Keir Starmer’s Last Stand?  🔗 **Source:** [Keir Starmer’s Last Stand?](https://share.snipd.com/episode/3a55573d-99f7-4963-8ccc-780cddaf8215) ## Highlights - **Why Labour's Landslide Turned Into A Short Fuse** - Labour's 2024 landslide victory masked a weak governing program, leaving voters angry about cost-of-living and lacking a clear Starmer vision. - Ben Rhodes: Labour purged the left to win but failed to offer growth or identity solutions, prompting 1,400 council seat losses. Transcript: Tommy Vietor Prime Minister Keir Starmer's tenure as prime minister could be over soon or not. We just don't know yet. The backstory here is that last week, there were local elections in England and elections to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. These were not elections to parliament itself. It was not like directly impacting Starmer's standing. But these council elections are seen as bellwethers to assess the political mood in the UK. And the mood is pissed. Voters are pissed. The results are really, really bad for the Labour Party. Remember, Labour won an historic landslide in 2024. But in this election, just two years later, Labour lost 1400 council seats. So it's just a drubbing. And Labour lost votes from both directions. They lost to the Greens on their left. They lost to Reform UK on their right. Reform is the right-wing xenophobic party run by Nigel Farage, the cameo star Nigel Farage. So Reform, they made big gains in England. Reform also did really well in Wales and Scotland. In Wales, the Welsh Nationalist Party won the most seats, but Reform came in second in Labour and the Tories lost ground. This came after Labour was literally the leading party in Wales for 100 years, over 100 years. And then in Scotland, the SNP, the Scottish National Party, they're going to stay in control of Parliament. And Labour had its worst ever result in Scotland. It is now tied with reform. The Greens also did quite well in Scotland. So what does it all mean? I think first we're seeing the total collapse of the traditional two- system. And it's really becoming a five party system. And you've got labor in the Tories cratering. The Lib Dems are doing better. The Greens reform UK. They're gaining ground. And then in Scotland and Wales, you also have like nationalist local parties. Um, second, you have voters just furious about the cost of living and a bunch of, uh, economic issues and labor has not made their lives better. They're getting punished for it. And there's lots of reports that labor campaigners were on the doors and they were talking to voters and the voters were like, we hate Keir Starmer, hate it, like visceral hate for that Man, which is interesting. So that gets us to the question of whether Starmer will step aside or be deposed. On Monday, he gave a defiant speech taking responsibility for the loss, but rejecting calls to resign. Let's listen to a bit of that. Ben Rhodes The election results last week were tough. Very tough. Susie Hansen We lost some brilliant Labour representatives that hurts and it should hurt i get it i feel it and i take responsibility we are not just facing dangerous times but dangerous opponents, Very dangerous opponents. Speaker 4 This hurts not just because labor has done badly, but because if we don't get this right, our country will go down a very dark path. Tommy Vietor It seems like he's not feeling emotions, but performing. I was going to say, yeah. So on Tuesday, he also had the cabinet meeting. He was again defying. He told his team he's not going anywhere, but it's not entirely up to him. There are reports that more than 90 labor MPs want Starmer to step aside. That includes four ministers in his government. But crucially, Ben, no alternative candidate has gotten the support of 81 sitting labor MPs, which is what you need to formally challenge Starmer and trigger a leadership election. So Ben, I'll pause there. Your thoughts on these results. And then after that, do you want to make the case that it's time for Keir Starmer to step aside and I'll make the Starmer should stay case? Yeah. Straw man, just for fun. Ben Rhodes Yeah. Yeah. And I could probably argue it both ways, but I would definitely tilt in the direction I'm going to argue for. Look, the problem here is that labor won this massive majority, in large part because the Tories had self-immolated, as we covered meticulously on this podcast. Over a decade. Over the course of a decade with Brexit and Liz Truss and all the chaos, Boris Johnson having COVID parties, all the rest of it. And so they get this huge mandate and have done fuck all with it. I mean, like, what was their program? Like, what is Keir Starmer's? What is Keir Starmer's? Well, this is part of the problem is that their theory, Starmer's theory of the case was I got to purge Jeremy Corbyn, the left wing previous leader of labor and all of his supporters and Move this party to the center to make it an acceptable alternative to the Tories and win. And that worked. But the problem is they had no program for when they won. And this is a country that has an identity crisis after Brexit. This is a country that is desperately in need of growth. This is a country that has xenophobic, rising far-right politics, but desperately needs immigrants to sustain their care economy and their NHS. So there's a lot of work to be done. And he's not offering any vision or any big ideas about what the UK is or what their economic future is. And that's showing up in the polls. And I know some of these, someone I know, Payman Assad, actually won by 30 votes. But 30 votes, it's tough. And here I'll pivot to the case against Starmer. I know what he said, which is that we can't be as chaotic as the Tories and change leaders, you know, in the merry ground. Let me have five years to have my full mandate. The problem with that is he has not shown any other gear. You know, you know, when you see a politician, I mean, first of all, does he get it? No, he looks like he's reading talking points. He was told to say, I feel it. Tommy Vietor He did a tense speech perhaps where they said show passion. Ben Rhodes And he just can't really show emotion or passion. Not his thing. He's like a well-meaning perhaps guy, but like he doesn't. But then beyond that, he hasn't shown that he has any new vision or any new program. It's all political positioning and tactic. Should I tack a little bit more to the right as they've done on immigration, which doesn't make sense because if you're anti-immigrant, you'll just vote for reform. Should I tack to the left? And look, the Green Party's done a lot to differentiate itself and actually stand on principle. That's why they're winning voters. I just don't think he knows what he wants to do as prime minister other than stay prime minister. And there's a kind of younger Joe Biden vibe here too. I just want to stick around. And look. He's the guy that did AUKUS. Yeah, well, it's true, to be fair. But he's not wrong about Reform UK being scary. I mean, this is a xenophobic far right party led by Nigel Farage, who should be a punchline, not a prime minister. But precisely because of that threat, I just don't see him rehabilitating labor to be able to compete with Nigel Farage. And so and look, there's the biggest problem ([Time 0:08:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6ff874bd-a95d-43fa-a4c6-6e3ad9fd8b6c)) - **The Risk Of Toppling Starmer Right Now** - Keir Starmer's defenders note Europe-wide leader unpopularity and warn leadership change risks a chaotic election. - Tommy Vietor: replacing Starmer could trigger an early general election and hand Nigel Farage the prize. Transcript: Tommy Vietor I have a fairly strong view, but it is it's complicated. So the case for why Starmer should stay is, you know, like I said at the top, like this was not a landslide for reform or a total wipeout for labor. It was the political system really fracturing into this new reality of multi-party, not just a two party system. And I think we do adjust our expectations accordingly. Yes, Keir Starmer is unpopular. His polling is terrible. There's all these reports about visceral hatred of him on the doorsteps. But every single leader in Europe is unpopular right now. In April, YouGov did a big tracking poll. Keir Starmer is 44 points underwater. French