My Kingdom For A Deal

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast: "My Kingdom For A Deal"

Date: June 15, 2026
Host: John Podhoretz (B), with Abe Greenwald (A), Seth Mandel (C), Eliana Johnson (D), Jonathan Schanzer (E)

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Overview of the Episode

This episode explores the recently announced (but as yet unseen) peace deal or memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran. The Commentary panel expresses profound pessimism and frustration over what they characterize as a major American capitulation, drawing parallels to—and arguing that it goes beyond—the JCPOA (Iran Nuclear Deal). Major concerns include U.S. concessions, the fate of the Strait of Hormuz, unenforceable conditions, and the implications for U.S. leadership and credibility globally.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Shape and Terms of the Deal

• No Official Draft Seen Yet: None of the panel has seen the actual text; information available comes from leaks and media reporting. (02:21, E)
• Reported Concessions:
  • Iran gets access to billions of previously frozen funds ($12B up front, another $12B later). (03:09, E)
  • Oil sanctions are suspended. (03:24, E)
  • Israel is blocked from engaging Hezbollah.
  • Strait of Hormuz reportedly under Iranian and Omani control, with U.S. acknowledgment of Iranian authority, a first for the U.S. (04:22, B)
  • Iran affirms commitment to NPT and "will not produce nuclear weapons."
  • Possible $300 billion reconstruction fund, with side deals for Arab states and possibly U.S. participants. (03:48, E)
• JCPOA 2.0—Or Worse: The panel believes the current deal is worse than the JCPOA because it’s an "instrument of American surrender" and fails to achieve U.S. war aims (nuclear program, ballistic missiles, Strait of Hormuz control). (09:23, A; 06:08, B)

2. Deep Pessimism about U.S. Policy and Leadership

• Perception of Surrender: The hosts describe this as a surrender, with even Trump's formerly "hawkish" stance abandoned. (09:23, A)
• Dangerous Precedent: Fear that no future president will attempt to confront Iran after this failure. (10:36, A)
• Paper Agreements are Hollow: "Deals do nothing. You can’t sign a piece of paper and say you have done something." (11:28, C)
• Enforcement and Verification Doubts: No clarity on how the deal would be enforced, with fears of hidden side deals similar to the Obama era. (18:58, E)
• U.S.-Israel Relations: Deep concern that Trump is willing to blame Netanyahu (Bibi) for any breakdown, distancing the U.S. from Israel as the Democratic Party continues to move farther away as well. (14:22, B)

3. Immediate Dangers and Potential Spoilers

• Five-Day Window: With the deal not signed until Friday, there is a risk that hostilities or provocations (esp. via Hezbollah/Israel) may derail the agreement, possibly to be blamed on Israel. (14:22, B)
• Facts on the Ground: The panel foresees Iran testing U.S. resolve via provocations or tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, and doubts Trump’s willingness to enforce red lines. (21:00, E)

4. Impact on American Credibility and Global Order

• Leadership Undermined: The U.S. emerges as unreliable, having failed to achieve its stated objectives after military escalation. (35:34, B)
• Signal to Rogues: Rogue states may perceive carte blanche to disrupt global commerce and challenge the West without serious repercussion. (41:18, C)
• Allied & International Doubts: Allies such as Israel, Gulf states, and others are expected to pursue independent security strategies (building missile stockpiles, new pipelines) in response to perceived U.S. weakness. (28:37, E)

5. Optimistic Counterpoint—But Only Tentatively

• Jonathan Schanzer's Silver Lining: Despite the grim assessment, Schanzer notes that Iran’s regime is "weaker right now, economically [and] politically, than it has been in a long time," and that aftershocks from U.S./Israeli actions could destabilize the regime in the future. He also suggests regional actors may adapt in ways that limit Iran’s future leverage. (28:35, E)

6. Domestic Political Fallout

• Perception > Reality: Trump is expected to "reinvent reality" to avoid looking like a "loser." (26:05, B)
• Precedent for Future Policy: Fear that this episode signals to future leaders that it’s too costly or difficult to confront Iran seriously, especially after American casualties and no gain. (41:18, C; 43:30, D)
• Tariffs and Judicial Blocks: Trump’s international economic tools (tariffs) have also been restricted by judicial rulings. (35:34, B)

