Pope Francis and AI Regulation

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With Everpure, you're not just in the race, you're built to win it. Welcome back to Pod Save the World on Tommy Vitor. I'm Ben Roods. Ben, is this the best week of your life? You get the Knicks going to the NBA Finals. Your second book is now out into the world. Um are you more confident that the Knicks can beat Wemby uh or that you can beat Fox and Friends co-host and real world star Rachel Kempo's Duffy on the New York Times best seller list. That's your competition, buddy. I I guess the gauntlet I'd throw down uh is I'm probably more confident in the Knicks, but that's that's more because of my confidence in the Knicks than my self-doubt or anything. Uh that is some some tough comp in the book market, though. I mean, Fox and Friends, man. That's a rabid audience. Yep. And she can uh market the hell out of it. So that's why you guys gotta go buy Ben's book. It's very important. Uh we got a great show for you today, though. We're gonna cover Trump's insane new choice to serve as acting director of national intelligence. We are gonna explain why this is feels like a step towards the intelligence community being just used and abused to punish Trump's enemies. We're going to walk you through the latest on the mess that is the war in Iran, uh, the failed negotiations to end the war and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. We'll talk about the escalation in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and Lebanon, and then some conflict ing reports about whether Trump maybe or maybe did not yell at Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu about Lebanon. It felt very Biden era then to read about uh you know private scolding. How upset he was. Nothing changes. Nothing changes. Uh we'll do a Gaza update. We'll update you guys on the war in Ukraine and try to figure out why a bunch of far right influencers from the US or Europe are descending on Moscow. Finally, we will tell you about uh presidential election in Colombia and what's at stake there. And if we have time, maybe some stories about MAGA Grift. Ben, you did an interview today. What are we folks going to hear? So I talked to A Ibrahim, who's with the AI Now Institute, and has worked on AI and foreign policy in the past in the Congress and the Biden White House. We talked about the Pope's encyclical that you and I talked about last week, what's important in it, Trump's new executive order announced today on artificial intelligence, whether the idea of like a race between the US and China on AI is kind of the right policy framework, and just what would the right approach to regulating these technologies look like. So um we've been talking for a while about doing a little bit more AI on the show because it's coming for everything. Um so this is a great conversation with A. People should check it out. We should just interview uh Claude Mythos on the show, maybe. See how that goes. We should actually, that'd be quite interesting. Just be like, hello C,laude. How are you? And at the very end of the show, our friends of the Pod Discord subscribers will hear Ben and I answer some questions from the Discord community. So stick around for that. Uh so Ben, in in in summary, I think our ask for listeners today, our root for the Knicks, which is a tough pill to swallow for me as a card carrying mass hole, but I will try. Buy Ben's book, All We Say, available now. It's truly excellent. You can also hear Ben with John Favreau talking about speech writing on the PodSave America feed. And uh, but you know also help him displace racial campos duffy on the best seller chart because that is offensive that she is I think number three right now that that's very upsetting we we do have to beat her we do have to beat her. You gotta do that. Please help us do that. Uh subscribe to Pod Save the World, wherever you get your podcast or on YouTube. And then if you are horrified by Barry Weiss uh gutting 60 minutes over at CBS, want to help a progressive media company grow, consider becoming a friend of the Pod Paid subscriber. For 10 bucks a month, you get bonus content, uh, bonus Pod Save America episodes, ad-free episodes, deep dives into polling from Dan Pfeiffer, and much, much more. So it's uh good spend, good value. And Tommy, I've I I have two crooked book crossovers. Um today, Wednesday, Alex Wagner and I will be in conversation in New York City at the ninety second street Y. There are a few tickets left if people want to check that out. And then next Monday, John Favreau and I will be in conversation in LA . Uh you can find links to this. Uh we'll put them in the show notes, but they're also on my website, Benroads uh dot info. Dot info. Okay. info. Yeah, I got the dot info. You know, every every time I have a book I have to like redo a website. Yeah. But it's all up there. Listen, I get it. I get it. All right. So we were gonna lead the show today with this head spinning, you know, like tweets and fucking sirens and you know, s fake scoops about Iran. But then the news broke this morning that Donald Trump has installed a goober named Bill Poulti as acting director of national intelligence. And to me, that was just a five alarm fire. So just to back up to explain, Bill Poulte is this random businessman who Trump installed as the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency or F FHFA. Without getting too wonky, FHFA is supposed to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other parts of like the government systems that provide loans, mortgages. Um, but in practice, what Poulti has done is he's used his access to sensitive mortgage data to manufacture criminal cases against Trump's enemies, like Letitia James. It is very obvious, then, what is happening here with this news from today, because Poulti has no experience in intelligence. He has no national security background, literally none. And the only reason you make this guy the top spy in the U.S. government overseeing the entire intelligence community is to give him access to all of our intelligence data and all of the authorities they have and all of the collection tools they have to use those to go after Trump's enemies. Uh it's to move that retribution project that started in a you know backwater housing agency and move it to the uh DNI's office. And so that is absolutely chilling. Uh, this is what dictators do. This is how countries slide into becoming police states. And um I I'm sure that the pul ti marching orders will include cherry picking data to you know, prove that the 2020 election was stolen, right? Like the old Trump hobby horses, but it will not stop there. Like we know this guy is willing to say and do anything to make Trump happy. And so is Cash Pat el over at the FBI. And that combination is scary as hell. And Democrats need to fight this tooth and nail. So Ben, the arguments I would make to Democrats like listening to this are that I would just scream to the world are one, putting someone with no intelligence experience in charge of the intelligence community is self-evidently crazy and makes all of us less safe. And Pulti doesn't meet the statutory requirements for the job. Like they should just race hell about how unqualified he is. But then two, I think I the leverage for them is I would say I'm not reauthorizing any intelligence collected collection authorities, in particular Section 702 of FISA, which lets the US government force American telecom and tech companies to give over data without a warrant if this guy is in that job. Period. Draw a line in the sand. Do it now. This is fucking crazy. Absolutely right. And and this is one of those tests of whether Democrats understand what's happening or not , because Bill Poulte has no interest whatsoever in national security. He's not someone who's thinking about China. Um, he's someone whose pure role is to exact vengeance on Trump's political opponents or to advance Trump's conspiracy theories. If i i if it wasn't enough that he has no experience or background whatsoever in intelligence and national security, Tommy, the fact that he's still gonna run that housing agency while he's running the DI is the the the I thought the most comic part of this. He's gonna run all the most powerful intelligence agency community in the history of the world. Um, and he's also gonna run Fannie Main, Freddie Mice. Um, yeah, if this guy could comb through the mortgage records of Tish James to invent a conspiracy theory to try to prosecute her. Um, what's he gonna do with the NSA's capacity to collect, you know, all the phone calls in the fucking world, you know? Um, so buckle up here. Um, and absolutely, uh, there's no if if you if you're concerned that someone's gonna say that you don't take intelligence seriously because you're not reauthorizing section 702, uh uh like do you think Bill Poulte and Donald Trump are taking it seriously? Those are the guys that don't give a shit about keeping us safe. Uh, it does also make me worry, Tommy, about what we're in for for the next two and a half years of the Trump administration. Because remember in the first Trump term, by the end we were down to the dregs . You know, I don't even remember the name of the guy who was attorney general. Cash Patel was chief of staff at DOD. Um we had Rick Grinnell as acting director of D and I. We're already kind of entering this phase where the people are just getting weirder and weirder and more and more vindictive. And so I think that's another, I mean we should be ready for that. The the the the this Trump craziness is not going to plateau. It's actually going to get exponentially more weird and and crazy going forward. I'm glad you said about the dregs because like just in a sign of how extreme the White House is. Remember Greg Bovino? Remember the little like fascist munchkin who was in charge of customs and border patrol and wore like his like big Nazi coat? That guy popped up over the weekend in Portugal. He was at a far-right uh someone's called neo-Nazi conference focused on re-migration, i.e., like the ethnic cleansing of uh migrants in various countries. Um, and that included representatives from far-right parties like the AFD, from Vox. There was fascists, like literal fascists from Belgium and the Netherlands. And he did like a Bovino did an interview leading up to the conference where he literally gave a shout-out to Erwin Rommel, aka the desert fox, the the Nazi field marshal who ran the Africa campaign when he was like talking about how his kind of improbable rise from like agent out into the field to leading organization. So your your your your point about that we're being down in the dregs of the Trump administration uh landed with me. Well and it is like uh the only thing I was gonna say too is that um cash running the FBI and this guy running d uh the intelligence community . Uh I I do like there are, you know, terrorists out there and there are adversaries. Like who is mining this door is gonna be an incredible story because nobody's mining this door. So it's we're getting the worst of their