Another Treaty of Versailles

Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest. June 18th, 2026, the Another Treaty of Versailles edition. I'm David Flots at CityCast in Washington, D.C. I've become a homeowner today. That's exciting. from Substack via New York City The Unquenchable John Dickerson

Hello John Hello David Bill Pulte is coming after you Now that you're a homeowner Oh man I didn't lie on any of my documents That laugh Is the slightly quenchable

Emily Bazelon From the New York Times Magazine in Yale University Law School Hello Emily Hey David, hey John This week on the Gab Fest The Iran War is probably over, and we sure did not win it. Then the grotesque, bloody and deeply depressing and corrupt fight night at the White House.

And then Anthropic versus the United States who should win that fight. Plus, we'll have cocktail chatter. Hey, it's Adam Grant from Ted's podcast, Rethinking with Adam Grant. This episode is sponsored by Am Better Health. If you run a business or work with employers on benefits, you know the story. Group health insurance costs keep climbing, and the plans rarely fit everyone's needs. There's a newer model worth knowing about, called an ICRA, which lets employers set a contribution, and employees choose their own health plan based on their doctors,

budget, and what actually works for them. Healthcare isn't a group decision, so why should coverage be? Get coverage you control. Find out if an ICRA is right for you at ambetterhealth.com.

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There's a peace agreement. It's maybe it is signed. Trump signed something. It was finally published, but there is an insistence from American officials that there are actually a lot of key elements that the Iranians have agreed to that aren't in the agreement at all. I'm sorry. I just like, that is so laughable. Continue. Yes, it is, it is laughable.

So Woodrow Wilson had 14 points. They were supposed to establish peace in the wreckage after World War I. It did not work. Headline. The U.S. and Iran have a 14 point agreement to end this trash. of a war. According to the document, the peace plan returns the world to something like status quo anti. There is an open strait of Hormuz. Iran's government is in power. Iran abjurs ever having a nuclear weapon, but also it includes elements like Iran being able to access $300 billion in loans for

reconstruction from Gulf states at some point. Iran's sanctions being lifted in some fashion. It's right to sell oil restored immediately. It also appears to be planning to charge fees for access to the straight. And there is really no resolution on how to deal with Iran's nuclear material that has been pushed off to unspecified negotiations that will take place over the next two months. And the Iranian people are subject to the same government as before. There was no change in regime. So, John, this is the deal that we knew was going to happen. This is the deal that we've been talking about since about day six of this war. It's the obvious parameters of a deal have been obvious to everyone forever.

Why is it happening now? And is it different, actually, in any way from what's been talked about? This is the, why are you beating yourself in the head with a hammer because it feels good when I stop? This is the, it feels good when I stop agreement, which is basically, as you said, it goes back to the conditions as they were before, conditions that were created by the president's decision to go to war with Iran. So in the grand scheme of things, as we evaluate whether this war was worth it, you have to measure it against either A, Trump's claims for the war. It falls extremely short of those. He wanted regime change. He wanted to unconditional surrender from the Iranians.

He said it would be over quickly on and on and on. Then you can also measure it against where negotiations were on the 27th of February because the U.S. and Iran through intermediaries were in a discussion about ending the nuclear program. As you said, David, one of the conditions of this agreement is that Iran has said it won't pursue a nuclear program. Well, that was where Iran was before the nuclear program. Well, that was where Iran was. Nuclear weapon. It says it won't pursue a nuclear weapon. Yes, sorry. Thank you. And that's where things were before in February. And it was where things were after the JCPOA. And then you can measure it against the JCPOA. And then you can measure it against the JCPOA. POA. So it's that there's a lot of measurement that goes on. But by all of those standards, it falls short. Why did it happen? Well, the, as we've talked about before, the president wanted to be done with this war. It didn't go as fast as he wanted. The international economy was crumbling, you know, was crumbling. And we heard from the president this week two new reasons, which affirm that that analysis. One is he said he didn't want to be Herbert Hoover, which is extraordinary because a few weeks ago he said he didn't care about the domestic

economic implications of the war, was all about getting rid of the Iranian nuclear weapons, or a nuclear program, I should say, not nuclear weapons. So he gave in to the fact that Iran had made the cost too painful of keeping this going, which is why we are where we are now. It feels totally predictable, but also kind of worse for a couple of reasons. I mean, yes, status co-ante, but as you said, David, it seems like going forward after I think like 60 days. Iran could possibly start charging a toll to go through the state of Hormuz, which in addition to just costing money will, you know, show that it has this grip over this vital waterway. And then also from Israel's point of view, Israel is now supposed to get out of Lebanon. I'm not exactly sure how this memorandum between two countries which are not Israel can bind Israel to that result. But presumably Trump can, you know, try to force, Benjamin Netanyahu into that part of the agreement. And I mean, it's just to take a step back, it's just breathtaking.

It seems like from the reporting that, you know, Trump's over-excitement about the success of Venezuela, in which he really did have a brief military action that changed the regime in Venezuela, led to overconfidence, which Nataniao then played up. They went into this war, Trump, with completely. unrealistic expectations. It played out poorly as, you know, so often happens when Western powers try to come into this region of the world, which they don't understand and don't have any real intent of sticking around for long enough, right? And now we're in this position where it seems like the United States has essentially reached none of its goals. That seems like a defeat.

