lost the protected status. And then people in Albania are furious. There have been huge protests since last month when developers put up barbed wire offensive to keep people out of the site, and then there's a video of the security guard just beating the shit out of a protester that went super viral. So Ben, here's a clip of an Albanian tour guide named Dejana IKJ who's been protesting. She posted this on her Instagram. This revolt revolution it's starting in Albania, but it's going to be worldwide. We are taking our power back, power to the people . We don't need any more resorts. We need more wetlands. We need more oxygen, we need more trees . We can't afford doing that right now worldwide. I'm not talking as an albanian. I'm talking as a human being that loves this world. So Ben, I love this protest movement. Obviously, I get why people like leaders in Albania would want more money and investment in tourism , but I think the Albanian people have every right to believe that Jared Kushner greased this deal in a corrupt way by leveraging his ties to the president of the United States, and I would demand that those details be released and to figure out who is profiting because there's just like none of this story smells right. I'm sorry, Ivanka that your little narrative didn't go over so well, but here we are. This story exemplifies so much of what is completely fucked up about the world . First of all, just think about the fact that the kinds of people that end up on boats to reach Albania are usually migrants, right? It's one of the places that people have gotten stranded. But lo and behold, there's Ivanka on the Rothchild yacht discovering this wonderful private island and then just deciding that she and her husband are going to essentially own it. They get to own it. And then clearly leveraging, as we've seen time and again with Trump family interest , the power of the United States government implicit or explicit. You know, you don't necessarily have to state the threat or something. Albania's a small country. Edi Rama's like, oh, okay, sure, you can have this island. And here's the thing that is so fucked up about this is, yes, first and foremost, there's obvious ly massive environmental implications. There's like species on there that'd be wiped out, there's wetlands that would be wiped out, but it's not as if any of the money from this development is going to reach ordinary Albanians. Give me a break. The people going to this are going to be the same kind of rich Epstein class people that like to go to private islands that each other owns , like maybe there'll be some menial jobs for Albanians like cleaning up the hotel rooms. But at the end of the day, this is literally separated from the Albanian economy. It's just an island. And Ram is saying that directly. He was like talking about the deal calling it luxury tourist destination and he was arguing that, well, Albania can make as much money from four hundred yachts as we can from forty thousand like non rich visitors , which is like a tough message when you have this like populist mob uprising opposing this progress, he's like, oh no, no, it's only be the worst rich elites. And people are comparing it to Epstein Island, as you said. And that's not true, right? Because if you're prioritizing that kind of tourism, it creates a lot less jobs in the kind of touris m where people walking around cities and eating in restaurants and going in taxi cabs. And look, that woman is exactly right. Like the Albanian people are showing a lot of resilience and a lot of guts and a lot of humor in the way that they're out there protesting, but I think she's not wrong that there's such pent up frustration with the corruption and inequality and the kind of disgusting privilege of people like Ivanka and Jared , that events like this can be triggers that spread across borders. I think this is already like remaking Albanian politics in ways that Eddie Rama never anticipated . And I think people are going to continue to mobilize when things like this happen because there's so unbelievably offensive and the fact that she lacks the self, she's sitting in some room that I mean s like a place to this alternatively like soft lit podcast where like people could be tortured in there or something what is that? The white lights? What is going on? Very weird . Like so divorced. How divorced is that from the lived experience of just some Albanian who's like sitting there wondering why the hell were selling off like big chunks of land to these people? Yeah, and like Edd Rama wind, like if this wasn't Jared Kushner, people wouldn't give a shit about the project. I think that's a direct quote. But it's like, yeah, man, like yeah, yeah. People wouldn't be as mad if they didn't think like the president's son in law was trying to, you know, corruptly buy off this island. Also, Rama won a fourth term by promising to get Albania into the EU, but the European Commission has warned that this project could run afoul of some of their environmental rules. So it could upend his entire project. So he's going to have a tough political choice coming up. It is delicious and something we'll continue to watch here. Ben, have you are you excited about the World Cup? Are you soccer guy? I am. I'm actually going to a game. I think I'm going to go to a game too. I'm going to try my best , but I'll let you guys know how it goes once if it happens. But I'm going to a game in Houston next week between Portugal and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Nice. I think I'm going thanks to like a world though. I heard that there was like a guy that worked at the stadium that her I was in town for an event. So thank you world as the DRC DRC is looking good by the way. Like they're looking like the best team from the African continent. Yeah, well it's going to be exciting. So the tournament kicks off this week. It's literally the biggest world cup ever . There's three host countries, the U. S., Mexico and Canada, and then there's going to be games in sixteen different cities . Forty eight teams made the tournament this year instead of the usual thirty two . It will be watched by literally billions of people and the games themselves will span thirty nine days. There will be periods where there's like literally four and up times up to six games per day so buckle up bosses across the world who are worried about productivity next month . It is not without controversy . Ice officers are going to be out in force because that always turns out well just unleaching them on cities . Check out this clip of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen talking about the Ice presence at the World Cup. Now what a lot of people don't think about when they start talking about World Cup is what about the counterfeit products that come in or the human trafficking you. have When cr owds this big, criminal activities follow, well, ICE and HSI are going to be out there every day fighting against the counterfeit tickets, human trafficking, drug smuggling, counterfeit products. They're going to be working hand in hand with CBP along the way. I know there's a lot of acronyms there. So on the bottom of the screen, we're going to tell you what each one of them is . Hey boss, hold this ball . We have no idea what you should do with it . We can tell you feel really uncomfortable. So maybe just like spinning around the globe trotter or