actions and also the worst of their neglect and incompetence. Everything that happens, like Tulsi Gabber leaves, you celebrate 'cause she is obviously not prepared for this job. And it's like God careful what you wish for. But just just to highlight how truly unserious putting Bill Poulte in this position is Ben, uh Michael and our team dug up two clips that we wanted to show you. This first one is from a conference from back in 2022. Uh at the time, I think Bill Poulte was really into meme stocks. Remember like the GameStop phenomenon during COVID. I think I saw this clip. Okay. This is this is from a conference where he's trying to get people to buy Bed, Bath, and Beyond stock, which did not end well for anyone who did so. Uh here's the clip, then let's talk about it. Let's watch. So what watching is a man slap another man in the face with a dildo. For those listening, not watching, you should subscribe to Pod Tate the World. There you fucking have it. The first dildo slap in history live. So Bill, this says Bill Pulti Fucks. All right? Yeah. And then if you notice on it's got a tramp stamp with a butterfly on it. I like only the young. One ass cheeks . Yes, it it does say uh it does say only the young on the back here. Only the young December 4th. That looks pretty badass . We have a uh mushroom stamp on the head of it and uh bed bath on one cheek and GME. Oh fuck . GME on the other. I got too excited there. They broke their little statue. So it the they gave the guy Bill Bill Pulti was given a little statue by the man who just slapped the other man in the face with the dildo that said Bill Pulti fucks only the young. That this man is now the the they're gonna be the acting DNI, director of national intelligence, top spy, overseeing eighteen component parts of the intelligence community. Your thoughts. I I have some more like sober, serious friends of mine who are like, you and Tommy sometimes get a little too immature like, you know. We are covering the news, people. We are covering the news. The reason that there is a man slapping another man in the face with a dildo and and giving uh you know some pedophilia reference uh to someone is because that that man who is involved in that is the director of national intelligence now. So we we just have to you know report what's happening. Just the facts . I will say like for an administration that came in committed to depoliticizing intelligence, not weaponizing the justice system, and rooting out pedophilia, um, Bill Poulte kind of seems to be checking the box on all three of those things in the wrong dire ction here. So not exactly promises kept uh among all the other disgusting and horrifying and troubling things about that video. Yeah, I saw a nice uh clip of uh Ivanka today, Ivanka Trump talking about how she and her husband were gonna build a new paradise on an island. I was like, oh, Epstein has taught these people a lot. Uh to our listeners who think that Ben and I have childish senses of humor, I know. It sometimes occurs to me that you know we hear from like current and former prime ministers who listen to the show. Yes, yes, we're talking about this. I do, actually. Listen, yeah. These are the facts we were presented by the universe. We're just relaying them to you. Uh Ben, in so here's a second clip of Poulte again that Michael dug up um from a podcast interview he did in twenty twenty two. I wanna know if this makes you feel better about your concerns about his lack of experience. Let's watch. Oh no. What did you learn about HVAC that kept you going deeper into that space that leads you to the podcast like we're on today. Well, I my first business was a countertop business, kitchen and bath countertops. And, you know, I don't know if you know a lot about countertops, but I'll tell you one thing about them. They're a pain in the ass and to make to make factor life is so much easier in the HVAC space compared to countertops. And I said that says a lot. That says a lot about countertops. Yeah, yeah. The the like dying joke there reminded me of the NPR Shwatyballs famous section. Um so that was Bill Poulty on the To the Point Home Services podcast talking about being in the HVAC business. So I guess if the AC goes down in any of the many intelligence community buildings, Bill Poulte can be there. Um in the interview, he spends a lot of time bragging about his follower count on various social media platforms. So did that make you feel better about this choice? You know, Tommy, um listeners may not know that like my first job in Washington was for Lee Hamilton, who was the co-chair of the 9-11 commission, which recommended the creation of the director of national intelligence to better coordinate and manage and connect the dots between the different intelligence agencies in the United States. And then after that report came out, I wrote a lot of congressional testimony for Lee Hamilton in support of the reforms that created the DNI. And now I'm not so sure about that whole process. Not because we don't need that, uh, but because I don't think that the authors of that legislation of the 9-11 Commission envisioned someday a man taking the helm of all the US intelligence agencies, uh informed by his expertise in countertop renovation uh and various other podcast appearances. Uh no sh no shot to podcasters, but I think when Democrats lost the last election and there was this debate about showing up on podcasts, I'm not sure they had that one in mind. No, that wasn't the highest uh highest traffic podcast. Yeah, no, unless the dots Lee Hamilton was trying to connect were between heating ventilation and air conditioning. I don't know that I don't know that we hit the mark here. Uh apparently this idea was pushed by Roger Stone. Uh Roger Stone has a big Nixon tattooed on his back and was also found guilty of charges of obstruction, false statements, and witness tampering in 2019 for his role in the uh the Russia investigation at the 2016 election. Um Um so everything is going great here, Ben. I feel really good about this. Not at all horrified and uh excited for Bill Pulti to watch this and to g for us to get on his radar screen as well. Yeah, well from yeah, between him and Cash, uh we're making friends everywhere. Um, the the the other point I'd make to people is that there's a midterm election coming up, and the basis of whatever fight fake fraud claims they're gonna make is gonna be some foreign interference thing. Because we saw that already when they said that Hugo Chavez and Venezuela um intervened in the 2020 election, even though Hugo Chavez had been dead for years. So in addition to the weaponization of justice and you know, trying to comb through records and target Trump's enemies, um, let's keep an eye on the space of whether Bill Poulte's job is also to kind of manufacture conspiracy theories about foreign interference to give a basis for overturning elections in this country. Because that would be very bad. Because remember, you know, Tulsi Gabbard was down Pot Tave the World is brought to you by Fast Growing Trees. Did you know that Fast Growing Trees is America's largest and most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and over two million happy customers? They have all the plants in your yard or home needs, including fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs, and house plants all grown with care and guaranteed to arrive healthy. Whatever you're looking for, fast growing trees helps you find options that actually work for your climate, your space, and your lifestyle. 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But despite weeks of, you know, countless breathless reports and tweets with sirens in them about some imminent peace deal, there still isn't one, which means the Strait of Humuz is still closed, oil and gas exports are choked off, and every day. We get closer to some kind of breaking point in rupture in the global economy. But besides that is going great. In practice, also what we're seeing lately is escalation between the two sides. Over the last few days, there were U.S. airstrikes on Iranian air defense sites and drone sites, and then Iran shot down another American predator drone and fired a ballistic missile at a Kuwaiti air base. Apparently US air defenses intercepted that missile, but Bloomberg reported that the shrapnel injured five people, including U.S. service members. So it's a pretty serious incident. Um, the outlines of the deal that's being negotiated is reportedly the same as what we've talked about in the following. It's like a 60-day pause and fighting to allow for negotiations over the much harder issues around the nuclear program, uh, unrestricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and then a gradual relaxation of the U.S. blockade on the strait. So Iran has to move first in this framework. Uh the New York Times said that there could be some sort of post-war investment fund of three hundred billion dollars for Iran. Um that surprised me. Sounds like Trump wants his money to come from Gulf countries, so we can pretend the US isn't providing it, but that is insane. Like I mean, you U and I and Obama would have been drawn and quartered if something like this had been proposed during the JCPOA days. Um and then there's some sort of agreement that looking to reach some sort of agreement over releasing frozen Iranian assets and then some sort of sanctions relief for Iran, maybe as well. Um as usual, the sticking points are uh Iran wants the war to be over everywhere, that includes in Lebanon, which the Israelis are not happy about, and then Trump wants Iran to ship all of its highly enriched uranium out of the country, though he did post something like a week or two ago that suggested he might be okay with that HEU being destroyed in place by the IAEA, by international um uh regulators. So on Monday, um Trump called somebody at CNBC, Eamon Javers at CNBC, about the peace talks, and he said the following then. I don't care if they're over, honestly. I really don't care. I couldn't care less. If they're over, they're over. If they're not, you know, I think they took too much time. Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring. Uh, that's an actual real quote that he said to a reporter. Um So, Ben, this, you know, Trump has been spinning his wheels in place for the same couple weeks on this policy. And I think what's driving me crazy is the White House is able to just churn out all these little mini updates and bullshit and fake reports, whatever, to journalists to manipulate the oil market s. Um, I shouldn't say fake reports. They're they're giving updates that never really bear out or never solve the underlying problem that needs to be solved. But all that kind of minute to minute coverage distracts everybody and there's not a real, I think, understanding or focus on the big picture of what an absolute ongoing massive disaster this war is and remains. I'll start with the media and then get to the substance of it. It's not just uh typical media criticism here. Um what in particular Axios has done in credulously, consistently, constantly uh tweeting out these reports that a deal is imminent with sir ens is allowing themselves to be used to affect oil markets. And you know, whether they know that they're doing that or not, that's what's happening. And probably a lot of people are profiting off of inside or trading. Um, and it 's also kind of giving people this kind of false sense of comfort. Look, I hope we get a deal today, like while we're recording this podcast to to reopen the strait and lift the blockade and move towards a nuclear deal. But that leads to the second part, which is I think what Trump is trying to do that is truly bizarre, is he's trying to give people the impression with these leaks and with his own comments downplaying this, that uh it's it's not really war going on there anyway, you know, because you know, we're not seeing big explosions and there's not a lot of firing back and forth, although there's some. But the reality is the Strait of Hormuz is still closed. Um, maybe a tiny trickle of ships is getting through. And so the global economic impact and the global shortages of not just uh oil and gas, but uh other vital resources like helium and fertilizer. That that's uh that's getting worse by the day. Yeah, there's a report that the US military had escorted like seventy some odd ships through the strait over the last few weeks, but that's as compared to like 130 a day during peacetime. Yeah, that's a tiny fraction. So I I think we're kind of being lulled into the sense that something is not happening that is happening. Yeah. Um and people know it because they're paying more at the the pump, but essentially other nations have been tapping into their reserves to survive this and kind of prop up what is left of global energy markets. Um but but with each passing day, that gets harder to do. And so there could come a time when what's already a horrific global economic disruption and disruption people's lives could become a crash. Um and and so I I I think there needs to be a little bit more attention, not just on the like imminent deal that is constantly being discussed that everybody knows what it is, but but on the consequences that this is still a war. Just because it's kind of a semi frozen conflict doesn't mean we're not still in the state of war with all the consequences. And then on the deal, we've talked before about the elements of it and about how Trump may try to spin it as a victory when it's not reopening the strait that was opened before the war. I think the other thing I'd say is on this money, um, because you're seeing the the $300 billion investment fund reported in different places, you're also seeing maybe some upfront payment of you know uh twelve billion, some sanctions relief. What I think Trump is doing, he's so fucking fixated on Obama . And look, whatever happens, he he's gonna have to do something that uh eventually looks like the Iran nuclear deal, uh, which again shipped the HEU out and did all these other things that he's trying to get. Um the reality is I imagine that this money is going to be probably Iranian frozen assets, you know. And and and they'll try to pretend like it's it was they'll say it was released by Qatar or whoever was holding or whatever, and therefore we didn't give it to Iran, which is just like give me a break. Like you made the deal that released the money. But but and that's the point. In the Obama deal, Iran got money that had been frozen in other bank accounts because other countries had bought Iranian oil and that they had not been able to access those revenues. And so Trump is probably going to do the exact same thing. This is a message to anybody who follows this and message to the journalists who are gonna be covering this. Just because Qatar or some other country is providing Iran access to that money, it's not like a Qatari check or some other country. It's the exact same mechanism as the JCPOA. And so the fact that we're held hostage to this man's Obama obsession and ego, like this isn't even about defending Obama. It's about like how absurd it is that he's desperately trying to find some way to spin that he's not gonna end up doing something that is somewhat analogous to the JCPOA. Yeah it's gonna it's gonna look like the JCPOA he just wants it to be able to say it's better. Uh did this did this resonate with you, Ben? This is a post from Trump. Iran really wants to make a deal. It'll be a good one for the USA and those that are with us. But don't the Democrats get it? And various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans understand that it's much tougher for me to properly do my job and negotiate when political haps keep negatively ch irping at levels never seen before over and over again, that I should move faster or move slower or go to war or not go to war or whatever. Just sit back and relax. It'll all work out well in the end. It always does. I feel better. I feel better hearing that. Yeah. Well, first of all, we what because Trump and the Republicans never chirped at Democratic presidents when they're conducting foreign policy. Uh kind of the biggest glasshouse anybody's ever been in. I I think that what that tells me though, there's a desperation and a lameness, frankly, to Trump's efforts to post his way through this and to talk his way through it in friendly interviews. He's finally done something that is the opposite of what he said. It's not going to end out well. It's already been terrible. This has already been a catastrophe. And uh and everybody can see it. Yeah, it's a mess. Uh there are also some reports that were later denied by the Iranians that President Pazeshkian had resigned because he'd been cut out of the decision making process by the IRGC. Very well could have happened, but it came out of a London based outlet with ties to the opposition and then was denied by the government. So I don't know. We'll see. Ben a couple of recent comments that were worth playing for the audience. The first is we just wanted to juxtapose some of Trump's comments about the war and its impact on the Iranian military, with comments made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio uh on Capitol Hill Tuesday. Let's watch. Operation Epic Fury, some of you didn't like it, some of you did, was highly successful in achieving its military objectives, which is dramatically reducing the defense industrial base of Iran, the ability to build these missiles and and to build these drones, especially the missiles program, substantially degraded. Their military, we sort of left it alone because we think that their military is somewhat uh somewhat moderate. They have other people that aren't moderate. We've taken them out. We've taken different forms of leadership out. We've actually left their military alone. Yeah, I'd be very surprised to hear that because uh the entire message so far had been that Heg h and his team had decimated the Iranian militar y. It's all you've told us. And now you're saying that they're moderate, so you didn't ? What what on earth are we talking about here? Because he gets this kind of participation trophy trophy for sanewashing what Trump should be saying to spin his war. It's like, what a good job he did spinning this war on Trump's behalf. He should be president, or at least Republican nominee. Marco Rubio is fucking lying in that clip. They did not decimate the missile programs. Like that we have reporting that over 70% of Iran's ballistic missiles and launchers remain intact. Um and so we kind of keep hearing, I mean, I like I I know th this is not a shot at the military at all, but there's this effort to say, well, it was militarily successful. It was not militarily successful. Like the they said they destroyed the Iranian Navy and the Iranian Navy is still able to control the street of Hormuz. Like they said they destroyed the ballistic missiles and they still have most of the ballistic missiles and are still firing them at us. They don't tell we there were multiple reports, Tommy, including in the BBC and the Washington Post, about the extensive damage unreported to U.S. bases and facilities across the Middle East that that that Marco Rubio and Petexath never get around to telling us, even though we are the fucking taxpayers to pay for those bases. Yeah, it's a classic washed in problem of like inputs versus outputs. Like you might have fired a lot of missiles and hit a lot of stuff, but like the outcome wasn't that the the Iran's military is no longer functional. It's what you talked about, which is 70% of the stockpile is still sitting there and they're able to control the straight. And then that BBC report about the satellite imagery about the damage to US bases and assets in the Middle East is like staggering stuff. We I wrote down a couple of details, Ben. Twenty US military facilities have been hit. Uh in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain, and Oman. They took out 42 aircraft, uh F-15s, F-35s, 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones, an A-10 attack plane, and then three THAAD uh missile defense batteries that cost a billion dollars each. And then they damaged this one E3 century surveillance plane that was worth up to 70$0 million . So just like a vast amount of structural economic damage there and also like damage to the U.S. military's ability to um station troops in the Middle East for a long time. And look to to draw forward the Axios point, um, because I've been saying for a few weeks now that the damage is worse than we've heard because I literally just have some friends in the Middle East. Yeah, me too. Sending me pictures. I'm I'm I'm hearing this is much worse. And the reason that's important is this is the problem with our media. Like uh the corporatization and magnification of so much of the media means that like Americans know less about what's happened to American military bases than just like regular people that live in the Gulf. Like that is insane. And that look, there's the Post did a good report here. The Times has done good reporting on this. But like that's kind of there's not much else. And that's by design. I think people have to realize like the reason you get corporate authoritarian takeover of media is so that the bad news that the leader doesn't want reported kind of goes either unreported or underreported. Like only a small number of people who read a certain set of publications are aware of it. Yeah, even today we learned that the Pentagon has kicked the press corps out of their briefing room because they've declared it's now a skiff. Because the Pentagon speechwriters need to be able to sit in there. So now it's I didn't. It's crazy. The the fucking Pentagon is the second built biggest office building in the world. There's something like three million square feet of office space alone. And they're like, oh no, no, the speechwriters have to sit here, so we have to kick the reporters out of their out of their area. Um last thing Ben so Trump waited on the war a bunch last week at the cabinet meeting. Um couple comments caught our attention that we wanted to play for you guys. Let's watch