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Welcome to the Dangerous Ones. I'm your host, Jim Drastic. And as always, I'm joined by award-winning co-founder of 11 Films, Tiffany Drastic. And executive director of Demcast USA, Nick Kudson. Hey, everybody. Our guest today is somebody who has worn nearly every hat in Washington. Diplomat, strategist, advocate, and commentator. He served as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration where he spearheaded legislative affairs with the House of Representatives and advised US senators on foreign policy. A frequent presence in the media, he's appeared more than 1,400 times on networks like MSNBC, CNN, Fox, NewsNation, and the BBC. He writes extensively on foreign policy and politics for outlets such as Axios and the Daily Beast. He's been a trusted voice in presidential campaigns, including Bernie Sanders and Biden Harris's, and has served three terms in local government, including vice mayor of Chvy Chase, Maryland, foreign policy expert, grassroots advocate, and seasoned political strategist. Ladies and gentlemen, it is our pleasure to welcome to the Dangerous Ones Joel Rubin. Joel, hello. Oh, Jim, it's great to be with you guys and thanks Tiffany, Nick for having me on as well. Thank you. And Joel, um, we have so much that we want to talk to you about today, but first, let's start off with the news out of India and Pakistan. You recently said on the BBC that the India Pakistan situation is the most unstable nuclear staredown on the planet. Can you walk our listeners through what is happening over there and what you meant by those comments? Absolutely. So, India and Pakistan, two countries that are allies of the United States, both have nuclear arsenals pointed directly at each other. They're neighbors. Imagine if Pennsylvania and New Jersey both had nuclear arsenals of uh nearly 350 weapons between them pointed right at each other. That's what we're looking at now. Now imagine if uh uh New Jersey and Pennsylvania hated each other where they had had multiple wars over the past 50 years. And that's also what we're looking at with India and Pakistan. And so uh this is always a flash point. In the middle of that flash point, there's a red-hot flash point called Kashmere. And uh what happened recently was that there was a terrorist attack uh basically against Indian uh tourists there and Pakistan was the source of that terrorist attack. It's not as if the government of Pakistan commandeered it but nothing really happens there without the government or its intelligence services having some inkling. And so that attack occurred. India then rhetorically said we don't want this. We're not going to take it. and they struck militarily into Pakistan and now back and forth. Uh both are shooting down each other as fighter jets. What could go wrong when uh when you have when you have that going, right? And uh uh you know the scare line, which I think is important to know for everybody who thinks nuclear weapons are an a thing of the Cold War, they're not. uh 350 weapons. If a hundred of those go off in between the two countries, we'll we'll have what's known as a nuclear winter where a couple billion people will probably starve to death. So, we don't want this to happen. No, sir. Real quick, a quick followup is is where do you know where is the Trump administration on this issue? Is he [ __ ] it up? Uh what I'm sure he is, but what what's going on? I'm sure he's doing the wrong thing. I don't know, man. He's like bullying the Canadians, right? Right. I mean, you know, it's like whistling past the graveyard, as they say. You know, I I I'm old enough to have worked around town for about 25 years in Washington, and I was a a civil servant at the State Department, and I worked in political military affairs uh in 2001 2002 when a similar, if not more, hot fight broke out between the two sides. And at that time the Indians and the Pakistanis were really close. They were really aggressively fighting each other. And we had a secretary of state named Coen Powell and a deputy secretary named Richie Armadig who died recently. Uh they got on the phone and they got on the plane and they pushed the leaders of those two countries back. None of that is happening right now. uh they got in the middle of the game back then were using our State Department to execute a rendition policy to send migrants to Libya and trying to strongarm again our ally to the north in in Canada and it's really dangerous and we're just not paying attention. Well, in in fairness, I think Trump uh did reach out and uh suggest a Trump hotel in Karach. Well, you know, you want to add another layer of of funnies to this. Uh there's thing going around where JD Vance, right? He visited the pope and then the next day the pope died. Uh he just was in India. Oh, there we go. The kiss of death. So here we go. Yeah. Oh my god. Uh Nick, the the Yeah, the cry on these. The internet is a blaze. Okay. Okay. So Joel, just