something like that. You just look such a weirdk dor in that picture. Have you never touched a soccer ball before, sir? And what's the social media strategy behind the like little pops when they put ice up there? And like, I think, by the way, I think people have a pretty good idea what ice is. Yeah. I don't think we need like the text explanation. I also love like the bizarre like focus on counterfeit. I mean, clearly IC is there to intimidate people. Like that . We really mean actually, I look forward to buying some counterfeit merch. Like what are you saying? Like we have to like have a massive sting operation so that only FIFA can pad its pockets with merch and give you a break. Like part of American sports is like the guys selling the t shirt down the street. That's right. Yeah, FIFA's selling three hundred seventy five dollars host city jerseys . That are the ugliest things I've ever seen. Ben, there's also been some other controversies. Like the Iranian team barely got visas for the games and the U. S. is forcing them to commute to the games in the US from Mexico and force them to stay in Mexico. A bunch of Iranian and African journalists have struggled to get the right visas to cover what's happening. There's a Somali referee named Omar Artan who was denied entry to the US , I think in Miami when he'd already flown here, even though he's supposed to be one of FIFA's fifty two referees at the World Cup. This guy is literally like the top referee in Africa . I think he was African referee of the year last year and was rejected, I think just because he's a Somali guy. Fans from Iran and Haiti have been denied entry to the U. S., a lot of other fans have been denied visas . And even the people who can make it here are struggling to afford tickets because FIFA jacked up all the prices to the World Cup, which means the games were unaffordable, but it also meant that a bunch of resalers gobble them up in that moment because they thought they wouldn't, you know, they get sold out. And now they're having trouble reselling them. So these games are going to be impossible to afford, but also the stadiums are empty, which is wonderful . But Benny, look, every World Cup has its issues . People tend to ignore those issues once kickoff starts. I mean, the last one was in Qatar of all places, but it does suck that Trump is going to use this opportunity again, like be addicted to entire continents , be racist to entire groups of people, and then also you know that he will somehow find a way to make it all about himself by the very end. Yeah, the Iran thing is just so petty. I mean, give me a break, like let the coach into the country. Like let them this is so stupid and it makes us look small. And it speaks to the bigger point which is like usually when you host something like the World Cup, it's like this opportunity to show likecase your country . Like we're turning it into an opportunity to make the rest of the world loathe us even more than they do, you know, right. And because it's also like the manifestation of all American excess, right? Like the absurdity for the ticket sale and resale industry, right? The like absurd displays of like Trump enforce with ice, the casual racism towards people from Somalia because what Trump's still mad about Minneapolis or something . And like Haiti, like Haiti made the tournament and we're not letting Haitian fans in. That's so shitty. Like Haiti deserves this one little bright spot. And again, just because what? Because JD Vance told Trump that some Haitians were reading dogs. Right? Like he gets these fixations on certain groups of people and he sticks with them. But like my hope is that when the games actually start , like it will just become about the soccer and not any of this nonsense, but like it's going to be like an overhang. We're not making our best impression or people. And part of what stresses me out about it, Tommy is having just lived through the Trump performance at the Nicks game. We have the Olympics in LA. Oh yeah, in a couple years. So this is just a dry run for Trump to ruin the sporting events. Yeah, it is. And also FIFA is also terrible. I mean, again, I was told I was talking to Romanuel this morning. When he was mayor of Chicago, FIFA wanted to host games in Chicago and have them be one of those host cities. And Rom said no . And you was telling me about why and it's because the FIFA model lets them claim like the bulk of the ticketing revenue, the broadcast ing revenue, sponsorship revenue, concessions, cars, parking. And then the city is supposed to carry the burden for public transportation, safety, security, like medical services, fire protection, and then even like VIP escorts for people that FIFA deemed worthy. And also, FIFA demanded that the contract with Chicago include the right to force them to build a dome on soldier field for the tune of like fifty to one hundred million dollars. And Rama was like, yeah, no, can you take that out? And they're like, No, we won't, but like, just trust us. And then they were also at the time were demanding that FIFA fund like transportation for ticket holders and then like a big free FIFA fan fest , which cities were just on the hook for doing and a bunch of them have decided they had to cancel because they just couldn't afford it. So it's like this just this whole thing, it's like a boondoggle for FIFA. They'll make a ton of money. Yeah. Giant Fanto, the head of Fifa will fluff Trump at every opportunity possible, including, you know, he started when he gave him the FIFA Peace Prize . But I like it's just not clear that it's going to end well for the host cities, at least not financially . No, and it's going to call into question whether it's worth hosting these big things, right? And like, then it'll end up just being in places like Saudi Arabia and Qatar because it's just made you have to jump through so many hoops and spend so much money and you have to treat this guy infantino like he's some kind of head of state, you know , like again, the beautiful game will be what it is, and I'm excited to watch it . So don't let it spoil things, but like, yeah, this it is just so indicative of the times that there's this like kind of cloud of politics and corruption and and profiteering off of it. I mean, it may be the play Tommy is to like wait maybe you can get pretty cheap tickets at the last minute because those guys will need to dump the tickets at some point. I think so. I hope so. I think it'll be fun to be able to go to random games on a weekday. One last thing then, our producers wanted us to know that they have diligently scanned the World Cup field for the hottest players in the tournament this year. So what I'm gonna do is read to you the names in no particular order . And then you guys let us know in the comments, both on YouTube and on Instagram , TikTok, whatever, who you're voting for? Who's your number one? So here's the list and I don't even know what most of these people look like by the way. England's Jude Bellingham , Iran's Essan Hashafi , Portugal's Ruben Diaz , New Zealand's Marco Stominik , Australia's Matthew Lecky , Belgian's Kevin Debrun , Captain America Christian Polisik. And then finally, of course, we're just going with Cristiano Ronaldo's abs. No, no, we can't do Ronaldo. Those are some sick abs, sir. That man is forty one. They are but it's yesterday. That man is forty one old look at those. That's an eight pack. Yeah. Kidding me with that? You should just go back and we're assuming it's important to duba when we're assuming it's so close . Yeah . All right, so that's a great list. Please, let us know who we should objectify the most out of this entire group of people you. know And we look for, ward to reading along with you in the comments here, especially on YouTube. Again, this is why you should be a YouTube subscriber because you get to check all the people out. You get the pictures Potate of the World is brought to you by Helix. We all need a great sleep. It's a critical part of being a human being. Resting. Get a good night's sleep, you'll feel better. Be in better mood, you learn more , do better job at work. Helix is a critical way to improve your sleep. 