President Emmanuel Macron is 49 points underwater. German chancellor Friedrich Mertz is 52 points underwater. Even leaders I think that you and I think of as more deft politically, or at least more interesting or struggling, like Georgia Maloney is negative 22, her approval. Pedro Sanchez is 21 points underwater. So everyone's getting fucked. People are pissed everywhere. And then again, like getting rid of Starmer is the easy part. Figuring out who comes next is much harder. Have you heard of West Streeting, Angela Rayner, or Andy Burnham? Me neither. And those are the leading candidates to replace this guy, right? And like if West Streeting wants to run, he needs to man up and do it. No one's no one's manned up yet. And so to your point, Ben, like about Starmer and his what do you want to do with the job? I don't get the sense from anybody really what they want to do within labor. Like it's not about who comes next is about what comes next. Like, and what are you going to do with the mandate? And like, no one's laying out an alternative vision. I know that's complicated when you're still in government, but no one's done it yet. And then in that speech, we didn't play all of it. But like Starmer did try to lay out a bit of a path forward. He has like more direct intervention in the economy, talks about like nationalizing steel plants, more partnership with the EU. He takes a more head on fight with Nigel Farage. He blames the Iran war for a lot of his troubles. Speaking of which, you know, the one thing this will do is it will mean that Starmer helps Nigel Farage deliver on his big election promise. Let's watch a clip of Farage ranting away after the election that already happened about the results. Speaker 4 We fought this election campaign on a big national slogan. You might remember it. It said, vote reform and get summer out. And I tell you what, he'll be gone by the middle of the summer, the most unpatriotic, worst, least prepared prime minister we've ever seen in this country. And we will have seen the back of him. We are directly taking votes from patriotic old Labour in areas that, frankly, they've been pretty much able to take for granted since the end of World War I. It all goes to show that over the course of the last two years, since we made that breakthrough in the general election, we have professionalised the party. We've done it at a very, very rapid rate. Is it possible to have a phone call with your friend Donald Trump to maybe end this war in Iran? That would help prices over here. Tommy Vietor I think the war in Iran is very close to it. Speaker 4 I mean, heroin is just not my thing. Tommy Vietor There's a way better backdrop for them. Also, I love the guys who have the big like brooches, like there's one like a ribbon and like a horse jumping competition. But anyway, so if Starmer goes, he delivers for Farage. And I think that there's no way this ends with just a leadership election. There will be intense pressure to call for an early general election that'll come at the worst time possible for labor. It'll rattle the bond markets. It'll create a permanent economic cost. And so I think, you know, the only path forward, deliver on the mandate voters gave Starmer, fight it out. Also, very awkward that the King's speech, I think it's the day this episode comes out this Wednesday, and that's where the prime minister lays out his legislative agenda. So it's kind of a crazy time to make a change. ([Time 0:16:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e1e095cf-e7fa-4540-8610-6e2305e133ff)) - **How The Iran War Is Hitting Global Economies** - The Iran conflict has morphed into a costly, multi-front crisis raising global energy and supply-chain prices. - Tommy: Fed models estimate ~$200 billion economic cost and a million US jobs lost if the war continues. Transcript: Tommy Vietor And depending on who you ask, Ben, the war with Iran could be over or not. Here's a little super cut that tells the story. Susie Hansen Operation Epic Fury is concluded. We achieved the objectives of that operation. Ben Rhodes Was it accurate to say you think the combat operations are over and done? Speaker 4 No, I didn't say that. I said they are defeated, but that doesn't mean they're done. Is the war with Iran over? And if it isn't, who will decide when it is? Tommy Vietor I think it accomplished a great deal, but it's not over because there's still nuclear material. So, clear as day. That was Marco Rubio, Trump, and then Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, for those of you lucky enough to not just automatically recognize their voices. So, let's try to walk you guys through the last week in the disaster that it was, and then we'll talk about it. So first, Trump announced Project Freedom. That was this like PR bullshit plan to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz. That mission lasted, I think, about 36 hours until Trump pulled the plug on it. NBC News later reported that the Saudis and the Kuwaitis were surprised by the plan. They were mad about it and they pressured the US to pull the plug because they thought it could unravel the ceasefire and peace talks. Then we had a bunch of breaking news and sirens from reporters quoting senior White House officials saying the US and Iran were very close to making a deal. That, of course, was bullshit. There's still no deal. And according to the Financial Times, the two sides were very far apart. Trump demands were a 20-year moratorium on Iran's nuclear enrichment program, transferring the stockpile of uranium enriched to close to the 60% enriched stockpile that the so-called Dust out of the country and then dismantling their three main nuclear sites. And the Iranian response, I think, loosely translates to get fucked. It was end the war on all fronts, have Iranian management of the Strait of Hormuz going forward, suspension of sanctions. And then they actually gave a little ground on their enriched uranium stockpile. They said they'd chip half of it out, but dilute the rest. They gave Trump a little something. Here's how President Trump took their response. Let's watch. Speaker 4 For the time being, the ceasefire remains in place. It's unbelievably weak, I would say. I would call it the weakest right now. After reading that piece of garbage, I didn't even finish reading it. They said I'm going to waste my time reading it. Would say it's one of the weakest right now. It's on life support. They understand these are all medical people. Dr. Oz, life support is not a good thing. I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support where the doctor walks in and says, sir, your loved one has approximately a one percent chance of living free to allow the removal Of all their enrichment yeah well they did it two days ago they didn't okay they did two days ago they said you're gonna have to take it we were gonna go with them but they changed your mind Because they didn't put it in the paper so when they sent us this document that we waited four days for, that should have taken 10 minutes to do, it's very simple. We get that, they guarantee no nuclear weapons for a very long period of time, and a couple of other minor things, but they just can't get there. They think that, well, I'll get tired of this, I'll get bored or I'll have some pressure, but there's no pressure. There's no pressure at all. Tommy Vietor I love that, like, this sir construct for a story that he's totally making up. Now is how the doctor talks to you in, like, the ER when your mom's dying. Ben Rhodes The doctor is there and some random people have to stand there the whole time. Tommy Vietor There's one lady, Ben, who literally, someone told her to smile, and she did this the whole time. Anyway, things are going good. Things are going great. Ben Rhodes First of all, I'm just going to keep coming back to this as we have to because our media doesn't do it enough. This is why we have to support independent progressive media. They'll say things like, well, they're already defeated. At what? Like soccer? Like the regime is in place. They have all the nuclear material. They control the straight of home rules. Like they're not defeated. Like, let's just like not even let him just keep saying something that isn't true because he wants to repeat it until it becomes true. The