7. FISA Renewal and Domestic Governance Chaos

• FISA Lapse: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act lapsed due to political gridlock and nomination chaos, exposing weakness in administration management. (59:47, D)
• Clayton Nomination: Jay Clayton nominated as DNI too late to prevent this lapse. (59:47, D)

8. Broader Reflections & Historical Analogies

• Historical Echoes: Host recalls the U.S. history of encouraging revolts (Hungary '56, Prague Spring) and leaving populations to be crushed, saying at least Eisenhower never misled allies about American intervention. Trump "chose this path" and people had fair warning. (45:00, B)
• Final Note: John Podhoretz concludes with a literary analogy, acknowledging that, deep down, he suspected this outcome—a story of self-sabotage and inevitable collapse. (64:21, B)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Deal Itself:

  "Even the best reading of the American version of the draft is a series of capitulations... The United States has chosen to lose the war that it started on February 28." (01:04, B)

• Jonathan Schanzer on Leaked Terms:

  "They're talking about $12 billion of Iranian funds released up front. Another 12 billion at the end of the negotiation. Oil sanctions suspended. Israel being blocked from engaging with Hezbollah... my biggest concern is that it looks like the Islamic Republic now understands that it can hold the entire world hostage." (02:21 - 04:22, E)

• John Podhoretz on the U.S. Position:

  "None of those has been achieved. And what's more, we appear to be agreeing to all three, continuing in perpetuity... So just going on what they're saying publicly, it is a catastrophe. Even if you're an Obamaite." (06:08, B)

• Abe Greenwald on Surrender:

  "It's worse than the JCPOA in this respect, that it's also, it is what the JCPOA was not, which is an instrument of American surrender. And that leaves us in a much more dangerous place, a much more dangerous world." (09:23, A)

• Seth Mandel on Unenforceable Deals:

  "Deals do nothing. Deals don't do anything. Right. We've been watching the commentary at talk about the jc... A deal does nothing. You have a deal just spells out the terms. It just says what's expected of you. You can't sign a piece of paper and say you have done something." (11:28, C)

• Schazner's Cautious Optimism:

  "The regime is weaker right now, economically, politically, than it has been in a long time... I would not rule out that things could still—like, this is one of those things where Donald Trump may not look like he made the best deal, but he walks away. And then you could actually begin to see fairly healthy things happen that bring down the Islamic Republic sometime afterwards." (28:37, E)

• On American Credibility:

  "What is the American President's word good for now?" (35:39, B)
  "That's the real fatality here because... we've now dealt with the Strait of Hormuz being closed. ... we've signaled to rogue and even non state actors that the, the world is not going to come down on them like a ton of bricks for stopping up global commerce. That to me is ridiculous." (41:18, C)

• Final Reflection:

  "So I knew somehow that this was going to happen... the war had to be won for it to be of any use and that the proof of the pudding would be in the eating. And we are losing." (64:21, B)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:04] – Podhoretz introduces the panel's pessimism; outlines deal terms and surrender concerns.
• [02:21] – Schanzer details rumored elements of the deal.
• [04:22] – Podhoretz updates on Strait of Hormuz developments and official statements.
• [06:08] – Discussion on how none of the original U.S. aims have been achieved.
• [09:23] – Greenwald: it’s "worse than the JCPOA."
• [11:28] – Mandel: Paper deals are hollow without action.
• [14:22] – Podhoretz warns of risks in the window before Friday’s signing.
• [18:58] – Schanzer: Verification and side deals remain opaque.
• [21:00] – Panel predicts further Iranian provocations, doubts U.S. will enforce red lines.
• [28:37] – Schanzer offers rare optimistic forecast for regime destabilization.
• [35:34] – Podhoretz expands the critique to U.S. global credibility and other foreign policy stumbles.
• [41:18] – Mandel and others emphasize leadership and broader consequences.
• [45:00] – Host recalls Cold War betrayals and sets historical context.
• [59:47] – U.S. domestic dysfunction: FISA renewal debacle and nomination chaos.
• [64:21] – Podhoretz’s final, rueful assessment and literary analogy.