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Go to helixleep dot com slash world for twenty percent off site wide. That's helicleep com dot slash world for twenty percent off site wide helixleep dot com slash world. Pods of the world is brought to you by Ridge. I think we've all had that God awful wallet that was super thick and uncomfortable and bulky and full of business cards . Never needed, never wanted. Don't know why we had them, but they were just there. Business cards. That we call that the pre ridge wallet. Most men's wallets are gigantic, crusty leather bricks that can't exist in your back pocket without causing you to sit at a weird angle. You know it probably still has the same crusty oversized wallet. Your dad. At a certain point, it's not even a wallet anymore. It's a filing cabinet. That's where Ridge Wallet comes in. This Father's Day, get your dad something that he'll enjoy using every single day. Ridge Wallet's feature a unique slim modern design that holds up to twelve cards plus cash. They're made with premium materials like aluminium, titanium, and carbon fiber, which make them reliable, durable, and guaranteed for life. Ridge was built by a father and a son, designed to meet the same standard dad set every day. Cats in the cradle keep going Tommy. All ridge products have a lifetime warranty. This is literally the last wall you'll ever have to buy a value that even the most skeptical dad could appreciate. For a limited time, Ridge is running their huge Father's Day sale where you can get up to forty percent off their best gear. Just head to ridge. com slash pstw and don't miss out on one of their biggest discounts all year. That's ridge. com slash pstw for up to forty percent off after you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you . All right, Ben, back to nerdy stuff. So Chinese President Xi Jinping was on the road this week. So he was in North Korea for the first time in seven years to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong un. We don't have a ton of information about what they discussed, obviously, 'cause it's two dictators getting together . But in the run up to the visit , there were a bunch of fascinating stories, the Times had won, the Wall Street Journal had won about North Korea's surprising economic turnaround. So the journal, like they talked to a bunch of recent visitors to North Korea, who had talked about landing, and all of a sudden they',re seeing Chinese electric vehicles all over the place. There's rideshare apps, there's new restaurants, pizza places . There's a general sense of like economic activity happening at a greater level than ever before. They talk about their satellite imagery that shows that North Korea, especially Pyongyang, is three times brighter than it was five years ago . Parking lots are full , oil facilities are more active. You can see that in satellite imagery as well. And the pieces both they juxtapose this economic recovery with the economic catastrophe that hit North Korea during the pandemic. That was the moment when Kim Jong un was literally giving a speech apologizing and weeping to his own people because they couldn't eat. So the biggest driver of this economic change for North Korea, I think seems to be clearly the increased partnership between North Korea and Russia since the war in Ukraine. A South Korean think tank called INSS said that from late twenty twenty three through twenty twenty five, North Korean arms sales to Russia generated more than ten billion dollars, which is just a huge boost for a country with an estimated twenty seven billion dollars GDP. But North Korea bene alsofited from deploying sixteen thousand soldiers to fight on behalf of the Russians, a reminder that a third of them were hurt or killed. Kim has made billions from state backed hacking efforts, especially stealing cryptocurrency or extorting places for it . And then they seemingly have just gotten better at evading U. S. sanctions and that have steadily ratcheted up trade with China . So this is clearly a win for Kim Jong un . And I would say it's just unequivocally a good thing, right? If you're average North Korean has more food and has a slightly better life, right? But there's a lot of downsides that I'll just quickly tick through. These reports make it sound like North Korean repression has gotten worse and more pervasive, not better. So Kim Jong un is not just executing, you know, his uncle who's a general that he thinks is disloyal. He is reportedly executing people just distributing South Korean TV shows or music. So that is horrible. The economic benefits are obviously primarily going to elites in Pyongyang Some of those quality of life improvements probably trickle down to the city's residents if there's just more general economic activity. But it's not clear if it's leaving Pyongyang at all. Like there's some development other cities and some in rural areas, but it's just like it's way way less beneficial to people outside of the capital. And the UN still believes that nearly half of the people outside of Pyongyang are malnourish . We don't really know exactly what North Korea is getting from Russia in terms of military support and technology. There's concern that they could get a nuclear powered submarine and new warships and drones. And then finally there's the nuclear arsenal band. I mean, that's the re ason we're at war with Iran. Kim is believed to have at least fifty assembled nuclear warheads, the components to build up to one hundred more or nearly one hundred more. And then the capacity to produce, you know, maybe a dozen, maybe twenty more per year. And then they have an ICBM that could hit the U. S. So they are a genuine threat to U. S. national security. So Ben, Trump had three meetings with Kim Jong un in the first term. He failed to accomplish anything through those meetings . Then it seems like he's just decided to forget that the problem exists . I'm curious what you think though. Like given what's happening in Iran , I don't know if that's the worst thing that he's just ignoring the problem rather than waging a war, but what do you think of these reports in Xi's visit? I think it is an incredible monument to the absolute failure of U. S. sanctions policy because we have so oversanctioned all these countries that they now just ignore our sanctions . You know, I'm old enough to remember when China and Russia actually participated in the sanctions on North Korea . That's something that used to happen. And I'm sure they cheated a little bit around the edges. But I think that what's happened in recent years is as the United States has sanctioned Russia, as the