Michael Weiss: The Vice President Is Looking Pretty Stupid

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast // June 16, 2026 Episode: Michael Weiss: The Vice President Is Looking Pretty Stupid Host: Tim Miller / Guest: Michael Weiss (The Foreign Office, Insider)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the political fallout and strategic implications of the Trump administration’s emerging deal ("memorandum of understanding," or MOU) with Iran, as well as the shifting U.S. approach to Israel, Russia, Ukraine, and Cuba. Michael Weiss, a journalist with expertise in foreign policy and Russia, offers sharp analysis, especially regarding how the deal undermines U.S. and Israeli interests, and the naivete (or duplicity) of Vice President J.D. Vance as the public face defending the agreement. The episode concludes with a tone shift: an interview with Montana congressional candidate Sam Forstag, focusing on rural issues, labor, political communication, and the Democratic coalition.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Iran Ceasefire "Deal": Details, Controversies, and Consequences

What’s in the Agreement?

• The White House hasn't released the full text; only a summary talking-points memo is available ([03:14]).
• Cited by both Michael and Tim as a red flag: “If you are a family in St. Charles, Missouri, and you were worried that the Iranians might put a nuclear warhead onto a ballistic missile and fire it at your farmstead, then you can just sleep easy tonight.” – Tim Miller [03:55]
• The agreement’s main features:
  • Extends the ceasefire for 60 days
  • Commits to negotiating substantive terms on nuclear issues and Lebanon ([04:11])
  • Acknowledges Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz: U.S. essentially ratifying a new status quo rather than challenging it ([06:09])
  • Ceasefire extends to Lebanon, effectively folding in Hezbollah ([07:13])
  • Offers “small gestures” (i.e., financial relief) to Iran for “performance-based behavior,” but money will flow regardless as the blockade is eased ([09:09])
  • Private (likely American) investment in Iran is a goal—parallels drawn to John Kerry’s post-JCPOA “roadshow” ([10:32])

Big Picture:

• The deal is not a final settlement or treaty, but it materially changes the Middle East map in Iran’s favor.
• Key operational goals—ending Iranian support for terror proxies, destroying missile/nuclear capacity—are now reversed or left unenforced ([16:00–19:00]).
• The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) stands to benefit, as they not only keep their holdings but will also receive economic windfalls ([19:10]).

Notable Quote:

“This is about normalization with Iran… and potentially creating windfalls of cash for the Iranian regime. Not just from the Gulf Arab countries but European nations, Asia, you name it. And yes, members of [Trump’s] own family probably looking to capitalize on this because everything is about them and self enrichment.” —Michael Weiss [12:00]

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2. Who’s Selling the Deal & Who’s Winning

Jared Kushner’s Role:

• Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law and private businessman) is briefing the press on the deal, described as a “senior administration official” despite lacking a formal government job/security clearance ([05:19]).

Vice President J.D. Vance:

• Vance has become the principal salesman, making tone-deaf, almost comical statements about Iranian officialdom having a “cool” attitude now ([22:30–22:53]).
• The Iran hawk crowd is livid; even Marco Rubio is avoiding the press, knowing this is “a fucking turd” that will haunt 2028 ambitions ([25:47–27:41]).

Notable Quote:

“One of the really cool things and interesting things about this entire process is that we actually have a direct relationship with a number of people at the highest levels of the Iranian government.” —J.D. Vance, briefing reporters [24:52]

“This thing is a disaster for the United States … J.D. Vance going out front selling this thing does several things at once: number one, pisses [Iran hawks] off, makes his ability to become the heir apparent for 2028 a little harder because he looks stupid and naive and untrustworthy.” —Michael Weiss [25:45]

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3. Israel’s Bitter Realization

How Israel’s Strategists Got it Wrong:

• Pro-Israeli hawks miscalculated Trump’s resolve and the U.S. commitment to their operational goals ([15:46]).
• Israel is left with no meaningful gains but significant alienation from Washington.
• Key objectives—ending Hezbollah support, destroying Iran’s missile/nuclear capability—remain unfulfilled ([16:00–19:24]).
• Trump explicitly blocked Israel from responding militarily to Iranian missile attacks, upending their doctrine and leaving Netanyahu isolated ([15:46]).

Memorable Moment:

“I call this a pair of golden handcuffs that have been placed on the Israelis. They went to war with the United States. They thought, ‘This is amazing… Instead, this war is ending … with [almost] none of the operational objectives achieved.”
—Michael Weiss [16:20]

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4. U.S. GOP Infighting: Vance vs. Rubio, Factions Over Foreign Policy

• The party is fractured:
  • Vance, Kushner, and the pro-deal, “do business” crowd (Putin-friendly, less pro-Ukraine).
  • Rubio and other establishment figures quietly helping Ukraine, opposing the Iran deal ([30:48–32:57]).
• Internal leaks and press campaigns are being used to battle these factions.

Notable Quotes:

“So what does this also do? This gives Democrats … such ammunition … they can campaign as the party that is tough on Iran.” —Michael Weiss [27:21] “It all sort of sinks or swims on who Donald Trump sees as a worthwhile successor. … J.D. Vance, he’s just fucking weird. He’s unlikable. He’s anti-charismatic.” —Michael Weiss [34:25]

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5. Russia and Ukraine: The Parallel Track

• The administration’s Iran factions map closely to its Russia factions.
• Witkoff and Kushner (pro-deal) have deep business ties to Russia and are not supportive of Ukraine ([30:48–31:41]).
• Rubio, Ratcliffe (CIA), and certain White House actors are seen as pro-Ukraine—sometimes successfully maneuvering Trump to support Kyiv ([31:41–32:57]).
• Ukraine’s military situation is improving thanks to domestic innovation (drones), which may appeal to Trump’s transactional instincts ([37:35–40:45]).

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6. Russian "Gig Terrorism" in Europe

• Russians are using local criminals and petty delinquents, often via Telegram, for sabotage (e.g., the recent arson attack on UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s home).
• Longstanding Russian “active measures” and disinformation continue to target the West, with old KGB cadres now openly teaching these tactics ([41:36–45:07]).

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7. Next on Trump’s Foreign Policy: Cuba Retrenchment

• Trump’s team is moving to “coercive diplomacy” in Cuba—hawks want regime transition (not change), aggressive sanctions, and private sector leverage, with violence as a fallback ([45:47–47:48]).
• Michael notes the immense suffering in Cuba: “23 hours of blackouts, hardly any food, medical system collapsed” ([47:58]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Trump is not sleepwalking. I think their eyes are very wide open, walking headlong into the economy.”
  —Tim Miller on the administration’s Iran deal [12:19]

• “They installed what the New York Post calls a 'probably gay Supreme Leader.' I mean, it’s a new woke DEI IRGC, man. Come on, get with the program.”
  —Michael Weiss, sarcastically mocking the regime change narrative [23:50]

• “Maybe the real treasure is the friends we made along the way, says J.D. Vance.”
  —Tim Miller, mocking Vance's sales pitch [24:52]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Iran Deal Analysis – [03:14]–[13:49]
• Israel Policy Fallout – [13:49]–[20:15]
• U.S. GOP Intramural Fights – [25:47]–[34:25]
• Russia/Ukraine Diplomacy – [30:48]–[40:45]
• Russian “Gig Terrorism” and the British Arson Plot – [41:17]–[45:07]
• Cuba Policy Preview – [45:19]–[47:58]

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Interview: Sam Forstag, Montana Congressional Candidate

Background & Personality:

• Smokejumper and union leader; describes the logistics and dangers of aerial firefighting ([51:50]).
• Entered the race after local job losses (due to “Doge” budget cuts) were ignored by incumbent Rep. Ryan Zinke ([54:29]).

Key Issues:

• Addressing rural economic pain and housing crises—Montana has one of America’s least affordable markets ([56:49]).
• Missed Democratic messaging opportunities: bridging cultural/language gaps, making the party more welcoming to poor and working-class voters ([61:19]).
• On the Dems: “We should be really pissed at both sides if [attack-only campaigns] are all they have to offer.” ([68:42])

Notable Policy Points:

• Calls for more government focus on practical, material needs—housing, wages, accessible healthcare.
• Advocated for criminal justice reform and bipartisan solutions in Montana ([64:38–66:19]).
• On the Iran war/reconstruction: “Imagine the good we could do with $300 billion instead of rebuilding what we just blew up” ([66:40]).

Memorable Moments:

• Tim and Sam joke about “shirtless sauna interviews” ([50:54]).
• Sam’s “special sauce” for uniting progressive and moderate Democrats: focus on practical, unifying issues, not attacks ([68:42]).
• Health/workout tips: recommends the sauna, jump rope, and burpees for “smokejumping shape” ([71:59]).

Forstag’s Website: www.samformontana.com

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Overall Tone

• Engaged, reality-based, irreverent but deeply substantive. Tim Miller and Michael Weiss mix sarcasm, exasperation, and policy expertise, with occasionally laugh-out-loud flourishes to call out naivete and self-dealing. The second half’s interview is folksier but just as sharp, with a focus on practical governance and rural representation.

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For First-time Listeners

• Expect fast-paced, tightly reasoned foreign policy analysis with skepticism for both “Trump Inc.” deal-making and Democratic political errors.
• The episode is essential for understanding the current state of U.S. foreign policy, congressional infighting, and the political costs of the Iran MOU—plus an illuminating update from rural America’s political trenches.