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Tone and Language

• The language is urgent, dismayed, sometimes caustic, and consistently critical of the Trump administration’s performance, with interludes of gallows humor and historical references. The panelists mix policy analysis with bitter, personal disappointment and concern for U.S. standing in the world.

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Summary Table: Major Themes

| Theme | Panel’s Stance / Commentary | Key Segment | |------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|---------------| | Iran Deal Terms | Catastrophic capitulation; worse than JCPOA | 01:04–09:23 | | U.S. Leadership | Severely undermined, global credibility shaken | 35:34–41:18 | | Verification & Enforcement | No clarity, risk of hidden side deals, unclear mechanisms | 18:58–21:00 | | American-Israeli Relations | At risk, with Trump prepared to blame Israel for deal failure | 14:22–24:21 | | Trump’s Approach & Consistency | Accused of prioritizing personal optics, changing conditions ad hoc | 25:44–26:17 | | Prospects of Regional/Economic Aftermath | Possible long-term realignment, new pipelines, local arming, regime aftershocks | 28:37–30:57 | | FISA Renewal, Admin Competence | Described as chaotic and incompetent, exposing national security vulnerabilities | 59:47–63:45 | | Historical Perspective | Echoes of past failed U.S. support for oppressed populations, now repeated | 45:00–48:37 |

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode is an in-depth, emotionally-charged analysis of the new U.S.-Iran understanding, which the Commentary team sees as both a failed diplomatic effort and a strategic defeat for American policy and leadership. With skepticism over both the transparency of the deal’s terms and its likely efficacy, the hosts predict U.S. global standing will deteriorate, adversaries will be emboldened, and crucial alliances will be frayed. While Jonathan Schanzer points toward potential unintended future opportunities, the prevailing tone is one of regret and anger: the war, they argue, has been lost both militarily and morally.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Expect the worst. Some drinks champagne Some die at first no way of knowing which way it's going. Hope for the best. Expect the worst. Hope for the best. Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. I didn't listen to the lyrics of our theme song. I hoped for the best. I did not expect the worst. Today we are going to be talking about the worst. I am Jon Puthoritz, the editor of Commentary. With me, as always, executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[A]

Hi, John.

[B]

Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[C]

Hi, John.

[B]

Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.

[D]

Hi, John.

[B]

And our contributing editor, Ann Poobah, at the foundation for Defense of Democracy's Jonathan Schanzer. Hi, Jonathan.

[E]

Hey, John.

[B]

Well, I, like I say, the worst has happened. We don't know the terms of the peace deal that has been struck or the memorandum of understanding that has been struck between the United States and Iran. The drafts or the leaks difference, depending on which nation you turn to. But even the best reading of the American version of the draft is a series of capitulations and certainly intimations and emanations that the United States has chosen to lose the war that it started on February 28. And the only detail that I will adduced for that there are 10,000 other details, but is Donald Trump telling the New York Times that Iran will be allowed. So they're going into the negotiation with the idea that Iran will be allowed to maintain some uranium for peaceful purposes. So guess what? It is the jcpoa. We are back in JCPOA territory, maybe even a little worse. Jonathan Chanzer, I know you can't cheer me up, so do you just wanna pile on? Cuz, please, be my guest.

[E]

Okay, I'm not gonna pile on because let me just caveat all of this by saying we actually have not seen an official draft of this deal. Nobody that I've talked to in Israel has a clear sense of what is in this deal. There's a small group of people, it's Pakistanis, it's Qataris, it's Americans, it's Iranians that seem to understand what is exactly in this deal. And until we see it, I don't know if I can have a complete meltdown yet. I'm planning to have one, but I don't know if I can have one yet. Now, I mean, if we take the Iranian Mayor News agency at its word, those clauses that they put out, and this was from a couple of days ago, it's a bad deal. They're talking about $12 billion of Iranian funds released up front. Another 12 billion at the end of the negotiation. Oil sanctions suspended. Israel being blocked from engaging with Hezbollah in Lebanon. I guess good news is Strait of Hormuz opens and stays open. And Iran apparently affirms its commitment to the non Proliferation Treaty and says that it will not produce nuclear weapons. And then after that there could be even a reconstruction plan that's like $300 billion. There's side deals from the Arab states where they may have actually paid off the Iranians. So you get a sense of where things are going. It really does not look great. My biggest concern is that it looks like the Islamic Republic now understands that it can hold the entire world hostage, that it can hold the Strait of Hormuz that is responsible for 20% of the world's oil flows, that it can do that and it can bomb the hell out of the surrounding Gulf Arab states that are themselves oil producers and walk away with a payoff.