United States has put more sanctions on China too , they're just like, well, screw this , like there's a whole parallel economy that we're going to create where we're trading in different ways and we're bartering things and we're using crypto and you know, we're just evading the dollar and transactions. And so the fact that North Korea still has all these U. S. sanctions on it and they're just building shit and they've got electric vehicles and they're selling weapons, like it's a sign that the oversanctioning of countries has actually created a dynamic where there's so many countries that are over sanctioned that they just create a parallel trade system with each other. That's really the point. I think that the danger is twofold. Like you mentioned the repression. I think some people might think, well, why is the repression getting worse? Well, in part because if things are really, really shitty in the country , you kind of have to be a little cautious about being so repressive because you don't want to create the powder keg that explodes. But if you 're riding high and you feel like you're on the upswing as Kim does right now, well then yeah, like you you're keeping enough people happier that, you know, you can repress the hell out of the people that do things you don't like. The only other thing I'd introduce to Tom is that I don't trust Kim Jong un's temperament . No, not that we know that much about it. I mean, we know that he like, you know, like attacked Sony because of that movie with James Franco, right? I worry that if he's feeling more and more emboldened and he's got this nuclear arsenal as a deterrent and he's got Russia giving him advanced technology and he's got some money from these various things , that he might just start messing around with South Korea, you know, and maybe not a full scale invasion, but like we're going to seize some islands or we're going to sink a boat, you know, and what are you going to do about it? We have nuclear weapons. And so I think it is I'd prefer Trump ignore it because Trump's two approaches seem to be either launching a war or like bearhogging someone and announcing it's historic even though nothing is accomplished as he did with Kim . But there there's's a non zero chance that this thing, you know , presents itself as a threat through some kind of provocation to South Korea. Yeah, there could trade, you know , there was a recent incident where North Koreans and South Koreans traded fire on these small islands and all of a sudden you could be off to the races in some war. Highly recommend both these pieces, just sort of a fascinating look. Yeah. I haven't talked about them in a while. Real quick, Ben, we talked a while back about how former Trump national security advisor and full time warmonger John Bolton was being prosecuted for illegally retaining classified information and then using it to help write his book . Last week, CNN reported that Bolton is going to plead guilty to unlawfully holding onto classified information and pay a two point two five million dollars fine. Apparently he could still face up to five years in prison assuming the deal is approved. But so the next court hearing is like june twenty sixth . Initially Bolton had pleaded not guilty on eighteen counts, but more reports kept coming out and all of a sudden it was like, oh boy, this guy is in deep shit . The one count he's reportedly pleading guilty to is writing down classified stuff in his diary and sharing that information with his wife and daughter via his own personal email and some messaging app, which was just insanely stupid. Like I literally can't believe you did this. The whole case might have come to light because Iran hacked Bolton's email in twenty twenty one and I think the U. S. figured it out. So no, no word on whether Trump will also have to plead guilty for having classified records next to the shit ter at Mara Lago, but it does seem like there might be a resolution soon for Mr. Bolton. Well, we said when this first kind of emerged, these details, including sending emails to his wife and daughter about classified information , let's not please put this in the category of the vindictive political persecutions. You know, the James Comey with , you know, sand on the beach or whatever it was or Tish James, like this is like there's an underlying crime here. Now it is pretty selectively enforced , but this was a pretty brazen violation . So it feels like I'm not sure the guy needs and I'm no fan of J umbold and I'm not sure he has to do hard time. I mean, a couple million bucks is nothing. But yeah, man, like, you know , I mean, I guess the hypocrisy is, you know, Trump is giving himself a different set of r ules. And actually, what I wonder, Tommy is to take it to today, do you really trust that like Steve Woodcuff or guys like that aren't like walking around with class edge information? I don't know anything. I'm not alleged, you know, but it feels like they're probably pretty casual their use of personal emails no doubt and what they do with these people Kushner and Woodcuff like do they even work for the US doesn't have a job with definitely does he have a job. Yeah. Cushner clearly has classified information though, like under work basis, you know, like so like it is pretty selective even if you know clearly there was a crime here. Yeah. Longtime listeners to this show know that we find stories about corruption and gold bars , irresistible, shout out to our guy Bob Menendez . But now there's a new entrant into this kind of cannon beneath after investigators found three hundred three gold bars in the home of a CIA official named David Rush. They also found two million in cash and three dozen luxury watches . So this guy the gold alone was worth more than forty billion dollars. The Washington Post reported that this guy created a fake highly, class ified intelligence program that he used to funnel money to himself . And he might have read it was so secretive that he read people into it, marenly a couple of them, but those people couldn't talk to anyone else about it because it was a special action program. So we might have made them unwitting accomplices. It's not really clear yet. We don't have a ton of details due to the classification issues . We know that Rush worked in the director of science and technology at the CI . Those are the people that make all the cool like spying tools, all the gadgets, all the actual tech very important component . One source told the post that the fake program was about continuity of government operations. So like what the government does if we're nuked by something and that that's how we got the gold bars, I don't know. There was also some kind of vague part of the post story about how Russia was also involved in some of the CIA's most sensitive collection programs and that sort of shocked people that he could be both doing that and this corruption stuff. I don't know, who knows? It's impossible to read between the lines sometimes with these. So Ben, I obviously don't support stealing taxpayer dollars, but I do kind of respect the hustle here. Like creating a respect the game. Yeah. Creating a special access program that's so secretive that it's like known only to you and convincing the US government to give you gold bars . Like that's impressive work. I mean, at least we know we have like capable spies . I read this and like two concerns hit me, right? So