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Listen Further: For an instant grasp of the episode’s core themes, tune in from [03:14] (Iran deal analysis) and [50:42] (Sam Forstag interview).

Transcript

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[Michael Weiss]

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[Michael Weiss]

Foreign.

[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We got a double header for you today in segment two. Maybe the dreamiest congressional candidate will be joining us. So stick around for that, particularly if you're on the video podcast. But first, slightly less dreamy, but charming in his own way. He's on substack of the Foreign Office. He's the author of ISIS Inside the Army of Terror. He's an editor at the Insider, a Russia focused independent media outlet. It's Michael Weiss. How you doing, handsome?

[Michael Weiss]

Slightly less dreamy Michael Weiss. That's got to go on a business card.

[Tim Miller]

Slightly less dreamy. I mean, I do. Have you seen Sam Forbes for Stag My stars? No, he's running in Montana.

[Michael Weiss]

Oh, my goodness. Okay.

[Tim Miller]

It's more, it's, it's more for your wife.

[Michael Weiss]

Anyway, how many, how many chalamets does he get in the Tim Miller scale of dreaminess?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, well, not you he's not even on the Chalamet scale.

[Michael Weiss]

He's not even on the.

[Tim Miller]

He doesn't even make the film. It's not. Yeah, it's not. It's not my.

[Michael Weiss]

Not your cup of tea? Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Not my model, exactly. But just, like, objectively speaking, you know, this is a man. Like, Chalamet is, you know, kind of a wee. A wee lad.

[Michael Weiss]

My wife was walking behind him in Central park and just.

[Tim Miller]

God, jealous.

[Michael Weiss]

His legs, she said, are basically the size of toothpicks.

[Tim Miller]

All right, Michael, don't get me excited this early in the morning.

[Michael Weiss]

What did they say? The camera adds, like, 100 points of testosterone. So, yeah, I mean,

[Tim Miller]

okay, I'm getting for cleanse.

[Michael Weiss]

Speaking of testosterone.

[Tim Miller]

Hot and bothered. Yes. Lack of testosterone. Trump has got what you said at the substack. Looks like the deal that is emerging, the mou, is quite similar, even worse than something that Trump called the worst and dumbest deals ever made, being the jcpoa. Why don't you just talk about what you know, at this point, we haven't actually seen the text of the deal, which I think is telling in its own right. The White House put out a talking points paper. I really enjoyed the first sentence of the talking points, which is, this is great for the American people who are concerned about being nuked by the Iranians.

[Michael Weiss]

So this is great for the American family, actually.

[Tim Miller]

Family? Yeah. If you are a family in St. Charles, Missouri, and you were worried that the Iranians might put a nuclear warhead onto a ballistic missile and fire it at your farmstead, then you can just sleep easy tonight. So that's point one.

[Michael Weiss]

It says they're going to feel relief at the pump and at the grocery store. Not sure why the grocery store factors into Iran and the settlement of the war, but, yeah, I mean, so we don't know a heck of a whole lot because, as you say, the U.S. has refused to release the MOU. J.D. vance has described it as about a page and a half. So let's just back up a second and underscore this thing is not a peace agreement. This isn't any kind of treaty or some kind of lasting term sheet. This is basically an agreement to extend the ceasefire for another 60 days and to spend those 60 days trying to get to something more substantive and permanent, including on the nuclear issue and including on, presumably, war in Lebanon. A whole sort of basket of interrelated things. What do we know about this thing? Based on what J.D. vance and Jared Kushner told reporters on a background call yesterday. I wasn't on the call. So I'm not bound by any background covenant here. I just had a transcript of it leaked, and I could just tell you what JD and what Jared said.

[Tim Miller]

Now, it's interesting that Jared was on the call.

[Michael Weiss]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Because he has. Does he have a job? What is his job?

[Michael Weiss]

Well, I mean, he's like, plenty potentiary of the president for multiple portfolios. I mean, he's doing Ukraine stuff, he's doing leveraged buyouts with the Saudis. I mean, he's up to his eyeballs in geopolitical diplomacy. And it sounds like big business. And that's probably one of the reasons why he's selling this.

[Tim Miller]

That's a news story that somebody that doesn't work for the government, who doesn't have a security clearance, is briefing the press on background without their name. Not only that, but feels like that's actually a bigger news story than this bullshit spin that he's offering on background. That's just one guy's opinion.

[Michael Weiss]

Yeah. And the attribution that they're demanding of the press is they describe Kushner as a senior administration official.

[Tim Miller]

What administration? Trump Inc.

[Michael Weiss]

Which. Exactly. Which makes him sound like he's on the National Security Council or something like that. But, you know, I would say there are three main points. I mean, without going into sort of the weeds of what was discussed, there are three points that come out here of this, clearly. Number one, the US Is ratifying or confirming Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz, because what they're saying in this MoU, or how they're describing the contents of the MoU, the Strait will be opened by Iran for the next 60 days free of charge. So the Iranians say, we're not charging tolls, we're charging environmental fees or some kind of administrative tax or surcharge or whatever. The US Says, no, no, you mustn't do that. But what they're basically saying is, yes, we acknowledge that you, Iran, which did not control the Strait of Hormuz as of February, whatever, the day before the war started, you now control it. And one of the things we have to litigate is who's going to control it in perpetuity. Maybe it's some kind of joint.

[Tim Miller]

The deals on ceqa.

[Michael Weiss]

Correct.

[Tim Miller]

You know, make sure that we.

[Michael Weiss]

Well, there's where.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Jared.

[Tim Miller]

The rare fish. Yeah. Yeah.

[Michael Weiss]

So that's point one. Point two, the ceasefire also applies to Lebanon. Why is this important? Well, for two reasons. Number one, you will recall way back in the long, long ago, one of the operational Objectives of Epic Fury, as the war was known, was to eliminate Iran.

[Tim Miller]

It's funny just to think about that. It's called Epic, but it was called Epic Fury.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It's a great name.

[Michael Weiss]

I mean, yeah, it's like, you know, if you like type into Claude, hey, Claude, give my 12 year old gamer kid the name for a cool military campaign. Claude would be too embarrassed to say Operation Epic Fury, but here we are. So one of the operational objectives was Iran must end its patronage, financing, arming of terrorist proxies, including Lebanese Hezbollah. This agreement, or this MOU, basically upends that operational objective by certifying that Iran continues to control Lebanese Hezbollah by interlinking the war in Lebanon with the war in Iran. Right. And you had Donald Trump today at the G7 get up and say he's quite tired of seeing how the Israelis go to war with Hezbollah. They level entire apartment blocks. I think he made a comment like, we'd rather see the Syrians, Ahmed Al Shara would be better fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon than the Israelis. So this is a complete reversal of one of the core objectives of this war. Right. Number three, J.D. vance and Kushner are kind of going around saying, oh, there's no money up front. There's no money up front. On the call, Jared Kushner said that there will be, quote, small gestures made toward the Iranians for performance based behavior. So in other words, if the Iranians make good on opening up the strait, they get money. They get money anyway. Why? Because the naval blockade we imposed is costing them hundreds of millions of dollars per day by restricting their ability to export oil. So the minute we start rescinding our naval blockade and consequently they start exporting more oil, they're going to make money. And in, in a matter of a month, it's going to be in the billions of dollars. Right. Then you had this kind of back and forth. Last Friday, the mayor New news agency, which is ultra conservative faction of the Iranian regime controlled state media outlet, put out their version of 14 points of this MOU. JD Vance took to Twitter and said, you know, I'm a little disappointed seeing people who are otherwise very skeptical of Iranian propaganda fall for Iranian propaganda. One of the big items in this memo, and I remember talking about it on Morning Joe with Scarborough, was a $300 billion reconstruction package for Iran. $300 billion. Everyone went nuts. JD Vance sprinkling cold water on it saying, don't, don't believe the hype, don't believe the propaganda. He's asked by CBS yesterday, what about this $300 billion. Well that's something that could be part of the deal assuming they behave correctly. Well, hang on, I thought it was fake news. Now it's real. Now the FT publishes a more elaborate explanation saying, well, it's not going to be a government run reconstruction fund, it'll be private enterprise. So here's where you get Jared and the Witkoff family into some real parts

[Tim Miller]

nicely of the senior administration official who also has a real estate empire investment company.

[Michael Weiss]

Jared said on the call that one of the goals would be to assuming Iran behaves properly. And you know, JD thinks it's quote, cool that he now thinks the IRGC has seen the error of its ways after 47 years.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we're to get to that, we're to come back to jdc, we'll come back to that.

[Michael Weiss]

But okay, so Jared said one of the end goals of this whole thing would be to quote, corral international investment in Iran. What does this sound like to you? I'll tell you what it sounds like to me. In 2016, after the JCPOA, the Barack Obama designed arms control agreement with Iran to limit but not eliminate the nuclear program. After that was signed, ratified, John Kerry went on what was known as a roadshow. He traveled to London, he met with European bankers and, and it was quite awkward even for members of the Obama administration because Kerry was going around saying, hey, everything's cool. Iran, that war, that conflict, that's over, man. Come on in, the water's fine, you can invest in Iran. And by the way, we won't even enforce the remaining sanctions we have on the regime. So Kushner is the new carry. Now, if you're a neocon, if you're, you know, an Israeli hawk, if you're an American pro Israel hawk, and you're seeing everything I've just described to you, Danger, Will Robinson, danger. Donald Trump was meant to be the guy. He called the JCPOA one of the worst agreements he ever saw. And basically whether or not he realizes it, because I think he has just basically farmed this out to his squad of factotums, including his vice president and his son in law. Whether he realizes it or not, right now he is sleepwalking into something that would be, I think materially worse than the jcpoa. Because it's not just about a nuclear arms control agreement. This is about normalization with Iran, bringing Iran back into the international community and potentially creating windfalls of cash for the Iranian regime. Not just from the Gulf Arab countries, but European nations, Asia, you name it. And yes, Members of his own family. Probably looking to capitalize on this because everything is about them and self enrichment.

