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- [00:01]
A
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B
Foreign. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday, so we are back with editor at large Bill Crystal, author of the Morning Shots newsletter. A lot's happened since Friday's podcast with Amanda Carpenter, which should be a reminder to y' all to, you know, be checking out the Bulwark takes feed on the weekends as news happens because we're at war with Iran now. And Bill, I just want to kind of start with a state of play for people if that's okay with you. You can edit or amend any of my assessment.
- [01:11]
C
I will be happy to. And also you and JBL and Sarah and Mark Kirtling did an excellent early Saturday, Saturday morning at 9, kind of first snapshot of where, where things were. And then you and I and Mark Kirtling did something at noon yesterday, Sunday. And I have got to say both of them were, I thought, informative. And luckily General Hurtling's there so the rest of us can talk and he can actually, actually explain and analyze and. But no, I think both our analysis of what was happening on the ground and, and here at home, for that matter, domestically, which you particularly focused on yesterday, was good. Look, it's a very impressive military operation. You know, we took out a huge number of Iranian assets and they working with Israel, very close collaboration with Israel. I mean, I may be a little surprised by that. Usually there's some attempt to maintain distance. It seems like it was a genuinely, you know, coordinated effort, wiped out a large percentage of the Iranian leadership and really a nationwide campaign against military assets. Way beyond degrading, you know, key nodes of the nuclear program or taking out some missile sites. You know, that was what happened last summer in June. This was a real attempt to go after the regime in many aspects, I'd say. And if you look at this just a map of the places we've hit, some of them were not nuclear. Many, most of them are not nuclear. Some of them weren't ballistic missile sites. They were other forms of regime places. The regime had assets and weapons and coordinating structures. So the military campaign is consistent with regime change as a goal. That's clearly been Israel's goal. It's the goal Trump articulated late Friday night, early Saturday morning at his little eight minute address. He's wavered back and forth on that goal since obviously. And in terms of the military effort, finally it's gone well. But wars are wars, right? So we've lost four soldiers, sadly, and some planes and others. Iran is not disabled.
- [03:10]
B
Let me just give a quick rundown on that. So before we get to what exactly the goal is here, as you mentioned, like a total annihilation, decapitation of Iranian leadership, Ayatollah Khamenei, the dead Ahmadinejad, who was not involved in this government but was I think kind of plotting a more radical coup type government. He's also dead among familiar names to listeners. Total domination of Iranian airspace. Obviously Israel has a ton of assets inside Iranian military leadership. So impressive in that sense. But as wars go, it's not just us bombing them. They're four American soldiers dead at the time of this taping. We don't know the details on that yet. There was initially they announced three had died and then another one added this morning. Three US F15 Strike Eagles went down in Kuwait in a friendly fire incident. The pilots survived there. The headquarters to the U.S. navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain's been hit. U.S. embassy has been attacked in Pakistan, Iraq, Kuwait. There was a mass shooting in Austin that maybe in response to this, the shooter was wearing a sweatshirt that said Allah and I think it's a shirt underneath that had the Iranian flag on it. Among the actions that we took, in addition to all the things you laid out, Bill, there was the tragic bombing of a girls school in southern Iran. Many dead there. Just really quick couple of the things. Geopolitically, Hezbollah has entered the war, bombing Israel from inside Lebanon. Israel responded. Lebanese leadership's now trying to expel Hezbollah. So it's kind of a second engagement there. Trump to Tapper this morning, Jake Tapper, he said we haven't even started hitting them hard. The big one is coming soon. And then Pete Hegseth and Dan Cain had a press conference this morning. We are going to about get into. So that seems to be the state of affairs as you kind of led us there. I think the most important question remaining here is what exactly is the goal of what we're doing? What is the objective? Was it safety? Safety for us, safety for Israel? Long term safety, short term safety? Is it regime change, Human rights in Iran? Trump's legacy, payback for them trying to assassinate Trump? Nuclear weapons only. Like it's not really clear. And interestingly this morning, the Daily Caller was originally Tucker Carlson's outlet, a very pro Trump outlet. They got the second question to Pete Hegseth and Dan Kane because the Pentagon press corps has been totally eviscerated. We don't have any real journalists, but I guess kudos to Reagan Reese, the Daily Call reporter who asked the question what are our objectives? I want to play you Pete Hegso's answer for that.
- [05:44]
A
The president said yesterday in his video message that we will leave Iran when
- [05:49]
B
we complete all of our objectives.
- [05:51]
A
What are our objectives? And can you share more information on how the soldiers who were killed were killed?
- [05:58]
D
Well, I laid out the objectives as did the chairman. They're completely nested. I mean, Iran has an ability to project power against us and our allies in a ways that we can't tolerate. So whether that's ballistic missiles and drones, so offensive capabilities effectively, their navy, which would attempt to set other terms and impose different costs, drone capabilities which we laid out there. And ultimately though this tying it back to Midnight Hammer, the president has been willing to make a deal. You can't have a nuclear bomb. Radical Islamists can't have a nuclear bomb that they wield against the world. He gave them every single opportunity. Then we precisely took it away. And even, even then after that, they didn't have that. They didn't come to the table with a willingness to give it away. So ultimately that those nuclear ambitions, which never ceased are something that had to be addressed as well. So that's a discrete sense of what's being addressed here to ensure that they can't use that conventional umbrella to continue a pursuit of nuclear ambitions.
- [07:00]
B
It didn't seem to clear a lot up for me. Iran has an ability to project power in a way we can't tolerate. That's pretty amorphous. He mentioned their navy and drone capabilities. A lot of countries have that, their nuclear ambitions. In the end, saying this is a discrete sense of what's being addressed here. Did you feel like you got a sense of what's being addressed here?
- [07:21]
C
Before I address that one footnote on your excellent update on the state of the war. I would say the one thing that's been a little striking to some friends of mine who follow this stuff with more expertise than I do is we have not decimated Iran's counter strike capability in the sense that they're lobbing lots of missiles and drones at various allies at our own bases and at the UAE and many of the Arab nations nearby. So I hope they're all decimated in another day or two, but they may not be. And that does raise the specter of a wider war. Obviously. I thought the Hexaf press conference this morning, it was really telling refusal to be clear about to even entertain the questions really about the goals. But to the degree he entertained them, he was hard over on no regime change, no long term strategy, frankly, just we're, we're there to beat it. Beat them up so badly they don't think about messing with us again, I guess. I don't think they were messing with us a heck of a lot, honestly, in the last few years, you know, and they were pretty badly beat up in June. So there was no imminent threat from Iran. There wasn't even much of a medium term threat from Iran at this point.
