Ben Rhodes

We have our core, and our core has been Europe and parts of East Asia.

And then if everything else is kind of a mess,

That implicitly advantages us.

It certainly advantages fossil fuel companies and arms dealers and people who do finance capitalism where they sit around and just bet on currencies on computer screens all day to enrich themselves while everything costs more for the American working class.

It's not the intention.

And what I would always have to explain to friends of mine like this is I was never in a meeting –

where people were like, let's create chaos today in the world.

People were well-intentioned.

It was like, well, let's try to train these security forces and let's try to have the recipe for stability over here.

Or even let's intervene in Libya to try to prevent a massacre and support the forces of democracy there.

But the reality is the machine functions like an empire and an empire tends to create chaos along its periphery.

And to your point, John, I think everybody's sick of it.

Americans are sick of paying for it.

I talked to Graham Platner recently, and he said, look, you don't have to be a genius politician to know that saying to people, hey, we should spend less money on bombs and more on schools and hospitals is a winning message right, left, or center.

Americans are sick of it.

People around the world are definitely sick of it.

Now they're kind of scared of the insane person that is running this whole edifice.

And, and, and, you know, is Greenland next?

Is Panama next?

Is Canada next?