[Tim Miller]

My only quibble with that assessment is I don't think they're sleepwalking into it. I think their eyes very wide open, walking headlong into the economy.

[Michael Weiss]

Except that I would say that Trump is also very sensitive and respectable, receptive to the pushback he's getting. Right? Because you can tell based on his tenor right now. I mean, the Wall Street Journal has come down on him like a ton of bricks. They have an editorial today calling this a capitulation. They were very pro war. Now they see the warning signs. Their editor at large is tweeting that this is a colossal mistake.

[Tim Miller]

I'm just throwing out there. I know that the Wall Street Journal editorial board thinks that we have TDS at the bulwark and thinks that the Atlantic has tds, but maybe, maybe should have read a Rob Bob Kagan article at some point in the last five months if they. If they didn't see this coming. I told you, everyone, yeah, everyone predicted that.

[Michael Weiss]

You asked me at the start of this thing, I said, I think this is stupid. I think it's stupid for a number of reasons, not least of which you don't go to war with an erratic megalomaniac who does not like military campaigns. You don't say, Donald Trump likes acts of war. He likes spectacular, you know, big operations where, you know, everything goes boom. He declares victory and you change the channel. Right? He is. He did not have the stomach to send, you know, Marine Expeditionary Units to seize Cargill. And he was never going to put boots on the ground. He wasn't going to go the distance. Right. And the Israelis, I think, were completely hoodwinked, thinking, oh, he's very pro Israel. He helped us in last June bombing the Iranian nuclear program. He's in it to win it. Colossal mistake. Bibi has such egg on his face right now, and it's going to cost him. He probably will lose the election as a result of this.

[Tim Miller]

So let's talk about the Israel side of this for a second, because I got to a little tiff this morning with Dan Senor, who's in the podcast business. Also, his podcast called Me Back, which is, he's American, was a Republican foreign policy guy, big Iraq war guy. And the podcast focuses a lot on Israel and Israeli issues. He wrote a book about Israel and the strategic blunder of the pro Israel hawks. I think you cannot overstate. And I know that they're very sensitive about bringing this up at this Point. And I think they're hoping against hope that things get better. Call me back. Did not do the podcast. Not done a podcast podcast since the agreement. Because he's like, I'm just waiting for the exact text. I need to see the exact text. I don't want to be somebody out there blabbering about this without knowing the exact text. It's like, we don't need to see the exact text to know what's happening. Michael Weiss is very capable of podcasting about this based on the background briefing calls from JD and the son in law. And like the pro Israel hawks, Israel itself agitated Trump to get into this war. Not saying that they were the puppet masters behind it, but they pushed for the war. They pushed for the war in the Situation Room. They thought that they had a partner in this effort to overthrow the Iranian regime. That was the goal of the war at the beginning was a, it was regime change, was goal at the beginning. They decapitated the head of the regime. And when they got into this, that was the plan. It was, this was their one opportunity to, you know, settle all their scores in the Middle East. And Donald Trump was going to have their back on it. It was an idiotic bet from the start. Anybody who had knows anything about Donald Trump and did not come out of a coma for the last 30 years knew that it was an idiotic bet. They did it anyway. And like, here they are. Trump this morning is like talking about how they shouldn't even be involved in Lebanon and maybe Syria should be taking a greater role in what's happening in Lebanon. And he's telling Bibi to fuck off. And he's telling reporters that. He's telling Bibi that he, that he told Bibi to fuck off. And it was a short term bet that, that I thought was going to be a medium term disaster turned out to end up being a short term disaster.

[Michael Weiss]

Right? And BB's popularity, his poll numbers are cratering. You know, look, the Israelis are looking at this saying, what do we get out of it? All we seem to have gotten out of it was we have been alienated from our greatest ally and our most important ally. The United States is now talking about restricting our freedom of movement. You know, it was a very telling thing that happened last week when Israel bombed Hezbollah. Iran was going to retaliate. In fact, it did retaliate by sending a missile at Israel. Donald Trump's response to that was Israel don't respond. I mean, unheard of. Israel cannot not respond to a missile attack by a Terrorist regime like Iran, it simply cannot. Its strategic doctrine goes kaput. So suddenly Netanyahu gets on the phone with Trump, spends an hour cajoling him, persuading him we have to do something in retaliation. Donald Trump's like, well, get it over with quick because you're going to fuck up my whole deal, my whole grand design. What is this? I call this a pair of golden handcuffs that have been placed on the Israelis. They went to war with the United States. They thought, this is amazing. The first time we have combined military action in the region against essentially the mothership of all of our discontent. Right? Iran is the head of the snake. That's what the Israelis are called it. We need to cut off the head of the snake and the Americans are with us to do this. Instead, this war is ending. Where there were four operational goals I mentioned one, right, Eliminate the financing and patronage of terrorist proxies. Now that's been reversed. Number two, destroy the missile program. Well, US intelligence estimates they have about around 70% of their mobile launchers, around 70% of their pre war stocks, and oh, by the way, access to, I think it's like 31 out of 33 missile silos along the Strait of Hormuz. Whoops. So much for destroying or even degrading substantially their missile perk. The Israelis say we got more of that. They didn't get enough of it, though, that Iran is precluded from firing missiles at Israel when it wants to retaliate. Right. So we know that operational objective has not been achieved. Number two, eliminate once and for all the nuclear program. Well, okay, they're not. The centrifuges aren't spinning because they've been destroyed or heavily damaged, highly enriched uranium buried under the ground. But in this MoU, or in the contours of this MoU, based on what's being discussed, there is no understanding of how we are going to exfiltrate highly enriched uranium or any uranium from Iran. That's all to be left, that's left undecided for a later day that the can is going to be kicked down the street. And the Iranians have it in their interest to kick the can down the street, which is why CIA John Ratcliffe and Marco Rubio and even Pete Hegseth, God bless him. I never thought I'd say that. Are saying we don't trust the Iranians.

[Tim Miller]

We don't need to go that far.

[Michael Weiss]

You didn't mean to say that. I didn't mean to say that. I'm sorry, I retract that comment.

[Sam Forstag]

Wholeheartedly.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, maybe instead of Pete Hegseth got busted, maybe like even somebody as mentally challenged as Pete Hegseth, even like one of the dumbest people that you've ever met, can look at this situation and accurately assess whether or not God love

[Michael Weiss]

him in the Joe Biden, Irish Catholic sense of this phrase, God love him. But anyway, it came out. God bless. Excuse me. Anyway, this is why CIA is leaking. The Iranians are not to be trusted on the nuclear. So there's three operational. The one operational objective that you could argue has been completely achieved is the Iranian navy is in the dream now. It's been destroyed. Okay, well done. Was that worth the expense in blood and treasure for this campaign? I ask you, I ask any Israeli, the answer no, it wasn't. Right. And now the money that Iran is going to make on the back of this thing, what are they going to use it probably for their people. Schools. Yeah, their people. Right. You know, maybe we'll, you know, they'll just quietly murder another 30,000.

[Tim Miller]

Economic opportunity throughout Iran. Probably.

[Michael Weiss]

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And you're quite right. Regime change was always the goal. And don't let the revisionist tell you otherwise, because one of the exit interview profiles of David Barnea, the now former Mossad director, it was published in the Jerusalem Post. They explained quite clearly we were going to run arms to the Kurds. We did. The expectation was the Kurds were going to create this insurgency to fight the irgc. Instead, the Kurds in Iran hoarded the weapons and the Starlink terminals. They were going to install Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a satrap in Tehran and possibly other actors that they recruited. The idea, the goal from the start was get rid of this regime that has failed. And now the IRGC is firmly in control of the country and they control at least half of Iran's economy. So they are going to be the beneficiaries of any deal.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know about y'.

