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more at dana-farber.org/everywhere. From

0:33

New York Times, I'm Michael Balboro. This

0:35

is The Daily. Over

0:45

the past few months, attacks by

0:47

Houthi militants on global trade

0:49

and the Western military, which

0:51

once seemed like a dangerous sideshow to

0:54

the war in Gaza, have

0:56

become a full-blown crisis. Today,

1:00

my colleague, Gulf Bureau Chief

1:03

Vivian Neeraj, on what

1:05

the Houthis really want.

1:15

It's Thursday, January

1:18

18th. There's

1:26

a marked escalation of tensions along one of the world's

1:28

busiest shipping routes. Houthi militants

1:31

claimed responsibility for yet another attack on

1:33

a container ship. The

1:35

latest target of Yemen's Houthis, Norwegian

1:39

tanker Strinda, struck by a missile. A

1:42

U.S. warship shot down 14 drones fired

1:45

by suspected Houthi rebels in Yemen. The escalation

1:47

of attacks have encouraged a series of shipping

1:49

companies to announce they would suspend their movements

1:51

through the Red Sea A

1:53

United States official tells CNN the

1:56

U.S. military has carried out strikes on

1:58

more than 100 countries. The Bob

2:00

Cousy targets in Yemen. this work

2:03

or be escalated. Victor Pentagon confirms

2:05

it has carried out more strikes

2:07

against the Yemen base who the

2:09

Rebels third assault on the group

2:11

in recent days to see leaders

2:13

said this aggression will not go

2:15

on answer directly to keep on

2:17

attacking those ships that are passing

2:19

through the Red Sea. President Biden

2:21

saying he will not hesitate to

2:23

act further. His faculties.

2:33

Vivian over the past few weeks

2:35

as militants in Yemen have carried

2:37

out this really unusual military campaign

2:39

against commercial ships in the Red

2:41

Sea and of basically crippled this

2:44

trade route and triggered a very

2:46

significant military response from the Us

2:48

and it's allies. The question I

2:50

think all of us have had

2:52

with increasing urgency is what exactly

2:54

has motivated these militants. The who

2:57

the is to do this would

2:59

have they want, and how do

3:01

these attacks in the Red Sea.

3:03

Serve. That. Cause. Won't

3:06

Thus who is stated motivation has from

3:08

the start than all about into the

3:11

Palestinians an Anna Hazare and sort of

3:13

for seeing Israel to end it's siege

3:15

on answer. They have for very long

3:17

time kind of centered opposition to Israel

3:20

and hostility towards United States and the

3:22

Palestinian cause in their narrative. In in

3:24

their ideology isn't an really been kind

3:26

of bringing that up is essentially been

3:29

saying. You know, look at what Israel

3:31

is doing that the Palestinians, no one

3:33

is standing up for them. None of

3:35

the other Arab governments have really done

3:38

anything. You know, they're not doing an

3:40

oil embargo, they're not going to war

3:42

and that we essentially and they represent

3:44

themselves as you know, the Yemeni government.

3:47

We're the only state in the region

3:49

that isn't doing anything about this that

3:51

is taking on Israel and the United

3:53

States. This

3:57

is the latest or fishing all of this

3:59

messaging. out to the world is

4:02

through their incredibly robust wartime propaganda.

4:04

They produce these music videos and

4:06

songs and poems. You

4:08

know, they're very active on social media,

4:10

especially on X and TikTok. What

4:17

exactly do these social media messages that

4:19

they're putting out say? They've

4:21

released really catchy songs in Arabic.

4:27

They kind of say things like, oh, you know,

4:29

we're Yemeni, but our blood is Palestinian.

4:37

They have done things like put up, you know,

4:39

Twitter polls essentially saying, you know, who are you

4:42

on the side of? Are you on the side

4:44

of genocide in America or are you on the

4:46

side of, you know, the brave Yemenis fighting genocide

4:48

and standing up for justice, essentially.

4:50

And that's a Twitter poll that they put out

4:52

in English, kind of just trying to sort of

4:54

speak to a different audience. So that

4:56

has become, again, a very important tool for them. So

4:59

what the Houthis say

5:01

they want and what's captured in these propaganda

5:03

videos that you just described is

5:06

to use these attacks to

5:08

pressure Israel and

5:10

Israel's allies, primarily the

5:13

US, into ending Israel's

5:15

military operation in Gaza.

