Matthew Rosenberg Talks to Armstrong & Getty

com slash doing our part. So we talked to Matt Rosenberg a while back on the Armstrong and Getting radio show, and we thought he was really, really damned interesting. I thought we needed a longer conversation with him. Ye pulitzurprise winning journalist covers national security currently for The New York Times, spent fifteen years, is foreign correspondent in Asia, Africa, the

Middle East. He was actually booted out of Afghanistan on the orders of President Hamid kars I. Has said a lot of really interesting experiences around the world, and it's a pleasure to talk to Matt Rosenberg. So I got a really broad question right off the bat, and then we can just you know, follow different lines based on the answer. We the United States have tried all these different things, and a lot of countries that you've reported on over the years. We've We've tried killing a dictator

and then leaving it to the people. We've tried overthrowing a country and trying to build a democracy. We've tried leaving it alone and letting them have elections. We've tried all these different things, none of which seem to have worked out that well for us. What do you think we ought to do? Yeah, that's a tough one. Yeah, you know, I mean different countries that we want to follow up exactly specifically. Sure, there are PhD is being

written about this right now. I mean, I'm gonna just I'm gonna stay away from from from projections what we should do, and and just tell a little story about when I was in Afghanistan right before I got tossed in the place, you know, the an election. It was gonna be the first election in Whichhammad cars I had been the press events since you know, since the US had kind of overthrowned the Taliban, in which he was not gonna be running, and so who's gonna going to

run Afghanistan? And I remember talking to a few of our Afghan reporters who worked in the bureau with us, and they were like, oh, the U s s a stay. They have to help us pick who's gonna be the new leader. And I said at them, I said, guys, look around. You know, y'all hate cars. Eye at this point, y'all hate the people who were kind of brought into power by the US. Like why in the world when

you want us pick in more people? We seem to not be very good at this, and we seem to be you know, we're not naked colonialists like the British and French were in the nineteenth century. So we're not just appointing finding leaders who will who do whatever we want and and kind of rob their countries blind on behalf of us we don't. But we don't really know these countries very well. I mean, I think, you know, take Afghanistan for example, probably a housewife who speak to

English and in Afghanistan probably doesn't read. The literacy rate among women are so lo she probably knows more about Afghans than we ever will most of us ever will, And so we end up selecting leaders that tend to serve their own personal self interest very well. And not much else. They don't serve their people that well, they don't serve us very well. Um, I don't know how

we kind of get around that. I just know that you know, between South Asia and Africa and elsewhere in the world, the countries that seem to thrive are the ones that build themselves and then have a sense of themselves. You look at India. India is a great example that India seven. India becomes independent and it says it's not gonna be a client state of the West, It's not gonna be a client state of the Soviet Union. And

you know, India today is a thriving country. Pakistan, on the other hand, you know, right next door, they were the same independent state, Um became a client state of the West. Pakistan is not a thriving country. I mean, there are a lot of variables in there, but there is some truth to that too that the Indians decided we are going to be our own country. We're gonna be nobody's kind of uh client I us, nobody's gonna tell us what to do. We're not gonna have a

master here. And it's worked out very well for them. Well, I think I get what you're saying that, with very very few exceptions, countries have to go through the very difficult decades of finding themselves, sorting out who they are and how they're going to hand out power, and there's just no no imposing it from above. And I don't know how how we kind of like, you know, how we do that in a large person of the world. I mean, Africa never got that chance because of European colonialism.

