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Breaking news. The world is a mess, and it seems like it's just getting worse. So how do you find a way to move forward?
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Being hopeful acknowledges and embraces that things are difficult and asks, where can we go from here?
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Why? Our future depends on our ability to hope. That's this week on Explain It To Me. New episodes. Wherever you get your podcasts, Secretary Hagseth is just sort of become almost the poster child, emblematic of how incompetent this administration is and how this sort of frat jock meets testosterone meets bitcoin meets head up your ass. Weird, reckless. You don't even know what you don't know. I mean, it's sort of like, at first it was unbelievable, then it became upsetting, and now it's just sort of like, just disgusting. It's just sort of. For God's sakes, can we get someone calm to get up there and talk about it? Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway.
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And I'm Jessica Tarlev.
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If you aren't already, please make sure to subscribe to our YouTube page to stay up to date on all the political news. Also, before we begin, Jess has an announcement. But even before that, more self promotion. Please go to the Webby's page and vote for Raging Moderates.
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It's the last day you can do it, and then we'll never ask you again.
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The last day you can do it.
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Until next year.
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If we do get the award, we are sending it to the White House. I was invited to the UFC fight at the White House. Maybe I'll go in just where I was. Yeah, and maybe I'll just wear the award around my neck. So, big announcement. Jess, lay it on us.
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I wrote a book.
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There it is. Hold it up.
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I disagree. Winning arguments without losing friends. I'm really excited. It comes out September 15th. It is my first book, which feels like a big deal, and it's kind of meta. The answer to the question, you know, how do you do what you do? Which I get from Democrats and Republicans. The importance of having conversations with people who you disagree with. There's a lot of social science in it about how we hear things that we don't agree with, how you should process criticism, you know, how you should pay attention to averages and not anecdotes. And it uses a lot of my personal history, you know, how I grew up, what my dinner table looked like versus the table at the five, for instance, to kind of map my course towards doing this. And lots of helpful tips and hints for how you can also have difficult conversations about the things that are vexing all of us. It's fun. At the end of each chapter, there's a little tips box. So if you're. If you're more of a skimmer, that you can just go to that and kind of see the summation of what I'm arguing in each chapter. So that's kind of the roadmap. And then at the end, I talk about our current political moment a lot, about raging moderates and what we do here and the types of policies that I think will make the country better.
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So, September 15th, give us the Cliff Notes on how to process criticism. Asking for a friend.
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Asking for a friend. Don't comment. Dive all the time. But it's a lot about reclaiming space and time where you just take a step back and really commune with the criticism versus responding right away. Also, considering the source is massively important. And there's an anecdote that I tell in there about when my uncle, who I'm very close with, gave me the heaviest criticism I have ever gotten. He read my PhD draft as I was on the precipice of submitting and basically said, you're going to fail. Like, this is really bad. And I shed a lot of tears. I talked to my supervisor about it, who was really the one who. Who taught me how to process mega criticism and what to do with it and how important it is to consider the source and then to also make sure that you don't lose relationships that are important to you over something like that that's in more detail in the book.
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So I disagree. Out in September. If you read it and like it, write a review. If you read it and hate it, buy another one and send it to an enemy. This is very. This is very exciting. Congratulations.
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Thank you so much.
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I get the sense this is the first of many. All right, let's get into it.
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Okay.
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Iran. Iran.
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I disagree. Iran.
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It's an easy segue. A second round of peace talks and the war in Iran may be back on the table, with Pakistan stepping in as a key mediator after talks went nowhere. But the clock is ticking. The two week ceasefire expires April 21, and there's still no clear path forward. Defense Secretary Pete Hexseth is now warning the US Is prepared to resume combat if talks fail, including potential strikes on Iran's energy infrastructure and an expanded naval blockade. At the same time, House Democrats are moving to impeach Hegseth over his handling of the war. Meanwhile, the global picture is getting messier. Donald Trump says China won't send weapons to Iran despite reports suggesting otherwise, and is threatening steep tariffs if that changes. And somehow, amid all that uncertainty, The S&P 500 just hit a new record high. Back in Washington, 40 of the 47 Senate Democrats voted against a proposed weapon sale to Israel. And Pete Hexath complained this morning about the media covering the war. Let's take a look at what he said. A note to the press, to the press corps, to the American media, as I just can't help but notice the endless stream of garbage, the relentlessly negative coverage you cannot resist peddling despite the historic and important success of this effort and the success of are troop troops. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on. It's incredibly unpatriotic.
