A (2:45)

If you watch the Amazon chart of Sarah going up to rankings, it was kind of like the gas prices chart. It was just like straight up gas

B (2:51)

prices chart, straight up.

A (2:52)

The book is how to Eat an Elephant. We'll talk about it at the end about why and you should get it just because it's Sarah and she's great and you'll love it. It doesn't what it's about but we'll tell you more about why it matters, what's important about it at the end. But we have news to get to. We're in a war.

B (3:07)

We are.

A (3:07)

So I guess we're going to spend a lot of time talking about that. Here at the top, a couple of news items from the weekend. We had the seventh American killed in action as an army soldier in Saudi Arabia. And also another Marine infantryman, 19 year old Kevin Melendez died. But that doesn't seem like that was in the killed in action category. So we don't exactly know what happened with that. Last night me and JBL jumped on a live stream. You can follow those on our substack or YouTube. When we get riled up about something now we get on and talk about it live. And this was about the oil prices skyrocketing. It reached a peak of close to $120 a barrel and it's down to about 100 right now. Sarah, I want to play for you a little audio to kind of contextualize that price per barrel and then we can talk about that and the other ramifications for the war. Are you a watcher of land, man? Do you watch Landman?

B (3:58)

I don't watch Landman, although I probably should. I think it's a show for me. I just haven't gotten to it yet.

A (4:03)

Okay, well here is Billy Bob Thornton and his character Tommy Norris who's an oil executive in Texas, explaining to a young doe eyed lawyer what the target oil price is and what the implications are. Let's listen. Well, you want oil to live above 60 but below 90. And don't get me wrong, we're still printing money at 90, but gas gets up over 350 a gallon. It starts to pinch hits 100. Every product in America has to readjust its price. Ooh. Every product in America has to readjust its price. That doesn't sound good.

B (4:39)

No, it's bad. It's also the thing is, is that gas is just one of those things that every American notices. You know, the war feels far away to people. These, these Middle east wars, even with the loss of American life, you know, until you really start losing people by the thousands and thousands, Americans have kind of a threshold for it and what they don't have a threshold for, unfortunately. And I say unfortunately meaning one would hope that the loss of human life would outweigh how one feels about the personal pinch, but that's just not the way voters work. It is like a big blazing billboard. People look at gas prices when they drive by the gas station, they see the cost of it and they are constantly doing the mental adjustment for what that means for them, you know, if they're not super wealthy. Like it just matters to everybody. And so that is how they will interpret the war. And whether or not they are for or against it is like the personal consequences to them. And gas prices are such a specific personal consequence for people.

A (5:39)

Well, number one, they're already seeing. It looks like the most commonly encountered price for Diesel jumped from 369 a gallon to 499 a gallon this morning. So it's not like a 10 cent jump, it's like a massive jump over the course of a week. And it's never a good sign for the economy when you're starting to follow commodities analysts online. But if you know which is what I'm doing, you're starting to follow commodities.

B (6:02)

I started doing this too. Like I'm following all different people all of a sudden to be like understanding it.

A (6:06)

But you know, CNBC economics folks, Derek Thompson we had on last Thursday was on this Nate Silver. Not exactly a kind of Trump derangement syndrome. Left wing apologists, just neutral analysts looking at this. And it's going to get worse before it gets better. Even if he tucks tail, sure, it'll probably be better by summer. And so maybe it wouldn't have an impact on the midterms. But we saw this in the fallout for Covid. There is long tail reaction to all of this sort of thing. With the tariffs, it was like the stock market went down and then he tacoed the stock market went back up. This is not that.

B (6:45)

This is not that. And you and I are not economics analysts. So people should take this with a grain of Salt.

A (6:51)

But you don't have a C plus. Excuse me? I got a C plus in macro 101.

B (6:54)

Oh, did you? Okay, well, yeah, they literally invented a class called the History of Math for me so that they could get me through high school mathematics. But even for people like us, we are able to see the downstream consequences of things like this. You bring up Covid. Right. I remember years after the peak of COVID Americans were still frustrated by supply chain issues that were continuing, the hiring issues where, you know, they couldn't find people to work in restaurants. These things, they, they go on and they still impact people. And this is the thing. It only in a week's span of time since this first happened, we can already see that this isn't going the way Trump wanted it to. We are already deeper in than I think he thought we would be to the extent he thought about it at all. It's not the kind of thing you could just get in and out of. And it is the kind of thing that voters notice.

A (7:44)

And back billion, Bob. It's not just the gas, right? It's like, okay, so if Diesel is at 5 bucks a gallon, what does that aff?

B (7:51)

Truckers.

A (7:52)

What are truckers carrying? Food. Right. And you know, plastics. Like it's across the world. It's a lot of consumer products get affected by this.

B (7:58)

It's all the things that it impacts, but then also the other things that are already going on in the macro economy. Like we were already seeing jobs numbers slow down, we were already seeing inflation be high. Like if we go into a stagflation period because of this, like it's not in a vacuum.

A (8:12)

Well, the good news is the Attorney General said we don't have to worry about any of the scandals or problems because the Dow Jones is at 50,000. But. Oh, wait a minute, I'm sorry, we're down to 46,500 right now.

B (8:24)

I was wondering this morning, at what point does the stock market trigger the rest of the Epstein files, according to Pam Bondi. Right.

A (8:31)

That's a good question. How low do we have to go to get the rest of the Epstein files out? It's something to look at just again, about the kind of lack of strategic planning here. And I'll focus on the economic side. We'll get into the military side of it. Last July, for example, Trump said that he was waiting for oil prices to get lower to fill up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. So that seems like a mistake. People might remember that Biden expended some of the Strategic Oil Reserve rather The last time, when Russia invaded Ukraine, which is legitimate use for this, the Fox and Trump and the right wingers demagogued against him on it. But it's like, okay, well, prices are going up. It didn't have anything to do with us. It was this external shock of something happening with Putin. And that is not the case this time. We did it. So, you know, if you knew that we were planning to go to war with Iran, one thing that you could have done, or it was possible, you know, a couple months ago when oil prices were lower, was refill that, but that didn't hit the checklist.

