Two of Saudi Arabia’s largest oil facilities were attacked on September 14, setting fire to and severely damaging the world’s largest oil refinery. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the strikes, but the US has said there is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen, instead blaming Iran. So who’s really responsible? And should the US respond?

As world leaders try to make sense of the recent attacks, Dany and Marc sat down with Katherine Zimmerman to learn more about the different actors and rivalries in the region, and the Saudi and Iranian roles in Yemen’s ongoing civil war. They also speculate over how the strikes will affect the US-Saudi alliance and already fragile US-Iran relations.

Katherine Zimmerman is a resident fellow at AEI and an adviser to AEI’s Critical Threats Project. As AEI’s senior analyst studying terrorist groups, she focuses on the global al Qaeda network and covers Salafi-jihadi movement and related trends in the Middle East and Africa. She also specializes in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Yemen, al Shabaab in Somalia, and al Qaeda in the Sahel.

What the hell is going on in Afghanistan? Why is the United States making a deal with the Taliban? As the Trump administration and Taliban officials wrap up negotiations, many fear that a US withdrawal could return Afghanistan to the terrorist safe haven it was before the 9/11 attacks.

On the brink of the deal’s announcement, Dany and Marc interviewed former Afghanistan commander General David Petraeus to get his perspective on what a deal with the Taliban would mean for US national security and the people of Afghanistan. Gen. Petraeus explains the importance of keeping troops on the ground, discussing his time in the region and the lessons that the US should have taken from the past 18 years of war.

Gen. Petraeus is the Chairman of the KKR Global Institute. He served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Obama administration and as the commander of Central Command, ISAF, and US forces in Afghanistan. Gen. Petraeus graduated from the US Military Academy and holds MPA and PhD degrees from Princeton University.

Antisemitism is on the rise once again both in the United States and abroad. Worse yet, this awful hatred manifests itself not only in the depths of Twitter, but also within the governments of vibrant democracies. Just last week, Israel barred two US congresswomen from entering the country, citing their anti-Semitic comments.

What explains this renewed phenomenon? While in Europe, Dany and Marc interviewed Piotr Cywinski, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Conducted from the former concentration camp, the three discuss the rise of antisemitism today and the importance of preserving the memory of those who lost their lives in the Holocaust.

Cywinski was born in Warsaw and has served as the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum since 2006. He is a medieval historian and is a participant in the Polish-Jewish and Christian-Jewish dialogues. Cywinski is a member of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews and serves as a chairman of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, which he co-founded.

In January 2019, the Trump administration recognized Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela. Yet nearly eight months later, with more than 50 countries backing Guaidó, Nicolás Maduro remains in power. So, what’s going on in Venezuela? Is the United States pursuing the right policy? And is a peaceful transition of power still possible?

US Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams joined Dany and Marc to explain the Trump administration’s strategy in Venezuela. The three also discuss how the country got to where it is today, the Chinese, Iranian, and Russian roles in the conflict, and the likelihood for success in the Norwegian-led negotiations.

Abrams is the Special Representative for Venezuela at the Department of State. He was senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and served as deputy national security advisor in the George W. Bush administration and assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration. He is the author of five books and teaches at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Protests in Hong Kong turned violent this week, with police officers firing tear gas and rubber bullets, and demonstrators vandalizing a Chinese government building. How long will Beijing tolerate democratic rumblings from Hong Kong without a major crackdown? Could this be the next Tiananmen? And will the United States react if Beijing responds with force?

Hong Kong expert Gordon Chang joined Dany and Marc to explain what’s going on in Hong Kong, and what it all might mean for the Chinese Communist Party. Chang also discusses the relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China, how protests could affect the US-China trade relationship, and whether the US should be doing more to support the people of Hong Kong.

Chang is the author of Losing South Korea, Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World, and The Coming Collapse of China. He lived and worked in China and Hong Kong for almost two decades, and his writings have appeared, among other outlets, in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Weekly Standard.

What’s going on with the US-China trade war? And how is China’s manipulation of the global trading system hurting working-class Americans? Is Donald Trump just a protectionist? And is he taking the GOP with him?

To answer these questions, Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen headed to Capitol Hill to interview Senator Rob Portman (R-OH). The three also address Trump’s use of tariffs, whether the president will win reelection in Ohio, and the likelihood of the new US-Mexico-Canada Agreement passing in Congress.

Senator Rob Portman is a US Senator from Ohio, former US Trade Representative, and former Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is also a member of the Senate Finance Committee, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and the Committee on Foreign Relations.

Last week, President Trump decided to call off a military strike on Iran after the country downed an unmanned US drone. Numerous news outlets reported that the president stood down from that decision because he saw General Jack Keane point out on television that it was possible that Iran’s strike was a fluke.

On this episode of “What the Hell Is Going On?” Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen address recent Iranian provocations and US cyber strategy with General Jack Keane. They also discuss Trump’s visit to North Korea and the president’s relationships with dictators such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.

General Jack Keane is a retired four-star general, former Vice Chief of the United States Army, and serves as the chairman of the Institute for the Study of War.

After threatening to impose tariffs, President Trump recently announced that he and the Mexican government reached an agreement to avert a US-Mexico trade war. So, what happened? Is this deal a breakthrough? Has Trump’s strategy of using the threat of tariffs been vindicated? And will this agreement make a difference?

On their third episode of “What the Hell Is Going On?” Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen review the new US-Mexico immigration deal with AEI’s Roger Noriega. The three also cover the US-Mexico border wall, the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, and the steps Congress needs to take to help solve the immigration problem.

Roger Noriega is a visiting fellow at AEI, where he coordinates the Latin America program. Before AEI, he served as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs in the George W. Bush administration, as the US ambassador to the Organization of American States, and as director of Latin America policy on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

What the hell is going on in North Korea? Is Kim Jong Un really executing people using piranha-filled tanks? Recent reports state that the North Korean regime is carrying out executions and purges over the failure to reach a nuclear agreement with the Trump administration.

On their second episode of “What the Hell Is Going On?” Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen discuss North Korea with AEI’s Nicholas Eberstadt. The three cover what might happen to someone who falls out of favor with the North Korean regime, the future of US-North Korea nuclear talks, life in one of Kim’s gulags, and the likelihood of North Korean denuclearization.

Nicholas Eberstadt is the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at AEI, where he researches and writes extensively on international security in the Korean peninsula and Asia. He is the author of the book “The End of North Korea” and a founding board member of the US Committee on Human Rights in North Korea.

What the hell is going on in Iran? The Trump administration recently attributed to Iran attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, citing as evidence video footage showing a small fast attack boat (characteristic of those the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps uses) pulling alongside one of the tankers.

On their very first episode of “What the Hell Is Going On?” Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen discuss current US-Iran tensions with AEI’s Fred Kagan. They address the internal politics of Tehran, President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and whether the US should apply to Iran the set of policies that led to the peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union, often called the “Victory Strategy.”

Fred Kagan, author of the 2007 report “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq, is one of the intellectual architects of the successful “surge” strategy in Iraq. He is the director of AEI’s Critical Threats Project and a former professor of military history at the US Military Academy at West Point.