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I'm so sick of this shit. I really like when you actually listen to the questions that the press corps are asking. They are pointed and specific about details of a war that we're engaged in that no one knew was coming, that there is no popular support for that. You base, we all woke up and we're at war and he's just using Donald Trump's anti press talking points. It's so frustrating. And I imagine that that's also frustrating for our troops or folks in our armed services who are observing all of this. I'm not saying that there aren't some people who, you know, hate Donald Trump enough that they would want any sort of failure to happen. I'm someone who thinks this man is deeply unqualified, unfit, should have never been president the first time, definitely shouldn't have been president the second time. But I can find space easily to praise him when I think it's worthwhile. We've talked about that a lot with like the Abraham Accord specifically. And it's just, it's boring cable news talking points. But from one of the more important podiums that we have in the world at a time of war is so frustrating to me.
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I think you could say about the first administration that he surrounded himself with some very competent people and that's no longer the case here. And he's basically replaced confidence with acolytes and the team with the best players wins. And it always struck me that it took this long for the level of incompetence to bubble up. And it is bubbling up. And this guy, I mean, it just feels like a parody. And you know, I mean, the most recent joke or ridiculous faux pas was he started quoting the Bible, not recognizing. No, that's not actually in The Bible. It was a mockery of the Bible in a movie called Pulp Fiction. And yet he decided, I mean, he clearly. Incompetent people hire incompetent people. I'm sure he didn't write that, but someone on his staff wrote that. Not recognizing. No, that was just in a movie, you bozos. So I will say, though, the move, I don't know if you've seen this, there's a movement to impeach him. I think that's a known goal on the part of the Democrats. I don't think you ever do an impeachment unless the votes are already there. It's like I used to run proxy fights where basically you threatened to replace the board. And what I learned is you never do that unless you know you have the votes before you announce it. And they don't have. America's not up for another impeachment nostalgia tour. And so at some point, they might actually have the votes to impeach the president if this keeps going, or the secretary of Defense. I think what they should be talking about is specific legal action in coordination with state AGs against people who have committed crimes, of which there's a panoply of them across the administration and friends of the administration. But Secretary Hagseth is just sort of become almost the poster child or emblematic of how incompetent this administration is and how this sort of frat jock meets testosterone meets bitcoin meets head up your ass. Weird, reckless. You don't even know what you don't know. I mean, it's sort of like at first it was unbelievable, then it became upsetting, and now it's just sort of like, you know, just disgusting. It's just sort of, for God's sakes, can we get someone competent to get up there?
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Until the competent guys have to stand there and listen to this and then they get to come out like the CENTCOM commander or General Kane, for instance, who have the real data. They've got the charts right. They're showing us actually what's going on with the blockade video footage of it, of what's coming in and or out. And, you know, some of these reports are disputed. It makes sense that the Iranians and the Chinese are going to say things counter to what the US Are saying, and we are in always a propaganda fight with them enhanced by AI Absolutely. But I would pay to go to a briefing that didn't have the secretary of defense in it and that we could just listen to the guys one level below who treat the press corps with respect and come there with the data that we need to hear. My big question right now because I felt a bit gaslit at work yesterday, which it isn't an irregular occurrence, but it was particularly acute, I would say, in reference to what's going on with this war. So it feels to me like where you, you like to use quagmire, like we're in a bit of a holding pattern and the administration is trying to tell us that everything looks good and they're talking about how much forward motion we have on these talks. And I hope that that is the case and that we can, you know, get to a good deal. I hope that it is not just, you know, a redux of the JCPOA and then shows what there was absolutely no reason to rip that up in 2018. But the question that still stands out to me is why the right is saying that Iran basically has no power in this at all, that they've been completely decimated and that the blockade, which is costing them about half a billion dollars a it's true that no tankers are getting through or that they can't sell any of the oil either via Oman, which is possible, or the oil that they already have on land, like, how long can that keep up? So Reuters is reporting that they can withstand a complete halt in oil exports for up to two months. And that seems like a real amount of time to me. The cease fire is going to be over on April 21st. That goes well beyond it. And I'm curious as to what your impression is, I guess, of the power dynamic. Like how decimated is Iran actually? How much is China heeding our warnings to stay out of this? And what do you think happens on April 21st? I saw Al Jazeera also said that schools are going to go to remote learning on April 21, which kind of implies that you shouldn't be somewhere that the US Might improperly target and blow up again, which lends itself to ground war is coming, or at least more aerial war.
