Speaker
Will Grant
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Since Venezuela's oil tap was turned off, Cuba has received only one shipment of 830,000 barrels from Russia, leaving the island desperately short of fuel.
Cuba's hospitals are running at a fraction of their capacity due to fuel and power shortages, with only emergency cases accepted in many facilities during blackouts.
Mexico has an estimated 130,000 disappeared people, whose families are using the World Cup as a platform to demand action on this crisis.
More than 34 Cubans, who were security officers for Maduro, were killed during the US Delta Force operation in Venezuela, which Grant described as carried out in seconds.
Visitors to Pyongyang are reporting Chinese electric vehicles, rideshare apps, and pizza restaurants. Satellite imagery shows the capital is 3x brighter than five years ago. The driver: more than $10 billion in North Korean arms sales to Russia since 2023, supercharged by deploying 16,000 soldiers to fight in Ukraine.
North Korea is thriving despite years of US sanctions. Ben Rhodes argues this is the inevitable result of America over-sanctioning so many countries that they've created an entirely parallel trade system — trading in crypto, bartering, and evading the dollar — effectively nullifying US financial pressure.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Havana just days after the Venezuela operation, in which 34 Cuban security officers were killed by Delta Force in seconds. Will Grant showed news of Ratcliffe's visit to a Cuban official and watched him physically turn gray. The message, Grant believes, was simple: you are no military match for us.
Iran shot down a US Apache helicopter patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, leaving the crew adrift for hours before a drone system rescued them. Trump called it 'not a big deal.' The same administration spent years mocking Obama for sailors who briefly drifted into Iranian waters.
CNN tallied 38 separate occasions where Trump claimed a peace deal with Iran was close or that Iran was desperate to negotiate. None materialized. The war continues. The ceasefire is fiction.
CIA official David Rush allegedly invented a fake highly-classified special access program about continuity of government operations and used it to funnel millions to himself. When investigators showed up, they found 303 gold bars worth $40 million, $2 million cash, and 36 luxury watches. He also lied about his college degree and his Navy pilot career.
Trump told reporters that in the Middle East, a ceasefire simply means 'shooting in a more moderate manner.' He also renamed highly enriched uranium 'nuclear dust' because it's 'cute.' Tommy and Ben argue the media must stop letting Trump redefine words with dictionary definitions.
Trump publicly said Netanyahu agreed to stop bombing Beirut. Netanyahu immediately ordered strikes on Beirut. Iran responded with 30 ballistic missiles. Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel. The 'ceasefire' never existed, and Lebanon's prime minister confirmed 3,500 airstrikes since it was supposedly agreed to.
Ivanka Trump described on a podcast how she and Jared 'discovered' the protected Albanian island of Sazan after stopping for a swim from a Rothschild family yacht. The Albanian PM then mysteriously removed the island's ecological protections. Jared is now developing a $1.6 billion luxury resort on the site — and corruption investigators are closing in.
Barbed wire fences went up, security guards beat protesters on video, and thousands took to the streets. The Albanian anti-corruption agency is investigating how a protected ecological reserve lost its status just in time for Jared Kushner's resort deal. Ben Rhodes notes the money won't reach ordinary Albanians — only the 'Epstein-class' clientele will visit.
For years, Cubans carefully parroted state slogans to journalists. Not anymore. Will Grant says people are now brazenly speaking out — and some are openly saying they hope Trump intervenes and takes over, not out of love for Trump, but out of desperation for any change at all.
A military operation against Raul Castro at 95 would inflame Cuban nationalism. Targeted action against younger leadership is possible. Boots on the Malecón seems outlandish but felt equally outlandish before Venezuela. Grant says the safest path for Cuba is a negotiated solution that means wholesale economic and political transformation — but no one knows if Havana is capable of going there.
The top African referee was denied entry at Miami airport. Haitian fans were turned away. Iranian players must commute from Mexico for their US games. Somalia's African Referee of the Year was rejected, seemingly for his nationality. The World Cup is supposed to showcase America — instead, it's showcasing casual racism and petty geopolitics.
Since Venezuela's oil supply was cut and only one Russian shipment has arrived, Cuba has no cars on the streets, hospitals accepting only emergencies, schools closed multiple days a week, and garbage piling up. Summer heat and mosquitoes are coming. BBC correspondent Will Grant says it is 'incredibly bleak and actively getting worse.'
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- Society & Culture 25%
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