Does the U.S. Have a Secret Deal With China? Plus, MSG's Celebrity "Risk" List With Ben Rhodes

July 16, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The U.S. Is Looting an Empire as It Collapses

On September 21, 1976, Orlando Letelier—Chile's former ambassador to Washington, foreign minister, and defense minister under Salvador Allende—was driving through Embassy Row in Washington, D.C. when a bomb planted in his car exploded. He and his American coworker Ronnie Moffitt were killed. The assassins were part of Operation Condor, a secret pact among Latin American dictatorships to hunt one another's dissidents. The U.S. State Department had drafted a warning to Chile's generals days earlier, but Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ordered them to stand down. Months before the murder, Kissinger had told Augusto Pinochet: "We are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here."

This is the kind of story that former deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes carries in his head—not as a conspiracy theory, but as documented history that reveals how power actually operates. On Wait a Second..., Rhodes walked through the current global landscape with the calm of someone who has sat across from Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Chinese negotiators, and who now watches the United States dismantle the very architecture it spent decades building.

The Unspoken Deal With China

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What you'll learn

1 Does the U.S. Have a Secret Deal With China? Plus, MSG's Celebrity "Risk" List With Ben Rhodes
2 (00:07) **Opening: The Murder of Orlando Letelier** - Ben Rhodes narrates the 1976 car bombing of a Chilean dissident in Washington, D.C., as an entry point into U.S. covert operations and foreign entanglements
3 (03:08) **Did China Make a Secret Sphere-of-Influence Deal With Trump?** - Rhodes analyzes a DW report that China eased global oil prices during the Hormuz crisis, and whether a quiet U.S.-China understanding exists
4 (10:21) **Debunking "3D Chess" Theories About the Iran War** - Rhodes argues the Iran war is not a masterful China play but a simple, long-sought Israeli goal
5 (12:38) **Inside the Room: How Netanyahu and Putin Negotiate** - Rhodes describes the personal styles of world leaders he observed, from Netanyahu's relentless monologues to Putin's courtroom-like presentations
6 (15:03) **Israel's Shift From Stability to Chaos** - Rhodes diagnoses a fundamental change in Israeli security doctrine that now works against U.S. interests
7 (19:00) **Why Israel Is Already Picking a Fight With Turkey** - Rhodes explains the emerging Israel-Turkey rivalry as the next front in Middle East instability

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Former national security adviser and cohost of Pod Save the World Ben Rhodes joins to discuss the conspiracy of an informal agreement between superpowers to stay out of each other’s spheres.

In this episode:

(00:00) Intro

(3:15) Spheres of influence

(21:55) Marco Rubio running Venezuela?

(29:11) Let’s talk about drones

(38:45) Ben Rhodes’s top conspiracies

(43:59) Tips for the paranoid

(48:58) The death of Lindsey Graham

(51:42) Terrorists and AI

(54:20) Waymo calls police on teens

(55:46) The MSG celebrity “risk” list

(1:00:00) Zara’s dangerous pants

Hosts: Jason Concepcion and Tyler Parker

Guest: Ben Rhodes

Producers: Donnie Beacham and Justin Sayles

Art direction: David Shoemaker

Motion graphics and animations: Chris Calleton

Engineering: Sarah Reddy

Set design: Hannah Leiken and Jonathan Ratliff

Additional support: Dae Shik Kim

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