#1697 The Trump World Order: Are we the Baddies?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Welcome to this episode of the (00:00):
undefined

(00:01):
award-winning Best of the Left Podcast.
It always bears repeating that theprogressive perspective on the state
of the world is not that everythingwas going just fine before Trump showed
up, but there's a world of differencebetween the leftist desire to improve
things and Trump's bull-in-a-China-shopforeign and economic policies.

(00:21):
Allow us to list the ways.
For those looking for a quick overview,the sources providing our Top Takes
in about 55 minutes today includes theTristan Snell Show, Democracy Now!,
It Could Happen Here, Jacobin Radio,WhoWhatWhy, The PBS NewsHour, the NPR
Politics podcast, and On the Media.
Then in the additional Deeper Diveshalf of the show, there will be more

in four sections (00:43):
Section A, Russia and Ukraine; followed by Section B, Trade
wars and tariffs; Section C, USAID;and Section D, US realignment and NATO.

TRISTAN SNELL - HOST, THE TRISTAN SNELL SHOW: What does he want to do? (00:56):
undefined
He wants to have a massfiring of ambassadors as well.
See that on page 174.
They want to have a huge freezeon foreign aid across the board.
That's just at the beginning.
Okay.
So a mass firing of ambassadors at thebeginning of a new Trump administration
next January would cripple ourability to conduct foreign policy,

(01:19):
it would send a terrible message toour allies all over the world, to
adversaries all over the world too, thatbasically, we're asleep at the switch.
If you're just going to get rid of all ofthe ambassadors, rather than having some
of them stay on until you can replacethem through the normal senatorial
approval process, you're just goingto get rid of them and then have some
sort of deputy ambassador that Trumpappointed who didn't get confirmed by

(01:44):
the Senate actually running our foreignpolicy with regard to that country,
that is a very terrifying thought.
That is the way that you end up withdrastic lurches in foreign policy.
And also, it's going toit's a sign of weakness.
It's going to make America lookweak everywhere we do that.
It's going to make America lookweak that we don't have continuity,

(02:04):
that there's this jarring schismin how the foreign policy of this
country is going to be operated.
We can't have that.
We simply can't have it.
Even if you believe in a moreconservative foreign policy, this
is the exact opposite of that, too.
You can say, oh, we want amore hawkish foreign policy.
You might want to say, oh, youwant to be tougher on China.

(02:26):
Pick what you want.
Okay.
You might have a differentposition on how you would handle
foreign policy in the world.
Okay.
What you never want is to showa vacuum, is to show weakness.
So this isn't about making America strong.
This is about making thegovernment loyal to Donald Trump.
Make no mistake about it.
That's what's really going on here.
Ending foreign aid for a time?

(02:47):
Again, awful.
It would sacrifice America'srole in leadership in the world.
It creates a vacuum that a countrylike China or Russia can fill.
Or Iran, but especially China and Russia.
That's the last thing that we shouldwant, is to suddenly say, oh, all you
countries that rely on American aid,we're not going to, we're just going

(03:07):
to stop all foreign aid just becausea new president comes into office.
All of that money is goingto stop coming to you.
What message does thatsend to these countries?
And then if I'm theChinese, it's well, great.
That's perfect.
We're just going toswoop into that vacuum.
You can't have a vacuum becauseanother country can fill it.
If we stop exercising our leadership rolein the world, it will still be filled.

(03:29):
It's going to get filledby a different country.
China, first and foremost, Russiasecondarily, although they don't have
as many of the resources and cloutas we thought that they did; that's
been exposed by their completelyhumiliating attempt to invade Ukraine.
Speaking of Ukraine, theywant to end aid to Ukraine.
Let's just be crystal clear.
Now we're getting intothe real heart of this.

(03:50):
They want to end aid to Ukraine.
They do not recognize Russia as an enemy.
Check out page 182.
So, there's occasionally beenattempts by Trump to maybe
have it both ways on Ukraine.
Same for a lot of his cronies.

But make no mistake about it (04:04):
in Project 2025, they make it clear.
Ukraine would get cut off.
It would be over.
And we would effectively be lettingthe Russians take the country.
Even though Ukraine is very,very much winning the war.
That's very obvious.
And this is one of the most successful-- I'm just going to say, triumphant

(04:24):
foreign policy moves, militarymoves by America in decades.
This has been an absolutely wonderfulslam dunk of a foreign policy move to
be funding Ukraine, exposing Russianweakness, causing this deterioration
of the Russian military apparatus,of the Russian industrial apparatus.
And it's not because America had toactually go and send in the Marines

(04:48):
into part of Russia or part of Ukraine.
That is a triumph in foreign policy.
And we're going to reverse it bythen basically saying, you know what?
We know Ukraine, we know you'rewinning the war, but you know what?
We're just going to cut you off nowand just let the Russians take you.
That would be one of thebiggest catastrophes, maybe
the biggest catastrophe inAmerican foreign policy ever.

(05:09):
Ever.
I can't really think of anotherone that would be that bad.
But that would be taking somethingthat has become a victory for us,
an emerging one, knock on wood.
It could change.
But right now it has continued to looklike a victory every day that that war
goes on and Ukraine keeps on gettingmore ground and defending itself better
and better is a net win for America andfor the West and for the whole world,

(05:32):
for every country in the free world.
And yet the Project 2025 DonaldTrump, they would end aid to Ukraine
and just let the Russians come in.
You have Russian tanks in Kyiv.
Zelensky would get assassinated.
You would have masskidnapping, deportation.
They've already done this.
We think there could be hundreds ofthousands, if not millions of women

(05:54):
and children that have already beenabducted and forcibly moved to Russia.
You'd see even more of that.
It would be absolute hell on earthin Ukraine if the Russians end
up occupying the entire country.
And that's what Donald Trump wants to do.
And he wants to basicallysay, go ahead, Putin.
Roll right in, as he putit a couple of months ago.
Do whatever you want.
We surrender.

(06:15):
Go ahead and retake Eastern Europe.
Rebuild the Eastern Blocfrom the communist days.
That is what Donald Trumpwants to let Vladimir Putin do.
It doesn't end there.
They want to end aid to the Kurds.
They want to cut off all aid to Africa.
These would be huge reversals oflong standing American foreign policy

(06:35):
that we really cannot tolerate.
This is such a drastic turn comparedto any other administration,
Republican or Democratic, of thelast 20 years, 50 years, 80 years.
Then get to page 191, where they're alittle bit vague about it, they're a
little bit Insinuating more than stating,but there's a very clear sign there about

(06:56):
Donald Trump and Project 2025 wanting tocut off American participation in NATO.
And this would just be, it wouldbe the end of, we would effectively
be saying, you know what?
We liked winning the cold war.
We liked winning World War II.
But let's just go aheadand reverse those things.
The international order that Americahelped build in the ashes of World

(07:17):
War II, yeah, forget about that.
We don't care about that anymore.
So forget NATO.
NATO's colossal success as a defensiveorganization to protect Europe from
Soviet predation and aggression?
Nope, forget it.
That was a great success, bipartisan, frompresidents from Truman to Reagan to Biden.

(07:42):
But forget about that.
We're just going to we surrender.
We're just going to take the Americanflag wherever it flies in any place
in that part of the world in anyembassies, any military bases, and
just replace it with a white flag.
That's what you're going to do.
You're going to just say, you knowwhat, bring back the hammer and
sickle, bring back the marcheson Red Square, bring back Stalin.
Bring back Khrushchev.

(08:04):
That's what you're doing if we do that.
We are basically letting the Kremlinrun Eastern Europe and be knocking on
the doorstep of Western Europe again.
If we get out of NATO, the rest ofthe world instantly becomes less safe.
No one will ever believe Americaever again for any alliance,
for any military protection.
We will be sending a clear message.

(08:25):
These people talk aboutwanting to fight China.
If you get out of NATO, what do you thinkthe Japanese are going to think about us?
What do you think the Koreansare going to think about us?
What do you think the Taiwaneseare going to think about us?
China's going to look at us pullingout of NATO and be like, that's it.
They're pulling back.
The whole tough on China thingthat the Trump people like to say
is complete and utter bullshit.

(08:46):
It is a talking point that they like,because they know it sounds good
to their base because their base isfundamentally xenophobic and views
China as a threat, as an alien other.
But that's the only reason theyactually pretend to be tough on China.
They're not tough on China.
Tough on China is America standingby its alliances, standing
by its military commitments.

(09:07):
And not letting any of thosedown, not letting down our guard.
If you start pulling out of NATO, the restof our military alliances and protection
arrangements will not be believed anymore.
We will lose all credibility.
And our enemies, like China, likeRussia, like Iran, like North
Korea are going to light up.
They're going to think, that's it.
Trump is pulling them back.

(09:28):
They are going home.
It is isolationism.
And it's exactly what the enemies ofAmerica from within wanted to do back
in the thirties, the first time somebodyran around saying America First.
It was a fifth column inside thiscountry that was backed in part by the
German government to try to intercedein American domestic politics, to

(09:52):
influence her foreign policy, and tokeep America from entering World War II,
to keep America from being a deterrentor a threat against Germany and its
aspirations to control much of the world.
Okay, that is what was going on backin the thirties with America First, and
it's what Trump is wanting to do today.
It is a -- we know howfriendly he is with Russia.

(10:14):
We we don't know exactlywhat the arrangement is.
Maybe we're never going to know.
But we don't need to know the specifics.
We just need to see the results.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
And we know that Trump ispro-Kremlin all the way.
And the Project 2025 proposalsmake that even more clear.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW! (10:31):
As you look at what’s happening at USAID,
the complete dismantling of this agency,can you share your critique of the
agency, but what you think must be done?

KATHRYN MATHERS (10:45):
Yes, I referenced Teju Cole’s framing of the
humanitarian-industrial complex, because Ithink USAID is very much part of a system
and industry that not only depends onglobal inequality, global suffering, but
in many ways produces it, reproduces it.
So, I have for a long time critiquedthis system and these structures,

(11:09):
because I do think they do offermore harm than the good that they
are trying to or claiming to do.
I think that
this is a complex that renders thecauses of global inequality invisible,
hiding the ways that often U.S. policies,U.S. trade agreements and other forms

(11:35):
of sort of extractive capitalism areoften the causes of these crises, these
challenges that people aroundthe world have, that then aid
steps in to help or to solve.
But, in fact, it’s not solving it at all,because it’s making sure that we never,

ever are asking questions (11:54):
Why is it that the United States has the resources, has
the power to help in this way, while otherpeople are often suffering in ways that
are caused by the U.S.’s own policies?
And it’s that sort of paradox that Iwas trying to grapple with, because,

(12:14):
of course, suddenly taking away whatare in fact necessary, as we just
heard earlier in the show, necessaryprograms that help people who need
help, is certainly just a bull in achina shop and doing, again, only harm.

(12:36):
So, it is, for me, a complicatedparadox, because if I argued for any
kind of changes, it would be that acountry like the U.S. should be offering
reparations for the climate damage thatthey’ve done in the Global South in
the interest of their own economies,in the interest of their own lifestyle.
And certainly, one would like tosee a sort of thoughtful set of

(13:05):
plans and questions around what isit — what is it that a country like
the U.S. is doing to produce thiskind of inequality, to produce or
reproduce the inability of countrieslike South Africa, for example,
in making its own HIV medicationand providing it to its people.

(13:26):
And so, there is this danger, I think, of— produced by the humanitarian-industrial
complex that allows people to go,“Well, we’re doing the right thing.
We’re doing a good thing,” but allowsthem to feel OK about their implication,
their participation in a system that,in fact, helps to produce and reproduce

(13:48):
that poverty or that inequality.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: You have worked with USAID-funded (13:50):
undefined
projects in adult literacy andvoter education in South Africa.
And you write that the work was largelydependent on Western donor funding, but,
quote, “it always came with strings,especially the money from USAID.” What
kind of strings are you talking about? Howdo you think USAID’s goal is ultimately

(14:11):
about supporting the U.S. economy?
And that’s a really interesting point.
People may not realize, for example,that millions and millions of dollars
go to peanut farmers in the UnitedStates to provide a substance that
goes to babies and children tofight malnutrition, but the money
doesn’t go to those other countries.

(14:31):
It goes directly tothe farmers in the U.S.

Exactly.
And certainly, USAID does not makeany — is not deluded about this.
It works in the interest of the UnitedStates and of the U.S. economy and of
its own sort of sense of self in theworld, at least before this month.
But

(14:56):
a large, a large amount of its budget,small as it is, in fact, as you just
described, goes back to U.S. industries,to U.S. farmers, to U.S. manufacturers.
And even with a small project like ours,which is not buying anything, so we get
to use that — we got to use that moneyon our programming, a large amount of it

(15:20):
goes to the auditors in D.C., for example.
So, it is a sort of cycle of, you know,we’re giving you money for this, but much
of it ends up coming back to the U.S. Andin fact, it does its job of supporting
sort of U.S. interests, to a large degree.
The other sort of set of strings,in a way, was that it was never
really possible for an organizationlike us to just do our work.

(15:46):
Project Literacy had a sustainable,working structure that was doing
really good adult basic education,literacy, numeracy, financial education.
But to just get funding from an agencylike USAID, and it’s certainly not unique
in this way, was almost impossible.

(16:08):
You know, give us fundingto do the work we really do.
We can prove we do it.
It’s really successful.
And so, every six months, you’re writingfunding proposals that are bending our
work into the current sexy languageabout what matters in aid or development.

(16:29):
And what matters in aid ordevelopment is decided in D.C.,
in New York, in London, in Geneva.
It’s not decided on the groundwhere people are doing the work.
And there’s thisreluctance to support that.

I wanted to ask you, Professor Mathers,
about the history of critiquing USAID inmany parts of the world, when it’s been
used, for example, as a front for the CIA.
I’d like to mention a coupleof examples from Latin America.
Back in 2010, USAID covertly funded aTwitter-like social media platform in
Cuba to spark a “Cuban Spring,” with thehope of bringing down the government.

(17:01):
Last week, the Pulitzer Prize-winningauthor and historian Greg Grandin spoke
to Al Jazeera’s UpFront about USAID.
This is what he said.

GREG GRANDIN (17:01):
AID is a perfect expression of a kind of — the
fusion of hard and soft power.
I mean, it does all of — it doesimportant and humane work and, I think,
was funding the only working hospitalleft in Gaza, things like that, and
dispensing medicines in Africa, butit was also the agency in which — that
funded “democracy promotion” programs.
And these were all — you know, when theNational Endowment for Democracy, which
operates under AID, was founded in 1983under the Reagan administration, the first
director of it said, “We do in the openwhat the CIA used to do covertly,” meaning
that they fund oppositional groups.
… When in countries that are out-and-out,you know, dissenting from U.S.
hegemony — say, Bolivia — you fundthese organizations that basically
raise the alarm that the country isheading toward dictatorship, and,
you know, it manipulates the press.
You know, in Bolivia, the reasonwhy that coup didn’t take hold is
because Evo Morales kicked out AID.

And you also have, for example, Peter Kornbluh
of the National Security Archive sayingamong the most infamous examples of USAID
funding was the Office of Public Safety,a USAID police training program in the
Southern Cone that also trained torturers.
We only have 20 seconds.
It’s not your total focus, but yourthoughts on how it’s been used?

I mean, I don’t have doubt that it’s been used that way.
I have no evidence of that.
It’s certainly in the conversationin South Africa, for example.
People would make those accusationsand be frustrated about that.
But I’m more interested in theway that this kind of agency
shuts down South Africa’s abilityto solve its own problems.
It doesn’t support that ability.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I think that is key. (17:42):
undefined
And we’re going to linkto the articles you write.

JAMES STOUT - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: So his previous foreign (17:45):
undefined
policy was a pretty mixed bag.
And he bombed the shit outof the Islamic State, right?
Cool.
Based.
He also bombed the shit out ofthousands of Syrian and Iraqi civilians.
Not so cool.
Also, we should note, not so differentfrom every other president this
century, bombing civilians has beenpretty much the through line of
American foreign policy in that partof the world for a very long time.

(18:08):
In particular, in the Trumpadministration, I want to talk
about, there was a single USstrike cell called Talon Anvil.
I think they were mainly CAG guysfrom what I read, so Delta Force
guys, Army Special Forces guys,who were making these decisions.
They hired an office building inSyria, and these guys were constantly
looking at drone feeds and variousother information and then calling

(18:29):
in strikes on various targets, right?
I'm not sure if they had the CAGguys in there watching computers.
I'm not entirely sure.
And well, didn't havesomeone else, who knows.
But this strike cell droppedmore than 120,000 bombs.

MIA LONG - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: Christ. (18:42):
undefined

JAMES STOUT - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: Yeah. (18:42):
undefined
The amount of ordinance wedropped on Syria is insane.
It circumvented procedures are in place toprevent civilian deaths in order to do so.
They had embedded lawyers who weresupposed to approve the strikes.
But these lawyers tried to raise the alarmthat some of these strikes were reckless.
They weren't hitting thingsthat were actual targets.
And they ran into anorganizational brick wall.

(19:04):
At some point, pilots evenrefused to engage targets
because they didn't think it was

MIA LONG - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: Jesus. (19:07):
undefined

JAMES STOUT - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: Yeah, which is, it's not usual. (19:08):
undefined

MIA LONG - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: Yeah, like that's been pretty fucked for (19:11):
undefined
a fighter pilot to be like, no, I don'tthink I've ever heard of that before.

JAMES STOUT - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: No, I, so I found this out in, what is it? (19:18):
undefined
I think it was the New York Times.
New York Times did a prettygood investigation, which
we linked in our sources.
And yeah, it's like a throwaway line,but I would love to hear more about that.
It could have been a drone pilot too,which is slightly different gig, if
you're sitting north of Las Vegas, they'reflying a drone kind of a different scene.
So in the battle to defeat theIslamic State, thousands of

(19:40):
innocent people lost their lives.
As we reached the end of that battle,Donald Trump, who was president
at the time, personally calledErdogan, who was the president of
Turkey at the time, in late 2018.
Trump asked Erdogan, "If wewithdraw our soldiers, can you
clean up ISIS?" That's the quote.
According to an unnamed Turkishofficial interviewed by Reuters,
Erdogan replied that Turkishforces were capable of the mission.

(20:02):
Quote, "Then you do it," Trump told him.
And his national security advisor, JohnBolton, who was also on the call to,
quote, "start work for the withdrawalof US troops from Syria," what this
resulted in was US troops pulling outfrom some locations in Syria, right?
Look, local people threw tomatoes at them.
Even worse than the tomatoes were the factthat it gave NATO's second largest army,

(20:23):
which is Turkey, of course, free reignto attack the autonomous administration
in northeast Syria, which it did in 2018.
It did again in 2019.
Those two operations have claimedconsiderable ground in Syria,
cost countless civilian lives,continue to perpetrate human rights
abuses, to rehabilitate peoplefrom ISIS and other jihadi groups,
says Turkish Free Syrian Army.
And, they killed some peoplewho were people I care about

(20:47):
and I continue to care about.
The cause of Rojava or autonomousadministration in northeast Syria very
deeply and it really fucking sucksto think about the potential of the
US abandoning those people again,not that Biden has done very much.
Now, I think this anecdote of what Trumpdoes with Erdogan tells us a lot about
his approach to foreign policy, which ishe really sees it as very transactional.

(21:10):
Which is no different fromeverything else he does, like
he's a very transactional person.
And he seems really only to be concernedabout what he can get out of it.
So in this case, I guess he wantsto say he brought US troops home
from Syria, like he's anti-war.
This is one of his thingshe says now, right?
He's prepared to also, in thecase of the bombing, right?
He's not so concerned with civiliancasualties as long as he can claim that

(21:32):
he was the one who defeated ISIS, right?
Obama couldn't do it.
He did it.
He did it on a pile of civilian remains.
And also using chiefly theSyrian Democratic Forces, right?
Not US forces.

MIA LONG - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: Yeah. (21:42):
undefined

JAMES STOUT - CO-HOST, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE: There were US forces on the ground. (21:43):
undefined
They were engaged in combat, butin minuscule numbers compared
to SDF, who lost 15,000 of theirchildren in a battle against ISIS.
I think Trump would be very willing toadmit that he's transactional, right?
That's his brand is like AmericaFirst and then fuck everyone else.
So I think he'll probably besimilar in this term, right?

(22:04):
He will act unilaterally.
He'll pivot whenever thefuck he feels like it.
He will continue with hisaffection for strong men and
dictators all around the world.

DENYS PILASH (22:12):
So eight years after unleashing hostilities with the
occupation of Crimea, Russia started afull scale imperialist war of choice.
And we remember that chilling dawnof February, 2022, exactly the same
time when Nazi planes were attackingthe same cities back in 1941.

(22:32):
And once again, an empire sought toerase our existence, our sovereignty and
any prospect of free and just Ukraine.
But they eventually failed withtheir hopes for a swift invasion.
And today we stand here, not justthe survivors, but the people who
continue to fight to live their lives,to rebuild and to dream of a Ukraine

(22:56):
that is liberated from chains of bothforeign tyranny, be it full fledged
imperialist or economic neocolonialistpower, and domestic injustice as well.
It should be noted that this Ukrainiandefiance, with the working class at the
core of the Ukrainian resistance, wasassisted by international solidarity.
And in many cases, thissolidarity was quite feasible.

(23:18):
So today I also wanted to convey ourgratitude to those in the international
leftist and labor movement who stood insolidarity and who continue to do this.
And our thanks from ourorganization, social movement, and
from our comrades in the unions.
Miners, construction, transportation,healthcare workers, like the latter
have their movement be like Nina.

(23:39):
also from individual militant unionistslike Yuri Samoylov and Alexander Skiba
from the Free Railway Workers Union.
And he asked me to thank you for yoursuccessful fundraiser that actually
helped to purchase generators, becausethey are literally saving lives.
There was a story about an elderlygrandma and one of the generators
was quite helpful becauseRussia never ceased attacking

(24:04):
Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
It never ceased attackingUkrainian energy infrastructure,
power stations, energy grids.
They often speak of peacenegotiations, but it was never
about proper talks on their side.
It was always about forcingUkraine to unconditional surrender.
Now we see that they do no goodfield gestures, just to show.

(24:27):
They instead are doubling downtheir attacks with drones, with
the missiles on Ukrainian cities.
And again, we can say that this wasdoubled down since Donald Trump was
elected because with his return to theWhite House, well, it was made clear
that Russia's Putin's impunity isdirectly fueling the rise of fascist
forces in other countries and vice versa.