B (9:32)

I guess he's following whatever Netanyahu told him. I don't know how quickly this ultimately happened. Like, obviously they were having conversations, you know, for a few weeks leading up to this, but it's not clear that it was like imminent. Like, I think it's caught all of the American government off guard. Which is why you just said you opened the, the podcast with we're at war. Well, the administration's not saying we're at war. Trump is saying we're at war. But the rest of the administration isn't. Because to say we're at war has an actual legal meaning, actual things like, you know, Mike Walls has to actually go to the UN and say to the French, you know, his French counterpart, like, yes, we are at war, or here's why we're doing the bombings, whatever. They have, don't, haven't reconciled any of that. Like when he's on television, it's sort of like when Democrats are asked, what is a woman? That's the new question for Republicans is like, are we at war? Because they just sit there and don't say anything because they don't really have an answer.

A (10:35)

Yeah, I was listening to the illegal news about this from this weekend about the legal implications from declaring war versus not one more thing, the spin on the gas prices. I want to read you this. Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for USA and world safety and peace. Only fools would think differently. All caps. So call me a fool. I guess a couple of notes there in that point. I thought that the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat had already happened. They promised us that that had happened. I guess not. And then the second line, it's a very small price to pay for USA and world safety and peace. Literally the opposite of what he campaigned on. He campaigned. The fools were the people that cared about world peace. Why Are we the world's policemen? Who cares what's happening over there? I care about you and your pocketbook. This bleat on the gas prices is the exact opposite. It's like, oh, well, I'm sorry you gotta pay an extra buck a gallon, but we're focusing on world peace over here.

B (11:43)

Look, we can make the hypocrisy arguments until we're blue in the face, but honestly, and we should, and we will. Trump doesn't care. I've been thinking about this a lot. You know, you and I actually, we jumped on right after this happened, kind of a couple days in, and we were like, why hasn't Trump done an Oval Office address? Why isn't he talking to the American people? But actually the question does sort of answer itself. It's that he does not care. Just think about Trump's experience right now. Think about what it's like to be him. All you do is have cabinet meetings where everybody goes around the table to tell you what a beautiful, amazing, brilliant job you've been doing. All you're doing is taking calls from billionaires telling you how amazing you are and they're sending you a million bucks and could you get their degenerate son in law, you know, pardoned? He's part, you know, he's pardoning the January six people who are out there committing heinous crimes of sex crimes against children now. You know, like he doesn't get any blowback for that. All he hears from the people surrounding him in every way is how incredible he is. And so Trump, he doesn't care about making a case to the American people. He doesn't care what we think. He doesn't even care about his poll numbers. He doesn't, he already won. Like, I think that sometimes when we talk about, isn't this bad for him politically? Of course it's bad for him politically. In a normal way, like in terms of his numbers go down, people think he's a hypocrite. Voters don't like it. People are actually dying. Gas prices are going up, there is inflation. He looks like a fool. He doesn't care. And the second you realize, don't let the nihilism infect you. But the second you realize what a nihilist he is and that he, unlike any other American president, does not care about the impact on the American people in any real way, everything starts to make sense.

A (13:25)

2 thoughts on this one. I've been saving this one, but waiting for the right opportunity to bring it up. A friend was in the white House because their boss was meeting with Trump, got to anonymize this. And they're like, you won't believe what. What happened. Trump is. Does this thing where he's taking us around. And they go into Marco's office, and Trump is like, marco, how are things going with the world or the war or something? And Marco replies, Mr. President, everything is going great. You're the greatest, most visionary leader of all time. And, like, things, you know, the world has never respected us more. And he takes him to Scott Bessant's office, and it's like, scott, how are things going with the economy? And Scott's like, it's the golden age, sir. It's golden age, Mr. President. And it's like, I was listening to the story. It's like, okay, we've all come to accept that that is happening at the cabinet meetings. Like, we make fun of it, but it's like, been the reality now for eight years. It started during the first term. There was just something about the fact that this was happening in private, you know, that speaks to the point you just made that, like, not only is Trump not getting any real advice, but like, the opposite. Like, even in private, they are, you know, just treating him like he's a leader from the Middle Ages, you know, and you're. And the serfs have to all pay homage to him so that, you know, he doesn't send them to their deaths.

B (14:51)

I think that's right. And I think we. We've done a lot to understand that these aren't normal times, but there are certain things that we think of as hard political realities. They're unavoidable, even for somebody with a cult like following like Trump. And that is true insofar as if gas prices go up significantly and stay there for a prolonged period of time, it will erode his numbers further that are already eroding across all kinds of vectors, but nowhere more than on affordability and just the economy.

A (15:25)

Yeah.

B (15:26)

But if you then say to yourself, he doesn't care and he's not really getting the. Getting that information anyway. Like, it's so funny, one of the numbers that you saw circulating, and I guarantee you this is the number he is seeing, first they polled and asked people, are you a regular Republican? Are you a MAGA Republican? And for people who said they were MAGA Republicans, then they said, do you approve of the war in Iran? Well, that has a 98 approval among people who say they're MAGA Republicans. That's the number he shows. That's the number he tweets out on his personal social media platform. Like, think about this. He's not even on a social media platform where he is reading criticism. Like, he used to live in a world. He used to be on the general social media platform. So he could see. Now he's on his own private one who only is followed by journalists and then everybody else is a big MAGA person. He's totally isolated from reality.

A (16:21)

This leads me to my second observation, and I. And I almost hate to bring this up, honestly, because on the one hand, I try to keep my catastrophizing within the bounds of what I think is realistic. And also, you never have to hand it to somebody like Nick Fuentes. And so I say this with massive caveats on the front end, but I was watching a Nick Fuentes clip over the weekend, and Nick is down on the war, and he said something that I was just like, sometimes maybe the crazy people understand other crazy people's brains in a way that is a little concerning. He said something about Trump and about. About how Trump now doesn't actually care about us or politics or anything. Like, he is totally in megalomania world and he wants to do historic things. He sees himself as a grand historic figure.

