Deep Dive
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It's Tuesday, May 13th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is What Today, the show that is excited to learn about our new friendly relationship with China. You know how it works. When you turn the tariffs on, it's to save Main Street. And when you turn the tariffs off, partly, it's the art of the deal. Rinse and repeat. ♪
On today's show, President Donald Trump orders drug makers to consider thinking about maybe lowering their U.S. drug prices. And Republicans unveil hundreds of billions of dollars in proposed cuts to Medicaid. Naturally. But let's start with the conflict between India and Pakistan.
On Saturday, the Indian and Pakistani governments announced a ceasefire. It came after days of fighting on the border between the countries and in the contested territory of Kashmir. But as the weekend progressed, some reports indicated that the ceasefire wasn't holding. One Indian official told the New York Times that Pakistani drones had been seen over the Indian state of Punjab. In response, the Pakistani foreign ministry said it was India who had broken the ceasefire.
While the ceasefire announcement is welcome, the rising tensions between the world's first and fifth most populous countries, both nuclear powers, are, um, not ideal. The current fighting stems from the killing of 26 people, almost all Hindu tourists, and a terrorist attack in the India-controlled section of Kashmir last month. But the conflict is decades old, dating back to the partition of India. So yes, there's an argument that this is actually all Britain's fault.
When the states of India and Pakistan were initially created in 1947 after the end of British rule, India with a Hindu majority and Pakistan with a Muslim majority, Kashmir was left unclaimed. Fighting over the region has been cropping up pretty much ever since. And while both sides have exchanged drone and missile strikes in this latest round of conflict, there's also been a propaganda war playing out on social media. Twitter reported that the Indian government demanded it block roughly 8,000 accounts or risk the imprisonment of local employees.
Twitter agreed to block those accounts in India alone. So to find out what's actually going on and what the Trump administration is doing about it, I spoke to Joshua Keating. He's a senior correspondent for Vox, where he covers national security and foreign policy. Josh, welcome to What Today. Thanks for having me. So India and Pakistan have been fighting over Kashmir for decades, basically since partition. What makes this most recent conflict different?
Well, I'd say one is just the scale of it. One, it's the largest number of casualties we've seen, probably dozens on each side, since at least 1999 when there was a full-scale war. And two, I would say it's related to that. It's just the level of risk tolerance, especially from the Indian side, seems to be going up. I mean, we saw...
In 2001, when the Indian parliament was attacked, or in 2008, when there was the terrible terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India contemplated military action but didn't take any. Then subsequently in 2016 and 2019, we saw larger skirmishes where India did launch brief attacks into Pakistan in retaliation for militant attacks.
And now this is something much larger. And what it suggests to me is that the sort of threats that we hear from the Pakistani side around their nuclear arsenal, which Prime Minister Modi refers to as nuclear blackmail, this just isn't as effective as it used to be, that they're willing to
take on a lot more risk when it comes to escalation. Yeah, let's talk about Prime Minister Modi for a minute, because I think that that seems to me to be the thing that's changed a lot here, which is his BJP party has moved the country in a very right-wing populist Hindu nationalist direction. To what extent is the BJP pushing India towards war?
You know, I think Modi has portrayed himself as a very tough on terrorist leader, a very, you know, national security hawk, you could say. And he's sort of wedded that to, as you said, this Hindu nationalist ideology. And that's just sort of a recipe for tension with neighboring Pakistan. The position of the Indian government, the allegation they have, is that these groups that carry out attacks, you
in India are not just tolerated by the Pakistani government, but actually supported by them. And so that means, you know, from their perspective, when one of these attacks happens, it's not just this group that's responsible, it's the Pakistani state itself.
Let's talk about Pakistan. Its de facto leader is the chief of the military, General Asim Munir, though he's much more behind the scenes than Modi. You mentioned how the Indian government perceives that the terrorist attack in Kashmir was the fault in some part of the Pakistani state. First, how has General Munir been shaping Pakistan's response to this conflict? And second, is there any truth to that?
Well, you know, in some ways, Muneer is kind of a mirror image of Modi. He's, you know, the most overtly, openly religious military chief Pakistan has had. So you really kind of have Hindu nationalism on one side and Muslim nationalism on the other side, which sort of contributes to this really sort of bitter sectarian dynamic that we're facing here. The Pakistani government denies having any links to these groups that have carried out the attacks. You know, in terms of the specific groups
incident. India hasn't actually presented publicly any evidence of the Pakistani state's involvement in this attack. There is a fairly well-established pattern going
back years of the Pakistani government and particularly Pakistan's powerful intelligence services at least turning a blind eye to militant groups that operate on its territory. So, you know, it's difficult to establish culpability in any one case, but, you know, this would not be totally out of character that there would at least be some knowledge of what was going on and of this group.