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[Tim Miller]

My calendar is full of outdoor activities this summer. In fact, we're doing Bayou weekend going down to Koch O territory this weekend. We're gonna check out some shrimp boats and, I don't know, eat some crawfish, get out on an airboat, you know, do buy you stuff. And when you do that, especially in Louisiana, you got to put away the heavy layers and switch them out for some breathable, durable clothes that can keep up with that lifestyle. That's where our friends at Mack Weldon come in. Mack Weldon has updated closet staples like the stretch twill chinos that go with everything and button ups that keep you looking sharp from the morning coffee to a dinner date. You can discover upgraded basics, fresh styles and [e-mail] plus get 20% off your first order of 125 bucks or more with code the Bulwark. We've also got kdn. We didn't know this when we booked the Bayou weekend, but it also happens to be a Kadiana Pride. So I'm getting a double dose of pride this year, which is a nice S need. What do you think a Kadiana Pride's like? I don't know. I'm going to need a Mac Weldon shirt that's a little colorful for that. I think I've been wearing some clothes from the Ace collection that probably aren't Pride friendly, but that are pretty handsome. You might see me in that black short sleeve button down. That's nice. They also got mix and match hoodies and sweatshorts that look cozy but still put together. Get on board with me. Add comfort and flair to your closet this year. Mack Weldon balances classic pieces with updated details to keep you looking sharp. Get moving with Mack Weldon Comfortable anywhere. Go to mackweldon.com and get 20% off your first order of 125 bucks or more with promo code the Bulwark. That's M A C-K W E L-O-N.com code the bulwark. Okay, so speaking about whether or not we should trust the Iranians with this extra money and whether, you know, maybe, you know, a new day has dawned in Tehran. That seems to be part of the pitch from the vice president. I want to play some audio for you of him with Jake Tapper yesterday. While people listen to this, I just, I do want them to listen for one key word, the word cool. And just keep that in the back of your mind and just like put a pin on the word cool because we're going to come back to that. But let's listen to J.D. vance talking to Jake Tapper yesterday.

[Michael Weiss]

The coolest thing about the progress we've made over the last few weeks is that you see people within the Iranian system, senior leadership, even IRGC officials, say, you know what, we may have some animosity, we may have some mistrust, but we recognize the way that we've done business with the United States for 47 years is a mistake. Let's try something else. The coolest thing. The coolest thing.

[Tim Miller]

Good thing. They're going to try something new. The IRGC Is like, you know what, you know, this reign of terror that we've thrown down on our people. Death to America. Death to Israel. That's, that's not right. We want to join the community of nations.

[Michael Weiss]

Yeah. I mean, I know Vance is like tight with Trita Parsi and the Quincy guys, but even they would blush to say the IRGC says it's seen the error of its ways. I mean, if you look at the Pentagon's in house assessment, its own history of the Iraq war, IRGC backed militias have more American blood on their hands than any other entity in Iraq, save for Al Qaeda in Iraq. Right. This is not a cuddly, kittenish military enterprise or organization here. They, they, no, they got to spend

[Tim Miller]

some time face to face with Steve Wick.

[Michael Weiss]

They got to hang with Wick. They didn't even have they like the

[Tim Miller]

cut of his jib and they're just like this guy.

[Michael Weiss]

Right?

[Tim Miller]

We could have what this guy has. He's got like a little corrupt deal with his family.

[Michael Weiss]

They installed what the New York, New York Post calls a probably gay supreme leader. I mean, it's a new woke DEI irgc, man. Come on, get with the program.

[Tim Miller]

Exactly. You know, you can have a wife and a side piece that gets off their shoulders.

[Michael Weiss]

Totally.

[Tim Miller]

It could be a different thing. JD went further than that on a background call. And I guess, Michael, you ruined it by telling us that you've already broken the White House agreement on this since you were not part of the agreement and said that it was jd. But Sam Stein and I were able to identify one of the speakers on the background call as well based on that word. Cool. Here's JD briefing reporters on the progress. And it's a similar thing to what he's saying to Jake Tapper, but he goes a little further. One of the really cool things and interesting things about this entire process is that we actually have a direct relationship with a number of people at the highest levels of the Iranian government. Maybe the real treasure is the friends we've made along the way, says J.D. vance.

[Michael Weiss]

You know, the ones we chose, the ones we needed to do to make

[Tim Miller]

the friends, was just bomb a girls school. As if we bombed a girls school. Then we could communicate with them because like before the war, we couldn't have what had a direct relationship with a number of people. It's like JD's discovering diplomacy from first principles.

[Michael Weiss]

Yes. I think it's very, it's, it's very interesting. And I have to say, as somebody who really fundamentally dislikes JD Vance, I'm gratified to see him going out front as the principal salesman of this thing, because this thing is a disaster for the United States. I mean, do you know the people who are briefing me and leaking to me the. The most furiously right now are Republican hawks, people who, you know, found the JCPOA anathema. They are in absolute panic mode. Right?

[Tim Miller]

Idiots. The fdd. All these.

[Michael Weiss]

No, not the FD guys are. No, no, no, no, no. In fact, the guys I'm talking about are telling me the FDD guys are out to fucking lunch. They're in a cult of their own where they're saying, well, we need to see the deal. And, like, you know, I mean, Mark Doublewitz, nice guy, but Jesus Christ, man. I mean, like, you know, they. They have absolute faith in Donald Trump to. To save the day on this. And, okay, you know, I mean, this is when you, you know, you go to some, like, ranch in Montana and drink, you know, Kool Aid or whatever, because I don't see that from normie Republicans who have spent 30 years working on the Iran issue. Also, they. They fundamentally understand just how completely dysfunctional and batshit their own party is. They are the ones that are the most aggrieved and the most anxious right now. And J.D. vance going out front selling this thing does several things at once. Number one, pisses them off. Makes his ability to become the heir apparent for 2028 a little harder because he looks stupid and naive and untrustworthy. Number two, Rubio. Everyone's like, where's Marco Rubio? I'm like, he's gone into occultation, like the 12th Imam. He's hiding, actually. Now he's in the G7 meeting with Zelensky. He wants nothing to do with this because he knows that this is a fucking turd, right? And he knows that this would scuttle his chance of being the nominee in 2028. But what does this also do? This gives Democrats, hilariously, ironically, this gives them such ammunition because they can basically use the same narratives that they were peddling under Obama to sell the jcpoa. Vance is now peddling, but peddling woefully, inartfully and in such a deranged fashion that it's giving them ammunition to basically campaign as the party that is tough on Iran. So Democrats can run in 2028 as we're the hawks on Russia. And frankly, relatively speaking, we're also the hawks on Iran, because look at what this guy did. He just gave away the stone.

[Tim Miller]

At least we're not the idiots we're not the idiots. We're not the idiots. Idiots on Iran. Well, that's great. My man who did the Bulwark Pond theme song is now working on some Toy Story 5 stuff inside Toy Story in my mind, and I just was kind of thinking about. I kind of want a spin off.

[Michael Weiss]

You guys really have made it, huh?

[Tim Miller]

Oh, yeah. And I was just kind of thinking of JD and. And the Iranian foreign minister with little Randy Newman in the background in Switzerland. You got a friend in me. Anyway, we'll see how it goes for jd. I'm happy he's making some friends. We'll see. He's got his book. Also, I do want to shout this out. He's got his book out about his conversion. A true miracle that he found a new God and a new political God at the same time. He found two gods at the same time, and he converted to both of their faiths simultaneously. And it's something that can only happen with divine intervention. And so we're excited to read the book. And so JVL and I will be doing a live reading of the book together at some point on Wednesday. So keep an eye out for that on your substack and YouTube feed. I think that will be enjoyable. Get a rose ready for that. Hiring people can be hard for me. It's just not my favorite part of the process. But one thing I know I'm always looking for, and one thing I'm always telling college kids I'm talking to when they're going out there to interview, is somebody who's really excited for the job. Everybody's looking for an interviewee that is thrilled about what they're trying to do because you know they're going to work harder. It's true for us. It's true for me. I'm working harder when I know that the podcast is going to be fun. I'm working hard every day. You guys know that. But yeah, there's that little extra zhuzh if you know that you're excited about what you're doing. So if you need to hire for your business, how can you separate the candidates who are really excited about your opportunity for the ones that are just kind of meh. ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter has a new feature that quickly lets you see the most interested, qualified candidates first so you meet the right people faster. Now you can try it for [e-mail] Bulwark ZipRecruiter's new feature puts the most interested qualified candidates at the top of your list. ZipRecruiter's smart matching technology connects you with qualified candidates instantly. Candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job. Use ZipRecruiter and find enthusiastic talent fast. 4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the very first day. And now you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com bulwark that's ziprecruiter.com bulwark meet your match on ZipRecruiter. The Marco JD Fisher, I think is notable here. Marco is the G7, I guess we can talk about. So maybe he's doing some diplomacy there. I assume he's not doing any media. Marco loves doing media. So that's a new. That's unusual.

[Michael Weiss]

Why would he touch this thing with a barge pole?

[Tim Miller]

Well, he's going to have to come around on it. He's going to have to come around on it because Daddy Trump wants it. And Marco finds his way around on everything eventually. But it's pretty telling that he is nowhere. Nada.

[Michael Weiss]

I would prefer him at the G7 while Trump meets with Zelensky than doing this dance.

[Tim Miller]

Being there. Yeah. You noted, though, that the fissures in the fissures here are mapping exactly along the Russian.

[Michael Weiss]

Exactly, exactly. And isn't that interesting? Right, so you've got Witkoff, Kushner, Vance, the people who want to trust Putin. They want to end the war on terms favorable to Russia. They're not particularly fond of Ukraine. Witkoff and Kushner have never been to Kyiv. Witkoff's been to Moscow, I think, eight times. He's going again soon. Allegedly. And Rubio, who often says the party line and toes the administration line on Ukraine, discreetly does things to help the Ukrainians. And the Ukrainians will be the first to tell you this, and the Europeans the second. He scuttled that whole fugazi Dmitriev Wytkov info op laundered by our friend Barack Ravid at Axios, turned that from being codified US Policy, which was the goal of the Russians, to put it out in the press so that we would have to accept it as the actual plan of action. And basically you've never heard of it again. Right. It was watered down to the point of nullity. And now the Ukrainians are doing well.