taking a step back. Thanks for that uh update on India Pakistan. Um just frightened. Sorry. Thanks. Um you used to work at the State Department. You have your ear to the ground around the world. Um what is the word on the street in terms of America's image abroad now given the new Trump administration? Joel, does the world hate us now? Like is is it full-on hate now? You know, Nick, look, I I I had the benefit of serving uh in the Peace Corps after college. So, I lived overseas for two years in Central America and Costa Rica, beautiful, wonderful country. Uh I was a volunteer in a village there. And uh you know, I I remember a time when Americans and American foreign policy wanted to engage the world, especially in the '9s, which was a very formative period for me. And then through the periods like even under uh President Bush and and into Obama of course as well trying to find ways to conduct foreign aid. President Bush his credit created a program called PEPAR which drastically cut down on AIDS in Africa. Uh he was engaged in innovative uh tools for foreign aid like the Millennium Challenge Corporation. But what we've seen right now uh largely through the horrific efforts of of Elon Musk is a termination of American engagement with the world with a positive hand. USAD, our foreign aid arm is essentially been neutralized. Uh they are are doing the Peace Corps. They've eliminated Millennium Challenge Corporation. Yeah. I mean it's craziness. So our image is bad. Um, you add to that the war on the global economy through the tariffs that our allies can't understand and the confusing nature if not downright obsequisness of Vladimir Putin on this Russia Ukraine file and and I think uh our allies is as Mark Carney the Canadian prime minister uh best said it is is uh th those days are those days are in the past those days are over the relationship we have with America what comes next is is up for discussion. Clearly, we need to have that. But countries around the world just don't know what to make of us. And and frankly, I think are very afraid of the direction that we're turning. I got to tell you, for the first time ever, I I I've said to myself, I go, I don't know if I'd feel comfortable going into Canada saying I'm American. For the first time, and I'm 50 years old. I don't think I've ever thought that in my life. There was like a joke back in the day that if you traveled, you just said you were Canadian, not American because Yeah. I know. No, you know, I spent um I spent seven summers when I was younger at summer camp in Canada. And you know, the concept just in this Canada thing, the mere concept that somehow we would create tensions with Canada is so it's so beyond even basic logic. I don't understand it. And I think Canadians are like, what is happening here? Like it it literally comes out of nowhere. You can't buy a better, more secure border than what we have. We have the longest land border, a peaceful land border on the planet. Right. Right. That's probably to break it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do we do? And what is the long-term effects of all of that? Like we were just talking about the Peace Corp being doed. You said, Voice of America. These are key institutions that build trust in us in the world. What are the long-term repercussions of this? I was going to say [ __ ] but of this person. Look, you know, look, Tiffany, I mean, what we just described, many of these institutions are um creations of uh JFK, the Kennedy administration, uh creations of our greatest uh our greatest presidents in the the early stages of the Cold War, where there was a strategic reason for these efforts. It wasn't just to try to be idealistic and have great relationships with the rest of the world, which of course one should always try to do, but it was also to use American what we call soft power, meaning non-military means to engage the rest of the world to cultivate alliances and relationships to uh build a sort of undergirling of pro-Americanism in these societies. And that was a clear intent by JFK, Eisenhower and others to counter the Soviet Union. And and it worked. It worked, right? Like you look in Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union fell, what did what did those countries want? They wanted to be like America. They wanted to be in NATO. They wanted to be democracies. They wanted our aid and our assistance. That's a win. If we terminate that, what happens next? We are turning our backs on the future and on our security by eliminating these programs. Is that why is this a vendetta from Putin to to dismantle all this [ __ ] so that we're weak and he's strong? Like is this this little puppet over here making all these moves? Well, you know, cause and effect clearly we can have a discussion about, but I can tell you what outcomes are. The outcomes are that the Chinese and the Russians are thrilled. Yes. Uh we we have basically vacated uh Africa and and handed it off to adversaries