And Israel is in a worse position than it was before. JD Vance, the Vice President, went on Ross Douth, it's New York Times podcast, Interesting Times, today or yesterday. And JD Vance has been sent to own this agreement. And he, I don't know if you guys listened to the podcast or read the transcript of it. But JD Vance is very insistent, oh, this is a quite different agreement. This is when the JCPOA was in effect, Iran was in a position of huge strength. Now they're incredibly weak. They're not going to get access to any of these things they want unless they behave themselves. it is a qualitatively different state that we are in. Is that line, John, going to fly? Well, it's definitely not going to fly,

given the fact that the country thinks the war was a mistake and it hasn't achieved its goals. So that's the position that he has to overcome if he's to have that spin land successfully. It also doesn't work because the Israelis are saying you didn't get anything that we went to war for. And it also doesn't work because allies of the president are saying,

version of the same thing. So it has to overcome too much existing opinion. And it can't overcome that when the facts that JD Vance are putting forward don't stand up. So tall mountain to climb can't do it if you are, you know, carrying a 70 pound pack on each ankle. And the reason it doesn't add up is that there are all of these, first of all, shifting descriptions of what's in the plan, which mirror the shifting reasons that the president went to war in the first place. They're just choosing to believe the Iranians now about their nuclear ambitions in a way they chose not to either before February 28th missiles were launched or when they killed the JCPOA in the first time.

So, okay, but you got to, if you're going to make the case that J.D. Mans is making, then you have to actually make the case. Another way in which this is piffle is that when Barack Obama, made two payments essentially to the Iranians. Let's focus on the one as a part of the JCPOA. It was essentially giving the Iranians back money that had been frozen by sanctions. They're also in the deal for the hostages, gave Iranians money that was frozen when the Shah was deposed. When that was done, JD Vance and certainly President Trump, then candidate Trump said, this is an absolute bribe. It's a capitulation. Now Trump is saying, we've given them frozen assets because it was their money in the first place,

which is essentially exactly what the Obama administration was saying. President Trump is also saying, you know, the Iranians need to defend themselves. They need some missiles. Missals were the reason the whole, they went to war in the first place. Everybody else has them. It's only fair. That's literally the line. So when you're shillying and shallying in real time and then coming up with new ways to shilly

shally, it makes the case that JD Vance is trying to make even worse. So in the end, perhaps, you know, 48 rabbits will come out of the hat. The Iranians will get rid of all nuclear material, put it on a boat and send it to the moon by Elon Musk, because you can send boats to the moon on a SpaceX rocket. And they'll never have, you know, any of these bad things that they did before, but that seems unlikely. So the people who are most unhappy about this deal appear to be sort of classic, your classic neocons and Israel. Israel's strongest supporters in Israel itself. They are unhappy with it. The rest of the American people seem basically indifferent.

People want the war over. So in that sense, is this a – does Trump and do the Republicans pay any cost for the neocons and Israel supporters being kind of unhappy that Iran has gotten what it wants out of the war? I guess what I'm trying to figure out, John, is like there's clearly – There's clearly a cost to the nation. We have higher gas prices. Inflation is up. There's a cost to the world. Fertilizer is not getting to places.

Fertilizer needs to get. People's energy supplies have been cut. The world economy has been strained by what's happened at this war. But as a political matter, does this war impose any cost on Republicans? Well, the president's approval rating is in the basement, as low as it's ever been. This contributes to that. To the extent that Republicans have to say insane things on television to support what the president is done, saying, you know, it's okay for them to have ballistic missiles. It puts them in the space of between now and November having to go and say things that people don't believe with their own eyes.

They have to say it first about prices and then they have to say it about the war. In other words, this is a great, huge victory. People don't believe that. Now, we can have an abstract argument about maybe the Iranian regime is more likely to give up their nuclear ambitions now than they were on February 27th. But then you have to ask, well, at what cost? Not only in lives, but in alliances, also in damage to the global economy and all those missiles that were spent doing this. But that doesn't matter in terms of your political question, David. When the president is in the rock bottom, it tends to affect the party.

And also I think it very neatly plays into the larger narrative, which is took the eye off the ball, elected to do, you know, basically a big thing, which is get the economy under control. And he's done everything but his tariff program, which was his signature economic plan, has hurt the economy. And he goes off and has these wars that make no sense and doesn't get what he wanted going into the war when he came out of it. And how do we know that he didn't get what he wanted? because he's now saying, well, I had to end this war and basically take things back to where things were before the war because I worried about being Herbert Hoover, which underlies the critique that this war damages the economy. So he's sort of shooting himself and Republicans

in the foot. I mean, also, the story continues, right? I mean, now they have the 60 days to supposedly negotiate. It's going to dribble onward. Very possible that the Iranians will not come up with any deal in that 60 days and they'll just like keep kicking the can down the road. And so it's not as if this question just ends, although I do think there's going to be relief and probably some bump up in Trump's approval rating just for the war ending, especially if people see gas prices come down because that is, I think, what most people wanted. It doesn't excuse the folly and all the waste and death that occurred because of it. But, you know, that is probably part of the political dynamic.

Can we linger for a second on Israel? What I thought was striking was not only the president saying out loud, if it weren't for me, Israel would be wiped off the map, but then also saying things like Benjamin Netanyahu has no essentially restraint. He didn't use that word. But when it comes to Lebanon, as you said, Emily, if you read the actual memorandum of understanding, I mean, it says, you know, the Republic of Iran and the United States and their allies.

Will they, in fact, cease their invasion of Lebanon or drastically dial it down and cease their attempt to choke off Hezbollah? I mean, it will depend on what messages Trump and his emissaries actually send, right? Because they're not bound by this agreement. And they seem to very much want to keep fighting in Lebanon, as does Hezbollah, right? I mean, it's like there, that conflict has become quite hot. I would imagine that the Israelis will dial it way down for some amount of time because they'll be told by the Americans that they have to do that. And that will be a line that will be. really risky for the Israelis to cross. But then I would assume, no, like they're not going to stay out of Lebanon forever because of this memorandum of agreement. They didn't sign. It is kind of amazing that we're not really talking about the fact that Israel has effectively occupied half of another nation, pretextually driven its population. I mean, it did that in Gaza, but in Gaza, it's a slightly different situation. It's more in Israel, internal Israel, I suppose.