Now, the two countries reached a ceasefire agreement over the weekend, but there's been fighting going on since then. So what needs to happen to make sure a ceasefire can actually take place? It does seem likely that this ceasefire will hold. There have been violations, but it's important to remember that
you know, sort of small scale exchanges of fire across the border actually aren't that unusual. But in terms of sort of the large scale fighting, the artillery, the drones, the missile strikes, I would expect that to die down. I mean, both sides have kind of established that
the point they were trying to make. For India, they can say there was a strong military response to this attack. On the Pakistan side, they can say that in the process, they inflicted some damage on the Indian military. They say they downed five Indian fighter jets. The Indian side denies that. It seems like they at least downed one or two. But both sides have
something they can call a victory here, which suggests to me that there's some incentive for them to de-escalate at this point. You're based in the U.S., so you're not on the ground in the region. But based on my own little bit of Googling, it seems like both countries' respective governments are pushing this conflict in the media in their own specific direction. So what do we know about how India and Pakistan are portraying this conflict in the media and how it's shaping sentiment on the ground?
Well, I mean, this is a perfect encapsulation of 21st century warfare, which means we're seeing a lot of drones and a lot of social media. Those are both very important. On the social media side, you know, there's a ton of misinformation, a ton of propaganda. You know, the nationalist fervor on both sides is really high. And that's
sort of necessitated the strong military response that we saw. But in a weird way, it sort of made it easier for them to de-escalate as well. Because, you know, if both sides are kind of living in their own social media reality, that also means it's sort of easier for each government to claim victory. They can just sort of deny the casualty reports coming from the other government and say, you know, we've inflicted, you know, this huge amount of damage on
on our enemy. And so this is a victory and we can stop fighting now. And in a weird way, it sort of both drove these two countries into this war, but also made it easier for them to get out of it. What role is the U.S. playing in all of this? Because when the conflict first broke out last month, the Trump administration kind of dismissed it as not a problem for the U.S.,
Vice President J.D. Vance literally said the conflict was, quote, none of our business. But then a few days later, he was also the one who called Prime Minister Modi to encourage ceasefire talks, according to reporting from CNN. Now, like the Indian government and the Trump administration, this has been an ongoing relationship for going on now for two terms. But what is the Trump administration actually doing here?
Yeah, I mean, traditionally, the U.S. has played in several of the previous incidents that I mentioned, the 1999 Cargill War, these 2016-2019 crises. It's often been U.S. mediation that sort of led both sides to de-escalate. So that's sort of a traditional role for the U.S. to play. You know, one thing that's changed, I think, you know, the
The Indian government under Modi has gotten much, much closer to the U.S. That's happened a lot under Trump, happened a fair bit under Biden as well. And what's motivating that is not so much the Pakistan issue, but their sort of mutual distrust of China. And meanwhile, you know, the Pakistani government
U.S. relationship has always been extremely complicated, extremely fraught. But particularly since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, it's just Pakistan is just less of a priority for the U.S. now. And meanwhile, Pakistan has also been getting closer with China and a lot of the weapons and fighter jets they were using in this conflict were purchased from China. So that's, you know, there's sort of an interesting superpower conflict dynamic happening in this sort of smaller conflict as well.
Yeah, I think it really goes to how President Trump campaigned on a platform of isolationism and moving away from the idea of the U.S. as kind of a world police. But it seems like the world keeps getting complicated. And given what we just saw with the terrorist attacks in Kashmir and the conflict that's followed, is that kind of isolationism at all possible? I feel like this is a good example of how isolationism, it's a great idea for some people, but then the world happens. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's a weird thing to say, but in some ways, like India and Pakistan have some practice at this at this point, like they, they sort of know how to fight these small scale wars without it escalating into a full scale war, which is,
in this case, could mean a nuclear war. These countries have over 300 nuclear warheads between them. So it's one thing to say, this isn't our responsibility. We don't have a dog in this fight, as J.D. Vance did. But if you're getting intelligence about this thing is escalating out of control, that's something the U.S., by necessity, has to get involved with. And
to their credit, did in this instance. They do seem to have played some role. It was interesting to note the Pakistani statement about the ceasefire mentioned and credited the U.S. role. The Indian side did not. And it seems as if the Indians may not have wanted it to appear as if they were being restrained by the U.S. side, as if they were being sort of pulled back by pressure by the U.S.,
Josh, this has been so helpful. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Anytime. That was my conversation with Joshua Keating, senior correspondent for Vox covering national security and foreign policy. We'll link to his work in our show notes. We'll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads.