Let's be honest about this. The the West Europe, mostly through the borders of Africa. There is never any kind of sorting out of countries the way you had in Europe and Asia. Um, Europe spent a thousand years, two thousand years killing each other to get to where they are today. So you know, I don't know, not optimistic for countries that are struggling. It's it's it's a really long and bloody road. Well, should our bet just be

whatever is best to try to counter Iran? As Iran wants to take over you know, the whole Middle East, and there they have been an enemy of the United States. I mean, we're counting on MBS to be on our side with that. Things have gone a little sideways there, but maybe he's still the horse to stick with. I don't know, yeah, I mean, the other question is between does Iran need to be our enemy? I mean, I

don't know. You know, Um, there are a lot of countries that we kind of put into one camp or the other that could probably be a little more negotiable with UM, you know, and and it's a tough call because countries are not going to do what we say. UM. And Iran certainly does a lot of things in the Middle East that that are that are definitely not in the US interest. But you know, the Staudies aren't exactly

doing great right now either. And you know, killing the journals in a foreign conflict of theirs is It's just one of of many different things that Staudia's have done that are making them into not a great bet right now. They've waged a brutal, terrible war in Yemen that even even the Secretary of Defense the US has has got

to end. You know, we keep relying on these kind of actors that are far from positive right although within the region, I mean you're presented with a series of unpalatable choices and MBS, you know, well, let's talk about him a little bit. He has absolutely instituted a few uh pleasant some might say cosmetic reforms. You can take your best Gald of the movies tonight if you want. Um.

But he he's snuffs journalists and consulates. Uh what direction do you think he is planning to move Saudi Arabia? What's it? What's his act? You know, it's it's so hard to tell right now. Look, he clearly has a modernizing streak, and he clearly has a very deep Aubetarian streak. Um, it wasn't just the killing of Tamaka Showy. You know, he locked up a big chunk of the country's elite torture from them when he took power. He has consolidated

power ruthlessly. Um. He is young, he's in his thirties, and you know, there are a lot of people in their thirties who who might not make the most mature and best leaders of any country. And I don't know the guy, I've never met him. But you know, it's it's great lusening restrictions on women. But there have been a lot of other things that should give everyone pause. Do you think uh, uh, MBS I want to I

always want to call him MSB. Then I start thinking of what's on the Chinese food MSG and then I get confused. I'm sorry, I don't get enough sleep. But do you think msb Admires, Thomas Jefferson, more Es and Ping Oh guy, I would have to go with the ladder on that one. Um, the man is clearly not a big advocate of democracy. Well, yeah, the the modernized totalitarian state, you don't have to look very hard to

find examples of that. That's kind of hot. Yeah, No, it's it's it's it's obvious days look over and over again. There are in many different countries these people come to power who kind of supplant brutal dictators, and are these kind of seen as benevolent death bolts of sorts. You know, in Uganda you had Yarry miss Avny, who we had eating a mean and you had all kinds of violence

and terrible rule. Then you get this guy who's kind of stabilized at the place in the place, does well economically and things you're going up, but that eventually does not kind of last, and the benevolent despot eventually just becomes a despot because you got to hold onto power if you are an authoritarian or totel talent totalitarian state. At some point, your whole claim to power is coercive

over your own people. You're not gonna allow descent. You're not gonna allow um any kind of wiggle room because you can't. And so it's very easy to go from being, you know, the good guy who's kind of fixing the country informing it, to the person who now is holding onto power at all costs and oppressing their people. Yeah,

it's interesting. I always think about it. Right after nine eleven, I remember John McCain saying, what we have here is the the the the the end of time when it's a good idea for the United States to make deals with dictators, those days are gone. And I thought at the time, I thought, yea, so it's gonna be the end of all these evil dictators in the Middle East. But then you see Mabarick go and the people vote for the Muslim Brotherhood or Kaddafi falls, and then you

just have Mayhem or what's going on in Syrious. So I don't know what the right answer is now, No, d um. I mean, I'm kind of for many many years overseas, I I'm not quite sure we do as much good as we think we do a lot of places. Um. I don't know how we do it better. Um, but we can either often bring a heavy hand, or when we decide to back sturtain people we don't know particularly well who they are, and we end up backing people.

It turned it out to beat nasty, nasty people. Um. And you know, there are realists who would say we should just do it in ourselves interest and because those other people. So if we need to support a dictator, we should support them. I don't know if that doesn't come back to the bite in the ass sometimes um or often Well, yeah, I think it's pretty clear, and I consider myself a real realist in terms of foreign policy. See.