Driven, driven a quarter of the Lebanese population into refugee status, just, and they just did it. Can I just one random thing, which is I know it's about theater, but Marco Rubio has been mute. And he was quite vocal in the original bombing campaign. He has been totally mute. This has been a complete JD Vance sales campaign. And listening to watching Marco Rubio's body language as Trump was saying various things, including saying that the bombing and killing of 100 school children happened a long time ago, which is a weird thing to say about something that was just a couple of months ago.

Anyway, that just struck me. I mean, in the, you know, pre-pre-warmup to 2028, JD Vance is the one that is going to just be completely stuck to the Trump administration and all its worst mistakes because he's out in front defending everything and Marco Rubio is going to try to distance himself. That seems like the play. I mean, it's a little hard when you're the Secretary of State, but that does seem what he's aiming for, right? Yeah. Can we end actually on a question for both of you, Emily, from the legal perspective and John from the presidential perspective. There was a Jack Goldsmith piece that we were reading that I.

I thought was super interesting. It was a reminder or sort of an explication of just how much foreign policy has become executive dictatorship, that the legislature and the public have had effectively no role at all in this war, that Congress did not declare this war, did not vote on this war, really, did not vote to spend money on this war. Did you put free funds for it, right? No sense that the legislature or a public opinion mattered at all, or even for that matter, the military's thoughts, like the military expertise was also not really included. Oh, that's a sort of a separate point. It's imperial in a way that feels very, very unhealthy. And I guess I'm just with throw to each of you from John from an executive authority perspective and Emily from a

legal perspective, like what are the consequences of a world in which the president is sort of the sole decider actor on foreign policy and on war? I mean, I think, first of all, as a matter of decision-making and policy, it is really bad that we have dramatically increased the degree to which war is a one-person show with the president directing everything and Congress having zero role. Now, Congress could reassert itself. That is absolutely a prerogative that is available. And yet, it did not this time. And, you know, Jack was also writing about how in some way, ways this dynamic of the president having more authority over war has been occurring gradually

since the founding that, you know, the sort of erosion of the idea that it is Congress that declares war written into the Constitution has been jeopardized many times along the way. But, you know, I think it is also absolutely true that Trump has taken that to a new height. And really, it's like a new low because you should have. more collective buy-in, better decision-making, and it also just seems very undemocratic and alarming that we're in this state. And I just long for some future Congress that shows up and actually put some teeth into pushing back. And I think the main tool that Congress always has is money. Like, they can always take away the money for the war or for something else. And this Congress

obviously has, you know, barely asserted itself. It has obviously, it was a tension built into the very beginning of the American government. What's changed radically and particularly with respect to Republicans is that the partisanship and specifically the lock that this president has over the partisan voters in his own party means that Congress gave away its warmaking powers essentially. Wrestling with this tension that only a president can move with secret. and dispatch, and the Congress can muddle and get in the way of something that needs to be moved on quickly by a president. So that's the original tension. So they gave away that power,

but now you have members of Congress saying, if only I had more power to give away, I don't, all I have left is my dignity and my free critical thinking skills. And so let me give those away as fast as I can. So you have Tommy Tuberville saying, well, I trust the president and and JD Vance. Like just giving the whole thing away, that's not just a matter of, you know, contrary to the American system of balance of powers. That just makes no sense as a rational matter. That this much power, you know, the fog of war affects the executives as well. As John Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said about the Cuban Missile Crisis, you know, the essence of the decision is sometimes imperceptible, even to the person making the decision, which is to say, the president. So it's a complicated thing.

and you want at the very least more voices. And what's happened in the current politics in the current Republican Party is it's down to one dude's whims. So it's a bad thing made worse by the particular political dynamics of the Republican Party at the moment. This episode is my own.

This episode is my first. sponsored by Ground News. I've been fascinated by the reflecting pool story in recent days. Just fascinated. I'm a Washingtonian. And this fight over the reflecting pool and President Trump's renovation of it or attempted renovation has just struck a chord with people in Washington and around the country. And there's been a huge amount of news coverage of it. Ground news is one of the most helpful tools you can find to cut through the noise and get down to the facts of important stories. Instead of getting lost in the hype, in the headlines. It helps you understand what's happening. Ground news in a way like the GabFest tries to get to the truth and tries to avoid echo chambers. And it does that by showing you where the news that you're reading comes from, what its biases are, and how you can take into account those biases as you consume news about topics you care about from sources you trust. So if you like this podcast, I suspect you'll like ground news. Go to groundnews.com slash gab to get 40% off the unlimited access vantage subscription.

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I live in Washington, D.C. and I confess that on Sunday night, June 14th, the flag day, President Trump's 80th birthday, and fight night, I was rooting for lightning, I was rooting for sudden squall. I was rooting for torrential rain, really anything to throw off and destabilize the spectacle at the White House, the spectacle in the White House long. The bloody macho orgy to celebrate Trump was as bad as you could have feared. The White House lawn. decorated, polluted with this grotesque UFC claw, the octagon, the fight, the fight prison plastered with ads for companies notable for their shamelessness like Polly Market and Morgan and Morgan, the fighters strutting through the White House, the military dragooned into escort duty for street fights. It was awful. And I say that as somebody who absolutely loves the UFC, who has no problem with mixed

martial arts, who likes those fights, has been to UFC fights. But man, as a citizen, it was really, it was really gruesome. Also, they did fireworks at 1 a.m., which is literally the definition of being the worst possible neighbor you can be to do fireworks at 1 a.m. on a weeknight, Jesus. So I guess my question to you, Emily, is why did Trump want to hold this particular spectacle at the White House? Why this particular spectacle? There are all kinds of spectacles that Trump does and he likes and he loves sports, obviously. But why this one in this way? I mean, it just seems like the gladiator analogy explains a lot that you have people really like trying to beat each other into a bloody pulp, right?