and we'd like to have the countries we were talking about with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and the others, we'd like to have them immediately join the and Steve Whitcoff is working on that with Jared and some others, but would like to have them join the Abraham Accords. It'll be historic if they do it and we would I think they I think they owe that to us to be honest. I think because that really would be a tremendous sign . And I think those countries owe it to us. Steve are you gonna get them to sign Uh we're definitely pushing it, Mr. President. I'm not sure. I'm not sure we should make the deal if they don't sign. You want to know that the they would like to control it. Nobody's gonna control it. It's international waters, and uh Oman will behave just like everybody else who will have to blow them up. They understand that they'll be fine. So I'm sure that the folks in Oman, not Iran, were thrilled to hear about potentially getting bombed. Uh and then, you know, this new effort to force everybody into the Abraham Accord seems to be going really great so far. So good stuff. And it's important because i we are dealing with a man in the hike rapidly losing his power. That's part of what's happening here because look, the Abraham Accords, he did this at the end of his first term in 2020. He got tremendous bipartisan immediate validation for it because there's a normalization deal with Israel. But I think it's just worth saying here, Tommy. The Abraham Accords have been a catastrophic failure, actually. Had they brought peace to the Middle East? The two problems they were supposed to solve is somehow like replacing an Israeli-Palestinian deal and dealing with the Iran threat. Well, look at where we are today. The the Palestinians have been subjected to a relentless campaign of war crimes by Israel that is bombing multiple countries in the region despite the Abraham Accords. Um, we're in a war with Iran. This has been a failure. And and Democrats like need to be much more outspoken in about this. Um, because frankly, even the Biden administration's efforts to kind of wrap themselves around the Abraham Accords, that ended terribly too . Yeah. Um, and and we just need to name that. And the fact that he's out there saying, demanding these countries join this at a time when Israel's never been less popular in those countries and across the Muslim world, it just makes him look feckless. Because even Whitkoff couldn't, yes, sir, we'll get them the aboring courts. It's like well, we'll push them. I'll make some calls. It's not gonna happen. Yeah, it's it's yeah, it's a that's a weak leader right there. That's someone who's like, I got good press on this thing before, and I know I'm pissing off some of the pros real people in my co alition. So now I'm going to demand these countries to join the Abraham Cords. Well, they're not. Because nobody's paying attention to what you're saying. I do think that the failure of the Abraham Cords is a really important point. I think Matt Duss had a great piece on this a few weeks or months back in like foreign policy.com or something where it's like, hey, the the Abraham Accords have been a failure. They were uh agreements between countries that weren't at war that led to a uh distraction from the real conflict, which was the the Middle East peace process and the need to create a Palestinian state? And there's all this reporting that Hamas uh did that took this, you know, did the evil thing they did on October 7th, the attack, uh, because they were concerned about potential normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia and they wanted to blow up any prospect of that. And so I think that is a reality of the Abraham Accords that we should talk a lot more about than, you know, direct flights from the UAE to Tel Aviv or whatever people like brag about. Um Ben, let's talk about the conflict in Lebanon because that's very much part of this broader war with Iran, but it also brings with it like these distinct challenges and complexities that make it all so much harder. So um first we just we got this voice note from uh a journalist named Justin Sahani from Al Jazeera who's been covering the conflict that will give you a sense of just how absurd it is when people refer to there being a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Let's listen. Just to uh speak of the disparity of attacks because because Hezbollah and Israel are still trading attacks, um the most intense day uh in the last week . Uh before today, I haven't I have figures here from May 24 until June 1st that were provided to me by UNIFIL, which is the UN peacekeepers in South Lebanon. The uh most intense day was Sunday, May 31st. This is when 6 1 trajectories were counted by UNEFL going from north to south. So that would be Hezbollah or other non-state actors hitting uh either targets in South Lebanon or in Israel. And from south to north. So this is Israel firing back 6 83. So that's 61 to 683 as the most severe day. Hezbollah's um number of trajectories over the past week are often in the double digits. Uh usually somewhere between let's say 16 to 45, 46, Israel's lowest was 1 94, with an average over well over 300, 350. And so the the the Lebanon piece of the fighting has become a big sticking point in the peace talks. Iran wants the fighting over in Lebanon as well as everywhere else. The Israelis uh have said no way and in fact have used this latest round of fighting since February twenty eighth as an opportunity to advance further into Lebanon and take more territory. And unfortunately, you know, before February 28th, the US was facilitating talks between Israel and the Lebanese government about trying to disarm Hezbollah, and those all ended when the latest round of fighting started. So on Monday, um Axios reported that Trump called Netanyahu and yelled at him about Israeli escalation in Lebanon. The report said that Trump said to BB Netanyahu, uh, quote, You're fucking crazy, you'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this. Uh some factual statements in there about Netanyahu. Uh, but did that really happen? Uh unclear. There's an Israeli political analyst who a lot of people in Israel think is basically just another spokesman for the Netanyahu government. He tweeted that the Axi os report is false. Um, a friend of mine in Israel told me that this this person who I own that name is often called uh BB shofar because uh Netanyahu blows air into him and out comes noise, which is really funny and great. Um but the analyst claimed that Trump didn't mention BB being in jail or that he's hated. But then Alex Ward, uh, our buddy over at the Wall Street Journal reported that are actually two calls. The first was about a ceasefire, and the second one is where Trump was like talking shit, saying, You'd be in jail if not for me. Regardless , Ben, I think they apparently reach an agreement where Israel is going to hold off airstrikes on Beirut as long as they are not attacked. We'll see if that holds. Airstrikes. And they recaptured this ancient hilltop castle called Beaufort, which is Israel held twenty five years ago during its previous occupation of Lebanon, which is bringing back terrible memories both in Lebanon and in Israel, uh, of you know, it because that would that war did not go well. And people were worried that this could become the beginning of a protracted Israeli occupation of Lebanon. And it comes after the IDF displaced like a million Lebanese residents in the south, and the overall death toll is thirty, four hundred dead in Lebanon, twenty-seven Israeli soldiers killed. So been a lot there, but I do think like the Lebanon piece of this is the most clear point where you can see the US and Israeli political interests diverging completely, especially as the Israelis get closer and closer to their election. Yes, and it's because of what the nature of the Israeli uh military operation in Lebanon is. And at the risk of making this kind of media criticism day, and again, this is a reason why you should support independent media. Um, if if you're watching this from afar, like what you're presented with by most of the US media is that there's a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon uh in Israel's war against Hezbollah. In in fact, there is no ceasefire in Lebanon. There's no such thing as a ceasefire where you're relentlessly bombing a country and occupying almost 20% of it. Um and at the same time , as much as Israel does have a challenge from Hezbollah, um, if you actually watch what's happening, and the media criticism is like these calls are smoke screen, like somebody from you know uh Trump's uh staff is told to call Axios and say he said, Fuck you to BB. Watch what's happening, not what you're told somebody said in a phone call. Exactly. Because Israel's continuing to do all these things, and what they're doing, it does not seem to be about disarming Hezbollah. It seems to be about taking southern Lebanon, where they're literally occupying like a huge swath of this country and you know depopulating it, making it uninhabitable, probably for the purposes of either annexing part of that territory or or holding it as a kind of so-called buffer zone. But uh like there's no international legal basis for like just claiming like part of another country and saying that's a buffer zone. And my concern, as you pointed out, is that because there's an election later this fall, because BB completely failed to achieve the objectives he set out for the Iran war, he's just gonna keep doing this in Lebanon so that he has some war that he can show the kind of right-wing voters in Israel requires him to stay in office. Yeah. And speaking of BB's election, I mean we should talk about Gaza for a minute because Netanyahu, again, as we lead up to this election, is talking about occupying more of the territory in Gaza. So there's a recent press conference which I think he did from like maybe a settlement in the West Bank or something. Some he did from the West Bank. And he said, quote, We are now in 60% of the territory of the Gaza Strip. We were at 50%. We moved to 60%. My dire ctive is to move to, and then someone in the crowd yells 100% and he says, take it, he goes, take it step by step. Uh, first of all, 70%. We'll start with that. So Netanyahu is like playing to the crowd, saying, we're gonna take 70 % of the territory in Gaza. So he wants to squeeze two million people into 30% of the Gaza Strip, where it was already one of the most crowded places in the world. Uh, then Israel's defense minister, Israel Katz, tweeted last week, quote, We playedge that Hamas will not rule Gaza civilly or militarily, and so it shall be the voluntary migration plan will be implemented all at the proper time in the proper manner. So I guess everyone's should get incited for some ethnic cleansing to happen soon, I guess. And then, as we've discussed, like life on the ground for people in Gaza is hell on earth. There's a recent report from Doctors Without Borders that said Israel has just destroyed or damaged nearly 90% of water and sanit