But yeah, if you nakedly and without subtlety pursue your own interest in the long term, that will go against your interests because everybody will hate you. Um. And and on that note, let's go back to Afghanistan, where you spent a great deal of time. How long were you there? God, I was so, I was there a little bit in like two thousand two. Um I was based in East

Africa time, just kind of helping out. And um I was a young reporter at the Associated Press and then between like two to two thousand and eight and kind of a big chunk of my time I've spent in Afghanistan in the last three years of that about okay, so true or no? How do you see it? We are engaged in a permanent, um semi occupation of Afghanistan for the purpose of ensuring it doesn't fall into an islam ast hellhole, to have a balance against Iran in

the region, to keep an eye on Pakistan. This isn't a war, it's an keep patient. Um. I would say true in the sense that after seven seen years. I don't know what else you call it. I don't think you know, it's it's endless because it's we're not winning um. And I don't think anybody envisions Afghanistan being particularly good counterbalanced to anyone. It's a pretty weak country. Well yeah, I mean our presence there being a remember we're here,

and it's definitely to keep the Taliban out of power. Um. You know. Uh. The thing is, though, is that we, like I said, we're not winning and nobody believes we are. It's it's a death by a thousand cut situation at this point. But it is something that we are slowly kind of being chipped away at, and it's unclear, you know what the endgame here is what we believe the final result is going to be is look, the Trump administration will say, now, well, you know, we hold on.

We provide assistance and support to the to the to the Afghan Army and the Afghan police, and eventually the Taliban will come to the table. That has been a strategy for seven or eight years now and it has yet to yield anything, um except some very very very beginnings of peace talks that have been beginning now for about six years so, so not really clear on how this is a new strategy or where this one's going. Was a crook from the beginning or did he just

become a realist or what went on there? No, I mean he I'm not even clear if he personally was a crook ever, and people around him definitely were though what cars I was with somebody who needed to stay in power. So when he came to power, a whole network of kind of war lords and kind of big men and others came to power with him. His entire support network. A lot of those people were supported initially

by us, by the CIA, and others. And you know early on the cars by presidency, that money that that we were using to pay off different warlords than various actors was then started to be routed through cars I. And then it just quickly became a situation where if you wanted to get any business out of the country, you know, any of easy you have to oath to the government, you have to go through somebody in power.

You needed those connections. I think that's like the classic mark of kleptocracy is you look, you know, we always had a deal in the US, like you do your time in government, public service or asn't like an official and um, and after you get out you want to

cash in, that's up to you. But in a cryptocracy is you are in power and you use your office to either rich yourself or your friends and family and framed to get any business done, they need your blessing because you control the kind of years, kind of getting the permits you need or whatever, you know, And that was what Afghanistan quickly became. Where I remember a guy a d a guy who was leading this big, this

big task force to go after Taliban finances. You know, they started thinking like two thousand nine when the kind of the surgery starting the war was kind of becoming our focus again. So they fire up this this big task force and the idea they're gonna go after like Taliban opium smuggling in other ways that Talaban make money. So these guys they start, they start listening phone calls over the country and it's they quickly realize like, oh, like,

everybody's in business together. It's not just the Taliban, it's the government, it's people in the whole wallows, which are these kind of informal money transfer networks that made up most of the financial network. It's it's the kind of financial system that works in the banks in Afghanistan. Um that everybody is interlinked. It's all kind of a giant criminal enterprise, and here we are in the middle of it, kind of financing the whole thing. Um, you know, we

built that. So whatever cars that became, we do bear some responsibility for that. Every regular person on planet Earth is always one of the same thing. For the most part. You wanta you wanna raise your kids in a in a safe place, and and that's pretty much it. But where of all the places you've been was the closest thing to like the the pure hobbsy and nightmare of life is violent, brutish, short, that whole thing where there

just was no law in order. Oh, that had to have been like parts of Eastern Congo, parts of of Sudan, you know, parts of Somalia where you know they're either in Smala, you had no effective central government. There just wasn't one. And then in the Eastern Congo and parts of Sudan there just was. The government had no authority