[Tim Miller]

I'm sorry. They were first and right on everything. I was told in an Axios newsletter yesterday that they've been first and right on everything.

[Michael Weiss]

I badmouthed too many people on this show. This Is this is where you lead me astray? No, but I mean, it's true. He's like, and this is an argument I have with a lot of people who, like myself, are deeply critical, if not hostile to this administration. There are certain actors in the administration I would rather have be in the administration than not. Rubio is one of them. And the other, I have to say, is John Ratcliffe, the CIA director. So, you know, you talk to the Ukrainians, you talk to the Europeans, you talk to people close to CIA, and they'll tell you. One of the reasons that the US Intelligence relationship with Ukraine not only persists but has deepened and expanded is because of Ratcliffe. And he has some weird mystical ability to convince Donald Trump of doing things that are against Donald Trump's instincts, usually when they're on the golf links together at the weekend. And so I think it's very interesting that it's Ratcliffe the one leaking to Axios. This deal is a disaster waiting to happen. We can't trust the Iranians, but basically the factions within the White House House are fighting it out in the press. Right. And what Rubio does next, I don't know. I mean, I'm sure he will say something that kind of sort of ticks the boxes. But we all know where he stands on this.

[Tim Miller]

Going back to the Israel thing, there's funny, I don't believe this is true, but there was a leaked report out of like a right wing Israel source in one of their outlets, I forget which one, that Trump threatened to fire Rubio and Haig said that they didn't get on board, which seems totally fake. What that does is acknowledge that everybody knows what the factions are. And if you're trying to get a change result, like trying to do something to exacerbate that internal rift.

[Michael Weiss]

Well, you also saw the New York Times reported, citing the Pentagon, that the Pentagon was doing collections suggesting the Israelis were spying on not just any old Americans, but J.D. vance and his team. Well, now I think you know why they were probably doing that because they saw what was coming.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it's pretty noteworthy. Marco, I think is interesting because simultaneously to the well read, educated people who know history, people who know geopolitics crowd, he seems more adultish. More adultish. I don't want to give him the credit to be an adult. He still is kind of like a little guy in a big chair. But that's not the path to winning a Republican primary. And so say what you want about JD and I will say a lot of negative things about him every single day on this podcast for the foreseeable future. But I don't know that his bet is wrong when it comes to domestic politics within the Republican Party base. So I think that's interesting.

[Michael Weiss]

Yeah. But again, it all sort of sinks or swims on who Donald Trump sees as a worthwhile successor or worthy successor. And I think the problem Vance has is I think of J.D. vance as the way I thought of Ed Miliband. He's just fucking weird. He's unlikable. He's anti charismatic. He gets up on TV and he says ridiculous things like the irgc. It's cool, man. They kind of get it now after 50 years of fighting us, they want to be friends. No. And even the base, it's like they may want an end to forever wars. They may have been against this war, but they don't want somebody who sounds like a dupe, like he's fallen in love with a strategic adversary, like a milksop.

[Tim Miller]

We need some Brits on you.

[Michael Weiss]

One of the things, one of the things that's been interesting about maga, if you look at the polling, they've not necessarily turned pro Russia. And, you know, one of the other things I've been paying attention to is this kind of civil war or this, this split within maga, the podcast. Yeah, yeah. But like, you know, Laura Loomer now going to town on the Russians talking about atrocities committed against Ukraine. And, you know, obviously there's personality, there's ego. So you've got Tucker, Megan, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, all basically declaring their support for the Kremlin, not just with respect to the war in Ukraine, but geopolitically, they should be strategically aligned with the United States. And now on the other side, and a lot of this has also fallen along the same battle lines that we've just described. Right. The pro Israel, anti Iran element is also now increasingly anti Russia because they think the Russians are meddling about and conducting influence operations to try and create this kind of schism for social unrest in the United States, particularly among conservatives.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Michael Weiss]

Turn conservatives into anti Semites, turn them into anti Israel activists. And, you know, there's some truth to that, of course, but it's very interesting to see the way things are shaking out now. I don't have any faith that Donald Trump is going to abandon his lifelong quest to be besties with Putin. No, it takes one phone call, it takes one meeting. Everyone gets excited when he says something that's seemingly pro Ukraine. This is all a game of management, right? I mean, I think the Ukrainians are very clear eyed about what needs to be done. He's never going to be pro. The best you can do is stop him from becoming so anti that it actually affects their fortunes on the battlefield. And right now their fortunes on the battlefield are quite good. Right? They're.

[Tim Miller]

Well, they are. So we had Anne Applebaum on the pod last week. She was talking about the progress that Ukraine is making on the battlefield. I talked yesterday to Kalyn Robertson over on YouTube. He is on the ground in Ukraine and he was there at the church bombing, the Lavra bombing. And so you know, they're simultaneous. Like there's progress on the battlefield and yet, you know, it's a burden on Ukrainians. Right. Like they're living through this situation where you to continue to live through this where you know, you have non military targets getting hit with Russian missiles and drones. You know that that continues apace. Right. And you know that can only continues a pace for so long. So anyway, so Trump has zelensky at the G7. What's your take on the state of affairs there?

[Michael Weiss]

I mean, some of the optics going into this are okay. The big meeting that happened in the White House in the last couple days was Trump met Usyk, the world heavyweight boxing champion, who is exactly the kind of guy the Ukrainians should have sent to meet Trump because he's big, he's good looking, he's a fighter and he's a winner. And do you remember the. Well, of course you do. The infamous meeting in the White House in February of 2025 where both Trump and Vance dressed down. Zelensky humiliated him at that meeting, the Ukrainian delegation, as a way to flatter or befriend Donald Trump. One of the little prizes they gave to Trump was a replica of Usyk's championship belt. And when the meeting all went to shit, everyone was like, oh crap, we got to get Usyk's belt back. And Trump just kept it, right? So now he had the belt and a year and a half later he meets the champion himself. And apparently, I mean, this all went down very well. So Keith Kellogg, the former special envoy to Ukraine, and his daughter Megan Mobbs, they arranged for this meeting with Usyk. And you can see from the photos, I don't know if all of them have been released publicly. Trump is actually, he's smiling. He looks happy next to Usyk, right? He's less happy next to Zelensky because he doesn't like Zelensky. Zelensky, in fact, he hates Zelensky. And that's never going to change. Why? Because in his mind, he sees Zelensky as inextricably bound up with his first impeachment in turmoil. Right. And unfortunately, the Ukrainians have no workaround solution for that. As I say, and I want to be clear about this, it's never going to be Trump will be on their side. And imagine if he were. Imagine if a guy like Trump who's obviously willing to go to war with countries that everyone says you shouldn't go to war with. Imagine if he had gone all in with Ukraine. They probably would have driven the Russians out of Crimea by now and then some. Right? But the Ukrainians are doing okay, Actually, better than okay for the first time in several years for a number of reasons. Number one, they have realized that they need to domestically source the munitions required to fight this kind of war, which is ever evolving, ever modernizing. Right. I mean, this is a drone war. It's not necessarily being fought with heavy armor and tanks. I mean, you need infantry to hold the line. Of course, you need human beings. And they're always going to have a manpower shortage, but they have really got the advantage in terms of military technological innovation. And that's done two things at once. Number one, it's now really interdicting Russian supply lines, particularly in the south. They're cutting off the lines of communication to Crimea and their drone operators are talking openly about this as a strategy now. Number two, it's allowing Ukraine to claw back some territory. They continue to lose territory in one place, but they claw back territory else elsewhere. But number three, and perhaps most importantly, it's made a utilitarian argument for Ukraine. It's not just about moral support, solidarity, the humanitarian suffering. Now Ukraine has something to offer the west, including the United States. And I mean, even Trump's, you know, idiotic sons are investing in Florida based drone companies that are looking to acquire Ukrainian drone technology. So, I mean, that's the register that I think the Ukrainian need to, to use with this administration. And they have.

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[Tim Miller]

The other Russia story for this week from the BBC, that's like pretty crazy is it feels like it's out of the show the Americans, but I guess it would. This show would be called the Brits or something, but there was some Russian spy outfit that instigated an arson attack on Keir Starmer.

[Michael Weiss]

I mean, this is what the Russians have been doing for a few years now since the war and since international travel has been restricted. Rather than send their own operatives into Europe, they are recruiting just either organized criminal elements or kids, riff raff people who are basically what I would call gig terrorists looking to make easy money, in some cases £1,000 or even less. They connect with a Russian handler on telegram and the handler tells them go and graffiti a wall with swastikas or Stars of David. Go and foment race hatred over here. Or in this case go and firebomb the home of the Prime Minister of the uk. Now the suspects, actually hopefully you got

[Tim Miller]

more than a thousand pounds for that.