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I don't think this can get done. I mean, so far it appears that every day this goes on, it cedes more and more advantage to the Iranians. And the IRGC has the benefit of not caring. I mean, it's just so unthinkable to imagine how quickly we would. Well, I don't know how we would respond, but what the US Suffers from is a bit of a glass jaw syndrome. And that is the level of pain we are willing to endure. It's not even a mouse on the elephant of what other nations are willing to endure in terms of suffering, it just doesn't even register. And then it goes even parabolic with the irgc, who quite frankly is clearly not that concern. When you're willing to kill 30,000 of your own citizens in a 48 hour period, it's safe to say you don't have a lot of empathy or concern for your populace. They're a theocratic regime that feels that their mission is a calling from God to destroy Israel, the United States and spread, I don't know if you call it Intifada, whatever you want to call it, but they have different objectives in the well being of the Iranian people. So the notion that somehow we have leverage over them by even going after their civilian infrastructure, I don't know, I think that they're hoping that that just curries favor or garner some additional support the irgc. So I think they look at it like, wow, this war so far has been really good for us. Maybe it's been terrible for Iran and the Iranian people, but it's been really good for the irgc. And we've discovered this new choke point called blocking or sequestering world trade. I think these ceasefires accrete advantage to them because they get a chance to prepare. I don't think the war going on is that frightening to them. I think the only strategy here, and to the Trump administration's credit, I think they're pursu this strategy. I think the only strategy here is to try, to the extent we can, develop a multinational force and close the strait to all traffic in and out of Iranian ports, because it not only cuts off funding to the Iranian oil infrastructure or revenues to Iran, but one of the strange things, I guess, about oil infrastructure is that if oil backs up and has nowhere to go or be offloaded, it actually begins to damage the wells themselves. So it not only stops that whatever it is, half a billion dollars a day flowing into Iran's coffers, it could permanently damage oil infrastructure. I guess it's a strange thing, I never realized that. It's like if you don't relieve the pressure and put the oil somewhere, it backs up and damages the actual oil infrastructure. I don't know what China's role is here, but I do think that this is. I think we have no choice but to try and figure out a way to get the strait open again. Ideally, the more people that join us, the better. But this is the definition of a quagmire and that is we have put ourselves in a box, we have lost a ton of reputational value. And, you know, and now senators are there's a new vote, and I'm curious to get your take. How significant do you think the Senate vote is politically? What does it signal about Democrats on Israel going forward? What are your thoughts there, Jess?
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I think it's a really big deal. And the fact that you saw folks like Alyssa Slotkin, John Ossoff, both Jews themselves as well, voting to not sell offensive weapons to Israel matters a lot and shows the damage that the Netanyahu administration and the Netanyahu foreign policy has done to what they perceive to be U.S. national interests and certainly the relationship between Israel and the party. The next frontier in this fight will be defensive weapons. Whether, you know, we'll continue to fund the Iron Dome, for instance. There's a movement already in the House to suspend funding for that. I don't think you would get 40 of 47 Democratic senators to support something like this. But Alyssa Slotkin posted a very thoughtful explanation for her vote on social media, which I think is worth people's times. And when you look at someone like that who has been so dug in, in support of democracy and Western values and our relationship with Israel vis a vis those two elements, you know, our only really aligned ally in the region that way, it feels seismic. And I think it also speaks to how poor the leadership of the party has been in dealing with, with these concerns. And you see a lot of people who have been kind of out there on the progressive left talking about this for a really long time that, you know, we're not anti Semites because we're talking about how we shouldn't be funding what Israel is doing offensively. And they were taking a victory lap yesterday saying, oh, you know, Alyssa Slotkin, that big anti Semite, right. And we have to be much more thoughtful in how we have these conversations. And I think, I hope that this has jolted Chuck Schumer into figuring it out because this, his leadership on this, and especially as a Jewish person who cares about Israel, has been abysmal.
