Jared and Ivanka’s accidental revolution

0:02Noel King:Georgia Senator John Ossoff has been going viral recently with these pithy anti-Trump speeches. You're seeing what I'm seeing, right? The president posting about the Obamas like a Klansman at 1 a.m. A lot of people seem to love him, the people in the crowd, the people who watch after. He's trying to put his face on the money. Did you see that? And therefore, a certain type of political watcher, me, always wants to know what Senator Ossoff is going to seize on next. Most recently, just a few days ago, it was this. There's this beautiful little island off the Albanian coast called Cezanne. And? And Jared Kushner wants it.

0:42Noel King:He went to Jared. Yes, Jared and Ivanka have set their sights on some stretches of heretofore unspoiled land in Albania. They want to build luxury resorts upon that land. and Albanians are in the streets saying loudly, yo, that's no. Coming up on Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from ServiceNow. AI is moving fast, but without visibility, it's just chaos. Different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. A mess. ServiceNow turns that mess into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place. Oh, what it's doing, what it's done, what it's about to do so you stay in control.

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2:08This is Today Explained.

2:12Noel King:Jakob Weissman is a sustainability reporter for Politico. He's now based in Brussels, but he worked in the Western Balkans, including in Albania for almost a decade. And so he has been following Lafer Kushner for years now. Yeah, so in 2024 in Albania, they passed these very controversial amendments which brought about change to this law on protected areas, which essentially is what critics and protesters say opened the door for this luxury tourism resort from Jared Kushner.

2:42Kushner's investment firm Affinity Partners is involved in a potential 1.6 billion development of Sazan Island into a luxury resort as well as the nearby wetlands. In this stretch of kilometers of land, of wildlife habitat, we plan to build a new city. And then earlier this year, they began construction and it was met with fierce resistance from local residents and from activists. Good job, good job. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is the video that sparked the uprising people are now calling the Flamingo Revolution. Private security guards violently detain an activist protesting against a luxury development in a protected nature preserve that is a home for the iconic pink bird.

3:32You could visibly see they were beginning construction. There were excavators. There were diggers. There were fences being built up. And when I went there myself, you could see that there was a road already built. You could see the foundation from the fences. So that was really what kicked off everything. People saw that in Albania and they got really upset. And they said, you know what, enough is enough. We're going to take it to the streets. Across Albania, days of mass protests, with police turning the water cannon on demonstrators filling the streets of the capital. The protests keep growing in Tirana, Albania.

4:04For days, thousands have gathered and at times have clashed with authorities. All over luxury real estate developments linked to Jared Kushner. He's one of the investors. Albania belongs only to Albanians and Albania is not for sale.

4:21Noel King:What's there right now? Yes, in this protected area along the southern coast of Albania near the coastal city of Vlora, there is this protected wildlife area which is home to endangered species of monk seals, to flamingos, to, it's a very popular turtle nesting site. It's a migratory path for birds. And it's a special place that Albanians in that area hold dear to their heart. It's a place where people go fishing. It's a place where people go to the beach with their families. It's an untouched area where you can really feel the beauty of Albania. And for that to be ruined by excavators and diggers and fences, it's basically that people are saying, no, this is not allowed to happen.

5:04Noel King:And then how does Ivanka Trump get involved in all of this? Yeah, so on a podcast recently, Ivanka had described a story how she found the island when she was on a friend's yacht and they swam out to the island. We were on a friend's boat and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that's how we found it. We swam to the islands. We went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top and we were just captivated and it stayed with us ever since. It's just a very unlikely story because, first of all, the island used to be a military headquarters during the communist era. So there's a danger of explosive mines still remaining across the island.

5:44And also there's a lot of glass everywhere. It's not well kept. And there is a danger of snakes. So when I told the locals about this story, they were like, it's completely false. There's no way she was able to do that. I mean, the island is a very rugged landscape and making it very difficult to hike barefoot to the top. Not only the island, but we have five miles of beachfront directly across from the island, this beautiful peninsula with a lagoon on one side, the ocean on the other. I think when the protests began to start, that podcast really began to go viral because people started sharing and people started getting upset hearing what she had to say, you know, just treating Albania like it's her own, you know, personal luxury haven that she can just swim out to an island and say, hmm, I want that.

6:28And I think it pissed off a lot of Albanians and to the point where it kind of pushed them over the edge. Because first you have Kushner and then you have his wife also talking about their country like it's just, you know, something that they can take like a toy.