- [08:20]
B
Again, I mean, yeah, no, if you're
- [08:22]
C
Israel, it's a difference though even there, incidentally, they had done an awful lot of damage. So there was a plausibly coherent regime change strategy still shouldn't have been done without congressional authorization. Really problems with it, but it was plausible. I actually, the hexa thing really hit me because I think he's sort of totally undercut that and I don't really see what the, what the coherent strategy is or the coherent rationale for the war or the defensible rationale for the war. And I hate to say this as someone who's, you know, supports an internationalist and even sometimes interventionist foreign policy and the use of force where necessary. What are our servicemen and women doing over there? I mean, I mean really, I don't mean that in a silly way. I mean, I mean, I honestly feel this like personally, what, what do you, would you tell someone whose son or daughter or spouse was serving over there? What national interest or American values are they serving?
- [09:09]
B
Yeah, well, the families of the four that have died so far. And what are you telling them for what, like in the literal sense? Again, not in kind of a like rhetorical, you know, political code pink sense. Like, like what is the literal reason why they are there? The administration can't enunciate it and it changes minute by minute. So I just want to go through a couple of the things you mentioned on the point of this being freedom in Iran, freedom for the Iranian people, or regime change in Iran brings stability to the regime. Initially, Saturday morning, Trump told the Washington Post that was the goal. I mean, he sounded like 1999 Bill Kristol. Freedom in the Middle east was important. That's what Trump said. And Saturday morning offers a totally different story. To the Atlantic, he talked to Michael Shearer. Trump said he's planning to start talks with the new Iranian regime, whoever that is. And he waffles on whether he'd provide support for a populist uprising. Says you'd have to see how it turns out. Then on the regime change front, he told the New York Times over the weekend, we had three very good choices for who will take over Iran. Have some bad news on that. Late last night, he told John Carl that the candidates that they had to take over Iran were killed in the initial attack. Trump the attack was so successful, it knocked out most of the candidates. It's not going to be anybody that we are thinking of because they're all dead. Second or third place is dead. Then hags up this morning to your point, says we're not doing nation building quagmires, no democracy building exercise. So I don't know. I mean, Trump and other people have said that they want a regime change or that they want freedom for the people of Iran, but simultaneously, they don't seem to have any idea under what auspices that would come. And minute by minute, they're kind of going back and forth on whether they're even interested in that or being involved in that.
- [10:59]
C
Yeah, one point on the media strategy. You and Sarah discussed this very well yesterday also on a videotake. I mean, Trump's good at like giving random interviews to a zillion different reporters and advancing his culture war, you know, agenda, whatever it is, at a particular day. This is a real war. And the Friends of the United States should not be randomly calling up reporters, having three or five or six minute conversations with them, giving differing and confusing rationales for the war, and then sort of signing off without, with no clarification, no apparent coordination within the administration about what they really want to be saying today, what they want to tell the American public, who do deserve some clarity about this, the whole public, and particularly, of course, those whose loved ones are serving over there. But everyone deserves clarity. And our allies and people around the world. It's so irresponsible. I mean, this is like a little thing in the big scheme of things. But it is worth noting, I think, as you and Sarah did. I mean, just to. It's not just silly, but it's damaging. Right?
- [11:55]
B
I mean, to my point, there's been no presidential address and it's totally insane. Like on Tuesday, three days before they started the war, it was the biggest address that a president gives every year at the State of the Union. Gave one paragraph on this, then has not given an Oval Office address since then, has randomly called up John Carl and Jake Tapper. That is crazy. It's the biggest military operation that we've been involved in in a generation. The President should be telling people what
- [12:24]
C
the point is, and he's boasting to Taber. The big one's really coming. I don't know what that means, but if you accept Hexath's account of the goals of the war, it could end now, basically. I don't think there's any danger of Iran doing anything to us. They'll take them so long to recover from the decapitation of their leadership and the decimation of so many of their military assets. Why are we continuing to fight now? I think there are reasons if you really want to try to help get a better regime in place. There. There may be reasons I don't know about in terms of some assets they still have that we haven't hit yet, but we could do that pretty quickly at this point. And so the whole thing is. Is. Yeah. Incoherent. This might turn out okay. It might. Wars are unpredictable. You can get lucky. The whole regime could collapse. Even though we don't want. We're not even trying to make it collapse. That it could collapse.
- [13:11]
B
Right. Anything could turn out okay. Like, look at what happened in Syria. We don't know if long term, Syria turns out okay, but, you know, the Turkish rebels weren't trying to even really take out Assad. All of a sudden, like, the house of cards just collapsed. Assad's gone. It's replaced with this old Al Qaeda guy, you know, is he going to be better than Assad?
- [13:27]
C
Yeah, probably. Yeah. So, yeah, I agree. I don't want to preclude that, but I'd say to the degree that we are talking about a serious, as you say, a serious war, by far the largest of Trump's presidency, no congressional authorization, which by itself makes it much more of a gamble. And it's Trump's own. Risk taking and then no precise goal. Very hard to defend. I really do not believe that.
- [13:49]
B
Here's Pete Hegseth this morning, in case this clears it up for you. This is not a regime change war, but the regime did change. I don't know how we would splice that.
- [13:59]
C
Why is the Secretary of Defense saying that? I mean, he's supposed to be talking about the military side of it, and presumably there is a Secretary of State who might have a few views on what the broader conception of the war is. I'd say nothing. The President the vice President has gone into hiding, I guess.
- [14:12]
B
So.
- [14:12]
C
I don't know. The whole thing is.