[B]

Okay, walk away with a deal. Okay, I got to interrupt you because what you just said about the Strait being open is in fact I think been confirmed this morning as not being true. J.D. vance himself asked about the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which that MERS News agency leak that you mentioned says will be under Iranian and Omani control. So for the first time there will be the United States will affirm the idea that the Strait of Hormuz is under Iranian control. JD Vance said this about the deal, quote, well, our expectation is that the Strait is going to be opened in a toll free way for the long term. And that's the sort of thing that we're going to figure out in these technical negotiations. He told CNBC. So we are not even 24 hours from the announcement of this deal. And A, it's not clear that Iran will not continue to toll the Strait of Hormuz. And B, it's not clear whether we agreed to Iran claiming sovereignty over this international body of water. And this is us, this is not Iran's stooge agency. It's not a leak from some Pakistani minister. This is us saying A, Vance saying the Strait will be open in the long term during negotiations and B, that Trump saying that Iran gets to have enriched uranium in some quantity.

[E]

So

[B]

I don't need to see the deal to know that this is the deal. The two things that were, or there are three things about this that we went into this war for, right? Ending the nuclear program forever, ending the ballistic missile threat, and then as the war went on, making sure that Iran had no capacity to Close the Strait of Hormuz. And none of those has been achieved. And what's more, we appear to be agreeing to all three, continuing in perpetuity, since apparently the missiles aren't even mentioned in the Memorandum of understanding. Neither we nor the Iranians are saying anything about what the deal says about the missiles. So just going on what they're saying publicly, it is a catastrophe. Even if you're an Obamaite, like Obama didn't, wasn't negotiating over the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Yeah.

[E]

And you're gonna see the Obama types, they're gonna come out of the woodwork and say, you see, should have stayed in the deal. Right. When Trump left the deal in 2018, that it was a huge mistake that Trump won, that it was an error. And then waging war. We could have told you. Right. I can imagine that this is what the Obama folks are gonna say. You know, of course they were going to do this, and you should have known that the Strait of Hormuz was going to be held hostage. And now we're off in a worse place. I'm not sure I would buy that entire argument. What I think, though, is that we got spooked. And I mean, I've talked about it on this podcast a bunch of times with you guys. I do think that there was an economic war to win, and I think we just snatched defeat from the possible jaws of victory here. I think that there was a way to put additional pressure on this. I still, by the way, think if you want, the silver lining here is there will be aftershocks from this earthquake, there will be political fallout inside the Islamic Republic, There will be economic fallout from within the Islamic Republic. And I don't think they're done with this matter. The people still hate the regime and, and the disarray is still significant. The damage that's been done is significant. So I don't wanna dismiss any of that. I think it's all there. But I do think that I've got real concerns along the lines of what you've just delineated, John, that it looks like we've given up on the economic and political battles here. We've given up on the military battle. We're taking actions for the short term, for the price of oil, and we are foregoing those medium and long term goals that we need to have in the region. The Islamic Republic continues to be a blight on the Middle East. It deserves to go down. And we stopped. I don't even know if it was halfway, but once it Got complicated. I think we just decided that it was time to end it, and I think that's a shame.

[B]

Abe?