It's incredibly testosterone-laden, like male-coded. It's his people. These are, right? Both the people who came to the event and the performers are like right in his wheelhouse. And it's such a brazen display of what we have traditionally not expected from the White House and the presidency. I mean, it's absolutely remaking both in the image of President Trump in a way that he seemed to find enormously satisfying. I mean, he was there with his kids, his grandchildren, watching avidly right there. The performers were coming over to him during.

the fights and he seemed to revel in all of it. So I think it's both like the sort of, you know, middle finger to tradition and what it means to be presidential in some traditional way. And then just really enjoying being surrounded by people who are flattering and admiring and part of Santaraj, I guess. Yeah. It's a flex in I start basically the entire Trump presidency is a flex. Like it's, I can use power in whatever. way and find me new ways to use power at willy-nilly. And so it creates, I mean, it is a, it's sort of, he takes the energy from the power display. There's nothing more powerful than watching a UFC fighter essentially finishing off an opponent. I mean, if anybody has never watched it, like it's not,

it's not even like boxing where like a person falls down and then, you know, you wait to see if they can get up. They fall down and the fighter pummels them until they cannot stir. So there is a rap. That is really not what's happening, John. Okay, wait. Sorry, sorry. Sorry, sorry. Hold on. That's really not what's happening. Hold on.

This is a very technical. Let's a technical sport. Okay, hold on. Let me ask you this question. When a person falls to the, when a person, when the opponent falls to the ground, what do you do in boxing? It's a box. It's a different. It's a different sports. They're different sports. That's why I said they're different sports. That's the purpose of the analogy. So wait, what happens in boxing? I just feel this is a willful misinterpretation of what

just answer the question. What are they doing boxing? We all know. Yes, boxing has Marcus of Queensberry rules. Marks Queensberry rules. What do they do in UFC? There's a break. Yes, in UFC. And so which is more technically, technically, are you correct? Yes, you're correct. What is a more dominant display of power. When you beat the shit out of somebody who can't, who is on the ground? Is that more dominant? Or do you let them, do you let the rules intercede when they're not? Which is the more dominant display of power? I do not, I do not accept the terms of your analogy. I do not accept. Well, why not? Wait, because I genuinely don't understand.

So it's a less display of power? When you, when you interpret UFC, I didn't know we were going to have a, we were going to have a referendum on the UFC in this. when you interpret UFC as essentially being a display of dominance rather than display of extremely technically skilled fighters who often are on the ground, they're often standing up, they're kicking each other, they're punching each other, they're wrestling each other, and that it can in fact be the case when you are on the ground on your back that you're in a dominant position in the UFC. That is a perfectly legitimate place to be. And so the idea that somehow, you know, the visual optics, which is that if one person is on the ground, the other person is attempting to kick them or punch them, that that is a is sort of ungentlemanly or inhumane in a way that boxing I don't think either is a false is a false description of it

just because you chose to misinterpret what I was saying doesn't mean I'm on the hook for your misinterpretation. All I was saying neither gentlemanly nor humane nor any of those words, all I said is what is more of a display of raw power? You can describe that raw power to skill. I'm sure the president describes skill to all

his raw power moves. My only point is that the aesthetic of the moment in which victory is won by engaging in power moves like beating somebody when they're down on their back is different than what people might expect in a boxing match. Therefore, this display is more of a display of raw power, and that's something that appeals to the president and in all of the norms he's broken, that too is a display of power. And this is a president who enjoys displaying his power. I think the fact that there are a lot of people such as yourselves who watch this and see it primarily as a display of raw power is meaningful. It's meaningful that you watch the sport and see it in a particular way. And I think that's really important.

I would just say that I do not, as a person who has watched UFC in mixed martial arts for 20 years in various forms, I do not see it as being more of a display of raw power or different than a lot of other sports. And I actually see it as relative to boxing as a much less brutal form of combat. So that's, that is that's. Why is it safer? Because they're not going after the head in the same way? Yeah, because you just don't punch people in the head nearly as much. And that's where boxing is so bad.

And boxing gloves, the point of a boxing glove is not to protect the head. the point of the boxing glove is to protect the fist so you can punch somebody again and again in the head. And so you're getting concuss a blow after concuss a blow in a boxing match in a way that you don't in a UFC. You FC are much more likely to like, you know, have a tendon messed with. And, you know, you can you can suffer very serious injury, but not that same brain, brain destruction that boxing promotes. Okay. That makes sense. I mean, the dominance display to me seems pretty inarguable. And, and you guess one thing we've argued about. it. Well, it would be odd for the president to on his 80th birthday on the lawn of the White House to choose the least dominant display in sport. I mean, he definitely didn't go for shuffleboard. So of all the sports available to him, he certainly thinks it's a display of dominance. And what is striking, though, about why this break of the traditional use of the White House, well, first of all, obviously people mention the fact that Teddy Roosevelt,

had boxing, not only boxing matches on the White House lawn, but that he engaged in boxing fights. For Roosevelt, boxing was a matter of character. So, for example, there is this great story of how he told those who boxed with him never to let up on him, which meant that sometimes he had bruises and swelling as a result of boxing himself. But then the famous story is that one of the army sergeants that he was boxing with actually hit him so hard it detached his retina. and ultimately led to him being effectively blind by the end of his life, and that he never told the Army sergeant, I think he was a sergeant, that this had happened because he thought it would be too much weight on that sergeant

that he'd done this to the president, and the sergeant only figured it out later when Roosevelt wrote about the detached retina in one of his books, and the sergeant was like, oh, my God, that must have been me. So that's a far different use of sport in the Teddy Roosevelt, context. But because there are people like David who would otherwise not be a supporter of the president who nevertheless liked this sport, and you had Ari Emanuel there, who does not share the president's politics, he happens to be owner of TKO, which owns the UFC fight, or owns or partially owns, anyway, you could have used this as an opportunity the way the symbols at the White