that we've been battling with uh not militarily but battling with for the hearts and minds of people in Africa and their economies. We've handed it off to to the the Chinese. Just the other day uh the Egyptians conducted military exercises uh with China. This is a military that we have been funding for almost five decades since the Camp David Peace Accords that we sponsored where they made peace with Israel. Um, you know, Putin, if he's pulling the strings or not, I don't know. But I'll tell you what, when you and this is like the the Elon Musk scooping up tens of billions of dollars of this money um now boosting defense spending by hundred billion dollars. you know, doesn't take too much to see what the priority set is now that he's looking to get contracts from DoD that he could not get from USAD. And that's my my my sad commentary on this is it looks like it's just a move for uh for rents, a move for economic gain. Uh and they needed to find the money from somewhere and uh and that's where they took it. Wow. Jesus. Speaking of making enemies, uh, you know, around the world, um, tariffs. Uh, so here we are now. Um, I, you know, and I'm always wondering like, is he doing this because he's like some covert guy and he's trying to destroy America or is he doing this because he's that [ __ ] stupid idiot? I'm not sure. I honestly I'm not sure. I don't, you know, I was afraid of how smart he was the first time. I'm absolutely convinced this there ain't nothing going on out here except what people tell him to do. And he's super vindictive and he hates everybody and so that's a hell of a motivator to be like Darth Vader. It's a lot of oatmeal up here. But uh and a lot of hatred. But I I'm so I'm so glad you're on the show. Question. What do you think's going on? What is the what is his strategy? And what is the impact of this? Yeah. So, it's a really interesting day to have this conversation because today was the first day that uh we had some semblance of a a quote agreement uh to reduce tariffs and that's with the UK, United Kingdom. Now, remember, of course, we have a trade surplus with the United Kingdom. All right. So, we already are winning Trump calculus. They should not be getting tariff at all. But what was the the agreement to only reduce the tariffs to a baseline of 10% increased? Great. So like basically what we're telling the world is we are tariffing you and we don't care. Uh you can cut a deal, you can be in deficit to us and we don't care, which is a great way to drive us into a recession and uh supply shortages of of products that we we tend to to purchase from overseas. So I I think this is all about this weird 19th century concept of we can build it all here and do it all here. It turns away from economic theory that has made us an incredibly pro prosperous and attractive country with a lot of faults and a lot of problems and a lot of needs across the the the heartland in particular. Uh but they just that this the administration, you know, it seems like they think they can just, you know, have a magic uh uh unicorn of a policy like a tariff and magically factories that don't exist will appear and Americans will walk in and work and we'll all be happy and instead we're going to just uh not only get these price shocks, but we're going to devastate a lot of economies around the world. another hammer on our relationships with countries uh in addition to withdrawing our support from them and these these aid programs and alliances, right? You know, one of the things that drives me crazy is is you know, Biden did all these great things. You know, the the chips act, you know, these the actual chip factories were going to be coming online. So, but but everybody was so [ __ ] impatient. They're like, "Oh, the economy now." You know, even in some fantasy world that let's assume Trump's tariff thing works and like it's still going to take forever and a day for these factories to for these factories to just start popping up. It's ridiculous. America is has lost its mind when it comes to how long things take anyways. But but Joel, I mean, you don't think that this is not going to work, is it? This is not going to work. These tariffs? No. No, it's not going to work. It's stupid. I mean, it's ridiculous. Like I mean it's like the dumbest policy we could ever have enacted. It literally is like a ship for brains foreign policy. All right. Like maybe let's let's uh hashtag that. Um I mean honestly like I'll just give you a little tiny example where I live. I live in Maryland in Chevy Chase. I was a town council member for six years a a a nonpartisan office where all we do is like things around the town to make sure that the community is working well. One of the things we had to do was fix a park which had a little bit of underneath it a little bit of toxic substance and we had to put money into it. It took us like seven years and we're a wellgoed place with enough resources to clean up dirt. All right. And then put a park