- [14:13]
B
And he had Dan Cain next to him who was doing the military update, which was useful, but. Yeah. And then they took 13 minutes of questions. Given the scale and scope of this operation, I'm not nearly up to what would be called for as far as responsiveness to a free people who want to know what's happening. There's literally a January 6th insurrectionist that was in the room today. Brandon Strzok. I don't know if he got a question. And some other. These buffoonish kind of state media organizations that were asking them, like, how did it make you feel to kill Khomenius? And Cain was really being just like, brass tacks about, like, what has happened. It was basically all he did. And then you have Hegseth up there, like, doing a Saturday Night Live performance of a defense secretary, attacking media outlets, calling people stupid, you know, lethality. It's like. It's crazy. Just one more thing on the regime change. I'll kind of get through a couple of these other plausible explanations for what they're trying to do. Maybe Trump was revealing something to the New York Times and Michael Scheer. Maybe Trump really did want this to be a Venezuela type thing where you bring in the Iranian Delsey Rodriguez, and then we're kind of the junior partner, at least in some of the military operations. And Israel is out there with a different objective and they're taken out people left and right. And I think that Israel might be okay with a period of uncertainty and like, regime collapse. And that could be a sign that while the operations are cohesive together, the mission might not be. Are you one of those people that actually doesn't want to waste money or was listening to Scott Galloway the other day and looked at your subscriptions and realized you could save some money if you are unsubscribing to the terrible tech oligarchs that are ruining our society. Here's another thing you could do to save your money. Big wireless carriers are taking too much of it. So if you're tired of spending hundreds on crazy high wireless bills, bogus fees, and free perks that cost you more in the long run than a premium wireless plan from mint mobile for 15 bucks a month might be right for you. Stop overpaying for wireless just because that's how it's always been. Mint exists purely to fix that. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you with premium wireless plan starting at 15 bucks a month. All plans come with High speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You bring your own phone and number, can activate it in minutes and start saving immediately. No long term contracts or hassle. Mentioned this before, this is especially as you're getting into the kids things, you're looking into a wireless program for them. You know, this is something that's affordable. Not quite there yet, but we're all discussing it in the moms and dads group chat. So we're starting to think about when the right time is for kids. And you know, at 15 bucks a month it's not breaking the bank as much as some of these other plans would. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plansintmobile.com bulwark that's mintmobile.com bulwark upfront payment of 45 bucks for a 3 month 5 gigabyte plan is required, equivalent to 50 bucks a month new customer offer for first 3 months only. Then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra CMIT Mobile for details. Other potential theories I want to put forth for what the real mission is here. Revenge Trump to Jonathan Karl last night I got him before he got me on the Ayatollah. They tried twice. Well, I got him first. So maybe that's all this is. Maybe, maybe it's just Trump wanted revenge against Iran on the threat scale. Scott Jennings of CNN had said that there was an immediate imminent threat coming, that he had friends inside the administration. We had to act because there could have been a quote, mass casualty event that turns out to be wrong. DoD briefers did go to Congress over the weekend and they said that Iran was not planning to strike the US forces or bases in the Middle east unless Israel attacked Iran first. Long term threat Hegseth today saying that Iran was building powerful missiles and drones that could help with their nuclear umbrella. In that initial clip I put at the top, I guess that's what he's trying to say. I guess that's the safety and security case that he's making.
- [18:33]
C
Yeah, I mean the missiles are a danger to the region, certainly to Israel. I don't think many people think they're much of a danger to us here. I guess they were a danger to our troops in the region, conceivably. But Iran was being pretty well deterred from attacking US troops. Right? I mean there's a reason they presumably haven't done it much in the last few years and especially in the last six, eight months. I mean we could clobber them if they do that. And so there was no need to go in. I, again, I. It's such a horrible regime. I know so many people have been involved, honestly, in Iranian dissident circles, Iranians who've left there, who friends and family have suffered. I was moved by all the celebrations in the streets of Tehran, Saturday and Sunday. I so much want to believe that this may have been the right thing to do and could work out. But I've got to say, I found with Trump's ridiculous series of interviews. But they were ridiculous, but they all tended, wouldn't you say, in the direction in scaling back the hope of freedom. I mean, the first one, as you said, was a Saturday morning, perhaps, I think with the Post, Washington Post, Saturday midday. And that was a little more, yeah, freedom. And then by Sunday, it's all just his personal revenge. And then I want to work it out with the irgc. Maybe they can cut a deal with some of the other people. We have a list of three people we want to put in charge, as you said, but a couple, they're all dead. And I mean, it's so demoralizing, really, the idea that we moved. Unbelievable number of assets there. American servicemen and women are at risk. Four have died. I mean, others are wounded and others are now going into combat, returning to combat for more missions. It's so demoralizing that we don't have a serious objective or. And it's not only. It doesn't have to be. You could have a much more limited objective and that could be serious, but that would then imply a more limited war plan. And there's no evidence, Mark Hertling's made at this point, that the actual planning, which is very impressive, is linked up to any sense of a broader strategic objective.
- [20:23]
B
Yeah. And the supporters are trying to have it all the ways. I mean, to your point about how I want freedom for the Iranian people, I was also moved by some of the images last night. Our friend in Congress, Nancy Mace, posts. If you're angry that Iranian women may finally be free, you need to seriously examine your values and yourself. Is that what we're doing? Is the effort here to free Iranian women? Because I don't know, I would not have been totally hostile to that mission if there was a plan and there were allies and we had competent people in charge and the case was made to Congress and the American people. That's not an illegitimate thing to hope for. But the supporters of this are just trying to backfill any possible rationale they can. And some of them are talking as if this is A part of the freedom agenda. And others are talking completely differently. And the president is saying different things at different seconds. So, anyway, one other thing that they have put forth. According to the Atlantic, Trump told confidants that he believes his legacy could be defined by his overthrow of the regimes in Venezuela, Iran, and potentially Cuba. I think that there's a madman Trump element to this, too.
- [21:45]
C
And I think, don't you think, obviously a huge being high in your own supply sort of situation in terms of his personal ability to run these things, the US Military's ability, which is very great, don't get me wrong. But it's not infinite and not. Can't do everything everywhere. There will be casualties and setbacks, too. There's a kind of megalomania now. I think that's very dangerous.
