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Worldly

Trump has no Syria strategy. Obama didn't either.

Worldly

Vox Media Podcast Network

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2018

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Yochi, Jenn, and Zack talk about President Trump’s threats to bomb Syria after a brutal chemical weapons attack there — and why a US military strike won’t have much impact on the country’s civil war. On Elsewhere, they talk about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who just cruised to reelection despite (or perhaps because of) his anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and at times anti-Semitic rhetoric. Zack shows off his knowledge of Emerson, Yochi mocks Bashar al-Assad’s unusually long neck, and Jenn decides it’s okay to body-shame a genocidal dictator. Show Notes! -The war in Syria, explained. -For more background on Syria, listen to the latest Today, Explained primer. -Yochi mentioned photos that make Aleppo look like Leningrad after WWII. -Zack mentioned “siege, starve, and surrender” as a strategy. Here’s a lot more context on that. -Jenn talked about the ways Russia and Assad spin the narrative around chemical weapons attacks. -More reading on the Russian nerve agent attack in the UK that Yochi mentioned, and on the killing of Kim Jong Nam. -Yochi mentioned two Pentagon leaks — one involving Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the other involving Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford. -This BBC piece gives some good background on Prime Minister Orbán, and on his statements about George Soros. -Jenn mentioned Sarah Wildman’s piece about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Europe-bashing hot mic. -Zack talked about the demographic trends in Hungary, drawing on this article in the Guardian. -And this piece talks about Orbán running on an anti-immigrant platform even though there are more anti-immigrant billboards than immigrants and refugees who were let into Hungary in all of 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

And the Welcome to Worldly, Fox's Weekly Guide to the Most Important Stories in the World,

0:19.0

part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

0:21.3

Today, the Tale of Two Trumps, specifically the two trumps on

0:24.6

Syria. This is Trump one from about 10 days ago. I want to get out, I want to

0:29.6

bring our trips back home, I want to start rebuilding our nation. And this was Trump too on

0:34.8

Twitter Wednesday. Quote get ready Russia because they will be coming nice and

0:39.2

new and smart. You shouldn't be partners with a gaskilling animal who kills his people and enjoys it

0:44.9

So which Trump do we believe?

0:47.1

Gen-like, which one?

0:49.6

I guess we'll find out pretty soon, right? So the thing is that, you know, Trump seems to actually

0:55.2

believe both of these things, right?

0:56.9

Like he both wants to get the roughly 2,000 or so

1:00.4

troops that we've officially stated on the record that we have in Syria.

1:05.2

He wants to bring them home.

1:06.2

He is not really big on nation building or on long-term kind of military adventures abroad.

1:13.0

At the same time, as we saw last time,

1:15.2

back in 2017 in April, he responds really strongly

1:21.2

to photos of children choking on chemical attacks right and so he kind

1:27.9

of set this like red line that you can't do this Assad and if you do we will

1:31.8

respond forcefully he did last time he did respond

1:34.8

sent cruise missiles to strike the kind of airport where the chemical attack had

1:40.3

been launched from apparently and that's kind of what's going on this time,

...

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