the first is that there's long been talk, and I talked' tove people in intelligence that the growth of these private intelligence firms, you know, like the Wagner Group for Russia, Blackwater and all of its offshoots in the U. S. has kind of created this dynamic where like if you're like a really good CI operative , you also know that well shit, if I reach a point in my career I can just leave and make ten X working for these guys and that that might bleed into like, well I, deserve to make a little bit on this side , you know? Like and that leads me to the second point, which is, you know, not dissimilar to my semi class information . When your government is run by a grifter who is using the government to enrich himself and his family. He's like day trading. As we just talked about with Jared Navanka , and insider trading probably people around Trump off of like things like the war in Iran . And that person has removed any values proposition from your government service is probably like being casual about your relationships that you built in foreign countries, right? Because we're insulting those countries or we're picking fights at those leaders . You know, Griff begets Grift. And there's been a lot of talk about whether there's incompetence or maga people embedded in places like the intelligence community. That's a concern. I think another concern is just like, are these guys looking around and being like, well shit. Like this whole government is now just a grift. I might as well have my gold bars one. It's amazing. This guy, what a guy. Also Bet my concern was like a vetting of these people. Like apparently this guy claimed to have a degree from Clemson and RPI. The FBI then found no record of him attending either school. He claimed to have been a Navy pilot. There's no evidence of that either. They also alleged that R liuseds to the CIA about all of this and fraudulently got like seventy seven thousand dollars in military leave pay despite being discharged from the Navy as far back as twenty fifteen. So like this guy was just clearly lying about so much stuff and no one caught it until he had assembled three hundred plus gold bars in his home. It feels like we got to be catching these people a little earlier or else there's a lot of other things happening that is pretty damaging the national security that we're just missing. Yeah, well , you know, the colonoscopy that they put us through to get security clearances kind of manages to put a giant spotlight on like your college marijuana use as disqualifying from government service , but somehow couldn't figure out this guy didn't go to school . Yeah, time to overhaul that whole system, right? How we clear people, to let more people through who deserve it and to winnow out the people that are lying about it. At least this guy crashes and burns. If he has some time in prison, he could probably write a pretty good Netflix show while he's there. Yeah, I'd love to know about this special access program. Finally, Ben, speaking of unbelievably balsy cons, I want to tell you briefly about someone named Mak ud Sadiz Buba. So Buba was a candidate for Nigeria's House of Representatives. There was a video that got released by his political party. They're kind of like asking questions about his candidacy, and it exploded on social media because he did not look or sound like a traditional politician. So as the Nigerian paper The whistler put it quote, his physical appearance, specifically his small stature due to dwarfism and his remarkably youthful face triggered an immediate wave of public reaction. So a lot of this reaction was inspired the fact that this guy he wasn't rich, he wasn't famous, he was dealing with dwarfism, but he was able to run for office, right? A lot of people found that exciting and inspirational . But the story quickly fell apart when documents surfaced that listed Buba's actual age. This guy had been telling people he was thirty years old. It turns out he is only fifteen old , and he somehow managed to fool everybody about his age despite a lot of visual evidence to the contrary that might lead you to believe like actually this person seems like they are a child . Check out this video , a compilation of Booba, meeting with voters and talking with the media. Tati years . Wow , that 's he is guys You only are allowed to answer with one word so criticism what do you think criticism is fuell or distraction ? Distriction . So do you think social media is it a blessing or pleasure ? Pleasure some pleasure some blessing one word. This is a blessing. So one word for your supporters come and vote quietly . No fights, no like that. So confidence, is it learned or is it natural ? So Ben , I love this kid because it takes balls to run for office no matter what. It takes even bigger balls to run for office and lie about your age because you're only fifteen years old. It takes balls of steel to fake your age and run for office while having a genetic invision that makes you look like a literal five year old and then snake film you riding on a miniature red pony . That part of the thing nearly killed me. I want to make this kid president immediately. Just put him in there and install him. Remember we had kid president in the election? I love that I should be kid president, man. This is we finally arrived at the stage of the podcast where I like the Grift. Yeah . This is not Jerry Navanka building resort.s This is not the gold bars. Like this is a guy having pretty good time. And look, I mean Nigeria man, like I'm old enough to have gotten those emails from the fake Nigerian princes, you know you know , there's some entrepreneurial spirit there that I respect, you know. Man, yeah, Mak Mood. Mak ud, Sadis, Buba, we respect you. Keep up the grade. We respect you. All right, we are going to take a quick bre ak. When we come back, you're going to hear my interview with the BBC's Will Grant about what life is like on the ground in Cuba, concerns about Trump staging some sort of Venezuela like operation, and much, much more. So stick around for that . Pod save the world is brought to you by SimpliSafe. 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My guest today is the Mexico , Central America, and Cuba correspondent for the BBC and recently got back from a trip to Cuba. Well Grant. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me. It's terrific to be with you. Thank you for doing this. So you have spent a bunch of time in Cuba, both recently and then over many years . How has life changed for Cuban people since President Trump sort of drastically ratcheted up sanctions? Well, I lived there for seven years , starting towards the end of twenty fourteen. So I saw this sort of narrative arc in Cuba of the Obama administration's policy of opening , the sort of optimism that was going with that among ordinary people who really did feel like the Cold War might truly be behind them. It felt like a period of opportunity for young people . There was quite a lot of dynamism , a sense there might be a future for a lot of young people on the island . And that was a positive experience to see that whole period, to live there during that. Comparing that to today, it feels very far removed . You have had, of course, a series of steps taken both under the first Trump presidency and then continued by the Biden presidency, which were, if you like, the unpicking of that policy, that policy of engagement and putting it back very much on a hostile footing. So that started long before where we are today and was continued under the Biden administration. Where we are today is the after the removal of Nicholas, the forced removal of Nicholas Mador from Power on the third of January , basically the switching off of the tap of oil of crude oil to Cuba, from Venezuela , and not just from Cuba . The Trump administration has made it abundantly clear to Mexico that it expects not a drop of oil to arrive from Mexico either or anywhere else in the world for that matter. We've only seen really one shipment make it through of eight hundred thirty thousand barrels from Russia. But other than that , it is Cuba's only producing what it produces, which is nowhere near enough for domestic consumption and surviving in any which way it can huge restrictions on consumption. So you're seeing no cars on the streets, you're seeing these long and very arduous blackouts. You're seeing hospitals running at a fraction of their capacity. You're seeing schools shuttered on many days of the week Normal businesses simply aren't operating, state businesses are closed. People are having to walk everywhere or cycle . It is and you know, that's some of it. The worst bit is that the summer is coming. The summer months are very hot. The mosquitoes, there's no there's no power with which to run air conditioning or fans to keep the mosquitoes at bay . You're seeing no trash picked up from the streets. The garbage trucks aren't doing their rounds, the state unfleeted garbage trucks. So you put all of these things into the single experience and it is incredibly bleak. It really is very, very dire and actively getting worse week after week after week. Yeah, I mean those dire conditions you talk about, I mean no refrigeration for food, no transportation for trash pickup or anything else. Hospitals just having to shut off, I guess, because they don't have power. I mean, if you can't keep the lights on, I don't know how you perform a surgery or do anything else . Have those factors resulted in any measurable impact on mortality or health outcomes that you've seen. Can we measure that? You can't get reliable statistics on these things . You're completely beholden to the Cuban state in terms of what it says is and isn't happening. But we know, I mean, I know anecdotally from going to a hospital during blackouts that they are only accepting in many cases emergency cases I don't know to what extent we can give, you know, anyone's got the number yet about, you know, how many more , you know, how this is hitting infant mortality or impacting pregnancies or , you know, the death rate among curable disease and things like this. But if it's not there yet, it's certainly in the post. I mean, that's that's the feeling among ordinary Cubans . The hospitals are doing what they can and, I saw inside, for example, a maternity ward that does have a very large generator and is running, you know, for the very very basics. I've been in contact throughout this experience with a pregnant woman who's now just had her baby . It was a pretty bleak and difficult experience, but the baby was born, the attention to her from the medical staff was good , but it is sort of down to the individuals and their hard work really to make sure she was looked after in these very, very trying circumstances. I just can't even imagine having to give birth in those in that circumstance. It's unimaginable. I know there have been some big protests of the economic conditions. What is your sense of whether the Cuban people, generally speaking, blame the government for this crisis or the Trump administration policies? Yeah, it's a very good question because it really is a division . Now, you would expect there to be outright anger just at the Trump administration for what it's doing. You know, this has been imposed upon the island from outside , but there is a lot of anger at the Cuban Government for the fact that these things predate not just Trump's current policy, but even Trump returning to power, you know, coming back to office for his second term. That the ILO was already going through blackouts, that the island didn't make the most of sort of its economic opportunities, that there is mismanagement of the economy, that they have been building five star hotels instead of investing in electricity infrastructure, power infrastructure, things like that. So that anger at the sort of Cuban state's decision making is very, very present. Let's make no mistake about that. And what's interesting is that although there is plenty of people on the streets when the government organises a protest outside the U. S. embassy and they will echo the slogans. And they are there is genuine anger of course at the Trump administration. I've also seen people lose their fear . as Now a journalist who's worked there a lot. You know, I used to put the microphones in front of people and they'd just repeat these lines out of Grandma, the state run newspaper or the revolutionary slogans. You couldn't get any kind of feeling for what people actually wanted to say, or it was very difficult to get that on tape. It was very couched and careful. Not anymore. People are just saying whatever they want. Or a lot of people are. And I've heard some people say as brazenly as I hope Trump does come in and say this over. I'm done. You know, whatever's coming, let it come, we need change. So that has been one of the surprises to me that it's not sort of coalesced into this cold hard anger at Marco Rubio and D atonald Trump as much as one might imagine. That is there. Of course, it's there, particularly among the revolutionaries, where it's very, very present. But among a lot of ordinary people, they just want whatever this is to be over so that they can have some semblance of a normal life, some semblance of a normal relationship with Washington , some kind of existence that's dignified for their children. They can send their children to school without empty bellies. I mean, we're talking basic stuff. This is sort of survival mode at the moment, if you ask me. Yeah, I mean, I guess probably it's complicated, but there's been a bunch of reporting about the strength of Cuban nationalism and the likelihood that Cubans in general would resist sort of a quote unquote Venezuela option where the U. S. comes in, removes say the castro's or the Ral Castro and leaves in a more pliant government that they feel like they can control, but it sounds like what you're saying is you have heard from some Cubans that maybe they look at Venezuela and think, I don't know, that seems preferable to whatever this is. Yeah, I've sort of heard both ends of the scale. Let's not forget that the Cuban Revolution was really a nationalist movement before it was Marx Lennist one, you know? It's very much about kind of La Patria, you know, about the island and the island's independence. And that's what Fidel Castro gave to the people in nineteen fifty nine after being basically run by not just the Washington Craven dictatorship at the time, but a series of them really throughout the twentieth century to that point. So that's really Rich first manifest ation and then it's sort of, you know, he sort of either fell into the arms or was pushed. It's a debate in Latin American academic circles, into the arms of the Soviet Union, to the arms of Moscow . The truth of the matter is