5:17

That's what they claim this is all about. Yes,

5:19

that's exactly what they say. OK,

5:22

so that's what the Houthis

5:24

want everyone to see as

5:26

their animating cause. Is

5:30

that based on your reporting, based on your

5:32

long term understanding of the Houthis, is

5:35

it that straightforward? Is that the

5:37

reality of what is really motivating

5:39

them? No, I think their

5:42

behavior and their motivations are much more complicated

5:44

than that. I mean, the

5:46

Houthis ultimately want relevance. They want

5:48

power. They have a lot

5:50

of domestic aims. And in so

5:52

many ways, the war in Gaza has really

5:54

been just this huge gift from the sky

5:56

for them. It enables them

5:58

to achieve so many. of their

6:00

own aims. And I can't even describe

6:03

to you how strange it is as somebody who's covered

6:05

the Houthis for many years, and they were this really,

6:07

this little known group, to see

6:09

how prominent they are and how

6:11

much people who really know almost nothing about

6:13

Yemen now talk about them and know who

6:16

they are all over the world. Well,

6:18

tell us that story of who the Houthis

6:20

are, where they come from, and

6:22

how the operation that they are

6:24

now conducting that has really kind

6:26

of menaced the Red Sea and

6:28

much of the West and its

6:30

economy, how it achieves its

6:33

real goals. You know,

6:35

it's funny, actually, I went back into time has

6:37

passed to see if we'd written about the early

6:40

history of the Houthis, and we had almost nothing

6:42

about them before even the mid 2000s, which was

6:44

interesting to me. So essentially,

6:46

the Houthis history as a movement dates back to

6:48

the 1990s. They

6:50

take their name from their tribe, which is

6:53

this extended clan whose home territory is in

6:55

the mountains of northern Yemen, near the border

6:57

with Saudi Arabia. And they

6:59

follow the subset of Shia Islam and say

7:01

that they're the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.

7:03

So when they began their movement, they

7:05

were really sort of a cultural and

7:08

religious revivalist group that later became quite

7:10

political. And they gained

7:12

prominence, essentially, as this tribally-based resistance

7:14

movement to the Yemeni government at

7:16

the time. And they very much

7:18

portrayed themselves as fighting against corruption,

7:21

fighting against foreign influence. And

7:23

their rise to prominence really coincided with

7:25

the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

7:29

And they really absorbed that invasion,

7:31

which was incredibly unpopular throughout the

7:33

Middle East and among Arab countries.

7:36

They sort of saw this as an

7:38

incredibly destabilizing military incursion

7:40

into their region that they did not

7:42

support. And the Houthis really

7:44

seized on that and on sort

7:46

of general rising anti-Americanism and incorporated

7:49

that battling foreign influence

7:51

really deep into their ideology.