B (17:06)

This is right.

A (17:06)

Yeah, right. That's what I'm saying. I was watching this. I'm going, I'm nodding, nodding. He goes, this is why he wanted Greenland. This is why Venezuela and the Arc de Triomphe. And all this explains all of that. And he goes, and that makes me also think that he wants to drop the bomb. It's like he gave me a jump scare watching it.

B (17:24)

Yeah.

A (17:24)

Because all of a sudden I was like, okay. And then Nick goes on and he's like, I don't think it's definitely gonna happen. Or saying. He's like, I'm just saying, like, you have to think about it now, because it's the kind of thing that only a historic figure would do. It's only happened once before, and he gets to be the first in the modern times. So anyway, that's just something to keep people up at night. I don't know if I'm not predicting it, saying that that was a rare time that I am consuming MAGA media. And I heard a point that I was like, oh, that's a little too real.

B (17:54)

Yeah. I mean, look, suddenly I feel like I'm on a podcast with JVL and, you know, you're doing maximalist, and I have to be the one to be like, I don't think he'll Drop a nuclear bomb, and then everyone's gonna yell at me.

A (18:05)

I don't think he will either. I don't think he will either.

B (18:07)

Understand that Trump is.

A (18:08)

But did that not tickle a little thing in your brain? Get a little worry, a little motherly worry?

B (18:13)

Yeah, but I don't know. I. I do feel like my Trump derangement syndrome is full in total, so there's not a lot of room for me to sit there and be like, yes, I don't worry about the following things. I do try to maintain perspective. However, I also think that so many people underreact to what he's doing, and they continue, again, to do too much traditional political analysis. And they think, well, no president can just watch gas prices go up this high, watch his numbers sink this low, inflict this much pain on the American people, literally do the opposite of what he campaigned for. Like, you can't do that. That's against the political gravity. And I'm just saying there is no political gravity. He hasn't held an Oval Office address because he doesn't care what we think. To your point about, you need to listen to other people that don't think the way you do. Yeah, well, you should listen to all those pundits who tried to tell us, the people rationalizing Trump. I don't listen to what he says. I only listen to what he does. Okay, well, let's just look at what he does. It's the exact opposite, which is why everybody can sort of decide to be for Trump. He's so all over the place, he can give anybody something to tag onto. But if I had told you a year ago, actually, what Trump is going to do is say, basically, like, I'm in this with Netanyahu. He's going to be led around. And also, there's only constraint is his own morality and his own mind. And so that's it. He doesn't care about us or any of these things. He only cares about those things.

A (19:41)

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B (22:51)

Well, I think part of what's interesting about why he likes the war, because I think a lot of this, again, he doesn't care what we think. He just, he's. He discovers things himself. And one of the things he's discovered is that, to your point, Pam Bondi can't get him what he wants.

A (23:05)

Right.

B (23:05)

And Kash Patel can't get him what he wants. Like, the problem of putting incompetent people who will do whatever you say in there is that they are fundamentally incompetent. And so there is some constraints that were, like, they can't overcome some of the process that constrains them. What he's realized, though, is that the military is extraordinarily competent. The American military, our CIA, that, the Israeli intelligence apparatus.

A (23:32)

He's unbelievably confident.

B (23:33)

These are wildly competent things that he now gets to play with. And so I think for him, yeah, that's what it is. It's like, oh, no, these guys are good at this. They are blowing things up. They are killing people. And I can just, I can just say, go for it. I'll soothe you with this one thing. The reason he doesn't drop the big bomb is that other people have the big bomb. And Trump will do whatever it is to preserve his own life, just himself. So as long as he's alive, he won't do anything that gets us annihilated as a country.

A (24:02)

Okay. Yeah, that does soothe me a little bit. And it's really bad. Like, for example, we bombed a school in southern Iran and he lied about it this weekend. We talked about this a little bit. This on Friday. I just want to mention it one more time. The guys at Bellingcat, this military analyst, this is kind of like the commodities analysts. It's like things are going bad when Tim is going deep on bellingcat and room into accounts and also commodities analysts, that's where we're at. But they basically identified via video that it was a Tomahawk missile that hit the school. Iran doesn't have that Israel doesn't have it, only we have it. So it was us, was a double tap. So parents going to try to find their kids. And the rubble then got killed. Just horrible. And Trump was asked about this and is like, it was Iran. They're not very accurate with their munitions. I don't know who taught him the word munitions. It's a new word that he learned. I think this week, in every war, every president, we've made mistakes with our targeting and killed civilians. But the scale of this is notable. Just like the number of children dead, but then also just the lies. And like I said, we talked about last week, Abu Ghraib was horrible. There are whistleblowers from inside the administration. They had to acknowledge it. They didn't change policies. It took too long. And there were other bad things that happened. But in this administration, it's just like, no, the Iranians did it. And it's Orwell.

B (25:28)

Do you have any movies or books or things that really shaped your view of the American military or about how Americans do things, like, morally? Because while you think about that, I'm going to tell you mine. So one of my favorite movies when I was younger and still is great, is a movie called Memphis Belle. You should check it out. It's really good. It's about a plane, a crew that is flying over a bomber plane, and it's their last run. So they have done enough runs and survived it in World War II that they're getting to do their last one. And they are hoping it's going to be a nice, like, milk run to France or something, but it turns out, no, they're going straight into Germany. And as they're flying over, there's a bunch of fire and, like, they're just really in the, in the thick of it. But they get a little too far, and the guy who, who looks down to see where the bombs will hit says, we have to go around again. And they get in a fight in the plane. Some people are like, just drop them. Just drop the bomb so we can get out of here alive. This is our last one. And they're like, next to, it's a school. Next to it is this. But, like, this is the munitions factory or whatever it is. They were like, that was the thing they had to hit. So they go around again and it's this incredibly harrowing moment. But the character of the people is that we will not drop these bombs on innocent civilians, and instead we will risk our lives to make sure we hit the proper target. Everybody should go watch this movie, it's really, really a good movie. But a lot of it defined for me, you know, the way these, these soldiers sort of thought about their obligations.