House have been used in the past, which is to bring people together. I mean, I know this president wouldn't do that. But part of what's part of the injury here is that the symbols of the White House are supposed to be used in the furtherance of national unity, particularly in the 250th. And none of that was on display. Right. Right. That, right. I think that you've hit the nail for me, John, about why this is so disturbing. I mean, there's there, the, I, I was embarrassed that there were no women fighting. I thought that was really shameful. If you're going to do this, like, don't make it so male, let women fight too. I was embarrassed. You're in the wrong timeline.

The only women that the only women who were performed were the ring card girls. That was embarrassing. I was embarrassed at the- I was embarrassed at the corruption, like the way in which David Ellison and Paramount Plus gets the access to this, the way that all these companies that are clearly Trump aligned are advertising on it, the way that Trump's own crypto business has got a piece of the action. And I was embarrassed to see the way the military was pulled into performing for this. So that part and that part did embarrass me.

But in terms of like, like I absolutely agree with you, John, like that one of the things that it's such a bummer as a Washingtonian about this 250th anniversary is that it could be so fun to be celebrating the nation and America right now. And the way that Trump has has made it about himself and the way that. that Trump has politicized. It has made it very hard for somebody who isn't a Trump sympathizer to take pleasure in what they're doing. And, you know, this UFC thing was that taken, taken on literally on steroids, probably literally on steroids. But just the maximalist thing. I mean, the presence of that claw on the White House lawn is so dismal as a visual image. Sorry, Emily.

You were interrupting me. You had things to say. you were you were you were quote tweeting me as I was talking what what you want to say of my only minor point was that of course women were only included in the most like you know stereotypically sexist way because the whole impulse behind this and this whole thread of the trump presidency is about masculinity in a way that you know often involved saying that women can't be in combat um you know, the founding pastor of Pete Hegseth Church says that women should lose the vote. He's in favor of male household controlled voting.

There's just this deeply misogynist take away women's rights and place in society, strain. But also, Emily, I would just like, no, they also think that a lot of women are men. So Michelle Obama, the fighter, they're thought, Michelle Obama's a man. So they would like, you know, they think men belong everywhere. Yeah, but that's some weird like... I know. That was, I was just trying to make a joke about something really, really disgusting that happened. Right.

At the end, why don't we for... I mean, I can't imagine there's the listener out there who doesn't know, but the slur about Michelle Obama into the microphone with Joe Rogan smiling as the, as the fighter made the slur was really like, it was the cherry on top for the event. Before we leave this sort of general topic of... of Trump's Washington, which we talk about all the time, there was great reporting in the Washington Post that the ballroom that was going to be paid for with wholly with private funds, as Trump assured us, actually has had hundreds of millions of dollars already poured into it from our taxpayer, our taxpayer contributions to the Fisk. What did you make of that, Emily? I just don't know what to say about all of this. Like, it's so over the top, the level of corruption and lying. and grift, and it just seems endless and overwhelming.

And I hope that people are paying attention to it and considering how they would feel if the opposite party was doing this. And it's just a lot. I swear, I feel like, I mean, what was so great about the Washington Post reporting, two things stood out to me. One, President was lying, knowing already because invoices had been submitted, that taxpayers were on the hook for paying for this. I mean, he was lying from the start.

And also because the idea that the Secret Service needed to have some of this paid for, both in the demolition and the construction, so that it would come out of their budget, that there was some actual policy reason to have taxpayers pay through the Secret Service. The Post interviewed a bunch of procurement people across multiple administrations who said that that didn't pass the laugh test. So the president wasn't just lying after the fact or conditions didn't just, escalate to make him not having told the truth. He knew in real time and then repeatedly in real time knew as the costs escalated. And so it feels like the president engages in activities for the

purpose of finding new ways to lie about them. Like that there are, we have wrongly conceived the president's obsession with ballrooms and reflecting pools, that they are really just an opportunity to mint new kinds of lies and get people to say insane things in the service of flattering him or not running a foul of him on his vanity projects. And also my other favorite piece of reporting was the White House lawyer who changed the language in one of the official documents so that it comported with the fact that taxpayers were paying for it. Yes. Yes.

At least the reflecting pool is bright green with algae. Just as planned. This episode is sponsored by Upwork. Hiring help for your business shouldn't be a headache or drain on your budget. Upwork makes it easy to hire specialized freelancers quickly so you can get the expertise you need now without weeks of recruiting or a full-time hire. Upwork is the one-stop platform to find hire and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business ops, and more. You get fast access to specialized talent across 100. 125 plus categories.

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Hey, it's Adam Grant from Ted's podcast, Rethinking with Adam Grant. This episode is sponsored by Am Better Health. If you run a business or work with employers on benefits, you know the story. Group health insurance costs keep climbing, and the plans rarely fit everyone's needs. There's a newer model worth knowing about called an ICRA, which lets employers set a contribution and employees choose their own health plan based on their doctors, budget, and what actually works for them. Health care isn't a group decision, so why should coverage be?