[A]

Yeah, John, I'm where you are. I can't imagine that there could be any further details that would alleviate our concerns here. All the big ticket items seem to have been abandoned. It's, you know, it's worse. I've said this last time when we were worried that this was going to happen. It's worse than the JCPOA in this respect, that it's also, it is what the JCPOA was not, which is an instrument of American surrender. And that leaves us in a much more dangerous place, a much more dangerous world. If Donald Trump, who was the most aggressive president in terms of the Iranian threat, went all in and marshaled all these resources and took all this time and built up all this force and attacked them from the skies and did everything else that he did, only to say, oh, now you may have the Strait of Hormuz and you can have some uranium and no president will ever do it again, at least not in our lifetimes. I mean, not in this sort of iteration, not in this chapter of history. And you know, something that people say is that regarding the uranium is that, well, you know, the regime agrees that it will not produce a nuclear weapon. Right? And then people say, well, that was in the JCPOA as well. It didn't have to be in anything. The regime has been saying for decades that it has no intentions of producing a nuclear weapon. That's the base lie. Who cares what they say about it?

[C]

Right? Well, I mean, that gets to an important point, which is deals do nothing. Deals don't do anything. Right. We've been watching the commentary at talk about the jc. Well, at least the JCPOA did this and the JCPOA did that, and we had that after the Obama administration signed the JCPOA and began to implement it. A deal does nothing. You have a deal just spells out the terms. It just says what's expected of you. You can't sign a piece of paper and say you have done something. Signing a piece of paper doesn't reopen the straight. What reopens the strait is the Iranians reopening the strait. Right? Signing a piece of paper, just as signing a piece of paper doesn't stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon, Iran not building a nuclear weapon is what stops Iran from building a nuclear weapon. So with the Obama administration, part of the problem with the JCPOA was not just what it did, but what it didn't do. Right? The Obama administration would say, well, all right, let's say there's four cracks in the pipe and you're trying to prevent a flood and you hire a plumber and the plumber fixes the first two patches, the first two cracks. The Obama administration basically said, we've stopped the floods, we've stopped the pipeline's pathway to a flood by, by closing up those, those cracks. Meanwhile, what it did was it just delayed it and the water will eventually get to crack number three and crack number four unless somebody acts in that time frame. And we had this discussion, everything was permanent when everything in the JCPOA had sunsets and was scheduled to stop being in force by virtue of the deal itself. So I guess one of the things I'm wondering here, Jonathan, is how do we, how do we even know what the verification mechanisms would be, excuse me for any of this, having been fooled once on the jcpoa, which left out key verification methods so that they could say, well, Iran is following the deal because we didn't ask anybody to fix cracks three and four. How do, how do we follow this in a way that we understand what is being implemented and not just what's being agreed to?

[D]

Can I just add one other comment? I've been, I've been saying this all along, but I'm still skeptical we're going to get a deal. It is Monday. The deal's supposed to be signed Friday. And I noticed that in the Wall Street Journal there's a line that senior U.S. officials say details remain to be worked out. We have not seen the text. We don't know what these details are.

[B]

Yeah, Eliana, let's talk about the danger of there not being a deal from now until Friday because now there's a newly introduced danger, the whip hand that the Iranians want to pose to the United States about their removing themselves from the deal that clearly Trump wants so badly that he is willing to fire sale. His entire six months worth of rhetoric about this and everything that he has done to get himself, extricate himself from this war situation now is Israel. So there is a five day period until the signing. Israel is still in Lebanon. Reports we have this morning are that the Hezbollah militia Shiites are returning home and they are not intending to fire. However got days stuff could happen. Say Israel perceives a danger or a threat, somebody in Hezbollah doesn't actually want the deal and fires at Israel in order to get Israel to fire at Hezbollah, to give Iran the prospect of saying, ah, Israel is Israel. They're back at war in Lebanon. And so we're gonna pull out of the deal. At which point Trump, who started signaling on Friday that he was turning on Israel or particularly on Bibi, Bibi's so difficult. What the F is he doing? He has no judgment. All because I assume Netanyahu called him and said, what the F are you doing? How does this comport with everything that we've been doing together over the last six months? What kind of judgment do you show? And now Trump will be able to hang the failure on Bibi if the deal fails between now and Friday, thus fulfilling the deepest wishes of everyone in his administration who wants to create daylight between the US And Israel while the Democratic Party is running full bore into anti Israel and anti Semitic sentiment. You know, when I go out and people who are listeners to the podcast see me on the street, they're always asking me, is that quints is what you're wearing quints? And the answer is yes, it's usually quints. And why I keep coming back to Quint's is because they focus on high quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Think breathable linen and soft organic cotton, particularly for summer. Well made basics, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated but still effortless. Quince European linen pants and shirts. Perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your rotation. Starting at just $34. Their tees are soft and easy to wear and and their lightweight cotton sweaters are perfect for cooler summer nights. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quint.com commentary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U y n c e.com commentary for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com commentary. You know, they say that every day your business is late to AI, you fall two days behind. But how do you keep up? The competition is only moving faster. Fortunately, there's netsuite Next. Netsuite Next is the next huge leap in how business gets done because AI is built into everything you do. It's a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, Commerce, HR and CRM into a single source of truth. Trusted by over 43,000 customers, AI agents work alongside you to solve problems, handle routine work, and anytime you have a question about anything, ask, just like you're having a conversation with a colleague. If I had the kind of business that was big enough to mandate the use of something like NetSuite Next, I would be there in a heartbeat. And for the first time ever. You can try netsuite next for free. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to NetSuite AI commentary. Built for every industry, ready for every boardroom. Netsuite AI Commentary.