A (27:06)

Pride. Pride is attached to that. Yeah. Pride in the country.

B (27:09)

Pride in the country.

A (27:10)

How we do things versus how we do things here.

B (27:12)

That's right. I've thought about that a lot. As we like what, in our opening salvo in this war accidentally hit this school. Now, number one, I watched all the right wing influencers, Eric Erickson and these types. They, he was coming for Sam Stein when we suggested that it might have been America and he was like, no, it was a Iranian bomb.

A (27:30)

You know, like they, yeah, John Potter, it's called everybody anti Semitic. That was pushing that.

B (27:34)

That's right. Well, yeah, we can talk about how. Okay, I don't think so. No, it wasn't. It wasn't the Iranians, it was us. And so here's the thing that comes with that is to your point, horrible things happen in a war. This is why you don't go into them cavalierly. Horrible things happen. But what you do as Americans when something like this happens is you accept responsibility. Like that's what we have to do now. And so to watch Trump, like the, these amazing situations where Trump is in front of the, the reporters and they're asking him about it and he's like, that didn't happen. And then Pete Hegseth standing right behind him says we're investigating because they know it was us. And like they're just going to say we're investigating to buy time, I guess in the hopes that people forget or whatever it is they do. But Trump is just lying about it. Just like Kristi Noem lied about killing Alex Preddy and Renee Good and calling them domestic terrorists. Like we have a government that's lying to us. Which is why to people like Pot, Horace or anybody else who wants to criticize us for not being full throatedly, you know, all in on us going to war against Iran. USA is nobody should trust this government. This version of our government isn't trustworthy. And so for people to be skeptical then of what it does is fair and different than the way things were 12 years ago.

A (28:52)

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B (31:32)

This has sort of frustrated me about the discourse around Iran with some of our old friends who are, you know, our old neo, neo, let's call them that or whatever. Conservative.

A (31:42)

Yeah, sure.

B (31:43)

Folks is like hawks is that I think that anybody with a brain, anybody with a conscience like you update your priors based on new information that you have. And we are getting a bunch of new inputs that must be brought into consideration when we think about whether or not we should support a regime change war under this administration and not we already talked about the lying that this administration does, which is one of the reasons we should be skeptical. We can't, we can't evaluate the information that's going to come out. But also we have been told that they are much less interested in America being the version of America that we all thought we had when we were more supportive and more hawkish on these things. Like if they're not going to follow international law, if they're not going to follow our own domestic law, then conservatives, even if they're supportive theoretically of regime change, which by the way, now we've just got the sun. So just we've got another Khomeini. So there we go.

A (32:47)

So far.

B (32:48)

So far we'll see.

A (32:49)

We're kill a couple more people and see what the next person down the line is.

B (32:53)

That's right. But anyway, just you'd have to be brain dead to not be updating your analysis based on the new information we have.

A (33:01)

I agree with that. Let's noodle on that a little bit more, particularly in the context of Israel. You referenced this. Trump said yesterday that the decision on when to end the war in Iran will be a mutual decision made with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

B (33:19)

America first.

A (33:20)

That's intriguing. Again, this is on the list of things that used to be anti Semitic. It was slander to say to somebody that they had a dual interest or dual loyalty with Israel. And sometimes, by the way, that was actually an anti Semitic slur that people were leveling at folks. But now Trump is just saying, yeah, we have dual interests in this with Israel. For some reason. Wyckoff and Kushner were scheduled to go visit, but that got canceled. We don't really know why I was interested in this clip from Tony Blinken was on another podcast and he was talking about something that Obama confronted during his term Related to Iran. I want to listen to that.

B (33:58)

Look, this has been a long story

A (34:01)

when it comes to Iran.

B (34:03)

And back during the Obama administration, the Israelis were pushing President, President Obama to take military action against Iran and were warning that they would do it themselves if he didn't. And he wouldn't.

A (34:20)

That's interesting. Just like that exact point that they were warning they would do it themselves if he didn't. And he wouldn't. And that's basically what Marco Rubio says happened.

B (34:29)

Yeah.

A (34:29)

Again, we don't know exactly what happened, but all I can do is take the Secretary of State at his word. Is that. But that what he's saying is that the Israelis made the same push with Trump that they had with Obama, which is, hey, we're going to go in and do this. They might retaliate against you. You can roll with us or not. Obama called the bluff and didn't go in. Trump win it. That's pretty noteworthy.

B (34:55)

Yeah, I mean, I think Rubio's thing, he got caught telling the truth. And I think the administration was a little frustrated with that because they know that that, that plays into fears that many of their base, their America first base holds, which is why they then tried to sort of walk it back. But actually this leads me to a question or a discussion that you and I should have. We haven't had this personally, but it's worth, it's worth having, which is both you and I come from a place and a time and a political background where our support for Israel was sort of non negotiable. Right. You can tell me if you felt differently. But like we were, we were raised and I still feel this, I get a pit in my stomach sort of at thinking about how one criticizes Israel or even talking about us doing this. Right. Because it is, it was so deeply ingrained that they were an oasis of democracy and kind of a sea of totalitarianism. And we had to support them because we were allies. But this goes to us and there's

A (35:58)

a historic right to be there. Both the biblical part, but just. Or more recently coming out of the Holocaust and just the horrors of what happened to Jews. And they deserved safety. They deserved a place, a homeland, a

B (36:13)

place that was safe, that was theirs. I support all of that and still do. That will not change. And when the John Pot Horitzes and those guys try to come at you and call you anti Semitic, the real talk is you're like, no, no, you don't want to do anything, anything that would feel like you were in any Way sort of saying that Israel shouldn't exist or any of that. I get mad at those colleges or

A (36:35)

if the people that live there are bad or like there's anything inherent. Right. Like, obviously, yeah.

