Andrew Egger (3:54)

Yeah, let me add just one more onto this, which is a couple hours earlier, he shared a text from Mike Huckabee.

Sam Stein (4:00)

Oh God, yes.

Andrew Egger (4:02)

Ambassador to. Is Huckabee the ambassador to Israel? Is that the. Is that what he's. Okay. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah. Just an amazing text. Just read a little bit of it. Mr. President, God spared you in Butler, Pennsylvania to be the most consequential president in a century, maybe ever. The decision's on your shoulders. I would not want to be made by anyone else. You have many voices speaking to you, sir. But there is only one voice that matters. His voice. I am your appointed servant in this land and am available for you But I do not try to get in your presence often because I trust your instincts. No president in my lifetime has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945. Little gesture at the atomic bomb there. I don't reach out to persuade you, only to encourage you. I believe you will hear from heaven. And that voice is far more important than mine or anyone's else. You sent me to Israel to be your eyes, ears and voice and to make sure our flag flies above our embassy. My job is to be the last one to leave. I will not abandon this post. Our flag will not come down.

Richard Karn (4:49)

You.

Andrew Egger (4:50)

You did not seek this moment. This moment sought you. It is my honor to serve you. Mike Huckabee. Trump tweets, tweets this whole text out screenshot of it on Truth Social, Trump says, from Mike Huckabee, a pastor, politician, ambassador, and great person. So that's the. He's like, thanks for sending that along, Mike.

Sam Stein (5:07)

Yeah, it's like a reality show. It's like you're watching someone's like, you know, we don't need to see what's on his phone, but he's going to show us what's on his phone. And it's just like, everything is just. It's geared towards trying to gin up suspense. Although there's plenty of suspense that already exists.

Andrew Egger (5:25)

In one sense, the spectacle is just the thing itself. Right? I mean, like, it's insane that the President is doing this. Obviously. Like, we stipulate that, right? Just total lunatic land that we're in here. At the same time, it is actually kind of helpful that he's doing it in some ways because, like, it is. I mean, he ultimately does, I don't know, about control a lot of decisions, right? No, I just mean in terms of, like, assessing where he's coming from on this stuff. Because I feel like a lot of the time, time people talk about Trump's foreign policy on the kind of hawks versus doves sort of thing, right? Where it's like, is he a peace through strength guy? He likes to talk about that. Is he like a sort of neocon light, speak softly and carry a big stick and do deterrence, that kind of thing? And then he's also got this whole.

Sam Stein (6:09)

I couldn't disagree more with you. I couldn't disagree more. I find this very unsettling, this stuff. Like, like Tehran.

Andrew Egger (6:15)

Well, let me finish spooling out my thoughts, Sam. It is unsettling. Of course it's unsettling. But just let me make this point. Like, there's that thing. And then there's his whole coalition of doves, right, of like, no more foreign wars types, like all those guys in his coalition. And I think that Trump kind of varies back and forth between those two things because that's not really how he thinks about these things, right? He just likes winning and he likes power. And so what we have going on here is it's exactly the opposite of like what's happening in Russia and Ukraine, right, where Trump resents having to kind of like go into that war on behalf of the smaller, weaker group there. Trump is loving being on the side of Israel right now. Cuz Israel's winning in Iran, Israel has air dominance. Israel's like, you know, hitting Tehran and like, you know, doing all the stuff that Israel wants to do. And Trump is like, yeah, you know, usa, usa. They're using our planes, they're using our bombs. This is great. We're having a great time. I mean, I think that's just like kind of at the core of how he views all this stuff. And it is kind of useful, I guess, to get it laid out there, right, that even though it is obviously horrifying and unsettling and just sort of deeply unreal, like, I mean, it's just so weird to get these sort of like, like, you know, a. Dear Diary, Israel hit Iran again today. And it was, it was a great time for.

Sam Stein (7:30)

That is weird for sure, but I disagree with you. I don't think it illuminates how he thinks about these things. I think it so is confusing confusion about how he thinks about these things. So for instance, what does he mean by we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran? Who's we?

Andrew Egger (7:44)

The good guys in his view, right? Like, who's we?

Sam Stein (7:47)

Are we involved? Is the US Involved?

Andrew Egger (7:51)

Why they think the US Is involved? I mean, that's, that, that's what's so bizarre about this, right? He cannot stick to, he can't stick to like, like a normal.

Sam Stein (7:59)

In what capacity are we involved? Are we patrolling Iran's airspace or is Israel with our, with our, our provided equipment?

Andrew Egger (8:08)

I mean, that's the thing about the stuff, right? But I think, I think you can say, like, we have complete control of the skies over Iran. And the we there is Israel using American equipment, right? American made, conceived and manufactured stuff.