on top of it. So I don't think Americans can wait seven years for the prices to go down and the jobs to come back. I don't think that's our culture and I don't think anybody should anywhere around the world have to go through that. So the here's the thing. If you want to let let me put it this way just like with Doge, if you want to enact a policy on trade that insources that sort of like bring repatriates economic activity, you need to do it in a sequential glide path manner where you have clear agreements, where you have clear programs, where you have agreement from the people who are impacted by it. But what he's doing is he's just taking like a sledgehammer to our international economic standing and it it's just it's going to make the private sector freak out. They don't want to invest. Stock market is separate issue. But like business confidence is low. Uh certainty about where the money's coming from doesn't exist. And it's just like interest rates aren't going down magically. He's upset about that. Well, they don't go down when there's uncertainty because the cost of borrowing rises because there is uncertainty about whether or not the bank will get the money back. So, it just makes no sense. And um I'm embarrassed to say that the author of this, Peter Naro, was a Peacecore volunteer. Oh, wow. Come on now. Come on. Sorry. I had to do it. It's not all sweets and treats for my people. Oh, that's rough, Joel. Um I know. And you were so not that the people in Congress at the moment are going to be uh in any way helpful, but I know you're the deputy assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs. Congress does have some kind of role, right, in uh in foreign policy and trade. So like is there anything that the legislative this this all just seems crazy? He's like he's implementing a tariff, he's pulling it back, he's you know there there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. There have to be some people in Congress who are like, "This is stupid." Even if they're like outwardly supporting him, like, "I'm doing this. I'm doing this." Is there anything Congress could do to step in? Even if they don't, is there like what's the role of Congress in all this? There's this little book I have. It's called the Constitution. I don't know. You may have heard of it. Somebody still thinks about it once in a while. Somebody give one to Trump. I don't know. There are different articles in here like power of the purse goes to the legislative branch and things like that and you know um there used to be a day when we had like a balance of power two co-equal branches and then three three of course uh branches of government that would uh balance off each other and and and check each other's power in order to ensure we have a stable democracy. Uh it's all within the members of Congress's capacity because they write on the Doge issue. They're the ones that write the bills. They they write the checks to pay the bills. They do appropriations. That's their constitutional uh uh uh obligation, right? And so the executive when they do empoundment, they're violating the law. Why? because they are impounding funds that are provided through a law. Congress is supposed to uh uh ultimately be the arbiter of trade policy and it's just turning away. And uh I unfortunately we have a Congress and I'll say this with all due respect because you know I I I I love Congress as an institution but it's really resembling the Duma. Uh it's a Congress it's a Congress that basically does not think independently from the executive branch. That is not how the framers intended it to be. And um you know but that's the business that we're in right now. And until that changes, um, we will have a unilateral executive continue to, um, grab that congressional authority because Congress is abdicating its uh, from its responsibilities. God, isn't that true, too? Daddy. Yeah. Not only that, before we move on to I think we're I hope that wasn't too hard. Too deep. Look, when you can truth, man. Yeah. One thing about this, right? Like, so I've done a lot of different things in town in Washington, but when you work in legislative affairs for an executive branch agency, it really gives you uh a a a sort of an awareness and an appreciation for the interaction between the executive and the legislative branches of the United States government. And so I had like two badges. So when I went to the state department, I was the deputy assistant secretary for legislative affairs to the house. So I was the senior official at the State Department under Secretary Kerry working on behalf of the State Department to engage the House of Representatives. So all issues in the foreign affairs that the Congress and the House side wanted to deal with that impacted state, I was like the funnel. So you can imagine like two big things and they crash. I'm like in the in there getting crashed every day. That's my head getting into pins. Oh man. But but I but I had two badges, State