Trump Just Hung Scott Jennings Out to Dry

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes — “Trump Just Hung Scott Jennings Out to Dry”
Date: June 23, 2026
Hosts: Tim Miller & JVL
Guests/Audio Clips: Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, Rich Lowry, Douglas Murray, Neil Ferguson, Hugh Hewitt, Scott Jennings, Clay Travis, Buck Sexton, others

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Episode Overview

This episode delivers a scathing, rapid-fire retrospective of hawkish conservative punditry surrounding the Iran war that erupted in March. Tim Miller and JVL keep their promise to revisit what major right-wing voices (especially Trump supporters and Iran hawks) were saying at the start of the war and contrast it with their current “coping” and rationalizations after the disappointing outcome for U.S. foreign policy. Throughout, they highlight the lack of accountability, absurd confidence, and shifting narratives among pro-war commentators—with a particular focus on Scott Jennings, who vehemently predicted total victory but is now left twisting in the wind.

Main theme:
The episode is a tour of “takes” as the hosts expose the gap between chest-thumping war optimism versus the sobering realities—and embarrassing pivots—by conservative commentators after the war’s ignominious resolution.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Conservative Iran Hawks in Real-Time: Delusion & Coping

• Coping mechanisms on the right:
  • Some insisted the rumored peace terms couldn’t possibly be real (“Trump wouldn’t surrender!”).
  • Others threatened symbolic protest, e.g., “sternly worded letters,” if Trump backed down—while staying loyal (01:57).
• JVL’s prediction fulfilled:

  • He predicted the right would quickly rationalize any Trump surrender; “They almost all… have come up with rationalizations for why actually everything is great... It took 48 hours.” (02:38)

    “All these people will get onside. They'll get onside so fast your head will spin... It took literally 48 hours.” —JVL (02:18)

2. Revisiting Early War Rhetoric: The End Zone Dance

• Initial triumphalism:
  • Right-of-center pundits, especially Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, and guests on “Ruthless,” displayed wild overconfidence, painting the war as bold and courageous, predicting Iranian surrender, regime change, and U.S.-Israel “full-spectrum dominance.”
  • The hosts compare this early rhetoric to the eventual outcome—an Iranian regime that survived, sanctions lifted, and American retreat. (04:28–10:21)

Notable Quotes from Early Days

• Ben Shapiro:

  “It's the most courageous military decision of my lifetime, and we are kicking ass. The United States military, the Israeli military, working in tandem, are kicking the hell out of the Iranian government.” (05:20)

• On outcomes:

  “The only truly terrible outcome here would be a strengthened ayatollah regime, which seems at this point to be literally the most unlikely actual outcome.” —Ben Shapiro (07:15)
  Tim & JVL highlight that this is exactly what happened: Iran’s regime is now stronger.

• Mark Levin:

  “This military operation has been a spectacular success and it's just begun. Five days ago, Khomeini is dead. The entire leadership is wiped out. Their air force is nonexistent…” (19:00)

  [Hosts mock the outlandishness—none of the predictions came to fruition.]

3. Pundit Profiles — How the “Experts” Got It So Wrong

Ben Shapiro

• Declared the only bad outcome was the one that happened.
• Praised Trump’s “courage” early, rationalized later.

Ruthless Podcast Crew

• Triumphalist banter (“Wave the white flag, bro!”)—later proven wrong (12:58).

Rich Lowry

• Praised Trump’s commitment and regime-change vision (15:01), but hedged on the goals.
• Hosts dissect his ‘performative bravado’ and the psychology of being seduced by Trump’s persona (17:19).

Mark Levin

• Extraordinarily zealous, painting the war as a holy crusade, attacking “fake MAGA” and “isolationist neofascists” (19:00).

Free Press (Barry Weiss, Neil/Niall Ferguson, Douglas Murray)

• Framed the war as restoring U.S. credibility, “full spectrum dominance.”
• Ferguson: “...the United States has overwhelming military superiority. It has full spectrum dominance, and it will come for you if you cross its red lines.” (24:31)
• Hosts point out the irony: America was exposed as technologically unprepared, especially in drone warfare (26:56).

Clay Travis & Buck Sexton

• Wildly inaccurate timeline predictions: “Believe that this will be over before April Fools. That’s my sense right now.” (34:41)
• War dragged on far past their confident assertions.

Hugh Hewitt

• Continues to rationalize the loss: “Trump is just buying time... then we can really go to war against Iran [after the midterms].” (03:10, 36:14)
  • Hosts call this “punting for field position,” mocking the shifting goalposts.