(24:49):
So now we see that the most reactionarycircles of the ruling class, they feel
empowered by Putin, Trump, and they'recolluding this unholy alliance of Putin's
and global far-right neofascism, Trumpistreaction, and Moscowian oligarchy.
It seeks to reshape the worldinto this playground for the
ultra rich, ultra authoritarian.
So now you can see this multipolarity in action, the multi polarity

(25:13):
that Kremlin was talking a lot.
It's not about making the worldorder more democratic or equal.
It's about carving the world into spheresof influence of a handful of powers
with the worst of imperial ambitions.
Now their goal is for Ukraineto be left squashed by Putin.
While Trump can turn to hisridiculous expansionism in the Western
Hemisphere, unleashing hell on, Idon't know, Greenlanders, Mexicans,

(25:35):
Cubans, other Latin Americans.
So, while Ukraine isn't even allowedto the table where its future is
decided, so these forces of globalreaction, they do not simply conspire,
like in some smoke filled rooms.
They act actually in broad daylight.
They are just blatantly sabotaginginternational support, treating Ukraine's

(25:57):
fate as just a bargaining chip intheir power games and their appetites.
So just in the news, yes, wehad this information about the
resolution in the UN General Assemblythat was just voted, advancing a
comprehensive peace in Ukraine.
It was drafted by Ukraineand more than 50 co-sponsors.
So it still was voted by themajority of the UN members.

(26:19):
But the U S voted againsttogether with Russia, Israel.
North Korea, Orban's Hungary,a couple of military juntas.
So this seems like the, I don't know,the biggest crossover of Marvel villains.
Not even to speak about thesehorrendous claims that are made by the
billionaire president on a daily basis.
How even fact check a person whoseevery single statement, every digit he

(26:45):
comes up with, is just a made up lie.
So the worst of everything is, ofcourse, this mentioned so-called
deal that is essentially ablackmail on rare earth minerals.
But you can say that it'sabout the entirety of Ukrainian
resources and infrastructure.
So the terms of this so-called dealare reported to be worse than the

(27:05):
reparations that were imposed onlosing German side in World War I. This
just opens Ukraine for looting by UScapital in the future, but also it's
forcing retroactive payment on Ukraine.
Because they expect everyonebowing down without any objection.
So even the still very servileapproach of Zelensky's government,
it infuriates them because they can'tstand any sort of subjectivity agency.

(27:27):
And also what comes with their dealsis this hyper-capitalist vision.
So now we have the richest capitalist inthe world, who is literally destroying
the social security, public education,healthcare, and this Is a template to
be replicated throughout the world.
So if they succeed, we aregetting to even worse hell.
And in Ukraine as well, because evenmore deregulation, even more anti-labor

(27:50):
legislation to appease the US investors.
So now we also see that uber capitalistgoblins like Musk and JD Vance,
they declared war on democracies inEurope and worldwide, and also try to
install far right, ultra conservative,Quisling style governments everywhere.
So we see that our class enemies,oligarchs and dictators, are united.

(28:13):
So we should unite too.
Because the moment to actand resist is just now.
So far it seems that the resistanceboth internally in the US and
internationally stills atomized scarsand we need to really build this
network of solidarity, not just withUkraine but with the entirety of the
oppressed people throughout the world,and to raise this fight to a new level.

(28:34):
Because essentially this may actuallylead us not just to betraying
Ukraine, but essentially to losingany prospects for progressive
development throughout the world.

JEFF SCHECHTMAN - HOST, WHOWHATWHY PODCAST: Where does NATO fit into (28:44):
undefined
all of this right now?

SAM RAMANI (28:47):
Well, NATO right now is in a period of severe crisis.
One of the things that we foundreally interesting back in 2022 was
the notion that NATO actually cametogether and actually coalesced
for the most part around Ukraine.
There were obviously a few members whowere more recalcitrant, like Hungary,
which didn't supply arms to Ukraine,and Slovakia, which now claims it

(29:07):
doesn't supply arms to Ukraine, but hasdefense companies on the ground that
do work with the Ukrainian military.
But for the most part,the alliance was cohesive.
NATO actually was able to expand duringthe war by bringing in Sweden and
Finland over the objections of Turkeyand Hungary over the course of time.
And now all that solidarity, all thatcohesion, all that strength seems to have
frittered away and given way to weakness.
Because there's this fundamentaldivide between the United States

(29:29):
and Europe on how to proceed.
I think in the long run, it's stillpossible that NATO could end up
stronger from this moment, becauseEuropean countries will just be
able to spend more on defense.
European countries will be able to spend,for example, Britain will be looking at
going from 2.5 percent to 3 percent ofGDP, Germany might eventually be compelled

(29:49):
to lift the debt break, which restrictsits deficit spending, to spend more
on the military, the Poles are alreadytaking their defense spending up to 5%.
So it's possible that NATO in theend could emerge stronger from this
rift because European countriesstart spending a lot more on defense.
But that's a long term thing.
Right now, the cohesion and the solidarityhas been severely tested, and it does
appear as if the Russians and the Chineseare achieving their long term goal,

(30:12):
which is to separate the transatlanticalliance and pit the U. S. against Europe.

JEFF SCHECHTMAN - HOST, WHOWHATWHY PODCAST: Does all of this represent some (30:16):
undefined
broader shift away from the decadesold idea of collective security and
mutual alliances, that we're nowlooking at everybody for themselves?

SAM RAMANI (30:27):
Well, I think that that's certainly played a part.
I think that's certainlynow the guiding doctrine of
American foreign policy, right?
It seems to be transactionalism andAmerica First means just looking
out for what the narrow interestsof the United States and not
really looking after your allies.
It seems to be questioning the very notionof alliances and lasting partnerships.
So yeah, I think that this isa very significant change that

(30:47):
we've seen coming from this.
But it may also leave about thiscrisis, not just us European one.
There's also a crisis withinEurope for alliances too.
France and Germany have fundamentallydifferent visions on the collective
security system inside Europe and NATO,from things ranging from the French
nuclear umbrella to the Sky Shielddefense system to where to invest.

(31:08):
And also when you look at pollingnumbers, you see only maybe 15 or 20
percent of people in Britain or Franceor Germany, especially those who are
under the age of 50, would be willingto volunteer as troops or see their
country's troops deployed in the event ofa Russian invasion of, let's say, Germany.
Not that many people in Britainor France will want to send their
conscription at home and sendtroops on behalf of their allies.

(31:29):
So there's a crisis of alliances, notjust being in the US and Europe, but
there's also a crisis at a popularlevel within the European Union and
within European countries of NATO.
So it's a problem that extends wellbeyond Trump, even if Trump is the
leading poster child of that phenomenon.

JEFF SCHECHTMAN - HOST, WHOWHATWHY PODCAST: And what underlies Putin's attitude (31:43):
undefined
at this point and the potential ofRussian, further Russian aggression?

SAM RAMANI (31:50):
I think that Vladimir Putin is viewing the latest developments,
obviously, with a lot of confidenceand with a lot of strength.
The Russian media was repletewith celebrations after the Oval
Office meeting against Zelensky.
I even saw the Russian foreign ministryspokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, quip,
they were surprised that Vance andTrump didn't start hitting Zelensky
in some kind of an old, 1990sRussian-style parliamentary brawl.

(32:14):
And we saw a lot of confidencenow to even reject the European
conference out of hand.
The Russian response to the London summitwas that it was just leading to more
war and it wasn't really a peace summit.
So the Russians are feeling prettystrong and emboldened by their position.
But can they actually convert thatconfidence and that strength of
character into military success?

(32:35):
That's where it provesa lot more difficult.
Because the Russians are still havingto bring in a second tranche of North
Korean forces to prevail in Kursk.
Those North Korean forces maywell have learned more about drone
technology because the Russians havebeen spreading JIRN 2 technologies
to them, which JIRN 2 are the kindof versions of Iranian drones.
They may have learned a little bitmore about moving in smaller units

(32:56):
and having more tactical adaptations,but they'll still suffer heavy
casualties and the Russians alsowill suffer heavy casualties there.
The Russians are stillgrinding in Donetsk.
They're making incremental gainsvillage by village, inch by inch,
but they can't even take over fullythe logistical hub of Pokrovsk,
which is what they need to be able toadvance in Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.
And any hopes of the Russians takingover Kharkiv or making some kind of

(33:16):
gains in the Zaporizhia zone or thefront line do not appear to be realistic.
The Russians are trying to attack Sumy,as I mentioned earlier, and Putin bragged
of this brand new offensive, which theUkrainians denied, but there's still
a long way from being able to actuallymake a breakthrough in that region,
which they took earlier in the war andthey lost, to be able to cut off the
Ukrainians logistically from Kursk.
So right now I see the Russianshaving a lot of confidence, but

(33:38):
it's not really bearing out on thebattlefield because the Russians cannot
really make anything more than veryincremental gains at immense casualties.
And also, it's important to keep in mindthat Russia's resources are not infinite.
This narrative that Russia is defacto winning the war and Ukraine
is losing, I think is misleading.
Neither side is winning.
That's really the point I want to make.
The Russians are not only losingunsustainable large numbers of

(34:01):
casualties without a full, generalmobilization, which is going to be
highly unpopular, but the Russian wareconomy is also weaker than we assumed.
It withstood the sanctions betterthan we thought in 2022 and 2023,
but already we're starting to seea potential declining growth to
the one, one and a half percentrange to the 2 to 3 percent range.
We're seeing inflation continue tosoar in the high double digits in the

(34:22):
major cities on consumer goods, eventhough interest rates are at 21%.
This is not a sustainable economy.
And the Russian war economy could haveserious cracks or even see serious
signs of strain if the Europeansintensify sanctions on oil and on
other forms of revenue like theshadow fleet over the coming year.
So Putin has got a lot of reasonsto celebrate, but the picture

(34:44):
is not rosy for him at all.
It's actually quite murky because ofthe losses of Russian lives, their
inability to make major gains on thebattlefield, and the ticking time
bomb that is the Russian war economy.

MICHAEL WLATZ (34:55):
After 10 days of US pressure on Ukraine following a disastrous
Oval Office meeting, Today, the USand Ukraine appear to be back in sync.

ANCHOR, PBS NEWSHOUR (35:03):
Following a meeting in Saudi Arabia, the US has restarted
military and intelligence aid to Ukraine,and the US will present a joint US/Ukraine
proposal to Moscow for a ceasefire.
Here's Nick Schifrin with more.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: In Saudi Arabia today, a breakthrough. (35:16):
undefined

CLIP MIKE WALTZ (35:18):
The Ukrainian delegation today made something very clear, that they
share President Trump's vision for peace.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz (35:26):
undefined
alongside, secretary of State Marco Rubio,met with their Ukrainian counterparts for
seven and a half hours, and after saidthe US and Ukraine were on the same page.

CLIP MARCO RUBIO (35:36):
Today, we made an offer that the Ukrainians have
accepted, which is to enter intoa ceasefire and into immediate
negotiations to end this conflict ina way that's enduring and sustainable.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: In exchange, the US agreed to lift a (35:46):
undefined
pause on military aid and intelligencecooperation to the Ukrainian military.

CLIP DONALD TRUMP (35:52):
The big difference between the last visit you saw
at the Oval Office and the so.
That's a total ceasefire.
Ukraine has agreed to it andhopefully Russia will agree to it.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: That tone... (36:03):
undefined

CLIP DONALD TRUMP (36:03):
You're gambling with the lives of millions of people.
You're gambling with World War III.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: A far cry from, and perhaps a (36:09):
undefined
rehabilitation after the February28th Oval Office train wreck.
Ukrainian president VolodymyrZelenskyy spoke tonight.

CLIP ZELENSKYY (36:18):
Ukraine is ready for peace.
Russia must also show whether it'sready to end the war or continue it.
The time has come for the whole truth.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: Later this week, senior advisor Steve (36:26):
undefined
Witkoff will travel to Moscow to meetwith Russian President Vladimir Putin to
present the joint US/Ukraine proposal.

The best goodwill gesture the Russians
can provide is to say yes.
To say yes to the offer that theUkrainians have made to stop the shooting,
to stop the fighting and get to the table.
If they say no, then we'll unfortunatelyknow what the impediment is to peace here.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: And that was a crucial rhetorical (36:47):
undefined
shift today, acknowledging Ukraine'sperspective and requests for
long term military assistance.

Real negotiations to end this conflict in a way that's
acceptable to both sides, sustainable,and that ensures the stability and
security of Ukraine for the long term.

JOHN HERBST (37:02):
As long as it's not undercut by the next step in Moscow, it's a good
day which has historic significance.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: John Herbst is the former US Ambassador (37:09):
undefined
to Ukraine and the senior director ofthe Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center.
So far, Russia has shown nopublic willingness to drop its
Maximalist goals in Ukraine.
And earlier today, foreign minister SergeiLavrov mocked Zelenskyy as a war monger.

CLIP (37:26):
Mr. Zelenskyy publicly declares that he does not want a truce until
the United States guarantees that inthe event that something happens, they
will bomb Russia with nuclear weapons.

JOHN HERBST (37:35):
I don't think Putin wants to agree to the ceasefire.
He wants to take more Ukrainian territory.
He wants to establish effectivecontrol over Ukraine, which he cannot
do if he accepts the ceasefire.
We'll see if he crosses Trump now, andmaybe more important, what President
Trump does if Putin obviously andpublicly refuses to make peace
on the basis of this proposal.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: Guaranteeing that peace (37:55):
undefined
will fall mostly on Europe.
Today, French President EmmanuelMacron hosted military leaders who are
developing plans to support Ukraine'smilitary for the next 15 years, said
French Defense Minister Sébastien.

CLIP (38:08):
Lecornu.
Since 2008, we saw the Russianstrategy in action, with unfortunately
ceasefires that haven't been respected.
We will refuse any form ofdemilitarization of Ukraine.

NICK SCHIFRIN - REPORTER, PBS NEWSHOUR: But until there's an agreed (38:21):
undefined
ceasefire, the war rages.
Overnight, Ukraine launchedits largest drone attack into
Russia in three years of war.
Ukraine's been trying to bring thewar to regular Russians bedrooms.
Literally, drones hit insideapartments in the Moscow suburbs.
But Russia is making its own gains,raising the Russian tricolor over

(38:43):
a village in the Russian regionof Kursk that since the summer
had been occupied by Ukraine.
Earlier this week, Russian soldierssaid they walked through a nine mile
long natural gas pipeline in Kurskto surprise Ukrainian soldiers from
the rear in now devastated villages.
This war has taken a terrible tollon land and lives, and now there's a
tentative step to negotiate its end.

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: Just remind us, there's been so much (39:06):
undefined
tariff talk from Trump, but what hasactually been put in place so far?

SCOTT HORSLEY - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: I think that caveat that we always put (39:12):
undefined
at the top of the podcast, things mayhave changed by the time you hear this,
is particularly apt in this circumstancebecause it's been a wild week.
On Monday, we had no tariffs onimports from Canada and Mexico.
On Tuesday, we had suddenly a25 percent tax on nearly all
imports from Mexico and Canada.

(39:33):
On Wednesday, that tax wasrelaxed as far as cars go.
Today, it was relaxed further asfar as most imports from Mexico go.
That is imports covered by the U SMexico, Canada Free Trade Agreement.
So it's changing hour by hour, day byday, but it's certainly put the economy
into a lot of questionable territory.

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: So, Asma, like Scott just said, there's (39:55):
undefined
been a lot of back and forth here.
I mean, what is theWhite House trying to do?
Just bring us up to speed on wherethey're focusing these tariffs and why.

ASMA KHALID - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: So, to me, these tariffs feel a lot (40:05):
undefined
more widespread and expansive than thetariffs in Trump term one, when you're
talking about 25 percent tariffs acrossthe board on Canada, which at this
moment in time, as of taping are stillin place, there were also additional 10
percent tariffs on China that the Trumpadministration announced last month.

(40:27):
Then just this week, they increasedthat to an additional 10 percent tariff.
I've spoken to some manufacturers whosay that they are now looking at about
a 45 percent cumulative tariff onimports coming in from China, because
I don't know if folks remember, butthere were actually tariffs put in place
on China during Trump's first term.
The Biden administrationkept those in place.
So those are still there and they'rejust tacking more on., right.

(40:48):
And, and then on top of that, theyhave announced plans for across
the board, 25% tariffs on steeland aluminum imports coming into
the United States from any country.
And then the big headline is onApril 2nd, Trump, is calling for
something called reciprocal tariffs.
And his basic philosophy hereis that this is about fairness.
He says that other countries puthigh tariffs on the United States.

(41:10):
And so, we as a country ought to tariffthose countries back at an equal rate.

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: Asma, you just mentioned the Trump (41:15):
undefined
administration saying that thisis about fairness, but I just want
to step back a little further.
Both of you, what is Trump'sostensible rationale for doing this?

SCOTT HORSLEY - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: They've offered multiple rationales. (41:27):
undefined
The tariffs against Mexico andCanada, and to some extent China,
are ostensibly a reaction to fentanylcoming into the U. S. illegally,
even though, in the case of Canada,virtually no fentanyl comes from Canada.
It's also about illegal immigration.
But the president has also talkedabout using tariffs to encourage people

(41:48):
to manufacture in the United Statesas opposed to in other countries.
And then he's also talked aboutusing tariffs to raise revenue, to
offset the expected loss in revenuefrom extending the 2017 tax cuts.
The thing is, tariffs can'tdo all of those things.
They're mutually incompatible.

ASMA KHALID - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: I don't think that the deluge of (42:05):
undefined
tariffs should be a particularsurprise to a lot of folks because
Trump campaigned on tariffs.
He famously said that this was themost beautiful word in the dictionary.
I think we anticipated this.
They have come, though, I willsay, with such a degree of speed.
I mean, we didn't even mention this,but there's also investigations to
possibly add tariffs to other specificthings like lumber and copper.

(42:27):
He's also floated the idea ofputting tariffs on semiconductors.
So this is an across the boardtool, and as Scott was saying,
it feels like the White House.
House thinks that this is like amultipurpose, a Swiss army knife, right?
Like you can pull it outfor all sorts of things.
And at some point youwonder, well, what is this?
Isn't this a negotiation tactic?
Is it a political tool?
Is it an economic tool?

(42:48):
Is it about raising revenue?
Is it about immigration?
I don't know that we havea clear vision of that.
Trump officials have been askedmultiple times on different television
interviews what this is about.
And I don't think that they have delivereda clear, concise answer about what these
tariffs are actually meant to achieve.

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: And it's not just about goods. (43:05):
undefined
It's also about jobs.
I want to ask you both about somethingthat U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard
Lutnick said on Fox News recently.

CLIP (43:13):
Why are our Michigan jobs in Canada?
Why are our Michigan jobs in Canada?
And that's what thepresident's going to address.
He's gonna say, come on back.
Come on back.
We're going to build Michigan.
We're gonna build Ohio.

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: I mean, Scott, help us (43:29):
undefined
put this in context.
Is it really that simple?

SCOTT HORSLEY - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: Well, the administration certainly (43:33):
undefined
sees it as that simple, and as we'vesaid, they do think tariffs are a way
to encourage domestic manufacturing,and this is one reason that the United
Auto Workers Union has been supportiveof these tariffs, even though, as we
mentioned now, autos have gotten a onemonth reprieve from the import taxes.
But the answer to Secretary Lutnick'squestion is, why are those jobs in Canada?

(43:54):
Because in this country, we'vegenerally left it up to business
people to make decisions aboutwhere factories should be located.
We don't leave that up to centralplanners in Washington at the Commerce
Department or the White House.
Republicans traditionally havesaid we don't want the government
picking winners and losers.
Well, this is exactly the governmentpicking winners and losers.
When the president can, with the strokeof a pen, impose a 25 percent tax

(44:17):
on imports and then grant selectiveexemptions to industries or executives or
foreign governments that cozy up to him.

GORDON HANSON (44:25):
The U. S. has an outsized role in the global economy.
You know, we're 5 to 6 percent ofthe global population, but we're a
little under 25 percent of global GDP.
And we're taking that production,we're taking that demand for the
world's goods, and we're takingour supply of goods partly offline.
It leaves the rest of theworld poor as a consequence.

(44:46):
Trump has this idea, Fortress America isbased on this idea that if we go and put
all these trade barriers into place, therest of the world's just going to sit
there, they aren't going to retaliate.
And so what we're going to get iswe're going to put pressure on other
countries to lower their prices.
If that were in fact the case,there's an element to that
argument that goes through.
We would put downward pressure onthe rest of the world's prices.

(45:06):
We'd be still paying morefor those goods because we're
tacking tariffs on top of them.
But this is the optimal tariffargument that the proposed chair of
Trump's Council of Economic Advisors,Steve Marin, has put forward.
But the rest of the world'snot going to sit idly by.
They're going to retaliate.
So what happens?
We get a beggar thy neighbor situation,which we haven't seen since the 1930s
in terms of the global response to theSmoot Hawley tariffs that the United

(45:29):
States put in place, which we then spentthe next several decades dismantling.
Beggar thy neighbor?
Beggar thy neighbor.
The idea is I'm going to make myselfricher and you poorer by putting
downward pressure on your prices so Ican enjoy your goods at a cheaper price
and you have to pay more for mine.
You can do this bymanipulating your currency.

(45:50):
You can do this, if you're a big buyerof goods on the global market, by
exercising your, what we think of asmonopsony power, your ability to restrict
demand and put downward pressure onthe prices of other countries exports.
That only works, me making youpoorer, if you don't retaliate.
If you do retaliate I make you pooreryou make me poorer and we both end

(46:11):
up worse off than when we started.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: That doesn't sound very good. (46:13):
undefined

It doesn't and you might think oh, this is just
abstract economic theorizing.
But no, we actually lived throughthis in 1930s, what did we do?
We jacked up tariffs to around 33,34 percent, and we lived with the
retaliation of other countries, a moresegmented, a more fortressed off world.
And after World War II, we realizedthis just doesn't make sense.

(46:36):
And that's where the movementthat ultimately created the World
Trade Organization came from,that we would be richer if we are
producing for each other's markets.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: And does the Trump administration (46:44):
undefined
not have access to this history?
Do they think it willplay out differently?

I think they have an alternative read on it.
The Trump narrative would becountries then systematically cheated.
It was Japan in the 1980s andearly 1990s, and then it was China
in the later 1990s and the 2000s.
And somehow Europe has cheatedalong the way too, though it's not
entirely clear how Europe has cheated.
I'm not sure what exactly Mexico andCanada are guilty of, but what the Trump

(47:12):
administration has said is the restof the world hasn't treated us right.
He uses trade deficits as evidenceof this, but man, that is an
argument that it'd be very hardto find economists to endorse.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: The news about tariffs (47:25):
undefined
has just been so chaotic.
It's really hard to follow,I think, for most of us.
What context would you like to see innews coverage as this storyline unfolds,
that we haven't been seeing enough of?