Department and a congressional badge. And I would go back and forth up and down Pennsylvania Avenue, Independence Avenue, go the Capitol to the State Department, meet with people, negotiate, uh language behind the scenes, uh problem solve, provide witnesses to hearings. It's a beautiful process as designed. It really is. Yeah. And we're blowing it right now. Yeah. We're blowing American democracy and it it is phenomenal when it works and you can do things and doesn't matter. I'll say this honestly if you're a Democrat or Republican, there's just you just figure it out. But we're losing that and I think we've lost that ethic. And I think the people who work on the Hill that I talked to don't feel like there's, you know, with this this uh hill as it's currently uh structured with the majority and the the Republicans, they're just they're not asserting any congressional authority on anything. Well, I think that the uh the person who was once in your role uh now now uh used to be in the WWE, so Jesus Christ. I'm just kidding. Probably not. Um, I know we want to shift over to another fresh hell. Um, and that would be Iran, right? Uh, so this kind of pivots from our soft power to hard power. We had Malcolm Nance on earlier and he talked about how he thinks that Iran's nuclear discussions were like, you know, [ __ ] He thinks that uh he was saying that we're just going to go in with Israel and destroy everything. What's your take on Is that what he said or is that what he wants? That's what I want to know. That's what he thought was going to happen. That's what he predicted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What What do you think of the whole situation? You know, I got to say I'm thinking of Doctor Strange Love and uh for us Gen Xers, we know this where he's sitting on the bomb and woo on his way down. Um Malcolm um you know uh I look I've been watching the Iran issue for much of my time in Washington. Uh I worked on Capitol Hill in the Senate uh when uh uh we were at war in Iraq and I a lot of our work as Senate Democrats was to stop that war, get out of it, find a way out of it. Iran was part of the spectre. There was this uh thought that we would bomb Iran under Bush and that didn't happen. The Israelis are always deeply concerned, as they should be, that Iran is an existential threat potentially to them. Uh, I was very active in advocating for a nuclear deal with Iran to prevent him from ever getting a weapon in a verifiable manner. It took multiple years of diplomacy by President Obama and Carrie and the team. And then finally, we got this deal in 2015 and it worked and it pulled back their worst weapons and it was working. International community said it was working and then Donald Trump comes into office and does what? Lift it up. And so now we're in a position where Iran has much more advanced nuclear technology and knowhow than it ever would have had if they if Trump had stayed in a deal. And he kind of wants to put the genie back in the bottle. President Biden didn't do it. Tried for a little. Iran supported terrorist attack against Israel. Iran didn't want to negotiate effectively with us. We had other conditions. The whole thing was a mess. So it's a mess. It's a real big fat [ __ ] mess. How's that? That's when I I will use my one my one fond. Okay, it's a big fat [ __ ] mess. That's the official words. But there are a couple there are a couple truths uh that that are consistent throughout all these years on this issue. One is that Iran should never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon ever ever ever. Um for a variety of reasons including just look at India and Pakistan. It is inherently unstable when there is the potential for a nuclear winter. Uh number two is they are a uh they are a a ship disturber in the Middle East and across the region. Yeah, and we have to keep an eye on that. But you know, number three is that the only deal, the only moment where we have really reigned in their nuclear program has been when they agreed through a diplomatic arrangement to do that and we had to put in verifiable mechanisms to verify it. Um, the argument that one can bomb its way out of this, I understand. Uh, I empathize with it. It's built in a sense of we can't trust the Iranians ever on anything. Therefore, we must bomb. But let me pose this question. If we can't trust them to tell us where all their nuclear facilities are, we aren't going to know everything. How will we know if we actually bomb everything, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. We won't. And and I'm old enough and dumb enough to have gone through working in the State Department when we invaded Iraq, and I remember the discussions in there. I remember us moving our intelligence assets into Iraq. I was working in military affairs watching the Bush administration gaslight us into invading a country that had nothing to do with September 11th. And um they said, "Well, we don't find any nuclear technology