7:54

Right. And of course, the war in

7:56

Iraq was about as clear a case

7:58

of a foreign power stepping in. into

8:00

their neighborhood as you could possibly

8:02

imagine. Right, yeah. And for them,

8:04

they really saw US influence in their

8:06

own country as well, because the longtime

8:09

Yemeni ruler who they were fighting against

8:12

was this US allied autocrat. He had been

8:14

in power for more than 30 years, very

8:17

oppressive, very corrupt government, and very

8:19

unpopular, and they were for a

8:21

long time fighting against him. So

8:24

Yemen is already in this really

8:26

kind of destabilized moment around 2010

8:28

and 2011, when

8:31

the Arab Spring arrives all over the

8:33

region. There are these sort

8:35

of revolutions toppling strongmen. Right. And

8:38

one of the strongmen who gets toppled is

8:40

Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni leader, and this

8:42

sort of like fit of popular anger. Now,

8:47

what happened over the next couple of

8:49

years was really chaotic, and eventually the

8:51

Houthis saw an opportunity, and in 2014,

8:54

they seized control of

8:57

the Yemeni capital of Sana'a, and

9:01

they sort of installed themselves as the

9:03

alternative. So

9:10

now that this clan from the Northern Mountains

9:12

of Yemen has taken over the capital, and

9:15

the institutions, I would imagine, of

9:17

Yemen's government, what does the world

9:19

make of that? Well,

9:22

it's something that pretty immediately made

9:24

Saudi Arabia, Yemen's much larger neighbor

9:26

to the north, very nervous and

9:29

concerned. Why? The

9:31

Houthis are essentially a militia, right? They're

9:33

this kind of religiously inspired militia, and

9:35

that alone was enough to make Saudi

9:38

Arabia nervous. They have this very long

9:40

border with Yemen. They did

9:42

not want a militia on the other side

9:44

of the border. But perhaps equally as important

9:46

to that is the fact that the Houthis

9:48

had become aligned with Iran, which is Saudi

9:51

Arabia's regional rival. And

9:53

Saudi Arabia was very worried about

9:55

the idea of this Iran-influenced militia,

9:57

potentially Iran-supported militia, over

10:00

this large chunk of its southern border and what

10:02

that would mean and the sense of being sort

10:04

of crunched in by

10:06

Iran influenced proxies from different

10:08

sides. So basically

10:10

in early 2015, Saudi Arabia gets

10:13

together a coalition of Arab governments

10:15

and the Saudi led coalition starts

10:17

a bombing campaign in Yemen. A

10:27

direct strike in broad daylight.

10:30

It's too graphic to show in full, but

10:32

the bodies being pulled out belong to three

10:34

months old Samodh and her three-year-old

10:37

brother, a

10:39

bombing campaign that much of the world

10:41

eventually comes to see as

10:44

really intensive, gruesome

10:46

and lethal. Right.

10:49

Residents say Saudi warplanes have dropped more

10:51

than 100 bombs in

10:53

civilian neighborhoods over the past few

10:56

days. Yemen

10:58

was already one of the Arab world's

11:00

poorest countries and this war essentially pitched

11:02

it into one of the world's worst

11:04

humanitarian crises. The United Nations officials are

11:07

warning that Yemen faces famine on

11:09

a scale the world has not seen in

11:11

decades. They are talking of millions of victims.

11:13

There's been a tremendous loss of life. There

11:16

have been cholera outbreaks. It's a

11:18

great humanitarian crisis. Many, many

11:20

people are dying. It's this incredibly

11:22

brutal war. The UN Secretary General

11:24

Ban Ki-moon has appealed for urgent

11:26

action to stop Yemen from descending

11:28

into anarchy. Yemen is

11:31

collapsing before our eyes.

11:34

We cannot stand by and

11:36

watch. And the US

11:38

was actually quite important to that war

11:40

in the beginning. The Obama administration provided

11:43

military support and intelligence to the

11:45

Saudi-led coalition, refueling planes. Of course,

11:47

many of the weapons that they

11:49

were dropping were American weapons. So

11:51

again, this kind of starts to

11:53

fuel that sense from the Houthis

11:55

and from many Yemenis that they

11:58

are being conspired. against by

12:00

foreign powers. And

12:05

why, Vivian, does the United States get

12:08

involved in this battle?