- [22:07]
B
Actually, we were saying, like the hot guy on the craps table. It's like this. The Venezuela thing worked. Let's keep pressing. Not really a way to run a country. We hear a lot from folks in the lab and people opposed to Trump is that everything we just talked about is all just kind of window dressing on the more true rationale, which is advancing the domestic authoritarianism agenda. Tim Snyder, for one example, basically saying that the case that Trump wants us to rally to a war because it turns everyone who's opposed the war into a traitor, and it also maybe provides rationale for putting certain conditions or limits on the midterm elections. I'll quote Trump. He's kind of joking with Zelensky, but a lot of times Trump's jokes have a tinge of truth to them back in the Oval Office, where he's like, you canceled elections during a war. That's something I should look into. And then you have kind of the Epstein distraction sub bullet to that. I don't really think that's what's happening, but I think we should at least chew it over.
- [23:14]
C
Yeah. And he did say something about the elections. Iran messing with the 2020 and 2024 elections Friday. Maybe that was.
- [23:21]
B
Yeah, that's good. Yes. Yes. He posted on Truth Social about how Iran was trying to oppose him in the 2020 election. And that was part of the.
- [23:31]
C
The steal and the excuse of foreign interference or dealing with foreign interference is I think, one of the obvious excuses they could try to use for federal intervention or partial takeover of parts of the 2026 and 2028 elections. So I don't think we're going to war for those reasons. Is Tim Snyder right, though, that authoritarian governments, once you succeed in bullying at home and Some bullying abroad. You try to do more bullying abroad. Maybe you think it rallies people to you. It's sort of mixed up in your own. I'm not sure the distinction almost of the domestic and foreign policy at some point almost exists in his mind. It's all about him being on top of everything, in charge of bullying everyone. Right. And showing he's on top. And if he's on top abroad, he thinks he'll remain on top at home and get away with doing things on the elections. Or maybe just people will be so impressed they'll vote for him. But yeah, I tend to discount the kind of more it's distraction from the Epstein files thing. I hadn't really focused on the remark till you read it about the personal come in. He wanted to get me and so I've got him. It wasn't wanted to kill the American president or the US had to make clear this is unacceptable, it's all personal. Right.
- [24:37]
B
Yeah, he wanted to get me, I got him. He got got. That is much more in my mental model of Trump's megalomania and how he decides things than some of the more four dimensional chess theories of what nefarious activities he has in mind. I don't mean to say that of course he'd like to talk about other things besides Epstein and of course, if there are ways for them to meddle in the midterms, they'd like to do it. I just think that the other explanations for what got him to this point make more sense to me. And to that point, let's talk about the geopolitics, because I think this is huge. It seems to me that he was pushed into this in a big way by Bibi and mbs. Bibi said yesterday, Times of Flat Circle said sometimes this weekend that, you know, bluntly like that, was happy that the Americans are here to do this with us, that this has been something we need to do for 40 years. Bibi is not really hiding the ball on that, like on what his objective is here. And there's reporting that, you know, a lot of this started back on one of his visits to the White House in December, where they're talking about this and talking about how degraded Iran is and, you know, how, you know, how confident Israel is that, like, this is a moment to go after a weakened regime. Other reporting that mb, I guess, was calling Trump last week, saying he's for this, pushing him for this. There's of course a Saudi, Iranian, Shia, Sunni kind of proxy fight happening for hegemony in the Middle East. So what do you make of that part of this story, as you say?
- [26:18]
C
I don't think Netanyahu's made much of a secret about his desire to deal more comprehensively with the Iran threat than he's done in the past. He's been prime minister a long, long, long time and has never been able to felt he could, I suppose, deal with Iran in the way he hoped. And maybe both the military capabilities and the stuff they did to Hezbollah, which took away that threat mostly, you know, after October 7th, and then getting an American president who's willing to take a third of our fleet and move them all to the region and use up an awful lot of munitions, he thought, okay, this is his moment. So I think that's quite possible. As you say, he's not really. He's candid about it. Would Israel have done it if the US hadn't moved all those ships there? I don't know, honestly. That would be an interesting quote. Maybe they'd have done a more limited thing, but obviously it's Trump's decision. But I think getting back to your earlier point, I mean, somehow Venezuela was very important, right? He did that one day in June in Iran at the end of 12 Days of Israeli pounding of Iran and that went okay. Then he was, he talked about Greenland. Nothing came of that so far, at least Panama, but Venezuela, they gave him a good plan and he did the special operations thing. I don't know that Venezuela is that much better off, honestly, now than it was two months ago. And I don't know that it's going to be much better off four months from now. And I don't know a lot of oil is going to come out of there and I don't know a lot more freedom is going to be there, but whatever, it was a victory. I mean, and then that went to his head. And I do think he now looks at the world, think, where can I move all the US Troops and beat up someone? And in this case, it's a regime that really is awful. So people like me want to at least be instinctively for it. And Venezuela was very bad too, actually. But there are actual trade offs here, right? In terms of we haven't done anything to help Ukraine, which is actually fighting in Europe against an awful fight, a great power.
- [27:59]
B
So that's the key point on the part of Trump's psychology.
- [28:02]
C
That's right. I think that's key. And China, God knows if all the China hawks in the administration, their whole line about the Middle east, this is, they hated people like me who thought the Middle east was important because we get. It's all a diversion. It's all ridiculous. We need to have all our forces ready to fight China. Now all of our forces are busy fighting Iran, which is sort of an ally, sort of of China out of Russia. So it weakens Russia a little bit, probably, which is good for Ukraine, but
- [28:25]
B
also maybe distracts us and resources that could be given to fighting Russia, honestly. So, yeah, so maybe it helps Russia a little bit.
- [28:32]
C
Actually.
- [28:32]
B
It doesn't weaken Russia.
- [28:33]
C
No, it helps in terms of. I think. Yeah, in terms of using things we can't help Ukraine. I mean, we're going to move a lot of troops around and use a lot of air power and stuff. You know, maybe we should use some of it to help Ukraine directly. Honestly, they were invaded by Russia. Iran is a very horrible regime. And what they did at home over the last two months is really terrible. And for me would be a ground for kind of an intervention just because of their domestic slaughter of their opponents. But if you are on a more strict. Pete Hegseth America First. JD Vance, you only get to deal with countries when they cross borders. If and you can't deal with anything domestically. Isn't Russia the example of this? Iran hasn't invaded anyone very recently also.