or any bad stuff in Iraq. Therefore, they must be hiding it." Right. Right. Right. So So I'm very cautious. I'm nervous about them refinancing Hezbollah and Hamas and groups that have made life hell for the Lebanese people, the Israeli people, the Gazin people, um Yemen, on and on and on. So, I have a lot of hesitance about that. Um so, it's not an easy solution. And, uh I'll close with this. You know, Donald Trump is getting the hard hard issue that he asked for. He didn't need this. He could have stayed in that deal. Yeah. France came begging. People came begging, don't leave. Make it tougher. And Iranians were willing to give more. Um there's a lot of of of teeth nashing in the Obama Biden Democratic foreign policy world on this one. Right now, let's uh shift over uh the Middle East just a hair bit to uh Israel Gaza situation. You know, the this is this one tripped me out. is is the World Central Kitchen just announced Wednesday that they were ceasing operation in Gaza because they don't even have they can't even get enough ingredients to bake bread. Um it's an absolute mess over there. It's obviously tragic. No kidding. Uh what's your take on the status of the Israeli uh Palestinian um conflict and what do you see as Trump's strategy for US involvement? I mean I He keeps saying he wants to build hotels or some horseshit like I mean like what what does Riviera Yeah. What what is up creepy that's creepy [ __ ] That's real creepy stuff. Um you know again I mean on a personal level like I'm deeply connected to Israel. I'm Jewish. Uh my great-grandfather went to Israel after 1948 and found our family there who survived the Holocaust and reconnected us as family and we are still close and still in touch and I've lived there for over a year of my life. So I I have a real uh a real passion for uh for the the story of the country and the country itself. It's an amazing place. I'm also deeply committed to Middle East peace and have spent a lot of my career advocating for a two-state solution politically at J Street, uh, in op-eds, on TV, uh, and elsewhere. And so when October 7th happened, it blew my mind. It blew everyone's mind. I was heartbroken. And then I was deeply disturbed and upset by the reaction to the attack by many of the folks with whom I'd worked for years on pro peace initiatives and activities where they basically blamed Israel for a terrorist attack that killed over a thousand Israeli civilians. So make no mistake, I have very little sympathy for that argument. But I have deep sympathy for the Palestinian people on the ground and Gazins and what is happening to them is horrific. Um they are uh being led to slaughter by a terrorist organization Hamas that still will not release hostages that they stole from Israel a year and a half ago. And the Netanyahu government is unrelenting and aggressive and uh conducting operations that are killing a lot of innocent civilians and there's just no other way to look at that and are trying to squeeze Hamas. So where do we come in in all of this? Our job as Americans and as the US government is to stop this war in a way where there is security the day after. But we're not. I gotta tell you, you know, Donald Trump got a lot of credit when he came in for brokering a ceasefire uh to release hostages and get food aid into Gaza. But that wasn't his ceasefire. That was Joe Biden's ceasefire he spent almost nine months uh working on. And Trump's team came in at the end and pushed it over the line. Kudos to them. That was all they did. Since that time, they have not negotiated one ceasefire to get anybody out and to get any aid in. And I I fear that when he put out this idea of God on the Riviera, what he did was he turned his back on ceasefire negotiations and basically said, "I'm not dealing with it. You do whatever you want. Israel, uh, Palestinians, you're on your own, and we'll just see." Just like with India, Pakistan, it all work out. We'll see what happens. It's this sort of weird lazy affair attitude. And and I I'm sorry to belabor it, but here from an American national security perspective, here's why we matter so much. We are the only power in the world that can truly convene resolve conflicts. There are a lot of others that try. There are a lot of middle level states. The Europeans want to. Nobody does it like us. Nobody has been doing it like us for decades. It's a good place for us to be. It advances our interests. It promotes global peace. When we step back, things fall apart. And right now we're, this is a great example, by not engaging and really trying to stop this and move the hostages out and move aid to the people so they can envision potentially some more feasible future. We're allowing the parties to just collapse it and uh and nothing's getting done. And I just I I don't see any vision. I don't see any plan. Um I I don't see any presidential leadership at all uh in this. And so this doesn't have to have an end point. It can keep going in this way for