[Michael Weiss]

I think it was just not very much more than that actually again, these are just kids in most cases that are looking to make easy money. So what the Russians are doing is they're recruiting Ukrainian, right, because they want it to look like Ukraine is behind this spate of terrorist attacks, but really it's Russians. And in this instance the handler was I think a 23 year old kid who's the son of a Russian diplomat. What was interesting to me though, and this kind of all my greatest hits come back around. So this kid studies at Moscow State University's Diplomatic Academy which is run by their foreign Ministry. The Diplomatic Academy at Moscow State University has a media program run by Rybar. Rybar is a sanctioned state media organization that does, among other things, according to the US Government, tries to foment, you know, ethnic tensions, race hate crimes in the west, all kinds of provocations, sabotage operations. And two of the instructors in this program on information warfare run by Rybar, you mentioned the Americans, literally. One of the instructors was an SVR illegal, known in the United States for however many decades, living in Cambridge, Massachusetts as Donald Heathfield. Remember when the FBI rounded up all those guys, including Anna Chapman. That was the premise for the show the Americans. This guy is an SVR legal now, teaching kids how to recruit people in the west to blow things up in the west, including the Prime Minister's house. And another guy involved in this program was a quote unquote diplomat stationed in the Russian embassy in London, back in 2010 when I lived there and I wrote about him. What did this guy do? His name is Sergei Naloban. His father is fsb, was a colonel, a general in the kgb and then an FSB officer was actually the boss of Alexander Litvinenko, the FSB defector who Putin poisoned with polonium in the uk. Linobin is most certainly a Russian intelligence officer. He was stationed in the Russian embassy and he, he helped found an organization called Conservative Friends of Russia, which was a basically Tories for Putin. This is going back what, 15, 16 years now. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who, Thatcher's government, he was the president of this organization until he realized it was a front created by Russian intelligence. Naloban kicked around the world, he left the uk, he went to Estonia. Now he's sitting in a fucking ivory tower in Moscow teaching kids how to recruit other kids to blow things up in the West. So you see, I mean these efforts were put in place many, many years ago. Nothing is new here. The Russians have just now got, you know, they're on a war footing, that they're recycling all their old cadres who claim to be interested in rapprochement or normal stable relations with the West. No, they're looking to set things off in the West.

[Tim Miller]

Is there any kids listening to this in the back of your parents car and you're trying to make some extra cash like onlyfans or something? Okay, like there are a lot of ways to make gig money these days besides firebombing the minister's house. That's a bet. That's a mistake.

[Michael Weiss]

They'll probably be into that too.

[Tim Miller]

Last thing. Bill made this point yesterday. Given the humiliation in Iran, no matter how Trump tries to spin it, I think it seems obvious that what is next is a retrenchment back to his Don Roe doctrine nonsense. With Cuba seeming to be at the top of the list there. Do you have a sense for, for what's happening with regards to Cuba?

[Michael Weiss]

Yeah. So the policy, as told to me by somebody who would know, is coercive diplomacy and coercive economic measures designed to force Cuban intelligence and the hardliners in that regime to open it up, privatize the country, allow foreign direct investment, probably from the very outspoken and hyperactive diaspora in Florida. And short of that, if there needs to be some kinetic operation, there probably will be. But their goal is not to do any kind of military campaign. I saw a lot of chatter. They're going to snatch Raul Castro. Raul Castro just turned 96. He can't get out of bed without the help of his grandson Raulito. Raulito is one of the guys that the Americans are parlaying with because they see him as amenable to some kind of brokered agreement. So it's not regime change per se, but it's regime transition a la Venezuela. They just haven't found a Delsey Rodriguez yet that they can rely on. But one of the interesting things that they've been doing, you know, people assume that because we've had this blockade in place since, you know, 59, 60 sanctions have been crippling on Cuba. No, the blockade was related to American transactions with Cuba. Now they're imposing sectoral sanctions on Cuba, going after Gaisa, which is, I mean, like the IRGC runs the Iranian economy, Cuban intelligence runs the Cuban economy. So what they're doing is basically putting a gun to the head of these strongmen in Havana, saying you can keep some of your ill gotten gains, we're not here to take your money away, but you have to work with us, you have to do business a la Donald Trump. And if you don't, then we're going to take everything away and you're going to lose it all. So it's kind of mafia tactics, I think more 89, 91 in terms of, you know, the transition they're looking to achieve rather than a of pigs two electric boogaloo. Now, who knows it's Donald Trump, right? You know, mercurial, erratic, megalomaniacal Cubans could piss him off.

[Tim Miller]

In the meantime, that has been. I was doing some long reads on this. I'm like, the economic ramifications there, it's terrible, really horrifying.

[Michael Weiss]

No, I mean there's, I think 23 hours of blackouts a day, hardly any food in the grocery store. You know, they were very well known for their medical industry. Cuba would always send doctors to places like Venezuela. I mean, also intelligence assets. But you know, this, this was their big thing. Michael Moore did a whole documentary on Cuban health care. All of that's, you know, kaput now. No, it's, it's, it's an immiserated third world island nation. And I think that's part of the game here. You know, we can give you relief, we can give you humanitarian assistance, but it's not going to be run through the regime. It's going to be run through the Catholic Church or charities that we select. And this is Rubio's, this is his kit and caboodle right here. Right. He's the Western HEM guy. That's why he's staying out of the Iran thing, if he can deliver Cuba, if he can put an end to Castroism, at least as it's been known for the last half century. I think in his mind he is the heir apparent. I think in Donald Trump's mind, he's more likely to be the heir apparent. And in the GOP's mind, I mean, good luck to Democrats taking Florida because that'll be that state wrapped up for them for the foreseeable. Right. So there are political calculations, clearly domestic political calculations here. But I know people that are very close to a three letter agency who say they don't want to do war, they don't want to do an invasion of any kind or a rendition of anybody. They think they can get it through other means. Who knows?

[Tim Miller]

Well, that's my kind of handsome right there. He's a noodle boy like Chalamet, you know, he's smart, crafty. It's Michael Weiss, good hairdo.

[Michael Weiss]

You're talking about me.

[Tim Miller]

You're not a dreamboat. I'm just trying to. Yeah, I'm just trying to make amends for the intro.

[Michael Weiss]

I don't know, man.

[Tim Miller]

You're still not a dreamboat, but Comments

[Michael Weiss]

on the Bulwark Substack. You got some six year old resistance wine moms who think I am Timothee Chalamet. So you better watch out, you're gonna piss awesome to your audience there.

[Tim Miller]

All right, Noodle man, that's Michael Weiss. Appreciate him as always. Thank you for your wisdom. Up next, Sam Forstack.

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[Tim Miller]

All right, we are back. He is a Democrat running for Congress in Montana's first district. It's Sam Forsteig. Sam, I got to start with a. I got a bone to pick with you. That's okay.

[Sam Forstag]

Oh, perfect. We're starting on the right foot.

[Tim Miller]

I was doing some research to prepare for this interview and I came across the interview you did with something called the Pulp. I don't know the pulp. But in that interview, the reporter says that you invited him to your home or to someplace where you were in a sauna and you did the interview while doing a shvit. And so I'm like, why did, why wasn't I invited to do a shirtless interview with you? I guess is the question. I feel like I'm a second class journalist. I didn't get that.

[Sam Forstag]

Well, I gotta have some way to make, make sure we get a second interview in, you know. Okay, give it all away at once.

[Tim Miller]

Got it. Okay. Well, any song I'm available for sauna interviews, I guess is all I'm gonna offer here as well. I'd recommend people read that. It's pretty good. In it, I kind of learned about your background, but I still am not sure I really know what a smoke jumper is. And so I thought maybe you could just start by telling us about your background and what exactly smoke jumping entails.

[Sam Forstag]

Smokejumpers are just another kind of wildland firefighter. We are aerially delivered, so we parachute into remote wildfires to put them out before they grow. And the way the smoke jumping program has always been pitched since 1939 when it started, is speed, range and payload. So we jump out of fixed wing aircraft, out of airplanes, parachute at 3,000ft nowadays on the system that we use and you know, it's, it's just another way to get to a fire with, with less icon but a whole lot more on the back end typically.

[Tim Miller]

That sounds scary. That sounds a little scary for my taste.

[Sam Forstag]

It can be, yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Sam Forstag]

Depending on how big the jump spot is, it's either terrifying or beautiful. But a way. I, I read an interview with the Russian smokejumper and the way he described smoke jumping is for three minutes fly like eagle and for three weeks dig like more. And that's pretty accurate to me.

[Tim Miller]

Are there increasing needs for that? Like with, with you know, climate change, everything, like how it's hard for me to kind of get a grasp on, you know, that it kind of feels like we've been having more, you know, fires in the Mountain west lately.

[Sam Forstag]

Oh, absolutely. I mean it used to be fire season and parts of the west, it's, it's just a year round occasion now. You know, you got fires in Colorado or California that are burning all the way through December or January and that, that means a whole lot more resource needs that we're all paying for. And it's both the fact that summers are hotter and drier and longer, and it's also the Fact that we have 100 years of large scale fire suppression on the landscape and disinvestment from active forest management, from the sort of things that you would do between fire seasons to make sure that homes in the wild and urban interface don't have trees growing right up to your back porch, and to make sure that those fires aren't quite so hard to fight once they start. That's a lot of what I'm running to change. Right. It's the fact that when we disinvest up front, whether it's wildfire or health care, we end up in a state of constant crisis response governance, where we all end up paying so much more for so much less. And it's the same if it's a fire burning into a subdivision. And so you got to call in a large air tanker to drop retardant to stop that thing before a house burns, or if it's a 62 year old woman sitting in the emergency room at St. Patrick's the hospital here at Missoula. We all end up paying so much more for the least effective way to solve that problem.