6:43Noel King:Tell me what the protests look like and who's involved. I remember a few years ago, it was really just a couple of hundred people from civil society, environmental organizations. by the time I got to Albania it started growing from 10 ,000 to 20 ,000 and then it just became this daily routine for Albanians you would finish work and then you would just go out on the streets and start protesting Albania is a small country it's 2.4 million and now I mean there is going up to 100 ,000 maybe 200 ,000 and there are people driving from the UK from Belgium from Germany to join the protests and people from driving from all across the country all over Europe and all over the world There are people wanting to come to Albania and to protest for Albania.

7:26We want people to be happy and to be able to enjoy our coastline. We don't want to be tourists in our own country. It's the first time that we protest. The protest is at this scale. So I feel like it's just awakening of civic consciousness against this tourism boom in Albania and this foreign investment from Jerry Kushner and Ivanka Trump that they're just basically saying no to. And it's not just it began with that, but it's now it's become so much more. This prime minister should leave. And it's not about any more flamingos. It's about health care. It's about education. All Albanians together are coming together to protest against corrupted regimes.

8:07I mean, if you compare Albania borders Greece, for example, and as we all know, Greece is a it's a hotspot for for Americans and Europeans during the summer to visit Santorini, to visit Mykonos, to enjoy the island and the blue waters. Albania has a beautiful coast, but they don't have these kind of islands. What they do have is Cezanne. So I do feel like if they're going to do something with the island, that decision belongs to the Albanian people is what they're saying. So it's very important to understand that Albanians have been through a lot in the last 100 years.

8:43They were under a monarchy, they were under the Nazi occupation, and then they went through a brutal communist regime for 50 years. And finally their hopes had surfaced once more after the fall of communism. It was a very poor country. It was isolated from the entire world during communism. For more than 50 years, Albania and its capital Tirana were so hermetically sealed they were named the Little North Korea of Europe. Albania was one of the most isolated and repressive communist regimes. People weren't even allowed to talk to foreigners. They were fed a propaganda diet, suggesting that theirs was an exemplary society.

9:21And Enver Hoxha, who executed thousands, ruled them with an iron fist. And Albania was all alone. People were not allowed to leave the country. So the land is so important to the Albanians. And when someone like Kushner comes along, it just wakes up the entire country and says, no, this is ours, and you're not going to touch it. And then it becomes something so much more, because then you look at the people who are responsible for bringing this investment into the country, who are responsible for the corruption and changing these laws to bring in shady investment deals. And it's basically the awakening of a country and the most historic moment in Albania since the fall of communism.

9:59And Albanians themselves, it's still one of the poorest countries in Europe. People I know and people I've spoken to in Albania, they cannot afford to go to the beach. It's not like in the U.S. where you have public beaches, right? You can go down the coast in New Jersey or Delaware and you could just plop your umbrella and chair. I mean, Albanians don't have that kind of infrastructure. If you want to enjoy the beach, you have to pay money and Albanians cannot afford to drive down to the coast for three hours and pay 20, 30 euros for an umbrella and you have to order drinks and food. They can't and they can't.

10:30And it's just, for me, it's ridiculous to even try to fathom that people from their own country cannot go and enjoy their own nature and beaches.

10:44Noel King:Supportives of this project would take a look at the circumstances that you're describing. This is a poor country with a lot of poor people. And what they would say is, this is investment. Tourism is investment. It means you build things up. It means people get jobs. It means Albanian people working at the resorts then have money to spend, right? They would make the kind of trickle down and out argument. Is there a case here, you've been reporting on this, is there a case that tourism and investment could actually be a boon to Albania's economy and these protests might be short-sighted? To be fair, there are people I have spoken to who think that tourism is good for the country.

11:20I'm not going to say that all the people in Albania think that this is a bad thing, what Kushner is doing. But there is so much suspicion and there are so many allegations of corruption. I mean, the country's track record in the last 20, 30 years is not good and does not convince people that there's going to be trickle-down economics where you build a resort and they will create jobs. And that will add infrastructure and that will bring in investment and that will bring in money to the people. People, they don't believe that. They don't think the money will come to them. That's why so many Albanians are leaving the country.

11:54The mass emigration from Albania is insane. You talk to anyone in Albania, their only dreams is to leave. I mean, it's depressing. I mean, you go to a country and all they can think about is leaving their country. And Eddie Rama, the prime minister, is trying to bring this hope to the country. Okay, look, we're going to build these resorts. The money is going to come down to you. We're going to keep investing. You have this 750 page document called this plan for Albania called the Albania Files, where there's several different projects that are spread across the country. But for me and for many people, it just looks like his personal eagle art project.