Scott Jennings

• CNN’s go-to Republican analyst, loudly predicting that only “complete and total victory” would suffice (40:25–41:05).
• Now forced to eat his words as Trump surrenders in France, Jennings left without recourse (“Trump just hung Scott Jennings out to dry”).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Hosts’ Commentary, Tone & Highlights:

• Their mockery and righteous exasperation at the lack of accountability is palpable.
• Tim Miller on the Free Press’s British contributors:

  “Just having these British guys need to go to the dentist trying to butch up Donald Trump…” (28:34)

• JVL on U.S. military weaknesses exposed:

  “This is actually the opposite of full spectrum dominance… The theory of the American military is being unwound in front of us and we haven’t figured out what the answer to that is.” (26:56)

On pundits’ failure to admit error:

“Do any of these guys ever do corrections, Tim? Because if I did shit like this, I wouldn’t want to show my face in public for six months.” —JVL (33:18)

“Do you see Scott Jennings or Hugh Hewitt or any of these guys kind of looking inside, looking into the mirror and saying I really have to turn over a new leaf...? …I need some accountability for myself. Do you see that happening?” —Tim Miller (44:13)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------| | 01:57 | Conservative coping after Trump’s Iran deal leaks | | 05:20 | Ben Shapiro’s “courageous decision” cheerleading | | 07:15 | Shapiro predicts only “unlikely” outcome is regime’s survival (which happened) | | 12:58 | Ruthless podcast: “Wave the white flag, bro!” bragging| | 15:01 | Rich Lowry’s “committed mission” and regime change talk| | 19:00 | Mark Levin proclaims “spectacular success” | | 23:19 | Niall Ferguson: “Trump called time on Iran” | | 24:31 | “Full spectrum dominance” myth from the Free Press| | 26:56 | JVL’s analysis: U.S. drone warfare embarrassments | | 34:41 | Clay Travis gets war timeline utterly wrong | | 36:14 | Hugh Hewitt: War “stall plan” for later victory | | 40:25 | Scott Jennings: “Only way out… complete and total victory”| | 42:36 | Trump’s surrender and the embarrassing contrast | | 44:13 | Final discussion on absence of accountability |

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• The episode paints a portrait of right-wing commentary as a game of situational cheerleading, rationalization, and denial when facts intrude on fantasy.
• Scott Jennings epitomizes the Trump-aligned pundit abruptly left “out to dry” by the president’s quick about-face and peace settlement.
• Miller and JVL repeatedly call out the “carnival barkers” who make bold proclamations, are proven wrong, and yet face no consequences—often moving seamlessly to new platforms or narratives.

“These guys are carnival barkers… What are you doing presenting this clown? He’s making your readers stupid.” —JVL (38:11)

Final sentiment:
The conversation is delivered with biting humor, exasperation, and a demand for intellectual honesty—lamenting the lack of introspection and public retraction from those who misled audiences in pursuit of partisanship and performative bravado.

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For those who missed the episode:
This summary captures the key moments, themes, and tone of the discussion—sharply critical, irreverent, and laser-focused on the gap between boisterous war optimism and the ignoble, rationalized outcome, as seen through the prism of conservative media’s ever-shifting narratives.

Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

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[JVL]

So what's interesting is that as the details of the memorandum of understanding were beginning to slowly emerge, there was a lot of coping. And so that coping came in two ways. First was, this can't possibly be true. This is not. Donald Trump would not do that. Don't worry, that thing isn't going to happen. And the other form came in, some of these folks trying to butch up and warn the Trump administration that if they were to do the surrendering of the scale that the memorandum of understanding suggested they were planning on doing that they would have a very sternly worded letter to send to them. They might even ask for the manager. And what I said to people was, I said, look, you have to understand that all of these people will get onside. They'll get onside so fast your head will spin. And it turned out I had said in my newsletter on Friday, I said, you know, it might take two weeks, it might take two months, it might take years. It took 48 hours. It took literally 48 hours. And they almost all, not all of them, there have been some notable exceptions who have stood on principle, but almost all of them have come up with rationalizations for why actually everything is great. And these rationalizations go from, hey, the deal is good, to actually, don't worry, this isn't a deal at all. This is just my favorite. This is you, Hewitt. Trump is just buying time so that after the Republicans hold the Senate in the House in the midterm elections, we will have rearmed and then we can really go to war against Iran.

[Tim Miller]

I love that there was a punt for field position is what he called it. That's, that's exactly. Yeah, uh huh, uh huh huh. Well, I'm sure that's gonna happen. That seems really. Well, sure, sure. With how this one went. And I do think if we really went to war next time it would go a lot better. I think it's important to now go back to watch these March videos to appreciate though, like the degree of, like to extend the football metaphor, end zone dancing and football spiking that was happening in the first few days of the war. The idea that this MoU and punting for time and weakening their n was going to be acceptable like is belied by their. The view at the beginning, which was total domination, unconditional, total domination.

[Mark Levin]

Who knows?

[Tim Miller]

Freedom for the Iranian people is at hand. Okay, so we're going to go through some of our faves. We're going to start here, shout out to our guy, Brendan Dansley and Jasmine, who are going through all of this. So we're going to go in the order selected by them. I think probably we put Ben Shapiro first because on last week's TNL we were talking about how we want. I was talking about how I wanted a mug of his tears. And you were like, it might just be a shot glass for Ben Shapiro because it's hard, hard to film.

[JVL]

That was your joke, not mine. But that's okay.

[Tim Miller]

I think you said the shot glass was it me. Was I just complimenting myself?

[JVL]

I just want to give you. I just want to give you credit, that's all.