as long as the waring parties wanted to go. You know, the thing that that drives me crazy is forget about the politics that that got there got uh Gaza to where it is now or whatever. When you look at images of what Gaza looks like right now, it I mean there is nothing. How the [ __ ] How the [ __ ] do you come back from that? As we sit here doing this podcast, there's literally children starving over there, dying, hurt, no medicine, can't even get a [ __ ] band-aid. You know what I mean? And again, regardless of the politics, let's say the everything ended tomorrow and they said, "Okay, we're going to rebuild." Okay. I mean, what is I mean, you were in the peace or how what does that even look like? I mean, it's a hellscape, right? Um it you know it's it's uh um there's so much material destroyed they could they could build they could build like new islands out of all of the Yeah. all of the cement all I mean it you know it it's let me just try to give a little historical uh analysis real quick on this. Gaza was always a very difficult spot right like it's never been an easy spot. It's the most densely packed area in terms of population density in the world. And in the uh 67 war, Israel captured it when it captured the Sinai desert. Prior to that, it was governed by Egypt. And Israel had that and always was having a hard time with Gaza. Mhm. In fact, it was having such a hard time in Hamas 40 years ago was building and developing in the 80s into early '90s that when Yakabin, the Israeli prime minister who moved forward on making a peace process start and building towards peace with the Palestinians, when he first signed an agreement with Yasar Arafat, the head of the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, it wasn't the Oslo Accords. It was a thing called Gaza Jericho where they brought Arafat back from Tudis and then in 2000 years later that that was like sort of what it was but Israel was still in there. They had settlements and then a year later the Gazins which had been governed by the Palestinian Authority which grew out of Arafat's leadership that Palestinian authority was overthrown by Hamas. And so this is like a a space from it's like an ungovernable space from hell. It's been horrific. Um, and this is sort of almost like the final culmination of it. Uh, and and it's it's it's it's absolutely upsetting. The Gazin people don't deserve this in any way, shape, or form. And the rebuilding of it, reconstruction of it, you know, is decades upon decades upon decades. What would it even look like? We don't know who's going to pay for it. These are crucial questions. And I I will say just on a hopeful note, there are lots of plans out there of regional partners in the Arab world. the Emiratis, the Saudis, the Qataris, even a lot of money out there. They have tons of money in the Persian Gulf, right? Lots of money for this stuff. And what they have been asking the Israelis and the Biden team as well and now the Trump team is let us come in. The question is is who governs? Could you have an Arab Confederation govern? Could you have a Palestinian Authority? And let us do the reconstruction rebuilding. My concern is that the Israeli government uh is not going to want to see that happen if that leads to a Palestinian state. So there's a political loggerhead, but there are plans and there is money out there. Now the question is, is there the political will to actually do something with those plans and that money? And so far, we don't have it. Yeah. And you know who's not going to lead on that is Donald Trump. Yeah. So that goes without saying. That goes without saying. So uh so we've talked about a lot of [ __ ] uh that's that's not great that's happening in this world, the world I live in. And Yeah. Well, and and I wanted to tap into that. So, um you know, we talked about Iran, uh Israel, Gaza. In terms of global threats and foreign policy, like you're an expert in this. What is keeping you up at night the most out of everything? We're letting our defenses down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I I live in a rough neighborhood. Let's open the windows and leave the doors unlocked. Yeah. You know, we're so obsessed with like turning the US government into a deportation um organization. And it sort of reminds me of like in 2001 in my early days in government when the Bush administration was really obsessed with Russia and China, which of course we always have to be concerned about. And there was this like memo that popped across their desk about Bin Laden uh aiming to strike inside the United States. They're like bin Laden bin whatever. We have more important things to worry about, right? You know, you're always fighting the last war. Yeah. So, we're fighting we're fighting our allies. We're we're deporting people using federal national uh security resources, State Department, DHS, DoD to deport them. And and like it's not as if our adversaries don't see this, right? We're selfisolating. We're