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Hey, I'm Dan Pfeiffer, former senior advisor to President Obama, co-host of Pod Save America, and author of the Message Box newsletter. As you all know too well, America is in a very dangerous moment. The speed at which Trump is dismantling our democracy makes staying silent a historic mistake. It's tough to wrap our heads around the destructive chaos of Trump. It's all happening so fast.
Thank you.
If you want to follow along and be part of the conversation, head to crooked.com slash yeswedan to unlock a 30-day free trial of MessageBox. Here's what else we're following today. Headlines. We do want trade. We want more balanced trade. And I think that both sides are committed to achieving that.
Feel the excitement. Treasury Secretary Scott Bassett announced that the U.S. and China have agreed to temporarily slash their tariffs on each other for 90 days. The U.S. will lower its tariffs on Chinese goods to 30 percent, down from 145. And China will lower its tariffs on U.S. goods to 10 percent, down from 125. This comes after a weekend of trade negotiations between U.S. and Chinese officials in Switzerland.
Besant detailed the agreement Monday at a press conference in Geneva with his textbook flair. The consensus from both delegations this weekend is neither side wants a decoupling. And what had occurred with these very high tariffs, as Ambassador Greer said, was the equivalent of an embargo. And neither side wants that.
The very high tariffs Donald Trump put in place? Neither side wanted those? Huh.
The reduced tariffs will take effect Wednesday. But much to the dismay of frequent online shoppers like me, Monday's agreement does not reinstate the de minimis exemption for e-commerce packages from China. That's a provision that allows small, low-value goods into the U.S. without tariffs. Online foreign retailers like Shein and Timu relied on that loophole to sell goods to Americans for cheap. But Trump ended it for Chinese goods earlier this year.
A White House official told Axios Monday that small packages from China will still be subject to a 120% tariff. Starting today, the United States will no longer subsidize the health care of foreign countries. President Trump signed an executive order Monday aimed at reducing the cost of prescription drugs for Americans. Sort of.
I think most of us here in the U.S. can agree. We pay a lot more than we probably should for prescription drugs. But this order is little more than a pretty pleased drug makers asking them to voluntarily lower their prices in the next 30 days. Good luck with that, Mr. President. And I genuinely mean that.
If drug companies don't lower their prices, the order directs administration officials to create a new rule to tie drug prices in the U.S. to lower prices other countries pay, kind of like price matching. But that falls way short of actually instituting that policy, as Trump said he would do in a Truth Social post this weekend. The president warned of other consequences if drug makers don't comply with the order during a speech at the White House Monday.
If necessary, we'll investigate the drug companies and we'll in particular investigate the countries that are doing this. And we will add it on to the price that we charge them for doing business in America. In other words, we'll add it on to tariffs if they don't do what is right. When is this man going to learn that tariffs aren't the solution to everything he doesn't like?
It's also very unclear if the administration has the legal authority to enforce the order. Plus, Trump tried and failed to institute a similar policy to lower some drug prices during his first term. The courts blocked it. In statements Monday, lobbying groups that represent drug makers largely dismissed the White House order as bad for patients. Missouri Republican Senator Josh Hawley has a lot to say about the ongoing talks over Trump's big, beautiful spending bill, specifically proposed cuts to Medicaid.
Hawley wrote an op-ed titled Don't Cut Medicaid that appeared in the New York Times on Monday. He wrote a wing of his party, quote, wants Republicans to build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor. But that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal. This is a real worst guy you know has a great point moment for me. Medicaid is a health insurance program run by the federal government and states that covers more than 70 million Americans, mainly poor people.
Hawley's criticism comes after House Republicans released a plan late Sunday. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has been tasked with removing $880 billion in funding from programs it oversees. The lion's share of that reduction was taken from health care programs, an estimated $715 billion. But why? For tax breaks, of course. An analysis from the Congressional Budget Office says it estimates the legislation would, quote,
reduced the number of people with health insurance by at least 8.6 million in 2034. Hawley echoed this issue. He says about a fifth of the people in his state benefit from Medicaid and another insurance program for lower-income children. And if Congress implements the cuts, Missourians will lose their health care and hospitals will close. And of course, cuts to Medicaid would impact the entire American health care system. Still, Republicans are working to pass their spending bill for President Trump's sweeping agenda by Memorial Day.