- [29:13]
B
And if you're talking about defending democracy and freedom, it's like, well, there's a free Ukrainian government that we could help. It's still not even clear who those people would be in Iran. And Pompeo over the weekend is pushing mek, which has more support in Roslyn than it does in Iran, as best I can tell. And it's like, okay, I'm for it, but what's the plan? And Ukraine, there's a clear plan you could move this type of assets there. And I've actually helped them. Just one more item on this. The geopolitics and the incentive structures in the Middle East. This also ties directly to the corruption story in America. It's like how can you disentangle it? Is the fact that Saudi put in a billion dollars to Trump's son in law, did that give them more sway here you have to say maybe is the fact that Qatar is giving Trump a plane and the UAE and Qatar are investing in these media companies that Trump is encouraging to be taken over by allies in America? Is that part of it? Is the fact that the UAE is in a crypto deal with Trump? Is that part of it? I mean Trump is like mobbed up from a business standpoint with Saudi UAE and Qatar in a major way. And, you know, obviously, Bibi has big influence with him. We have the acute story of the war, what's happening in the war and that crisis. But I think it's an interesting subplot that it seems like we're being walked around the dog track by Arab and Israeli interests, actually, right now.
- [30:46]
C
Yeah. And by Trump's own wish to bully people, he can get away with bullying and shying away from confronting Russia and China, the two great powers, which, incidentally, as Mark. General Hertling pointed out in our conversation Saturday and Sunday with him in the actual defense strategy this administration produced just two or three months ago, it's all about China and not about the Middle East. They're shunning the Middle East a little bit. So if Iran was such a threat, when did it suddenly become such a threat? I mean, again, I don't want to be pedantic. I mean, who cares if they mentioned it in the strategy, maybe their things would have changed. And there are reasons you've got to do what you've got to do militarily.
- [31:18]
B
I mean, they're not a threat. They're not a threat to us. Right. Like, it's just. It's not even worth giving them any sort of credence on that and throwing
- [31:27]
C
your weight around all over the world. If it's against a noxious regime, obviously people give you more room to do that. But it's not cost free. I mean, it's literally not cost free in terms of lives and money and material and resources. It's also not cost free in terms of just attention and what other countries can do elsewhere. And the lessons that people learn from this, the lesson people learn from this is not that we're, unfortunately, I say this genuinely with terrible, with regret, is not that we're on the side of freedom. I'd say at this point, it looks to me like the lesson they're likely to learn from this is we have a very capable military, and we're willing to go in and use it against regimes that are kind of flat on their back like Venezuela or Iran, and that already have been terribly weakened. But we're not willing to help Ukraine fight Russia, and God knows what we're willing to do in Asia against China.
- [32:16]
B
I mean, maybe it's mercantilist also, is what people take away. You know, you can do whatever you want actually domestically, because, again, nobody believes that Trump did this because of the killing of protesters in Iran. It was a heinous killing of protesters in Iran. But we've killed protesters in America this year. And we are not letting Iranian refugees come to America. In fact, we've been sending Iranian refugees back to Iran. And some of the countries that we're dealing with in the Middle east have terrible human rights records themselves. Right. And so I, obviously, you know, to me, if you're around the world, the lesson is that at least as long as Trump is around, this is like a pay for play thing. Get in, get in with Trump. And yeah, you know who didn't get in with Trump on his corrupt bs? Maduro and Khomeini. One more thing on the Arab stuff because this I just think will be interesting to watch. It's pretty clear at this point and obviously Saudi was for it. We have the reporting. It's pretty clear that UAE and Qatar folks are on board with this, at least to some degree. That said, the Saudi official to Al Jazeera this morning says America has abandoned us and focuses defense systems on protecting Israel, leaving the Gulf states that host its military bases at the mercy of Iranian missiles and drones. Just something to watch. Not unprecedented that Saudi would be behind the scenes talking about how they're for America and then to the public audience talking about how they don't trust America. That's. So we'll see kind of how that shakes out. But there have been serious hits. The iconic hotel in Dubai, you've kind of seen the picture there by the airport that got hit. There are people fleeing Dubai and Abu Dhabi. There's a great semaphore story about how it's like charging $300,000 a pop for people to take a 10 hour black car from Dubai and Abu Dhabi to Riyadh and then a private jet from Riyadh to Europe to get out of the Middle East. So again, that's this kind of thing when you go into something like this. Maybe they're on board at the start, but the case wasn't made to their populations either. Like the Emiratis and Qataris and Saudis, just who knows, right? Like how, you know, especially if this escalates, how that ends up shaking out
- [34:30]
C
and energy prices look like they might be short term. We'll see what happens obviously, but they could, I've been assuming they would settle down, but maybe they'll go up. I mean, look, you start a war, things start to happen. Right. And Trump was to go bully these guys and then bully those guys. But I also should stipulate that that has second and third order effects of its own as we're seeing here. Right. And the Saudis may be sort of spinning for now and just trying to pretend that, oh, we're very unhappy, but at some point maybe they really will be unhappy, or maybe other allies really will get hit in ways that we don't retaliate. And suddenly they're like, what the hell is happening here? You know, we encouraged Trump to do this. We thought they had a real plan, and now we're paying a price and what are we getting out of it, right?
- [35:09]
B
Or there's uprising among the people. People get pissed, like, why are we doing it? You know what I mean? Who the hell I got? You know, could there be protests in Kuwait, a UAE against us, Possible TBD on how that all shakes out. Just one more geopolitics thing was Iran also attacked British targets. Keir Starmer has came out and said that we can use their bases. So again, kind of how this thing trickles out remains to be seen. You mentioned the energy prices. This is, I think, about what the domestic impact is on the politics. And this is part of the reason why. I think that the idea that this is a distraction for Epstein. There'll be a rally around the flag as part of an old construct. It's like the Wag the Dog was a movie in the 1990s. 1990s, people really did rally around the flag, and I just don't know that that's true anymore. We live in deeply polarized times and we weren't attacked. Maybe they'd rally around the flag if there was. You know, all the conspiracy theorists always talk about how there's a false flag. You know, this attack wasn't real. We did it to ourselves. Maybe there was a false flag attack on America then maybe that would change, maybe not. But I just don't see it in the polls right now. Ipsos was the first poll out. 27% support, 43 oppose. Means a bunch are still unsure. So events will matter. Among independents said that this was noteworthy. 19 support, 44 oppose, a bunch unsure. I think a lot of times people think about independence wrong. A lot of independents are kind of these folks that don't pay a lot of attention aren't big fans of war, aren't reading Foreign affairs magazine and don't have deep thoughts on all that. So I thought it was pretty noteworthy how among independents it was less popular. Only 7% of Democrats, 4. And you mentioned the energy prices. It's just gas price is only up about 10% here, but 50% in Europe this morning again, we'll see how that all plays out. But I just think even if this goes well at home, this feels like something that's going to be a political problem for Trump.