taking away our early warning systems of our uh apparatus overseas. We're reducing our diplomatic footprint. We're firing CIA officers. we are taking out our global health infrastructure. All of these things, you know, there are a lot of people who don't like the American hegemony or the idea that America has power out there and and I see it and I I I think it's like stupid, right? That it's I just they're wrong. I like the idea of America having this web of influence around the world. Why? Because I'm an American and I actually think that we we're all right. And actually a lot of people around there like us and they would rather live under us than under pox China or pox Putin. Right. Right. You know, so but we're taking that all away. We're just choosing to disarm. And that to me is what's most frightening. You know, I'll say one more thing is we can boost the defense budget another$150 billion. There are all these lines about generals saying, you know, I don't need any more bombs. I need more USAID workers in in Iraq. I need the people to stop wanting to kill us, right? Uh you can't bomb cliche, but you you you can't bomb your way out of all these problems. These are these are not military problems. We lost a million Americans domestically through a virus. We just took away our global health infrastructure that would give us the early warning and the protections to prevent that from occurring. So that's what keeps me up at night. This uh idea that we're now becoming defenseless. Yeah. Well, Joel, we can't thank you enough for coming on the show. I mean, my goodness, you're just fantastic. And we're obviously, like we said, we're huge fans. But before you go, I did want to ask now, everybody might not know, actually, I said it during the intro, but you did run for Congress one time. Will we ever see a one Joel Rubin run for an office again? And if you do, you've got some friends on this show. Woohoo. Um, thank you. Thank you. Well, uh, I have to say my best loss ever was, uh, losing to Jamie Raskin in 2016 in the Democratic primary in Maryland. Jamie's a good friend and, uh, I I ran in that race because I believed in it and I believe in the institution. I still do believe in it. Uh, I don't want Jamie to go anywhere. Uh, so I'm not hankering for that. Of course, in Montgomery County, a lot of people uh, are looking for that. And I grew up in Pittsburgh and Squirrel Hill and there might be some things in the future. Who knows? I don't know. But, you know, of course, if I do that, it might take a negotiation that I would probably lose with my betro. All that said, um I really do love Congress. It would be an honor to serve. It's always an honor to do anything in these spaces. And um I just, you know, even when I ran and and got elected locally here, it's really cool. It's not easy, but it's really cool to be in a role where you can do public service, be it from Peace Corps or in government. And I know I'm gonna go on long here. I know I'm holding up, but I got to tell you, to me, that's the most precious thing that we can't lose and that this administration is trying to squatchch is this idea of public service, right? this idea that we have a government that serves us and that people sign up to serve in it in order to make a better country and community for all of us. I think that's great. You can do it as a do.gov employee. You can do it as an elected official. Uh it it's it's exciting. It's hard. It's stressful. It's intriguing. It's everything. Um and and so to me, Congress or not, whatnot, I think this whole idea of service and giving back and being truly part of our community and being able to cherish the moments where we are building something better for us and for our children, our future. That's what this is all about. And and so even on these foreign policy issues, you know, they all are about making a better quality of life for us here at home. and and um you know, I just I love it and and I really do hope that that people remember that as well as as we're listening in and thinking about this. It's like public service and caring and giving back. It's a it's a really powerful really powerful way to live. Well, two two things. Yeah. Here. Here. Yes. And that was not a no. Just saying. Okay. Am I a politician? And I would also I'd also like to add to that um don't go the way of WY Nickel who was supposed to announce on this show about his senatorial candidate candidacy. So when he did finally come on the show we berated him mercilessly. Uh so if you do decide to announce, you better start here. Just saying. No. Uh listen can't thank you enough for coming on the show and everybody we can't express enough that if you want more Joel Rubin go to uh Substack and subscribe to the briefing book and uh we are huge fans and um Joel we just can't thank you enough and please come back. It was my honor, my pleasure and it was a lot of fun. Thank you guys. Thank you.

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