12:30And And what I mean by that is that it contains all these projects that he has for Albania, for this vision that he has of Albania for the future, for it to become into a tourist haven, a tourist hotspot where many people across the world will flock to. But for me, really, it just seems like he's trying to turn it into Dubai. And I think for many people and for Albanians, they don't really trust the fact that these kind of development will be able to feed back into the country. We'll be able to create new jobs. We will be able to make the country richer because the scale of corruption that's going on in the country is forcing people to lack trust in the government.

13:09And so Rama's vision and the agreement that the Albanian people have with that vision are just not in line anymore.

13:25Noel King:Politico's Jakob Weissman. When we return, the protesters say they want Albania's prime minister out. Prime minister's a really interesting guy. Stay tuned for that.

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16:39This is Today Explained.

16:41Noel King:We're back with Politico's Jakob Weissman. Jakob, tell me about Albania's prime minister. Yeah, Eddie Rama, he's quite a character.

16:51And he tries so hard to be funny and he tries so hard to be relatable. When Albanians join the EU, there are three things you can't predict. Three. Right? God, sex, and the EU. Don't mess with the Albanians because if the Albanians curse you, you just disappear. Yeah, I know something about the order. I have had several divorces, you know. All right. And he has his own podcast. My name is Jacek. Episode is the episode. The episode is the podcast. He used to be a basketball player and he was a painter and then he became a teacher. In my previous life, I was an artist. I still paint. I love art.

17:37I love the joy that color can give to our lives. His grandfather was the chauffeur for the King of Albania back in the 1930s. His father was a famous sculpture that had connection with the communist regime. And Eddie Rama, what can you say? I mean, he's iconic for his white basketball sneakers that he wears to meetings with European leaders. he's been cursing non-stop in interviews. This is an ideological bull****. At the same time, he's striking these billion-dollar deals or negotiating with you about Zaza and I'm not. Again, you have to understand again. And based on this character that I'm describing, he's, you know, this 6 '6 tall basketball player who turned politician.

18:23Listen, I'm the prime minister of Albania. I'm the tallest among them, but I represent a small country, So it's not up to me to think about all the big things. Who's been in power for 13 years.

18:36Noel King:You describe Albania as a country in which a lot of people are still very poor. What is his vision for Albania? What's he done for the economy? Well, he kind of has this dream of Albania of becoming the Maldives of Europe. He wants Albania to become the next hot spot for tourism. Have you ever heard of a law of the land that proclaims our houses belong to God and the guest? Well, such a law was written in medieval Albania and has since become an integral part of the Albanian way of life. He wants people to continue visiting the country. And the tourism boom has been enormous in the last 10 years.

19:23I mean, it has tripled in size from 4 million to now 12 million, maybe even 13 million. This is one of the countries that have been with the highest increase in tourism across Europe. And he has this vision for Albania and he feels frustrated that people don't see that. This has come as one of the culminations of a long, long, long, torturous path to turn Albania from a place where no investors wanted to come. The only way to create this tourist paradise of Albania is to bring in this foreign investment like Kushner. This is a blessing for the country. an investment of 4 billion euro in a country that has 27 and a bit more billion euro GDP speaks by itself.

20:18Noel King:You interviewed the prime minister. What did he tell you about these protests? He said that they wouldn't give a shit if it wasn't for Jared Kushner, which is basically, you know, devoiding himself of any blame for what is happening. He's saying that the reason why people are so upset is because it's linked to Jared Kushner and the Trump family and that these protests are designed as some kind of anti-Trump revolution. And he's saying that there's been foreign interference from Iranian hackers and the government. I'm not saying that who is protesting in the street is an Iranian agent. I'm saying that there is a lot of manipulation.

20:58There is a lot of half-truths that become bigger and bigger lies by the hour. And then the Iranian foreign ministry themselves responded saying as a joke that the flamingos must be the secret agents. And then he's also, because Jared Kushner is Jewish, he was involved in the Abraham Accords. and he's trying to say that there's also this narrative of anti-Semitism that is also going on at the moment and his Jared Kushner's ties with Israel. There's been these conspiracy theories that have been circulating online that this resort will become a place where Palestinians will be repopulated from Gaza or it will become an Israeli safe haven.