Don Jr.’s Big Fat Russian Wedding

Tommy Vietor (0:12)

Welcome back to Pod Save the World, I'm Tommy Vietor.

Ben Rhodes (0:14)

I'm Ben Rhodes.

Tommy Vietor (0:14)

Ben, as our listeners know, we are big boosters of FBI Director Cash Patel on this show.

Ben Rhodes (0:20)

Always.

Tommy Vietor (0:21)

He was up on Capitol Hill today, he was testifying before the US Senate. I'd like to play for you an exchange he had with Republican Senator John Kennedy. Let's watch.

John Kennedy (0:30)

Um, what about the bestiality? Tell me what it said before.

Cash Patel (0:39)

It automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it. Obviously, we are never going to hire the criminal.

John Kennedy (0:47)

This side of what? The bestiality?

Cash Patel (0:49)

Yes.

John Kennedy (0:49)

So you disqualified the animal? Why would you even get into bestiality?

Cash Patel (0:56)

We are not into bestiality, but a lot of these individuals...

John Kennedy (0:59)

I know you're not, but you changed...

Cash Patel (1:02)

But I'm trying to explain it.

John Kennedy (1:03)

Hang on. You changed the qualifications and mentioned bestiality. If Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal, but as the human, don't you think he ought to be qualified, disqualified?

Cash Patel (1:19)

If he voluntarily did it, sure, but if he was trafficked into it...

John Kennedy (1:22)

Yeah, how do you involuntarily do it? When you saw bestiality, I say this with respect, the person who recommended it, why didn't you just say, what planet did you parachute in from?

You hadn't seen that?

Ben Rhodes (1:40)

I had not.

John Kennedy (1:41)

That makes me so happy.

SPEAKER_7 (1:42)

I've not been on line today. So glad we could play that for you.

Ben Rhodes (1:44)

I'd love to know some context. I'm fascinated by the woman sitting next to him, who I don't even know who that is, next to where I am with the Senate at this point.

Tommy Vietor (1:53)

I wasn't even watching.

Ben Rhodes (1:54)

Who's just looking at her phone.

Tommy Vietor (1:55)

Just like, she's googling bestiality.

Ben Rhodes (1:59)

What is happening in the United States Senate? So, am I feeling a strange bit of sympathy for cash?

Tommy Vietor (2:06)

No, the FBI lowered hiring standards.

Ben Rhodes (2:09)

Oh, lowered? Oh, I thought, whoa, okay.

Tommy Vietor (2:12)

To no longer discredit applicants who engaged in acts of bestiality among other things.

Ben Rhodes (2:17)

That seems worrisome.

Tommy Vietor (2:18)

But it's victims of bestiality. So, like, what are we talking about here?

Ben Rhodes (2:24)

The animal forced itself on the human?

Tommy Vietor (2:26)

How frequent is this use case coming up in the vetting?

Ben Rhodes (2:30)

There must have been a trigger. I mean, now I'm with the lunatic John Kennedy here. I mean, was there a case that triggered this?

Tommy Vietor (2:37)

What animal does Cash Patel want to fuck or has he fucked? I think is the question you're wondering.

Ben Rhodes (2:43)

It raises some questions, Tommy.

SPEAKER_7 (2:45)

That's what's going on at the FBI.

Ben Rhodes (2:46)

Just asking some questions.

Tommy Vietor (2:48)

Like, I realize maybe they're having some recruiting problems over there. Maybe folks don't want to go work for Cash.

Like, there's a funny thing in the kind of Intel deep state world that we all experience where to get into the CIA, you could have a lot more of a checkered past. The FBI, they were like the choir boys, eagle scouts, right? Like, I knew somebody who had applied to be in the FBI and I think worked at a restaurant or a bar, found a bag of cocaine on the ground and like gave it to a co-worker and because this person didn't turn it into the police or whatever, like failed an FBI interview, it was like that level of bullshit. At the agency, you can do a lot more stuff.

Ben Rhodes (3:26)

Can we put a pin in my hobby or which is also Democratic presidents tend to come in, Joe Biden did this, and set the bar like marijuana use for security clearance?

Tommy Vietor (3:37)

Yeah.

Ben Rhodes (3:38)

Now, our boss...

Tommy Vietor (3:39)

Apparently, you can go out to the...

Ben Rhodes (3:40)

Give some waivers to that. But yeah, apparently, you can go out to the chicken coop and have a great time, and that's fine. But if you take an edible...

Tommy Vietor (3:51)

So that's what the deep state's up to. All right.

Ben Rhodes (3:53)

That explains who's in the US government.

Tommy Vietor (3:55)

That might explain why things are not going too well internationally. We're going to talk about this stunning military offensive by the Houthi rebels in Yemen that humiliated the Saudi government and created huge new problems for the oil markets and for the Trump administration and potentially a humanitarian disaster. We're going to dig into how it happened and what the ripple effects could be. Then we're going to unpack reports that Chinese satellite imagery has been helping Iran target US military facilities in the Gulf and even kill US service members. We're going to talk about some new numbers about the cost of the war and some exclusive new polling about how Americans feel about the Iran War. Is this our first exclusive?