[Tim Miller]

Problem, yeah. So let's talk about that a little bit. So that's kind of related to your origin story of why you decided to run for Congress and the cuts that you were seeing following Doge. Talk about that and what you saw on the ground. Because then I think obviously Doge was so widespread, it's kind of hard for people to get their hands around everything. And for good reason. USAID got, I think, a lion's share of the attention as well as the people who were losing jobs in D.C. because they know the D.C. reporters. Right. But this stuff was happening all over the country. Talk about what you saw up close.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Yeah.

[Sam Forstag]

I mean, when all these Doge cuts started, I was going into my fourth season of smoke jumping. I was also vice president at my union's local. It's niffy local 60. We're the first unionized national forest in the country on the Lolo here, just outside of Missoula. And they ended up firing about a quarter of the Forest Service in Montana in one year, just last year. And most of the people that they fired in the name of efficiency were folks making less than 20 bucks an hour, swinging tools in the woods and making sure that you can make it up a road to a trailhead or up a trail to access your public lands, or conducting the science to keep our air and water clean. None of that is about efficiency. It was all about power and consolidation. And when I reached out To Ryan Zinke, the schlub we got sitting in office here as our representative. I got crickets time and time again. So I decided if he's going to come take my co workers and my members jobs, I'm going to come take his.

[Tim Miller]

And then he backed out. So you kind of won in step one already and now you're running against a different kind of magus Duge.

[Sam Forstag]

Yes. Yeah, we got another political puppet and Aaron Flint. He's a little talk radio host who's been spewing hate and hot air on the radio for the last 10 or 15 years while a lot of us have been actually doing the damn work and trying to help our neighbors. I think that it is a perfect little encapsulation of what we're looking at as a country. People, you know, one side that is just trying to inflame hate and division and. Well, one side that I think we need to change to make a version, a vision of what this country can be, which is bringing people together and actually starting to solve big problems again.

[Tim Miller]

Let's not turn spewing hot air into a pejorative. Okay. Some of us, some of us are grinding away on that. What are you hearing from people in Montana? Right, because this is something that I'm trying to wrap my arms around, which is it seems to me that Trump is disproportionately hurting people in rural America, whether that be farmers with the tariffs. We could kind of, if you just look at the economic stats, it's a lot of the more rural parts of the country that have been hit harder. This is something that affects everybody in Montana. Right. The types of cuts you're talking about. On the other hand, a lot of the voters who live in those areas, the information they're getting are from people like your opponent. They're getting a lot of information on. They're getting a lot of misinformation and wrong information on Facebook, talk radio, podcasts, et cetera. Is it breaking through the damage that his policies are causing? What are you hearing from people on the ground?

[Sam Forstag]

Yeah, I would say it's. You cannot miss it. Right. If you're now paying nearly five bucks a gallon at the pump and you're in a place like Montana where while you measure the distance in hours instead of miles between one town or city and the next, everybody is feeling it. And we are in a state here in Montana where we by some metrics have the least affordable housing market in the country. You know, wages relative to the cost of housing, the cost of buying A house is doubled or tripled or worse in Missoula or Bozeman or Flathead Valley. And, and I work between fire seasons for a group of homeless shelters, the Montana Coalition to Solve Homelessness. For three years. We got cities where homelessness has doubled or tripled across western Montana. And that's because housing is unaffordable. So people are feeling it. I'll tell you one of the tough conversations I've had in the last five months of this campaign is a lot of people asking me a different version of that question. It's like, well, a quarter of your co workers voted for Trump or Brian Zinke. Do they see that they were wrong? Right? Do they? Do they see that they messed up? And that is kind of missing the point because a lot of these folks were hurting before Donald Trump got elected a second time. And that is how we got into this mess. I mean, I was making $19 an hour jumping out of airplanes for the US Forest Service at the end of 2024 in a community where you cannot find a home for less than a half million dollars if you're lucky. And I'm seven years in. And there's guys who are 20 plus years in making that same wage in the same community, the same housing market, so their life did not improve materially over the preceding four years. And you know, what if your life gets worse on a material basis while one party's in power and you vote for the party out of power, that's how democracy works. And it's a shame that those are the kind of options that we left people with. So let's give people a better option.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I mean, I understand the tendency to want people to be like, you know, you really nailed it on this Trump thing. You were exactly right. I mean, you know, being told that you're right, everybody likes being told, told that they're right. But that's not really how politics works. It's not politicking. I guess my version of that question to you, when you think about your, a lot of the guys you work with were Trump voters. You said it in the article that I read. And so politics comes up. You're chatting with them now you're running. Of course there are some issues where there are just going to be fundamental disagreements. Of course there'll be some areas where maybe there's some alignment. Nobody wants high cost for gas and housing. I'm wondering, is there anything where you, you are talking to them and you're like, you know, I think that these guys had a point in their criticism of the Democratic Party.

[Sam Forstag]

Oh, yeah. How much time you got, Tim? Absolutely, as much as you want. I mean, a big part of why I got into this is because I, you know, we, we have had some, you know, nationally momentous leaders in the history of Montana. Right. I mean, John Tester I got to sit down with last week. He was somebody who was able to get things done even in the terribly broken confines of the United States Congress and Senate that, that we've lived with over the last five, 10 years. Mike Mansfield, Jack Rankin. But what I see when I look at Congress is a Congress where the average member is worth three to four million dollars, depending on the day and how good the stock market's doing. Meanwhile, the average Montana is making 60,000 bucks a year. What I see when I look at Congress is a place where the average members were 15 times the average American. And you look empirically, and working people have fallen behind as a matter of material well being and real wages adjusted for cost of living over the last 10, 30 years. And it does not seem like there's a sense of urgency addressing that grievance.

[Michael Weiss]

Right.

[Sam Forstag]

Economic grievances to nearly the extent that there ought to be. Right. And what happens when you don't address people's basic material needs when the market is not meeting those things is they fester and they turn into misdirected grievances. And you got people like the schmucks in power who tell you, you know why you're poor, you know why your life's getting worse, it's because the brown people or the, the women, and it's not any of those folks, it's the very small slice of people getting incredibly rich off of all of these broken systems. And those same people have sunk their claws into Congress and into the halls of power in a way that even when we can pass major good policies like the bipartisan infrastructure law, a disproportionate amount of that money goes to large corporations and not into working people's pockets. And we should be pissed off about that.

[Tim Miller]

I hear you on all that. That sounds like something Joe Biden could have said, though. I mean, maybe he would have had any credibility saying it. But I do wonder. I mean, some of this stuff for voters in Montana, it's cultural. Like they think that the Democratic Party was too lax in immigration or too lax on crime or whatever it is. When you think about those issues, are there areas of commonality or common ground at all with MAGA voters?

[Sam Forstag]

I think broadly, and I'm sure you've experienced this, too. I think that somewhere where we have messed up is we got the power of language all backwards as a movement on the left, as Democrats, whatever you want to call it. And I got a front row seat to this because for the last eight years, I've been fighting wildland fire for six to nine months a year. And then in between fire seasons, I'd go work for groups like the ACLU of Montana, doing really important work defending our basic constitutional freedoms when the far right made it their mission to attack those things. And they attack them largely because they don't want you talking about the fact that they're picking our pockets by cutting the top income tax rate. They want you talking about where someone's going pee. And that's, that's, that's not the role of government at all, I would offer. And so what I would see is sometimes I got one or two days between a fire season where I just worked a thousand hours of overtime, and then I'm on a zoom meeting, and we spend the first 20 minutes of that zoom meeting doing Icebreakers, right? Or offering our pronouns, which I am perfectly comfortable with and which I think was a healthy part of the movement, but which a lot of the folks that I worked with would not be comfortable with because they, they aren't steeped in that language. They, you know, perhaps they haven't been through that. You know, they haven't gone to university. They haven't been in spaces where that's part of it. And what we have ended up doing is creating a language of power where a lot of poor and working people actually would not feel comfortable in that space. And if we as progressives care about poor and working people and improving their lives, we should be creating spaces where they would feel welcome, too, and where we are not going to eject them immediately if they stumble and if they fail to, you know, to keep up with a changing language that is changing before their eyes. I think that's somewhere we've messed up as the left, and that's somewhere where we've ended up leaving a lot of people behind who should be part of our coalition.

[Tim Miller]

That's right. A lot of the language stuff came from college educated folks. Not working people. Working people just weren't talking like that. And also, there's a silliness to it. Again, I respect everybody's right to exist, and we should certainly not try to infringe on anyone's basic rights to live however they want. But like, Sam Forstag is a he. Him, like, we didn't you didn't need to announce it, really. You know, like, nobody's confused about it. And so, like, that's why I thought there's, like, an element of silliness to this. Like, it feels a little silly at times.

[Sam Forstag]

Yeah. And as, just as importantly, we don't need to eject somebody from that space if they aren't ready to be using that language just yet, because these things take time. Right. And because, you know, again, if you're out in the field for six months and then you show up in a space like that. Well, some of these folks, they quite literally do not know the words, and you should not have to know the specific words to be involved in a space where you're changing policy or involved in what the future of our state looks like.

[Tim Miller]

I just want to talk to you about a couple of policies really quick. So you said you were doing ACLU work. I'd like to hear a little bit more about that. Broadly, but particularly, there's a big question around freedom of speech. And I think that the right kind of weaponized this topic successfully. Going after the Democrats in the Biden administration, going after ways in which some of this was about cancel culture, some of this was, in my opinion, kind of marginal things about the Biden administration trying to tell tech companies what to do regarding content related to the pandemic, et cetera. But this worked, and we do have First Amendment in this country. And I think there were a lot of voters that voted for Trump because they thought he was going to be a free speech candidate, something that the ACLU works on as well. And so I'm just kind of wondering what your work was focused on and where you fall on those conversations around free speech.