Get coverage you control. Find out if an ICRA is right for you at ambetterhealth.com. The White House has used its authority to regulate and control exports to stop Anthropic, the AI company, from using, releasing, or more broadly releasing or allowing to be, continue to be used, Fable. And Fable is a AI model that is a more safeguarded version of mythos, an earlier model that caused convulsions around the world because of its power. Anthropic had withheld mythos to protect cybersecurity around the world, to protect software around the world from hackers. And instead, modified mythos made it more protected and released it as a Fable model. Amazon, which was using Fable, found that Fable could, in fact, identify some flaws in software and potentially target them. It reported this to the U.S. government.

and the U.S. government responded by essentially telling Anthropic, you cannot allow any foreign national to use this model, which means that Anthropic can't release the model at all. The model can't be used because they can't control whether foreign nationals use it. No matter that the same capabilities that Amazon identified in Fable are also available in an open AI product, Open AI recent releases. So it's a really, really fascinating and difficult issue because, of course, we do want a world in which there's a responsible government regulating AI and the risks of powerful companies having unlimited power with their AI models is really profound. We also don't want the U.S. to lose a competitive battle with other nations that are developing AI and have their AI models, which maybe are more unscrupulous or damaging to us, be the, dominant world models. And you also don't want political favoritism being the way that the government is deciding how to regulate.

So, Emily, when you first saw the story, what struck you? Well, I'm a little confused about how serious the jailbreak was, right? What Amazon reported? Because then it seemed like, first of all, we don't have the Amazon report. That's not public. And then some people who maybe saw it were like, well, actually, this is fine. This was a way that the model was trying to identify defense capabilities, not how to destroy things. And it's actually like the same critique you could mount against some of chat GPT's models, some of how chat GPT also operates.

I don't know if that's true or not. It was really hard to tell, right? because part of the issue here is Anthropic beat a big drum role about mythos and made it seem really dangerous and said, hey, we're not releasing it. We're going to have everyone test it first. And so then that made you think on the one hand, okay, well, if Anthropics not worried about this jailbreak, maybe it's okay. Or, well, actually, maybe they were right. This is really dangerous and they're downplaying this particular problem that Amazon found. And it seemed as if the government and the company did not have a really good way of talking to each other, which we already know from the last fight that

the Pentagon had with Anthropic. It just seems like they don't really speak each other's language. And then possibly that the Trump administration has just decided that Anthropic is the liberal, quote, woke AI company. And so they're going to pound on it whenever they can. And all of those dynamics made it really hard to evaluate this particular conflict. I do think there's this larger set of issues looming, which you were talking about, David, which is like, how are governments going to regulate these companies? And should we be rooting for a world in which the governments, which at least in our country and lots of countries, were elected, have more say. Because otherwise we're moving into this world in which these corporate CEOs who head the company sent to be,

seem to be on their way to becoming more powerful and on their own. And that part of the dynamic, it just at this point, there's so much uncertainty. It's just hard for me to evaluate that. It's like doing surgery on the Titanic. You have the complexities of brain surgery itself, and that's super complex. And then you have the fact that it's taking place on a ship that is going under. And the ship going under is the Trump administration, because you have all of the grievance reasons that the administration would want to punish Anthropic. You have all of the totally scattershot

views about government meddling in private industry. So on the one hand, you have JD Vance saying, let a thousand AI flowers bloom. We're not going to get in the way. But then you have instincts within the Trump administration, obviously, which emanate from the Oval Office, which are, wait a minute, this is a huge leverage spot that we can use on the most compelling new technology to perhaps ever hit mankind. So like, let's not give up our ability to have leverage over these companies, which you can argue represents what was the motivation in part behind the executive order that asked companies to put forward to give the administration their models. So even if you left aside all of the complexities of the Titanic, which is the administration, the uncertainty

you're talking about, Emily, is embedded in the product, which is to say that even the people, one of the things that struck me so many years ago listening to this panel of AI, the real leading lights in AI, was that they basically said there will come to be a time where we won't know what it's able to do. And it will teach us what it is doing. And that is part of the uncertainty embedded in these models. And what Anthropic has had this interesting, some would say, self-serving view, which is we need to let it go and do possibly evil things, because only by discovering the things, can we then restrain it? The question is, as you pointed out, Emily, whose hands are those evil things? Who's going to do the restraining? And we have two broken systems. You have the financial

pressure and the speed of adoption pressure in the private sector. And you look at what came out in the Elon Musk versus Open AI court battle. And you see that the actors in charge of making these decisions are not exactly guided by the moral lessons you would have learned in kindergarten. And then in the other hand, you have an administration that is proven to be morally wobbly. And so in an unknown condition with breakneck pace decisions having to be made, there is no moral actor, which is why the Pope had to come running into the room and say, hey, slow down, gang. And I would just say one final thing. In the coverage of this, the spat between the United States, between the Pentagon and Anthropic gets written about like a debate over how it would be used in defense. It was like

the centerpiece debate of this entire thing, which is who, has control over the lives of other people? It will it be humans or AI? And Anthropic was worried it would be the AI left alone. So like as people are writing about this current spat, they kind of gloss over what was the, is the central question of AI, which is who makes moral choices about life and death, which was at the heart of the Pentagon spat. One of the other complications which you were getting at, John, is that because the Trump administration is manifestly a bad actor, both because it is incompetent. It has incompetent people doing things and also because it is so corrupt that even as a citizen who is rooting for a kind of active, effective government to, you know,

well-regulate commerce in this nation, which is what I am doing. It's very, you can't, you can't, you don't know where to side in this because it because you cannot trust the motivations of the Trump people, both because they seem stupid and because they are so clearly corrupt. And that, that, that the existence of that mistrust, the existence of people not believing that government can fairly regulate is a gigantic problem for future presidents too or for future governments, which is that that even if you, even if you think like, well, there should be a regulatory framework that exists in federal government, the U.S. federal government, which is democratically responsive, is the right place for that.