What we're all trying to figure out here is what's the trail map.
We don't know what theintended destination is.
My guess is that that destination is notgoing to be what Trump is advertising
today, which is high tariffs across theboard, because markets are going to rebel,
major US companies are going to rebel, andthe regions, the workers who are involved

(48:05):
in that manufacturing production aregoing to rebel because you're upsetting
a set of economic arrangements which hasallowed them to hold on to their jobs.
So I guess what I would want.
To see from the media is pressingthe Trump administration on
telling us where you're going.
What are the steps along the way,what is the ultimate destination and

(48:25):
what do you think that destination isgoing to provide for us that we can't
get out of the constitution of theinternational economic order today?
Just saying that America is going tobe richer in the future by cordoning
ourselves off from the rest of the world'sgoods and services is not sufficient.

TRISTAN SNELL - HOST, THE TRISTAN SNELL SHOW: Europe has now looked now looks more (48:41):
undefined
united than ever, even more than in 2022,where the original invasion, or full scale
invasion, of Ukraine, I should say—becausethey already had invaded much earlier than
that—the full scale invasion of Ukraine in2022 led to much stronger European unity,
increases in defense spending, lots of aidto Ukraine, $132 billion of it, more than

(49:04):
the US has spent, just keep saying it.
Guess what?
If we keep saying it, eventuallyit'll sound true to people.
We just need to make sure that,look, repeat a lie, it'll sound
like the truth, we need to repeat atruth so it sounds like the truth.
Just keep frickin doing it.
Just keep it up, every goddamn time.
$132 billion for Europe,$114 billion for the US.

(49:24):
Say it every time.
Okay.
But what's happening now is, back then,you had oh, suddenly Finland and Sweden,
which had historically remained neutraland we're not part of NATO suddenly became
NATO members because of all of that.
You saw european boycotts of russian.
Goods.
You saw european countries band togetherto freeze assets of russian nationals

(49:46):
held at banks and other financialinstitutions within their borders.
All of that back in 2022 2023.
Now you're seeing a new wave of proUkraine sentiment in Europe and Europe's
leaders banding together, without America,they literally held a NATO meeting,
invited Canada, because NATO is basicallythe US, Canada, and then most of Western

(50:08):
Europe and then a few countries youwouldn't necessarily expect like Turkey.
That is NATO.
They basically said, "psst hey, Trudeau,get over here." And he flew over and then
the rest of them huddled and hung out withZelenskyy and they didn't invite Trump.
America got, again, national honor?
Try me this.

(50:29):
We're getting kicked out of a club.
We started and ran and led for 75 years.
We started NATO with our allies, butwe were the driving force behind it to
be a bulwark against Soviet aggression.
That is what NATO was built for.
It has been a defensive alliance fromday one all the way to day today.

(50:53):
And they're now meeting withoutus, because we've shown that
we're basically not going to bepart of that alliance anymore.
Trump has not yet tried toannounce that he's leaving NATO.
By the way, he might tryto do that at some point.
Although it is a treaty, it's in thename, North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
That's a treaty and that waspassed by Congress, so he can't

(51:13):
get rid of it without Congress.
So if he tries to do that, that'sgoing to be an interesting one,
but he basically left NATO.
That was a constructive.
NATO departure is what just happened.
That's what just happened there.
But now the Europeans are steppingup, and now they have decided to come
up with a lot more money for Ukraine.

(51:36):
I mentioned the $132 billion before.
The headline that we are not reallycapturing here is that, as part of what
is an 800—hardly any play in the US—$843billion from Europe that is going to
be spent on defense, including defenseof Ukraine, and about $150 billion of

(52:00):
that, just so far, there probably willbe more, is going to go to help Ukraine.
So you know what theheadline really should be.
It's not Donald Trump's lies aboutthe $100 billion versus 350 billion,
it is that Europe, only days afterthat debacle, is now in the process
of more than doubling its alreadyvery robust support for Ukraine.

(52:25):
The idea that they haven't been in therewith this fight is absolute horseshit.
They have absolutely been in this fightand helping Ukraine with this fight.
And they're about tocompletely double down on that.
That is probably not something thatVladimir Putin and Donald Trump were
expecting, I think it's safe to say.

(52:48):
I don't know if I wasnecessarily expecting it.
There were rumblings of it rightbefore the German elections, but I
think they were trying to keep iton the DL because they didn't want
it to mess up the German elections.
Now, with the German elections, havinggone well, and clearly there being
a strong effort to bring together agovernment in Germany that will be
anti Nazi by excluding the AFD, sorry,Elon, and anti-Russia/pro-Ukraine.

(53:16):
There will be plenty of support inGermany for both arming and helping
the Ukrainians as well as rearmingand beefing up the defenses of
Germany and the rest of Europe.
There's no talk of having a Europeanarmy separate from NATO forces.

(53:38):
This is a Absolutely gigantic changeand it's happened in less than a
week, not even, were basicallylike 5 days after that meeting and
all of this has already happened.
And there's more.
I'll throw one more thing in there, whichis that now, today, early this morning,
the EU is now announcing that it is goingto take steps to remove Hungary's voting

(54:04):
privileges in the European Parliament.
This is a good one.
I really enjoy this, becausethe problem is that within
the EU, Hungary is a member.
They are now ruled by a pro Russiadictator, Victor Orban, who is widely
loved by the American right, which tellsyou a lot of what you need to know.
Orban, there are no otherpolitical parties in Hungary.

(54:25):
There is no freedom ofthe press in Hungary.
Political dissidents havebeen oppressed and jailed.
It is very, very much a dictatorial oneparty state, is what is what Hungary is.
And true to form the Hungarian government,Orban, has been extremely obstructionist.
When it has come to Europe helpingUkraine, over and over and over again.

(54:46):
There's a lot of things that the EuropeanParliament, and this is probably something
they may want to think of fixing in thefuture, but whatever, I'm not here to
tell them what to do, but there are alot of things for which they actually
need unanimity in order to pass it.
And so every member countryhas to be okay with it.
That's a bit of a problem.

(55:06):
You can't really do that super well,but they're going to do the next best
thing, which is that they're going tobasically say, okay, yeah, everybody
except Hungary gets to vote on thisthing because you have a collaborationist
in your European Parliament.
Like, you have somebody who'scavorting with the enemy.
You have an enemy withinwhen you have Hungary there.
So, if Hungary gets to vote andit's unanimity that's required is

(55:30):
going to thwart the attempts ofEurope to prevent, I wanted to say
Soviet, but it's prevent Kremlindomination of Europe all over again.
Europe wants to resist theIron Curtain coming back.
Germany wants to stop anotherBerlin wall or worse being erected.

(55:51):
This is what they're up against here.
Of course, they want to defendthemselves, and I think they're finally
really standing up and saying, ifthe US isn't going to help lead the
way, we're going to do it ourselves.
So what this means for Ukraine isthey're going to be, I think you're
going to see the Ukrainians have morethan enough support to reject any bad
Russian deal and keep fighting and beable to pay for humanitarian aid and

(56:17):
reconstruction, weaponry, everything.
That's what this is bringing to the table.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: We've just heard clips starting with (56:23):
undefined
the Tristan Snell Show explaining thatTrump's US foreign policy is all about
Trump and not at all about the US.
Democracy Now!
didn't shy away fromhighlighting problems with USAID.
It Could Happen Here looked at Trump'shawkish and transactional foreign policy.
Jacobin Radio discussed Ukraine'sfight for self-determination and

(56:45):
the broader struggle for democracy.
WhoWhatWhy explained theTrump-induced crisis within NATO.
The PBS NewsHour reported onthe ongoing negotiations between
the US, Russia and Ukraine.
The NPR Politics Podcast discussedthe chaos of Trump's tariffs.
On the Media looked at some of thehistorical context and past negative

(57:05):
consequences of unthoughtful trade wars.
And the Tristan Snell Show explainedthe knock-on effect in Europe of the US
threatening to withhold aid from Ukraine.
And those were just the Top Takes.
There's a lot more inthe Deeper Dive sections.
But first, a reminder that this showis produced with the support of our
members who get access to bonus episodesfeaturing our team of producers, and

(57:26):
enjoy all of our shows without ads.
To support all of our work and havethose bonus episodes delivered seamlessly
to the new members-only podcast feedthat you'll receive, sign up to support
the show at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support(there's a link in the show notes),
through our Patreon page or fromright inside the Apple Podcasts app.
And as always, if regular membershipisn't in the cards for you, shoot

(57:46):
me an email requesting a financialhardship membership, because we
don't let a lack of funds stand inthe way of hearing more information.
If you have a question or would likeyour comments included in the show,
our upcoming topics that you can chimein on include what resistance there
is to Trump and Musk's takeover, whichis more heartening than you might
imagine; followed by a focus on thefar right war on the LGBTQ community.

(58:11):
So get your comments and questions innow for those topic or anything else.
You can leave us a voicemail orsend us a text at 202-999-3991.
We're also findable on the privacy-focusedmessaging app Signal at the handle
bestoftheleft.01, and there's a linkin the show notes for that, or you can
simply email me to Jay@BestOfTheLeft.Com.

(58:32):
Now, as for today, I just have a quicknote that feels particularly relevant
today as we tackle this slate of topicsthat collectively feel like the entire
earth is shifting beneath our feet.
We just started experimenting with anew episode format, the "monthly-ish
mix," which is basically a roundupof highlights from recent episodes

(58:54):
that we plan to put out monthly-ish.
If the entire world shifting beneathyour feet makes you feel a little
bit overwhelmed, we get that, but itis no excuse to check out entirely.
So if you or someone you knoware the kind of people who could
benefit from a monthly-ish roundupto keep you in the know, keep an

(59:15):
eye out for those episodes or tellthe people you know to do the same.
Secondly, I want to mention againthat this coming week is going
to be a big one for activism withCongress on recess, and we're
releasing an episode full of inspiringaction-oriented resistance type stuff.
I hope that you'll share thatone as far and wide as possible

(59:37):
to help rally the troops
Now as far as nuts and boltsactivism, we'd recommend connecting
with Indivisible as they always havegood and timely calls to action.
So make sure you're followingthem closely in the coming days.
And now we'll continue to divedeeper on four topics today.

(59:57):
Next up, section A, Russia and Ukraine,followed by Section B, trade, wars
and Tariffs, section C-U-S-A-I-D, andSection D, US realignment and nato.

MIKHAIL ZYGAR (01:00:09):
My mission was to start writing a completely different version of
Russian history, because unfortunately,we have never had any kind of history
of Russian people or peoples of Russia.
It has always been written byofficial historians who were serving
The state, and they were much morepropagandists than historians.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Mm hmm. (01:00:30):
undefined
Your book explores seven myths about therelationship between Ukraine and Russia.
We won't get to them all, but we'll startwith the most crucial one, probably.
Unity, which was penned in a paper calledSynopsis by a German monk 300 years ago.

A myth of the unity of Slavic nations is very new.
It was created only three centuries ago bythat German person named Innocenti Gesell.
So how does Gesell's chronicle read?
It starts from the creation of theworld, then goes all the way to Noah
and Moses and the first princes of Kievand Rus, according to that chronicle.

(01:01:12):
direct descendants ofcharacters of the Bible.
The first statehood was created in Kiev,but then the grandsons of grandsons of
the first Kievan princes moved the capitalof unified Rus to the city of Moscow.
He draws that imaginary line thatunifies old Kiev with new Moscow.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: You say Gazelle's synopsis went (01:01:35):
undefined
on to be used as a textbook.

It was one of the first scientific texts on Russian history,
and Nikita Gezel could not have foreseenthat, but Peter the Great loved it, and it
was used by all the official historians.
Actually, it was the main sourceof the information for most Russian
historians in 18th century and the19th century till 20th century.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Okay, so stay with the era of Peter (01:02:02):
undefined
the Great when the Ukrainian leader,or Hetman, Ivan Mazepa, was navigating
two different empires, Sweden's andRussia's, now rapidly expanding.
How did Mazepa becomea symbol of betrayal?
That would be the second myththat still resonates today.

During that period, Ukraine has become part of Russian
Empire, and he was considered to beone of the very close military leaders
to Russian Emperor Peter the Great.
As Mazepa He always considered himselfto be first Ukrainian leader and
only then ally of the Russian czar.

(01:02:48):
When the situation for his homelandhas become really dangerous,
he has chosen to switch sidesand ally with Swedish emperor.
And that symbolic choice is stillconsidered for many years to be a
symbolic betrayal by Russian historians.
At the same time, for Ukrainianhistorians, on the contrary, he chose

(01:03:10):
his own people and his own nation.
And he might have been Atraitor, if he had chosen Peter
the Great, but not his people.
And is right now, during thecurrent war, it's associated
with Ukrainian words, zhrada.
That means betrayal, a very importantpolitical term in today's Ukraine.

(01:03:31):
That moral dilemma of Ivan Mazepa.
It's always raised when a politician oran activist has a choice between real
interests of his nation and his people.
And

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: it explains so much because in the last (01:03:47):
undefined
year or so, at various internationalcultural events like the PEN conference,
which stands for the Freedom of Writers,Ukrainian writers simply won't appear
on the same stage with Russians, evenif those Russians are dissidents and
at risk and opposed to Putin's war.

(01:04:08):
I never understood until youexplain the idea of Zrada.
Why Ukrainians would shun those Russians.

Ukrainians blame not only Russian government and not only
Vladimir Putin, but Russia as such, andall representatives of Russian culture.
Ukrainians blame Pushkin as well asJoseph Brodsky, Dostoevsky, or other
representatives of Russian culture,claiming that they were imperialists.
That's a very important ideafor me because I think that we

(01:04:41):
won't find common grounds beforewe address all those issues.
And we cannot, as Russian writers, Russianintellectuals, we cannot say, don't touch
Pushkin, he's sacred, he's our everything.
That would be just blind.
We should reconsider.

(01:05:01):
all the mistakes and crimesof Russian culture as well.
And we are not the first.
Very symbolic example is, for example,Kipling, who has written the infamous
poem about White man's burden.
Yes.
And Jungle Book is not canceled, isstill loved by kids all over the world.
But this particular Concept of Kiplingis widely discussed and is denounced

(01:05:27):
by British intellectuals and by Britishhistorians, and we must do that.
We must get rid of our historicalmyths and of our sacred cows, including
Pushkin or Dostoevsky or Solzhenitsyn.
Do

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: you want to just get rid of Dostoyevsky? (01:05:41):
undefined

No, no, I

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: You mean that we have to understand (01:05:47):
undefined
that he's a creature of his time?

We should read him in full.
And if he was terribly wrong, we mustfind courage to admit it and to say it.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: You liken the Ukrainian poet Taras (01:05:58):
undefined
Shevchenko to Frederick Douglass, becauseShevchenko was basically a serf who
happened to become the greatest Ukrainianpoet, liberated at the same time as
Frederick Douglass ran away from slaveryto New York City and liberated himself.

There are no parallels in history, definitely, but there are
rhymes, and different countries werefacing very similar political and social
process and serfdom is a form of slavery.
Serfdom in Russia was abolished the sameyear as the American Civil War started.
And Taras Shevchenko is the firstwriter who used classic traditional

(01:06:44):
literary Ukrainian language, becausebefore him Ukrainians could reach the
highest positions in Russian culturalelite or political bureaucracy.
They could have become membersof government or chancellors
with only one condition.
If they abandoned their Ukrainianbackground and started speaking Russian.

(01:07:07):
So Shevchenko, even after being liberatedand even after he had become one of the
most popular artists in St. Petersburg,he never stopped writing in Ukrainian
and he has become a moral example.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: It's interesting though how many (01:07:22):
undefined
Russians suggest that Ukrainianis actually just pigeon Russian.
The words look alike.
They sound alike.
How do you address the languageissue or the language myth.

A lot of Russians, and we know that Vladimir Putin is one of
them, consider Ukrainian not as a reallanguage but as provincial Russian.
Unfortunately, all those people don'tknow anything about Ukrainian literature
or the history of Ukrainian language,and they don't know, for example, the
history of Russian authorities, especiallyin 18th and 19th and 20th century.

(01:08:04):
To suppress the usageof Ukrainian languages.
Ukrainian books were banned.
The education in Ukrainianwas permanently banned.
So yes, that's a real historical tragedy,and it's funny that the language that
does not exist was banned and then stillexists even after all those centuries.

SEENA GHAZNAVI - HOST, THE FOREIGN REPORT: But I wanted to talk a little bit about (01:08:26):
undefined
history at the top of the show here.
Because at the time of Goingback to the Soviet Union falling.
The time of Ukraine's independence.
Okay?
1991. The former Soviet Union had nuclearweapons spread all across the Union.

(01:08:47):
But when the Soviet Union fell inKazakhstan, Belarus, and Ukraine,
there was nuclear material.
In that time, in 1991,Ukraine held the third largest
nuclear arsenal in the world.
They had 1, 900 strategic warheads, 176intercontinental ballistic missiles,

(01:09:09):
ICBMs, and 44 strategic bombers.
All those missiles technicallybelong to the new Russian government.
And so there was a deal done called theLisbon Protocol in 1992, where Ukraine,
along with Belarus and Kazakhstan, agreedto return the nuclear weapons to Russia.
But in 92, the states all agreed to jointhe Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty,

(01:09:32):
uh, which is, you know, Russia and U.
S. and Kazakhstan, Belarus and,Ukraine all agreed to reduce their
nuclear weapons, of course, andthey all signed on to it, and this
was supposed to create a framework.
But you know, you don't justlike, as we've seen this week, you
know, a deal says, someone saysa deal's gonna get done, and then
it takes a while to sign the deal.
Sometimes they say they'renot gonna sign the deal.

(01:09:53):
Sometimes they say, I'm gonna sign thedeal, but you gotta do X, Y, and Z.
That's basically what was happening here.
In 93, the people inside Ukraineelected officials started admittedly,
you know, becoming skepticalabout handing all these nukes.
That after they just got independencefrom the Soviet Union, whoever thought

(01:10:16):
they wouldn't, they wouldn't be, Idon't know, they wouldn't feel confident
giving all these nukes to the Russians.
It's hard

SAMAN ARBABI - CO-HOST, THE FOREIGN REPORT: to imagine. (01:10:23):
undefined

SEENA GHAZNAVI - HOST, THE FOREIGN REPORT: It's hard to imagine. (01:10:24):
undefined
I know.
And so they are saying tothemselves, well, wait a minute.
What if we just, we justfought all this way.
We just did all this, all this stuff.
I don't want to just give handthese people all these nukes.
So in April of 1993, 162Ukrainian politicians.

(01:10:44):
signed a statement that addedpreconditions to the START
treaty before it was ratified.
That included security assurancesfrom Russia and the United States
for an aid for dismantlement, becauseyou can't just copy and paste or
cut, copy and paste these weapons.
You got to dismantle them.
You got to do all this stuffand then compensation for
all that nuclear material.

(01:11:05):
Okay.
Yeah.
What the beak.
So there was some back and forth.
And again, the Ukrainians stilldidn't want to give up all their
delivery vehicles and their warheads.
So there's all this back and forth.
This is now two years after they arenow independent from the Soviet union.
And they're like, are we goingto just give them everything?
It wasn't until 1994.

(01:11:27):
A trilateral statement was reachedwhere Ukraine committed to full
disarmament in exchange for economicsupport and security assurances from
both the United States and Russia.
So Russia was like, listen, we'llmake sure no one fucks with you.
United States was like, we're definitelygoing to make sure no one fucks with you.

(01:11:47):
Russia is chill now.
You have nothing to worry about.
I promise you, nothing will happenin Russia that will upend this entire
agreement and make you feel likeyou're going to be at war again.
What could possibly go wrong?
The United States and the Russiansliterally had to, like, drag these
weapons out of Ukrainians hands.

(01:12:08):
Because they didn't trust theformer Soviet Union, of course.
They had to get securityguarantees, funding.
I mean, this is crazy.
And here's the thing, Russia has wantedEastern Ukraine since the very beginning.
Okay, demographically speaking,it's all these things.
They've wanted.
And so, of course, things unravel.

(01:12:30):
The reason we bring all this up isbecause in 2018, a clip was going around
recently on the old social medias,and it was from our current Secretary
of State, then Senator, Marco Rubio.

CLIP MARCO RUBIO (01:12:45):
In the early 1990s, Ukraine was left with the
world's third largest stockpile oftactical nuclear weapons and strategic
nuclear weapons on the planet.
But they signed this agreement with theUnited States, the United Kingdom, and
the Soviet, and Russia, that basicallysaid, if you give up your nuclear

(01:13:05):
weapons, we, these three countries thatsigned to this, will provide for your
defense and assure you of your defense.
And so, Ukraine did that.
They gave up these weapons.
Well now, this was signed in 1994.
Twenty years later, one of the threecountries that signed that agreement
hasn't just not provided for theirdefense, they actually invaded them.
And I want to make a pointon this for a second.

(01:13:27):
Think about if you're one of these othercountries around the world right now
that feels threatened by your neighbors.
And the United States and the rest ofthe world are going to you and saying,
Listen, don't develop nuclear weapons.
Don't develop nuclearweapons, South Korea.
Don't develop nuclear weapons, Japan.
Don't develop nuclearweapons, Saudi Arabia.
We will protect you.
We will watch out for you.

(01:13:48):
What kind of lesson do you thinkthis instance sends to them?
I think the message this is sendingto many nations around the world is
perhaps we can no longer count on thesecurity promises made by the free world.
Perhaps we need to startlooking out for ourselves.
And that's why the Ukrainian situationis so much more important than
simply what's happening in Europe.

(01:14:09):
This has implications around the world.
Yeah.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: So here's how some of that hearing, (01:14:12):
undefined
uh, this past week and the questioningby Senator Merkley in that, uh,
hearing of those two nominees, here'show that went in the Senate foreign
relations committee hearing on Tuesday.

SENATOR MERKLEY (01:14:28):
I wanted to, uh, uh, ask you, Mr. Lindo is president Trump.
Absolutely not, Senator.
He's the President of the United States,duly elected by the American people.
Well, the reason I ask is,many people back home have
been asking me this question.
And they say, if he was an asset, wewould see exactly what he's doing now.