fact that the Iranians aren't even offering the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal terms, shows you that they believe that they have all this leverage. Like they control the Strait of Hormuz. They've got any heat when the way he about – I can wait here all day. I'm not bored. I won't get bored. I'm not bored at all. Well, person outside who's paying fucking $7 a gallon for gas, right? Tell that to the people in the UK who have shortages or the people in South Korea who have shortages or people in Bangladesh who have to ration energy. Like everybody is suffering and Donald Trump's just sitting there on his fat ass being like, oh, I got all the time in the world. Tommy Vietor And then he acts like- He's asked about his red line for the negotiations. He's like, I don't know, we're going to think about it on a flight to China. Yeah. Ben Rhodes And here's the thing. Again, they will be willing to ship that stockpile out because they know that's not their nuclear program. That's just the product of their nuclear program. And so I just don't get why these, you know, he needs to end the war. He needs to show he got something. I just don't get why he doesn't make a deal where it's like they got to open the Strait of Hormuz and they're going to ship out their stockpile and they're going to get some sanctions relief And a bunch of money because that's how this thing ends. And otherwise, it's like a frozen conflict. But it's a frozen conflict where the Strait of Hormuz is closed, you know? And the global economy will collapse within a matter of months if that's the case. Tommy Vietor The cost is unbelievable at this point. Un-fucking The Pentagon says the direct cost is $29 billion. That's bullshit. Double that, right? They asked for $200 billion, so I don't know what planet they real number is way more oil prices are still are way up so jp morgan said its analysts think that the oil prices will remain Over a hundred dollars a barrel through this year that's bad um a brown university study found that as of last week american consumers had paid an extra 35 billion dollars in gas and diesel Costs since the war began. That's about $268 per household. Jet fuel prices are up 70%. ([Time 0:28:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/45cc01c5-bdc5-46c7-8729-375fd7f46af5)) - **Project Freedom Failed Because It Was Not Coordinated With Allies** - Trump’s Project Freedom naval escort plan collapsed within days after regional allies objected, showing poor coordination. - Ben Rhodes: Saudis and Kuwaitis were surprised and pressured the US to pull the plug to protect ceasefire talks. Transcript: Tommy Vietor That was this like PR bullshit plan to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz. That mission lasted, I think, about 36 hours until Trump pulled the plug on it. NBC News later reported that the Saudis and the Kuwaitis were surprised by the plan. They were mad about it and they pressured the US to pull the plug because they thought it could unravel the ceasefire and peace talks. Then we had a bunch of breaking news and sirens from reporters quoting senior White House officials saying the US and Iran were very close to making a deal. That, of course, was bullshit. There's still no deal. And according to the Financial Times, the two sides were very far apart. Trump demands were a 20-year moratorium on Iran's nuclear enrichment program, transferring the stockpile of uranium enriched to close to the 60% enriched stockpile that the so-called Dust out of the country and then dismantling their three main nuclear sites. And the Iranian response, I think, loosely translates to get fucked. It was end the war on all fronts, have Iranian management of the Strait of Hormuz going forward, suspension of sanctions. And then they actually gave a little ground on their enriched uranium stockpile. They said they'd chip half of it out, but dilute the rest. They gave Trump a little something. Here's how President Trump took their response. Let's watch. Speaker 4 For the time being, the ceasefire remains in place. It's unbelievably weak, I would say. I would call it the weakest right now. ([Time 0:29:01](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2606ed16-ea04-4e6d-9810-6f62915bf674)) - **Ceasefire Talk Reality Versus Rhetoric** - Trump publicly declared the ceasefire 'on life support' while negotiations remained far apart on key demands. - The mismatch: US sought sweeping Iranian concessions; Iran demanded end to hostilities and sanctions relief. Transcript: Speaker 4 For the time being, the ceasefire remains in place. It's unbelievably weak, I would say. I would call it the weakest right now. After reading that piece of garbage, I didn't even finish reading it. They said I'm going to waste my time reading it. Would say it's one of the weakest right now. It's on life support. They understand these are all medical people. Dr. Oz, life support is not a good thing. I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support where the doctor walks in and says, sir, your loved one has approximately a one percent chance of living free to allow the removal Of all their enrichment yeah well they did it two days ago they didn't okay they did two days ago they said you're gonna have to take it we were gonna go with them but they changed your mind Because they didn't put it in the paper so when they sent us this document that we waited four days for, that should have taken 10 minutes to do, it's very simple. We get that, they guarantee no nuclear weapons for a very long period of time, and a couple of other minor things, but they just can't get there. They think that, well, I'll get tired of this, I'll get bored or I'll have some pressure, but there's no pressure. There's no pressure at all. ([Time 0:30:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/163a69ab-4007-4599-a4b0-6ac725519396)) - **Key Strategic Assumptions Behind The Iran Campaign Failed** - Israel's operational assumptions about regime collapse and Kurdish uprisings proved wrong, undermining the campaign's strategic logic. - Ben Rhodes: promises of a Kurdish ground force and Reza Pahlavi-led change never materialized. Transcript: Tommy Vietor But still, we didn't know that. There was also a Reuters report today that Saudi Arabia carried out a bunch of secret airstrikes during the war too. So again, this wasn't just the US and Israel. It was a bunch of countries bombing Iran. And then the journal had had this wild story about how Israel built a base in the middle of the Iraqi desert to support the military operation in Iran. And then I think it was like search and rescue and some sort of air force logistics. Then the story says at one point, the Iraqi military tried to investigate what was going on there because I'm like, you know, sheepherder tipped them off to it. And the idea fired on them a couple of times and killed two Iraqi soldiers. And just nobody said anything. What is their basis for being there? Ben Rhodes It's not their territory. It's crazy. I think that's even beyond Mike Huckabee's definition of Israel, which ends somewhere around the Euphrates. Ends in Kansas. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, look, first of all, on the regional side, we just, again, we have no idea the damage that's been done to our bases, to our facilities, to these Gulf countries. People still can't post pictures of Dubai. The Emiratis are the biggest losers. I don't know. There are a lot of losers. But they're one of the biggest losers in this war. First, they threw all their chips in with the Abraham Accords, with Israel, with this idea that we're going to form a united front and stand up to the Iranians. And here they are. They just got showered with drones and their Dubai model got wrecked. And they're carrying out airstrikes. And look, if you're feeling sorry for them, they fund the RSF in Sudan that is like committing war crimes on a regular basis. But all this is going to I'm very interested to see how the backstory of all these things comes out in addition to the damage assessments. One thing in particular, that base in Iraq clearly seemed tied and it was reported to the Kurds. Right, to the idea that the Israelis wanted to use the Iranian and Iraqi Kurds to be a ground force to do things inside of Iran. I think what probably happened there is, you know, the Kurds have partnered with Israel in the past, some Kurds, not all Kurds. And they were probably waiting to see like, okay, uh, can Iran take this punch? We kill the Supreme leader and drop all these bombs. And the regime, lo and behold, is not only still standing, they're capable of closing straight of Hormuz. And it seems like the Kurds are like, thanks, but no thanks. We're not like going to war against the regime. I think the Kurdish play was if the regime collapses, you know, maybe we'll, or the regime is like literally on its last legs, maybe we'll get involved here. But it should be pointed out that failed. Like the Israeli pitch as reported in the New York Times in the Situation Room was the Kurds are going to rise up. There's going to be all these ground forces on our side. ([Time 0:36:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3dc25eec-af79-4cb1-84fb-38fbb50c05f0)) - **How A Major Interview Normalized Netanyahu's Narrative** - CBS's 60 Minutes interview with Netanyahu exemplified soft U.S. media coverage, avoiding tough accountability on major failures. - Tommy Vietor: hard questions on October 7th and Israeli violations weren't front-loaded; interviewers repeatedly accepted talking points. Transcript: Tommy Vietor So this is CBS's Major Garrett, who, by the way, is a nice guy. He's a good reporter, not knocking him as a human, but this was not his finest hour or finest interview, I don't think. And it sounds like Weiss steered the interview to him as opposed to Leslie Stahl, who probably would have been a little rougher. Ben Rhodes But by the way, Major, as you know, is capable of asking tough questions. So that tells you a lot about Barry Weiss's leadership. To give Major even further past, although I would prefer people didn't go along with Barry Weiss, like I've seen Major Garrett do tough interviews. Be a hard ass. So this is probably a direction from on high. Tommy Vietor Yeah, very weird. So here's a question. Here's part of a question he asked about Israeli intelligence that I thought was instructive. Speaker 4 Mr. Prime Minister, the capabilities of Israeli intelligence within Iran allowed you to pinpoint the location of supreme leader and others. That is a kind of granular intelligence that is borderline miraculous in the modern world why wasn't it sufficient to also foment a revolution so ben he was in his office the air strike Tommy Vietor That killed his fucking office it was on his house like like he was working above ground the home office on his own house so that would like be a mere miraculous intelligence to bomb the White House to kill Trump or drone, you know, the Gold's Gym in Venice to take out RFK Jr. Ben Rhodes The heavy breathing was great. Mr. Prime Minister, the granularity of that intelligence is just so remarkable. Tommy Vietor It's like bombing the poodle room. It's like, we're not watching like fucking Munich here. Ben Rhodes It's crazy. We're talking about a guy, an 86 year old man who was killed in his house. It's crazy. And look, this is a bigger deal. I mean, I know that it gets online attention, but I mean, that doesn't count for anything these days. I mean, this is 60 Minutes. This is CBS News. This is like literally like the Cadillac of American journalism, right? And it gets purchased by David Ellison, whose kind of qualification for running anything is that his father's Larry Ellison and he went to USC film school and wants to play with the movies. And they're super pro Israel and super pro Trump. And so he hands the keys of 60 Minutes and CBS News to Barry Weiss, whose only qualification is running a blog where she tells rich billionaires that they're wonderful, Israel's wonderful, And DEI is bad. And essentially, the feels you get when you watch Bill Maher are all right. And we're going to bring those feelings over to CBS News. And then you have the prime minister of a country that literally convinced the president of the United States to do the dumbest thing since the Iraq war in launching an attack on a country. None of the things that Netanyahu said were going to happen happened. We're in an economic catastrophe. Major Garrett and CBS News' own viewers are like not being able to afford their gas. And he's sitting on there like blowing smoke up Bibi's butt about how wonderful and granular the intelligence is. What is going on here? This is not your job. This is Putin level propaganda. Tommy Vietor I mean, also CBS didn't ask about Netanyahu's responsibility for October 7th until an hour and seven minutes into the conversation. It feels like that'd be something that'd be front and center. And then he just brushed it off. There was lots of talk about Hamas violating the ceasefire in Gaza. There was none, no conversation about or questions about Israel violating the ceasefire. As far as I could tell, you had Netanyahu vomiting out the same talking points about all the ways the IDF avoids civilian casualties and text people. And it's like all the same shit we heard two years ago. And then we watched like 70,000 people get slaughtered. And it's just demonstrably false. And you didn't get pushed on any of it. And also, you know, like Trump sued CBS, right, for editing out a 60 Minutes interview, like a Kamala Harris answer. CBS cut from the broadcast version. Netanyahu saying, we'll play this clip in a minute. He was asked about social media and, you know, NDB blames social media for all of Israel's woes. And he said, basically says, like, we're not going to fight the battle on social media. But that got cut out. And I wonder why. They also cut Netanyahu saying that Americans turning against Israel also hate America. Again, like why? It seems like those are things that are relevant for American viewers. And so like the whole thing, you're right. It's frustrating because the debate like the Barry Weiss is bad Twitter debate is like kind of boring and reductive and like I'm not interested in it. But, I do think like when there's a product like this, that shows the fruits of that labor, it's worth kind of like highlighting the harm it did to us as viewers. We're trying to get information. ([Time 0:43:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f1d14f93-44ec-4165-8aeb-364088dc132b)) - **Insist On Hard Questions In High Profile Interviews** - Demand tougher, skeptical journalism when leaders justify war or coverups; don't accept PR framing. - Ben Rhodes: press should hold figures like Netanyahu accountable on October 7th failures and Gaza civilian casualty claims. Transcript: Ben Rhodes Much bigger than just the kind of Barry Weiss discourse because it's about the fact that the premium brand in American journalism, 60 Minutes, like when it comes to Israel, it's like It makes RT look like a hard hitting news source. You know, they it is in the problem with it is that it's not like there's a significant market for this. Like the problem. I mean, to be specific in a complaint here is they constantly come back to this idea that social media is bad and that's why people are turning against Israel. No, it's what people are seeing on social media, right? There's another story. Nick Kristof had a powerful story in the Times about the sexual assault of Palestinian prisoners. Monday, sorry. And all these people are on, you know, this is outrageous. How could the Times print this? As if the problem is the story and not the underlying conduct that the story is about. Tommy Vietor Well, there's no question about the veracity of some of the sourcing, but still, like, there's a lot of well-documented evidence of rape and sexual assault of Palestinians in Israeli Prisons. This is not the first coverage of this issue. Ben Rhodes Look, I've been to this rodeo. What you have is, let's say there's a hundred instances, and this is not that story, but I'm just the hypothetical. Let's say there are a hundred instances of sexual assault and 97 of them are true, but they find the three that have some holes in the story and they're like, this whole thing is a libel. Tommy Vietor Or they go after one of the victims who's, you know, doesn't have to. Ben Rhodes His cousin is in Hamas or something. I mean, but this, this major Garrett thing, if, if Americans want to know, um, I had this long conversation with Jon Stewart today, I did his