B (36:40)

And so I feel that deeply. And yet I also have to grapple with, again, it's like updating the way you feel about American foreign policy in the hands of Trump. One has to think about it in the hands of Netanyahu and, like, how this is all working. And so, like, do I trust Netanyahu? Do I trust Bibi Netanyahu? Not at all. These are both corrupt men. These are both people who held onto power in large part to avoid prosecution for their corruption. And so, like, we shouldn't just be bullied into that old reflexive instinct we have to update for the information we have now about the behavior that we're seeing in this moment.

A (37:26)

I want to add one element to that as well, is that after October 7, I also found myself reflexively defensive of Israel, of course, because the attack was so heinous. And it's hard to imagine being like Israel. And I tried to put myself in the shoes. I have friends live in Israel. And you think about that and the safety feeling, and it's like, okay, we don't have a situation like that. Even when we got bombed on 9 11. It's like, not Mexico or Canada. We don't have somebody living on a our doorstep that's a threat. And so if you have somebody living on your doorstep that is that great of a threat, the calculation about what you need to do to protect yourself and your people is different. And so there was a period of time, I think, probably looking back on it myself, I'm reflecting on my own views. I kind of feel like I almost gave it the benefit of the doubt a little too long because of that reason, because I was sensitive to that. And I was just like, it's hard to put myself in their shoes because it's like, this was such a traumatic event for the country and for the people and the hostages and the hostages families. It's unimaginably horrible. And so you have this, and it's like, okay, well, this is real war. In wars, things are messy and ugly. And I had that instinctive view that tied it back to all the things you discussed about being Republican and the Holocaust and historic, the allyship. And as silly as it sounds, the place where gays can go in the Middle East, I could take my husband, Tel Aviv, and be free. And I can't do that in very Many other places in the Middle East. Right, totally. So there is a sense that we had this allyship. But to your point, among the reasons why it was easy for me to bail on the Republicans in the Trump era is I was always a technocratic Republican. I'm practical. I'm not an ideologue, really. There are a few things that I have strong ideological views on, but I'm not an ideologue. And just as a person who is an observer of this, of what is happening, you just have to accept what is happening with your eyes. And Israel's actions, particularly over the last year and a half, have been so gratuitous. And what is continuing happening right now in the west bank, for example, with the settlements and now getting us in this war with Iran, which again, maybe Israel has to decide because of their, how tenuous their security situation is, that it makes sense for them to go with order on. Okay. And maybe, maybe you could sell me on the idea that, like, we could provide some, you know, behind the scenes intelligence or targeting or whatever, because Israel did feel like they had an imminent threat, but, like, we didn't. We didn't, we didn't. There is no imminent threat. Seven Americans are dead now, like, and who knows how many more are going to be. The economy is in shambles. We get sucked into this war that we have nothing to do with. Obviously, Bibi was hugely influential in that the actions in the west bank and Gaza were way, far, too far beyond the payout. Ongoing. An American died in the west bank recently, by the way, a settler killed them. From American, from Philadelphia. You can't watch all this. And I pulled this up. Me and Lee Feng, he's a lefty guy from Oakland. We don't agree on a whole lot, but he saw this and I was just like, like, okay, I'm going to read this. He goes, no matter how many people are killed by Israel, how many hospitals it bombs, how many Palestinians live under apartheid, how many countries it invades, many US Pundits will claim it's an island of Western value simply because they have a gay pride parade. And I was like, maybe a little gratuitous, but there's something there.

B (41:06)

There's something there. And again, I guess I want to restate. Like, I really do have like a reflexive, like, it's deep inside me.

A (41:13)

Even me saying that. You're getting reflexively a little defensive. Yeah. Which is fine, by the way. There's something to it.

B (41:19)

I feel like a, an affinity for Israel. I feel like a certain way that I feel, you know, and it's like, to your point, think about the way you felt right after 911 happened. If you're old enough to remember that, not the way you felt eight years later, but the way you felt right after 911 happened. And like, then think about what happened on October 7th, was that plus the horrible, humiliating denigrating, like the rape and the dragging through the streets, like if

A (41:51)

ongoing hostages, the hostages which were still being held, percentage of the country, like, the number of people who are affected was greater. Yeah.

B (41:59)

And so, like I felt after October 7th, I'm like, I want to see every member of Hamas destroyed, by the way. Still do. Still do.

A (42:07)

Still. Yeah.

B (42:08)

There does have to be, though, I think part of our obligation as big powerful democracies is our ability to show a certain amount of restraint and proportionality. Right. Like we. This is how we think about who we are. Like, there's who they are and there's who we are. And as long as we are behaving with and our allies are behaving with the kind of democratic restraint and proportionality that provides maximum safety without things getting out of control. And like, we have faith in that. That is different from what we're experiencing. And we shouldn'. Be unable to say no. What I'm seeing with my eyes is too far or too much or making us less safe. And I don't trust the people doing it. We should say that because it's true. It's true.

A (42:59)

And I said this a year ago when I was first starting to grapple with this after October 7th, I forget if it was with from or somebody else who's a little more pro Israel than me. And I was like, far be it from me to tell the government of Israel to do what they think they need to do for their own safety. Okay, so take whatever. I'm not a military expert. I don't live there. But just as a political analyst and as somebody who kind of sees what's happening around the world, I was saying at the time, I was like, I think this is a mistake. I think Israel is isolating itself. And I think that the support from the other Western countries, militarily and economically that they've had, I think is very tenuous right now. And I think that, you know, they should obviously continue to do what they feel like they need to do to protect their people. But, like, that should also be a consideration. And they don't seem to care. Like, Bibi doesn't seem to care about that. He seems to have made a bet that whatever that maybe, you know, they can eviscerate all the foes in the Middle east during this one period where Trump is in there and this is their moment. And maybe they'll come to some PACs, Middle east with the UAE and Saudi in 2029 and who the hell, I don't have a crystal ball. Maybe that will end up being right. But my political analysis is correct. Israel is now underwater in American popularity for the first time ever in history and going down, I think. And if this war becomes more and more of a shit show, that number is going to continue to get lower and lower. And that was just a bet that they made.