over these places. There was so distant that it could exercise the authority, and that if your neighbor or the neighboring village wanted to come up and kill everyone in your village and they were stronger, there was no real way to stop them. Um, you know, well that's some stuff right there. Yeah, yeah, I mean Africa was filled with incredibly weak states, countries that that can barely control

their own borders. Um, that are terribly corrupt that you know that they're like I said at the beginning of this, Like like I said, you know, these are countries that never got a chance to build themselves. Their borders were drawn by colonial powers. Some of them make absolutely no sense. Why they exist is simply because the dictats of of of European bureaucrats in the nineteenth century, and as a result, you know, they're they're there, you know, hobbled from the beginning,

and probably not get any better anytime soon. You know, it's interesting as long as we're in Africa and talking about that, and as all of us are engaged in observing and discussing the growing tribalism in America and the

partisanship the rest of it. What what does an American make of the fragility of civilization and the way people who look and sound and worship virtually the same, like the Hutus and the hoot season Rwanda, suddenly begin getting well, not suddenly, but begin killing each other by the hundreds of thousands. What what lesson do we take as humanity from that? I mean, so leadership counts. You know, people people I don't think. I mean, you know, you don't

blindly follow people. But if if the messages you hear are frequent enough and loud enough to tell you that this other person is there, who to or their Muslim doers or whatever they are not who do um are are somehow bad and need to go um, that will become something that will people will being to act on, you know, and I think you see that here in the US, when you know, when you've got fringe elements moving to the mainstream and saying things about their rivals

that are you know, put them far beyond the pale of political rivals, that these people are enemies, that they're going to destroy our country, that they want to get elected to destroy your life. I mean, that's the kind of intense to get people fired up, you know. And then you get the combination of of the idea that you meet one day when they prosecute your political enemies, or that if you get to power, you can get rich. You know, that's the kind of recipe you get where

you start getting real election violence. Because the states get very high, very quickly. Cad. You look at these places that are dysfunctional, like you're just talking about, and you wonder how they ever get organized. Uh, we ever got organized as a as a species ever into into nation states that can govern ourselves and have some sort of security and decent life. We geeus, god, dang it, We're so lucky that we've got it going here. We don't

blow it. It's pretty it's pretty cray I mean, it's one of the things where I think, you know, we are so we are so lucky, like so many things broke right over the last two plus years of the United States, but none of this is inevitable, Like this can all go away. Um, this doesn't have to exist

the way it does. I think we all kind of assume like, hey, it's great, you know, um, but it's very easy to remember that, you know, people aren't totally rational actors that you know, people have predices, people have um hang ups, some people are prone to violence, and that if you get leadership that's willing to kind of indulge that, you start getting down a pretty dark path pretty quickly. All right, let's head over to Russia. Vlad Putin is gathering together is brain trust this afternoon, and

and he's saying, all right, the America file. What is our purpose there? What is what is Vlad Putin thinking about when he thinks about the US. So I had a really really interesting conversation with a person in the intelligence world. They just retired, like this would have been the last few months, and they were a very senior person deal with Russia, and so we were talking and apparently there's this big debate in American kind of spy circles.

Everybody has figured out that that Putin has hung on to Trump and is into Trump as he thinks Trump can produce some kind of grand bargain that while the rest of the Russian government looks at what the US is doing and sees actual policies out of the Trump administration that are pretty hostile to Russia and says we're not. When you're ready to ride Metro, we want you to know we're ready for you. Here are just a few of the people at Metro to tell you how we're

doing our part to keep riders safe. We're cleaning like noble before half build it greatly. You've found hand stand of no mask, no Metro need one. We have a few extras at Metro. We're doing our part to keep the DC area moving. Find out more at will Matta dot com slash doing our part. What is the Fisher House? If I had a chance to talk to the Fisher family, I would start crying because I can't articulate how much