ation infrastructure in Gaza, including desalination plants, boreholes, pipelines, and sewage systems. And as a result of the damaged sewer systems, there's pests breeding in the wastewater, rats are everywhere. There are lice, scabies, fungal infections, bug bites, rat bites, and nowhere near enough healthcare resources. And then shockingly, Ben, the Board of Peace has accomplished exactly nothing. There's no funding. There's nobody on the ground. There's no nothing. So I like maybe Jared Kushner got a good meeting at Davos out of it, but that seems to be the only accomplishment there. Yeah. I mean, I I think we have to again consider that there's this veneer of a ceasefire in Gaza. What part of the ceasefire terms that were announced to such fanfare with all these foreign leaders and all this credulous media attention back last fall? What part of that ceasefire agreement uh permitted Israel to take seventy percent of the Gaza Strip and then talk about quote unquote, you know, the voluntary migration, aka the ethnic cleansing of the remaining two million people that are in these horrific conditions. And the and the problem is there there's no rooting in any of these policies i uh in concern for the actual Palestinians who are there. Like the there's no discussion about getting uh assistance into those people, addressing those horrific conditions. Uh we still don't have international media access uh to Gaza to see what's happened and to get an accurate death count, which is probably far higher than the 70,000 that's already been reported here. And so just goes to show that again, while attention, the camera keeps swirling around and and it's largely been focused on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, look the situation for the people in Gaza has continued to deteriorate since the ceasefire was announced, in the same way that the people of Lebanon are suffering such extraordinary consequences. And the absence of any kind of moral framework of concern for those people, not just out of the United States, but frankly, out of a lot of governments, um speaks to kind of the the broken moment that we're in geopolitically. Yeah, I mean you're not seeing any real international support for Gaza. Like I'm not seeing any action really at the UN. I'm not seeing a lot of fundraising, you would imagine I there's just nothing. There's nothing. I mean we got the U the UK saying that uh Jank Wieger and Hassan Biker can't come because they're they're the they're a threat to uh British society in some way, because you know they, criticize the occupation or the war in Gaza, but you know, there's just nothing to help the actual human beings on the ground who are suffering every single day, including lots of kids. And and I'm just gonna say, like uh the idea that uh that tells you a lot about the priorities of the Starmer government. Um, and and we should call this out. Because like whatever you think about Chenk and Hassan, um the the idea that that that that government has the time to say that because of their views on Israel.' Therey not even allowed to enter the country. But what are they doing to help the people of Gaza? What is the Starmer government doing to help them? It's absolutely ridiculous and outrageous. Even if you disagree with Hassan Piker, by the way. He was going there to have a debate at the Oxford Union. So the forum that was set up was for someone else to be able to tell him he was wrong, right? And so the idea that we're more afraid of free speech uh in in places like the United Kingdom um than than we are of like you know risking the ire of Donald Trump by expressing concern for the people of Gaza. This is a it was a shameful moment for the Starmer government. Yeah Son told me he was going to go to the Oxford Union and do a speech, and the last one he did there was was about the danger of conflating Judaism and Zionism. Um he was trying to disaggregate them and to talk about combating anti-Semitism. But then he was told by the British government that his uh he can't travel uh because quote, your presence in the UK is not considered to be conducive to the public good. It's just such a vague kind of, you know, nineteen eighty four notice that a anyway. It's just really fucking weird. It's chilling. It's actually uh it's absolutely chilling. And for a center left government to be doing it. Yeah. For a center left government to be doing it, it's absolutely chilling. Or maybe they're not a center left. And like I i if you if you find the comments that either of those two guys made to be offensive or wrong or upsetting anyway. That's totally fine. I respect that. But like yeah I guess this is just the American in me, the first amendment uh supporter in me thinks it's crazy to tell someone they're barred from your country for political opinions. I think it's bonkers . Pot say of the world is brought to you by HIMS. If something's been off in the bedroom, you're not the only one. A lot of guys wait longer than they need to to take action. The difference now, getting real treatment is simple through HIMS, it's a hundred percent online. At some point, you've got to stop blaming stress, sleep, or just getting older. If bedroom performance is in question, it's probably crossed your mind to do something about it. 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They said it was in response to a Ukrainian drone strike on what they described as a Russian college dorm that killed 21 people. I think the Ukrainians say no is a military drone site. Also alarming, Ben, was uh a Russian drone hit an apartment building in Romania over the weekend. Uh Romanian officials said the drone probably went into their territory because it was hit by Ukrainian air defenses and I think got knocked off course or something. But this is a big deal. We're gonna watch and see if NATO responds in any way. Um but that is um the political backdrop here as we get to our next point about Russia, which is the Russians are hosting this annual investment conference in St. Petersburg. And this year there is a much increased American presence. The White House is sending a represent ative. It is some dipshit named Rodney Mims Cook Jr., who is chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. I think he's from Georgia, some whatever. Um, and then a bunch of far-right influencers are heading over. So check out this clip we put together to show you uh who's going. Okay, uh so the first the first thing we saw was RT, the Russian propaganda network, put together some sort of like video. They take took a bunch of Candace Owens's photos. She posted on social media and commentary. Candace Owens, a far-right podcaster and influencer. Um she posted a bunch of stuff, including commentary like I'm starting to understand why the talking heads panic and shout and lie about Russia collusion when they learn an American with a platform is traveling here. It's Plato's allegory of the cave. It is genuinely shocking how cle an, beautiful, and ordered the city is. It's so far removed from media depictions. Yes. I too am stunned that famously beautiful Moscow uh looks beautiful. Uh and then there were the Tate brothers who were indicted a couple of years back on charges like rape and human trafficking, who were also in in Moscow, I guess, for this conference, but I don't really know. So I hope they they have a good time. Ben, what do you think? is happening here Why are why are these goobers descending upon Moscow? Well, I I'm sure they're getting paid in some fashion here and uh and or they're just trolling people like uss.. U But the reality is that like Russia has managed to make these kind of consistent inroads in the right wing of the United States without doing anything at all differently in the conduct of their war or their repression. The war just keeps getting worse. Like they've just been relentlessly bombarding Ukraine more under Trump than they did before that. They have not made any meaningful concession towards peace whatsoever. The repression inside of Russia has gotten much worse. Uh frankly they've been you know restricting internet access in ways that, you know, influencers in Russia like uh don't have the capacity that the Tate brothers or Candace Owens have to go there and and post things. And so the it's quite remarkable to watch people kind of go there and claim that they're like discovering some different Russia when in fact, like if anything, repression and the war have just been deteriorating. By the way, the fact that Moscow's clean, I mean, Pyongyang is pretty clean too. Like u ber repressive societies like can kind of keep the streets pretty clean sometimes. That doesn't mean that people have any political rights whatsoever. And and it kind of connects to the Romanian thing because part of what's happening is Europeans are seeing this, right? So they're seeing kind of Trump's uh thirst for investment in Russia. They're seeing Trump's total disregard for Ukraine. At the same time, that there have been like meaningful Russian sabotage operations in European countries, some of which have destroyed significant amounts of property. Now we have this drone attack. And so if you talk to people in Europe, like the actual fear that Russia might do something that is a military escalation in Poland or the Baltics or a place like Romania. That's going up. And the more they kind of see this kind of weirdness and brokenness in the American right wing drifting in Russia's direction, I think it's more it's going to just contribute to those anxieties. At the precise time, by the way, Tommy, that Trump's threatening to pull US troops uh out of Europe because he's mad that they didn't open the Strait of Four moves. Yeah, there was a weird back and forth last week about the US maybe pulling troops out of Poland and then not or there's all sorts of weird threats in it. It's always so it's so funny when influencers like Candace go over to a place like Russia. Like yeah, obviously it's not binary. It's not like America, good, Russia bad,. Like Russia's an extraordinary place, incredible culture . Or Russian people, bad. Yeah, Russian people. Incredible history, incredible architecture. Like no one's arguing otherwise. Like the architecture that she's taking photos of and posting has existed for a very long time. A lot of people were were well aware of it. These people they're never like self aware enough. Wait till she finds out about Tolstoy or or Ballet. You know? Yeah, yeah. Tolstoy have you guys heard of this guy? Um it's like, hey, you're there with like a minder, probably taking you around to all these great cultural sites for a reason. Like the same thing happened with Tucker Carlson when he was like, look at this unbelievable subway, and it's like, you know who built the subway? You know what the cost was there? Like then he went to the supermarkets. Like, guys, come on, just like give us a little more nuance, and everything you're saying will be fine. And also, like, nobody does a goodwill tour better than an autocratic country. Right. You know? Of course they're rolling out the red carpet and