[Sam Forstag]

Yeah, I mean, the ACLU as it was conceived, and actually it's an organization that's supposed to defend your civil liberties regardless of what side you fall on. The ACLU was defending the KKK's right to protest, not because they're not schmucks, not because that is not a despicable organization, but because our First Amendment and the right to free speech and demonstration is something that benefits all of us when it's out in the open instead of suppressed so we can address hateful ideas. What I was working on was largely criminal justice reform reform. It was free speech. It was pushing back against a lot of what I would offer are distractions that the Republicans in power in this state were spending two thirds of their time singing and dancing about while they picked all of our pockets and continued to cut top tax rates for the people who need it the least in this state. And what I found is that there actually are a lot of opportunities to find common ground and work across the aisle. I mean, we ended up getting some major criminal justice reform policies passed in the state. Even 2023, when at that point I was working organizing with, with Montana Innocence Project, we passed a reform to ban fines and fees for juvenile defendants and the criminal justice system. Kids facing time behind bars in Miles City in eastern Montana who were getting out of juvie with 10,000 plus dollars of debt just from the court fees that they'd racked up. And you wonder why recidivism rates are so high, right? You wonder what the heck you're supposed to do when you get out of Juvia at 18 and you got $10,000 of debt and no resources, no prospects. Well, that's a system that is designed for people to fail. And we were able to pass that in a Republican super majority because even folks on the right, people who voted for the other side, they might know what it's like to have a family who's tied up in the carceral system. Those are broadly the issues I was working on.

[Tim Miller]

One other issue I wanted to ask you about is foreign policy. Obviously we got the memorandum of understanding, I guess, with Iran that we're working on, maybe a deal on Friday. We're talking about that in the first segment. Wondering what your thoughts were on the war, broadly, how Democrats handled it. You know, kind of what your mindset would be on foreign policy issues if you got in there.

[Sam Forstag]

I would say if there was anything redemptive about the America first platform, it was this notion that we were going to end these needless endless wars. And it turned out that that was just another lie. And now we are reigning chaos and cruelty overseas in Iran at immense cost, in blood and treasure to us as Americans, to service members. And that doesn't benefit any of us. And what I read a headline that we are planning to potentially spend $300 billion to pay for reconstruction of the damage that we rot as a country. Imagine the good that we can do with that kind of investment. I mean, when I go around Montana, I'm sitting down in a mobile home lot last week with a gal who has watched her lot rent increase by two to three times in the last five years. There are people being priced out of house and home. There are people who are losing health care coverage by the millions because while we let those ACA subsidies expire and we don't have the gall or gumption to actually fix a health care system. $300 billion could do a lot of good. It could pay for a lot of free child care. And instead what it's paying for is us rebuilding something that we just blew up. That's a damn shame and we should be so pissed about it. And I think people on both sides are pissed as I'm talking to them.

[Tim Miller]

Let's talk about managing the Democratic coalition. You've done something so far that's pretty impressive. I don't understand how exactly, but if you're just on Twitter, if you're on the Internet, there is like a never ending war, speaking of forever wars between kind of like the Bernie people and the moderates in the Democrats. Imagine what we with that energy. Yes, exactly. I, I will. I wish it was being channeled a different place somehow. You've success been able to do that. I've heard from my lefty friends that you're a candidate that they're watching and supporting. AOC came out there to campaign from you. A lot of my more moderate friends. Elizabeth Smith, on the podcast the other day with Majority Dems, they supported your campaign. John Tester, you mentioned it supported your campaign. Can you tell other people what the special sauce is on that? Because unfortunately I see a lot of Democrats who sometimes, sometimes find themselves in the sour spot where like both sides don't really feel like they represent them. And for whatever reason, you know, you've managed to unite the tribes a little bit. Talk about how you think that that went down.

[Sam Forstag]

I would say it's twofold. What this campaign has been based on is two premises. It's first that the basic function of government is to meet, help people meet their basic material needs when the market is not meeting them. And right now the market is not meeting a whole lot of basic needs. Like right now people are failing to afford a roof over their heads. Right now people are working two or three jobs at a time in a place like Montana and struggling to afford health care when a Marketplace plan is 800 bucks a month for bad health insurance or when child care costs $19,000 a year if you can make it into a child care program, let alone retirement where, you know, people's Social Security checks are not keeping up with cost of living and those material needs are actually unifying issues. People who voted for Joe Biden or Harris or Donald Trump, none of them want to see their neighbors homes bought out from underneath them. And, and my basic notion here is that if we can focus on those things first, we can build A coalition. And we can get to the other notions of empathy and compassion and the level that we need to extend to our neighbors next. Because it's a whole lot easier to extend the kind of empathy and compassion that you ought to to your neighbor if you're not having to work three jobs at a time just to fill the damn fridge. And that that's a reasonable expectation. And the second premise here is that people are tired of being so damn angry. I am him. Like, it does not get us anywhere to have these campaigns where the entire premise of why you should vote for me is that you should hate the other guy more than you hate us. And that is what it felt like living through the last campaign. It felt like we had a whole lot of candidates who were saying, look how terrible and atrocious and despicable the other side is. That's why you should vote for us as Democrats. And that is not cause enough to engage with politics or to give people any sort of hope for what our government can do for us. We should be really pissed at both sides if that's the sort of campaign they're running. Because to me, that reads as distraction from the actual issues that people are facing on a day to day basis. And I think the way that we get past that is to say, well, here are the concrete ways that we can fix the material problems that you're facing. And you know what, If a government, if a Congress that is largely populated by the rich and powerful is not addressing working people's problems with the level of urgency it deserves, maybe we should start sending working people to Congress again. Because you bet your tail I'm going to deal with a housing crisis with a little bit more urgency if I know what it's like to be working three jobs at a time while I'm going to classes and still coming up short on rent. And most people in this country, or at least people I know here in Montana, know what that's like. Most of the people in Congress, it does not seem like they do.

[Tim Miller]

You're covering a lot of heavy material and serious material that's very important to voters there. And I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And so this is a tough transition for me because I'm a podcast host, but we're going to end with something a little more frivolous. Okay, John Oskar, John Ossoff, Raphael Warnock would not tell me what their workout routine is. Okay? Both of those guys are fit. You know, they're going to the Senate and they're looking good. You know, the Republicans have somehow co opted this with Maha, even though they have a lot of fat body politicians in Congress. There was a guy, Abe Hamade, who is a congressman from Arizona, that was posting a weird AI meme about how it's important to be fit yesterday. I feel like the Democrats can recapture some of this. So my question for you is, will you finally be the person that tells me what the workout routine is? So, you know, all of us are looking to improve our arms. You know, we're trying to figure out what to do.

[Sam Forstag]

Well, I'll tell you, a regular sauna does a lot of good. And I can tell you could use a sauna, Tim, so you should swing by.

[Tim Miller]

I could. I could. Thank you.

[Sam Forstag]

Beyond that, my workout routine has rapidly diminished since we started this campaign. It turns out working wake to sleep for months on end doesn't do good for your health. But for. For jumpers, there's always calisthenics, Right.

[Ryan Seacrest]

If.

[Sam Forstag]

If I got time, if I got 30 minutes, I'll go out there and I'll jump rope and do new burpees. And that's a pretty good way to smoke yourself in 30 minutes. So that's what I've been doing.

[Tim Miller]

Jump rope and burpees, huh?

[Sam Forstag]

Oh, yeah.

[Tim Miller]

How many burpees do I got to be doing to get into smoke jumping shape?

[Sam Forstag]

Well, a guy like you, you look pretty close from what I can tell sitting across the screen.

[Tim Miller]

No, I'm not. Thank you. But I'm not that close. Thank you. I'm in a ladies weights class and I'm getting mogged by the moms half the time, so. Okay. All right, we'll look into the burpee routine. Well, I'll ask Claude to see if they can help us with it. All right, That's Sam for a. What's your website? People want to support you and what you're up to.

[Sam Forstag]

The website is samformontana.com all spelled out. Yeah. Please go check it out. Check out our policies. You're going to find an excessively detailed policy platform because policy is my love language. And if you can spare it, please go and donate because I need all the help we can get. And the angry hate spewing talk radio host. Nothing like Tim Miller, the one that I'm against here in the general election. He's got a whole lot of money behind him and we got a whole lot of people. So I need help from all over to win this thing.

[Tim Miller]

And it's a stretch race. I wrote about this last Friday, but you know, it's doable though. Republicans have won the seat for a while, but Tester won it narrowly, very narrowly. Obama won. I know there's been some redistricting, but you kind of map out what it would have looked like. Obama won the district, so it's doable. But it's a stretch stretch and hopefully it can be a place where we can kind of turn the tide a little bit. So appreciate you very much, Sam. Look forward to seeing you in Asana soon. Thanks also to Michael Weiss for his expertise. Everybody else will be back here tomorrow with another edition of the show. See you all then. You got a friend in me, you got a friend in me

[Ryan Seacrest]

when the

[Tim Miller]

road look rough ahead in your miles and miles from your nice warm bed you just remember what your past is Boy you got a friend in me. The Blarg Podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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