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But the big debate is what is this grand bargain he wants, you know, and that they can't figure out. Is it over CRIMEA? Isn't like spears of influenced CRIMEA plus the Middle East, Ukraine. Nobody's entirely shure as they just respect they don't really know, and until they can figure that one out, it's hard to say. The other problem the U s s right now and figuring us all out is that a lot of human intelligence sources

at least have have dried up. Because look, if you're looking at the news in the last two years and you were somehow providing intelligence to the Americans CIA, to think you'd keep doing it, I mean you'd probably shut out real quick start avoiding it, because you know, you've got congressional committees talking about recently releasing the names of actual sources from the FBI, and maybe even even even

the CIA. You've got just the news. I mean, if I were like sitting in the Kremlin as somebody who was being paid off by a CIA, got a slip occasional secrets, I take the money I had and probably quit. Why I was ahead? Why why don't play well? Right? Can you describe for folks who are not as hip to it as you are the whole program of just weakening your adversary by stoking internal rifts and that sort of thing that's got quite a history, doesn't it, going

back to the Soviet Union, it really does. I mean, you know, the Soviet Union used to always try this kind of supporting different groups in America they thought were divisive, whether it's like civil rights groups that they thought, well if we if we try and clin definitely support them, they'll divide America, or right wing groups, you know, whenever they saw any kind of movement that had the ability

to potentially divide the place that it's important. But you know, and like the sixties, a little bit of cash here and there, and obviously the print a pamphlet is not exactly gonna kind of gonna create a total amount of upheaval. We now live in a world where, um, fake news and disinformation kind of moves a lot faster than we can keep up with it, and so the tools are now there to kind of do that with The Soviets would have called active measures. I guess, um, Look, the

other thing is Russia. Is that a climbing power. This is a country Its economy is peg mostly the oil it is, it is population is shrinking fast. This is a country that is not going to be a major power, probably in the next century, will fall off. And so they're doing what they can. They've modernized our military. But another thing they've picked up is like this information warfare. This helps, you know, you can weaken the US. But you know, there is one important thing here, which is

none of this works if we're not divided ourselves. You know, if we were at a from spot and we weren't so divided amongst each other, a bunch of secret Russian propaganda making it worse wouldn't have a lot of effect with it. Only it only works because we're already kind of halfway there. Um, So that's that's somebody to keep in mind. They got a lot of nuclear missiles, so Russia's worth paying attention to on some level. And obviously we've got China coming up to challenges as a global power.

Do we spend way too much time worried about little sand countries in the Middle East? I certainly feels like it sometimes, So I always, I always have the sinking feeling.

So I went from you know, I was based in Delhi and covered kind of all of South Asia, and then I kind of became our and this, and I told the Law Street Journal or Afghanistan, Pakistan Kai, and then I joined the Times, and and I always have the sinking feeling that I've gone from kind of covering like India and then in China of course, like their reassertion of their place in the global economic order, as

these enormous wealthy countries. Kind of like it was like the rise of maritime Europe in the fift d You know, this this reshapes the arc of history, and this is the kind of thing there will be the whole textbooks written about and kids will learn about in grade school. Whereas the war in Afghanistans felt like the Boer War was to the British Empire, you know, um, a little war in southern Africa that kind of sorted itself out and that's that. Um, I guess that's how we ended

up with South Africa. But you know, it didn't feel like, you know, something that was momentous, and so yeah, yeah, I think there's certainly a case made un good Bomb administration tried to do it, or at least they made lip service about doing it, about their pivot to Asia, that we were spending way too much time on countries

that ultimately, you know, weren't hugely important to us. Um. You know, one other important distinction I think between Russia and China, because there's it's easy to conflate what the two are doing, um, but there's there's a few intelligence people and other kind of stratgist types. People will point it out to me, like the Chinese are scene is playing the game, so if they're listening to the president's

phone calls, it's raspion of purposes. It's kind of thing we do too, you know, and that's it's all in the game. You gotta live with it. What the Russians are seen doing is trying to kind of do that espionage and then use what they're learning to kind of screw with the actual institutions, our democracy and undermine them. And and that scene is kind of a step much