[Tim Miller]

That'd be pretty bad if I was complimenting myself. Okay, whatever. I do make funny jokes sometimes. Let's watch Ben Shapiro in the early days of the war talking about how courageous the president was.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, we are in day three of President Trump's military operation in Iran. It's the most courageous military decision of my lifetime, and we are kicking ass. The United States military, the Israeli military, working in tandem, are kicking the hell out of the Iranian government. President of the United States, spot on again. What he is doing right now is the most courageous thing I have ever seen a president do. He is stepping into the breach. He is smartly recognizing opportunity when it arises, and he is taking strong steps to protect America's future and not only the future of our allies, but the future of the globe.

[Tim Miller]

America. Fuck, yeah. We got the planes going in. I'd like to be sure. There's a dramatic pause before he said smartly about Trump. He almost knew. There's, like, a little internal tech that he had. I'm about to call Donald Trump smart right now. Well, there you go, kicking the hell out of the Iranian government.

[JVL]

The most courageous thing ever.

[Tim Miller]

He goes president, okay.

[JVL]

I mean, Reagan said, tear down this wall. George W. Bush went and did this thing where he staked billions of dollars on a global campaign to eliminate aids, knowing that a bunch of conservatives were going to make fun of him for it. I don't know. I can think of other courageous things that American presidents have done.

[Tim Miller]

Went and stood on the road.

[JVL]

George Ribiot's going to stand on the right. Yeah, you know, whatever.

[Tim Miller]

Look, sending people to kill Osama bin Laden, who is being held by our new friends, the Pakistanis, who are the ones JD Van says are doing such a good job.

[JVL]

Subjective judgment, Tim. Reasonable.

[Tim Miller]

Courageous. Do we think Donald Trump is still acting courageously right now as he cowers?

[Douglas Murray]

No.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. After he showed courage, Ben Shapiro made a pretty bold claim about how things are going to look following the war in Iran. Let's take a look at that.

[Ben Shapiro]

But the worst thing here is not chaos. It's not. The worst thing here is a re. Enshrinement of the ayatollahs. It is also the most unlikely thing here. The only truly terrible outcome here would be a strengthened ayatollah regime, which seems at this point to be literally the most unlikely actual outcome. So what is likely to happen next in Iran? Well, the least likely outcome is the one that we actually fear the most. The ayatollahs lasting and rebuilding and somehow becoming stronger than they were.

[Tim Miller]

The least likely and most truly terrible outcome is exactly what we got.

[JVL]

I gotta say, this is a defensible position for about 72 hours into the war. After that, it is not defensible at all. Because by about 72 hours in, it became clear that, like, oh, actually, the regime is held.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[JVL]

You know, they've. They clearly were. The mosaic strategy that they've been planning for 35 years actually worked. They have command and control. They retain the ability to strike targets overseas. And that's when also became clear that the American government seems to have paid no attention to the reinsurance industry and Lloyd's of London and had no plan to help guarantee insurance for shipping in the Strait. And so, I mean, I don't want to, like, pat myself on the back here, Tim.

[Tim Miller]

Okay.

[JVL]

But it does seem to me that the state of affairs we are in became the most likely outcome really fast. Like, maybe not, like, by the end of the first week, but by the end of week two, it was pretty clear that actually, this is where we were heading.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I appreciate your generosity of spirit, but I don't even think in day three, the current outcome was the most unlikely actual outcome, which is what he said

[JVL]

if we had to actually diagram this out. And the most unlikely, probably, would have

[Tim Miller]

been the shah coming back. There were people talking about, got Razak, the descendants of the Shah returning from the West. Or how about another thing that Ben Shapiro was pushing back then on most unlikely outcomes? That we could arm the Kurds and that.

[JVL]

Oh, and the Kurds would sweep down from the north. Yeah. Also seems pretty unlikely from the very beginning.

[Douglas Murray]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

I just love, though, that the only truly terrible outcome is the outcome we got. And.

[JVL]

But also, like, I mean, that is laying down a marker, right? I mean, that is the outcome. The outcome we got is we, the Iranians, traded from an aging leader who they had a succession drama about to. Like, they've got, clearly, a leadership team now. They, as of right now, as we sit down to tape, they are allowed to sell oil on the global market without sanctions for the first time in bazillion years. And we're gonna.

[Tim Miller]

We can buy them. Americans can buy them now.

[JVL]

We can now get Iranian oil in our cars.

[Ben Shapiro]

And you're.

[JVL]

You fill up your Ford F150 Raptor with good old Ayatollah oil.

[Tim Miller]

And it's Pride Month, so it's the gay Ayatollah Oil. Okay.

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[Tim Miller]

We're going to move on to another podcast. This one is our friends at Ruthless Disappointed Personal privilege. These are a bunch of former Mitch McConnell guys. So traditional hawks. They started a podcast that is like pretty noticeably a copy count of Pod Save America, but for the right didn't really gain a great audience until Fox bought it because there's always welfare for right wing content creators, which is nice. So here's one of their podcasts from the early days of the war. I Just want to play a couple of brief clips.

[JVL]

They weren't smart enough to fly a white flag because it's over, bro. You know what I mean? Like, if you're in an Iranian warship.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yep. Dude, get that white flag up there

[JVL]

because it's a rat. Like, you're just seeing what's happening up there.

[Tim Miller]

It's a rat. I do take President Trump at his word.

[Sponsor Narrator]

And it is incredible to me how they have dismantled that situation in such a short amount of time.

