Soccer Scandal & Idiot Ambassadors

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 (0:15)

Ben, the New England Patriots officially suck. This is our NFL talk, everyone. Skip forward 30 seconds.

Ben Rhodes (0:21)

Well, we can actually cross the streams here because in part, it's because Drake may have been a flash in the pan. In part, it's because your coach may have run off to some Arizona resort with a ESPN reporter.

Tommy Vietor (0:34)

Diana, take him back.

Ben Rhodes (0:36)

Also may be the Bob Craft karma.

I noticed that the Ed Sheeran shows are canceled because of weather. So maybe all this karma is hitting Bob Craft.

Tommy Vietor (0:46)

Do you see all the tweets of people being, there was like, hey, BB Net and Yahoo, the Patriots Offensive Coordinator is in a loss.

SPEAKER_3 (0:53)

I did.

Ben Rhodes (0:54)

So I may have sent you one. If not, I definitely thought about sending you one of those because it was pretty good.

SPEAKER_3 (1:00)

The good tweet.

Tommy Vietor (1:01)

Red Sox Yankees tonight. We're recording Tuesday, September 29th.

Ben Rhodes (1:04)

I will be rooting for the Red Sox.

Tommy Vietor (1:05)

Play off baseball.

Ben Rhodes (1:06)

I always like the, you know, as soon as the Mets are eliminated, which is every season, I always root for whoever is playing the Yankees. So I will actually be rooting for Boston.

Tommy Vietor (1:15)

Well, famously, the Yankees do suck. As I've chanted my entire life.

Ben Rhodes (1:20)

It may not be known to the Pod Save the World audience, and I'm really dating myself here, but do you remember when Roger Clemens hit Mike Piazza in the head with a pitch?

SPEAKER_5 (1:30)

Oh, yeah.

Ben Rhodes (1:31)

I was at that game at Yankee Stadium, and I vowed to never enter Yankee Stadium again, and I have not been since then.

Tommy Vietor (1:37)

Well, good for you.

Ben Rhodes (1:38)

I was a kid. It's been like, you know, 30 years or something. I haven't got back.

Tommy Vietor (1:41)

You're like Mandela.

Ben Rhodes (1:42)

Yeah.

Tommy Vietor (1:45)

We have a great show for you guys today. We're going to recap the Trump state visit with Xi Jinping and frankly, just how little was actually accomplished.

Ben Rhodes (1:52)

And how strange it was.

Tommy Vietor (1:53)

Got a lease on some pandas. We're going to update you at the latest with Iran and this kind of new work around for oil and gas producers in the Strait of Hormuz and the arrests in the UK that may or may not be linked to Iran. I don't know that we know yet. We're going to dig into serious concern about renewed conflict in Ethiopia.

And like just the more I read about this, the more freaked out it became. And I talked to someone who said like, she was worried that the crisis could engulf the entire Horn of Africa, a very troubled region. You could see how these wars kind of merged together. It's a very important story that gets no attention. So we're going to cover that. We're going to talk about the scandal engulfing Manchester City and its ownership group in the United Arab Emirates. For you non-soccer fans, trust me, you'll like this one.

Ben Rhodes (2:35)

Yeah, it's a good one.

Tommy Vietor (2:37)

Collision of like state-backed entities in professional sports, which is very interesting.

Ben Rhodes (2:40)

Always rich terrain.

Tommy Vietor (2:42)

Yeah, it's coming for us. We're going to talk about some tech and AI news because you can't avoid it these days. And it's not fun to read about.

And then the final segment we're calling Dumb Ambassadors, Ben. It's a little surprise for us that we're here together.

Ben Rhodes (2:53)

Dumb Ambassadors is always great.

Tommy Vietor (2:55)

There's been some great coverage.

Ben Rhodes (2:56)

I hope Grease is on the list. Oh yeah.

Tommy Vietor (2:59)

That one I didn't see.

Ben Rhodes (3:00)

That one, you're not going to surprise me with Grease.

Tommy Vietor (3:02)

For those, a little teaser for you guys. Donald Trump Jr.'s ex-fiance, Kim Guilfoyle.

Ben Rhodes (3:07)

And Gavin's ex.

Sam Vigersky (3:08)

And Gavin Newsom's ex out here in California.

Ben Rhodes (3:10)

Strange convergence of personalities.

SPEAKER_3 (3:12)

She's the ambassador to Grease.

Ben Rhodes (3:13)

Yeah, yes she is. For reasons that nobody can identify.

Sam Vigersky (3:16)

No one knows.

Tommy Vietor (3:17)

And she's doing some weird shit. Then you're going to hear my conversation with Sam Vigersky. He's an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He went to Haiti for about a week back in June. Did a really great write up and report about the situation on the ground.