further and aggressive steps. So if the Chinese are using the information and then trying to hear and say they hear the president talk on the phone call, and then they go to somebody and who knows somebody who's on that phone with the president and try and get them to kind of suggest pro China policies, that's using our system for their own good. And the US is kind of okay with that. They don't love it, but you

gotta live with it. Whereas you know, the Russians coming in and trying to undermine the actual elections, that scene is as trying to break the system, you know. To that, you mentioned the phone call thing, which you wrote about in the New York Times. By the way, I heard the President mentioned that the New York Times is failing. I'm so sorry to hear that. It's got to be very differently, does that we get more subscribers, So I

would really encourage it, Please please keep doing it. But so um you you as a journalist these days working for the New York Times, Um, you have a lot of people who want your ear. I would imagine, and a lot of people within the administration, maybe within well the administration broadly say, within the State Department. I was asking who wrote the anonymous column? Are you kidding? That seems like fifty years ago? I don't care for you, but that i'd have to kill you. Yeah, that's fine.

Some days I'd welcome no. But anyway, So, how this is a journalism question. How difficult is it when you get a pretty well placed source you get the sense they got an ex to grind. It sounds juicy, but it sounds kind of off this gossipy what's that process like? Working through that deciding whether to print it? Alright, First of all, when you when you get a well placed source of an act to grind, it's like, thank god,

it's great number one. They're going to talk. That's always a good star, right, And then you know, you look at what they say, and there are some things people say you're like this, this is highly improbable, or you ask yourself, well, would they know this? And if the answers yes, they okay, we gotta find some other people who know it too, and you will find people who are then probably have less of an act to grind or no act to grind who know it and will help confirm it. So you get the friend of a

friend so pretty frequently. Huh yeah. And you know it's why when we use it, when we use anonymous sources, which look, I hate it, and I think for readers think most of them don't like it either. Unfortunately, in national security reporting, you've got to do it. There's almost no way not to do it because so much stuff is either classified or restricted and people either lose their jobs to go to prison for talking to you, so

you you just can't get around it. Um. And So, but when we do that, we don't rely on single sources for stories. You know, somebody comes to me that actor ryand and tells me something that they absolutely have access to and absolutely sounds accurate. That's not good enough, you know, because it's one source and it's anonymous. We're gonna do a hodtest sourcing a lot of multiple sources on that, especially if it's a truly incendiary story. You know,

that's just going to raise the bar even higher. Interesting, Um, how much damage does that? Said, that's what I like to say a message to anybody in the government, Um, don't be intimidated. We always want more sources. Don't think what you've got as to minor. Please give us a call. You ever get stuff you think people shouldn't know this, people don't need to know this. Um are you all the information we deserve, all the information into democracy. So

I'm I'm gon kind of. I think I'll start with the benefit of the doubt, like it all should be public, and work backwards in there. And we have definitely held stories, were held information out of the paper, either at the request of the government, which has made a very good case that was not political about why this was important to keep to maintain a secret, or you know, it's an identity of somebody is going to get them killed and something like that. You know, that's something that we

don't want to do. And so we know the name of somebody putting in the newspaper is going to lead to their death, then we're not going to do that. You know, we're gonna a conversation about that. And on the other hand, like look, I just said to think about keeping information out of the paper. You know, more often than not we will have the CIA or the White House whatever try and tell us, well, the thing is really secret. If you do this it's gonna ruin

national security. And those arguments are usually overatly political and ignored, but there have been moments where they have commented, look, you know this is an active program. If you do this, it's going to undermine it. And we don't like you know that kind of thing outweighs the news value of it well, and there are some hints as to who a source might be or how a program operates. That

to the untrained I wouldn't mean much. But if you are, for instance, in the you know Russian uh, the modern equivalent of the KGB, and you're trying to figure out who's spelling secrets, man, a tiny little clue might be enough. So you do have to be careful with that stuff we do. I mean, I think we also have to be realistic, Like, if we have figured it out, there aren't that many of us who cover this stuff at