[Tim Miller]

I guess. I guess in the most micro, they did dismantle the situation in a very short period of time, but that has not augured our success, our benefit.

[JVL]

I mean, these dipshits don't know anything about anything. Like, I just don't even know what to say. I don't even know what to say.

[Tim Miller]

Sunglasses guy is nice. What up the white flag, bro?

[JVL]

Yes. Because the Iranians have always had strategic reliance on their naval forces. Yeah, you fucking did a shit.

[Tim Miller]

A different clip that we cut from there was, this country wins wars. Now we call it the Department of War.

[JVL]

That's right.

[Tim Miller]

We do great work. Let's go forward to our friend Rich Lowry. Rich Lowry of the National Review. He said the election of Donald Trump was important because it was a big middle finger to the liberal elites, because that's what you want in a president. Somebody that's a middle finger just to others of your fellow Americans.

[JVL]

Well, Rich, as somebody who lives in Manhattan, you know, like, he knows that he doesn't like many of his neighbors. And so the most important thing for him in a president he's not moving out to. You know, Rich could move to West Virginia if he wanted to. If he hates so much, he moved to West Virginia.

[Tim Miller]

He chooses Rich also for people who are not familiar with him. You're about to see he's kind of a nebbish man, but always tough and talking tough about masculinity.

[JVL]

And that guy chops his own wood, let me tell you.

[Tim Miller]

So here he is at the beginning of the war, talking about how much confidence he has in this president.

[Rich Lowry]

So this military operation is characteristic of Trump in his second term. And he's talked about the necessity of doing something like this since 1980 and everything. We've gotten every indication publicly from him, himself, privately, is that he is thoroughly committed to this mission. And it's not unusual for US Presidents to believe it is completely intolerable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon or to acquire a nuclear weapon. In fact, this has been the norm throughout recent American history. Trump is just Much more serious about it. I'm pretty sure that Donald Trump wants to get in and out of this war without causing the end times. He just wants to eliminate these nuclear missile programs, a lot of the Iranian military capacity, and perhaps change the regime or create a more pliable regime without gas prices spiking too much, alone, without causing the apocalypse.

[Tim Miller]

Completely committed to the mission. Just a little mission, you know, maybe we might perhaps change the regime in Iran or, you know, create a more pliable regime without gas prices going up.

[JVL]

Quick in or out, Tim. And also maybe change the regime. And the fact that Rich doesn't know what the strategic goals are and can't say what the. It's that thing about, like, the T shirt you're wearing answers a bunch of the questions raised by the T shirt.

[Tim Miller]

Right?

[JVL]

Rich is like, he's totally committed also. It's going to be quick in and out. Maybe he'll change the regime, maybe not.

[Mark Levin]

I don't know.

[JVL]

Maybe he'll just eliminate weapons, maybe not. I don't know. But everybody knows this is super serious. Why didn't he do it in his first term when he was president? I don't know. Fucking moron.

[Tim Miller]

Thoroughly committed. You can tell by the way how thoroughly committed Donald Trump is to this right now. That's why he's talking so much about the pool, about the armrests at the Kennedy center, about the ballroom.

[Mark Levin]

A very.

[Tim Miller]

He's just. Since 1980, Donald Trump has been stalwart here. We're going to need some kind of regime change in Iran.

[JVL]

Watching Rich's face as he was, because I only read that on the page. I hadn't seen the video. Do you think he believes what he's saying? Because it looks to me like he can barely keep his face straight.

[Tim Miller]

Here's what I think, and I think that this is a common condition among people who didn't like Trump at the beginning but have gotten sucked into their orbit. There's, in some ways that they're kind of, like, jealous of him. Like, they look at Trump and they're like, this guy faked his way through it. He's, you know, I worked hard and he's a fake it till you make it guy. He's an alpha guy. I'm not really, you know, and he was able to kind of do this performative overconfidence, bravado thing, and it worked for him. Look at him. He got money, he got hot wives. He's the president. Maybe that could work for me. And so I'm going to do this now and I'm going to do this like cheap Trump imitation kind of where I do performative bravado and, you know, and it just doesn't work for other people besides Trump. And like there are many such cases of people that are trying to do not go all the way. That's part of the reason why it doesn't work, because they can't. They're not capable of going all the way because, you know, Trump is a unique creature anyway. That's my armchair psychology of Rich Lowry. Let's move forward, see how things are happening with Mark Levin micropenis. Marc Levin, probably the most excited person about the war at the beginning.

[JVL]

He's very excited.

[Tim Miller]

Andrew is right up. Let's go. And the clip that we had here and it goes on for too long for this YouTube. So you're gonna get the taste of it from about the first minute. Let's watch Mark Levin in the early days of the war talking about this glorious victory for America and Israel. And America and Israel.

[Mark Levin]

President Trump is a man of enormous common sense and courage. Thank God he's President of the United States. Thank God it's not Newscomb. I'll get to him later. Kamala Harris or any of the rest of the reprobates. They hate America. First crowd, Fake maga, the isolationist neo fascists.

[JVL]

Oh, fake maga.