12:12

Much of it seems to be because

12:14

Saudi Arabia was such an important and

12:16

is such an important U.S. ally. And

12:18

the Yemeni government at the time, of

12:20

course, was also U.S. backed. So initially

12:22

the U.S. was supportive of this goal

12:24

of restoring the legitimate Yemeni government. Over

12:27

time, the U.S. support for the war

12:29

really began to fray and become quite

12:31

controversial. And you started to

12:34

see a lot of political pressure in Washington

12:36

for the U.S. to pull back its support

12:38

and sort of fears that the U.S. was

12:40

implicated in that destruction. And so

12:42

basically from around 2018 and 2019 onwards, the war loses its international

12:47

support and, you know,

12:49

Saudi Arabia and the coalition members find themselves

12:51

sort of on the back foot and they

12:53

gradually start to sort of pull back their

12:56

involvement in the war. Got it. And

12:58

where does this leave the Houthis? This

13:02

essentially leaves the Houthis in power. It's

13:04

really kind of incredible that they started

13:06

as this underdog force, this ragtag militia

13:08

fighting in flip flops. And, you know,

13:10

by 2021, 2022, they are essentially the

13:12

dominant power in Yemen. And

13:17

they're feeling quite confident. They're essentially feeling like

13:19

they won the war. So how

13:21

do we get from this unlikely victory

13:23

that the Houthis have over major

13:26

power Saudi Arabia, the United States

13:29

to a campaign of bombing and

13:31

attacks in the Red Sea that

13:34

would seem to endanger all

13:36

that the Houthis gained in that

13:39

prolonged war? So you

13:41

have to really remember that since they were founded,

13:43

the Houthis have been a resistance

13:45

movement. They've been rebels. That's been

13:47

their entire identity. And so a

13:49

rebel force doesn't really naturally then

13:51

lend itself to becoming a government.

13:54

They are now the powers that be in Yemen.

13:56

There's nothing left for them to resist. So

13:59

they're in this very uncomfortable. comfortable position in a lot of

14:01

ways as 2023 rolls around

14:03

and people are looking at them to

14:05

provide basic services. They're looking at them

14:07

to provide electricity and water. They're looking

14:09

at them to pay salaries for civil

14:11

servants who in many cases have gone

14:13

unpaid for years. And that's quite a

14:15

lot of pressure on the Houthis. And

14:18

no doubt to rebuild the entire country. And

14:20

they also do need to rebuild the entire country,

14:22

which is really in ruins. And all of that

14:24

is quite expensive. And it's

14:26

not really clear how they're going to

14:29

navigate their way out of that. Right.

14:31

This is sort of the context that

14:33

October 7th rolls around in. The Houthis

14:35

are in this difficult position. They're facing

14:37

this kind of prospect of transitioning into

14:39

a peacetime government, which is going to

14:41

be very challenging. And in that context,

14:44

October 7th comes out of nowhere and

14:46

suddenly there's potentially an answer to a

14:48

lot of their problems. Well,

14:50

just explain that. How does

14:52

Hamas attacking Israel and

14:55

Israel obviously preparing a

14:57

ferocious response, how

14:59

does that potentially solve all of

15:01

the Houthi problems you just outlined? Well,

15:04

it puts the Houthis at the center of this

15:06

moment in the region where there is just anger

15:09

all across the Arab world. And the

15:11

Houthis really insert themselves into that. And

15:13

they take it up as an opportunity

15:16

to really live out their narrative, to

15:18

finally directly enter a war with

15:20

Israel, which is their declared great enemy.

15:22

Right. Once the Houthis

15:25

directly enter this conflict, they're shooting

15:27

missiles at Israel, they're attacking ships

15:29

in the Red Sea, their popularity

15:31

at home skyrockets. They

15:34

find themselves in a situation where they can

15:36

use this to recruit more fighters. They're

15:45

enormous rallies that they're holding in

15:48

the streets of Sana'a, of people

15:50

coming out in solidarity with the

15:52

Palestinians, protesting against the Israeli bombardment

15:54

of Gaza. Say Allahu Akbar! Allahu

15:57

Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu

15:59

Akbar! There are

16:03

just these huge crowds of people holding up

16:05

their slogan, holding up images of the

16:07

Houthi leader, and it's really quite a

16:10

galvanizing moment for them. So

16:21

ultimately this, you're saying, is

16:23

what the Houthis really want. This

16:25

is that complicated set of motivations

16:28

behind their decision to start

16:31

hurling missiles into the Red Sea. The

16:34

Houthis may say that what they're doing

16:36

is just about defending the Palestinians and

16:38

trying to end Israel's war in Gaza,

16:40

but it is multi-pronged. And what the

16:42

Houthis really want is a simpler way

16:44

to win the hearts and minds of

16:46

their own people than

16:49

being the government of

16:51

Yemen. Right. I

16:53

mean, the Houthis have pushed back against that

16:55

narrative a lot. They're arguing that they're not

16:57

doing this for popularity, that it's not about

17:00

domestic reasons, and they say this

17:02

is a true moral crusade. We're fighting for

17:04

justice. But the reality is that on

17:06

the ground, they have benefited a lot in a lot

17:08

of different ways. So it

17:10

almost doesn't matter to what extent they believe

17:12

the ideology that they're espousing. On

17:15

the ground, there has been a massive benefit to them.