the times. So if we have figured out, let's assume that fall and spy services with lots of people probably figure it out too. Yeah, okay, fair enough. So who did you really admire as a journalist, writer, opinion writer, any any heroes as a young lad? As a young lad, I don't know. I mean, I know now I look at some of the people I've even worked with or seeing their work. You know, Um, my former colleague gem Rising was amazing as an amazing journalist. Um uh Sy Hirst,

you know, despite his more recent issues. I mean, this is a guy who dug up information that that led to a huge amount of reform, Like there's actual congressional oversight of the CIA and saying others the work that this one guy did, and that's pretty amazing, and that's

an amazing impact. Um, you know, and I think part of me I just appreciate people who, as they get older, don't decide whong going to be part of the establishment now who keep throwing bombs because I mean, like, look, if I wanted to be part of the government, would have joined the government, you know, if I one of those at balls, I became a journalist. So I don't

see why that should be different. At fifty five. Um, you mentioned that you mentioned the c I and and you know they push back against if you want to print a story and all that sort of stuff. Do um, do those kind of institutions change much administration to administration or do they Does the c I a tend be the CIA, whether it's under Bush or Obama. We'll leave Trump out of it because people get so worked up

any time you talk about Trump. But like Bush, is Bush of CIA going to be the same as Obama CIA, and that they're going to protect the CIA. Yeah, they're gonna protect the CIA. I mean the difference is is like, look, they're gonna work for the guy who's the president, so um, whoever that is, they may changement, but they don't. I mean, the institutions are are set up like, look, we have set up a trementisfied institution to be kind of perpetual

as a as as somewhat a stafeguard. You know, we see power to them away from representatives and provide continuity or the CIA is not gonna go out and start doing crazy differ and things as becas Trump as presidents are going to start suplying on Americans, for instance, they can't do that. The laws against that. Um. I think, you know, they might be pretty happy over the CIA that Trump is has loosened some of the restrictions on what they can do. I mean, there are certainly people

who there who are very happy. There are plenty of other people who are totally unhappy that they think he he is has you know, come in and said terrible things and under mine American position the world to made their jobs harder. Um. But it remains the CIA. I always ask people like you, that's my final question that that have you know, a proving the information that now the not all the rest of us are plus you

stared at every single day. Is the average American citizen got a pretty good idea how scary the world is or we way off base based on what you know? You know, I don't know, um, And so I think the average American probably has is more afraid of the world than they should be and doesn't realize what they should be afraid of all. And that's not it's not it's off because um, it's not because you're innerstupid. It's just because, like you know, you live in this very

big country. You don't have to interact with the rest of the world very often. If you're the average American and you're pretty secure, you know, you know, you can go to bed at night without to be coming to kick down your door. It's still your stuff or whatever. And that's a great thing. Like I think it's it's we under that we really do. Hell yeah, most of the world, most of human history, everywhere on the planet, has that to go to bed every night worried somebody's

gonna come in and kill them and their kids. Huh No, it's great and we we and it's I actually think it's a good thing. Like our ignorance is a sign of our prosperity and success in some ways. Um. I mean, we should all strive to be lastic right all the time. And I even know that. You know, the one thing I learned that spend fifteen years living around the world is how little I know about that. You know, I go to these places and I think I know something.

But it's like I said, you know, a housewife in Congo or Afghanistan or wherever knows more about her own kind of part of the world than I ever will, or any foreigner probably will. Um. But you know so yeah. But because but because we know so little, we're very easy to scare about the rest of the world. You know, whether it's a migrant caravan of a few thousand people who are a thousand miles away, and you know, there's a big chunk of country believes these guys are coming

to kind of overrun the country. Or you know, it's a small small group of militants in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan who did launch a very successful attack September levenoth and have launched other attacks. But but really do not pose any kind of existential threat to us, you know, mostly afraid of shark attacks and killer clowns that do. I have it about right? Yeah, I mean too,

Um and I'm I'm afraid of airplanes too. I can't stand him, but I always figured the most dangerous thing we all did with drive, you know, every day time or just crossing the street. I mean, that's how you get killed. You know, it's not it's not in a terrorist attack attack because of a lot of our listeners swing conservative, and I can hear him yelling at the podcast.