- [37:04]
C
I mean, yeah, as you say, events matter so much. You said this yesterday, too. Wards are real, Right. And events. Things are very event dependent and we'll see what. Yes, we learned that in Iraq, obviously. Look great, mission accomplished. Whoops. Not so good for Bush, you know, and. But I agree. I mean, this could be bigger than Epstein, actually, in terms of its actual effect. I mean, this could be a defining moment of the Trump presidency. He deserves to pay a price for it in a certain way, politically. On the other hand, I hope it's not in the sense that I hope we don't suffer some horrible defeats and that becomes what's defining. But we could, obviously, in terms of our geostrategic position as well as in terms of just obviously actual losses there in the region, I think the Democrats are on pretty safe ground. You said this yesterday in just opposing the war, right?
- [37:46]
B
I think so. And you saw some blowback to Mark Kelly, who was kind of waffling on this a little bit yesterday. I think that Democrats, if they want to be on the more hawkish edge of the party and they want to be on the more, you know, flag waiting, patriotic freedom end of the party, I think taking the Bill Kristol position for this podcast would be totally fine, right. That I have no love for the Ayatollah. This regime is horrible. Like, if we are working with allies and had a legitimate plan to help, you know, support the people in the streets, I would be for that. But, like, that's not what this is. This is a shit show. They don't have a plan. They haven't offered a plan. Four people are dead. They haven't come to Congress for support. They haven't made a case to the American people under this administration with the way they've behaved and how they've lied and how corrupt they are. I'm a no, no war with Iran. I just, to me, I feel like that's a totally appropriate place to be. That's not really going to alienate anybody except for small niche groups that have various interests.
- [38:50]
C
No. And I think the actual vote they'll have in Congress or votes, I guess, in each House, are based on some versions of war powers resolutions which require Trump to come back and get authorization within 60 days or something like that. It's a little confusing. 90 days, I'm not too sure. But the normal charge that would make me hesitate of four days into a war. You shouldn't demoralize our troops and undercut them by voting to get out or something like that, or cutting off funding. That's not what the vote is. The vote is a kind of Trump has to do what he should have done before war and come to Congress. That's sometimes belittled on the left. I understand why. That's just process. They've got to be more, you know, ferociously anti war. But it's I think it's not just process A, it really is the Constitution. It is like we're in a constitutional crisis that he's gone to a major war without Congress different from a one day strike and or killing Soleimani. There's no justification, there's no authorization for this. They have gonna have to use, if they use one at all, It'll be the 2001 Al Qaeda authorization. And Iran's been a terror sponsor. But man, that's a 25 years later, that's a bit of a stretch. And again it's a stretch for the kind of war we're fighting. If you're knocking off the head of the IAGC who has genuinely sponsored terror all around the region, some of which has killed Americans, Hezbollah, that's one thing. A major war like this, you need to go to Congress. So he didn't go to Congress. So I think Congress has a very sound ground to say we need to speak up now and insist that he come back to Congress. And that's defending the Constitution. That's not attacking Trump necessarily. It's not even being anti war. People can say if they wish, I don't care. I didn't see Mark Kelly's comments, but I might say if I were there. Look, I conceal we could have voted for this if it were properly explained and defended and we had a coherent strategy to authorize certain use of force. It's not like you're necessarily fully 100% anti war. Most of them would have been and probably certainly would be at this point. Maybe I would be too. So I think the Congress argument isn't just a process argument. It has to be made a constitutional argument.
- [40:43]
B
I agree with that. I mean I just, look, I think that to be blunt, the politics of this are going to be better just being against it all the way down. But that said, putting them on the record matters. Like the Iraq war vote matters. This war vote would matter totally. And I think it's a tough vote for a lot of Republicans, by the way, which we can get into next. But I don't know if you have one more thing on The Democrat side of this.
- [41:04]
C
I think, as you said, the Iraq vote, I guess you were thinking. I was thinking too of the original authorizing vote, but then there was a whole bunch of other votes, funding and so forth as we went forward. And it's not like this thing just goes away. I mean, maybe it'll end in a week and everyone will forget about it in two months. And it's a kind of Venezuela. That would be Venezuela, right. Sort of a slightly better maybe government takes over. It's not too much chaos spilling up beyond its borders. There's not a huge refugee flow. It's just kind of not great, but not terrible and everyone kind of moves on. I think that's possible. In that case, it won't help Trump. I don't know if it'll hurt him that much. But I mean most of the other outcomes that one can think of are much more problematic, obviously. And so I don't know, would it be crazy for the Democrats six months from now to say we end the war? End it. You know.
- [41:50]
B
Right. No, three months. I mean it would be a 90 day authorization revisit. 90 days, end the war. To the point about how it would be a tough vote. I think even for maga, Segar and Genti who is over breaking points. I just thought this was blunt in how he put it on Twitter. He goes, this is the most profound campaign betrayal in modern US history. He's more on the MAGA isolationist. Right. We've seen Davidson out of Ohio already starting to put out statements, kind of hedging Massie would be against us, presumably Rand. So how far that extends out into MAGA world in the house, TBD to the Lauren Boebert's of the world, I don't know. But I think it's a real potential problem for them and it is highlighted by the fact that the person that is the biggest avatar for isolationist MAGA politics right now is the vice president, J.D. vance. He's missing. He's not sent a tweet since the war started. He loves to tweet. They sent a picture of him at the kids table in a backup situation room with Tulsi next to him. It was like J.D. vance in the cuck chair. I just want to play a couple of clips from JD Vance. One was from the campaign and interview with Tim Dillon and the other one was from Meet the Press a couple months ago.