17:18

And all of that means that the

17:20

Houthis would seem to have virtually no

17:22

motivation to stop doing

17:25

what they're doing, battling the West in

17:27

the Red Sea. Not at all.

17:31

There's really no reason for them to pull back,

17:33

and they're very comfortable fighting, and that's what they're

17:35

doing right now. As soon as

17:37

it stops, it essentially leaves the Houthis back in

17:39

a challenging position where they're going to have to

17:41

figure out how to govern. They're going to have

17:43

to figure out how to be in power and

17:45

not how to be the rebels. For

17:48

the Houthis, it is going to be much

17:50

easier to keep fighting than it would be

17:52

for them to govern a country that has

17:54

been destroyed by decades of war. We'll

18:08

do it back. If

18:13

you find yourself bewildered by this moment where

18:15

there's so much reason for despair and so

18:17

much reason to hope all at the same

18:20

time, let me say I hear you. I'm

18:22

Ezra Klein from New York Times opinion, host of

18:24

the Ezra Klein Show. And for me,

18:27

the best way to beat back that bewildered feeling

18:29

is to talk it out with the people who

18:31

have ideas and frameworks for making sense of it.

18:33

There is going to be plenty to talk about. You

18:36

can find the Ezra Klein Show wherever you get

18:38

your podcasts. Vivian,

18:44

as the Houthis wage these

18:46

ongoing attacks, it clearly

18:49

puts the US in a really

18:51

complicated spot based on everything you

18:53

just said, because at some

18:55

point the US has to respond to

18:58

these attacks on ships, including US owned

19:00

ships and US military ships. But

19:03

the US has to understand

19:05

that any retaliation risks playing

19:07

directly into the complicated

19:09

motivations you just described. So how

19:11

does the US try to navigate

19:13

that? Right. So for

19:16

the first few weeks of these attacks,

19:18

the US does really appear to be

19:20

trying to avoid entering into this conflict

19:22

directly. There does seem to

19:25

be some degree of recognition that there's

19:27

a real risk of escalation if they

19:29

get involved and that the Houthis essentially

19:31

could be legitimized by them attacking the

19:35

Houthis. It's finally recognizing

19:37

the Houthis as worthy of attack. So there's

19:39

some resistance in the beginning toward that. There

19:42

does seem to be a consensus at some point

19:44

within the US establishment that they do need

19:46

to do something. And they eventually

19:48

make this sort of statement with the UK

19:50

and with this coalition, essentially threatening that if

19:53

the attacks don't stop, they're going to respond.

19:55

And that statement does seem to sort of

19:57

lock them into action at that point because

19:59

the Houthis have been very clear that

20:02

they're not going to stop, that they absolutely

20:04

have no intention of stopping. And in fact,

20:06

they've declared at this point that they would

20:08

prefer a direct war with the United States.

20:12

So once the US does decide

20:14

to retaliate, and it does so

20:16

in a very forceful way, hitting

20:19

dozens of targets inside Yemen

20:21

that are controlled by the Houthis, how

20:23

does the US frame it? Well,

20:26

the US is very careful to try to

20:28

frame this as having nothing to do with

20:30

Israel and the war in Gaza. They're very

20:32

concerned that essentially the Houthis are going to

20:35

be able to weaponize this just to sort

20:37

of deepen their narrative even more. And so

20:40

they try to sort of frame it

20:42

as a coalition response to protect economic

20:44

interests, to protect global shipping, and

20:46

really try to emphasize the effect that

20:49

the Houthi attacks have had on shipping

20:51

and trade, particularly because they're passing through

20:53

this incredibly important part of the Red

20:55

Sea that leads to the Suez Canal. So

20:58

when the US responds, what

21:00

President Biden is saying is, I'm not

21:03

going to give you the propaganda tool

21:05

of saying that this conflict is about

21:07

what you, the Houthis, say it's about,

21:09

which is Israel and Hamas and Gaza.