[E]

Okay, guys, so a lot of things just we put on the table there. I want to try to unpack some of this. Number one, we have no idea what the enforcement mechanism is going to be, Seth. And I don't think we're going to know. I mean, maybe if they decide to release an actual draft of this thing, but I'm not sure we're going to see all of it. There are side deals that are going to be part of this that are American, not just Arab side deals, which we already know about. And if you've seen the reports in the news over the weekend, the last couple of days, Qatar's done it, the UAE has done it. They've apparently paid off the regime billions of dollars in order to get them to stop firing at their countries. And then on top of that, there are likely going to be side deals also with the United States. This, by the way, is kind of a signature of the Obama era, where there were things that the public saw and things that it didn't see. I find that highly problematic. I hope that it's not the case, but at least some indications right now I'm getting would suggest that that's what may be about to happen. Iaea? No clue. I mean, honestly. And should they even be involved? I don't know. But will the United States put boots on the ground in order to verify? No clue. How do we get the dust out right. Of the entombed tunnels underground?

[B]

We're not getting it.

[E]

No, Trump, we're not getting it.

[D]

Trump did say, oh, we'll worry about that later. It's not a big deal.

[C]

But by the way, yeah.

[E]

And there are people in Israel, by the way, who said it was overrated,

[C]

enrichment was overrated, and I was the one who overrated it.

[E]

There are people that are saying that. There are people in Israel that are saying if they can't get it and the US can't get it, and the Israelites, if the Israelis can't get it, then does it really matter? I don't have a strong sense about that. I'm not a nuclear scientist.

[B]

Can I just say I accept that as an axiom. If it is unreachable, then who has it? Doesn't matter. Trump's the one who made it a condition.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

Everything that we're talking about here is a condition that Trump laid out at the beginning of the war, unconditional surrender. We get the materials, and they don't have a missile program anymore. Trump gets to change his mind.

[E]