[Mark Levin]

These people are repulsive. They don't represent you and me. But they're out in the open. They're exposing themselves and it's ugly, very ugly. They hate our country. They hate America. They hate our Judeo Christian values. They hate Jews. They hate Christians. They hate Donald Trump. Some of them have been hanging on Donald Trump's coattail in order to enrich themselves. But they're exposed now. This military operation has been a spectacular success and it's just begun. Five days ago, Khomeini is dead. The entire leadership is wiped out. Their air force is nonexistent. The skies are wide open. The Navy is destroyed in five days time.

[Tim Miller]

Five days time, total and complete victory. Everyone who suppose Donald Trump has been exposed.

[JVL]

It's funny how even that early Mark was really keyed in on the isolationist neo fascists, which I believe are his fellow MAGA guys, right?

[Tim Miller]

Correct. Yeah.

[JVL]

And I mean he was, he was taken dead aim even before there was a real movement against on that side. Because again, he's, he's only five days in. Things are already like three laps already. But he was. Yeah, he's doing wheelies. It's. Boy, it's really something. Mark has been very unhappy. He's one of the other people at the prospect of the actual terms, when they started floating, he did not like that. And then Tim, I don't know if you noticed this, but he went on to Twitter to tone police people for not engaging constructively on Twitter. I think we, the American people, the

[Tim Miller]

Israeli people, were united. We're united in battle against evil. We will win. A lot of Markovin clips there. A lot of confidence. Let's turn to our friend Barry Weiss and the Free Press. The Free Press, if you're not familiar, is a blog that part of CBS News defines itself. It is the CBS News House blog that also defines itself as an independent voice against the corporate media. So that's what's happening over at the Free Press. Everyone's got to have an identity. Doesn't have to make sense. They big supporters of the war. I mean, basically the Free Press, in addition to being a corporate media blog that is an independent voice against corporate media. The other two issues that are very important for them is if students on campus are getting a little too extreme or out there in their identity politics or in their complaints about Israel's conduct. And also total support for all wars on behalf or in support of Israel against Muslim countries. Those are like kind of the main pillars of what's happening over there at the fp. So they were obviously super excited about the war in the beginning. Gonna play a couple of clips from their podcast. The first is you were saying, is it Neil or is it Niall Ferguson? Niall.

[JVL]

I believe the Brits pronounce it Neil.

[Tim Miller]

Neil.

[JVL]

But who could say it? Maybe it's Niall Ferguson. I'm not Britain.

[Tim Miller]

It also is notable, as you will notice in these clips, that the Free Press, ostensibly being an outlet for America and American freedom, does have a lot of contributors who speak with a limey accent. Take that. For what it's worth, here's Neil Ferguson on the Free Press podcast.

[Neil Ferguson]

I don't think anybody could claim the Iranians were about to strike heartland America. But President Trump and others have pointed out that Iran has been waging war against Americans. This regime has been waging war against Americans, well, since 1979. And after half a century of being one of the worst actors in the world, President Trump has called time on it.

[JVL]

I'm sorry. Cause I'm lose my mother fucking mind here.

[Douglas Murray]

Tim.

[JVL]

I want to. I want to just want to remind people what he just said. I don't think anybody could claim the Iranians were about to strike Heartland America.

[Tim Miller]

March 2nd.

[JVL]

Here is Donald Trump. The regime already had missiles capable of hitting Europe and our bases, both local and overseas, and would soon have had missiles capable of reaching our beautiful America. That's literally what the guy claimed. And Neil Ferguson is like, we should trust Donald Trump because, look, no reasonable person could claim this thing. I don't. Tim, what are you supposed to do with people like this?

[Tim Miller]

I'll have thoughts on that, but I have another Neil Ferguson clip that I'd like to play, so let's do that next.

[Neil Ferguson]

But, you know, there's another point which I think is not so explicitly emphasized by the president, that is that the United States is sending a global signal. It sent it to the Venezuelans, it's sending it to the Iranians. But I think the real recipients are in Moscow and Beijing. And the message is, do not mess with the United States. The United States has overwhelming military superiority. It has full spectrum dominance, and it will come for you if you cross its red lines. And I think Americans need to recognize the extent to which the United States lost that credibility, particularly under Presidents Obama and Biden. And getting it back, getting America's reputation back for being a superpower you don't mess with that can save many American lives in the future.

[Tim Miller]

This fucking dipshit. This is just so amazing. Fools. We've demonstrated full spectrum dominance. Have we? Have we demonstrated full death strike from dominance? The Chinese and the Russians really shaking in their boots.

[JVL]

First of all, we're on the side of the Russians.

[Tim Miller]

We're on the side of the Russians, we're on the side of Moscow. In the interval period, Trump went to China and basically backed down to China's request about Taiwan, made no threats or demands related to Iran in that meeting. And all he got out of it was, we sold them some beans. It was like, oh, we're going to sell you some more beans and maybe some planes. Like the idea that China and Moscow is looking at this impotent effort to attack Iran, which began with a demand of unconditional surrender and freedom for the Iranian people and a regime change. And in the end, we're like giving them money, giving them donations and begging them to open up the Strait of Hormuz, which they still haven't done, despite the fact that we signed the Treaty of Horizon.

[JVL]

Remember the Strait of Hormuz before the war was governed by international law. That is going to be gone. We will have given that up. The Iranians will have annexed control of the strait after this war, it will be the property of Iran, will have annexed the Strait of Hormuz they will come away. Anyway, I just want to say again, I want to focus in on full spectrum dominance, because that.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, please.