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I mean, there is some what Hillary, what Secretary Clinton said, I think is fitting here, and that is if you're, if you care about Israel as we both do, you have an obligation to speak out when you think Israel is not acquitting itself well. And it kind of comes down to, I think, a very basic, the most accretive thing that could happen to the west and to Israel, into the US Right now is if Trump and Netanyahu just left the stage. It just feels as if it is getting the damage here, the Netanyahu administration has done to Israel's global reputation. I mean, the reality is it is just very hard to support Israel right now. It's just getting increasingly difficult. And this, I don't know if you saw this. Representative Ro Khanna came out and called out Schumer and said he should resign. And it does feel like a turning point. It does feel like all of a sudden, okay, even people who have been steadfast supporters of Israel have said, okay, this has just gone too far. But I think your assessment is right. This does feel seminal. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. Maria, you have a podcast now, and
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you need to start acting like it.
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What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions.
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I'm Maria Sharapova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay.
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Ready?
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Ready.
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Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no.
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We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty Tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes Drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app.
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For the last 10 years, everything in American politics has basically revolved around one man. And as a political journalist who came of age during Donald Trump's rise in 2016, I've had a front row seat. I am officially running for President of the United States. It's going to be only America First. America First.
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Thousands of supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. capitol building.
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But is it possible to talk about politics without talking about Donald Trump? That's the question I'm going to ask in our new show from Vox.
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The idea of like a post Trump or not exactly Trump focused show can
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exist because he's not really driving any agenda items.
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It really does feel like so reactive.
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You know, I think this Iran thing is also going to cause a big split in the gop. So far it doesn't among, like people who say they're MAGA voters are still with Trump. But like for the first time, you see on a major issue, open opposition from the start of this war. I'm astet hernton and welcome to America. Actually, hey, so we're not paying taxes this year, right?
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Until the Pentagon passes one damn audit, we shouldn't pay any more taxes. People don't want to pay taxes anymore because they don't trust the way the government is spending and tracking our money. Americans are fed up with paying taxes and I know, I know, but hear me out. Americans are extra fed up with paying taxes lately, according to some Gallup polling and some posting. But are we being short sighted?
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I think that it's important to have a government. I think that humans tried anarchy for quite a long time and it didn't work so well. A lot of people got hit over the head with rocks.
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We didn't have a whole lot of economic development.
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Almost everyone agrees that the United States should have a military to protect it from foreign invasion, that we should have law enforcement, firefighting schools, et cetera, anti taxers. And where this could all be heading
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on today explained dropping every weekday afternoon.
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Welcome back. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Testified before Congress today. Of course, vaccine policy was a large topic of the conversation. Here is a heated exchange with Congresswoman Linda Sanchez. Now, one thing that I find incredible is that you suspended this pro vaccine messaging campaign, but somehow you're spending taxpayer
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dollars to drink milk shirtless in a
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hot tub with Kid Rock and somehow you think that's a better public health message your time is than informing the public about the importance of vaccines. Gentle ladies, time has expired. I yield back.
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He's such a joke. It's so frustrating to me. Like, why could he not have gotten a job at usda? Why could you have not just taken the decent stuff or the decent perspectives from RFK Jr. And applied that in a responsible manner. And I know this is the job that he wanted and Trump needed, you know, the support of the Maha movement, et cetera. But he is such a wild danger to our health and longevity, which he preaches that he knows so much about. There is a set of policy concerns here, you know, besides the vaccine stuff. But, you know, RFK Jr. Is the most popular member of the Trump cabinet and the Maha movement still has a lot of support and we haven't seen Democrats making inroads there as much as I would have liked to. And you know, I'm not saying that the folks that live the Maha lifestyle are necessarily obsessed with everything that's going on with the Trump administration because there are a lot of, you know, liberal leaners in there. But it is a force in American politics to be reckoned with and it will Live on passed this round of the Trump administration. So I. I do hope that we talk more to people who have concerns around, you know, food safeties, and even people who have concerns about vaccine efficacy. Go a la my book. I disagree. Go have the tough conversations, right? Like, talk them through all the studies and also hear them out about what their concerns are.
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He's an embarrassment. There's going to be unnecessarily. There's going to be unnecessary death, disease and disability because we have someone running our health and human services who not only has no domain expertise, but promotes dangerous ideologies. And the greatest innovation in history is the American middle class. A close second is vaccines. And the fact that he would create this type of doubt and promote all these ridiculously stupid things. It's emblematic of this administration that this level of incompetence has real impact on people. And unfortunately, in this instance, it's going to have a lot of impact on children. What? It does appear. It does appear that even the Trump administration recognizes the damage to the brand of having RFK Jr. Out there. They've mostly, like, put him in a closet. You just haven't heard of a closet.