they're super nice and like, oh, these people are so lovely. Like of course that's what happens. Again, it's it's not too similar than Gaza. Like uh go outside of Moscow and and go into some of those uh cities where people have been conscripted and they're disabled broken veterans returning home and you'll get a better sense of like what the cost of Putin's policies are. Yeah, it is embarrassing. Uh excited to see what content they crank out. Hopefully we'll talk about it next week. Uh a couple more things, Ben. Um, voters in Colombia went to the polls this past Sunday, and now there are two candidates heading to a runoff election on June 21st. So the contest will be between Senator Yvonne Cepeda, uh, who's a left-wing candidate running on a continu ation of President Petro's policies, Petro's term limited. He's running against a right-wing candidate that is backed by Trump named Abelardo de la Espria , uh, who calls himself the Tiger, not the Tiger King. We're not going back to like COVID era, just the Tiger. Um, the big choice for voters is about security and how to deal with the enormous amount of violence from drug cartels and rebel groups in Colombia. The kind of left approach to violence is negotiations and peace pacts. Well, the conservatives basically want to return to a policy of war on the cartels. Uh and also now they want to build out a detention system like the one Nayabuk ele created in El Salvador, where he has thrown hundreds of thousands of people in mega prisons, often without charges. Um Senator Cepeda was from the left, was directly involved in Colombia's peace deal with a FARC rebel group back in 2016. Um, again, he wants to consider continue Petro's policies. The problem with that pitch politically in this moment is that the violence has gotten really bad . Um, last year we covered this, I think at the time, a conservative politician was shot uh on the campaign trail. He later died. He was at a presidential campaign stop. Uh and then there's criminal organizations who were launching armed attacks. They're carrying out drone strikes, there's kidnappings, there's homicides, uh, and lot thousands, thousands of people have been displaced. Um, Ben, the the Trump White House has made no secret of the fact that they want to see this like right-wing wave next. They're gonna make a push Trump is because uh you know they're trying to construct like a critical mass of right wing leaders that are kind of with this uh imperial project where the deal is that the United States gets to kind of do whatever it wants in the hemisphere, but we kind of back up, prop up, or provide private security forces or what have you, or maybe even direct military support to some of these autocratic leaders. And and Colomia'bs been like a key bellwether like kind of swing state in that competition. It's a country that tends to veer back and forth between left and and right wing leadership. By the way, you have an incredibly important election that we'll be talking a lot about later this year in Brazil . Um, that'll be the the key test of this. So I I I'd expect them to kind of lean in here. Look, whoever comes next is going to have to pursue some policies to try to get their arms around the security situation. Uh, because what you kind of have is kind of cartel and other violence like migrating around different places. We've obviously seen in Ecuador, we've seen a lot of this in Colombia now too. But I I do I worry about the kind of construction of like this collection of bouqu ets and mil es and and right-wing leaders that we've seen in places like Honduras and and Ecuador because uh again, like it's gonna polarize politics on a left-right basis across the hemisphere and and in in history when the United States has kind of invested in like a right wing block against a left wing block in Latin America has not ended well. Does not go well in fact the conflicts in Colombia like were partly an outgrowth of that. Yeah. Also not going well. Uh the New York Times, I think, just had a big piece about how uh we've reached this grim milestone of more than two hundred people killed in the Trump Pete Heggseth uh extrajudicial murder boat strikes in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific. Um so far, experts say it is just as easy to find cocaine in the United States as it was before this policy started. The street price of the cocaine has not gone up, which means there's no like less availability, there's no scarcity. The purity of the cocaine is about the same. Uh, but then the cost of the Pentagon policy to just murder people, murder fishermen is about 4.7 billion and counting. So smashing success, would you say? I mean, the one thing I'd add to this is that like there's going to be a lot of things that people go back and investigate and try to bring accountability to after the Trump administration is over. This should absolutely be one of them. Yep. Because there's no legal or policy basis for this. It's just murder. Like there's not some authorization for the use of force against boats. Um, there's credible reports that at least some of these strikes, and it wouldn't be okay if it was even drug traffickers, because you know, didn't just like murder drug traffickers, but there's credible reports that some of these people are just fishermen. So, like, keep in mind, like Pete Heggseth's orders, uh, but Donald Trump's orders through Pete Heggseth have been murdering people and have now murdered 200 people. It has no impact whatsoever on the amount of drugs in the United States, as you point out. Um uh for a time, it seemed to be part of the Venezuela operation, and yet it still continues, even though that's over. Like what is it about other than the use of brute force because it seems to make Trump and Hegzeth feel tough? And that's a it's grotesque. So there's gonna there should be investigations into this. And by the way, uh as has been pointed out to me by uh experts repeatedly, it's not a war crime. It's just murder. Just murder because it's not a war. Yeah. It's just murder. But good good point. Two quick just quick things uh because we're running out of time here. So Ben last night I was um I picked back up Reagan Land, the great Rick Perlstein book on Ronald Reagan. There was a part on Jimmy Carter where it talked about how some members of Congress called for an investigation into Billy Carter, Jimmy Carter's kind of jerk-off jackass brother, for apparently getting like sweet a sweetheart deal on like wholesale gasoline for two gas pumps he owned back in Georgia, right? So like that's the level of grift we're talking., very, very low Uh that made me think of a uh story I read last week in Propublica about a $6 20 million loan from the Pentagon to a company called Vulcan Elements. Vulcan Elements , there's a little startup in North North Carolina. They think they can reduce America's dependence on rare earth materials, rare earth elements that are critical for US weapon systems and our phones and electric vehicles and like everything we do now. But remember, we talked about this in the context of the China Trade War. Um the Chinese have an absolute monopoly on the um the uh on what's the processing of these rare earth elements and they were able to choke them off to great effect and put pressure on the United States. So the timeline of this story goes as following. August 2025, uh 1789 Capital, Don Jr.'s venture capital firm, they took a stake in Vulcan Elements. Uh at the time, the company was valued at $200 million . Three months after that investment, Ben, the US government gave them a six hundred and twenty million dollar Pentagon loan, I think like fifty million dollars that were part of the CHIPS Act. So six hundred and seventy million dollars all in. And by J by January of twenty twenty six, so a few months ago, Bloomberg said the company was valued at two billion dollars, so a 10X increase in value in five months . And what ProPublica dug up was that the loan only happened after Peter Navarro, remember Trump's trade advisor, who was like thick as thieves with Don Jr., made a call from the White House over to the R. Convicted felon. Convicted felon, Peter. Navarro Just say get this on. And you know who visited Peter Navarro in jail? Donald Trump Jr. And he is mentioned in the fucking acknowledgement of his book. Unbelievable. Yeah. I mean, it's just rank corruption. What they're doing is they're migrating to the biggest kitty that there is, which is the Pentagon budget. I mean, one reason out of many that they want a $1.5 trillion defense budget is probably because they want to profit off of this . I mean, this is an absolutely outrageous level of corruption. And again, like to go all the way back to the craziness of Bill Poulty and what it says about the last two years, the looting that is going to take place, Tommy, in the last couple of years here, when they can control these budgets, is just going to be extraordinary. I mean, what what is Don Junior's particular expertise in like defense contracting? Rare earth element . Yeah. Yeah. This is just pure payment, right, to like the Trump family via the d the Pentagon budget. There needs to be like if Democrats do win back control of uh one or both houses of Congress, like burring in on the corruption at the Pentagon and the fa Trump family, which seems to be an overlapping Venn diagram, like that should be like an essential priority. And then if we do get a democratic present, like let us inhabit that hopeful future, like we're there's gonna have to be a lot of effort to kind of like uproot whatever like corrupt contracts have been pl anted uh at the Pentagon because it seems like a complete fucking boondoggle over there. A total boondoggle. And apparently they're also considering giving a similar loan to a company called Unusual Machines, which is a drone part manufacturer in Florida that, oh, who would have thunk it? Don Jr.'s on the board of it and owns like millions of dollars worth of shares. So yeah, it's uh all on the up and up. Also, Ben, um, we talked on the show a couple times about how the Trump organization got this sweetheart deal to build a bunch of real estate, including a golf course in Vietnam. Uh the Financial Times reported that families in northern Vietnam are digging up the graves of their relatives in order to accommodate the Trump org's $1.5 billion luxury golf club hotel and villa project that's going to be built there. Uh you'll be surprised to learn that uh some locals are not thrilled about uprooting the cemetery, but that's a price doing business these days. If you want to police dear leader, you got to dig up your uncle's grave or whatever so he can have his golf course. And just to draw the continuum, right, the the backstory in this is Liberation Day happens. Trump announces this huge terraf on Vietnam conspicuously around the same time, this golf course deal is announced with I think Eric Trump. Uh, and here we are fast forward and we're digging up graves, right? So this is all a case where like the the the power of the United States, this is not just a country trying to graciate itself. The power of the United States was leveraged via tariffs. The strategy for managing those tariffs by the other country was let's kind of wink wink like approve this golf course. You know, it doesn't have to be the it's Vietnam. It's like a one party state. I'm sure that this development doesn't happen without the government being involved. All I'll say, Tommy, is I think whatever karma is gonna accrue to the Trump family for digging up Vietnamese graves is not good. Oh bad intergenerational energy. Doesn't go well. Very bad intergenerational energy coming their way. So maybe that's where they'll pay the price. Yeah, even Ivana is buried on a golf course somewhere in a Trump resort, and that yeah, it's probably done well. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. Um , we're gonna take a quick break. Uh but we come back, you're gonna hear Ben's interview with Aya Ibrahim about artificial intelligence, what's coming down the pike, the Trump administration's uh efforts or lack there of to regulate it so stick around for that very very important topic the world is brought to you by helix uh sleep is maybe the most important thing we all do every day for our health. A good night's sleep for me means a great day, usually. Uh a bad night's sleep can be uh just ruin the entire thing. You wake up in the morning, you feel terrible, and you just know you're not gonna be as sharp as you wanna be, you're not gonna be as happy as you wanna be, you eat worse, you feel worse. It just sucks. And one key to getting a good night's sleep is a great mattress. Helix can help because they deliver mattresses right to your door with free shipping in the US. And how do you know if the mattress is right for you? 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Helix sleep dot com slash world All right, I'm very pleased to be joined by Eia Ibrahim, who is a senior fellow at the AI Now Institute and a former White House and State Department Advisor in the B iden administration. Likewise, thanks for having me. So you and I have been talking about having this conversation about AI for a little bit. And I think that the encyclical by Pope Leo presents a good opportunity for jumping off point. And actually, we also got a executive order from the Trump administration today. But I wanted to start with that encyclical that was released last week, in which uh the Pope tried to apply a humanistic lens to AI, which has notably been missing uh from the creators of it uh all too often. He talked about the need for regulation. He raised issues like um the risk of AI uh in warfare, uh obviously the risk of job look dislocation, and also just kind of the risk to our humanity from the kind of omnipresence of this uh technology. Uh uh let's just begin with a kind of broad question uh about what you thought about the encyclical. Um how important do you think it was? What influence do you think it can reasonably uh be expected to have? Well, you know, you're always going to be excited when something this big comes out that confirms a lot of your priors. But you know, I would say look, like engineers can and do build systems, but it's always been humanities that the humanities have built and sustained societies. And the Pope's entry into this conversation, I think, is so critical because there is this vacuum of moral authority and moral leadership on the questions of AI and what it's going to do to the world, even though it has such profound moral implications and you know, the question of human dignity and the value of our labor and the value of our lives. I mean, he seems to be the only person who is taking these guys at their word about their desire to renegotiate the social contra ct. And one thing, you know, we we have talked about that I find a bit frustrating is that we treat moral authority having the moral high ground and and exercising power is almost these mutually exclusive things. But the Pope stepping in here is a demonstration of actually the point of moral authority is to create space for you to exercise power in service of your vision for a more moral and just world. And and so you've worked on um I want to talk about a couple more questions about the the Pope. Uh and you've worked on, I should say, foreign policy and on on AI policy. So you're kind of uniquely positioned to to talk about this part of it. I mean, one thing that struck me is the timing. I mentioned this last week that it was, you know, probably not intentional but notable that this encyclical came right after the summit between uh Xi Jinping and uh Donald Trump. Kind of was a big nothing burger on AI. You know, the the people who watch AI, like you and me, were kind of expecting maybe something. And all we got was like a promise that they might talk about it. I'm wondering if you could talk to people about what the vacuum is that the Pope is trying to fill. Like, do you see any leaders globally who are br inging both a moral and policy lens to these enormous challenges from AI that we're all kind of feeling. Uh do you think that uh the you know, maybe this is a leading question, but I mean, to what extent did the Pope step into a gigantic vacuum or do you think there are other voices that have been putting forward constructive ideas? So I think he has been the most clear about the entire picture, right? So there's the political economy questions that he tackles, again, that this is about the allocation of resources and capital and labor and energy and so on, and what that means for people's sort of station in their own, in their own societies and in their own econom ies. He talks about the moral pieces. He talks about the spiritual ones. So, you know, there's like a very holistic kind of approach that only very few people I think can can take in the way that he did. That being said, there is such a culture of fear and frankly, like learned helplessness among our policymakers here in the United States when it comes to questions of technology and technology policy. It's as if if they themselves cannot build it, they can't code it, then they don't get to have a leading role in what this technology looks like and how it shows up in our lives. And the reality is that like our energy and commerce committee is not stacked with chemists, but yet we have members of Congress that sit on that committee that oversees the FDA and prescription drugs. So I don't really understand why there's such hesitation. You know, more recently, Representative Alexandria Ocas io-Cortez and Representative uh excuse me, Senator Sanders, they have their data center bill, which had some respons es from uh members in other parts of the party that felt like it was kind of a letdite approach to uh this question. I think people are are trying, but there's like there are structural constraints to how we would have the conversation here in the US. And then as it relates to the rest of the world, if most of the compute sits here, it's really on us to figure it out. And you know, the EU has had their conversations, but it's it's the United States and it's China. Yeah. I mean, it it's a good point in the sense that there have been efforts. The European Union passed an AI Act um that would have imposed a regimen for reviewing models before the release. But at the end of the day, and Rishi Sunik actually had an AI safety summit at the end of his tenure as British Prime Minister. But at the end of the day, it's the US and China. And to your point, there's just a remarkable deference to the uh leaders of tech companies in this country, as if they're the only ones who understand it. I was curious, you know, one last thing on the Pope. I was curious what you made of the participation, the kind of clear influence uh of an anthropic co-founder, Christopher Olah, on the um announcement of the encyclical. Um, you know, on the one hand, I'm glad to see, you know, anthropic um uh advocating for regulation and you know working with the Pope. Um on the other end they obviously have a you know they're also going public as a company. Um what what do you think because you actually obviously do need some participation from these people. What how do you think the role the relationship between governments, regulators, and these tech company leaders h what would be a healthy And and also just kind of what did you make of the participation of an anthropic co-founder and in essentially the Pope's rollout of his encyclical? Yeah. I mean it's pretty consistent with the whole shtick of like we are the good guys and I think the key here is you're all just guys. These are all companies that all have a bottom line. Many of them are rushing to IPO. So there are financial incentives here and I don't want to assign like some greater nobility because fundamentally you're building a technology that you're saying might destroy the world and we shouldn't have feelings about it because hey, at least you told us and you said that you wanted to do the right thing, but you're definitely going to make money off of this technology either way. Um I think on the balance and the or imbalances, I guess, in the relationship between governments, regulators, these companies. I think that's a good segue to the executive order that was issued today, which is entirely voluntary. Again, it's like would love a preview of your potentially world-ending technology, but like no pressure if not. And I to me, that does not feel consistent with what they themselves has have named as the potential impacts of this technology. Like you're not asking someone on a date, you are asking for oversight over technology they themselves have said will change the way that we are interact with one another, that we structure our economy and our societies and our our government s, like our world. And that's to say nothing of the actual characters at the helm of this ecosystem, which we should talk about that at some point too. Yeah. I mean, they that some of these people don't inspire a ton of confidence. Uh I mean on the executive order, um, it's interesting to me because uh it's been a journey and just to can catch people up, not everybody follows the twists and turns of this that closely, but uh there's an executive order in the Biden administration that similarly was focused on trying to set up a framework wherein new models are uh the government has access to them before they're released. Um then the Trump administration comes in, uh David Sachs has made the AI Zar, he's one of the guys maybe we should talk about. Um and all they care about is essentially removing any guardrails, any regulation. JD Vance flies to Europe and gives a speech scolding them for caring about AI safety, saying that it's innovation, not safety that should be driving this. And then Anthropic has a new model coming out, Mythos, that was so powerful that it freaked everybody out because nobody thought that they could defend against potential, you know, cyber attacks from mythos, for instance. And that seemed to have propelled this executive order. Although to your point, it seems like it was pretty watered down. I I guess my the question is um