Welcome back to Potsayvilworld. This is Tommy Vittor. Ben is not with me for this little intro piece of the show, but he was with me for the episode because we did a special live Potsayvilworld taping on Saturday night at J Street's National Conference in Washington, DC.

It was a ton of fun. Michelle Goldberg was our special guest host and we also got to talk with some really cool Israeli and Palestinian activists. So it was a fascinating conversation. I really think you'll enjoy it.

And it was a good time given all the ups and downs with the Israeli government formation process and the 2020 campaign heating up to talk about the US-Israel relationship and diplomacy generally.

We also had the chance to sit down with a bunch of the Democrats running for president. We spoke with Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bennett, Beto O'Rourke, Bernie Sanders, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg about their views on the US-Israeli relationship.

It will run some excerpts with that along with this episode. So I think you guys will love this one. It was a little more focused on a really important set of issues and a lot of fun. So here's the show.

Hey J Street. How you doing?

First I just want to say thank you Jeremy Jess, Amy, the whole J Street team. What you guys have built in a short period of time is truly amazing and you should be incredibly proud of that work. And thank you to all the people that decide to spend a weekend talking about foreign policy and diplomacy.

It really matters that you care and are in disengaged. So you know credits you guys for showing up. This is our second ever live positive world taping and I just first want to introduce and thank our guest host who needs no introduction.

She's a Pulitzer Prize winner and incredible columnist for the New York Times. The co-host of the argument, a fantastic podcast that you should all check out.

Michelle Goldberg. As always former deputy national security advisor to Barack Obama and chief protagonist in all right wing fever dreams involving foreign policy.

Ben Rhodes.

I'm just putting this on my lap. You're going to see how the sausage may have been when we do the show later in the show will be joined by two amazing activists. My son, Jay Julie and Mikhail mannequin.

You're going to love them. We've been hanging out backstage for the last half an hour. But before we get to a conversation about the US Israeli relationship and a progressive foreign policy platform.

We have to talk about a little breaking news because the news won't stop breaking us. Let's start with impeachment.

Watergate had deep throat.

2019 star impeachment witness may end up being Rudy Giuliani's but here's a quick recap of the week.

This week alone we heard from the US ambassador to Ukraine who confirmed in 15 single space pages of excruciating detail how President Trump blocked security a to Ukraine in an effort to get dirt on Joe Biden and to find Hillary Clinton server which he seems to think is hiding out in Ukraine like whitey bulger or some of the lot.

It's good that the White House cyber securities are doesn't know what the cloud is. It's compelling lacking any substantive response to this testimony sentient acts body spray canister and congressman Matt Geitz led a group of congressmen directly from the fraternity mixer to the House intelligence committees secure room to try to shut down the impeachment process.

We here in Washington are waiting to see whether the former national security adviser John Bolton will be testifying and Rudy Giuliani is deciding who to butt down next.

We laugh at these clowns to stay sane but Michelle you recently traveled to Ukraine to hear directly from activists about the ways in which Rudy and Donald Trump's actions are harming their anti corruption work.

Can you tell us a bit about that trip?

I will say Rudy Giuliani and everyone laughs and everyone knows that he's a clown but if you're in Ukraine you don't necessarily know that the president's personal lawyer is not someone to be taken seriously and you can't even really afford to not take him seriously because you know Ukrainians have so much writing on American support.

...