podcast and we had a pretty interesting conversation About why do we keep doing these dumb things? And we talked about all the reasons, but one of the reasons why is that we don't have a media that tells us the truth. It makes it so much easier to give weapons to Israel or to go to war in Iran if we don't have media that will, like 60 Minutes viewers, those should be some of the more informed people in the Country that can't be told the truth about what's happening. ([Time 0:47:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/69cb1b7d-16e2-4f67-96bf-948209cf2aa2)) - **Netanyahu Blames Social Media And Hints At Less US Funding** - Netanyahu suggested Israel could 'wean' off U.S. military financing and blamed social media for Israel's image problems. - Ben Rhodes: funding claims ignore supplemental wartime transfers and US operational support; social media argument deflects from battlefield realities. Transcript: Susie Hansen Want to draw down to zero the american financial support the financial component of the military cooperation that we have we've come of age we have a booming economy after three years Of war you know our currency is the strongest it's ever been in the last 50 years maybe more we have a lot of talent here, which we share with our American friends, and we're going to share It with our Arab friends, too. And I think that it's time that we weaned ourselves from the remaining military support and go from aid to partnership. Tommy Vietor And then let's listen to the clip of him blaming Israel's image problems on social media and then talk about both of them. Speaker 4 The proportion of civilian casualties, non-combatants to combatants, is one of the lowest in the history of modern urban warfare. So Israel is given a bum rap. Susie Hansen I'll tell you what happened. We have several countries that basically manipulated social media with the bot farms, with fake addresses to break the American sympathy to Israel, to break the American Israeli Speaker 4 Alliance because they think it's in their interests. And they do it in a clever way. Tommy Vietor So that on the military support like i mean for first of all just i'll believe it when i see it you know and also he cites like the 3.8 billion dollar a year stat that's just the beginning Of the support that u.s provides israel like there's always supplemental funding requests emergency iron dome transfers etc then there's the direct support when the u.s is like literally Shooting down, you know, missiles and drones. How much did we just spend on that? Right. So again, like I just don't believe like Ben Shapiro has been saying this kind of thing too. Like I, I just don't believe it. Like I'd like to see it happen. I just don't believe it's going to happen. And then the social media stuff, though, this is like, it's delusional and worrisome on a couple different levels. Like the suggestion is always that those of us who are worried about civilian casualties or the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza, were just stupid rubes getting manipulated By algorithms who are not couldn't possibly just be like sincerely horrified by day after day of these like horrifying images of the children suffering in Gaza. Right. These sounds like there's an eighth front in the war on fucking social media now. Like, first of all, Israel is famously active on social media. Oh, yeah. I've been on the receiving end of it. Yeah. There was reports that they're paying influencers like $7,000 to post positive stuff about Israel. Like, what does this mean? It's kind of ominous. I don't think social media is a war. Ben Rhodes Well, first of all, on the military stuff, I mean, what that tells you is he knows he's losing the political argument in the United States. But importantly, that ship has sailed. They're not going to get further financing. Now, what they do is there are a couple of questions remain, one that you highlighted, which is whenever they're in a war, which is seemingly all the time, there are these supplemental Requests that AIPAC pushes hard. And so it's not in the 10-year memorandum of understanding where it's like they get a set amount every year. They've gotten way more than that in, quote unquote, emergency situations. But beyond that, the debate has shifted so much that last week, or maybe two weeks ago, 40 Democratic senators voted against arms sales to Israel. This is the next front. The financing thing is over, I think. And he's just acknowledging that. You've got 40 Democrats, including everyone who might run for president, voting against even selling them weapons, which I think is the right position. And just to highlight one of those systems that was being sold to the Israelis, it was bulldozers. Armored bulldozers. What do you need armored bulldozers for? You need armored bulldozers to ethnically cleanse Southern Lebanon or to demolish whatever remaining structure exists in Gaza. Like that's where this is moving. And people should be aware of that. They're going to want to say, okay, fine, we don't need the financing. They're still going to want to be able to buy all the weapons. Tommy Vietor The partnership is some real weasel language. What does that mean exactly? Ben Rhodes It means we sell them whatever they want. And the thing is, if they're committing war crimes as they have, we shouldn't be selling them anything. You shouldn't be providing weapons either financed by the American taxpayer or sold full stop. The social media thing is rich and ominous. It's rich because the Israelis have done exactly what he says for a long time. They've got troll farms. They've got paid influencers. They're not new to this game. ([Time 0:50:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/46cd0455-726b-4501-b602-aa9f5a46a050)) - **The Real Threat Is Algorithmic Control Not Just Influencers** - Control of platform algorithms and ownership (TikTok, X) is the next front in shaping narratives about Gaza and Israel. - Ben Rhodes: paid influencers matter less than algorithmic manipulation, shadow banning, and platform ownership by allies. Transcript: Ben Rhodes Because lo and behold, Larry Ellison has also bought TikTok. Yeah. Right? And so- That's where the fight's going to be. I'm less worried about, sure, they can pay all the influencers they want. It doesn't really make a difference. Just look at Ben Shapiro's audience. The problem is if they start to leverage their friends who bought TikTok or Elon Musk at X, although Elon seems pretty committed to his version of free speech, which is kind of a cesspool, And start manipulating the algorithm, start shadow banning accounts, start censoring content. That's, I think, where this is going. ([Time 0:55:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/39ded2ed-90f3-41a1-a475-8ee023e30162)) - **Trump's China Trip Is More Pageantry Than Policy** - Trump's Beijing summit is heavy on theater; real wins likely limited to purchase commitments and optics rather than binding security bargains. - Ben Rhodes: China will push back on US Taiwan arms and seek AI/chip concessions while extracting trade wins. Transcript: Tommy Vietor There's a tour of the Temple of Heaven, which is like amazing temple complex dates back to the Ming Dynasty. I think it was built in like 1420. Then he attends a state banquet Thursday evening. Then he has tea and lunch with Xi again on Friday. And then he goes home. It's a lot of meetings. So let's just speculate on what they want out of this trip. And so for Trump, first and foremost, he wants to feel like the biggest boy on the biggest stage and special and the pomp and circumstance. Then I think he wants a trade deal or something he can sell back home as having some sort of economic benefit. Third, I'm sure he would enjoy some help reopening the Strait of Hormuz or getting Iran to chill out. We could talk about what that might entail. And then fourth, I think we should just always assume that there's a big fat corruption bucket sitting there that we'll learn about down the road someday, whether it's crypto or real Estate. Don Jr. Is suddenly invested in Chinese robots. Yeah, Chinese drones. Yeah, Chinese robotics company, the CEO of Don Jr. For Xi, Xi Jinping, I would imagine he wants to get rid of US tariffs on stuff. He wants to show the world that he can manipulate Trump