B (44:28)

There's two points I want to make here. One is what I don't understand about the people who are so reflexively fine with everything we're doing and they're so mad at us for not being 100% on board. I'm like, well, which explanation for why we're in there are you supporting? Because I'll tell you, if Donald Trump had come and made a case or Netanyahu to jointly, whatever people were making

A (44:50)

a case, the President Netanyahu and his VP Donald Trump had come to the American people and made a statement and

B (44:55)

said, and Iran is uniquely weak right now. Like actually their whole thing about imminent threat, et cetera, et cetera. Actually, if they said they're uniquely weak, this is our moment, this is our opportunity. The people are asking for change. Like, you maybe could get me there with some.

A (45:11)

Couldn't have gotten me, but I hear you. It would have been a better case than this one.

B (45:13)

It would have been a better case. I mean, and if it wasn't Trump. But like if there, if we lived in a different world and somebody was, they're uniquely, they're uniquely weak. Like, I might have been like, okay, like, let's see. There are lots of good reasons why Iran, we should be worried about Iran's role in the world. But they didn't do that. They didn't give you a case for this. We are not getting any case. They're not coming to the America. So why just sacrifice your just say like, yeah, whatever they say is fine. That's number one. I think it's an unthinking, uncritical, not useful position to take and all. Their only role is to lash out at people like us, to try to keep us on side, which, which you're not going to do because we have eyes and can think for ourselves. The second thing to your point about public opinion, it is all over the focus groups with people younger than us. So part of why I was talking about this reflexive thing is like, they're counting on a certain amount of that in the American people. Like a muscle that we have. And I acknowledge that muscle. Right. We were raised a certain way. People younger than us were not. And the thing that I hear in focus groups and that it's funny because there's. To the people who sort of say everything is anti Semitic, I hear things when I do the MAGA focus groups that are anti Semitic. Right. Then I hear like, no, no, there's like a bell curve. So like on, on the tails, on either side, you hear things that you're like, I don't like that. That is not. That's coming from a bad place. But then up here in the big bell curve part, you hear a lot of people, younger people just saying, I don't understand why I can't say that what I think Israel is doing is wrong. Like, they're just like, people keep telling them they can't say it and they don't know why they can't say it because they don't kind of have that same quite the thing that we have, maybe.

A (46:58)

And by the way, Israel keeps saying talking points that would have been anti Semitic a month ago. I mean, Bibi Netanyahu said that he wants to use TikTok as a weapon to manipulate people. Trump said that he's waiting on Bibi to decide whether to leave the war. Marco said that Bibi got us into this war. So it's not like anti Semitic or irrational for young people to look at this and be like, why? Why did a 19 year old just die for Israel? Because the government keeps telling me that they're dying for Israel. Maybe they're not. Maybe there's some other secret reason that's going. But this is what the President and the Secretary of State have said.

B (47:32)

That's right. And they also. And Donald Trump told us he wouldn't do this.

A (47:36)

Right.

B (47:36)

Like they weren't raised under George W. Bush. And so like, there's an entire generation now that is in a very different place. Like your point about public opinion. This is actively changing in this moment the way young people across the political spectrum view Israel and view the United States. Like they were raised on Donald Trump's isolationism. Again, this is going back to like the Republican support for Trump and the war in Iran. Okay. That Trump was able to go from 20% where nobody supported this before we did it. No one supported it. And then it went up to 41%.

A (48:10)

Why?

B (48:11)

Because it's Trump's war. And people who just support Trump are like, okay, fine. And so sometimes people are like, well, they'll support everything. It's a cult, blah, blah, blah. Yes, true. But then there's all the independents who voted for Trump literally for the opposite reason. They voted for Trump because he said, no new wars. And a lot of those were young people like this. There's. It's not that young voters are swing voters, exactly, and I sort of talk about this in the book, but they're swingy in the sense that they haven't picked a side completely and they listened to what Donald Trump said and didn't know what he was going to do. And so they're the ones who, like, if 51% of the country voted for him, that's not the support he has now. Because a lot of people have left. They were the swingier voters who listened to what he said and voted for those things. And he's not doing those things to close the book.

A (49:01)

I hope that the Persian George Washington emerges and that Israel is safe forever. But that doesn't. That doesn't seem to be likely to me with the current, current strategy.

B (49:11)

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A (50:36)

You mentioned the voters. Let's just play. I've got a little bit of sound from your focus groups. I know we'll have more. I'm back on the focus groups. For people who didn't know. I apologize to Sarah, but I needed a year off from hearing from the voters. I'm back on now, locked in. You've been doing some war focus groups. I want to play this little teaser for people of these are Biden to Trump voters talking about the war we're already in bad economy and going into another war and going to battle for another country when we have enough problems on our hands over here.

B (51:07)

Well, if you bombed them the first time and set their nuclear program back decades, then why are we bombing them again? That's my first question. My second question is, if we're bombing them so we can have a regime change, what's our game plan for who's going to take over now and how are we going to ensure that they're not going to be worse than the ayatollah? Because my fear is that it's going to be a repeat of what happened with Saddam when we killed Saddam and then ISIS took over and ISIS was worse than Saddam.

A (51:36)

Under Biden, it was the Ukraine, Russian war, and now under Trump, we're in Iran. So it's like no matter what, blue or red, it's still a war. It's still getting involved in other people's business for our own. It's still like the same stuff is just a different flavor. The last guy is a little bit less insightful than the lady, but you get a sense for where the, the Biden to Trump voters are on this.

B (51:59)

Yeah, she's asking, she's asking good questions. I'll say in his, in that last guy's defense. Yes, you do get these things where it's like, do you see the difference where Russia invaded Ukraine, okay. Just because Joe Biden was the American president literally had. That had nothing to do with it.

A (52:15)

Him.