I've also got to point out the idea that Trump is the new Hitler, or women are going to be forced to breed, or he'll be an autocrat is ridiculous. It's laughable. He couldn't get a quarter of the way to first base, um and become an autocrat. Look, I mean there's a Trump arrangement syndrome is definitely a thing. Um And I think, you know, you've seen it the last two years. Here, it's it's on the right and left.

You've got a kind of fringe ideas. Move into the middle, you know, and making that space where everybody can kind of chat and disagree but kind of agree to, kind of work together among your disagreements has made that much smaller. But I mean, Trump is what he is. You know, he's got his many flaws. But New Hitler is a pretty big stretch. We talked to p J O'Rourke a couple of weeks ago and he said, whose idea was it? To make it so all the stupid people could talk

to each other? He was talking about the Internet. I mean, look, it's it's it's definitely not a good thing. You know. I would prefer a president who after a tragedy gets up and talks about the tragedy. And I would include Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, all of them in that group, you know, over a president who doesn't um. And so you know, there's definitely things you want different. But I mean new Hitler is nobody's a New Hitler until they're New Hitler. And we're

far from that point. Yeah, amen to that Matthew Rosenberg. Hey Matt, it's great to talk to you. I hope it won't be the last time. And and let's stay in touch. Well done, excellent, thanks has our pleasure, Thank you good stuff. Um God, dang it. If you want to be thankful for anything on a on a daily basis, or thank your blessings, if you were born in the United States or you now live in the United States, that that that should be at the top of your Let you be one through ten at the top of

your list. Well, and as we've discussed that, if you are safe and prosperous, you invent things to be worried about, because your brain has that big heart of it that's dedicated to warning you about stuff. And if there's little to warn you about other than you know, the guy looking at his cell phone in the next lane if you're driving, Um, I'm worried about clowns writing sharks toward me. Imagine the horror of that coming out of the edge

of the woods. But some of those African places he's talking about, where there's just no law, you'd be fighting for your life every single day, trying to keep you and your family protected. Oh my god, being fully aware that much of Africa is desert and or savannah. It is the law of the jungle in that the strong will win the day period. There's no such thing as as that's not good for justice, sir, I'm weedy. Yeah, Well, run for cover, find some strong friends, or maybe I

could amuse people like a court Jester type. Well, I would amuse them for firearms and accumulate as many firearms and as much ammunation. He's a tough guy with the machete. He keeps me around because I amuse him. It's good work if you can get it. Court Jester. Hey, you know one thing I did want to point out again are our listeners of a more conservative stripe. Matthew Rosenberg. He works for the New York Times. He's written some stories.

I'm fairly critical of um and or the White House denied outright and I don't know what to think and all and a lot of you want us to argue with a guy like Matt about you know, the New York Times and bias and the rest of it. And we could, but I think that would be so predictable and it would go nowhere. I'm much more interested in hearing what he has seen and learned in his years around um, you know, Asia, Africa, the Middle East as

a foreign correspondent. I really think that's a more interesting conversation. Really want to trade my life with anybody, but i'd i'd like to have, you know, done a little of what he's done, be in some of these places around the world. Yes, see it, instead of just read about it. Yeah, yeah, I would agree. Wouldn't be always, wouldn't always be pleasant, I'm sure no. Plenty of sacrifices in that line of work, and you'd see some god awful things you'd never forget. Yes, yes,

you would. Anyway, next time, we'll talk to Next time, let's talk to Phoebe from friends. That's what I keep saying. Yeah, we tried that once. That's right, didn't work out very well. Well maybe if we had a longer time to stretch out and really talk to him. You get into so it was he stupid or Joe was stupid? Yes, anyways, see you next time when you're ready to ride Metro.

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