and that he is actually as strong, if not the stronger party. I bet he'll try to ring some concessions out of Trump on Taiwan, maybe try to get rid of some restrictions on AI chips. Who knows? So Trump on this trip is going to be flanked by a bunch of American CEOs. Elon Musk will be there. Tim Cook will be there. Remember when they almost briefed Elon Musk on the secret China war plan? Yeah. Yeah. It was a good idea or a great idea. Yeah. Here's Trump talking about the China trip from Monday in the Oval Office. Speaker 4 He's a great gentleman. I find him to be an amazing, an amazing man. And when I say that, the press always says, oh, that's terrible that he called him. He runs 1.4 million people with a pretty iron fist. He loves his country, I can tell you that. President Xi, I look forward to being there. And if he felt anything, we wouldn't be doing it. But a lot of good things can happen. Now, we'll be talking about, I mean, he'll bring up Taiwan, I think, more than I will. I have a great relationship with President Xi. We're doing a lot of business, but it's smart business. We used to be taking advantage of for years with our previous presidents, and now we're doing great with China. We make a lot of money with China. I have a great relationship with President Xi. And I think you can see that with the fact that in Hormuz, they get a big percentage, 40 percent of their oil from Hormuz. There's been no ships coming in, no nasty ships coming in that we end up in skirmishes with. There's been he'd like to see it get done. He doesn't want to see. I'll tell you what, look, I respect him a lot and hopefully he respects me. He didn't respect our previous government, that I can tell you. Tommy Vietor All those clips are from an event rolling out from moms.gov. Ben Rhodes These poor women had to sit there. Just watch them rant about it. It's up there with the DoorDash lady. He started yelling out about trans athletes or something like do you like transports like i'm just here for the tip i mean this is completely insane what do you think what do you think Tommy Vietor What's the oh it's on the agenda for the meeting like what's the best case you think in terms of an accomplishment a deliverable don jr gets a robotics yeah there's a liberal for him for Ben Rhodes Real though here's what i would so first of all there's a problem which is normally these are huge summits. They usually happen like every two years. You spend two or three days. We use this, for instance, in the Obama to come up with a bilateral agreement on reducing carbon emissions. It became the Paris Agreement. We worked on that for a year. So, first of all, the fact that there's a war in Iran and Hormuz is still closed for business means that they're going to spend a big chunk of time just talking about that. And Trump is probably going to be asking the Chinese to pressure the Iranians to open the strait and make a deal. Chinese are going to be pressuring us to just wrap this thing up. Tommy Vietor I was talking to an Iran expert friend of both of ours who suspects that the Taiwan conversation, the China, the Iran conversation will be like, Mr. President, how do you expect me to help you with the Iranians and to not sell my good friends in Iran weapons when you're selling weapons to Taiwan and giving them all this help? Ben Rhodes Wink, wink. Chinese are very good at whataboutism. And by the way, we get to do what you did to Iran and Taiwan. I think in and yet Trump may want, you know, I think for him, a win is like, you know, they agree to buy a bunch of soybeans or something. Right. You know, like he can just say for sure he loves these deals where it's like the Chinese said they're going to spend X amount of money on American products that, by the way, they're probably Going to buy anyway or something you know and and the chinese will extract some concessions or they'll just lie about it or they'll lie about it everybody's done i mean i mean if you add Up the money people claim that they're going to spend in these photo ops trump it's like trillions of dollars and none of it's here um i would here's what i would be doing um on taiwan what You want to do is you want to create some diplomatic track that just puts this thing on a back burner and slow rolls it. I don't think Trump is deft enough to do that. The Chinese will say, don't sell them arms. We'll say, don't conduct military exercises. And most likely, it's just going to be what it is. Tommy Vietor Well, interestingly, there's been some big headlines, announcements of arms sales to Taiwan, but I didn't realize that those have been very slow on getting delivered. There's like a $20 billion backlog on the delivery of U.S. Arms to Taiwan. So that's kind of the rub there if you're- Yeah. Ben Rhodes Well, and what's notable about that is that the Congress votes for these things, and then the executive branch has to deliver them, and they're probably slow rolling them to create Positive atmospherics as she. In terms of what I think they should be doing, I'm not sure they're going to do, is they should be talking about artificial intelligence. Because we are the two AI superpowers. We have all these frontier companies like Anthropic and OpenAI and Microsoft, Google, et cetera, they have their own AI models that like, and here we should say, this is actually kind Of a, I don't want to say a failure of the Biden administration, but there was this idea that we're going to put all these restrictions in place and export controls and sanctions and whatever. The Chinese figured out how to build the technology anyway. Tommy Vietor Yeah, it was slow that we didn't stop them. Ben Rhodes Yeah. And so whether who's ahead, someone might be ahead by six months, it almost doesn't matter because Chinese have AI, we have AI. In normal times, we would be sitting down and saying, let's negotiate some norms and some guardrails around this new technology before it's fully deployed out in the world. We want to make sure that nuclear weapons and command and control systems have human beings in the loop. We want to make sure that job displacement is cushioned by testing models. We have huge cybersecurity. You saw this incident with Mythos, the next generation of Anthropics AI model, that when they shared it with some of their customers, it was like nobody was ready to ([Time 0:59:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1f40835e-e247-4553-9d8c-7018664f532c)) - **Rubio's Optics Shine Despite Policy Missteps** - Marco Rubio's upbeat White House briefing and DJ-booth video fueled flattering profiles despite policy failure on Iran. - Ben Rhodes: Rubio announced Project Freedom that collapsed and failed to coordinate with Saudis, highlighting poor performance behind the theatrics. Transcript: Ben Rhodes Mean, the top people in that government are, to say the least, you know, they're insane in the brain. Susie Hansen I wish I knew your name. Can you put name tags on? Speaker 4 Can I ask you in Spanish or can I? Ben Rhodes Yeah, you can answer in Spanish. They'll have to translate for them what you ask them. La política de Estados Unidos en este tema no ha cambiado. Y cuando cambia te dejaremos saber. You don't have black yet blue on. Susie Hansen I'm color blind, but I know blue and black. Right there. Yes, ma'am. No, no, you. The first one I called on. Speaker 4 Thank you, Mr. Susie Hansen Secretary. Thank you. This is chaos, guys. I wish I had like a dice. Go ahead. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Right there, because I'm going to Italy. He's Italian. I know him. He used to cover Capitol Hill. Secretary, many people want to know what is your DJ name? My DJ name? Your DJ name. You're not ready for my DJ name. They are facing real catastrophic destruction to their economy, generational destruction to their economy, generational destruction to the wealth of their country imposed on Themselves by the actions that they're taking. Tommy Vietor They should check themselves before they wreck themselves in the direction that they're going what a cool cat uh there's also this video of uh rubio like stepping into the dj booth in Mar-a trump's fucking caddy turned deputy chief of staff dan scavino posted that and then this whole conversation kind of folds into this broader debate of will it be Rubio or will it ([Time 1:08:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5e8148a4-b01a-4cb0-ae28-a454a0b6f391)) - **How A Walk Down One Street Became A Book** - Susie Hansen moved to Turkey in 2007 and began chronicling a neighborhood as Syrian refugees arrived after 2011. - She noticed nationalist Kargumruk transformed into a Syrian commercial corridor, opening a lens on identity and refugee tensions. Transcript: Ben Rhodes Susie Hansen, who is a journalist who lived in Istanbul for over a decade. She's written for the New York Times Magazine. Her first book, which I also recommend, Notes on a Foreign Country, was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Her new book, which everybody needs to buy if you like politics, geopolitics, literary journalism, great writing, amazing personalities. It's called From Life Itself, Turkey, Istanbul, and a Neighborhood in the Age of Erdogan. Susie, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me, Ben. Okay. So this really is a unique book because you start it and you are reading the story of a neighborhood in Istanbul. Then you realize you're reading about the city of Istanbul. Then you realize you're reading about Turkey, then you realize you're reading about Erdogan, and then you realize, and this is all within the first probably, you know, 40 pages, that You're reading a book about everything that's happened to the world, you know. I'm asking where you begin the book, which is you describe how the forces that we've all become familiar with now, the kind of cocktail of nationalism, authoritarianism, corruption, Chaos, how those things that we feel as Americans arrived in Turkey first. And in particular, in this neighborhood that you profile, you write, the dissolution of nations and borders and peoples and seemingly civilization itself was transforming how many Of us felt about our individual lives and our future, that sense that we are in history here and not the good kind. Can you describe how these forces became manifest in Turkey and in this neighborhood first? And it's really around 2015 or Arab Spring to 2015 that you begin. And why did you choose to write about those forces through this neighborhood? Susie Hansen So it was 2015. I had been witnessing, I moved to Turkey in 2007. So I'd been there for seven or eight years. And then I was there as all of these Syrian refugees were fleeing the Syrian civil war into Turkey. And, you know, I'm sure you're aware of this. This was a kind of laissez-faire refugee management situation where Erdogan was just allowing people to come in, millions of people. And they sort of had to figure out their lives on their own. I mean, they had to find, they had to rent a place, they had to put their kids in school, all of that. So no one really had any idea how everyone was making this work. And there were, at that point, 2015, 500,000 Syrians in Istanbul. And one evening, I went to a friend's for dinner and they said, you know, after dinner, you have to take a walk down the main street of Kargumruk. All of the shops have become Syrian. And that was, I knew enough about Kargumruk to know why that was surprising. Kargumruk was a nationalist neighborhood. It was famous for them, for mafia, for thieves. It was famous for this right-wing party, Mehepay. And so I knew that they were not going to be welcoming to Arabs. And I saw the opportunity to tell this larger story through how these people were getting along, because when I started talking to them, they started talking about how the presence Of the Arabs was challenging their Turkish national identity. And then as I was there for the next few years, all of these major events were happening. So you had the Syrian civil war, obviously. You had ISIS had appeared in Turkey, and they were flying into Istanbul and then switching to airplanes and going down to the southern border. You had a new war with the PKK, the Kurdish militant group, and you had Erdogan steadily becoming more repressive. And I suddenly recognized, okay, maybe I can see all of these events through these characters, but understand how they're seeing it from the street level, not from the headlines and Not from, you know, the point of view of the West. ([Time 1:22:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7df3197f-562e-4bc2-b943-5d5fdcbde2c8)) - **Erdogan's Blend Of Islam And Capitalism Built Political Power** - Erdogan fused Islamist politics with capitalist development to uplift religious communities shut out by early Turkish elites. - Susie Hansen: his mayoral-era infrastructure wins allied him with businessmen and created a loyal crony class. Transcript: Susie Hansen This goes deep into Turkish Islamist history. It goes way back to the first Islamist parties and movements in the 1960s and 70s. But I think you have to put it in the context of, you know, Turkey's founding party was Ataturk's party. And the only way, and they had shunned religious people to some degree. They had forced religious brotherhoods to go underground. They had wanted Turkey to be a Western-looking secularist country. And so the people of the countryside and the religious people were very much shut out from the halls of power, right? And so there were a number of old families that got a lot of the contracts from the government and were rebuilding Turkey after World War I and World War II, but the religious people were Shut out of this. And so slowly, slowly over time, they did see business and starting their own businesses as a way to build their own power in the country because they were shut out of the state and shut Out of most of the business activities. Erdogan was the mentee of a man named Nejmetin Erbakan, who also saw the union of Islam and capitalism as a way of restoring Turkish pride, because these were people who were very nostalgic For the Ottoman Empire and for this more grandiose sense of Turkey than what the Turkish Republic became. Erdogan learned from him. But also, I think it was sort of deep in his blood in the sense that he came to power as the mayor of Istanbul. And Istanbul was a wreck at that time. It was very poor. People were suffering. And what he recognized he could do, even though most of the secularist elites did not want him to be in office, was he could actually improve the lives of the people, which seems like an Obvious thing for a politician to do. But it's a little bit shades of Mamdani there. But he saw that, oh, I can clean up the garbage of the city. I can improve the water supply. I can improve. But he needed to obviously to ally with business groups and other businessmen in order to make a lot of these things happen. And so I think it happened naturally. But I think a really crucial thing here also is when he finally becomes prime minister, he feels still threatened by the secular state, by the military and the judiciary, who very much Wanted to get rid of him. They put him in jail in the 1990s. And so he quickly had to build up his crony class, his businessman class. ([Time 1:27:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d1a630a7-a225-4d43-9b02-88acb9557f00)) - **Why Erdogan's Popularity Was Built On Real Service Gains** - Early Erdogan improved services and answered real grievances, which differentiated him from purely populist autocrats. - Susie Hansen: tangible gains (water, gas, healthcare) created durable popular legitimacy before later repression. Transcript: Susie Hansen Well, it just never, when he was lumped in in that category, it just never rang true to me. And I thought it was a little bit lazy. I think now, from the point of view of 2026, I'm seeing more and more of these similarities with the United States. So when I wrote the book, I finished it in 2025. I never would have compared the U.S. And Turkey. But now, since 2025 and 2026, it actually – this current time period echoes the book a lot. Like there's a whole chapter about a university and the oppression of universities. But I think that a few things are different. Number one, you know, he wasn't, we weren't really referring to him as a populist in the beginning. I think it's the first 10 years that is different about, that are different about Turkey that you want to look at. He was not just preying on people's sense of victimhood or grievances the way that, say, Donald Trump does. The people who