Trump gets to change his mind. That's the one thing that I think we've learned over the years is, you know, if he's decided that the dust is no longer a thing, that it's, you know, at least for him, no longer a thing, and I would say there are people that would agree with him that actually do know the nuclear side of things pretty well. Doesn't mean I'm not worried about it. I'm worried about all of it. But so now to Eliana's question, which I think is really interesting. I think, and I want to get to your scenario, too, John. I think that we could still see action in the Strait of Hormuz that could scuttle this deal. I think the Iranians are going to try to. They're going to dare the United States to back out of this thing. I think that we are likely to find out that they're trying to exact tolls from, you know, from shipping companies that are going through. I think they're going to continue to try to shake people down, and I don't think they care. I think they want to find out how desperate Trump is for a deal and whether he's willing to look the other way on things like this so that there are going to be, oh, I don't know, facts on the ground, kind of a de facto new rules of the game that they can continue to play with a wink and a nod. And we're going to continue to just act like everything's okay because we want the oil to flow. Now, I do think that, John, your last point is the one that's very dangerous for Israel, that the Iranians. I mean, we saw it over the weekend. All this was so predictable, right? The Iranians are the top patrons to Hezbollah. They arm them, they fund them, they actually direct them. And Hezbollah then starts firing missiles and drones at Israel. Israel, being a normal country, wanting to defend its 10 million citizens, they do what any other country in the world would have done. They respond. As soon as that happens, then you've got the Islamic Republic coming out. Even though they were the ones that almost certainly prompted this in the first place, they probably issued the direction to do it. Then they come out and they start howling about how Israel has violated America's ceasefire agreement. And then Donald Trump unleashes on Bibi. If this is allowed to hold, then what you have Is Israel finding itself with its hands tied, Hezbollah unleashing on Israel at least for the next five days, maybe even for months down the road, where Israel's gonna find itself constrained by its only ally. And that is a really dangerous thing. This meeting that Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed between him and Trump is urgent. And I don't usually say that about meetings between these two leaders. I know Bibi likes to just come and pop in on Trump every once in a while and I don't know, smoke a cigar or something. This is not one of those. This is a serious problem where these two countries are gonna need to de conflict about what happens with Hezbollah. If you look at that mayor news report. And again, it's all propaganda, I know, and it could be all false. But if even there's a shred of truth here, that the US Is going to accept the terms that Lebanon is included in this ceasefire deal and that that would include, for example, providing the Israelis with weapons to use against Hezbollah, air defenses to defend against Hezbollah drones or rockets, this is a potential crisis for the U. S. Israel relationship and it needs to get ironed out quickly.

[A]

Can I just point out, I just want to add why all Americans should be upset about this Israel aspect of the strike in Beirut killed that Trump was all worked up about, killed a Hezbollah commander with American blood on his hands, a commander who has killed Americans in the past. And the US President's response is to scold Israel for doing it because it upsets the Iranians. What's got me. I just want to take a step back in terms of when we talk about the further details not worked out. I think the biggest issue here is that I no longer have any confidence that Trump really cares what the future details are. That's the thing. I think we are talking about them with a level of concern and seriousness that he no longer has. His main concern is dragging this across the finish line. Desperately wanted to do it on his birthday. Very fishy. And he may, you know, I initially, last week, I thought he wanted to do it by the 4th of July. I thought he wanted to make a sort of spectacle of it. In that sense, I misjudged him. Of course, he'd rather do it on his birthday, but we'll see.

[B]

Okay, so my.

[D]

He may care. Yeah, he may care whether he is perceived as having been humiliated, whether he's perceived as a loser, and whether he's perceived as signing JCPOA 2.0.

[B]

Okay, he is being humiliated. He will be a loser and he is going to sign the jcpoa.

[D]

As we know, John, the President cares much more about perception than reality.

[B]

So he reinvents reality. According to him, right now, the Strait of Hormuz is open. He just tweeted or truthed or whatever ships are passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Hooray. Remember, the Strait of Hormuz wasn't even a talking point on February 28th.

[D]

They're trying to sell us the same garbage over and over again. You know, the April 8th ceasefire was about reopening the Strait of Hormuz. And now the June 15th 14th ceasefire is about reopening the Strait of Hormuz. And if this doesn't work, the next one will be about. And so we stopped carpet bombing them to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Now we're removing, you know, the blockade to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Next time, we'll be giving up something else to reopen open the Strait of Hormuz. This is the way negotiations with the Iranians work.

[B]

The way negotiations with us work. It's about us, it's not about them. What they want is completely clear. They want freedom of action. They want to be able to close or open the Strait of Hormuz at will. They want to continue their nuclear program and they want to continue to build ballistic missiles. And we are extending to every one of those from where we are.

[D]

They want survival. They want a nuclear program and they want to drag out negotiations through the election. They want to humiliate Donald Trump and move on to the next president.

