https://crooked.com/podcast/2020-beto-orourke-on-biden-iran-and-the-puppy-primary/
_____________________
Tommy Vietor: Sticking with the region [00:34:00] you've talked about Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. You mentioned – I think the quote was – he openly sided with racists. If he follows through on his campaign pledge to Annex the West Bank do you think we should cut assistance to Israel? And given some of the racist things he's done and said, do you think he's committed to a peace agreement?
Beto O'Rourke : It is in our national security interests. It is in the interests of the people of Israel and the Palestinian Authority for there to be a two-state solution. Annexing the West Bank would spike any opportunity to achieve that which would promote greater instability and violence in the region. It would make Israel less safe – make it less likely that you would ever achieve full human rights and dignity for the Palestinians. So it's got to be our priority and it would be [00:35:00] my goal as President to make sure that we achieve a two-state solution to provide encouragement to facilitate where we can, to do so with the humility of understanding that we cannot impose this solution, but it's going to be tough because in addition to prime minister Netanyahu and his threat to annex the West Bank – his warning that Arabs are coming to the polls in a previous election – his siding with with openly racist parties and the Palestinian Authority with a Hamas – you don't have a full partner for peace either. You don't have somebody who can quell the incitement or control the violence or who can demonstrate a willingness to make the necessary concessions to get to that desired goal. So I say this knowing that it's going to be extraordinarily difficult given the two leaders that we have in the region, but also making that commitment and – I would be hesitant to describe you [00:36:00] know a punishment or negotiate in public with the prime minister right now – only to say that this will be the priority of the United States and that we will work – even if it is prime minister Netanyahu and our Administration. We will work with anyone to make sure that we secure peace and a two-state solution.
Tommy Vietor: There was a pretty depressing coater to the Arab Spring protests in Egypt this week when Mohamed Morsi – who is Egypts first democratically elected President – died in prison of what appears to be neglect. But at the same time we're seeing these mass protest movements in Algeria, Sudan, Hong Kong. It does feel like there's sort of an Arab Spring 2.0 going on – or maybe it never ended. What did you take away from watching that first round of protest movements that started in 2001? And how do you think the US should respond to, or support efforts to, beat back authoritarianism?
Beto O'Rourke : Yeah, such a good question and it's obviously a tough one for us to [00:37:00] answer and has been for decades. We mentioned Guatemala in 1954 Iran in 1953. We've always – or not always – well, maybe always, struggled with short-term security interests, you know fighting communism or fighting International terrorism today and compromising our values for democracy and Independence and freedom in order to achieve those those short-term security gains and here we are faced with that again only in this case it doesn't seem like there's a struggle on the part of the administration. They have openly sided with dictators in autocrats. You know Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia was able to kill an American journalist or journalist based in America Khashoggi with absolute impunity. With President Trump, you know, maybe this kind of stuff was said behind doors in the past, openly saying yeah, but this guy buys billions of dollars in Weapons Systems from United States defense contractor. So I'm willing to turn a [00:38:00] blind eye to that and the fact that he's bombing Yemen into the last century and precipitating the greatest humanitarian crisis, perhaps that we've seen since World War Two and that we are effectively a co-combatant. It is Duterte in the Philippines. It's El-Sisi in Egypt where Morsi was just just died in court. It's Erdogan in Turkey – and then to our allies, the great democracies – we turn the back or give the middle finger – that is going to make us, is already is making us, demonstrably less safe, if we're going to be able to end these wars that we're in, if we're going to be able to confront climate change, if we're going to be able to stop nuclear proliferation, we're going to need partners and allies. And if we're going to answer the big open question that the world has right now: is the future authoritarian or is the future Democratic? We're going to have to lead by example around the world and then here at home. Again, why democracy is central to this campaign and to the [00:39:00] administration that I hope to lead. So as tough as it is in the short term, I think it's important that America side with democracy – in Egypt it seems as though we were willing to forsake somebody democratically-elected politically and maybe diplomatically inconvenient, in favor of somebody who has been incredibly brutal in his repression and has effectively closed down even the nominal democracy that existed before him. That can't be who we are and who we support and what we do going forward and in my Administration, we will absolutely change course in favor of democracy.
Tommy Vietor: Yeah. I mean you talked about the the Western Hemisphere as often forgotten. I mean the the one place in the Western Hemisphere that has been forgotten by this Administration has been Venezuela and you know, they've done this ham-handed sort of coup light regime change effort where they were supporting you no [00:40:00] legitimate brave opposition leaders like Juan Guaido, Leopoldo Lopez, in their efforts to to take power. But you know, meanwhile we have I think four million refugees have already flown out of Venezuela. So I'm curious what you make of the administration's efforts to deal with Venezuela diplomatically and how you might approach that?
Beto O'Rourke : Yeah. I'm concerned in much the same way about the administration's threat to invade or bomb Iran, its threat to to bomb North Korea, its threat to invade Venezuela, threats that this President made and perhaps unwittingly, diminishing Guido's stature, you know with the memory of Pinochet with the with the memory of árbenz Guzmán with the memory of active American involvement in Civil Wars and overthrowing legitimately elected Democratic leaders in some ways, we complicated Guaido's path to [00:41:00] effectively represent the resistance to Maduro and the ability to stabilize a country that is absolutely out of control. Once the richest country in Latin America. People are starving. They're going out going without medications. I think Columbia alone has absorbed 1.5 million refugees. This is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, humanitarian disasters in the Western Hemisphere, so enough of the saber-rattling, focus on resolving the humanitarian urgency that we have in people dying, or potentially dying, and then work collaboratively with the other stakeholders in the region – with Colombia, with Mexico, with our partners in Latin America to provide stability a transition of power and then a democratically elected government.
Tommy Vietor: Two final, much less serious or important questions. First do you think the way the DNC [00:42:00] is structured and handled the debates has made sense or worked? Is this a good way to run a railroad?
Beto O'Rourke : I don't know that it may make sense. I don't know, you've got this really good problem where you have 23 or 24 people all of whom bring extraordinary expertise and biography and skills to this campaign and to what they want to provide for this country as president. And that's a great sign for our party. I think it's a great sign for this country and in our democracy, how do you facilitate the conversation necessary for people to make an informed decision when it comes time to caucus or to vote in the primary? So for example, this this 10 and 10 over two nights in, Florida. Maybe that was the best way to do it? The threshold of – I don't know what it was – 65 thousand unique donations and a certain polling level. Maybe that's the right way to do it? So I'm participating, obviously in [00:43:00] these debates. I'm looking forward to it. But I'm also really focused on meeting people where they are through town halls that we've been holding all over the country going to big blue communities – going to rural red communities – just listening and making sure that I have a chance to introduce myself and then take the questions from the people whom I want to serve and learn from them in the process. So I loath to second-guess, you know how I would do this differently. I just think you want to make sure that every one of these candidates has a chance to make their case, to answer questions. And then we make the the best most informed decision for defeating Donald Trump and then bring this country together around the greatest challenges we've ever faced.
_____________________
No comments:
Post a Comment