B (52:15)

Unlike this war which we are in because Donald Trump took us in. Congress didn't even approve of it. Key difference, key difference. But the sentiment is still there, right? They're like, they don't want this. And Donald Trump and J.D. vance and the rest of them raised them to not want this. So, yeah, this is young voters. I hear anti Semitism sometimes. Like, there's definitely some Nick Fuentes griper stuff in there. But it is, the vast majority of it is pretty like, why are we doing this and why does Israel have so much influence over us. And that's a fair question.

A (52:50)

Yeah, I guess I'd bookend my thought on that with I agree that there's anti Semitism. There's a problem. I've talked about it a lot on this podcast. I think the war is making that problem worse, not better. You mentioned J.D. vance. Me and JBL had a little disagreement about this last night on the live stream. So I just wanted your take on it. I think this is like really bad for him politically. JD Vance has been very deft at navigating the MAGA establishment divide up until now. Very deft. And he was the one guy at the TPOSA food fight at America Fest. And it was like the people on the Tucker side, the people on the Ben Shapiro side, both were like JD thumbs up. So eventually that is going to be a tough coalition to hold together. I think this war is making that more challenging for him. I noticed that there was a CBS town hall with Barry Weiss and J.D. vance for next week that was canceled. I'm fascinated to hear whether or not it was canceled because Barry only wants unapologetically pro or on war people on the network and the vice president wouldn't count or because the vice president couldn't defend the war and didn't want to deal with the hard questions about it. Either way, interesting cancellation, I would say. What do you make of JD's prospects?

B (54:00)

So if Donald Trump, Trump doesn't care about what the American people think right now because he doesn't have to run for election again, JD Vance does care like JD Vance and the people who want JD Vance care like part of the reason why I think you see Megyn Kelly and Tucker and the more isolationist wing of the party speaking out against this isn't actually because they care so much about being consistent. It's that they have a view of politics that goes beyond Donald Trump. Right. So if your view of politics doesn't go beyond Donald Trump, and especially if you're Donald Trump, it doesn't, then you don't care. You don't care what public opinion says. But if you're trying to get elected and you're trying to be a political pundit that has a future beyond Trump, you're a MAGA political pundit the way Tucker and and Megyn Kelly and all these people who've thrived in the Trump era are, then you can't be for this war. You have to stay on the J.D. vance side of things. And so you're actually starting to see again. I have long talked about the split between MAGA and America First. They are different. A lot of regular voters don't know how to fall into this category because they're not thinking that hard about it. But the pundit class is cracking up along those lines. And that is, that is the JD Vance problem right now. Every quote that he gives in support of this war will be hurled back against him because he's already a flip flopper. He's already a guy where people are not sure they trust him because he doesn't say things consistently. That's like one of the big knocks against him in the focus groups. So I agree with you that it does hurt him. This is where, you know, I know what JBL is thinking. Like JBL is sort of always thinking like he. These people are so nihilistic that it doesn't matter.

A (55:47)

They're black belt. Yeah. They'll go with him for whatever. Yeah.

B (55:49)

But I think that's not quite right.

A (55:52)

We're way over. So I just want to rapid fire through this DHS stuff and so we can talk about your book which I'm very happy about. Very proud of you. It's really quite a feat. DHS stuff first. They're lying about us. As you mentioned earlier, about more things than just the war. This is a pretty shocking Wall Street Journal story. The government has accused 279 people over the past year of attacking federal officers. Whether that be sandwich guy or any guy, just, just regular people across the country. They've accused 279 people. 181 of the 279 were American citizens. Of those 181 only half have been charged with a crime and zero have been convicted at trial. Zero so far. So at minimum, even if you're being as generous as possible and thinking the court process is moving slow or whatever. 90Americans. So basically one third of the people that the government is accused of attacking officials, they just, just lied about whole cloth. They didn't even bring charges against him. It was just fake, fabricated.

B (56:51)

For the sake of time. I'm just going to say stipulated. Yeah, they're lying. It's bad. And they lie about everything.

A (56:57)

DHS shutdown thing. I just want to hit this really quick. We're still shut down the lines at TSA in New Orleans. We're all the way out into the parking lot. Pretty concerning because we've got to go to Texas next week for live shows. I'm in Dallas and Austin. We end up driving. We still have tickets left for Austin. So come hang out with us in Austin March 19th. This is not tenable for that line. And Houston Hobby Airport had four hour long waits at tsa. Bill Kristol will represent him. So he should, since he should be here on Bill Kristol Monday. So he's been saying for a while that the Democrats should be putting forth a bill that just says, hey, we'll fund TSA and FEMA and that's it and make the Republicans vote on that. That seems smart to me.

B (57:34)

That does seem smart. And you know, to the extent, here's the thing, gas prices affect everyone and it's a real pain point. The thing about the people who fly and people who fly a lot, the higher percentage of them have outsized political power. You start creating huge long lines at airports for all the people who work in businesses, you know, corporate types, whatever, it's totally untenable. People will howl about that. And so Democrats fighting to free that up and not. But not the ICE stuff smart.

A (58:10)

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B (58:34)

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A (58:39)

See full terms@mintmobile.com things seem very bad in the country because the MAGA Republicans have been elected twice now and Donald Trump in particular. The book how to Eat an Elephant I think is providing some guidance on how we can reverse that. Is that right? I haven't been allowed to read it yet. JBL has read it, but I haven't been given a draft. So I don't know. So you have to. I've listened to now your interviews about it, but you have to tell me, was that the key element here?