[JVL]

That's actually the opposite of what has happened. I wrote about this a few weeks ago. One of the things this war has exposed is that America, the American military, particularly because of Donald Trump's choices, has been exposed as really being behind the state of the art on drone warfare. Drone warfare is now the future. It's. It's the present and future of all military conflicts. The first ranks of drone powers right now are the Ukrainians and the Russians because they've been fighting a war with drones now for several years. The Iranians are actually like the number three power in this because they have been fully focused on drones and manufacturing them and refining the designs for a long time. They used the shahed, and it turns out that we had no plan and no capability for dealing with shaheds and we don't have. The American military is based around the idea of enormous weapons, platform systems that are so expensive that nobody can match them. Right? That's the entire theory of American military dominance. And we don't have an answer for a world in which everything is governed by somebody making hundreds of thousands of very, very cheap, smart guided munitions. So this is the option. This is the absolute opposite of full spectrum dominance. This is like, holy shit. The theory of the American military is being unwound in front of us and we haven't figured out what the answer to that is. And this guy is like, look at us, mate.

[Tim Miller]

It's not us, by the way. So you're not part of it. I know. Just having these British guys need to go to the dentist trying to butch up Donald Trump and, like, make him into something that he's not. As part of their, like, long standing beef with liberal intellectuals who liked Barack Obama. Like, that is what this is about.

[JVL]

Oberlin graduate students, they're so angry with Oberlin grad students and they, like, they've

[Tim Miller]

been on too many panels of people that liked Barack Obama and they thought Barack Obama got too much praise and they're so bitter about it that they have to now try to create some imaginary version of Donald Trump where he is some big, strong, tough guy that's scaring the world when the literal opposite is happening. And if you just gave Neil Ferguson a piece of paper that anonymized who the players were and said, here's what happened in the situation in Iran, like, what is your assessment of it? He would obviously be like, the President of the United States is A, I don't know, whatever some British word for a wimp. And like, there's no way that he would possibly defend this. But that's. This is what the Free.

[JVL]

The Ellison boys paid $150 million for. That level of insight, Tim?

[Tim Miller]

Well, even more. Ellison boy again said they had Douglas Murray on. And Douglas Murray also had something to remind people about President Trump at the beginning of this war. It was important to remind people about how stalwart he is and the backbone that he has. Please, let's watch Douglas Murray's analysis on the Free Press.

[Douglas Murray]

I think there are lots of things that it's important to understand about President Trump and his foreign policy, which often gets misunderstood. But one of them is that crucial thing that when he says something, he does mean it and he does invariably act on it. Have you noticed in recent weeks the number of invariably, President Trump said to the Iranian people when they came out onto the streets that if he said the regime that if they carried out mass executions, as they were threatening to do, America would step in. The regime in Tehran stepped back from some of the public executions, but it didn't stop the executions going on. It didn't stop the endless massacring of the Iranian public that turned out. But when Donald Trump said, we're going to come in on your side, the side of the public, and then it took a while, there were people who said, you see, he's let them down. He didn't mean it. I go back to this point. It tends to be the case that when President Trump says that he's going to do something, he does do it. And clearly this is the window in which he's seen an optimal chance to attain his objectives.

[Tim Miller]

I love how the interviewer is just nodding over and over as he is just spreading total nonsense.

[JVL]

He says, invariably the president acts on things here. Just a couple things. On April 7, Donald Trump wrote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. Did that happen back in January 10, Donald Trump said, we're going to do something in Greenland, whether they like it or not. I would like to make a deal the easy way. But if we don't do it the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way. Have we done that? Did Donald Trump follow through on that term? So not invariably. Is

[Tim Miller]

is not invariably, and I guess it is true, when Donald Trump talks about sexually assaulting women, he invariably does it. You know, like when he said, I moved on her like a bitch, I couldn't get there. And she was married then. I see her, and when I went in on her, I guess that's true. He usually does do that in the case of sexual assault, but not really true in the area of policy. I mean, we could go through the whole list. Remember the IVF that Trump promised women? We're going to pay for that with all the bounty we're going to get from the tariff money. This whole thing is just. It's crazy. It's just like, Doug, it's like, how are the people that are. The people that are watching this think that they're getting smarter, is the funny thing. You've chosen to come into the Free Press podcast essentially because you're looking to have smart people tell you something about the world, maybe have a little bit of a heterodox viewpoint about how things are going in the world. And then you have this wanker come on here and be like, you know what? You haven't thought about Donald Trump? When he says something, he means it. When those Iranians, when he said the Iranian people, I was going to come for you, he meant he was coming for them. He cared about them deeply. It might have seemed like he was abandoning them, but no, he has.

[JVL]

Is he abandoning them now, Tim, by making a deal with the mullahs, is he abandoning the Iranian people who.

[Tim Miller]

No, I don't think. I think we can trust the Iranian regime now because they're.

[JVL]

Oh, because they're different. It's a different Iranian, different ayatollah. And so these guys are true blue. Don't worry, everything's good. Do any of these guys ever do corrections, Tim? Because if I did shit like this, I wouldn't want to show my face in public for six months.