21:12

We are going to kind of strip all

21:14

of this, of that language

21:16

and that symbolism. Yes,

21:19

that is what they say. That doesn't go

21:21

over very well in the region or in

21:23

Yemen. I mean, we pretty immediately were speaking

21:25

to Yemenis who were saying, even in territories

21:27

that are hostile towards the Houthis, were saying

21:29

that, oh, it looks like the US just

21:31

wants to attack them because they're defending the

21:33

Palestinians. So immediately

21:35

that US effort to kind of

21:38

parse this and frame it is

21:40

seen as futile throughout Yemen. Yeah,

21:43

it definitely falls flat in Yemen and

21:45

in the broader Middle East. And there

21:47

is honestly such a high level of

21:49

anti-Americanism across the region right now that

21:51

it's very easy for the Houthis to

21:53

spread this narrative and to

21:56

gain popularity over it. Regardless

21:59

of how these attacks are being discussed or

22:01

framed, do the US coalition

22:03

airstrikes work at

22:06

all? Are they doing what the United States

22:08

wants them to do, which is to weaken

22:10

the Houthis' capacity to strike ships in the

22:12

Red Sea, or in any way deter

22:14

the Houthis from continuing to

22:16

wage these attacks? They

22:19

certainly do not deter the Houthis, who

22:21

pretty immediately have started to stage attacks

22:23

again and have vowed that they're going

22:25

to be staging even bigger attacks. And

22:27

they've said now that they see not

22:30

only targets tied to Israel as legitimate

22:32

targets, but any targets tied to American

22:34

or British interests as legitimate targets for them

22:36

to hit. So essentially they are now

22:38

widening the war. They're saying that this

22:40

is a world war that we are

22:42

excited to enter into now and we're

22:44

ready for it. Excited to

22:46

enter. That's how they're framing this. Yeah,

22:49

they are really honestly with pretty open

22:51

delight. I mean, there was a post

22:53

today on social media from

22:55

one of their politicians basically saying, and I'll

22:57

quote him, we're not worried about this battle,

22:59

nor do we care about it. The missiles

23:01

and planes that we were bombed with during

23:03

the past nine years are the same ones

23:06

that America has today. America

23:08

was conducting this war against us undercover,

23:10

and today we will confront it directly.

23:12

It's a positive thing because America is

23:14

what brought destruction, siege and poverty to

23:16

our country. So instead

23:18

of doing anything to contain

23:20

the Houthis' aggression, the US

23:22

response, as perhaps many feared,

23:26

risks, if not already

23:28

is, expanding the threat

23:31

of the Houthis in any future attacks from the US,

23:34

which the US claims it will undertake is

23:36

going to do the same. It's going to

23:38

make things worse. Right. There

23:40

does seem to be a real risk of further

23:42

escalation at this moment. It's not clear how this

23:44

is going to quiet down. But

23:46

what are the options for the US if armed

23:50

conflict and retaliation is

23:52

proving to be so ineffective?

23:54

What is basically the way out of a

23:57

dynamic in which responses from

23:59

the US? and its allies are

24:01

feeding the Houthi narrative and

24:04

making the Houthis more popular at

24:07

home and less likely to ever want to stop

24:09

doing this. The U.S. definitely

24:11

doesn't have a great option or menu

24:14

of responses in terms of how it's

24:16

going to address the Houthi threat. However,

24:18

one argument that we're hearing pretty consistently

24:20

from regional American allies like Qatar and

24:22

Oman, which is a neighbor of Yemen

24:24

and knows Yemen very well, has

24:27

been that the only way to address

24:29

the threat posed by the Houthis is

24:31

to resolve the underlying conflict that is

24:33

inflaming tensions across the region. And that,

24:36

they say, is the war in Gaza.

24:38

And their argument essentially is that it

24:40

is the war in Gaza that is spreading

24:43

all of these tensions, that is causing all

24:45

of these different forms of escalation, and that

24:47

is giving the Houthis a pretext for

24:50

their attacks. And if you can resolve that

24:52

underlying conflict, if you can reach a ceasefire

24:54

and you can diffuse that, then you will

24:57

ultimately diffuse all of the other problems that

24:59

are going on in the region right now. My

25:01

guess is that the U.S. rejects that logic because it

25:04

might feel to them like a reward for

25:08

what the Houthis are up to. You know, we're going to call

25:10

for a ceasefire. We're going to push for an end to

25:12

Israel's battle against Hamas just

25:15

to stop the Houthis from attacking

25:17

ships in the Red Sea. Right.