(01:14:54):
For example, He proceeded to forward orexpress from the Oval Office propaganda
that has been Russian propagandist, thatUkraine started the war, that Zelensky
is a dictator.
Second of all, he gave away key thingson the negotiating table before the

(01:15:18):
negotiations even started, U. S. wouldabsolutely oppose, um, any possibility
of, of NATO, uh, membership for Ukraine.
Uh, third, he's cut off the armsshipments to Ukraine, completely
undermining their ability against amassive neighbor next door with short

(01:15:38):
supply lines and, and huge resources.
Fourth, he's undermined thepartnership with Europe, which has
been essential to security overthe last eight, 80 years, a major.
Major goal of, of, of Putin's and thenhe's done everything to discredit and
dismean Zelensky on the internationalstage with the Just shameful press

(01:16:03):
conference in which he teamed up with thevice president to attack Zelensky I can't
imagine that if he was a Russian asset,he could be do anything more favorable
than these five points What else coulda Russian asset act actually possibly
do that that Trump hasn't yet done?
Senator the The president has madeit absolutely clear that his top

(01:16:25):
priority is to try to bring peaceand end an absolutely savage war.
I know you're familiar with the savagery.
This is turning into World War I styletrench warfare now in eastern Ukraine.
The president is an exceptionallygifted Dealmaker he is probably the
only individual in the entire universethat could actually stop this the

(01:16:45):
president understands as part of hisdeal Well, let's turn to another of that.
You've got the carrots and say thankyou very much since you're now off
the topic I was raising Mr. Whitaker
these five things that the presidenthas done that are so favorable.
So to Putin and so Damaging to Ukraineand to our partnership with Europe.

(01:17:06):
Do you approve of them?

CABINET MEMBER (01:17:09):
Well, Senator, thanks for that question.
I'm just going to have to politelydisagree with you on those five
things and the way you've framed them.
You know, the war in Ukraine wouldhave never happened if President
Trump was president in 2022.
The war in Ukraine happened becauseof Joe Biden's weakness after
his withdrawal from Afghanistan.
I don't think that wasthe question I asked,

but maybe you could some other time go on television
and express those points of view.
But do you mind just answeringthe question I asked?
Do you agree with the five thingsthat President Trump has done,
starting with him expressing Russianpropaganda from the Oval Office.

CABINET MEMBER (01:17:40):
Well, you know, again, as I mentioned to your colleague,
I'm not here to assign labels.
We're in the middle of a very,uh, important peace negotiation.
Okay.
Thank you.

Uh, I, I do hope that we have an administration that works to
get The very best deal for Ukraine, butwhat a Russian asset would do would be
to work to get the very best deal forRussia and that appears to be exactly
what Donald Trump is trying to accomplish.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: So he doesn't make a bad point (01:18:10):
undefined
there, Donald, Donald Trump, isDonald Trump a Russian asset?
Well, he's an exceptionally gifted dealmaker and the only person in this universe
Who could negotiate an end to this war?
That was Senator, Democratic SenatorJeff Merkley of Oregon on Tuesday on
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,confirmation hearings questioning

(01:18:32):
Trump's choices for Deputy Secretaryof State Christopher Landau and for
NATO Ambassador, former toilet salesmanMatt Whitaker, asking them the simple
question, what else could a Russian asset?
Actually possibly do that Donald Trumphas, has not yet done stick a pin in

(01:18:54):
that question for the moment, causeI'm going to get back to it because
we've got, uh, some fresh news of asort today on exactly that, but as to
the once kind of ridiculous now, notridiculous at all question, as I see it
as to whether Donald Trump is actually acompromised Russian asset, well, maybe AI.

(01:19:18):
Has some answers for us on that.
Well, I wouldn't normally turn to AI,which can be notoriously unreliable
and or programmatically biased.
I wouldn't normally turn to AI for insighton this or really anything right now.
But this AI answer isactually somewhat amusing.

(01:19:41):
And or enlightening if only becauseof the particularly specific AI system
that it happens to actually comefrom, as you probably know, there
are a lot of, a lot of competitorsout there in the AI space these days,
including in the AI Chatbot industry.

(01:20:02):
It's it is one that Donald Trump's bestbuddy and arguably co president Elon
Musk is heavily involved and invested in.
He has his own, uh, AI company or program.
He calls his.
XAI and he makes it a avail.
He makes available a, uh, a, a a bot,an answer bot, a chat bot that he calls

(01:20:24):
Grok on his social media site oncecalled Twitter, now called X since Elon
bought it and ran it into the ground.
But Elon Musk's own artificialintelligence, large language model
chatbot named Grok was asked thefollowing question this week, what

(01:20:44):
is the likelihood from one to 100.
The Donald Trump is aPutin compromised asset.
And that question included the directionto quote, use all, all publicly available
information from 1980 on and his failureto ever say anything negative about
Putin, but has no issue attacking.

(01:21:05):
Allies.
Now, in actuality, this is actuallykind of a good question to pose to AI.
I don't use it a lot, but it's a goodidea because it requires the system
to examine, as the question says,all publicly available information
from 1980 on up through the presentregarding this topic, something that

(01:21:26):
would otherwise Take, uh, yeah, cut,you know, a few months, if not years for
a human being to actually do exactly.
So it's kind of seems like a good, uh,reasonable use of AI and AI chat bot.
So what did Elon Musk's own AI programcalled Grok have to say in response

(01:21:47):
to the question of the likelihoodthat Trump is a. Putin compromised
asset using all available publicinformation going back to 1980.
Well, it's pretty detailed answercites a lot of sources before
it comes to its conclusion.
It begins, for example, this way,assessing the likelihood that Donald
Trump is a compromised asset of VladimirPutin based on publicly available

(01:22:10):
information from 1980 onward involvesanalyzing a complex web of financial ties.
personal interactions, politicalbehavior, and circumstantial evidence.
This is not a definitive determination,but an estimation grounded in patterns
and data accessible as of March 4, 2025.

(01:22:31):
Writes Grok.
The question highlights Trump's consistentreluctance to criticize Putin juxtaposed
against his frequent attacks on usallies, which is a key behavioral.
Indicator to consider alongsidehistorical and financial context from
the 1980s onward writes Grok trump'sbusiness dealings provide a starting

(01:22:56):
point public records show He pursuedreal estate ventures with significant
russian financial involvement in 1987trump visited moscow a trip facilitated
by soviet officials sparking speculationabout early cultivation by russian
Intelligence speculation later fueledby former KGB agent, Yuri Schwartz,

(01:23:17):
who claimed Trump was targeted asa potential asset due to his ego
and his financial vulnerabilitiesthroughout the 1990s and 2000s.
As Trump faced bankruptcies, heincreasingly relied on funding
from sources tied to Russiaand former Soviet States.
His sons, Donald Jr. And Eric madestatements reinforcing this Donald

(01:23:40):
Jr. 2008 said, quote, Russians makeup pretty disproportionate, make up a
pretty disproportionate cross section.
Of a lot of our assets and Eric in 2014claimed, quote, we have all the funding
we need out of Russia, unquote, the Trumporganization's partnerships, like with

(01:24:03):
the Bay Rock group led by Tefiq Arif.
And Felix Sater, the latter, withknown Russian mafia ties and sales
of properties to Russian oligarchs.
Example, Dmitri Rybolov, uh, Rybolov,
his two hundred, his two thousand eight.

(01:24:24):
Purchase of a Trump property for 95million suggests a dependency on Russian
money that could create leverage.
Intelligence reports andinvestigations add weight.
The 2017 U. S. intelligence communityassessment concluded Putin authorized
interference in the 2016 election to favorTrump, a finding supported by the Mueller

(01:24:44):
report, which, while not proving criminalconspiracy, documented extensive Trump
campaign Russia contacts over Counts.
Now, it goes on and on with specificdetailed information from source after
source, including counterarguments tothe idea that Trump is a compromised
Russian agent before concluding thisway, quote, from Grok, Elon Musk's own

(01:25:11):
artificial intelligence, a chat bot,quote, weighing this, the financial ties
decades long, opaque and substantial.
Intelligence suggesting Russianintent and Trump's unwavering
refusal to criticize Putin despiteattacking allies tilt the scale.
The lack of transparency, example,hiding tax returns, seizing

(01:25:33):
interpreter notes after talkswith Putin, amplifies suspicion.
No smoking gun proves directcontrol, but the useful idiot
scenario where Trump's ego anddebts make him unwittingly pliable.
Fits the evidence.
Adjusting for uncertainty andalternative explanations, example

(01:25:54):
ideological alignment or naivete.
I estimate, says Grok, a 75 85 percentlikelihood that Donald Trump is a
Putin compromised asset, leaningtoward the higher end of that due
to the consistency of his behaviorand the depth of historical ties.

(01:26:15):
This range reflects the strength ofcircumstantial evidence tempered by
the absence of conclusive proof, a gapUnlikely to close without classified data.
In other words, without classified data,just based on the public sourcing that
we have going all the way back to 1980,like 25 years, based on all of that
evidence, there's a 75 to 85 percentchance that Donald Trump is a Russian

(01:26:41):
asset closer to the 85 percent mark thataccording to Elon Musk's own artificial
intelligence program, his own chat bot.
Thinks Donald Trump ismore likely than not.
A Russian asset

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Another myth you address (01:26:58):
undefined
is the myth of Lenin.
Putin's claim before invading thatUkraine was an invention of Lenin's,
you write that an independent Ukrainianstate was formed in spite of Lenin.

Oh yeah, it's important to say that after the collapse of the
Russian Empire, Mikhail Grushevsky,who was the spiritual leader and the
head of first Ukrainian parliament,had an idea about Ukrainian autonomy.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA (01:27:26):
And he was, interestingly enough, a historian.
And his book, The History of UkraineRuss, played a role in establishing
Ukraine as a modern state.

He is still considered to be probably the founding father
of the political Ukrainian nationbecause he was the first author to
write the academic history of Ukraine.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: That was written in 1898 and it was (01:27:50):
undefined
the first impactful response to thehistory written by the monk Gazel.

He was successfully trying to prove that Giselle's
concept written in synopsis was fake.
So how Ukraine became theindependent state back in 1918.
In October of 1917, therewas a Bolshevik coup in St.
Peterburg and Russia had becomea communist dictatorship, and

(01:28:19):
that was a catastrophe for.
all the democratic movementsin Russia and in Ukraine.
So after Lenin has become Russiandictator, there was no other
choice for Ukrainian authoritiesfor Khrushchevsky, but to proclaim
the independent Ukrainian state.
So it's really ridiculouswhen Vladimir Putin says that

(01:28:41):
Ukraine was invented by Lenin.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Khrushchevsky was Interrogated by (01:28:44):
undefined
the Soviet secret police in thethirties, historians arrested in
the Soviet Union were called wreckerhistorians by the government.
So the Russian government hasalways been extremely sensitive
to how history is depicted.

There's a curse of Russian history that it has always
been very close to the power.
All famous classical historianswere always appointed by the heads
of state and were reporting to theemperors or to the secretary generals.
Nikolai Karamzin, probably one ofthe most famous Russian historians
of 19th century, was reportingdirectly to the emperor Alexander I.

(01:29:28):
In 20th century, Stalin himselfwas editing the official version
of the Communist Party history.
So, yes.
It was absolutely clear for Russianleaders that they have to create
the version of Russian history thatproves they deserve to be in power.

(01:29:49):
It should explain why Russianeeds to be the empire.
That was very clear for me that the momentwhen Putin started to build his ideology
around his version of Russian history andto justify the current brutal aggression.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: In the epilogue, you write that imperial (01:30:07):
undefined
history is our disease, and that futuregenerations of Russians will, quote,
not tread the same path if we, theirancestors, bear the punishment today.
So, if imperial history has been theproblem, you're turning to a revision

(01:30:28):
of that history as the solution.

Yeah, that's true.
We have never had a proper people'shistory of Russia, and that's
right time to start writing it.
And if in history, Russian army orRussian leaders have committed war
crimes, they should be named this way.
We should know everything abouthistory of peoples of Russia, history

(01:30:54):
of of Siberia and how Siberia wascolonized, history of Far East, history
of Urals, history of North Caucasus,all the neighbors of Russia, and
confess to ourselves and apologize toall other nations which have become
victims of Russian imperial history.

BROOKE GLADSTONE - HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Have you been following the fight (01:31:13):
undefined
here in America over history?
How to teach it, how to advance it?
You

know, the debate about history in America
is an inspiration for me.

MUSIC (01:31:29):
Hmm.

I think that every time we add another historical narrative to
the traditional one, that's the way out.
For example, I love the AfricanAmerican Museum in Washington, D.
C. because it adds another veryimportant narrative missing in the
traditional version of American history,and I think that The more historical

(01:31:53):
narratives, uh, nation adds to itsperception of history, the better.
And that's the way I hopeRussian historians will proceed.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Uh, so now back. (01:32:03):
undefined
To what Senator Merkley asked in thatSenate Foreign Relations Committee
hearing, a confirmation hearing this week.
What else could a Russianasset actually possibly do that
Donald Trump has not yet done?
While neither of the, uh, two Trumpnominees who were giving testimony
chose to, uh, you know, try to simplyanswer the question and they instead

(01:32:26):
chose to change the subject or try tochange the subject in their answers,
unwilling or unable to come up withanything, a Russian asset could actually
possibly do that Trump has yet to do.
Well, it looks like Trump, accordingto an exclusive from Reuters today, has
come up with something all by himself.

(01:32:49):
So, what else could a Russianasset actually possibly
do that Trump hasn't done?
Asked Jeff Merkley this week.
Well, neither of the Trump nomineeswere able to answer that, but it
looks like Trump, according toan exclusive from Reuters, has.
According to the news service, whichhas recently, by the way, also been

(01:33:09):
barred along with AP from White Houseevents and Air Force One, today is
reporting U. S. President Donald Trump'sadministration is planning to revoke.
Temporary legal status for some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled to the U. S.,
who fled the conflict with Russia.

(01:33:32):
That, according to a seniorTrump official and three sources
familiar with the matter.
Potentially, putting those 240, 000Ukrainians on a fast track to deportation.
A fast track back to their still wartorn country, still in the third year of

(01:33:52):
its valiant effort of defending itselfagainst the full scale invasion by Russia.
Its much bigger neighbor, who unlawfullyinvaded it three years ago and has
been carrying out war crimes againstUkraine's civilian population ever since.
That's war.
Where Trump is reporting to, uh,reportedly planning now to send back

(01:34:16):
some 240, 000 refugees from our alliednation of Ukraine or our once allied
nation of Ukraine, people who fled tothe U S for safety after Putin's yes,
unprovoked invasion of Ukraine 2022,
the move, uh, according to Reuters,uh, is expected as soon as April.

(01:34:41):
And would be a stunning reversal of thewelcome that Ukrainians received under
President Joe Biden's administration.
The planned rollback of protectionsfor Ukraine's, uh, for Ukrainians
was reportedly already underwaybefore Trump's public feud with
Vladimir, Vladimir Zelensky recentlyin the Oval Office is part of a

(01:35:03):
broad Trump administration effort tostrip legal status from more than 1.
8

(01:35:23):
So while one could argue, uh, Hey, thisisn't only a favor to Vladimir Putin,
Trump is sending back a lot of immigrantsfrom elsewhere who are here fully legally.
So it's not just a favor to Putin,but it's certainly something that
Putin I suspect would approve of.
Making life even harder forUkrainians amid his unrelenting war,

(01:35:48):
which, by the way, Russia could endtomorrow if they wanted to by simply
leaving their neighbor's country.

DESI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: And that's one of the reasons that you (01:35:55):
undefined
can think maybe Trump might be workingon Putin's behalf because he has never
once He's publicly said that he wouldask Putin to just withdraw from Ukraine.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Just leave. (01:36:05):
undefined
Just leave.
He wants a peace treaty.
He's going to work for Russiato, to help get that treaty.
Why doesn't he just ask Russia to leave?

DESI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: You want to end the war in one (01:36:12):
undefined
day, as Trump has promised formonths during the campaign.
Just do that.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: A Trump executive order, issued (01:36:20):
undefined
on January 20, called for hisDepartment of Homeland Security to
quote, terminate all categoricalmigrant related parole programs.
As CBS News was first to report, theadministration plans to revoke parole
for about 530, 000 Cubans and Haitiansand Nicaraguans and Venezuelans.

(01:36:42):
As soon as this month.
Migrants stripped of their parole statuscould then face fast track deportation
proceedings according to an internalICE email that has been seen by Reuters.
Immigrants who cross the borderillegally can be put into the fast track
deportation process known as expeditedremoval for two years after they enter.

(01:37:07):
But for those who entered through legalports of entry, Without being officially
admitted to the U S as with those onparole, for example, who came from
Ukraine at the beginning of war, well,there's actually no time limit at all.
To put them on rapid removal,according to the ice email.

(01:37:30):
So essentially anybody they want whowas admitted here legally can now be
put into the rapid removal program.
The Biden programs were part of abroader effort to create temporary legal
pathways to deter illegal immigrationand provide humanitarian relief.
In addition to the 240, 000 Ukrainiansfleeing the Russian invasion, and the

(01:37:52):
530, 000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans,and Venezuelans, these programs
covered more than 70, 000 people.
Afghans who were escaping the Talibantakeover of Afghanistan, a takeover
accelerated, as you'll recall, by a dealthat was made by Donald Trump before he
left office with the Taliban in his firstterm that resulted in the withdrawal of U.

(01:38:17):
S. Forces from that nation just monthsafter Biden took over and carried out
the terms that were struck by DonaldTrump in his deal with the Taliban.
You'll recall at the time the chaoticscramble to help tens if not hundreds
of thousands of Afghani people whoserved as allies to the U. S. during
our long war there that scrambled toget them out of the country before

(01:38:42):
they would likely have to faceretribution from the returning Taliban.

DESI DOYEN - CO-HOST, THE BRADCAST: And you'll recall the reports when (01:38:46):
undefined
the Biden administration firstentered that term, that they said
that there was zero planning that wasdone by the Trump administration in
preparation for that rapid withdrawal.

BRAD FRIEDMAN - HOST, THE BRADCAST: Now, while Trump and Republicans have (01:38:59):
undefined
long been claiming they're not againstimmigration, They love immigration.
Immigrants are great.
They're just against illegal immigration.
Well, in fact, the Trump administrationlast month paused processing lawful
immigration related applicationsfor people who enter the U. S.

(01:39:21):
under various Biden parole programs.
Placing, for example,Ukrainian Liana Avetisian,
her husband, and her 14 year old daughter.
In limbo from Ukraine, I have a Tizianwho worked in real estate in Ukraine
now assembles windows here in the U.S. Her husband works in construction.

(01:39:45):
The family fled Keeve in May2023, eventually buying a house
in the small city of Dewitt, Iowa.
Their parole and work Permits expire.
However, in May of this year, theysaid they spent about 4, 000 in
filing fees to renew their parole andto try to apply for another program
known as temporary protected status.

(01:40:08):
Now, if Reuters report is accurateand it seems quite detailed and well
sourced, well, the, uh, avatissians,uh, and I know I'm pronouncing that
wrong, forgive me, but they couldface deportation by Donald Trump.
And his administration back to Ukrainein the middle of the still ongoing war,

(01:40:28):
along with 240, 000 other Ukrainians.
Arguably, even more disturbing,perhaps, is the administration's
apparent plans to send back Afghanis whohelped the U. S. during our war there.
Whatever you think about that war, thesewere Afghanistan people who helped us and

(01:40:50):
that we helped to escape in the wake ofTrump's agreement to withdraw all U. S.
forces before the Taliban then tookover control of the country again.
U. S. allies from Afghanistan,according to Reuters, who entered
under Biden, have also now beenswept up into Trump's crackdown.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: Now entering Section B (01:41:11):
undefined
trade wars and tariffs.

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA FM (01:41:14):
So one part of this I think is perhaps sort of
technical people Maybe don't uh fullyappreciate yet is that trump has been
trying to sort of devalue the dollarAnd the idea of getting a weaker dollar
seems like it would weaken america Butin fact the opposite is the case that
it would be enable america to bringmanufacturing capacity including military
manufacturing capacity back to the u.
s do manufacturing there.

(01:41:36):
Do you see that as part of this strategy?
Or do you think that's sort of aanother slightly extraneous, you
know, kind of component in thischaotic, uh, form of governance
that I think Trump is pioneering?

KHEM ROGALY (01:41:46):
No, it's a core part of the agenda.
And one of the key political pillarsthat he's trying to deliver is
this attack on deindustrialization.
Yeah, so he wants to reverse theprocess of deindustrialization this
kind of as he's called it Americancarnage And and he he tried this in
in in the first administration Butthis tariff strategy and I think it's
important with tariffs to understandthat Tariffs are an economic tool.

(01:42:09):
So it's not that tariffs areinherently bad that From a kind of
left political economy perspective,we should always be against tariffs.
Tariffs have had a, a really importantrole to play, especially for countries
of the global south or the thirdworld in developing strategies
in opposition to, to US power.
But applied in the American context,I think what's interesting about
them is that they're fundamentallyweak way of delivering the objectives

(01:42:31):
that Trump is trying to deliver.
So my, my colleague, MelanieBristler and I wrote about
this recently for Commonwealth.
Basically this idea that What Trump istrying to do is to restore this kind
of American manufacturing dominance,but without really taking public
or social governance of investment.
So he's trying to basically induce privatecapital investment in manufacturing,

(01:42:53):
and that's unlikely to happen in theway that he's trying to provoke it.
Basically, because what you have is apolitical economy in which companies
are used to keeping cash reservesbecause it's in their interest to do so.
Especially in a world destabilized bytariffs and they're also used to pumping
money out to their shareholders So theidea that just through this kind of
relatively crude tool He'll be able torestore or revive american manufacturing

(01:43:17):
Is very unlikely and the other pointthat i'd add very quickly is that?
Just like with biodynamics, it's,it's unlikely to do anything really
about the conditions of most of theAmerican population where you have
nearly two thirds of the populationliving paycheck to paycheck, it's
not going to do very much for them.
In Britain.
We also

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA FM: have this sort of ongoing process of (01:43:32):
undefined
deindustrialization, um, much more insome ways, um, completed in the UK.
Uh, there's a kind of a imaginarythat I think we have of.
Britain, which is that it's dominatedentirely by professional services
firms and, um, you know, financialinterests and that really Britain has
been hollowed out as a country In yourreport you do point to the ways in which

(01:43:52):
britain still maintains a domestic armsmanufacturing capacity Tell us about that.
What does Britain actually make?
What is Britain capable of doingin this kind of manufacturing,
particularly military manufacturing?

So I'll speak a bit about the first part of your
question and then move to the second.
On the first point, we have tostart from that de industrialization
context that's had a massivetransformative impact on the economy.
Between 1962 and 2008, We um, we lostmanufacturing as a share of employment
at the fastest rate of any g7 country Soit's it's it's it's been transformative
and obviously people who live in thiscountry are very aware of that But I

(01:44:24):
think what's interesting is that militaryspending in real terms since 1980 Has
actually been maintained at a relativelyconsistent level Although there have been
some kind of peaks and small peaks andtroughs um at times of of war or kind
of supposed a ceaseless kind of war onterror and It's now larger in real terms,
the military budget than it was in 1980.