[Tim Miller]

It's hard to know how any of the pro Iran people, war people show their face. Okay, we're going long, but there's just so many good ones to get to. So we're going to go wrap Rapid Fire. Clay Travis, who wrote a really great article about his Covid predictions a couple years ago, and that didn't shame him. I believe that his Covid predictions were something like, if we have over 100 deaths, that will be a shocking failure.

[JVL]

It was like 10,000, I think something like that. But yes.

[Tim Miller]

And he was off by a factor of like 100 or a thousand X. Nobody was more wrong about COVID than Clay Travis, who was at the time a sportsman blogger, but used Covid disinformation to move his way into political talk radio. He's got a show now with a guy named Buck Sexton. That's a real name, not a porn name. I don't know.

[JVL]

Not a porn name.

[Tim Miller]

Clay and Buck. Clay and Buck. Not a porn show. They keep their clothes on. Thank God, because it would not look good. Here's Clay and Buck talking at the beginning of war, when they think it might be coming to a conclusion. Believe that this will be over before April Fools. That's my sense right now. So I think it'll be this month

[JVL]

and this month only.

[Tim Miller]

Ooh, let's hear what Clay had to say.

[JVL]

How do you think this is going? I mean, we're.

[Mark Levin]

We're starting to get into how do

[Tim Miller]

you think this is going?

[Mark Levin]

Territory.

[Tim Miller]

And how long is this going to keep going? I think it's gone incredibly well. I actually think if you had to give a grade, and I know we're still in the early days of this couple of weeks in a. I suspect, and I suspect that this has always been the plan, Buck, that the expectation was they would be done before President Trump went to China. And I still feel like that is likely to be the case. Okay, April, what is today's date? Looking at the calendar here, June 22nd.

[JVL]

Oh, wow.

[Tim Miller]

It's quite. Quite a bit after April.

[JVL]

Been a minute since April 1st. So here's my question, Tim.

[Rich Lowry]

If.

[JVL]

If you sitting where they are, say, pretty sure the plan is to get this done by April 1st, and they certainly don't still want to be in the middle of this thing by the time the President goes to China. If you blow through all that, isn't that evidence that just by definition it hasn't gone according to plan?

[Tim Miller]

You'd think it would not be an A if you haven't achieved the timeline that you wanted. I think the best you could argue is a B.

[JVL]

Notice they couldn't say, like, what the goals were. Again, this is the. What are the objectives? No one knows. Impossible.

[Tim Miller]

All right, we're going to skip past the old FDD people because they're just too big of an embarrassment and move to your friend Hugh Hewitt. Hugh Hewitt, who aforementioned at the beginning, still thinks things are going good. This is a stall plan. We're going to punt 20, 27, full war. Just want to make sure we win the midterms. Got to hide the ball about this in the midterms, by the way.

[JVL]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

You know, so that's why, if Trump's not talking about wanting to go after Iran harder, it's because he has to lie about it because the voters don't want war.

[Mark Levin]

Well, that's.

[JVL]

Yeah. What are you doing? Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

So I just think that's part of the deal that, like, Donald Trump has to lie.

[JVL]

The voters are too stupid to appreciate here, you and I, Hugh Hewitt and I kind of finding some common ground.

[Tim Miller]

So in 2027, after the voter's been hoodwinked, full scale war again. That's where Hugh Hewitt is now. Let's take a look at where he was back in the early days of the conflict.

[Ben Shapiro]

Do not believe that President Trump will allow this conflict to end in anything other than unequivocal victory. It's not in his nature, it's not who he is. And he's not going to have anyone

[Tim Miller]

saying that he quit.

[Mark Levin]

And therefore, I think we're going to win this decisively.

[Ben Shapiro]

I think we're in the process of winning decisively, but we haven't yet got a decisive win.

[Tim Miller]

How do all of the people whose job it is to analyze Donald Trump have such a bad analysis of his personality? It's like all these guys, it's like he was like, it's not in Donald Trump's nature to quit. It's not. And it's actually totally in Donald Trump. Donald Trump did file for bankruptcy umpteen times. Like, Donald Trump quits all the time. It's totally in his nature. Just like it's like Doug Murray being like, it's Donald Trump. If he says something, you know he's going to follow up on it. It's like your guy's job is to analyze the President of the United States and you have a totally, no, that's wrong. That's not what their job is.

[JVL]

That is not their job. These guys are carnival barkers. Right? That's the thing, like with Hugh Hewitt, like, Hugh Hewitt is just a carnival barker. What has always gotten me, like, wrapped around the axle about him is like mainstream organ news organizations which know better, which presented him as an anal, as an out and a list. And so like, you know, he had a column in the Washington Post for years and years and years and drove me crazy. Like, what, what are you doing presenting this clown? He's making your readers stupid. And I don't know, like, I just, I look at them and Hugh is one of the most shameless, like, jersey wearing guys I've ever seen. Because Hugh will literally turn on a dime and just do whatever the team says. I don't know if you remember Hugh. Hugh was a huge Harriet Myers defender. So when George W. Bush nominated Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court, there was a conservative backlash to her and the nomination wound up getting pulled. And Hugh Hewitt was Like the only Republican in America who was willing to throw down and go to the mat for Harriet Myers.

