Tommy and Ben discuss the increasing divide between the US and Europe on the issue of the war in Ukraine just as the world marks the three year anniversary, including a mineral reserves deal and America’s vote against a UN resolution calling for an end to Russian aggression. They also talk about Germany’s election results and the likely new Chancellor Freidrich Merz, the right wing podcaster who is Trump’s new Deputy FBI Director, firings at the Pentagon, an update on migrants sent to Guantanamo Bay and Panama, a parade of international right wingers at CPAC, and strains in the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel after the return of the remains of the Bibas family. Then, Tommy speaks to Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Zeke Faux about the Argentinian President’s memecoin and how it relates to the Trump family’s crypto schemes. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.
Chapter 1: What are the key points of the US and Europe divide over Ukraine?
So like the night of the election, like every leader of the party is like in a joint interview. It's totally wild. I love it.
You know, it's funny. The reason... I saw that. I kept thinking those were clips from a debate.
Yeah, yeah.
Because I was like, why the fuck are they all together?
It's crazy. I loved it. I didn't know that either. I was totally nerding out on it. On the election result itself, look, it's bad. The AFD did well. I mean, I saw some people on social media being like, oh, look, they failed. Nobody thought they were going to win. But they got about 20%, which is about... It's a fifth of the population. Yeah, it's a fifth of the population. That's bad.
And it's about where they've been polling. The good news is the J.D. Vance, Elon Musk interventions did nothing to help them. So they were polling there before Elon started weighing in. So it is a bit of a rebuke to those guys because they were clearly trying to pump up the AFD. That didn't happen. So that's one takeaway. I think the second thing is now...
Mertz's victory, this moves into the coalition formation, and we'll just have to see if that goes okay. They did, as we talked about last week, move so far right on immigration and some other things that that might make it difficult, but I think in the end you would expect that the threat of the AFD somehow getting into the government will compel.
God, I hope.
I hope so, because hopefully Mertz moves a little bit too to make that easier to happen. It's not like he has a massive mandate. He had under 30% of the vote. The only other things that stand out to me This left-wing surge is good. And notably, actually, the Libertarian Party that blew up the coalition didn't even make it to 5%. So, you know, nice, well played there, guys.
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Chapter 2: How is the US's stance on Ukraine affecting international relations?
Hamas said there was a mix up of some sort. They later returned the correct body. But it is hard to imagine anything more cruel and evil and just its totality than the treatment of the Bibas family from kidnapping them in the first place to kidnapping children to starving Yarden Bibas to the point where, you know, he looks so emaciated.
To parading the coffins these children were in through the streets of Gaza and then returning the wrong birth. Like the words don't do justice for how fucking evil this was. An Israeli military spokesman later said that the Bebos boys were killed with bare hands, quote unquote. Hamas had claimed that the Bebos family was killed in an airstrike yesterday.
I don't know that we can prove either of those things. I just want to say like, it's really awkward to talk about this because my view on this is I don't need to know how the Beboss children died to know that it was evil and wrong to kidnap children in the first place. Like obviously if they were strangled to death by a Hamas person, that is like a next level thing.
But like the fact that they were taken is just beyond cruel. But I just, I want to reflect in our conversation that there is, debate and dispute over sort of what the forensic pathologists could know at this point. But all of that tension brings us to Saturday when Hamas handed over the last living hostages that were part of this phase one of the ceasefire deal.
Israel is supposed to release 620 Palestinian prisoners, but they put their release on hold in protest of the treatment of the Bubas family and these hostages. Hamas also released this awful propaganda video of two hostages who were not set for release until phase two, but they were brought to the ceremony and forced to watch others go free, and then they were begging for their freedom.
So again, just unfathomable cruelty. Hamas accused Israel of a blatant violation of the agreement for not releasing the 620 prisoners and said there'd be no more ceasefire talks until they were let go. A Hamas official accused Netanyahu of intentionally sabotaging the ceasefire efforts. So phase one of the ceasefire ends on Saturday. The talks for the second phase haven't even started.
When asked about the ceasefire failing and the worst beginning again, Trump told Fox's Brian Kilmeade that he was basically okay with it going either way. So Ben, I just wonder where you're at on... your hope for this thing extending.
I've heard reports that Israeli authorities want to extend phase one rather than like negotiate to phase two, which it doesn't give me much confidence that the war is going to stay over. I don't know where you're where you're at.
Yeah, they seem to not want to get to the more foundational issues, you know, about the future of Gaza, where there's just these bigger gaps. They've been better at being able to negotiate essentially prisoner exchanges because that's where we are now. There's a ceasefire and then these prisoner exchanges, Palestinians released and then hostages returned.
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