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He was testifying for seven days. That's a lot of public stuff. And now he has this podcast.
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But not by the administration's choice. No, no, of course not.
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But I'm saying there is an opportunity to amplify the horrible stuff about him. And then he also has this book. Did you see that he cut off a raccoon's penis and saved it to study later. Like, how many animals has this guy murdered? Defiled. What is wrong with him?
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Yeah, I hadn't heard that one.
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Well, I'm here to educate you about the important stuff. Raccoon penises.
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God, I don't even have.
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Sorry. That I put in there now. And you have to go through the whole day thinking about it.
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All right, I think that's. I think that's an opportunity to move on. Before we go. The conflict between Pope Leo and the Trump administration is continuing to escalate. US bishops are now backing the Pope after Vice President J.D. vance suggested he should be more careful weighing in on war and politics. Police also confirmed that the pope's brother received a bomb threat at his Illinois home last night. And Pope Leo isn't backing down. In a speech this week, he doubled down on his criticism of the war in Iran, warning against leaders who use religion to justify conflict, and pointedly saying, blessed are the peacemakers. The remarks come as the Trump administration continues to frame the War and more on religious terms, deepening the divide. It just strikes me that we have, I think, correctly, one of the wonderful things about America is we, the framers said, look, we want to move away from a king and we want to separate church and state and that we respect people's religions. We are a very religious society, but we're secular with respect to government and policy making. And then when you have the Secretary of Defense invoking religion and God and divinity and Sam Jackson. Yeah, and something from Pulp Fiction, we are now that theocratic, batshit crazy rogue nation. It's like we're specifically promoting ideals that the initial framer said that we're supposed to counteract in other countries. Jess, do you think this is starting to fracture the longstanding alignment with between conservative Catholics and the Republican Party?
B
Yeah, it is. I mean, the polling indicates that it is starting to. What's more interesting is to see the evangelical response to it. And I think that's linked more to Trump posting himself as Jesus slash Dr. Trump or whatever he's saying. But, you know, he's now moved back to actually, this is all fine and good. And yeah, if you spend enough time telling a toddler that he's your Lord and Savior, he's going to start believing you. And he is buying what his suck up cabinet tells him. That weirdo spiritual advisor Paula White, you know, the one that always those pictures where they're in the Oval Office praying around him and you know, he's susceptible to whatever the last person in the room told him. He's a complete narcissist. So of course the guy thinks that he's at least akin to Jesus Christ. And what Pope Leo is doing is so fascinating to me because Pope Francis was more outwardly political than Pope Leo, and Leo is much more conservative than Francis. But it appears that he also, you know, fully understands what MAGA means and what American jockeying on social media means in the Trump era. Because he's fighting Chicago style with Trump on this. He's not afraid of this conflict. And there were was definitely an opportunity for him to kind of just, you know, stand back and go ahead and, you know, you do your sermons, you deliver your homilies and you say what you got to say, but not to respond directly. This guy's not afraid of him. He's posting on social media, calling them out directly. And I'm curious as to how this will evolve with Trump's defenders who always say, oh, well, he's just a counterpuncher. You're talking about the Pope person who leads 1.6 billion Catholics worldwide. And it's also adding to our fracturing with our allies. I mean, he's united Italy, Prime Minister Meloni, and also the opposition against him on this, and other world leaders, I'm sure, will continue to speak out. So I think it is not a fight that he should be picking at all. And I would like religion out of our government.
A
Yeah, this feels politically really stupid. Catholics are actually America's largest swing religious vote. Trump won Catholics by 12 points in 2024, 55 to 43. That was a massive swing from 2020, when he basically split them with Biden at 49 to 50. Even before his attacks on the pope, Trump's approval among Catholics had fallen below 50%. And only 40% of Catholics approve of how he's handling Iran. And 60% disapprove. And also Catholics. And I didn't realize this. They're a hugely important part of the electorate because, quite frankly, they swingers notice they swing both ways, if you will. And not only that, there's swing voters in swing states. In Pennsylvania, a third are Catholics. Nevada, a quarter. Michigan and Arizona also a quarter. So I didn't recognize what an incredibly important voting bloc they are. So it seems like.