(01:44:45):
And that supports the domesticmanufacturing industry that supports the
manufacturing of fighter jets, submarines,high end electronics for military
equipment, um, warships, helicopters.
Quite a significant range of, ofdifferent types of military kit.
What I would say that's important isthat there's been a double hollowing out.

(01:45:05):
Almost you've had this widerhollowing out of the UK economy.
And then within the arms industry,what you see is this kind of
interesting form of state capitalism,where you have an industry that is.
Entirely reliant on government contracts.
It's it's run by government money Sowhen bae and the government go around
talking about the great economic benefitsWhat they're not telling you is that
this is all government money anyway Buteven though it's a it's a manufacturing

(01:45:28):
base that relies on the state its ownprivately now So it was privatized
under thatcher a lot of the militarymanufacturing base And, and subsequently
some privatization continued even atthe start of the new labor government.
And it basically operates almost as a wayof money flowing through from these state
contracts through to the asset managementfirms that own military companies.

(01:45:50):
And they're often multinationals.
So although there are companieslike BAE, Babcock, Rolls Royce that
are headquartered in the UK, BAEis interesting because most of its
revenue actually comes from the U.
S. These companies arebig multinational firms.
They're publicly listed.
So you're, you or I could goand buy a share in one of them.
And those benefits from the contractsultimately kind of flow through.

(01:46:11):
So, so it's, it's notlike this kind of great.
Um set of national champions that is,you know run by the state for the state
It's an area in which there's privateinterest and there's a state interest

RANIA KHALEK - CO-HOST, BREAKTHROUGH NEWS: You know, Zoe, it's pretty impressive. (01:46:21):
undefined
Claudia Schoenbaum has beenin office for not very long.
And she's already had to deal with achange in administration to her north,
the most powerful country in the world,the United States of America, um, under
a presidency that was trying to punishMexico with these tariffs and has
also added Mexican drug cartels to theforeign terrorist organization list, uh,

(01:46:44):
essentially doing what Elon Musk openlysaid, which is laying the groundwork for
being able to carry out drone strikesin Mexico, which is a huge threat.
So can you put, um, I don't know, someof this and some of these acts of, I
would say aggression by the United Statesin the context of Claudia Sheinbaum as
president and what she in the movement sherepresents and what that means, uh, to the

(01:47:06):
U S because there's a reason that there.
attacking Mexico.
I'm not trying to put this, you know,say the tariffs are are the reason for
this because obviously Canada is beingsubjected to potential tariffs as well.
But there does seem to be aheightened aggression towards Mexico.

ZOE ALEXANDRA (01:47:22):
Yeah, it is actually very, very concerning.
And while there is definitelyroom for celebration about Um, the
tariffs announcement, if you listento Trump's State of the Union, uh,
you know, this week, there was, uh,definitely his address to Congress.
He once again kind of reiterated what youmentioned, Rania, which is, you know, in
a way, threatening the use of force, uh,to go after, um, Mexican drug cartels, not

(01:47:47):
only territory, but in Mexican territory.
And again, this opens up an entirelynew kind of scenario and threat.
Um, it's something that a lot of analystshave been warning about with, uh, the
designation of these organizationsas foreign terrorist organizations,
because essentially this designationjust gives power, you know, gives

(01:48:07):
powers to the U S government to goafter them in a certain way that Again,
you know, they're threatening, doingdrone strikes across the border, um,
threatening the use of military force.
There's already been kind of thismilitarization of the border.
Um, so all of this is very concerningand, and again, despite the relief on
tariffs again, uh, Trump did mentionin this address to Congress, uh.

(01:48:28):
Kind of this.
We will go after these organizations.
We will kind of crack down.
Um, and you know, that is definitelyconcerning and Mexico has continued to
maintain this position that they are doingeverything they can, you know, on in the
area that concerns them, which is again,continuing this very, very difficult and

(01:48:50):
long war on drug cartels in the country,which again, If we just look a little bit
into the past, uh, which have been proppedup by, uh, past administrations that were
directly collaborating with the UnitedStates, backed by the United States,
receiving support from the United States.
Um, so, you know, important to just addthat, that element that, um, you know,

(01:49:12):
Mexican governments like of, uh, you know,Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderon, there are.
Cases against members of those members,uh, members of their administrations
for having links to drug cartels.
Um, and so now there's this, oh, we'regoing to go after the drug cartels.
At the same time in Mexico, there's anarrative that, oh, the administration
of Morena is working with the cartels.

(01:49:33):
And so it is in some senses, ofcourse, there actually is a very
real struggle, um, going on in Mexicoto actually Crackdown on organized
crime, which once again has beenbolstered and in many ways supported
by the right wing in the country.
Um, of course the left and progressivemovements do not want huge criminal

(01:49:53):
organizations to exist in the country,but also the attack and this kind
of like, we're going to go off the,the, the U S and the right wing
look more in us with the cartels.
This is also sort of a smoke screen,um, to attack a government that.
Um, is, is attempting to rebuild Mexico'ssovereignty to give a prosperous life
to the people and is challenging some ofthose vested, some importantly, some of

(01:50:17):
those vested U. S. interests in Mexico.

EUGENE PURYEAR - CO-HOST, BREAKTHROUGH NEWS: You know, it's a number (01:50:22):
undefined
of good points there.
Uh, sorry, I got distractedwhen you mentioned Vicente
Fox, who put out this video.
Denouncing Claudia, Sean, Ilook like a hostage video.
It looked ridiculous, but I thoughtthe point you ended on is very
important, which is the sort of whatthe fourth transformation is doing.
I mean, I, a little bit beforethis, and like I told people at the
top, I was sick, so maybe I misreadthe graph, but I think I'm right.
You know, since the USMCA has been signed,which of course, uh, AMLO, the predecessor

(01:50:45):
of Claudia, Sean bomb, um, uh, negotiatedduring the first Trump administration,
uh, contrary maybe to popular belief.
In the auto parts sector in theUnited States, the employment in the
U. S. has gone up at the same time,actually, that the Mexican industry
has boomed, but I'm saying not tosay is the idea that somehow U.
S. Mexico cooperation isinherently undermining all workers

(01:51:06):
seems, you know, a little bit.
So.
put to the side by that.
And when you look at what they'vebeen talking about, the second
floor, the fourth transformation, Imean, it seems like they're trying
to raise the incomes and raise theliving standards of Mexican people.
And I feel like so much of this istrying to pit working people in America
against working people in Mexico, asif there's not a possibility for shared
cooperation around similar goals onboth sides of the border, I think for

(01:51:26):
workers to improve their livelihood.

ZOE ALEXANDRA (01:51:29):
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, a lot of the kind of rhetoricand narrative around, uh, Uh, you know,
industry leaving the United Statesand going to Mexico relies on the fact
that these previous governments, theseconservative governments, uh, were also
kind of complicit in lowering the, the,the standards of work, lowering the safety
standards and allowing it to be profitableto have their companies located in Mexico,

(01:51:53):
not just because of, uh, maybe partsor certain other things being cheaper,
but also Next clip Uh, the, the laboritself being cheaper and, and precisely
part of Morena's fourth transformationhas also been to, I mean, one of the
major things is to increase wages.
Um, you know, the, the wage discrepancyof course, between Canada, uh, between the
United States and Mexico is, is massive.

(01:52:15):
Um, you know, if you're working ina automobile plant in, in Mexico,
you're definitely making way lessthan you would in the United States.
But whose fault is that?
It's not the Mexican worker.
Uh, it's it's, of course,the the companies that are
trying to exploit this labor.
So I think this also brings out reallyimportant discussions and debates.
Um, of course, there's, you know, ahistory and a legacy of the impact of

(01:52:39):
deindustrialization on the U. S. workingclass that that cannot be kind of erased.
But I think that this moment isopening up important dialogues and
opportunities to actually be ableto identify Um, who is at fault?
And as the Mexican government is trying toactually hold those companies accountable,
um, demanding that standards be raised,um, demanding that Mexican workers are

(01:53:02):
treated with dignity, um, it is a goodopportunity to not kind of engage in
this, oh, well, these workers are scabs.
They're actually also tryingto make a living and trying to
survive in this, uh, environment.
And of course it is, Uh, these companieswhich, which have, you know, benefited
from this scheme, which are to blame.
So I think it's important, uh, youknow, there's a lot we can learn from

(01:53:23):
the model of the Fourth Transformation,you know, not only with regards to
workers rights and benefits, but theidea that Mexican resources can be
used to the benefit of Mexican people.
One of the main pillars of the FourthTransformation is also energy sovereignty,
um, using Mexican resources, tryingto make the country completely you
know, dependent on their own resources.

(01:53:44):
In the press conference today, ClaudiaStrainbaum mentioned, um, for many
years, you know, because of differentcommercial agreements, uh, Mexico was
importing fuel, was importing energy whenthey actually have so many resources.
And so turning that around, um,I think that this model of fourth
transformation can really serve itas an inspiration, even in terms

(01:54:04):
of, you know, women's rights.
There's so much.
So many advances that have happenedin Mexico, a country that faces,
you know, an epidemic of femicidesand a lot of misogynist violence.
This government, Claudia Sheenbaum,the current, uh, mayor of Mexico
City, the head of governmentin Mexico City, Clara Brujada.
Taking very strong positions, youknow, in a moment when Donald Trump

(01:54:25):
administration is cracking down on, onwomen's rights, just the south of the
border, we see a really interestingexample of public policies being put
in place to actually, um, help womenworkers, um, to create centers where
women are able to exchange and to have,to collectivize, for example, reproductive
labor, really interesting things.
So I think these, you know, in momentslike these, where we see kind of this

(01:54:49):
attempt to pit workers against eachother, as you said, Eugene, there's
also a really interesting opportunityfor exchange and, and, and building
together and learning from these examples.

TRISTAN SNELL - HOST, THE TRISTAN SNELL SHOW: It's the smooth Holly tariff. (01:54:59):
undefined
Of 1930.
No, it doesn't have anything todo with Josh Hawley, although
the tariff is not good.
And Josh Hawley is not good.
But other than that, theyhave nothing in common.
Here's the thing.
It was 1 of the highest setsof tariffs that have ever been
passed in American history.
This happened in 1930.
It was.

(01:55:20):
Right after the crash in Octoberof 1929, the stock market crashing
was really what we think of askicking off the Great Depression.
Here's the thing though, it wasn't likeall of a sudden the stock market crashed
one day and then the depression was on.
It took a lot longer over the nextfew years after that, before we

(01:55:41):
really got to the bottom of thedepression, like things grew steadily
worse with more bank failures,more company failures, unemployment
going up, up, up, up, up, right?
There were a whole bunch of thingsthat happened during the rest of the
time between 1929 and then in 1933with FDR, uh, coming to the presidency.

(01:56:04):
And one of those thingsthat made it a lot worse.
Was the Smoot Hawley tariff Republicans atthe time ran the entirety of Washington.
They had the White House.
They had both houses of Congress.
They had a Republican appointedmajority on the Supreme Court.
They had a majority of governorsand state legislatures.

(01:56:27):
1929 1930. Herbert Hoover wasthe president now infamously.
Uh, in American history is widelyconsidered to be one of the
worst presidents we ever had.
Well, the Republican PresidentHoover and a Republican Congress
passed the Smoot Hawley tariff.
They thought that passing sky hightariffs would actually help improve the

(01:56:51):
American economy that was reeling andjust having much higher unemployment.
Consumer demand was cratering.
You had banks that were teeteringon the edge of going under, and
they thought that tariffs by passingall these taxes on imported goods,
it would actually help things.
It set off another whole cascade ofawfulness where a whole bunch of other

(01:57:15):
countries, including our big allies,including we're talking the UK and France,
they all decided, well, we'll shoot,we're going to turn around and we're going
to pass really sky high tariffs also.
And that just snowballed it contributedalso to really horrible inflation, which
had already been very bad off and on inthe in Europe, especially in the 1920s

(01:57:40):
for reasons that have originally had moreto do with recovering from World War one.
Similar to in a way how theinflation of recent years had to
do with the recovery from covid.
But what happened was you hadmore taxes, more inflation, higher
costs, lower consumer demand, aterrible economic catastrophe.

(01:58:03):
Both in Europe and in the UnitedStates, and it led to all sorts
of terrible things, includingcontributing to the rise of fascism.
Adolf Hitler came to the chancellorshipof Germany because the German economy
cratered even more, in part because globaltrade completely went in the toilet.
And the americans we were to blame inlarge part because the holly smooth

(01:58:28):
tariff the smooth holly tariff Whateveryou want to call it was really bad
and resulted in retaliatory tariffs.
Why am I giving you a history lesson?
I think it's really reallyimportant to understand exactly
what Fire we are playing with here.
It really is true that the lasttime we did something like this
in American history, it helpedtrigger the great depression.

(01:58:51):
It already was moving in that directionbecause of the stock market crash, but
really, and historians generally agree onthis, that one of the biggest contributing
factors, and one of the reasons why Hooveris considered to be one of the worst
presidents we ever had was those tariffs.
That is generally considered to be1 of the worst moves that we made.

(01:59:13):
We took a situation where ourhouse was already on fire.
And instead of bringing a fire brigadeto put it out, we decided to take a 1
of those gasoline delivery trucks thatbrings the gas to the gas station.
We took 1 of those and thenwe sprayed that on the house.
That was on fire.
That's what we did.
With those tariffs, it madeeverything exponentially worse.

(01:59:38):
And even if you're a conservativeand you're like, you know, oh, we
shouldn't have been doing those tariffs.
Like if you're a true free marketconservative, by the way, there's a
lot of where the consensus on thiscame from, because you had people
that were conservative Republicans.
Who then looked at this entiresituation and they're like, oh,
my God, we passed those tariffs.
They did really bad things to the economy.

(01:59:59):
And if they were partisan conservative,they were like, and it led to the new
deal, which, of course, they thoughtwas anathema and they still do.
And honestly, they have beenfighting against the new deal.
This whole time.
That's literally the thing that theyhave been trying to resist this whole
time and fight against and tear apartdespite all of the good that so many

(02:00:20):
of those programs did for the Americanpeople and that they made America great.
So, why the hell are wepassing tariffs again?
Why would Donald Trump want all of this?
I think it's very simple.
The reason why that this era of farright people want tariffs is because
they legitimately think or they don'tthey don't care about the consequences.

(02:00:44):
But I think a bunch of them legitimatelythink that they can somehow tax
foreigners rather than billionaires.
That is what they are trying to do.
They think that by taxing these foreigncountries and the goods that come from
them, they can somehow raise enough money.
To bring in revenue for the federalgovernment while managing to make

(02:01:06):
it so that the richest people inthis country don't get taxed at all.
We already have the lowest taxesin the world for the super wealthy,
except for countries that reallyjust don't have any taxes at all.
And we're talking like those put thoseones aside the ones that are tiny.
And they basically just serve as likevery, very small population tax havens.

(02:01:27):
We're talking about likethe Caymans or Monaco.
Put those aside for actual like largecountries with a large population,
where they actually need to providesocial services and have and have
millions of people to care for
America of those countries has thelowest taxes for the super rich.
The effective tax rate.

(02:01:47):
For billionaires in America is about 8.
2%. That's it.
That is, I guarantee you waylower than what you pay, right?
It's on your forms when you fill it out.
You know, if you go through theturbo tax or whatever, or sometimes
it'll actually like, tell it toyou as you're doing your IRS work.

(02:02:07):
And now there's the free filingsystem with the IRS that the Trump
people want to get rid of because Godforbid that anything actually work
in this country for the middle class.
You know, as opposed to havingto pay some big company instead.
Right?
Don't want that want to beable to it's a boondoggle for
these for these big companies.

(02:02:27):
Let's just compare it even to somebodythat we think is well off a doctor.
Right?
A doctor pays a tax rate of 39 to 50percent or so, depending on what state
they live in, or what city they live in.
The highest rate would be for somebodywho lives in, like, New York City.
And a billionaire like ElonMusk or Donald Trump pays an

(02:02:48):
effective tax rate on average of 8.
2%. They want to pay 0in the case of Trump.
He already basically pays 0 all the time.
Like, Musk has been finding all sortsof creative ways to get his tax bill
completely eliminated, but that's whatthese people are doing and they actually
think that they can go ahead and taxforeign countries as opposed to taxing,
uh, billionaires and large companies.

(02:03:11):
Like, that's what they'rereally trying to do

THOM HARTMANN - HOST, THOM HARTMANN PROGRAM: And, and it got me thinking that I (02:03:14):
undefined
really, you know, I haven't writtenabout this in years, outside of my books.
My newest book, uh, which will be shippingin just a couple of weeks from, you
know, booksellers all across the country.
Uh, it's called The Hidden History ofthe American Dream, The Demise of the
Middle Class and How to Rescue Our Future.
And in that book, there's acouple of chapters about tariffs.

(02:03:35):
Um, and I referencethat in today's article.
But, uh, you know, this all beganin 1789 when Henry Knox rode up
to, uh, Mount Vernon on his horseto tell George Washington that
he'd just been elected Presidentof the United States, unanimously.
And, uh, Washington askedKnox to do two things.

(02:03:56):
He asked him to, number one, tell peoplehe was going to be a little bit late
for his inaugural because he had tovisit his mother, who was, uh, dying.
She, in fact, it was thelast time he ever saw her.
And secondly, he asked, uh, General Knoxif he would ride up to Connecticut to meet
with Daniel Hinsdale, who was a tailorwho was making fine American clothing,

(02:04:16):
which had been illegal prior to theAmerican Revolution, and get him a Made
in America suit that he could be worn in,that he could be sworn in on, uh, wearing.
And, uh, you know, so, uh, Knox took hismeasurements and went to Connecticut,
and sure enough, George Washington wassworn into office wearing his A made
in America suit, which were quite rareback then because for 200 years, England

(02:04:39):
had forbade any American company ortailor from manufacturing fine clothing.
You could, you could, you could sellhomespun, you know, cheap clothes, but
you could not sell expensive clothes.
They had to be made in England.
We shipped cotton over there.
They shipped fine clothing back over here.
And thus we maintainedtheir industrial base.

(02:04:59):
So they also forced us to buytea, the primary American beverage
from the East India Company.
And that ticked us off.
Tipped off the, uh, the BostonTea Party of 1773, which I've,
you know, written about andtalked about at some length here.
So, this, so when Washington wassworn in, his big challenge was how
do we create, how do we turn Americainto an industrial superpower?

(02:05:24):
And he turned to AlexanderHamilton, his Treasury Secretary,
and said, what do we do?
And just like The same way that, uh, JamesMadison had spent five years studying
republics, how, how countries put togethergovernments, including Native American
communities, the subject of my last book,The Hidden History of American Democracy.

(02:05:44):
Uh, the same way that James Madisonhad spent years studying how to,
how to construct a constitution,Alexander Hamilton had spent years
studying how countries developedindustrial policy, or what today
we would call industrial policy.
Back then, uh, It wasn'tquite called that.
And, you know, Adam Smith had laidthis out in 1776 in his book, uh,

(02:06:06):
titled An Inquiry into the Natureand Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
And what Smith laid out was thatonly manufacturing creates wealth.
Uh, well actually there's threeways to create wealth for a country.
Number one, you can digit up out of the ground.
You can dig up gold, you can digup iron ore, you can dig up coal.

(02:06:26):
These are all thingsthat represent wealth.
Uh, so number one, you canextract it, extractive industries.
Number two, you can steal it.
You can do it by colonialism.
You can go over to another country, youknow, like Spain did with, uh, uh, you
know, with Central America, and just stealall their gold and bring it back to Spain.
And this produced a boom in Spain,in addition to a massive inflation

(02:06:49):
in the late 1500s, early 1600s.
And, uh, so you can steal it.
But the third way, and the reallylegitimate way to create wealth for
a country, is to manufacture things.
And, you know, the example Smith usedwas A tree branch laying on the ground
in the forest has no intrinsic value.
It has no wealth.
It does not representwealth to the nation.

(02:07:10):
But if you apply labor and tools toit, in other words, take out a knife
and turn it, and whittle it downinto an axe handle, it now has value.
It's now something thatcan be sold or can be used.
And that value, even if you sell itoverseas, even if that axe handle
got shipped over to Japan, Thewealth from that axe, from that

(02:07:31):
manufacturing of that axe handle stayshere in the United States because
Japan pays you for that axe handle.
So the only way, the only real wayoutside of extraction or theft to create
wealth for a nation is manufacturing.
And Alexander Hamilton understood this.
George Washington understood this.
Every American president right upuntil Ronald Reagan understood this.

(02:07:51):
And that's why we had average tariffsfrom 1792 until the 1980s in the
neighborhood of around 20 to 30 percent.
You know, pretty much across the board.
to keep manufacturinghere in the United States.
And now what's happened is thatbecause of Reagan's neoliberalism,
the average tariff on goods intothe United States is only around 2%.

(02:08:14):
And the result, actually, it's 1.
2%. And the result of that is thatwe don't make things here anymore.
You know, in the 44 years since Reaganbegan the crusade to do away with tariffs,
a very successful crusade, by the way,that, you know, in Reagan's era was GATT
and the World Trade Organization, Um,uh, then George Herbert Walker Bush wrote

(02:08:35):
the North American Free Trade Agreement,NAFTA, and all that kind of thing.
So anyhow, the bottom line isthat we have lost trillions and
trillions of dollars of wealth.
Much of it coming out of the pocketsof average working class people.
And where did all that wealth go?
It went to China.
That's why China is the second wealthiestcountry in the world right now.
Because they adopted AlexanderHamilton's plan at the same time

(02:08:58):
we abandoned it in the 1980s.
And here we are.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Okay, let's talk about the bigger (02:09:03):
undefined
plan at work, if there is one.
You had talked about this sort of loosecoalition within the Republican Party.
What they want out of this administration,what they're all vying for, and
how it kind of fits into a plan.
Can you break it down?

MARK BLYTH (02:09:18):
Well, I don't know if it fits into a coherent plan, but it
fits into some kind of emergent plan.
So here's what it is.
So the first one is this,who are the losers in this?
It's the old timeneoliberal Republican hawks.
I'm thinking about Marco Rubio.
And the people like him, the onesthat have basically said we're
not going to be never Trumpersbecause we still want a job.
You've got the insurgent MAGA wing.