to exist. There are many of us who will be suspicious because it's been, it's been, uh, poisoned. It's been turned into black mold by the way that the Trump administration is behaving. And that's just like a bummer of a situation to be in. I would also note like, um, if you're, if you're a, uh, foreign national or you're a person in another country, um, or business in another country, this makes you very suspicious of all United States products. the United States can suddenly turn off an extremely valuable economic engine that you use every day for your business. If it can just be like, nope, you cannot use it. Sorry.

That is a, that's a place where you might say, well, maybe I should find a different kind of model. Maybe I should work with a different country or a different kind of company because the United States and the United States' products now are clearly subject to the will of a presidential dictator who may turn it. off at any moment. Yeah. Instability is very bad for that reason. To go back to what you were saying about the mold that is growing, it reminds me of this problem in court of losing the presumption of regularity for the government, which is this idea that when the Justice Department, federal prosecutors come into court, judges trust them to tell the truth about the facts and to present the basic facts in a clear and accurate manner. There are, have been all kinds of distress signals from judges about what it means when the Justice

Department just starts lying or misrepresenting in a lot of cases. And I think this is analogous, except that it's all of us as citizens trying to evaluate the government's conduct. In the end, we have to root for the humans, right? I mean, because the larger question about AI is like, not just, you know, this tug of war between governments and CEOs, but also between humans and the AI model itself, at least in theory at some point. And so that also always ends up affecting my thinking about this. Like I, it makes me willing to tolerate, I guess, worse behavior by governments because I just want to make sure that the AIs don't end up taking the control away from the humans, except that the then I also worry that if you have super incompetent grifty attempts at government interference, then that's going to produce the opposite result where, you know, then you end up losing the AI race to some company in China that's going to lose control to the AI model, et cetera. That to me is an interesting offshoot of this, which I'm out of my lane in.

But if companies worry about these, the switch being thrown and denying them the AI, they're rely on and start going to open source, which obviously gives an advantage to China, but also if there's no guardrails, then open source goes into the hands of people, you know, who have deeply bad motives and use it for things like creating new biological weapons or, you know, turning off power grids. That seems like it leaves a gate open for real harm. Let us go to cocktail chatter when your reflecting pool is clogged with algae. and you're staring at your green reflecting pool in your backyard, Emily. What are you going to be chattering to Dr. Bazelon, your husband about?

So I had a dream last night that my dog had a little stem and leaf growing out of her belly button. And that this seemed bad that we had left this. It was like a big maple leaf that was like attached to her belly button. And I woke up and I was really relieved that in fact this is not the case. But also, I was confused. I realized I had never really seen her belly button. I was like, wait, do dogs have belly buttons? I mean, maybe this is something that is.

Yes, they must. Yes, they must. I actually asked Claude this morning. Claude wanted to let me know that Claude Fable 5 is currently unavailable per our segment on Anthropic. But Claude does know that dogs have belly buttons. And in fact, all small mammals, like mammals have belly buttons. That's right. They're attached to the.

placenta through an umbilical cord. And then I had a further question, which was like, well, wait, you know, we cut and humans cut ambilical cords. Well, so all animals just thank you. Yes. They know to just make them off. That's me biting. That's you biting. Exactly. And I just think this is super impressive that all mammals know that they just have to chew off this, um, the umbilical cord at birth. And also seems like maybe it's like less thick and easier to get right at the source of the belly button, but it's why mammal's belly buttons just kind of disappear and hide under their fur

because it all is like, naked was just taking care of this. And the exception, as you probably also knew, but I had forgotten, are the marsupials. Right? They in the very beginning have a placenta and umbilical cord, but then it's only this really embryonic earlier stage

of development. And then they come out, I guess, like very underdeveloped and go into a pouch and then get attached by a nipple. I have always wondered what kinds of things you would think about if you ate edibles in the morning. This is my favorite Emily Badal and chatter ever. This is so much better than all your other chatter. I was like, this is a David Plot style chatter, but it's coming from Emily, and that makes it even better.

I thought you would like it, and I do think it is also mockable. That was great, Emily. Thank you. It's so beats the usual, like, you know, death row, homeless person on death row denied lawyer. by, you know, incompetent, malevolent prosecutor. I'll be back to me. John, what is your challenge? I didn't know what a witness tree was.

And so, there is, so a witness tree is a tree that was alive during a significant historical event. And two that are in, that I founded my research are the Burnside Sycamore in Maryland that witnessed the 1862 Battle of Antietam, which David probably, knows about since he's a civil war geography expert. And the other is that the Oklahoma City National Tree, which absorbed gas and metal from the 1995 bombing. The reason I was on the hunt for witness trees is that sadly one of the last remaining witness trees at Lincoln's home in Springfield, Illinois, dating back to the time he lived there, which was in 1844, that alas, it was hurt by severe storms Thursday and it's irreparably damaged. And it's irreparably damaged. So we are losing one of our witness trees.