B
And they're very politically active, too.
A
Yeah. And they vote. So this feels. I mean, this is an impressive man, by the way. Villain overgrad and thoughtful. Not afraid, really articulate. Whoever's handling his social media does a really good job. This just feels like the most. Feels like one of those moves that'll get some press, but not a lot, but will have deep undercurrents in terms of the impact it has.
B
And, well, like, J.D. vance can't go for an interview and not get asked what's going on with the beef with the Pope. And then as a Catholic, I mean, as a convert from 2019, he has to have an opinion on this, and he comes out with the Pope should opine less on theology. Like, isn't that the job?
A
Well, who should appoint opponents less? Well, Donald Trump.
B
Scott?
A
Yeah. Yeah. It was a real. You know what? It was a real missed opportunity for the vice president, because the bottom line is Trump's not gonna dump his vice president at this point. And if J.D. vance is serious about being president, he probably, in as elegant a way as possible, should have come out for the Pope, and he would have got a lot of. A lot of shit behind the scenes. But if he was serious about being president, this. This was that moment where his sister soldier moment or where. Where Vice President Harris missed the moment on the View to say, this is what I disagree with Biden on. This was that moment for the vice president for him to say, I have a ton of respect for the pope and I think the president's comments. I wouldn't have made the same comments. He could have just left it at that.
B
Yep.
A
All right, before we go, a reminder that not only is Raging Moderates now five days a week, we're now available on Substack. Our subscribers get ad free episodes, live streams, and a place to connect with me, Jess, and the rest of the community. Plus, you'll get access to the new Raging Moderates newsletter, the Monday Rage out now. Find us at ragingmoderates. Prof. Gmedia.com Also, again, please vote for us for the Webby for best news and politics podcast. We need your help to bring it home, but it is the last day. That's all for this episode. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jess. Have a great rest of the week and weekend.
B
You too.
A
Mom, can you tell me a story?
B
Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car. Was she brave? She was tired mostly. But she went to Carvana.com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required. Did you have to fight a dragon? Nope. She bought it 100% online from her bed, actually. Was it scary?
A
Honey, it was as unscary as car buying could be. Did the car have a sunroof?
B
It did, actually. Okay, good story. Car buying. You'll want to tell stories about Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.
Date: April 16, 2026
Podcast Network: Vox Media Podcast Network
This episode tackles the mounting political and military chaos surrounding the ongoing Iran war. Hosts Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov—self-described "raging moderates"—delve into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's controversial handling of the conflict, the Trump administration’s contentious decisions, deepening party rifts on Israel, the political fallout of religious posturing within the administration, and the ramifications of RFK Jr.'s appointment as Health Secretary. The hosts underscore a growing sense of frustration with incompetence at the highest levels of government and emphasize the urgent need for moderate, rational leadership.
[01:40 – 04:16]
[04:23 – 12:18]
[09:27 – 15:28]
[15:28 – 17:35]
[21:57 – 25:38]
[25:38 – 31:46]
On administration incompetence:
“Secretary Hegseth has just become the poster child of how incompetent this administration is…frat jock meets testosterone meets bitcoin meets head up your ass. Weird, reckless.” – Scott [08:49]
On press relations:
“I’m so sick of this shit…I imagine that’s also frustrating for our troops…this man is deeply unqualified, unfit, should have never been president the first time, definitely shouldn’t have been president the second time.” – Jessica [05:54]
On Israel and Democrats:
“It feels seismic…and we have to be much more thoughtful in how we have these conversations.” – Jessica [16:57]
On religious warring:
“We are now that theocratic, batshit crazy rogue nation. It’s like we're specifically promoting ideals that the initial framers said we’re supposed to counteract in other countries.” – Scott [26:45]
On RFK Jr.:
“There’s going to be unnecessary death, disease, and disability because we have someone running our health and human services who not only has no domain expertise, but promotes dangerous ideologies.” – Scott [24:02]
The episode is a passionate plea for rational, competent leadership and a scathing critique of both the Trump administration’s impulsive, ideological posturing and the broader failures of American political institutions. Scott and Jessica consistently challenge partisan narratives from all sides, advocate for dialogue over dogma, and highlight how the extremism and dysfunction at the top have real consequences for global stability, US democracy, and public health.