(02:09:38):
Think of people like Bannon, kind ofthe national conservatives, if you will.
They basically want to gut the socalled administrative state and
put up tariffs and rebuild Americanindustry on carbon lines in particular.
And then the third wheelof this is the tech lords.
The tech lords want tax cuts, whichis what Rubio's crowd also wants.
But they also want something else.

(02:09:59):
They want us to be nice to Chinabecause of their investments.
What is it the Rubio crowd want?
They want us to be bad to China.
Okay, what's the commonality?
They also want the state smashed.
Why?
Because they don't want to be regulatedon their digital platforms, so they
continue to make more monopoly profits.
So you've got these people that havecertain interests in common, certain
very divergent interests, and inthe middle of this, you got Trump.

(02:10:21):
Now what does Trump see himself as?
I think he's a latter day McKinley.
He believes in 19th centuryspheres of influence.
This is why the Greenland stuffand the Canada stuff make sense.
This is turning away from NARO, this isdumping the Europeans, this is the way
that he wants to see the world evolve.
Tariffs are at the heart of that.
Changing the nature of theAmerican state and his commitments
are at the heart of that.

(02:10:41):
So there's a lot at stake here and it'sthat coalition around Trump that basically
are influencing which way this plays out.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: And how does this inform what's (02:10:48):
undefined
happening right now with our economy?

So, why would you bully Canada?
I mean, just stop there andjust ask this question, right?
I mean, basically Canadian industryas a whole, Canadian finance,
everything, it's all integratedin the United States already.
You already have it.
You want any rare minerals inthe north, they'll be happy
to open a mine for you, right?
So why are you doing this?
Because the supply chains that cross theborder multiple times and things like the

(02:11:15):
auto sector, Trump wants them back home.
He wants them on this side of the border.
The bigger picture here is that We've beenrunning a global system for about 30 years
where you've got too many exporters andthe one big consumer, right, the importer
on the other side is the United States.
The United States has been paying forthis with digital dollars for the past

(02:11:36):
30 years and in exchange has been great.
We got cars, we got pharma, we got toys,I got a room full of musical instruments.
It's all fabulous, except for one thing.
When you do that for 30 years,what's the largest private sector
employer in the United States?

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: I know the answer. (02:11:49):
undefined
It's Walmart.

Boom, you got it.
What's one of the fastest growing privatesector employers in the United States?
Amazon Logistics, the guys in the vans.
So essentially you're importing stuff madeelsewhere, which you no longer make here.
Eventually you end uphollowing out the economy.
So we've seen this movie beforein a very different frame.
It was Biden in the IRA.

(02:12:12):
That was tariffs andgreen industrialization.
What you've got now is tariffsand carbon led industrialization.
Two sides of a similar coin.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: What you're talking about here are (02:12:20):
undefined
efforts to address one of Trump'sfavorite issues, the trade deficit.
According to the Wall StreetJournal, in 2024, the U.
S. 's annual goods deficitreached a record 1.
2 trillion, as the nation reliedon other countries for electronics,
cars, machinery, and oil.
Is this as urgent a problem asthe president and his supporters

(02:12:44):
have made it out to be?

So there's two schools of thought on this.
One of them says, no, it's not a problembecause what it's really all about
is the aggregate balance of savingsand investment around the world.
And there's another one that says,well, strictly from the point of view
of a national economy, do you reallywant everyone to work at Amazon?
Do you really want everybody towork at Walmart because we had a
big scare in the pandemic when wefound out we didn't do a lot of stuff

(02:13:09):
and maybe we should be doing this.
Biden's response to this with theInflation Reduction Act was to
essentially incentivize the privatesector We to come here, lots of
foreign investment and build greenmanufacturing and get into that game.
Trump's coalition is totally different.
It's based upon what I callcarbon heavy states, right?
So they're very much on the other sideof this, strangely looking for a rebuild

(02:13:33):
of not just manufacturing, but somenotion of a national economy, a turn away
from the globalization that we've had.
So there's two ways of looking on it.
We could adjudicate which one'sbetter in theory, but the fact is
one of them is in power and practice.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Okay, but I'm trying to understand (02:13:47):
undefined
your perspective as an economist.
You think addressing our big importingproblem is worthwhile, but you don't
think it's quite as urgent as Trumpand his ilk have made it out to be.

I'm more interested in the fact that in one way or another, both
parties have decided we can't keep doingwhat we did before, and we need to build
some kind of domestic industry back up.
Irrespective of how they gotthere, that's where we are.
My question then becomes,where do we go from here?
How does this play out?

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: I want to ask you about another (02:14:19):
undefined
term we hear discussed a lot by, uh,this administration, the national
debt, which sits around 36 trillion.
For years, Republicans have said ourgovernment spending is unsustainable.

Is it?
Well, if it's unsustainable, whydo they want to add to it by 1.
4 trillion in tax cuts?
Oh, the answer is trickle down, right?
That hasn't worked at all.
There is zero evidence for this.
So that tells me right nowthey're being disingenuous.
Is there a genuine concern over this?
Well, it depends how you look at it.
Again, you know that clockin Wall Street buzzing around

(02:14:57):
the size of the national debt?
That's literally also national savingsbecause that bond market where they say
the private sector, how about you give mea bunch of money and I'll give you this
promise that 10 years from now you'llget all the money back with interest.
You know the only thing youcan redeem the bond for?
Money.
What does the government print?
Money.
But 70 percent of Americanbonds are in the United States.

(02:15:19):
They're basically savingsbonds that sit at the bottom
of loads of credit arrangementsfor banks and financial firms.
If you reduce the United States stockof debt overnight, you would cause
the world's largest financial crisis.
These things are called.
Assets as well as liabilities.
So when you only look at this as aliability that we need to pay back, which
so far hasn't actually seemed to be muchof a problem because the whole world wants

(02:15:42):
to hold them as the savings asset, thenyou're only getting half the picture.
The other side is this is thepositive side of the balance sheet.
That's the savings assetthat everybody else uses.
Now there are costs to this, whichis everybody's so willing to hold
this stuff and then give us stuffin return that we've had this
hollowing out effect on the economy.
So maybe you want to dosomething about that.

(02:16:03):
But the notion that this isleading to bankruptcy, etc.
is just nonsense.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: So, when we hear Republicans talk about (02:16:08):
undefined
this debt crisis, is it That they don'tunderstand this math, or is this just
a politically expedient story to tell?

I think some of them would reject that math and just simply say
that's not true and it can't be the case.
For others though, justlook at the track record.
I mean, Reagan went on about this,and then he did huge tax cuts.
Bush, the first one, actually raisedtaxes and lost the election because of it.
Then the second Bush administrationmade exactly the same noises.
When Trump, you know, did tax cuts again,all they care about is getting tax cuts.

(02:16:43):
And one way to get tax cuts isto say, this is unsustainable.
We've got to do somethingabout the deficit.
We have to cut spending.
So the cut in the spendingpays for the tax cut.
If you cared about the deficitand the debt, you would
basically not do the tax cut.

MICAH LOEWINGER - CO-HOST, ON THE MEDIA: Yes, to your point, as reported by (02:16:56):
undefined
ProPublica in 2021, Trump added 7.
8 trillion to the national debt when hewas in office, largely due to these tax
cuts, followed by a worldwide pandemic.
That ranks as quote, the thirdbiggest increase relative to the
size of the economy of any U.S. presidential administration.

And what gets blamed for that?
It's not that, it's Biden sentout all those checks, right?
This is all about the politicalmanipulation of selected facts
to tell the story you want.
What matters is the narrative.
And these guys are brilliantat controlling the narrative.

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: How much does the White House, how much (02:17:31):
undefined
does President Trump respond to thosesignals from the business community?
I mean, as Scott said, he certainly

ASMA KHALID - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: takes a lot of cues from the stock market, (02:17:39):
undefined
but, but I will say it's sort of broaderin terms of their vision on tariffs.
I don't see President Trump completelydialing down tariffs entirely.
And I would say that for two reasons.
One is because, as I mentioned,he campaigned heavily on them and
he did keep in place some tariffs.
I mean, I know there was a lot of tradewar tit for tat during his first term.

(02:18:01):
But he did keep in placesome tariffs on China.
And the second reason I will sayis I think there are like multiple
reasons why he is doing this.
And one reason you'll hearfrom the administration is that
this is about bringing morejobs back to the United States.
And I know Scott, you were talking aboutthat just a minute ago, but, you know,
they'll say that this is across the board.
Um, you know, you.
President Trump was joinedearlier this week at the White

(02:18:23):
House with the CEO of the largestsemiconductor chip maker in the world.
This is a Taiwanese company,TSMC, and together they announced
this 100 billion investment inU. S. factories down in Arizona.
And, and, you know, the Trumpadministration's argument is, hey, look,
we were able to achieve this througha threat of tariffs on semiconductors.

(02:18:45):
We didn't use subsidies like the Chips Actthat former President Biden was touting.
They.
See opportunities for economicinvestment to occur on the soil of
the United States through tariffs.
And, you know, there are individualcompanies that they can point to.
There certainly are.
And I'm Scott, I'm sure you'vetalked to them to that that will
say we have benefited from theimplementation of these tariffs.

(02:19:06):
I mean, there's a wire companynot far from here out in Maryland.
Who, you know, is reallyoptimistic about these tariffs.
They make their productsin the United States.
They rely on American made steel.
And yes, there are individual companiesthat perhaps have benefited from these
tariffs, but I think on the totality,when you look at what happened from
2018, 2019, if we're going to look tothe past, most economists would say

(02:19:27):
the tariffs were not a net positivefor the United States economy.

SCOTT HORSLEY - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: And look, manufacturers in this country (02:19:32):
undefined
want to sell their products, not onlyin the United States, they want to
sell their products around the world.
Farmers in this country desperately dependon global markets to sell their products.
And these tariffs that the Trumpadministration is imposing to protect
the domestic market are going to be aturnoff for those international markets.

(02:19:53):
And we saw this in 2018, 2019, whenUS businesses lost foreign customers,
lost foreign market share because theretaliatory tariffs that were imposed
during the first Trump trade war.
And as Asma says, This round oftariffs, what's already happened and
what's in the pipeline is far moresweeping than what we saw in 2018 2019.

(02:20:18):
This is akin to what we saw in the1930s with the Smoot Hawley tariffs,
which economists are almost unanimous insaying that global trade war worsened.
Okay,

SARAH MCCAMMON - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: we've talked a bunch about businesses (02:20:31):
undefined
and how they're responding, butwhat about the countries that are
being targeted with these tariffs?
I mean, I'm thinking about Canada,which has, of course, been for
such a long time, such a close U.
S. ally and others.
I

ASMA KHALID - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: mean, we've seen the political and (02:20:43):
undefined
economic reaction in Canada where we'veseen them impose reciprocal tariffs
of their own in response to what theTrump administration has put forth.
You're also just seeing, I would say, thepolitical culture sort of shift in real
time where the United States and Canadahave long been close allies and friends
and, you know, to the degree that othercountries retaliate once these April 2nd.

(02:21:08):
Big tariffs are announced.
We'll have to see.
I mean, the Trump administration'sargument, and this is true, is
that certain countries do havemuch higher tariff rates on U. S.
exports than the other way around.
And so that is their argument.
They want to level the playing field.

SCOTT HORSLEY - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: But again, Canada and Mexico, we (02:21:23):
undefined
had a free trade agreement withCanada and Mexico, which the Trump
administration signed in 2020, andwhich they have now ripped apart.
Now it is interesting.
Uh, Mexican President ClaudiaSheinbaum took a more conciliatory
approach, a softer approach.
She didn't impose, uh, retaliatorytariffs right away, although she
threatened that she would do so on Sunday.

(02:21:45):
And maybe that's why she's gotten herreprieve a little bit more so than
Justin Trudeau, the Prime Ministerof Canada, with whom the President
has a notably frosty relationship.
And some people have said this allcomes down to personalities, kind of
like what we've seen with Ukraine, youknow, it's, it's just, who does the
President Trump personally get along with?

ASMA KHALID - CORRESPONDENT, NPR POLITICS PODCAST: I do think it's worth pointing out, (02:22:03):
undefined
though, that a batch of tariffs fromthe Trump administration, the ones
that were put on China, were keptin place during the Biden years.
Because I think if people justhear this at the outset, I think
there's an assumption that tariffsare inherently good or bad.
And one of the questions I've hadis, well then, why did a Republican
administration put them in place onChina and a Democratic one didn't?
Kept them in place.

(02:22:23):
And I think that this ispartly about like, what is
your end goal with the tariffs?
And that's what I keep coming backto with the Trump administration.
I don't have clarity overwhat is the end goal.
Um, you know, if the end goalis to diversify your supply
chains away from China.
Then, fine, you've actually achievedthat, I would say, to some degree,
you have more things maybe beingproduced in a place like Vietnam.

(02:22:43):
But I think the challenge right now iswhen you have such sweeping tariffs on a
whole bunch of countries, including yourneighbors, who you had a trade deal with,
it's really not clear what the end goalis for putting all those tariffs in place.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: You've reached section C-U-S-A-I-D. (02:22:56):
undefined

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Nicolas, can you give us some (02:22:59):
undefined
examples of some of the programsthat got defunded, but also explain?
It’s not only that Congressappropriated the money, right?
It is that the money, in alot of cases, it’s paying back
for services already rendered.

NICOLAS SANSONE (02:23:21):
That’s absolutely correct.
And Congress has earmarked fundsfor particular sorts of projects.
So, our client, the AIDS VaccineAdvocacy Coalition, who you’ll hear
from in a moment, they do essential workon HIV and AIDS prevention research,

(02:23:41):
the sort of work that Congress hasexpressly directed the executive to
put foreign assistance funding towards.
So, whatever policy disagreementsthe current State Department has with
the work that Congress has directedit to fund, the executive doesn’t
have the authority to overridecongressional directives in that way.

(02:24:05):
Another one of our clients, the JournalismDevelopment Network, they do global work
protecting journalists who are exposingcorruption in governments worldwide.
Our clients have had to substantiallycut down their operations,
terminate staff, and that’s reallyjust the tip of the iceberg.

(02:24:26):
The scale of the foreignassistance funding freeze has been
catastrophic and unprecedented.
Food has been left rotting inwarehouses that would otherwise be
distributed to victims of famine.
Children have been leftwithout essential medicines.
In some cases, lives have been lost.
Aid workers have been strandedin hostile areas without access

(02:24:48):
to emergency medical care.
And there has been no justification forthis dramatic action by the executive
branch, that, again, we maintain was anabuse of its constitutional authority.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Can you talk about Justice Alito, in (02:25:02):
undefined
his dissent, calling the majority’sdecision — that’s the Chief Justice John
Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett — stunning,arguing a single judge shouldn’t have the
power to compel $2 billion in payments?

NICOLAS SANSONE (02:25:22):
What’s stunning here is the extent of the executive
branch’s failure to comply with aclear court order requiring it to
lift the foreign assistance freeze.
To be clear, there is nothingunusual about judges ordering
a likely unlawful practice — there was ajudicial determination that this foreign

(02:25:45):
assistance freeze was likely unlawful.
And it is very par for the coursefor judges, once they have made that
initial determination, and wherethey have determined that irreparable
harm is likely to be suffered if theunlawful practice is not paused while

(02:26:05):
the litigation continues, it’s verycommon for judges to enter temporary
restraining orders requiring a returnto the status quo before an unlawful
practice was instituted, while the casesort of makes its way through the courts.
The only reason that this case founditself at the Supreme Court at this stage

(02:26:28):
is the fact that the government tookno steps to comply with the temporary
restraining order, requiring thedistrict judge to sort of put his foot
down and say, “Look, there has been noevidence that you have taken any action
to lift the foreign assistance freeze,so I’m going to require you to make

(02:26:50):
certain funds available by tomorrow.
You’ve had two weeks alreadyto do this, and you haven’t.”

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: I want to bring in Mitchell Warren, (02:26:57):
undefined
executive director of the AIDS VaccineAdvocacy Coalition, or AVAC, also on
the board of the PEPFAR organization,which was, PEPFAR, of course, a major
project of President George W. Bush.
Can you talk about the work you do andwhat this funding freeze has meant for

(02:27:18):
you and for people around the world?

MITCHELL WARREN (02:27:22):
Thank you so much for having me, and really appreciate you
bringing light into what’s happening.
This is not just a legal case.
This is about foreign assistance,that for 60 years has been the
backbone of U.S. diplomacy.
Every president has made decisionsabout what that policy might look
like, but it’s been a core tenet ofevery administration of all political

(02:27:42):
stripes that foreign assistance matters.
PEPFAR, as you described, for 20years, first founded by President
Bush, has been the most lifesavingprogram imaginable in global health.
And AVAC is just one small part of it.
We’re a small advocacy organizationfocused on HIV prevention.
And right now what’s most alarming isthat we stand in one of the greatest

(02:28:05):
moments in HIV prevention, as PEPFAR andother partners in countries around the
world are looking at the introductionof new prevention technologies.
And that’s a lot of the work that we doat AVAC, in really trying to make sure
those products get developed and thenget delivered to prevent new infections.
And so, projects around the world werestopped a month ago, and for no good

(02:28:28):
reason and with no clear strategy.
No one’s arguing that an administrationcan’t make policy changes, and of
course that’s in their purview.
But you do it in a way that followsprocess and follows the law.
And that’s all thatwe’re talking about here.
If you want to make changes, describethem, articulate them, and work together

(02:28:48):
with the implementing partners andwith host countries to ensure that
people have healthy lives and thatcountries and economies stay robust.
And what is remarkable is PEPFAR hasdemonstrated for 20 years that it is
truly the project that makes Americaand the world safer, stronger and
more prosperous — precisely what thisadministration describes as their policy.

(02:29:11):
So, it’s working in complete opposition towhat they’re actually saying and, clearly,
acting in a capricious, vindictive way.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: An official at the Desmond Tutu HIV (02:29:21):
undefined
Center is warning the funding cutsto HIV projects could lead to half
a million deaths in South Africaover the next 10 years, Mitchell?

MITCHELL WARREN (02:29:33):
Exactly.
You know, PEPFAR, over 20 years,has helped to save — get 20 million
people on antiretroviral therapy thatsaves lives and prevents infections.
Millions of people’slives have been saved.
And, you know, remember, GeorgeBush started this with bipartisan
support, because people were dying.
And PEPFAR has ensured that peopleare living and economies are growing.
And the United States benefits from that.

(02:29:55):
South Africa has been theepicenter of the epidemic.
I worked there throughout the1990s setting up the first HIV
prevention programs at the beginningof the epidemic, when HIV and AIDS
was actually a death sentence.
Now it’s not.
But if we don’t allow drug suppliesto happen, as Nicolas was describing,
there are many ramifications, notjust in HIV, with food rotting, but

(02:30:17):
also medicines in shipping containersdestined for countries around the world.
Even if the new administrationwants to stop that program, you’ve
already made the investment.
You’ve spent the money, appropriatedby Congress, to procure those
antiretrovirals, to deliver them, andnow people can’t actually access them.

(02:30:37):
And people will die.
And it’s not just aboutHIV, tuberculosis, malaria.
We have an issue — you know, the executiveorders coming in January were concurrent
with an Ebola outbreak in Uganda.
So, you’re seeing the inability to dosurveillance of outbreaks and to deal
with emerging pandemics, as well as HIV.

(02:31:00):
And so, you’re seeing ramificationsleft, right and center.
We may not see the numbers tomorrow.
You know, people won’t die tomorrowwithout antiretroviral therapy.
But if they fall out oftherapy, they will get sick.
They’re more likely to transmitthe virus, and they will die.
And we’ll see those numbers comingup in the months and years ahead.

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: There are a lot of people who are (02:31:17):
undefined
critical of USAID, and they've beenvery vocal in paying attention to what's
going on with Trump's attack on USAID.
But, you know, even among thosewho are kind of celebrating this
as a good thing, A lot of them areconcerned about trying to preserve

(02:31:38):
the supposedly good parts of USAID.

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Right, right. (02:31:42):
undefined

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: So the most commonly cited example right (02:31:43):
undefined
now is PEPFAR, which is responsiblefor helping to administer Medicine
and other kinds of preventative carecare for babies around HIV AIDS.
So, I don't know.
What do you think about that?
Do you think that means that weshould be trying to preserve the

(02:32:04):
good parts of USAID and just getrid of the bad parts, you know?

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Yeah, it would be a great idea. (02:32:09):
undefined
Here's the difficulty of it.
USAID is not itself an agency thatdistributes syringes or distributes
medicines or food or something.
What it does is it contracts out toother organizations, which are then
entrusted or empowered to carry this out.

(02:32:30):
Now, what are these other organizations?
About half of all of AID'sdisbursements go to what's called
non governmental organizations, okay?
Those non governmental organizationsAround half of them are for
profit, and the other half iswhat's called non profit NGOs.
Now, this means that a substantialsection of everything that USAID is

(02:32:53):
handing out is to private actors ofsome kind, either profit or non profit.
Furthermore, 90 percent of those
So when it goes to Nigeria, it's notcontracting with local Nigerian actors
who know the scene, who know thelandscape, who have distribution networks.

(02:33:14):
It's actually contracting outto American agencies who fly
down there to do the work.
That means then, in the first instance,AID is Much of the time, creating
profit opportunities for private actors.
There are of course the not for profitprivate actors as well, but this is

(02:33:34):
a very, again, tricky distinctionbecause a lot of these so called NGOs,
nonprofits, actually are either armsof the for profit organizations or
have to conform to what the for profitorganizations are doing because that's
what's really driving the train.
Why does this matter?
It matters because the for profitorganizations are not in it to make

(02:33:56):
sure that the programs are run accordingto the humanitarian principles.
They're in it to try tomaximize their profits.
Now, why does that matter?
I'll give you an example.
The largest recipient of AIDfunds is a firm called Chemonics.
Now, Chemonics is an interesting firm.
This last year, it got somethinglike four billion from AID.

(02:34:16):
Wow.
Chemonics was one of the key players inHaiti in the 2010s in helping organize
opposition to the popular government.
But it was also, in terms ofhumanitarian aid, the recipient
of one of the largest humanitariancontracts for healthcare globally.
I think this was in 2013.

(02:34:38):
It was around 9 billion.
Two years after this healthcareinitiative, which included things
like HIV, which included thingslike medicine against measles
and malaria and things like that.
Two years after they got the money, it wasdiscovered only 7% Of the medical supplies
that have been purchased with that moneyever made it to the recipient countries.