But Trump has promised not to make cuts to Medicaid. The panel is set to discuss the proposal today.
Idan Alexander, an Israeli-American who was held hostage by Hamas, was reunited with his family on Monday. Head to our YouTube channel to see Alexander and his family happily reunited. Hamas abducted Alexander on October 7th and released him after more than 19 months in captivity. The Israel Defense Forces said it was a result of successful negotiations between the U.S. and Hamas.
Alexander is the last known living American hostage that was held in Gaza. In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Alexander's return home. He says there, quote, This is a winning combination.
The release of Alexander, a dual Israeli-American national who was serving in the Israeli army, came just before President Trump's trip to the Middle East. Hamas said in a statement Monday night it's ready to re-up negotiations to reach a ceasefire. Some people have criticized the Israeli government for its handling of negotiations and expressed concern for the other hostages.
They suggested Alexander was released because the U.S. advocated specifically for its own citizen. Israel says Hamas still has more than 50 hostages. About half are believed to be living. And that's the news. One more thing. Let's talk about words. Specifically, one word. Obscenity. Sometimes when we're talking about obscenity, we're talking about swearing.
Other times we're talking about art, film, music, or you guessed it, pornography. Yes, I'm discussing pornography on the podcast again. Famously, what counts as obscene is really hard to determine. Like, really hard. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said in a 1964 case aiming to determine whether or not a French film was obscene that, with obscenity, I know it when I see it.
But Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee says he knows what obscenity is, and he thinks you should just let him determine what's obscene and what's not. Last Thursday, Lee and Illinois Republican Representative Mary Lee unveiled the Interstate Obscenity Definition Act because, as he said in a statement, quote, "'Obscenity isn't protected by the First Amendment, but hazy and unenforceable legal definitions have allowed extreme pornography to saturate American society and reach countless children.'"
In general, I find that a what about the children act of Congress rarely ends well for children or adults. Currently, we use something called the Miller test to determine whether or not a piece of content is obscene, stemming from the 1973 Supreme Court case Miller v. California.
Per the Miller test, obscene content needs to appeal to, quote, prurient interests, as in the content is for horny purposes. Obscene content also needs to depict or describe sexual acts in a, quote, patently offensive way. And the content needs to let, quote, serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
How do courts determine what content has or doesn't have serious literary, artistic, or political value? The law asks whether or not the average person, using quote, average community standards, would find the content to be obscene or not. The Supreme Court argued that what people in Las Vegas think is fine and cool might not fly with people in, say, Biloxi, Mississippi. But Senator Mike Lee thinks he knows better than the Supreme Court, or you for that matter.
In his proposed legislation, the community standard test is gone, and obscenity doesn't need to appeal to prurient interests to be obscene anymore. Instead, the new law would argue that anything that, quote, depicts, describes, or represents actual or simulated sexual acts with the objective intent to arouse, titillate, or gratify the sexual desires of a person is obscene and thus can be targeted by law enforcement.
As Senator Lee has made clear, the aim of the bill is to destroy the online pornography industry. And maybe you think that's a good idea, but I don't. Not because online pornography is always awesome. It isn't. But because this legislation is, to put it bluntly, broad as hell.
For one thing, what is an objective intent to arouse? Did Game of Thrones' nude brothel scenes have an objective intent to arouse? I don't know. Maybe. Should the makers and producers and actors of Game of Thrones go to prison for selling and distributing the show?
No matter how bad the series finale was, no. And let's be real here. As Ricky Joy Levy, president and CEO of the Woodhole Freedom Foundation, which focuses on sexual rights and freedoms, told Reason Magazine, this legislation would most likely be used to go after people who make content about LGBTQ people. Because if we've learned anything from the recent fights over movies and library books, there are many people who think an LGBTQ person doing anything, ever,
counts as obscene. So no, I do not think that a Republican Congress led by a Utah Republican should get to determine what obscenity is. And personally, I can think of a few obscenities I'd use for someone who does. Before we go...
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The book is a manual for leadership on your own terms. No fluff, no gatekeeping, no losing yourself in the process. Just real tools, honest lessons, and the kind of clarity today's future leaders actually need. Get your copy of When We're In Charge at crooked.com slash books now or wherever you get your books. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, read more books, and tell your friends to listen.
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