it became obviously, as we know, this communist revolution in a bipolar world and it doesn't really seem to have a handle on what it is for the twenty first century. And that's again, not right now in Donald Trump or even the Obama administration's attempts to sort of pick a route through all this. I think it's been a little bit lost really for a while in terms of offering a sort of viable alternative to Cubans, young people who have opted for Exodus, who have opted for migration instead . But you're absolutely right. The look at the Venezuelan model, I think brings these two things. One is the sort of old school revolutionaries. And I've spoke to one who is sort of by the side of Che Gevarda on the battlefield who say we're not Venezuela. We'll be fighting until our last breath. You know, just give me in my eighties a rifle, that kind of attitude . And those others who are saying we need change. And if that change needs to be radical, if it needs to be stripping the band aid off in one, then we've got to do that. You know, that we can't continue along this path because it's leaving far too many hungry people. It's leaving pensioners without any kind of dignified pension that's reflected in any way with the prices on the supermarket shelves. There have also been reports of, you know, I think talks between the Trump administration and maybe Castro's grands on or nephew and then CIA director John Radcliffe was in Cuba recently . It's not entirely clear what his message was. I mean, they put out a press release claiming what it was, but you know, it sounded to me like a bit of an opportunity to deliver an ultimatum. In that moment, I felt like the lights were kind of blinking red that something was about to happen in terms of the Trump administration, like taking a next step to pressure the Cubans, that obviously has not. But is there any reporting on or sense of what these conversations have been about? I almost want to take a beat and coat, you know, that's the CIA direct or was in Havana, you know? It's just so extraordinary. And I was standing on the Malikon just in the very days after, which is the water front promenade in Havana that runs all the way the length of the city a long part of the city . And I was standing there during a protest, a government organized protest outside the US embassy when John Radcliffe went to have Venezuela. So this was straight in the days after the Venezuela operation and Maduro now in custody . And John Radcliffe was in Venezuela, and I showed this to a Cuban official and his , you know, literally saw him sort of turn grey, you know? It just extraordinary stuff, Tommy. Like I've been doing this a long time now and you know, I've basically dedicated my career to Latin American coverage and it's still , I can't quite believe there's been military action in Venezuela in the twenty first century. I can't believe that there's been these all of these things have happened to lead to the point that you have the CIA director sitting down in front of Ralph Castro's grandson, the interior minister and the head of the intelligence services of Cuba . And exactly as you say, exactly what was that conversation ? What was said? What was the message delivery ? Was it merely in part the message delivery is the presence, being there of sort of showing that moment that we're here and we're very, very serious . Now let's remember it happened fractionally before indictment against Raul Castro. So it might be saying look, this is in the pipeline. It's coming and we are one hundred percent serious the fact that we expect root and branch change to the Cuban Revolution. We don't expect a tinkering at the top and a little movering around here and a bit more economic openness, which arguably would be the suggestion that that's all that the Obama administration was able to achieve, you know, that's the Miami view of what was sort of the failures, if you like, of the reproachment, that it didn't go far enough, it didn't really achieve meaningful change. That Michael Robio isn't going to be convinced by those things, that he wants nothing less than wholesale economic and political change to the Cuban Revolution. So I assume some version of that the message that was brought with by John Radcliffe and we'll have to see exactly what the response of the Cuban government will be. Again, I would agree with you. I think it look ed at that point like it really was on the cusp of something happening and now there seems to have been this delay. President Trump has made it clear that it will always be after Iran and Iran can't be said to be over at this stage, you know, in those terms. So could it be as simple as well as the World Cup having some kind of influence where would you really be carrying out military action of some description on an island that's ninety miles off the co of Florida, closing the airspace to Miami where there are matches and so on. So who knows exactly what the calculations are, but I do think at the heart of the calculation is something will happen unless what Havana puts on the table is deemed good enough to Washington. Yeah, that's a really good point about the World Cup. I guess time will tell. Trump certainly seems to have kind of a project underway of trying to prop up as many right wing governments in Latin America as you can. There's clearly this pressure campaign on the Cubans following on the Maduro operation. And the human cost is enormous. There's a lot of conversation about the Venezuela option for Cuba, what on earth could or would that look like, do you think? I think that is also the question that so many ordinary Cubans are asking themselves exactly what is it? You know, it is coming, but what is it? And I think that is the one thing that none of us know at this stage. It could be the Venezuela option of some kind of swooping in. Would they do that to a ninety five year old original founder of the revolution because that really would get ordinary Cubans backs up, I think, even those who want to see change. Almost in the sense that you don't do that to an order man, like he's lived his life and that, you know, that wouldn't go along with Cuban society, I don't think it's all well . At the same time, maybe it is some kind of tactical military action similar to what we're seeing in Venezuela, but not against if he is simply removed from the equation and it's against other members of the top leadership . Is it nothing to do with actually striking or seeing boots on the ground on the Malicom, which would be the most extraordinary idea? But this is, I think, the rub is that all of these things would have felt so outlandish. And I'm not talking outlandish , you know , five years ago when they would have seemed incredibly unlikely , but you know, seven months ago , it seemed completely impossible that you'd be having this conversation about Cuba. But because of what we've seen in Venezuela, there is the point of example . And I think that is what the Trump administr ation is using as the A seventy sleeves. We are capable of doing this. And let's not forget that when the military action in Venezuela was carried out, more than thirty of those who were killed. thirty four were Cubans. Yeah. They were the Cuban soldiers and closed security officers around Nicholas Mavuro, and the Delta Force cut through them in seconds with these extremely sophisticated weapons , extremely well planned operation . And