Sam Stein (8:22)

He's just firing away these missiles. We know the other one that really got me was people of Tehran should evacuate immediately. Which he said last night, that's a city of 10 million people, just with a bleak. He's he's like absolute chaos in the, in the capital. I mean, why would you do that? Now, look, it's, it's, it's interesting to the degree that what it does illuminate is just sort of his incessant need for attention and to be the center of attention. Right, like that I get. And I mean, I don't get it, but it's just who he is. But we're also sort of unfamiliar with this type of approach. It's just totally different than anything we've ever dealt with before. You know, used to be that Joe Biden was ridiculed because he didn't say much. In these moments, I think Trump is over twerking in the opposite direction. He's saying way too much and it's just like, go, go, you know, take, put the phone down and like, you know, come up with some strategic plan here or more concrete decisions. So I think he's over.

Andrew Egger (9:15)

Did you see that clip of him talking to reporters? I think on Air Force One, you know, shortly after he sent out that, you know, everyone in Tehran should evacuate immediately. Tweet. And they were like, well, what do you, what do you mean by that? Like, are you saying that like, we're going to hit Tehran? He's like, no, I wasn't saying that. I was just kind saying, you wanna be safe. Out of an abundance of caution, if you're in Tehran, you should evacuate immediately. Just completely, completely insane.

Sam Stein (9:39)

It's a bigger population than New York, I believe, just being like, hey, get out of New York City tonight. What are you supposed to do? It's just chaos, total chaos. Never seen anything like that.

Andrew Egger (9:50)

We've seen stuff like this a lot in other domains under Trump 2.0. Right? This is the whole point of the whole taco thing, the Trump always chickens out thing. It's like Trump's gonna say some insane shit. And you are probably in your best interest to ignore half of it. Cause half of it's not gonna come to fruition. And that is hard enough when it's just like the stock market that he's talking about and tariffs and all that stuff. And even then it's like, okay, I guess we're gonna try to just like keep a stiff upper lip and assume it's all he's gonna be saying something new tomorrow. It is much more difficult, I'm sure if you are sitting in Tehran to see this sort of thing and be like, what are you supposed to say? Ah, I bet he's just bluffing. He tweets and the cha. And it's. Yeah, it's.

Sam Stein (10:33)

And the other impact of it is that they are so attuned or they seem so attuned and interested and invested in shaping domestic public opinion about this stuff, which I'm assuming is why Trump's doing all this to begin with. But secondarily, you saw last night, Pete Hegseth going on Waters World, all things like, as this was all playing out. And then this morning, you had the JD Vance post on Twitter. How would you even describe it? It's just sort of like a, sort of a defense of Donald Trump as a human being and then laying the predicate for potentially some military action, but also saying, you know, it would be within the, you know, construct of an American first foreign policy. It was just a very sort of interesting. I thought the fact that he felt the need to issue the post was itself interesting. They care so deeply about the public opinion, especially of their people online.

Andrew Egger (11:21)

Yeah, yeah. And that's. That last bit is. Is, I think the most insane part of all. Not the. Maybe not the most insane, but such an insane sort of secondary part of all of this is that if you are not. If you out there in TV land watching this, are not actively kind of following along with the posting habits of particularly JD Vance, but also Donald Trump and a lot of these other people in the administration, it is, like, impossible to overstate how much they are constantly triangulating their message to the people in their base who are mad about this or that or the other thing on Twitter. So, like, JD Vance is out there slapping down individual, like, pieces of criticism on Twitter. Like, he had a post, quote, tweeting Dave Riaboy this morning, who was, like, doing some critique of, like, something secondarily related to this Iran stuff and, like, accusing him of, like, supporting Ron DeSantis in the 2024 primary.

Richard Karn (12:14)

Yeah, that was.

Andrew Egger (12:15)

So that's what these guys are thinking about right now is like, how do I get this domestic critic off of my back by reminding all the other Trump supporters that this guy who's criticizing me right now was a Ron DeSantis guy last year, as we inch toward, like, potential, like, global war. I mean, it's just. It's so insane how far up. Up their own asses they are on this stuff with the online discourse.

Sam Stein (12:36)

Yeah, I think that's the issue I have with it, is that there's so much going on and the stakes are not, like, minor. They're existential, and, like, people will die. And you're like, you know, I gotta Post this. I gotta go on Waters World. You know, it's like at some point, you know, you should probably just focus on your job. I say that as I post a million times a day.

Andrew Egger (12:56)

So posters are gonna post, man.

Sam Stein (12:57)

Posters are gonna post. Yeah. Speaking of, people should read the Mike Lee piece that Joe Perdicron just put up for press pass. It's really good. Some amazing stats in there. All right, Andrew. Thanks, man. I appreciate this. We'll be following the True Social account, so anyone who's watching this doesn't have to. It's our public service to the population and we'll be in touch on all these other things. And we'll talk to you later.

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Andrew Egger (14:17)

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