he appealed to actually had legitimate grievances. They were actually left behind. They were not folded into the system properly. They were people who felt that they had been looked down upon and left behind in terms of the economy and education and many other things. And so I think – and then the second part is he actually did improve the lives of people. This wasn't – this isn't a superficial, you know, ruler. This is someone who actually everyone can talk about when he got the natural gas – you know, people's natural gas accounts hooked up to the internet or when he made water supply easier Or better, when he improved the electricity, all of these services, when he improved the healthcare, when he, you know, and then, of course, just what he did for people's self-esteem, Which was all very real. So it was because of this genuine popularity that that's the basis for why he has sustained a lot of his role today. ([Time 1:35:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7572f482-f167-42f6-9ed7-b1bc6ef05e39)) - **The Coup Shifted Erdogan From Pragmatist To Punisher** - The 2016 coup attempt radicalized Erdogan; his conflict with the Gulen movement and fear of threats justified harsh repression in his view. - Susie Hansen: the coup provided the pretext for mass purges and remaking state institutions. Transcript: Susie Hansen Of a glorious opportunity, which echoed, you know, what happened after many military coups in Turkish history, which is that they sort of remake everything. They put people in jail, they start all over. But it was much worse with what he did. But I think that, you know, if you look at the number of threats that in his mind he was facing, it was this war with the Gulen movement. Most people do believe the Gulen movement was involved in that military coup. I think that it's very, they suspect that, yes, he might have known about it earlier, he let it happen, then he knew he could take advantage of it. But that war between Erdogan and the Gulen movement was absolutely real. And it was, a lot of people in the country really resent the Gulen movement. So, I mean, there have been tons of things written about it. It's just very difficult to understand. And I think it's a very weird, fascinating movement. ([Time 1:40:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1f9ce70b-b6d9-4ca6-941c-0148c9115eb8)) - **Erdogan's Regional Strategy Is Both Geopolitical And Domestic** - Erdogan has a coherent regional vision: build defense industry, extend influence across Syria, Libya, Azerbaijan, and leverage refugees as geopolitical leverage. - Susie Hansen: these moves consolidate domestic power while projecting Turkey as indispensable to Europe and regional actors. Transcript: Susie Hansen No, I think they had a vision for Turkey in the region. And as a, what if you say, middle power, I don't think they like that term. But as a regional power, I think they've had a vision for a long time. I think they've been building up their defense industry. I think they've obviously, as I said, extending themselves throughout the region. I think they also did that for business interests. I think they did that as a way to just shore up their power. And I think it works in the sense that I think some people in Turkey probably can't imagine who would come after them at this point because he has successfully taken over basically all Of the institutions of the country. Population. And at this point, he's now taken to meddling in elections. But I think in terms of the bouncing back and being a sort of canny, flexible, domestic leader, I think he's just reacting to events at home. And he's happy to shift. He was a liberal-looking leader in the beginning. Then he became allied with a right-wing party around 2015. And so, you know, he was looking at a Kurdish opening in his first eight years in power. And then he was, he turned against it. Wherever he saw the mood of the country or, you know, his own political fortunes shifting, he would shift also. And he'll do it again. I mean, he has now put the country just in a terrible, terrible economic situation, and that is the trap. I don't see the way out of that. I mean, I was just in Turkey in March. The people in my book who loved him for all of these years suddenly are shattered people, including one of my characters, Hussein. Their self-esteem, their sense of self, and also their belief in Turkey's great future and their children's future is now gone. And I think that that is very, very new for him. And I don't think he has a way out of it. So I think it will be interesting to see where we go. ([Time 1:43:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f4e0915c-ef49-40fa-ba04-c2b793e6fb2b)) - **Local Politics Reveal Voters' Agency Under Authoritarian Pressure** - Neighborhood-level politics show democracy as lived, not just institutional; locals pushed back in Istanbul's 2019 mayoral vote. - Susie Hansen: even Erdogan supporters voted opposition to rebuke manipulation, demonstrating agency despite repression. Transcript: Susie Hansen Well, this was why I found this neighborhood interesting, because they were a bit on the margins. No one in my neighborhood was a member of the media that was being oppressed or of the academics or the Kurds or maybe the judiciary, the judges who were all being fired or transferred. These people were a little bit on the margins and many of them supported Erdogan. About 75% of the neighborhood did, and then there was 25% that did not. But their lives were not directly affected. And what I think was the benefit of failing to finish my book in a normal amount of time was that I got to go there for 10 years, and I got to see how all of these people changed and evolved over Those years. And what I found fascinating, and I think would be fascinating to Americans as well, is that you might disparage some of these people who vote for the autocrat, but what you're not really Prepared for is how they are actually processing what's happening to them and the moment when it strikes them that their lives have changed. And it does. And I think the chapter in the book that is somewhat hopeful, although it was a while ago now, is 2019. Because what happened in my neighborhood was that it was the Istanbul mayoral election. AKP was running their candidate. They had run Istanbul for 25 years. And then there was the opposition candidate Ekrem İmamoglu. And he won. And it was the first time AKP had been defeated in a very important election in the Istanbul mayoral election. And then the AKP tried to claim that there were election irregularities, and they called a second election. And everyone in my neighborhood, even his supporters, were so insulted. You know, they said, what does he think? We're stupid? Does he not realize? Does he not think that we realize what he's doing? And it was a very funny kind of macho reaction in some respects. And they started saying, you know, we're going to teach him a lesson. We're just going to teach him a lesson this time. And then the neighborhood actually voted for the opposition party, which they had not voted for, for maybe in all of their lives, just to show Erdogan that they were not going to lose Their voice. And an interesting thing about Turkey is that it has always had free elections. And this is the one thing everybody has had, and they love to vote there. I mean, it's really a great pleasure to witness Election Day in Turkey. And so they fought back in that instance. Imamoglu became mayor. Of course, Imamoglu is in jail now. Now he's in jail. Now he's in jail. But I think that when we think about people's psychologies in the age of authoritarianism, I think, you know, the verdict is that we don't really know what's happening, how people are Feeling and what exactly they are going to react to. And you're right. In a neighborhood like that, in an old Ottoman, in these neighborhoods in Istanbul, they still work together to figure things out. They're out in the street. They're talking to each other face to face. I mean, this was also what was appealing to me because I was online all the time. Yeah. And they're still talking to on information in this face-to way, which I think is a lesson for all of us as well. ([Time 1:48:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f59d5479-d7cc-409d-b334-dd4b61ccdc1b))