But that idea of connections in time between a thing that still exists and ourselves. And obviously the tree didn't actually bear witness. And yet our imagination kind of makes us think that it did. And that that somehow creates a connection that's a little stronger than just pure intellectual connections that you draw. Anyway. And then I started to think. about the witness trees we all have in our own lives, things that are still standing that witnessed

us doing, going to school, the house, the first houses we grew up in. And as I was thinking about this, sadly, they were digging up the stump of the witness tree in front of our house, which has been here. I counted the rings for, I'm not sure it was a proper count, but like for at least 90 years. Love that. So beautiful. What a great pair of cocktail chatters. We should just make the show you Have I ever told you about my plan, my scheme, my desire to replicate in the United States, something that exists in Europe, which is they have in Europe, in every country in Europe, and then across Europe, they have a tree of the year competition where every year they name great trees. And the trees could be great because they are beautiful, because they're enormous, because they're distinctive, or because they're witness trees. And so there'll be one, you know, this Hawthorne that survived a German bombing in, you know, on August 8th, 1942. And each year there, there'll be the finalist trees and they'll tell little stories about them and then they name the winning trees.

And I just think they should do that in the United States. And I keep meaning this is the kind of retirement project for me is to start this in Washington, D.C. I think it's great. Oh, my God, I think it's fantastic. Okay. My chatter. God, I can't even live up. Usually I'm like, I can top these chatters.

No problem. John, some boring historical thing. Emily, some outrage. I'm like, I'll come in with a fun, but not today. First of all, just a bit of pitching. I need to hire someone to replace me. So I am acting as the general manager of CityCast, D.C.C I'm running Citicast, D.C as we expand CityCast, D.C.C.

into a really great local newsroom here in Washington. We're trying to build the best, biggest. local newsroom for Washington, D.C. And we've now hired a dozen journalists, and we're just about to do a website relaunch. And it's really exciting. We're really trying to fill the space that the Washington Post has left in the market. And I've been running it, but I need to hire somebody to run it. I need to hire a general manager.

So if you're somebody who has worked in media, you've sort of run the business side of a media business or worked in business side of a media business and also know the editorial side and you're excited by the challenge of a local building something wonderful local with a fantastic local owner in the Graham holding company. Please reach out to me, David Plotz at gmail.com and love to love to have you join us. And you can also please refer your friends who might be that person to me. That is not my chatter. My actual chatter is, did you guys see the story about the DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congress? Congo's soccer team, their World Cup team and their outfits, that these guys, the DRC, playing in the World Cup for the first time in 52 years, came and they are dressed just with such panache, such flair.

They showed up in these wonderful suits, which will look more or less like suits, but they have this incredible, like leopard print shoulder on it. And these guys look amazing. They look just incredible. You see them and you're like, I would die to look as good as one of these guys as ever looked. Like it's, and it turns out there's this fantastic Congolese male sartorial culture, which is called sepers, which stands for society des ambianceeux and desperse elegant. The society of tastemakers and elegant people. And for the last, you know, many, many years, the Congolese men. have taken Western fashion, the colonial fashion, and dandied it up and made it more outrageous

and spectacular. And if you just look up the photos of sepurs, it will just inspire you to think, like, wow, fashion is amazing and street fashion is the best thing there is. Because these guys just look so good. So check it out. Listeners, you have good chatter. Please email us, Gapfestislate.com, your listeners. chatter, and this week's listener chatter comes from Paul.

Hi, friends. This is Paul John Rudeau from West St. Paul, Minnesota. I read this incredible slate article about a delicious, garlicky vegetable, crucial to cultures and dishes across generations. They're called ramps, and they're being harvested in problematic ways, way too fast for their natural life cycle to replenish their numbers. The article has its share of great reading elements, the occasional food pun. It reads like a caper just as much as a leak of information. But above all, I found the article a fascinating example of larger problems plaguing society today around social influence, the value of nature, and the difficulty with a population that often doesn't know or realize the gravity of our own

actions. Thanks so much. We are not the only Slate podcast to listen to today. You should also listen The Hit Parade, wonderful Chris Malanfi at Hit Parade has an episode about power ballads. Carrie, Amanda, the more than a feeling that you get when you listen to a power ballad. And I love power ballads. I am overjoyed that they're making a comeback, and I can't wait to listen to Chris talk about it. Listen to The More Than a Feeling Edition. Is More Than a Feeling a Power Ballad? Yeah.

What are some other ones? Yeah, I don't think I've thought of this category. I can't fight this feeling anymore. Oh, my God. Yes. Got it. Got it.

Our youth, you mean. Yes. Air supply is power ballots, I guess. You know, yeah, I don't know. That was the one that just came to my head. That's a good example, I think. That's all for our episode this week. We also have a bonus episode in your feed.

We're going to talk about a Supreme Court decision involving a guns case. And we're going to get pretty deep and philosophical about history and the Supreme Court. And it was surprisingly deep and philosophical. Slate Plus members only get that. So become a Slate Plus member. Subscribe to Slate Plus directly from the Political GabFest show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify or visit Slate. com slash GabFest Plus get access wherever you listen. You also get access to other bonus episodes from other Slate podcasts and you never hit the paywall on the slate site.

And so much more. That is our show for today. The Political GabFest is produced by Nina Porosukee. Our researchers, Emily Ditto, our theme music is by name. Giants, Ben Richmond is Senior Director for Podcasts. Mila Bell is the executive cruiser Slate podcast, Hillary Fry's editor-in-cheever Slate for Emily Bazelon and John Dickerson. I am David Klotz.

Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next week. Group health insurance can put businesses in a tough position. With rising costs and plans that don't fit everyone's needs, Now, a new form of employer coverage called an ICRA or ICRA can help. Ikras make costs predictable with stable pre-tax contributions, and they make health plans personal because each employee can pick any planning carrier that meets their needs. Get coverage you control.

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