25:20

I mean, there's certainly a fear now

25:22

in the region and beyond that the

25:24

Houthis know that they have this power

25:26

and that they're not going to simply

25:28

stop using it, right? They know now

25:30

that they can essentially hold global trade

25:32

hostage by attacking ships in the Red

25:34

Sea. And it's difficult to imagine them

25:37

never using that card again if they know that they

25:39

can play it. Right. And

25:41

how should we think about that, Vivian? I

25:44

mean, the reality that in a very

25:46

short time, the Houthis go from the

25:49

clan that they were to

25:51

essentially the governing power in

25:53

Yemen to now a force

25:56

that is not just willing but

25:58

able to menace. all

26:01

of Western commerce in the

26:03

Red Sea. I mean, it's

26:05

really a remarkable rise. I mean, the Houthis were such

26:07

an underdog, and I don't think any of us imagined

26:09

that we would be in this position when somebody sitting

26:11

in New York even knows who they are, right? They

26:14

have just risen so quickly, and they've

26:16

defeated so many enemies that were so much

26:18

more powerful than them. But they

26:21

essentially see themselves finally, you know, in the

26:23

divine right path now. They see God is

26:25

on their side. You know, they have no

26:27

fear, partly because of that. I

26:29

mean, the Houthis have been very upfront that they

26:31

are absolutely not afraid of getting dragged into a

26:34

long and extended war with the United

26:36

States. And they've explicitly brought up, you

26:38

know, the precedence of Afghanistan and Vietnam

26:40

and threatened that, you know, come on,

26:42

come and enter Yemen, invade Yemen, we're

26:44

ready for you, and you have no

26:46

idea what is in for you, essentially.

26:50

They're this guerrilla fighting force that has

26:52

managed to withstand much

26:54

more powerful entities for years and years,

26:57

and that has put them in this position where they

26:59

really feel that they have nothing to lose. Well,

27:03

Vivian, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank

27:06

you. On

27:09

Wednesday, the United States said that it

27:11

would designate the Houthis as a

27:14

terrorist organization in its

27:16

latest and so far fruitless attempt to

27:18

pressure the group into ending its attacks

27:20

in the Red Sea. The

27:23

Biden administration had removed the Houthis from

27:25

the U.S. terrorists in 2021, saying

27:29

the decision would make it easier

27:31

for humanitarian aid to reach the

27:33

people of Yemen. The

27:35

latest designation would, among other things,

27:38

block the Houthis' access to the

27:40

global financial system and

27:42

further isolate the group from

27:45

Western institutions. We'll

27:54

be right back. Here's

28:01

what else you need to know today. On

28:04

Wednesday, the judge overseeing the trial

28:06

in which the writer E. Jane

28:08

Carroll has accused Donald Trump of

28:10

defaming her warned Trump that

28:13

he could be thrown out of

28:15

the court if he continues making

28:17

comments that the jury can hear.

28:20

The warning came after a lawyer

28:23

for Carroll complained that Trump

28:25

had been overheard calling the trial

28:27

a quote, witch hunt and

28:29

a con job. And

28:33

the next two Republican presidential debates

28:35

scheduled for Thursday and Sunday

28:37

night in New Hampshire have

28:39

been canceled because just one

28:42

qualified candidate, Florida Governor Ron

28:44

DeSantis, has agreed to appear.

28:48

Trump has refused to participate in

28:50

any primary debates and a

28:52

few days ago former South Carolina

28:54

Governor Nikki Haley said that she

28:56

would refuse to attend unless Trump

28:58

did, leaving DeSantis as

29:01

the only candidate willing to

29:03

debate. Today's

29:07

episode was produced by

29:09

Osterchalkarvigee, Eric Krupke and

29:11

Ricky Nowitzki. It was

29:13

edited by MJ Davis-Linn, contains

29:16

original music by Alicia Baittu,

29:19

Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker and

29:21

Louis Mimisto and was

29:23

engineered by Chris Wood. Our

29:26

theme music is by Jim Brunberg and

29:28

Ben Manfroek of Wonderland. That's

29:34

it for the Daily. I'm

29:36

Michael Bovaro. See

29:38

you tomorrow.