B (59:09)

Yeah. So there's two things. One, the how to eat an elephant, one voter at a time is a nod to the fact that like MAGA and the forces that Donald Trump has unleashed on our politics are. It's a big intractable problem. Right? That's what the idiom of how to eat an elephant is meant to be like. How do you tackle something that feels so big that you can't do it? And the answer has always been one bite at a time. Meaning how do you sort of Take it piece by piece and figure out how to tackle this big intractable problem. Obviously, that also worked for the fact that, you know, elephants and donkeys. It's not. That's pretty. Pretty on the nose for that part. But the one voter at a time is an indication that I have spent now the last eight years because of Donald Trump listening to voters. Listening to voters has been for me, like cheat code for understanding politics. And the fact is not a lot of people do it. And so the book is about both. All of the stuff you and I went through. You are in the book a lot. Bill is in the book a lot. Because it's all about the beginning days of us trying to figure our way through. And one of the ways I figured out how to do it was by talking less and listening more. Even though I talk all the time and I have all these podcasts and we're talkers. Like, I didn't start talking until after I'd really done some listening. And listening to the voters made me both understand how Donald Trump happened, understand how disconnected, both regular, like mainstream Republicans and also Democrats are from what a lot of voters are talking about. Also in our atomized, fractured media environment, I talk a lot about the way that the new media environment, the pressure that's putting on voters, or the way that it's changing how they're thinking about politics. I talk a lot about the parasocial relationships now that voters need to have with politicians, which is why politicians have to have different communities, communication styles. I mean, there's so much about how, like, politicians who spent years learning how to be politicians now have to go back and figuring out how to be humans. Because the artifice.

A (61:04)

You're trying to be a mid tier influencer now, Actually not.

B (61:09)

Well, actually, I mean, that's not quite what I say, but I do a few things. One is I outline where a lot of the voters are in policy just straightforwardly. There's a lot of sweet spots for where the an eye out on who are swing voters, what is moving them, what is animating them. And there's two types of swing voters. There's the ones that take in a lot of information and they're swingy because they process what they're seeing. And then there's the ones who are not paying attention to anything at all, and they're living on vibes. And vibes have gotten really important in this new information environment. And like, how do you create vibes? And so at its core, Tim, for you and I, as Republican communicators, this is a book about how we learned about communications on the right. And then we both found ourselves trying to fight Trump and seeing how people on the left tried to do communications in this moment. And I can see the asymmetry so starkly. Having done both and then having listened to the way in this new environment, voters are being impacted by Republicans ability to do narrative dominance in a way that Democrats just haven't figured out yet. And so it is a series of things that I want people to both understand about how voters are processing information, how they're processing policy and the vibes, and then also what Democrats can do about it to shift their communications abilities and capabilities and the information ecostruxure that they need to build. There's a lot about what needs to be built in order to compete in the attention economy. And those are the bites you got to take of that elephant.

A (62:42)

Are you, are you excited for it to come out? Are you nervous?

B (62:47)

I was nervous. I gotta say, I feel much better today than I felt on Friday when the book was sort of launching because our people made it a bestseller before it's even come out. Which is like, I gotta say thank you. If I haven't said thank you already, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. This community rides so hard for us. We're so lucky. But I also talk a lot about community in the book and the stickiness of it and how you build it and why, you know, you tied that author on who wrote the New Yorker article, which I was quoted in about, about how Republicans have built, how much of their infrastructure is built around these communities that are sticky and that are coordinated and, but also diffuse. Not, not top down coordination. Right. And so I do think there's a lot to learn from that. But anyway, I am excited. I now I want the book. I want the book to be valuable. I said this to Bill, but like, if abundance really kicked off a big conversation around policy among Democrats, I would like. It's not like abundance. It's not. But I would like it to kick off a conversation about how Democrats communicate that people wrestle with.

A (63:48)

So you're not personally nervous? You don't have any feelings in your tummy?

B (63:51)

I mean, I just wanted to be. I wanted to meet people's expectations. Yeah, of course I do. No, I'm nervous. I'm nervous. But I'm also, I really wanted to this. You were mad you didn't want me to do it.

A (64:00)

I'm happy for you, though.

B (64:01)

I had eight years of focus group stuff that I had to get off My chest. And so I'm like, glad to put it out in the world and then just run this company.

A (64:08)

Well, don't be nervous. Here's why. Number one, it's going to be good. We know it's going to be good, okay? You're talented and, you know, people. Come on. There's a lot of crap out there on the market. Trust me. When I was doing my book, I had to read other political books. You're being graded on a low curve, all right? It's not the elite of the elite. Number two is there will be fewer people that read your book than listening to this podcast. I don't want that to be true, okay? I don't want it to be true. I want everyone listening right now to go buy it and to read it. But I learned this from my experience where I was looking at the bookscan numbers and then looking at the amount of people listening to the podcast, and I was like, why is it the same? Shouldn't it be every single person? And the answer is no. There are a lot of people that are here listening that we love, that are just listeners. Or maybe they listen to us while they're falling asleep at night. Or maybe they're library goers. And so it wasn't purchased for whatever reason, it will be fewer. And so you can let yourself loose your little pod circuit around. It's going to be as important. Let the, you know, let those muscles flare, and it'll be great. So go buy the book is my takeaway. Go pre order the book.

B (65:18)

It sounds like your takeaway is, yes, go buy the book. But also, more people listen to this podcast than will buy the book. I'd like that not to be true. Go prove Tim wrong. Okay? If you've ever gotten mad at him for interrupting me or I interrupted him a lot on this podcast today, I was noticing that, you know, go, Go make Tim wrong. More people should buy the book than listen to this podcast.

A (65:38)

The other thing is, if you don't like either of us, bulwark book selling is good for the other bulwark people. We have a lot of great people here, and so hopefully they can get book deals after. So we appreciate that. I want to close the pod with this. We have a breaking news item from Trump. The President was, I guess, called into Fox maybe, and he's asked about what the plan is for the oil prices, the gas prices. The ship should go through the Strait of Hormuz and show some guts. All right, that sounds great. We've really thought this all through nothing to be worried about here. I can see why the the jingoists and the flag where the flag waivers for this war are so confident. That's Sarah Longwell. Her book is how to Eat an Elephant. This war might help us out on that front. We'll see how it goes. You can go find her on Illegal News with Sarah Longwell, the focus group with Sarah Longwell. The next level with me and her. That'll be out tomorrow. And I'll be back tomorrow for another edition of the show. So we're giving you lots of content

B (66:38)

and the secret pod with jvl, which is only for subscribers. So go subscribe too.

A (66:42)

Subscribe too. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Peace. The Borg Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.