[Tim Miller]

Why?

[JVL]

Just because she was like, the Republican Party is George W. Bush. And Hugh Hewitt was on the Republican Party side. It's so reflexive and unthinking on him that it's shocking. I mean, maybe it's not shocking. Maybe here I am using words as if they don't mean things.

[Tim Miller]

I do not believe that President Trump will allow this conflict to end in anything other than unequivocal victory. That was Hugh Hewitt's position.

[JVL]

Punting, Punting. A lot of people, a lot of modern NFL coaches think that punting is the same thing as victory. You punt when you're winning, Tim.

[Tim Miller]

You punt when you're winning. Once you've had unequivocal victory. That's lovely. I want to close with Scott Jennings. That's okay.

[JVL]

No, please.

[Tim Miller]

Really sharp analysis he's been providing the viewers of CNN primetime throughout this war, describing Donald Trump's imminent success, talking about how to measure that success, talking about how the critics are all fools and weaklings. Let's play a couple of clips from

[Scott Jennings]

Scott's performance on that point, because you said Democrats want to end the war. And my question is how do they want to end the war? And I think it's a fair. Well, and this is the point I want to make, whether you think we should have done it or not. Now the United States is in, the military is committed, the President has an objective, which is make sure these people don't get a nuclear weapon. My view, and I think the Republican view is the only way out of the war is complete and total victory. The politics for President Trump to just end this without achieving the objective are far worse than staying in it long enough to win.

[JVL]

But they would be worse.

[Tim Miller]

Complete, a total victory. Scott, let's.

[JVL]

Let's put boots on the ground, Tim. What's in vain?

[Tim Miller]

The only way out of this is complete and total victory. And here we have Donald Trump in France signing a surrender document where he hands over Iranians money. And Scott Jennings up on CNN being like, oh, the Democrats want to fold. It's like, nobody put on your skirt. Head on over to France.

[JVL]

Yeah, I kill sky. You know what? I have a feeling Scott's going to find his way to square that circle.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, yeah. I want to play one other clip from Scott.

[Scott Jennings]

Well, I mean, what does he want them to do? He wants them to not have nuclear weapons. He wants them to not have a ballistic missile program. He wants them to not have an Aggressive navy. And he wants anymore to not be an exporter of terrorism around the world. Now, whatever happens to the next regime, I don't know, but I know this. We will not permit them to do any of those things. The nuclear piece to me is the most important. You cannot have a nuclear armed Iran. They showed up at the negotiations with Witkoff and said, oh, well, we've got enough material to make 11 nuclear weapons. I think having them described as ultimately being compliant or someone you can work with, I don't think that's the vector you have to understand about these people is that they're fanatics. They would like to bring about the end of the world by causing a nuclear war that brings in, you know, the religious piece of this for them. So they're not going to ever be compliant about that. They have this worldview. We have to take away their capacity to enact that worldview, which is to me why the nuclear peace is vital issue.

[Tim Miller]

Want to break that down into two parts. The first part were the four topics. We will not permit them to go forward with nuclear material with ballistic missiles, with an ability to fund terror proxies throughout the region.

[JVL]

Or a navy. The navy is really key.

[Tim Miller]

Three of those four, it seems like we are going to permit them tbd, I guess on the nuclear piece. Two of those four for sure. The President is saying now that it would be unfair to not let them have missiles.

[JVL]

He said literally that. He said those words.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And we're also going to allow them to sell oil again and unfreeze a lot of resources. And if you're of the view that they use their money to fund proxies, terrorist proxies around the world, it seems like we will not only be permitting them to do that, but helping, you know, provide the resources for that terror. So that's the first half. We won't permit it. The second half is really the good stuff, though, and that is that. And you can't even negotiate with them in good faith because they're insane. They're genocidal maniacs. So we must totally defeat them on the battlefield. And now today we have the President and the vice president not just negotiating with them, but kind of like talking about how they're good guys. Actually, J.D. one of the cool parts about this.

[JVL]

Yeah, yeah. You just get to know them as people, you know, and knock back a couple of herbal teas with them and. And just talk about the kids, you know, we're all the same on the inside, Tim. We're all the same. Really makes you think really does.

[Tim Miller]

Do you see Scott Jennings or Hugh Hewitt or any of these guys kind of looking inside, looking into the mirror and saying I really have to turn over a new leaf. It seems like I really got bamboozled by the President on this one and I put my reputation on the line speaking to the American people about how he was stalwart and he wasn't going to quit and how it was absolutely critical that we prevent them from having missiles. And now it turns out that the opposite is the case. I need some accountability for myself. Do you see that happening?

[JVL]

You know, it's such a good question, Tim. At least in the narrow, narrow case of Scott Jennings. Barry Weiss is going to own CNN as well quite soon. So I think there's a really good chance Scott's going to wind up with his very own primetime show on the new Barry Fied cnn. So I'm not sure there's a lot of incentive for him to go do any introspection. As far as he's concerned, this is all working out great for Scott Jennings anyway. Maybe not America.

[Tim Miller]

Good luck, America. Thank you, jvl. Hopefully everybody enjoyed that as much as we did. We'll see you back here soon. Subscribe to the feed where else are you getting this?

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