what what do you think this executive order matters and and what would a credible policy look like? Like let's say you're you're you're David Sachs, right? I mean David Sachs, but but let's say you're in that role as AI Zar. Um w what kind of elements do you think you you'd want to look for in an in in an actual credible start at regulation. Well when the mythos stuff was first happening, I, you know, having a a background in financial regulation too, I just thought it would be so funny if the reason that we got AI regulation is because the banks were now exposed. And that's because they're exposed to cyber attack, right? Like that's the thing that freaked them out. Yeah. And you know, they met with the Treasury Secretary and with the Fed chair. And it's this whole big to-do, but at the end of the day, they may end up releasing it anyway. So again, this tech that's so dangerous, but there's always a path to making some money off of it. In terms of what you know an ideal framework would be, I would just take a step back and say that questions of technology policy are often about everything but the tech itself. And so we have more fundamental questions about one, the way that we value and compensate and and tax capital versus labor, the way that we protect or don't Americans' privacy, the the use of technology for purposes of of surveillance and targeting and enforcement, it is not going to be can limited to, okay, this is how much compute this model can have . How do you apply it? What are the consequences ? And what are the structural and systematic questions or issues that this raises independent of the technology? And, you know, one of the things that I worked on when I was in the at the White House was the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. And it lays out five things that should hold true regardless of the technology or its application. And so having a rights-based framework would be my go-to. But I think regardless, this technology is sort of a forcing function for a lot of the issues that we haven't dealt with, whether it's intellectual property or the fact that wages have not kept up with productivity for fifty years. So what you cause what you're saying is the there's a kind of lowest common denominator which the Trump year represents, which is like, yeah, like the government should be able to look at these things before they're released. Um and maybe raise some questions. Whereas actual regulation would ac look at different issues and basically say, we need to regulate for people's privacy, uh, we need to regulate for mass surveillance, we need to regulate for the capacity of AI to create a biological weapon, you know, putting on a national security hat, or we need to regulate for the capacity of AI to do offensive cyber. And to your point, like we also maybe need to tax these companies in a different way, um uh because right now they're making potentially trillions of dollars where uh ordinary people can't afford groceries. Um is that is that a fair like uh like you're you're smarter than me about this? Essentially the point is it like rather than just kind of some broad, yeah, we'll look at the model, it's more like let's kind of make a list of the things that the the the problems that are raised and have a tr you know an approach for each of th ose? Yeah. I mean it's it's looking at the like the underlying policy question itself and then whether or not you actually need an AI-specific answer for it. I mean, one of the things that these folks do over and over again is they say like this is a novel technology, but it's like the the issue itself is not new. If whether it's a person or an algorithm that has made a lending decision, if that lending decision is biased, then fair lending laws would apply. And they try to argue that actually, no, we have to, you know, relitigate settled matters because this technology itself is novel. And I think this just circles back to the broader push that they're making, like actually the social contract itself we need to renegotiate, which personally feels an insane premise and particularly insane given the specific cohort of people that are pushing for it. You're saying you don't want like the small collection of Silicon Valley AI investors and developers to rewrite the social contract? I I am saying that. Um you know, the one of the things that I thought was really important in the Pope's encyclical is he says that the technology is never neutral and it's always going to reflect those who devise it, those who finance it, those who regulate it, and those who use it. So I'm just thinking about like the people who are devising it and financing it, you know, you have characters across Silicon Valley and venture capital, men who brag about having zero introspection, you know, men who refer to people as meet computers, who have espoused all kinds of misogynistic and xenophobic rhetoric. And these are the people that we are supposed to entrust to design this technology that again will remake the world. No, thank you. I hear you on that. Um I do want to ask on a kind of a foreign policy angle to this, um, given uh potse of the world . Um there 's a I I think most people who work in foreign policy and national security policy, and and you and I have been kind of a a part of or adjacent to those fields, um, has kind of accepted the premise that there's an AI race between the United States and China that kind of conveniently overlaps with a lot of these uh you know hyperskillers and large language models in the sense of uh that we shouldn't put any guardrails on our development of this technology because we have to beat the Chinese Communist Party to it. Um and I'm wondering, uh and and similarly, there were policies in the Biden administration that were devoted to kind of restricting inputs into Chinese AI, like you know, uh uh export controls on certain chips and you know, advanced semiconductors. Do you I I feel like right now there's a rec onsideration of this happening. Um what what do you think about the frame of an AI race between the US and China? Is there is should we be thinking uh uh about a different paradigm for how to approach it. I can see why obviously you would want, you know, the US to have a technology that China is developing. Um, but I also kind of feel like who's actually winning this race other than the, you know, people with AI, which is a relatively small number of people here in in the the Chinese. I mean, how how are you thinking about that right now? I have always viewed it as a as a false choice, right? Like it's either our biggest companies or it's our biggest competitor, either we mean maintain our technological edge or we have privacy and competition and governance as if there can be like no no third option and this race paradigm it's like it feels like a race to the bottom because those who are driving the race are willing to sacrifice anything and everything, right? It's innovation at any cost, even if the in if the cost is democracy itself and increasingly humanity itself. And they themselves have gotten like And so do we win if we let, you know, seven guys decide the fate of this country, its capital markets, people's 401ks , the distribution of water and electricity. I don't know that that I don't feel like a winner in that instance. And and then allow Pete Hegseth to use AI for autonomous weaponry and and I guess, you know , you have had your own experiences with with emerging technology, right? Drones specifically. Knowing what we know and social media. I mean, and social media. Knowing what you know today, looking back, would you have considered a different approach to how we leverage the edge while we had it. And that is the that is the question that I think policymakers need to have front of mind . You hope, and we work towards having an edge for as long as possible, but you should not policy make on the assumption that that edge has no end. I'm really glad you raised this because the answer is yes, obviously, on on on drones and and social media, uh where I actually think some the Obama administration should should get more flack in some ways. But let's drones is a great example because part of what we've also learned that could be replicated with AI, right, is that we had this, you know, the US had this advantage, we were at ahead of everybody. But part of what's happened now is if you look at Iran, they're making cheap drones that have done extraordinary damage to the US presence across the Middle East and probably contributed to their capacity to shut the street of Hormuz, in the sense that they don't need a big fancy, expensive drone like American defense contractors make. Like they can make this in their garage. Something similar may happen with A I, right? Where um, you know, if there's no thought put into how this technology goes out in the world, maybe you don't need all the compute power that the US and China have, but in a few years, people people could be doing incredibly disruptive things, right, with pretty cheap open sourced uh uh technology. That's exactly right. You don't actually need the most powerful or the largest model in order to do damage or to do harm if that's your intention. You can do quite a bit of harm with a fairly simple and uh and small model. And we I think over indexed our focus on the largest model, because again, we're just in the competition frame, as opposed to like, do we have baseline like constraints and safeguards on traditional and conventional means of of doing harm or or conducting conflict and warfare because the technology is just going to reflect or exacerbate what's already there. Like AI will give you speed and scale to what you might already want to do. Well, one last question. I mean, because we can go on about this forever, but um you're you're with, you know, working with the AI Now Institute now, which is like does does research and and work on kind of developing uh understanding analysis of these things. If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably, you know, take an interest in, you know, geopolitics, foreign policy, um issues uh like that, and and probably are wondering about AI, but it's hard for people to keep up, you know, um and make sense of it all. Do you have any advice? What should people be look following? Whether that's people , places, publications, trends, like just, you know, I know this is a kind of broad question, but what would you tell someone who's like, you know what, uh I I I try to follow the news, but it's kind of hard to keep up on this AI stuff. Like do do you think there are particular places to go? Yeah, I mean it's like a bit like drinking out of a fire hose. I like the syndicate me wants to say, just follow the money. And I think that actually a lot of the story will be covered in the IPOs, in the invest ment, in all of the activity around data centers. Um, but I think that there are good uh public ations like uh The Verge and Wired, and they do really good reporting. Obviously, I have to plug AI now and a lot of the research that they're doing, and we will continue to do