Speaker
Tommy Vietor
Appearances over time
9 episodes
Episodes
9
Keeping Up With the Korruption in Kazakhstan
Trump Held a Fair And (Almost) No One Came
Starmer Brexits
Pool Me Twice, Shame On You
LIVE(ish) from the Obama Presidential Center
How Bad Is Trump’s Iran Deal?
Jared & Ivanka Conquer Albanian Island
Trump’s Top Spy Has One Job: Revenge
Pope Warns of AI Apocalypse
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
The US and its partners will fund up to $300 billion for Iran's reconstruction, nearly 6 times the roughly $55 billion Iran received under the JCPOA.
Bill Pulte has zero national security or intelligence background yet was installed as acting Director of National Intelligence, overseeing 18 intelligence agencies.
Israel and Lebanon signed a 14-point peace agreement in Washington aimed at transferring security control to Lebanese forces, but Hezbollah — the central party — was excluded from negotiations.
Pope Leo XIV released a 42,300-word encyclical on artificial intelligence covering ethics, war, democracy, and humanity's future.
A 54-year-old right-wing MAGA livestreamer was arrested by park police for masturbating in front of an acrobat troupe at Trump's Great American State Fair.
CNN counted 38 separate instances of Trump claiming a peace deal with Iran was close or that Iran was desperate to negotiate.
A 60-day sanctions waiver on Iranian oil sales could net Iran up to $10 billion, according to one progressive economist — and that's before any frozen assets are released.
At least 4,000 people have died in Lebanon since the war restarted on March 2nd, illustrating the human cost of the conflict's continuation despite ceasefire efforts.
During peacetime, 130 ships per day transited the Strait of Hormuz; since the Iran war began, the US military has only escorted roughly 70 ships total over several weeks.
A Frank Luntz tweet claimed the Iran deal was 95% done, with the remaining 5% covering Iran opening the Strait of Hormuz and turning over all nuclear materials — i.e., the entire substance of a deal.
Iran is set to receive approximately $24 billion in previously frozen assets — money from past oil sales stuck in foreign bank accounts due to sanctions — and the MOU says Iran can spend it on anything it wants.
Lebanon's prime minister said Israel had carried out 3,500 airstrikes since the so-called ceasefire was announced on April 16th.
The Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority reversed 91 years of precedent and ruled Trump can fire FTC commissioners and leaders of other independent agencies without cause.
Trump's acting Secretary of the Navy confirmed the US had paused a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan, citing potential munitions needs from the Iran war.
Under the Obama-era JCPOA, Iran shipped out 97% of its uranium stockpile to Russia for disposal — the opposite of what JD Vance claimed.
Iran has all the leverage, Trump has spent hundreds of billions and achieved nothing, and Netanyahu is escalating in Lebanon to avoid admitting defeat before his election. The deal is JCPOA lite or nothing — and no amount of Truth Social spin changes that math.
Tulsi Gabbard was appointed DNI as a signal to anti-interventionist MAGA that Trump would rein in the intelligence community. She then fired officials for honest assessments, covered for Trump's lies about Iran's nuclear threat, and ended up defending a war she built her career opposing. She leaves having achieved nothing.
Pope Leo XIV released a 42,300-word encyclical on AI — addressing its impact on war, democracy, labor, and human identity. The Pope's core argument: AI must be 'disarmed' not just militarily but economically and cognitively, freed from the race for dominance that is degrading humanity.
Fifteen years ago, unregulated AI transforming warfare and democracy would have triggered global summits and UN frameworks. Today, the US is an arsonist in that conversation, JD Vance is lecturing the world against slowing down, and the only person speaking with moral authority is the Pope.
Trump's acting Navy Secretary confirmed the US paused a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan — citing potential munitions needs from the Iran war. This on top of a $30 billion existing weapons backlog. Ben Rhodes warns this signals to Xi Jinping that 2027-2028 is his window to move.
The DRC Ebola outbreak is a perfect storm: caught late, no vaccine for this strain, active conflict zone, and every US tool for responding — USAID, WHO coordination, diplomatic infrastructure — has been deliberately dismantled. Ben Rhodes, who lived through 2014 Ebola, says there's no credible blueprint for response.
In 2014, the US used USAID, the WHO, and military logistics to build health infrastructure in West Africa and stop an exponential Ebola outbreak. All three tools are gone now. Rhodes calls it not anti-Trump swerving but a literal accounting of what's been destroyed.
Reagan's 1983 Evil Empire speech wasn't really about the Soviet Union — it was a coalition maintenance document. The first two-thirds were red meat for evangelicals on abortion and school prayer. The pivot to communism framed the Soviets as godless — making them the same enemy as secular bureaucrats at home.
Ben Rhodes argues that since Obama, no Democrat has provided a coherent alternative story to Trump's — not just better policy, but a narrative about where the country is going and why it matters. FDR and Reagan both did it in their time. The Four Freedoms were new. The Evil Empire was new. Democrats need something new too.
FDR first listed what became the Four Freedoms at a Hyde Park press conference — almost offhandedly. A reporter suggested 'freedom from want,' he agreed, and it vanished until the stakes were highest. That ending, dictated in the Oval Office the night before his State of the Union, became the moral framework of WWII and the UN Charter.
John Stevenson of West Yorkshire pulled a Renault Clio with his penis while someone lit him on fire — to raise awareness of prostate cancer and school bullying. He had previously pulled a car with his testicles and done a car pull while on fire separately, so he decided to combine both.
The US and Israel apparently planned to spring Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from house arrest via targeted airstrikes and install him as Iran's post-war leader. This is the man who crushed the 2009 Green Movement and threatened to eradicate Israel — the absolute nadir of regime-change fantasy planning.
Trump installed Bill Pulte — an HVAC entrepreneur and meme stock promoter — as acting Director of National Intelligence, overseeing 18 intelligence agencies with the full power of the NSA. There is no reason to do this other than giving a proven political weapon access to the most powerful surveillance apparatus in history to go after Trump's enemies.
Three months into the Iran war, the Strait of Hormuz is still closed. The 130 ships per day that transited it during peacetime have been replaced by a trickle of ~70 US-escorted ships over several weeks. Countries are burning through strategic reserves to prop up energy markets, but each passing day moves closer to an economic crash that far exceeds any peace-talk headline.
Trump spent a weekend teasing an imminent Iran ceasefire deal, declaring it '95% done' — then US airstrikes on Iranian boats laid mines by Tuesday morning. The core problem: Trump won't give Iran money upfront to open the Strait, but Iran has all the leverage and won't move first.
Analysis
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- Society & Culture 7%
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