that again is back to that messaging that John Radcliffe may have been bringing with him, which basically says, You are simply no match for us. Your revolutionary fervor might have been relevant in the nineteen sixties, seventies and eighties. You may have under Fidel sort of won certain moments against us. This is now in the twenty first century where nothing that you have can compare to what we have militarily . So I think the vastly safest option for the ordinary Cubans and therefore potentially for the Cuban government if it's capable of taking that path would be the negotiated solution, which will have to mean as we,'ve mentioned, this complete redrawing of the sort of political and economic map, basically letting go of the reins of tourism infrastructure, tourism real estate, letting go of the reins of the import export businesses , somehow reimagining the island's politics and economy. You should check out the Bay of Pigs. I heard it's a good strategic location to land troops and then conduct an operation. Ovbiously just kidding. No comment. But I wanted to talk to you about the World Cup because you're in Mexico City right now . In the US, there's a lot of excitement. Like, I can't wait to watch the games . I can't believe there's going to be like four games a day for weeks . It's madness . But some of that excitement is tempered by crazy ticket prices , anxieties about ICE, anxieties about visas and players getting in general dislike of Trump. What's the vibe like in Mexico right now in advance of the games? You know, I've been saying, I think if this were the Mexico twenty twenty six World Cup, this place would be humming by now. You know, you'd have all of the different teams here, you'd have kind of you know events from all of the different teams around their camps. There'd be this sort of buoyance . But unfortunately it isn't like that yet. Now there's not long to go until kickoff . But you know, I think that people are looking at some of the hassles and the obstacles to this point more than they are the football so far. So specifically , there's been difficulties at the airport rebuilding the airport from , you know, a sort of non functional parts of it, whether or not that's, you know, cues to get your luggage or taxis and things. It's just a very, very hassley experience to get in and out of Mexico City's main airport. So they've done this major multimillion dollar refurbishment, but it's going on and on and it's, you know, it's really not very much time left and there are still hassles there . Traffic in Mexico, as we know, there are a major protest planned by the teacher's union, by transport workers, by the families of the disappeared. There's one hundred thirty thousand disappeared people in Mexico and their families are really using this World Cup to say, look, you're doing all this security around this event. Where's the security when it comes to finding our missing loved ones? To bringing those who are believed to still be alive and forced into working for the cartel's home and dealing with this issue that we've been calling for for years and years and years . And of course, it was only February when we saw cartel members on the streets setting fire to vehicles, setting fire stores, convenience stores, spreading fear and violence in twenty of the thirty two states . I don't think that that side of it will impact incoming fans. I mean, it's simply not particularly good for business from a cartel point of view to do something like that , you know, to fans coming in to watch football games. I don't think that will be in their mindset at all . But nevertheless, it was a serious security concern. It must be a worry for those who do have tickets in their hand going, how will that work out? I went to Monte , which is one of the host cities and was shown all the security measures they're doing there by the police and by the security forces . It's a pretty major operation and they're more focused on the natural things that go with big soccer matches, big sporting events like crowd control and petty petty theft and small episodes of violence rather than cartels. They're convinced that the cartels won't be an issue. All of this back to original question, how are people feeling? You know, is there anticipation and excitement? There's some and and the more we get closer, I think the greater the excitement. The hassle is that there is just too many things going on. This is a shared World Cup with the Trump administration in charge in the US at a time when relations are far from . It's this three countries. It's the sort of NAFTA World Cup. Right. And it's just not necessarily got the same ability to coalesce kind of one nation around one idea, which is, hey, we're doing this. We're going to put on the great show where it's Mexico in the eyes of the world. You know, it's well, we've got less than a third of the games . But still, Mexicans are fantastic hosts. They want this to go well. They want to show their best side . They want this to be best foot forward . And they want, I think, to show that they can overcome these challenges, particularly President Claudia Shembam. She has been a consistent voice saying this is going to be fine. Not only fine, it's going to be great. We're going to do really well. Mexico be the bit that everybody remembers. You know, this is going to be a great World Cup. But yeah, push is coming to shove on that right now. Yeah, the clock is ticking. I guess first game is Thursday, I think . It's good to hear that the concerns about cartel violence have lessened. I mean, I was talking to someone friend yesterday kind of in the soccer media world who was telling me about some of those anxieties. I remember there was some thinking that maybe the cartels could react to government operations against their leadership at the games. I agree with you, though. I mean, it seems like boy, that's a great way to have Donald Trump suddenly launching drone strikes on your operations, wherever they may be. It's also kind of heartening to know that the U. S. isn't the only country where we inject politics into our sports and try to make it complicated for lack of a better term. One way it's complicated by the way is the U. S. is forcing the Iranian team to stay in Mexico and fly back and forth to the U. S. for games . Is the Iranian team out and about doing stuff at all? And is there any awareness or reaction to that kind of general dickishness from the US among Mexicans . I think they're very, very aware that they are hosting the Iranian team around this World Cup and that they're up there in Tijuana right on the border so that they can at least get reasonably quickly to the games in Los Angeles , but it's obviously a much bigger trip up to their one game in Seattle and then back. And then obviously if they make it out of the group stages, then there are more logistical high schools beyond that. Claudia Schainbaum again was very kind of forthright about this going, look, FIFA has come to me and they've asked me to do this. America is, you know, got its own question going on there. I don't agree with it. We have absolutely no problem in having the Iranians here. And she was pretty proud of that one, I think , to make sure that it was that thing that I mentioned, that hosting, that good host, you know , that welcoming side of the Mexican society. So yes, there was quite a lot of coverage of their arrival up and up