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Oh gosh. (02:35:00):
undefined

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: 93 percent could not be accounted for. (02:35:01):
undefined
Okay.
And I love this.
The investigation found that unnamedactors within these agencies,
within Chemonics, had made off withI'm quoting large sums of money.
We don't know how much we're assumingit was in the millions upon millions.
Okay, so sounds very morally good to meat its peak after these investigations

(02:35:24):
Somewhere around 63 to 64 percent of theactual supplies at its peak were making
it to the recipient countries, which meansat its best, Chemonics was making off with
around one third of all the supplies thatwere being supposedly distributed to them.
Now, why does this matter?
It's not random corruption.
It's built into the model.
Because the model is this.

(02:35:46):
AID receives funds.
It says, okay, we're going to distributemedicines through these funds.
It then starts looking for tenders.
Contractors start making tenders to them.
All of this is done behind the scenes.
Almost no oversight.
All of these revelationshave been post facto.
We just happened to discoverthat Chemonics was doing this.
We don't know what theother agencies are doing.
All of it's post facto.
Chemonics, in fact, inHaiti, was put on retainer.

(02:36:09):
And what do we mean by that?
AID had Kimonix on internationalretainer so that whenever there's a
disaster somewhere, there will be anautomatic contract going to Kimonix
to be the agency in charge rather thanwhat's called competitive bidding.
Which means basically, it's a racket.
There's what's called a contractor racket.
All these firms, remember, 90 percentof AID's money goes to American Much

(02:36:34):
of it is done without any kind ofoversight, none of it is done above
board, very little of it is competitive.
So it's essentially a gigantichandout to these companies.
So what looks to be the onedefensible component of AID is
actually a gigantic boondoggle.
It's a racket.
If you're going to preservethose components of AID.

(02:36:56):
It's charter is going tohave to be overhauled.
It cannot be this essentiallycontractor mafia, which is what
it's created over the last 25 years.
I mean, I hate to say it, but whatMusk is saying here and what Trump is
saying, it's probably an understatement.
The level of corruption in this agencyand the entire developmental industrial

(02:37:17):
complex It is so profoundly corrupt,and it is so profoundly enmeshed in
illicit profits, in counterfeiting, inmaking off with public money, and then in
extremely aggressive geopolitical designs.

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Yeah. (02:37:32):
undefined

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: It's really hard, I think, (02:37:33):
undefined
to disentangle these things.

NICOLLE WALLACE - HOST, DEADLINE WHITE HOUSE: Let me also ask you something (02:37:36):
undefined
from my vantage point as a formerWhite House employee, um, about
shredding and destroying documents.
This was, um, not onlyunethical, but I think illegal.
Um, but NBC News is reporting this,USAID staff is being told to shred
and burn other classified documents.
Quote, the U. S.
Agency for International Developmentis instructing its staff in Washington

(02:37:58):
to shred and burn documents, accordingto an email obtained by NBC News.
The document destruction was set to takeplace Tuesday, according to an email
from Erica Carr, the agency's actingexecutive secretary, quote, shred as
many documents first and reserve theburn bags for when the shredder becomes
unavailable or needs a break, Carr wrote.

(02:38:19):
I, I worked in governmentfor almost a decade.
I've never heard of so much shreddingbeing required that you would know ahead
of time that, quote, the shredder wouldbecome unavailable or need a break.
What is that about?

VAUGHN HILLYARD (02:38:32):
Right.
I actually this morning I got amessage from somebody who left USAID
earlier this year and passed alongthis email to me and my response is
naturally is a standard operatingprocedure and this individual said no,
that they had never heard about it.
burning or shredding offederal records at USAID.

(02:38:53):
But then again, this individual told methey've never heard of the entire agency
being gutted and their headquarters at theRonald Reagan building being shut down.
When are documents, you know, burnedby the State Department or USAID?
Typically at an embassy whenit is about to be overtaken.
Marines have the authorization asa means of ensuring that classified

(02:39:15):
records and personnel data do notget in the hands of individuals,
uh, of who are seen as threats.
They do go and burn documents, butthat's not what this situation is here.
And I was talking to a nationalsecurity records lawyer.
Here who is already sent to theNational Archives a demand to have the
records stopped from being destroyed.

(02:39:36):
We should note that this was all takingplace today here in the way that this
lawyer put it to me was that thisis number one of a violation of the
Federal Records Act, but number two.
That there is a standard operatingprocedure when it comes to processing
records, and unless all of these recordswere digitized or there was a clarity
that, for example, records older than 10years old that have been appropriately

(02:40:00):
deemed by necessary officials isno longer having to be archived.
may be terminated.
Those can then be ultimately destroyed.
But this email is very explicit tothese individuals who received it.
Quote, shred as many documentsfirst and reserve the burn bags
for when the shredder becomesunavailable or needs a break.
They were directed to go and clear outthese classified safes and personnel

(02:40:23):
documents from what used to be USAIDheadquarters and Marco Rubio, the state
department that is now overseeing USAID.
They just earlier this week said that 83percent of the contracts that U. S. I.
D. oversaw have been eliminated, and theway the USAID official suggested to me
is that if they're truly trying to, uh,get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse, many

(02:40:45):
of these documents would have recordsas to exactly where payments have gone
and how contracts have ultimately beenexecuted across the, uh, across the world.
And so if you are shredding documents,you're effectively removing a paper
trail that could be paramount to actuallyunderstanding how USAID has executed

(02:41:07):
and used its capacities overseas.
And so much of that could beunderstood by these archived documents
that were clearly been orderedtoday to be burned and destroyed.

SARA JERVING (02:41:18):
I think essentially what we're hearing and what I'm gathering
from all these rulings and all theseactions that are happening is that.
Essentially, there is no agency.
There's, um, we, we can still referto it, but because staffers are on
administrative leave and, um, there'sno money coming out, there is no agency,

(02:41:38):
which brings me back to the Supreme Court,um, ruling, because even before that
happened, um, the Trump administrationhad actually started cancelling contracts.
We're hearing that theyhave cancelled contracts.
Almost 10, 000 contracts,leaving very few.
I think it's around 500contracts under USAID.
What does that exactly mean?
And what are we hearing has been canceled?

ELISSA MIOLENE (02:42:00):
Yeah.
So it's, uh, it's pretty huge news.
I mean, we're hearing fromorganizations that received dozens
of termination letters yesterday.
This is the vast majority fora lot of organizations of the
work that they support and do.
Um, if you think about 500.
Awards left out of a grand totalof, you know, 5, there were 5,

(02:42:21):
800 terminated at USAID alone.
The remaining to make up that 10,000 came from the State Department.
But if we look at just USAID.
That's over 90 percentof the agency's awards.
Now, what that means, um, we're hearingthat a lot of programs that previously
had been given waivers for life savinghumanitarian aid, which is something
that many lawmakers have kind ofrepeatedly said, well, you know, we've

(02:42:44):
done this, and there's this assumptionfor life saving humanitarian aid.
We know through our reporting thatthat hasn't worked out exactly as,
um, kind of has been described.
On Capitol Hill, um, it's beena messy Process even before this
week of organizations not gettingfunding to deliver that life saving
aid, but now even those programsthat have been exempted are cut.

(02:43:05):
Now that includes PEPFAR programs.
I'll give you one example.
I spoke to an organizationin South Sudan last week.
Now, remind, I'll just remind you,this is before the mass amount of
terminations, but this was a program thatwas specifically providing ARVs to 1, 000,
give or take, active patients, and thenprevention for another 9, 000 terminated.

(02:43:28):
So those people can't get accessto their ARVs, even though.
This is, you know, kind of thedefinition of what a life saving
program would be lots of other programsthat we're hearing have been cut.
Um, and again, you know, I think thisjust feeds into a little bit too of
the chaos that Sarah was describing.
Organizations have gottenmultiple termination letters.
Um, so.

(02:43:48):
It's, it's very unclear exactly, youknow, how exact, how this process
played out with the administrationand how they reviewed each contract.
We had previously reported on whatwe knew about the 90 day review,
and a lot of that came from a lotof the court filings and documents.
Um, and that process that the StateDepartment had said that they would go
through would be several months long.
You know, it would befinished on April 19th.

(02:44:08):
It would take input from organizations.
It would take input fromimplementing partners.
Even diplomats were at their firstlistening session, so foreign governments.
But over the past several days, TheTrump administration has said that
Rubio himself, the Secretary of State,has individually reviewed all of these
programs and made determinations.
So it seems that actually that reviewprocess has finished and we're still

(02:44:30):
waiting to kind of get some answersand clarity on what happened to the
original plan for that 90 day review.

SARA JERVING (02:44:36):
That's super interesting, because I remember the last time I was
on This Week in Global Development, whichwas like probably two weeks ago, which
shows you how fast everything is moving.
I was questioning whether 90 days isenough to do a proper comprehensive review
of all the programs associated with USAID.
And if we're saying it's done inthis short amount of time, and the

(02:44:56):
consultations and everything elsethat was laid out does not seem
by all accounts to have been done.
It's really questionable on, uh,for people to understand what kind
of programs are in line with thisadministration's, uh, foreign aid policy.
And, um, I think one thing that we'rebeginning, we're beginning to see a lot
of, as you alluded to, you spoke to anorganization that provides HIV services.

(02:45:20):
We had a colleague who wasin Uganda, Andrew Green.
He also spoke to, um, organizationsproviding HIV services, and they were
basically saying everything that'sassociated with prevention has stopped.
Uh, we're able to give out ARVs,but there's confusion amongst that.
Our colleague, Tanya, um, Karas alsodid a story on malnutrition services.

(02:45:40):
And, um, there was a waiver forRUTF, which is this, um, sort of.
paste that we give tomalnourished children.
And there was a waiver for that tosupply that, but there was an instance
where there's a factory that isholding boxes of this life saving aid.
And basically they don't havean order to open the factory.

(02:46:01):
So you're allowed to distribute thislife saving aid, but it's locked away
in this factory and they are awaiting.
In order to open this factory, whichhas re resulted in so much chaos,
and I think we're going to begin tosee the effects on recipients as as
well as we are seeing the effectson staffers as well as implementers.

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Kennedy recognized in 61 that the (02:46:20):
undefined
scope for traditional forms of powerwas Contracting in the latter half
of the 20th century and the reasonit was contracting Was that, unlike
the 19th century, nation states inthe 20th century could fight back a
lot better if you just invaded them.

(02:46:42):
In the 19th century, most ofthe global south, nation states
weren't really a finished project.
Which means that they didn'thave standing armies, or if
they did, they were very small.
It means that local elites weren'tvery well organized, and Many of these
countries were still very, very poor,which means they couldn't really put up
a fight, even if they did have armies.
So, invasion and outright takeoverwere still very much a viable option

(02:47:06):
if you wanted to dominate them.
By the 1950s and 60s, state formationis largely complete in a lot of the
global south, which means if you're gonnainvade them, they're gonna fight back.
So, now, you don't give that up, you stillContinue to do that where it's viable.
But because the scope of itsviability has now shrunk, you need
to find other ways of influencingthe policies of these countries.

(02:47:31):
That other way is called soft power.
One boilerplate description of softpower Is that it's trying to get,
instead of forcing your policies downthe throats of these elites in the
global South and populations in theSouth, what you're trying to do is
elicit their voluntary cooperation.
That's why it's soft.
How do you do that?
Well, the way they traditionallydescribe it is, you do it through

(02:47:53):
things like, American media, culture,movies, you try to shape their culture
so they identify with Americans and the,what's called the American way of life.
And if they identify with you, thenthey will align with what you're
trying to do because they thinkthey're part of your extended family.
The problem with that is this.
It's always and everywhere thecase, it'd be great if the left, the

(02:48:15):
contemporary left recognized this.
Ideas and culture come into conflictwith interests, interests always win out.
So elites, local populations in theSouth will be happy to go along with you
because they like your movies, and theylike your ice cream, things like that.
But when it comes to having developmentalprospects, developmental agendas
that are set up against Americaninterests, that culture industry isn't

(02:48:38):
going to be able to do much for you.
So now comes the real, I think,core of what soft power is.
What soft power actually is tryingto do is use non militaristic means.
Not to simply get people tointernalize your culture, because
that's only going to get you so far.
But it becomes a mechanismfor coordinating interests.
What you want to do is make Localruling classes, local political

(02:49:00):
elites see that their agendasare aligned with your agendas.
That's a question of aligning interests.
So the real core of soft poweris to bring interest in line.
How will USAID do that?
That's where things get tricky and thiswhole notion of a firewall between hard
and soft power starts to break down.

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: So If this firewall is so unstable, does (02:49:21):
undefined
that mean that soft power starts to morphinto more traditional forms of hard power?

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Yeah, that's exactly what happens. (02:49:32):
undefined
Or let's just say that soft power becomesaccompanied and backed by hard power.
all the time.
And the U. S. uses both of themwhen necessary and upon request.
So I'll give you an example.
So suppose the U. S. sees that thereis political contestation in some
country in the South where there'sa nationalist stake or a left

(02:49:54):
wing party that's vying for power.
All right, so now there's a clashof interest inside that country.
It's not so simple to say we want toget their elites to align what they're
doing with what we want them to do.
Now you've got to make a choice.
between contendingfactions of elites, right?
All right.
So suppose that the moreleft wing elite wins power.
Now they're still elite.
He's not communist.

(02:50:15):
He's not socialist.
They're going to be people who aremildly redistributed, but still have
a base in the local ruling classes.
Now, if they think that their versionof nationalism is going to require
some independence, some autonomyfrom the United States, it means
there's not a lot of talking that'sgoing to bring them along to you.
So what you now have to do as theUnited States in wielding your
soft power, You won't invade them.

(02:50:38):
You won't engage in assassinations.
That's hard power.
But what you'll do is actively startsteering political alignments in that
country by what bribery, by activelyfostering certain business groups, by
taking money away from groups that youthink are helping the political opposition
if they happen to be getting funds fromyou and aid from you and such things.

(02:51:00):
So now it's not any longer giving themice cream and having them watch movies.
Now you're Actively interveningin their political affairs, no

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: more Lakers posters. (02:51:08):
undefined

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Yeah, that's exactly right. (02:51:10):
undefined
And that now easily bleedsinto just nudging them a bit.
If the electoral malfeasance isn'tworking when you fund political
groups that align with your interests,a lot of them are going to be.
Quite vicious.
A lot of them are going to be very rightwing, so technically you're not doing
the assassinations, but you're fundingpeople who are doing the assassinations.

(02:51:33):
The point is, you don't ever give up themore militaristic, the more vicious means.
You're simply saying, If we canstep back from them, let's do it.
But the second the soft power doesn'tget you what you want, you will go
back to either yourself using themilitarism or using the soft power to
fund more militaristic, more aggressivegroups because they're the ones who

(02:51:54):
happen to align with your interests.
That's why I said there's nofirewall between these two things.
All you've done is you'veadded a component to the
repertoire of global domination.
But because it's domination,you never let outcomes.
Go against you because those outcomesmight be what the soft power is producing.

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: So let's look back at the 60s when (02:52:13):
undefined
USAID was founded and the quintessential1960s American conflict is Vietnam
was USAID involved in Vietnam at all.

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: It was deeply, profoundly and (02:52:28):
undefined
disgracefully involved in Vietnam.
If you read the official historiesof AID, they will tell you that they
were very productive and very usefulin helping set up village level
education campaigns, village levelemployment centers, village level
agricultural growth centers and all that.

(02:52:49):
And that's kind of true.
What is hidden from it though, isthat the USAID helped design what's
called rural pacification and thestrategic Hamlet program, which were
both geared towards reducing the scopeof the activity of North Vietnamese,
the Viet Minh forces, and to try to,as it were, dry out the lake in which

(02:53:11):
the revolutionary forces were swimming.
And the way they did that was to say,well, we don't really know which of these
villages Is sympathetic to the north andwhich ones is not so what we're going to
do is physically relocate peasants that wesuspect are sympathetic entire villages of
peasants and move them to new locations.
And that's why they werecalled strategic hamlets.

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Rural pacification. (02:53:31):
undefined
Exactly.

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: So now, this is not the worst of it. (02:53:34):
undefined
Now in this, AID, of course, youcould say all they're doing is
setting up rural employment programs.
But what they're actually doingis helping design what you might
call massive ethnic cleansing.
It's a massive.
Relocation programs of forcibly removingpeasants from their homes and putting
them into new ones and then forcing theseeconomic programs down their throats.

(02:53:57):
Is that soft power , itdoesn't look like it.
Right, right.

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: I was gonna ask, so is the idea that (02:54:00):
undefined
U-S-A-I-D, is this humanitarian fontjust a complete facade, or it was a

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: total facade at the time? (02:54:09):
undefined
Because this was actuallythe soft edge, what I've just
described, what they were doing.
There was an agency within a IDcalled the Office of Public Safety.
Now again, this sounds very anine.
It sounds very, very like we

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: love safety. (02:54:22):
undefined
Yeah.
Who

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: doesn't like safety? (02:54:23):
undefined
Their job was to help train police forces,so as to create order and stability inside
countries that were wracked with violence.
That, that's their official mission.

MELISSA - CO-HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Mm hmm. (02:54:34):
undefined

VIVEK CHIBBER - HOST, CONFRONTING CAPITALISM: Now, what was their job in Vietnam? (02:54:34):
undefined
It was to create a SouthVietnamese police force, pivotal
to the counterinsurgency effort.
So, AID now, through the OPS, isinvolved in counterinsurgency in Vietnam.
Now, this program became notoriousbecause it was institutionalized in
something called Operation Phoenix.
Now, Operation Phoenix was thecounterinsurgency wing in South Vietnam

(02:54:57):
that became the, one of the mostnotorious operations because basically
the South Vietnamese elites used itfor two things, ostensibly to root
out communists, which basically meantit became an assassination program.
But on top of that, itbecame an instrument of gang
warfare within the South.
Transcripts provided byTranscription Outsourcing, LLC.

(02:55:26):
aggressively and actively withthe CIA, with the Department of
Defense, and it resulted in thousandsof assassinations and deaths.
It was so bad that in 1974, Congress,after congressional hearings and
after discovering just how deeply AIDthrough the OPS that was involved in
this actually shut down OPS altogether.

(02:55:47):
And so in Vietnam then you have what isostensibly an aid agency involved in rural
pacification, involved in assassinationplots and attempts, and involved in
every aspect of the American war effort.
And the reason for that is The late20th century wars in the United States

(02:56:07):
are not traditional battles wherearmies line up against each other.
Nearly every American engagement, fromVietnam and after, has essentially
been counterinsurgency of some kind.
Counterinsurgency means you take on,not armies, but local populations.
Which means, inevitably, just likeIsrael is doing today, you are destroying

(02:56:28):
cities Hamlets, regions, physically.
So that means the complement tothis destruction campaign has to be
some kind of redevelopment campaign.
What AID does is that it getsinvolved in both ends of this.
Both the destruction, in seeingwhere the insurgents might be,
in helping intelligence agencies.

(02:56:50):
And then what's called reconstruction,but that reconstruction can't be
separated from the larger project ofdestruction, which the US is engaged in.
So Vietnam was just one example of this.
You see it happening again in Afghanistan.
You see it happening in EasternEurope during Kosovo and the bombings
of what used to be Yugoslavia.

(02:57:10):
USAID was involved in Every one ofthese conflicts and it liaised with and
coordinated with the DOD, with the StateDepartment and the CIA in all of them.
So whether it's independent or not,whether it's a part of the State
Department, whether it's soft power ornot, these distinctions don't hold a lot
of weight because really what's drivingthe whole thing is it is part of the

(02:57:32):
American foreign policy machine and itcannot separate whatever constructive
efforts it's engaging in from thedestructive components of that power.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: And finally, section D, (02:57:46):
undefined
US realignment and nato.

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA FM: I just struggle with what that (02:57:50):
undefined
actually concretely means.
Like, what does it mean to project power?
Imagine you're a small country in theregion and you have a base that is sort
of nearby, or you have this aircraftcarrier fleet that can sail sort of
close to your, your national waters.
What is the concrete actualthreat that is being made there?

(02:58:11):
Presumably it's not that we will.
bomb targets in your, in yourcountry because we couldn't do that
without, you know, an act of war.
And that would be a major escalation.
Why does a aircraft carrier?
Near your country actuallyconvince governments in that
country to act differently.
Iran might be the kind of close example

It's a demonstration of the capability to use force in different
places that is part of a kind of um,expansionist imperial project or kind
of You know dying embers of an imperialproject that if you read the strategy
documents of the ministry of defense ofthe british military What they say is

(02:58:48):
that they want to maintain the capabilityTo strike anywhere in the world at any
time using any type of force be thatarmy navy Nuclear or even space force?
I mean, it's it's it's all absurd andit kind of goes down to the absurdity
of this which is that You know, we'resurrounded by this panic at the moment
that somehow we We're under massivethreat and we don't have the necessary

(02:59:12):
defenses, but, but at the same time,we're governed by the strategy that
the British military needs to be ableto intervene anywhere in the world.
So the idea of these aircraft carrierswas basically to kind of create the
sense that Britain could, if it wanted,intervene somewhere in the Asia Pacific.
It's completely stupid, but that'sthe, the idea that they're trying

(02:59:34):
to get across by creating thisinfrastructure that doesn't work.

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA FM: Throughout the whole Cold War, (02:59:39):
undefined
there was a great deal of fearthat Russia would basically launch
a ground invasion of, of Europe.
It had a huge number of tanks, right,and it could simply roll through Europe.
Their NATO response to this was toconstruct what's called the European
Security Blanket, which basicallysort of guaranteed that if Russia
attacks any of these different NATOallies, I'll trigger Article 5.

(03:00:00):
Article 5 says that, you know, thecollective defense, uh, will prevail.
That strikes me as a preposterous threat.
It doesn't seem to me that it's possiblethat Russia would actually invade Europe.
And yet that is sort of the imaginarythat is being conjured at the moment
in this, this Europe wide rearmamentprogram, which, you know, I think

(03:00:20):
yesterday, uh, finally got the dealover the line, which is 800 billion.
Euros of rearmament costs.
Is that really the thing thatpeople are worried about?
Because it just strikes me as Illusorylike it just strikes me as not a real
threat Russia is not going to payPoland or do you do you maybe see
that more more plausibly than I do?

No, I think you're completely right to identify the illusion.
So the 800 billion euros is notnecessarily what it's going to amount
to Um, the the details were kindof still still yet to come out and
it'll depend on what each countrydoes The kind of broader project is
exactly this as, as you've described.
It's to create this illusion of,of imminent threat basically.

