Trump rigs the war in Russia’s favor, France descends into chaos, and we witness another episode of the Trump administration soap opera drama, As the World Burns.

Tommy and Ben walk through Trump and Zelensky’s most recent war of words, the devastating consequences of the US holding back interceptor missile shipments and satellite access, and the ridiculous possibility of a summit to conclude the war with China, Russia, and the US...but not Ukraine. French protests get bigger and more lawless as frustrations with spending on education and the high cost of living get co-opted by violent looters, and French politicians point fingers at the left. An OpenAI employee gets caught allegedly spying for Saudi Arabia. Exclusive polling from the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project shows that voters in swing states are tougher on Israel than Washington seems to think. And in this week’s latest example of infighting and corruption within the Trump administration, Alina Habba and Richard Grenell battle over a story involving millions of dollars, a Turkish billionaire, and the Kennedy Center. At the end of the show, Ben speaks to independent journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who describes the brutal attack he witnessed on an American photographer in the West Bank, and how violent gangs of Israeli settlers no longer hold back on either journalists or diplomats.

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Trump cuts a diesel deal with Putin, the Houthis hit Saudi Arabia’s main airport, and Kimberly Guilfoyle resigns after demanding ice at 4am in Mykonos.

Tommy and Ben dig into Trump’s announcement of a diesel fuel deal and “energy ceasefire” with Russia that caught Ukraine and the Europeans completely off guard, and will pump $4 billion into Vladimir Putin’s war machine. The Houthis launch a deadly strike on Saudi Arabia’s international airport in Riyadh that leads the CEOs of major oil companies to cancel their trips to “Davos in the Desert”. Ship attacks in the Strait of Hormuz have nearly doubled in the past two weeks, Iran is reportedly reading war stories to kindergartners and training civilians to fire anti-aircraft missiles, and the guys explain why none of this looks like a country preparing to make a deal. In India, the Cockroach movement is back in the streets after 130 million names were purged from the voter rolls. New reporting exposes details about Erik Prince’s mercenaries conducting drone strikes in Congo and collecting mining taxes. And finally, Kimberly Guilfoyle resigns as ambassador to Greece after a State Department investigation, a $100,000 Amex bill, and an incident involving a 4am demand for ice while drunk in Mykonos. At the end of the show, Tommy speaks to Dr. Lesley Anne Warner, a visiting scholar with the Africa Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to get more context on why the current fighting in Ethiopia and conflicts in Sudan and Yemen could all spill over into each other.

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Tommy and Ben dig into Brazil's election results, where right-wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro surged past expectations and is now favored to win the October 25th runoff. In Europe, Spain's Pedro Sanchez calls a snap election over a housing crisis after a dramatic eviction sparks demonstrations, and student protests have spread to more than 40 French cities over a lack of funding and poor conditions at schools. Quebec separatists win provincial elections with eyes on an independence vote in the future. Germany's former intelligence chief is arrested for passing state secrets to foreign governments — a wild story that involves a steakhouse heiress, a custody dispute, and a kidnapping in Denmark. Reports of a pneumonic plague death at a research institute that have Russian officials saying one thing and local governors saying another are terrifying because no one knows who to trust. Then the Iran war: US B-1 bombers are suddenly pulled out of a UK airbase, 10,000 more troops are headed to the Middle East, and Trump suggests (jokingly?) that Iran should bomb Los Angeles and San Diego. And finally, a report from the Wall Street Journal raises new questions about Chinese Premier Xi Jinping’s health.

At the end of the show Ben speaks to Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who details his time imprisoned in Russia in his new book, This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian American Story.

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You can request a transcript by emailing transcripts@crooked.com. Include the podcast name, episode title, and air date. Please allow 48 hours for delivery.