- [43:07]
C
Our interest I think very much is in not going to war with Iran. Right. It would be huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country.
- [43:17]
D
I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives. So this is not going to be some long drawn out thing.
- [43:38]
B
You can see why JD Isn't out there today. And he was saying this is not going to be some long drawn out thing. This was months ago after the first attack on Iran, and now it very much is. I mean, even if it isn't a long drawn out thing in the Iraq war sense. And so it's drawn out a lot longer than he said it was when he was on Meet the Press a few months ago. And so I think this is real. He's in a real pickle.
- [43:59]
C
And Trump has said three or four weeks was kind of the plan so far as that was a plan with Israel. And again, that's even leaving aside, what about Iran hits neighboring countries and they ask for our protection? What about if our troops are not safe in Bahrain because Iran still has missile capabilities and we haven't changed the regime and some IRGC thug has taken over and decided he's going to try to make us pay a price. We need to beef up support there. We'll have to be maybe continued raids to try to take out their missiles beforehand. I mean, again, this is where the dynamics of war become so unpredictable and problematic and why, you know, you shouldn't start down this road unless you've thought through different options, but also unless you're willing to stay the course. I mean, it's to some degree or other. Right? I mean, and that's where I think, I don't know. I kind of assume, well, where are you on this? I kind of assume Trump deep down is where JD Is in the sense that he wants to. He'll want to get out at some point and he'll pull the plug and hope that the world won't quite notice how much disarray he's leaving behind or will he get sucked in? I mean, those are sort of the two.
- [44:58]
B
I think that Trump is a little bit Jekyll and Hyde on it. I do think he'll want to get out. I mean, you could tell already in some of these phone calls that that was his instinct. Another phone call since we've been on I just got sent was he talked to Brett Baer, hasn't called you yet, Bill, phone line is open. You talked To Brett Baer told him the Venezuela models that they're going for, the Rodriguez of Iran is dead. So. Okay, we'll see how that goes.
- [45:25]
C
Also, the Delsey Rodriguez of Iran, I mean, whatever you think of, God knows I have nothing, no use for Maduro. And they did a huge amount of damage to that country. Iran is a theocratic state.
- [45:33]
B
Right.
- [45:34]
C
It's a. Del Rodriguez of Iran is not like Del Rodriguez of Venezuela who could be bought off to some degree and who. The whole security structure is a bunch of thugs and corrupt people. Iran has plenty of thugs and corrupt people. But I don't know. Leaving that regime in place is going to be not quite like leaving the Venezuelan regime replace.
- [45:52]
B
No, for sure. Look, I'm no expert on the internal politics of Iran, but I've been doing a lot of reading and it's like. Yeah. And there's just a lot more different contingencies and groups and it's a very complex situation. Yeah. I do think his instinct would want to be JD wanting to leave after he's got his scalp. Demonstrate us strong and now we're out. But as we've been talking about this whole 50 minutes, events can get out of control, things can get out of hand. And Trump is also driven by kind of like the masculine small dick, I need to push back if they hit us, I need to hit you harder kind of element. So. Right. He might want to get out in three weeks, but we have four Americans dead. Don't want to minimize that. But what if Iran has a much more successful attack than that? What if there's an attack where dozens die, There's a terrorist attack somewhere. This is the oldest story in the book in world history of men getting into pissing matches where it's just escalation, escalation, escalation. I think that's also possible. Just back to the political part of the JD thing. It's not as easy as, oh, there's this MAGA crack up, where there's this isolationist wing and there's this more interventionist wing. It's more complicated than that because the Republican electorate that I think instinctively is more America first in a pure vote, outside of context of everything else. Would you want America to be entangled in foreign wars or not? It would be 70, 30 on the isolationist side, I think. But there remains a strong pro military interventionist wing in the party. Those people still exist. There's not a majority anymore. So that's like a quarter, a third of the party. Let's say they'll be on board for Trump, then you have another third, basically that's like in a cult. And so whatever Trump says, there'll be four, basically. So that takes you up to about 60% of the party. And right now if you look at polls, I think that episodes poll I met, I read there was like 13% that was against. The big risk for Trump is when you get into Bush territory where like 40% of the party is like no, this is crazy and that will be event dependent, et cetera. But I think you can see the seeds of that in the MAGA right wing media. Fox will be cheerleading for this. Fox couldn't be more excited. But the more alternative media side, from the Nick Fuentes racist young right all the way towards the comedians who have been for him, towards even the Megyn Kelly's, I think that there's a Tucker, there's going to be a lot of ranging from skepticism to hostility depending on how things go develop.
- [48:29]
C
A point you made earlier in this context, I think it's very, very important, which is this war is a dynamic and things can spiral and so forth, which is where the downside for Trump here is greater, I would say than the downside even on maybe the economy or Epstein or all the obvious ways in which we've talked about Trump has lost popularity and could continue to drift down from 40 to 38 to 36. Little bit of a recession. He's mentioned more prominently in the Epstein files. A million different things like that. Obviously more ice, outrageous. But those really probably are incremental as they have been. They can add up. This is the one thing that could really catastrophically capsize us. Right. If things go badly. We went through this with Bush. I mean your ratings don't go down one or two points if you get casualties and a failed war and a war spilling out further and further commitments then as we did in Iraq to try to save the situation after we've screwed it up. And suddenly you're in just a whole different political universe. So I think you're right. I think this is the one issue where Trump could go from, from 14% defections to 40% defections in six months
- [49:36]
B
among his voters for sure.
- [49:37]
C
Yes.
- [49:37]
B
And I like this getting into a prolonged entanglement here where there are a lot of deaths and economic collapse are basically the two things that could cause that. I think basically the cultists will be the bulwark keeping Trump from 40% negative among his voters and any other states scenario, you know, who knows, alien attack or something, who the hell knows what could Happen. But yeah, no, the risks are great. Anything final on that? I want to get to the Texas primary tomorrow.
- [50:06]
C
The only thing I'd say is that will affect the long hoped for. Hey, will Republicans in Congress ever defect? Will candidates ever defect? This is the one thing that really could lead to it, I think.