(03:01:01):
And this illusion of, of this ideaof we're going to create a sort
of strategic autonomy for Europe.
We're going to try and create.
European military power that canbe used without the support of
the US in order to appease Trump.
So I think what's kind of beautifullyhorrible about this moment is that
you have European leaders beatingtheir chests and saying, you know,

(03:01:23):
the US is no longer a reliable ally.
We need to create independence.
We need to create autonomy.
We need to be able to act on our own.
Because Trump has asked them to.
Because the agenda of the Trumpadministration has been That they want
europe to increase military spending sothey can move us resources elsewhere.
They want these allies who are more Umhave more military capability, um, you

(03:01:48):
know more military power arms to teethThey also want them to buy american
weapons, which is where a lot of thismoney is is ultimately going to go um, and
That's what european leaders have fallenfor basically And and in doing so they're
creating this idea that Um, Russia isnot just a threat to Ukraine, obviously
Russia's invaded Ukraine, that, you know,that, that's clear for everyone to see.

(03:02:11):
It's taken some Ukrainian territory andin the war, um, it looks like hundreds
of thousands of people have died.
It's, it's absolutely horrific, youknow, the, the, the, the legacies of,
of that war and I think it will becomeclearer, um, you know, how terrible
that has been over the next few years.
I

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA FM: saw something like 35 times, uh, (03:02:25):
undefined
more deaths on the Russian sidethan happened during the Afghanistan
war in the 1980s, which was.
People normally ascribe that to beingthe part of the downfall of the Soviet
Union, 35 times more casualties.
Like it's extraordinary amountsof destruction on both sides.

Exactly, exactly.
And the loss of life on bothsides from the invasion is, is
immense and it's horrifying.
Um, and, and the kind of the ultimate.
Outcome of that has been this stalematein Ukraine and and it's likely to be some
sort of settlement now That that is kindof emerging over over these weeks So the

(03:03:02):
idea that russia is going to move fromthat to somehow then pivoting to invading
another country Um seems extremelyunrealistic It seems to be this, this
kind of lack of imagination, um, in the UKand in continental Europe about how they
can respond to this changing world order.
And at the moment, theirresponse is basically.

(03:03:24):
So you've asked us to spend more on ourmilitary industrial base, absolutely.
And there's this kind of cloyingand sort of horrible nature to it.
If you watch, there's a video of JohnHealy from the last couple of days
where he's kind of proudly telling, um,Pete Hegseth, as if Hegseth is kind of
his school teacher or his parent, youknow, look how well we've done with our,

(03:03:45):
with our increase in military spending.
Like, please, um, don't puttariffs on us or, or, or please
keep that close relationship.
That's what's actually going on.
And I think the kind of the layers of,of inaccuracy and reporting over this
real agenda are really clouding, youknow, how people are thinking about it.

AARON BASTANI - HOST, NOVARA FM: So it will happen. (03:04:04):
undefined
The spending, if that's assumed thatit happens, actual capabilities, would
that give both Britain and a widerEuropean army, which certainly Macron
has been calling for for a while.
Doesn't look like it's maybe goingto happen, but you know, what actual
capabilities would they get for the 800?

It's really interesting.
If you, if you look back at thisidea of rearmament in the, obviously
Germany has to, you know, relied onus military capacity in us military
deployments, but it's still one ofthe world's top 10 military spenders.
It spent more on its militaryin 2023 than France did.
France has a lot of independentcapability and sort of touted as the

(03:04:43):
country alongside the UK in Europe.
That's one of the.
the top military powers, it'sgot independent nuclear weapons.
So if Germany spent more thanFrance last year, and it's
massively increasing the budget.
What is that money going towards?
What is it going to give germany?
That that it doesn't already have why isit needed and in relation to what threat
these questions are not being answeredat the moment Um to turn to britain.

(03:05:06):
Um, I think it's really important again tochallenge the idea of rearmament We have
the world's six largest military budgetas I said before it's increased in real
terms since 1980 during the cold war Wehave global military commitments in the
middle east in the asia pacific region Wehave you know bases all across the world.
We're spending nine billion pounds tolease some of Mauritius to keep this joint

(03:05:31):
military base with the U. S. Air Force.
This global project of trying to bea power that can intervene anywhere,
anytime has not been revised or consideredwhile they say that it's somehow
now essential for national security.
And for regional security toinvest a lot more on the military.
So we, we don't know where thatmoney's going to go or why it's needed.

(03:05:55):
There'll be more detail in thestrategic defense review, I'm sure.
But in both contexts, although it isdifferent here, it's arguably worse
here in, in, in, in some ways it'sbeing led by, by money and not strategy.
And I think that's the key point.

BRIAN LEHRER - HOST, BRIAN LEHRER (03:06:08):
A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: So you've covered Washington for decades.
Have you ever heard it come to thisin the context of world affairs?
A leading congressman saying, we're onthe side of the bad guys now, meaning
the authoritarians who George W. Bushas president called the axis of evil.

SUSAN PAGE (03:06:26):
You know, uh, the answer to that is no.
Uh, I started covering the White Housein, in 1981 with President Reagan.
I've gone to a million of those, uh,Oval Office photo ops with the President
sitting in one chair in front of thefireplace and a foreign leader sitting
in another and, and never have we seenthis kind of, uh, scene, um, before.

(03:06:49):
Now maybe it's happened beforebehind closed doors, but in
front of the cameras, never.
And I do think that not onlywas the Argument unprecedented,
but the realignment.
It signals is unprecedented becauseit aligns the United States,
uh, increasingly with Russia anddecreasingly with the European allies
that we've fought two world wars with.

(03:07:10):
Uh, so yes, I thought it was a,quite an important event, I think,
in, you know, you never know.
History unfolds in its own ways,but I think we could look back and
see this event on Friday as a realpivot point for the United States.

A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: Yeah, and you went right to the
paragraph from your article thatI wanted to cite from anyway.
Uh, I'll back you up by reading this.
You wrote, in time, the shouting matchin the Oval Office may turn out to
be a pivot point in a realignment.
that moves Washington closer to Moscowand further from European allies.

(03:07:45):
How do you see what Trump reallywants by aligning with Putin as much
as he does, turning reality on itshead, we should say, saying Ukraine
started the war and calling Zelensky adictator, which he doesn't call Putin.
What does Trump actually want fromcalling democracy dictatorship and
not calling dictatorship dictatorship?

So I think some of it is personal.
You know, he has From the beginning,from 2015, from the 2016 campaign,
he's expressed admiration for VladimirPutin, often to the bewilderment of
other, uh, conservative Republicans whosee Putin as a thug, uh, and a despot,
but Trump has repeatedly expressedadmiration for him as a strong man.

(03:08:29):
Uh, you remember that Helsinkinews conference where he said
he believed Putin's assurancesover election interference over
his own intelligence agencies.
Uh, so that's not new.
What's also not new is Trump'sirritation with president Zelensky.
Uh, you know, they met.
Uh, over the phone when, uh, Trump wasurging him to investigate his rival,

(03:08:53):
Joe Biden, on grounds of corruption.
And Zelensky not only refused to do it,but it led to Trump's first impeachment.
So he has a history with both of theseguys, but there's a policy here too.
It's a different United Statespolicy than we've seen before.
It's the United States less.
As a NATO, a prominent member of NATO,a strong support of NATO and more like a

(03:09:17):
kind of neutral observer in the world thatmight sometimes act as a, as a go between.
That's really the role that Trumpis now setting up for himself when
it comes to Ukraine and Russia.

A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: And not just neutral, but As Quigley
was alleging, on the side of the badguys, I mean, this comes after Vance
lectured Germany at the Munich SecurityConference, we'll remember, the other
week for having weak democracy becauseit restricts the kind of hate speech
associated with its undemocraticNazi past and limiting parties.

(03:09:48):
of the far right that seem to recallthat past, like the AFD, even though
the AFD aligns with some authoritariangovernments abroad today as well,
meaning abroad from Germany.
So we're telling Europe that it'sagainst democracy for limiting
parties that are against democracy.
One's head could explode from thecontradiction, but what position does this

(03:10:09):
realignment that you cite Leave a globalalliance for democracy itself in the U.
S. Imperfect, though it's been haslong been a leader in that respect.

You know, along with I just mentioned along with Vance's speech in
Munich, which I agree was very important.
There was the United States vote inthe United Nations where we refused
to support a resolution that citedRussian aggression against Ukraine.
We sided with Russia, China.
Iran and North Korea.

(03:10:40):
There's

A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: that, there's that George
Bush axis of evil, right?
Yeah, precisely.
Those countries, I don't think China wason that list, but the other ones were,
and now we're voting with them at theUnited Nations against the democracies.

France, Italy, the United Kingdom.
Uh, so that, that was also, Ithink, a really uh, crucial moment.
We've now seen a couple of them.
So clearly it's deliberate.
This is not some accidental slip ofthe tongue, uh, in the Oval Office.
And it changes the world order.
This changes the way the world is aligned.
And that's what we're seeing, Ithink, right in front of our faces.

A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: I also want to play one very short bite.
Don't worry folks, I'm not going tosubject you to the whole thing again.
Uh, but, and I watched it likefive times over the weekend.
Um, to, you know, not just because itwas unbelievable in general, but because
there were a number of specific things inthere that I wanted to be really clear on.

(03:11:35):
And I'm going to replayone of them right now.
Um, It relates to this question of wheredemocracy and governing styles interact.
We know they were lecturingZelensky that he should be
thanking the United States more.
But there was also this thatseemed consistent with other things
going on domestically as well.
Just purely showing who's incharge for who's in charge's sake.

CALLER (03:12:00):
From the very beginning of the war You're not in a good position.
You don't have the cards right now.
With us, you start having cars.
Right now, you're not playing cards.
You're gambling with thelives of millions of people.
You're gambling with World War III.

A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: Susan, on the one hand, Trump
is right that without the UnitedStates supporting them in some way,
Ukraine is nowhere versus the muchbigger and richer Russian army.
But, was he also Showing Zelensky who'sboss, you know, like you do what I say
give us those mineral rights from yourcountry Congressman Quigley called
it ransom in a CNN interview like ademand from a thug and get ready to

(03:12:43):
give up some of your country To Russiabecause I'm the one in charge here.

Well Zelensky was not following the script that the Prime
Minister of Britain and the presidentof France had followed earlier in the
week and we saw them do something tobe deferential to Trump, uh, flatter
Trump, praise Trump, portray him asa great peacemaker and only in the

(03:13:08):
most, uh, discrete ways, correctinghim on a few factual errors.
That is the recipe.
They think to get Trump on board to dothe policy that you want them to do.
But Zelensky didn't do that.
He irritated the White Houseby not showing up in a suit.
Uh, they say he didn't do enough tosay thank you to the United States.
Although of course he saidthank you over and over again.

(03:13:30):
And you heard him there challengingTrump and interrupting him.
And that may seem totally natural andright, but that is a recipe trigger
Trump, uh, and to make him assert.

A DAILY POLITICS PODCAST: And I noticed in your article that you
quoted Trump's post on Truth Socialfrom after the Zelensky incident.
Trump wrote, He disrespected the UnitedStates in its cherished Oval Office.
It wasn't our constitutionthat called cherished or our
interest in peace or democracy.
It was our cherished ovaloffice, which means him

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Foreign policy wasn’t the main (03:14:08):
undefined
focus of President Trump’s addressTuesday night, but he did once again
threaten to annex the Panama Canal.
He said he already started.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP (03:14:15):
To further enhance our national security, my administration
will be reclaiming the Panama Canal,and we’ve already started doing

(03:14:40):
it.
Just today, a large American companyannounced they are buying both ports
around the Panama Canal and lots ofother things having to do with the Panama
Canal and a couple of other canals.
The Panama Canal was built by Americansfor Americans, not for others.
But others could use it.
But it was built at tremendous costof American blood and treasure.
Thirty-eight thousand workersdied building the Panama Canal.

(03:15:04):
They died of malaria.
They died of snakebites and mosquitoes.

AMY GOODMAN - HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: President Trump Tuesday night (03:15:11):
undefined
once again talked about Panama.
He talked about Panama.
And again, in addressing in his Tuesdaynight address, I wanted to ask you, Juan,
if you could talk about what he said,what he reiterated, the points that he

(03:15:38):
made, as we hear that BlackRock, thecorporate giant, is leading a consortium
— that’s what he was referring to.
BlackRock said it would lead a consortiumto purchase two Panama Canal ports
from a Hong Kong-based conglomerate.
You’ve discussed all this before, Juan.

(03:15:58):
You spent time in Panama.
You were there when President George H.W.Bush invaded, led troops invading Panama.
Talk about the significanceof what he’s saying.

JUAN GONZALEZ - CO-HOST, DEMOCRACY NOW!: Well, Amy, no matter how many (03:16:09):
undefined
times you repeat a lie, itstill doesn’t make it true.
The fact is that during the constructionof the canal from 1904 to 1914,
it wasn’t 38,000 people who died.
It was a far smaller number ofpeople, 5,600 people, who died.

(03:16:30):
And most of those peoplewere not Americans.
They were Black West Indian laborerswho were imported by the Panama Canal
Company to do most of the construction.
Only about 350 white Americans diedin the construction of the canal.
That’s about a hundred timesless than what Trump is claiming.
He’s trying to include in there the factthat there was a first attempt to build

(03:16:54):
the canal by a French company in the 1880swhere tens of thousands of workers died
in that failed effort to build the canal.
But also, most of those workers wereWest Indians, largely from Barbados.
So the real bloodshed in buildingthe Panama Canal was workers
from the Caribbean islands.

(03:17:14):
And now, as you mentioned, comes the newsthat BlackRock, one of the world’s largest
private equity firms, its CEO Larry Finkis spending $23 billion not just on the
two Panama ports of CK Hutchison, buta bunch of other ports that this Hong
Kong company owns around the world.

(03:17:34):
And this is an example of the Panamaniangovernment, which is a conservative
government, basically currying favorwith Trump, and at the same time Larry
Fink and BlackStone currying favor withTrump, because they’ve been under a
lot of criticism from right-wing groupsbecause of their emphasis on socially
responsible environmental investments, andthey’re trying to clean up their act as

(03:17:59):
far as the MAGA supporters are concerned.
So, it’s really outrageous howTrump continues to repeat this lie
of all the blood that Americansshed in building the Panama Canal.

SAAGAR - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS: Let's go ahead and play this from (03:18:11):
undefined
Donald Trump, talking about howhe wants to have a deal with Iran,
rather than go to war with them.
Let's take a listen.

CLIP DONALD TRUMP (03:18:18):
There are two ways Iran can be handled,
militarily or you make a deal.
I would prefer to make a deal,because I'm not looking to hurt Iran.
They're great people.
I know so many Iranians from this country.
Well, not the leadership.
No, not the leadership.
The people.
Very evil people.
No, but the people ofIran are great people.
But they had a tough regime and they'dmeet and they'd be shot in the streets.

(03:18:42):
I mean, it was a tough,it was a tough deal.

SAAGAR - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS: So as you can see, he's like, (03:18:44):
undefined
we would rather have a deal.
Uh, but the problem thatthey're finding is that Iran
actually just rejected the deal.
Let's go ahead and put thisup there on the screen.
The Supreme leader of Iran rejected anynuclear talks with the quote, so called
bully states of the United States andthey're pursuing, you know, they're
continuing their Nuclear program.

(03:19:05):
We don't know how much of this is blusteryet per se, but part of the problem is
we talked about this with Trita Parsi,the reneging on the original Iran deal.
It's like, okay, well, to what end?
For what purpose?
The purpose was to increase the sanctionsregime and to hopefully see the country
fall the regime that didn't happen.
Um, you know, in terms oftheir nuclear program, Yeah.
Their so called breakout time or whateverapparently remains relatively static,

(03:19:28):
uh, to their ability to create it.
Uh, their ability to conduct warabroad and or in the near abroad, as
they call it, you know, in that area.
Well, you know, seem to be doingpretty well in Iraq, uh, seem
to doing okay enough in Syria.
Uh, Hezbollah, of course, uh, in Lebanon.
Have they taken some, some hits?
Yeah, absolutely.
Uh, especially with Israelis beingable to, you know, assassinate people

(03:19:51):
literally in the middle of their capital.
And, of course, they had that wholeback and forth, um, with Israel.
And then Israel retaliated againstsome of their nuclear, uh, uh, missile
defense systems near their bases.
But, you know, they haven't fallen, whichwas the ultimate deal of what they wanted.
So now, we're in this situation.
Basically of everyone's neocon making,where we've tried the maximum sanctions.

(03:20:15):
I mean, what sanctions could possiblybe even left to levy on to the country?
And Trump is in some ways ina problem of his own making.
Because now, what do you do?
You know, if they do get a nuclearweapon or pursue that, uh, that
nuclear program, you've said explicitlythat we'll go to war for that.
That would be a nightmarefor most Americans.

(03:20:36):
Also, though, you're sayingthat you want a deal.
And so, two sides of your mouth, andespecially full of an administration.
Which, historically, has beenincredibly hawkish on the Iran question.
It's one of those where you couldeasily find ourselves in a major crisis
over this issue if we don't revert towhat I hope is Trump's best instincts.
Like with the North Korea deal,there's no reason that we can't

(03:20:57):
go and sit down with these people.
And at the very least, that's whatTrump has shown, his ability to
overcome, you know, these previousidiotic statements, like, we will
never negotiate with Hamas, we'llnever negotiate with the North Koreans.
It's like, well, they're inpower and they're the ones
with the guns, so, you know.
What are you supposed to do?
So anyway, I hope that we pursuethis, maybe we can get over it,
and it is, it is still importantthat he's saying he wants it.

(03:21:19):
I'm still worried, especially withMike Walsh and some of these other
folks in that administration.
Because if there are otherpeople doing the deal, there's
never going to be any deal.

KRYSTAL - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS: Well, and you can understand the (03:21:25):
undefined
Iranians perspective as well.
Like, dude, you're the onewho walked away from this.
Like, how can we make adeal with your country?
We did that before and gotstabbed in the back by you.
So, like, you know, when they'reresponding with like, no, we're not
going to do another deal with you.
That's part of the backgroundthat you have to understand.
That and the fact that just theTrump administration has put on

(03:21:47):
even more sanctions than existedunder the Biden administration.
They're targeting oil exportsin particular to China.
And also apparently there waspreviously a waiver that allowed Iraq.
to buy Iranian oil, and they've gottenrid of that waiver, and obviously Iran
is heavily depo uh, dependent on their,you know, their oil exports, that's a,
a key part of their economic picture.

(03:22:09):
Um, apparently there were also sanctionsthat were put on Iran's metal industry,
so they are going all in, in what he callsthe maximum pressure campaign, which means
Amping up the sanctions even further andreally trying to destroy the economy.
So when the Iranians are talking about,you know, you're treating us like a bully
would that's what they're ultimatelyreferring to so Yes, obviously it would

(03:22:31):
be much better to like the best one of thebest things that the Obama administration
did certainly in terms of internationalpolicy was the Iran nuclear deal.
One of the worst things that Trump did wasgetting out of the Iranian nuclear deal.
One of the failures, there were otherworse ones, but one of the failures
of the Biden administration was notjumping back into the Iranian nuclear
deal, especially in the early days.

(03:22:53):
This is something we did multiple segmentswith Trita Parsi about, like they had
four years to try to restart thesenegotiations, to try to get back into a
deal, which for a time Iran continued toadhere to, even after Trump had pulled the
U S out of the deal and they didn't do it.
And now the Iranians, you know,are feeling disinclined to
want to go back to this rodeo.

(03:23:14):
So, you know, I hope the, the, Ihope Trump's instincts to negotiate
and desire to avoid war in thisregion to the extent that he has one.
I hope that's what prevails,but I think there's still a
lot of big question marks here.
There

SAAGAR - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS (03:23:27):
are.
And, and the Israelis,

KRYSTAL - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS: obviously like they know what they want. (03:23:28):
undefined

SAAGAR - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS: Nightmare. (03:23:30):
undefined
Yeah.
This is the worst possiblesituation for them.

KRYSTAL - CO-HOST, BREAKING POINTS (03:23:33):
Yeah.
They, they want us to be.
Shoulder to shoulder withthem in a war against Iran.
That is the longtime dream.
And, you know, they have a lot ofpurchase in terms of, um, power
in the, uh, Trump administration.
You know, you have Miriam Adelson,who has already gotten quite a lot
in terms of, uh, her 100 millioninvestment in the Trump campaign.

(03:23:55):
And, um, Bibi is a savvy operator aswell in terms of getting what he wants
out of whoever the political leaderis in charge in the U. S. So I would
say at this point, you know, there'sThere's certainly nothing off the table.

JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: That's going to be it for today. (03:24:06):
undefined
As always, keep the comments coming in.
I would love to hear your thoughts orquestions about today's topic or our
upcoming topics, which include whatresistance there is to Trump and Musk,
which is more positive than we thoughtit was going to be when we started doing
the research, followed by a focus on thefar-right war on the LGBTQ community.

(03:24:26):
You can leave a voicemail orsend us a text at 202-999-3991.
You can reach us on the privacy-focusedmessaging app Signal at the username
bestoftheleft.01, or you can simplyemail me to Jay@BestOfTheLeft.Com.
The additional sections of the showincluded clips from On the Media, The

(03:24:46):
Foreign Report, The BradCast, NovaraFM, Breakthrough News, the Tristan
Snell Show, The Thom Hartmann Program,the NPR Politics Podcast, Democracy
Now!, Confronting Capitalism, DeadlineWhite House, This Week in Global
Development and The Brian Lehrer Show.
Further details are in the show notes.

(03:25:07):
Thanks to everyone for listening.
Thanks to Deon Clark and Erin Claytonfor their research work for the show,
and participation in our bonus episodes.
Thanks to our transcriptionist trio, Ken,Brian and Ben for their volunteer work,
helping put our transcripts together.
Thanks to Amanda Hoffman for allof her work behind the scenes
and her bonus show co-hosting.
And thanks to those who alreadysupport the show by becoming a member,
or purchasing gift memberships.

(03:25:27):
You can join them by signing uptoday at BestOfTheLeft.Com/Support,
through our Patreon page, or fromright inside the Apple Podcast app.
Membership is how you get instant accessto our incredibly good and often funny
weekly bonus episodes, in addition tothere being no ads, and chapter markers
and all of our regular episodes, allthrough your regular podcast player.

(03:25:48):
You'll find that link in the shownotes, along with a link to join
our Discord community where youcan also continue the discussion.
And don't forget to follow us on anyand all new social media platforms
you might be joining these days.
So coming to you from far outside theconventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my
name is Jay!, and this has been the Bestof the Left podcast coming to you twice
weekly, thanks entirely to the members anddonors to the show from BestOfTheLeft.Com.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#1697 The Trump World Order: Are we the Baddies?

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

All Episodes

#1697 The Trump World Order: Are we the Baddies?

Stuff You Should Know