- [50:16]
B
Yeah. All right. So there election tomorrow in Texas. We're going to Texas. March 18th and 19th Dallas sold out. We still got tickets in Austin. Come hang out with us. March 19 the Book.com events There are two Senate primaries. Senate primary on both sides. Cornyn's the incumbent Republican Ken Paxton the corrupt. Just disgusting on a personal level. All of the vices of MAGA encapsulated into a single man, into a single vessel. That's Ken Paxton, Attorney General. He's primary Cornyn. Another MAGA guy, Wesley Hunt got in hoping to offer more of a clean cut MAGA alternative to Cornyn. That hasn't worked out. He's in the teens in the pulse. It seems like it's going to be Paxton, our corn. And on the Republican side, the Democratic side, we have Crockett versus Talarico. I've talked about this race ad nauseam. I do not particularly think this primary has served the Democratic interests that well in winning the seat which I do think is winnable if Paxton wins. The new interesting poll came out over the weekend that has Talarico barely beating Crockett and it's really a coin flip. Crockett's winning with non college voters, older voters, black voters and led to a lesser degree with women. Tellarico is winning with younger college educated voter to a lesser degree with men. Slight edge to tell Rico with Latino voters. That might be the battleground. Any thoughts on either side of the Texas Senate race tomorrow?
- [51:37]
C
I mean I assume Paxton coordinator assuming Hunt doesn't surge unexpectedly goes to runoffice. Hunt will take enough votes presumably if it's close. Presumably more of those Hunt voters are Paxton inclined. I should think so. You got to slightly favor Paxton for the actual nomination, do you think? Yeah, for sure.
- [51:53]
B
I have a friend that's still in Republican politics that is suffering through the hopeless. That's a little suspicious. Yeah, I know And I asked about that race and they felt very strongly that Paxton was in pole position there without a Trump. Unless Trump comes in and saves Cornyn. Yeah, which he didn't do this weekend. He went to Texas this weekend. Some people were thinking he'd endorse if it goes to a runoff. I guess that would extend the timeline for Trump to.
- [52:16]
C
But then he Won't do it if he thinks he's going to lose. Corners can lose. And I guess I think totally uninformed gut instinct. I mean, if I were there, I'd vote for Talarico. But I think Crockett beats him. I just feel like the momentum scene is greater on her side. But I could be totally wrong. Could be very close. Much less likely to be a runoff.
- [52:33]
B
Yeah, look, Talariko is at least presenting a case to Trump voters. I'm not sure if it's a winning case, but at least he has a theory of the case. And to me that's what separates him from Crockett. Crockett has no message for Trump voters. Crockett's message is that she will energize non voters to vote. And like that just that might work in Georgia. I think that'd be an interesting race, interesting political science case in Georgia, that is there aren't enough non voting Democrats to win a Texas Senate race. Maybe if the economy tanks and gets in the Iran where I sure like accidents happen all the time. People accidentally win races when there's wave elections. So that could happen for Crockett, but she hasn't presented one. That's right. I, I fall on the Tel Rico side of this. But this primary's hurt Tel Rico. He's going to need turnout with black voters. I think that'll be, you know, I think that'll be a add to the challenge for him in the general now because of the nature of how this race has gone, where it's gotten really personal, particularly on the Crockett side, aiming at Talrico in a way that I don't think was very helpful. Just a little subplot in the Texas races tomorrow. Dan Crenshaw, not a friend of the pod and Tony Gonzalez, the congressman who has six kids in a marriage, had an affair with his staffer. The staffer set herself on fire, killed herself. Tony Gonzalez got congratulated by Trump at the rally this weekend. Unclear what the congratulations was for, but both of them are in primaries and I don't know that it serves the pro democracy mission at all for either of them to lose their primaries, but we would enjoy it. It's nice to, you know, it's nice to enjoy the pain of people that deserve it. And Dan Crenshaw has been like the most, the biggest condescending prick and like the biggest disappointment possible of all of the quote unquote Normie republic. And I don't know if you happen to be living in Dan Crenshaw's district and don't have a horse in the Talarico Crockett race, Consider pulling that Republican ballot tomorrow and voting against him. Just a thought, one idea, but I don't know if you had anything there.
- [54:31]
C
I like the idea of Tim Miller doing in Crunch always was such a pain. But you know, Gonzalez, not to get too high and mighty and moralistic. I mean, he bullied this staffer, it seems like, right into this affair in a really horrible way. And sadly, he committed suicide, it seems. He shows up Friday at this Trump rally. This Friday, Texas. Yeah. And they're all there cornering these guys. Trump explicitly welcomes him right from the stage. Yeah.
- [54:56]
B
Congratulations.
- [54:56]
C
The others are all fine with being with him. I mean, it's nauseating, really. I mean, they have this guy. It's like he's fine. The Republican Party's fine with him. Speaker Johnson's fine with him. John Cornyn, the establishment Republican who's isn't in my dealings with him in the past in the before times, is a nice guy and a decent guy. He's fine with just being up there. I don't know if he's literally on stage with Gonzalez being in the group. Let's say with Gonzalez, none of them have said a word as a single Texas Republican that we know of said a word that, you know, this guy should resign. It's a disgrace that he's. I hope. I mean, it really would be good for the country if he lost, honestly.
- [55:31]
B
Yeah, no, nobody said any of that. I mean, in part because the Republican House majority is so narrow now that if Gonzalez resigns, like Massie as like a controlling vote on a lot of stuff. So that's the reason. And also just that they. It was just depraved. And the Trump era has removed any sort of moral red line from consideration. If you're in Republican politics, there's literally nothing that you can do to cross the line now in Republican politics. Pretty dark stuff. Bill Kristol, thank you. Another Monday in the books. We'll see you next week. Hopefully. Who knows what's happening in this world tomorrow. I think we'll have a double header. We got a good one for you tomorrow. So, everybody, we'll see you back here then. Peace. Yeah. Coming down like bats from Stacy Clooney Terror's the product you push well, I'm a true addict oh, shit. I got a head rush Machine trouble and here come the votes Throw from the throat cages and scapegoats want caution of Mike to detonate our own wire to shut down the Devil's sound. The Borg podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.