[B]

They've already succeeded. I don't know what they need to keep going for. They can negotiate. Not negotiate. Nobody on the planet earth is going to see this. Unless you are literally a paid agent of MAGA related to Donald Trump or some lunatic who is really excited by the possibility of Trump turning on Israel. There is no person on earth who is gonna say that America didn't lose this war. There is nobody.

[E]

Nobody lost this round. But I wanna. I just. I wanna. I've gotta jump here in a minute, as you guys know, but I wanna inject a little bit of optimism here into what has been an otherwise very pessimistic conversation, which is very characteristic of all the conversations that we have when I joined this program. I think it needs to be understood that Donald Trump actually.

[D]

Characteristics of the one we have without you too, John.

[E]

Okay, I'm aware of that too, but I. Personal experiences. I want to acknowledge that the President did join forces with the Israelis and eviscerated the Iranian Defense Industrial base. They took out a number of their top leaders. They destroyed a lot of military capabilities. They didn't destroy all of them. That's not possible. But there was a lot of good that was done in that first phase of this war. I think that the regime is weaker right now, economically, politically, than it has been in a long time. And that is on top of the cracks that were already existing before this war began. I think there will be aftershocks to this war, and I would not rule out that things could still like, this is one of those things where Donald Trump may not look like he made the best deal, but he walks away. And then you could actually begin to see fairly healthy things happen that bring down the Islamic Republic sometime afterwards, by the way, maybe with a little nudge from the Mossad or even from the CIA. There are things that are still possible here after cutting a deal. So don't rule out that the fight continues, just maybe by other means, while you keep the strait open. Now, I'm not telling you that I love the deal. I'm saying that this ain't over. Right? This is still a war, even if there's a ceasefire in the Strait of Hormuz. And so I would just sort of broaden the scope here for a little bit and begin to understand that there were good things that happened. I don't like where we've ended up right now, but I think that there are possibilities for good things in the future. The other thing is just get ready for the rest of the region to adjust to this in the future. You're going to see every one of these Gulf states start to amass enormous amounts of missiles, including the Israelis, by the way, so that the Iranians don't get a chance to bully them in the future. And also, let's not forget that the Strait of Hormuz is gonna look very different in a year or two. There will be a bunch of countries that have created pipelines to get oil the hell out of that maritime waterway so that Iran doesn't have this leverage in the future. And then a war like this looks very different. So, I mean, I understand that immediately. It looks like a dog's breakfast down the line. Who knows? We can fight another day.

[B]

Jonathan Schanzer, thank you very much for that astoundingly uncharacteristic note of optimism. I don't know what to do with it. I'm gonna try to take it in. We are, as you go on through your day, going to talk about the larger implications of this in a way that does not comport with what you have been saying about the positive implications. Cause there are many negative implications as well. But thank you so much. My daughter graduated from college this weekend, and interestingly, several of the conversations I had with the parents of other graduating seniors was, was it really true what I've said about Brooklyn Bedding on the commentary podcast, that these are the most comfortable mattresses that you've ever experienced? And I said, well, you don't have to take my word for it. And I pointed to yet another parent who was there, whose daughter is a friend of my daughter's, who came to our house and slept on a Brooklyn Bedding mattress and told her parents that it was the most comfortable mattress that she has ever slept on. So I don't know what more I can say other than to give you the advice of going to BrooklynBedding.com and using my promo code commentary at checkout to get 30% off site wide. This offer is not available anywhere else. That's BrooklynBetting.com and promo code COMMENTARY for 30% off site wide. Support our show and let them know we sent you after checkout. I'm talking about an entire parent body all excited about Brooklyn betting, and you can be one of those people, too. BrooklynBetting.com promo code commentary. Guys, we just had from Jonathan Schanzer the case that maybe in the long run, the Gulf states will arm, they'll build new pipelines, the regime's 90 million people will rise up, and in the end, this is a blip and something good will happen. Let's talk about the total reverse field. Let's not talk about what happens to Iran in the Middle East. Let's talk about what is happening to the United States and the perception of the United States in the world as a leader, Trump's position as a leader, Trump's word, Trump's statements, and what the what people in the world can expect from the United States as we go forward. I look at this and I say, he's done in this way. He said, I'm going to war. There's going to be unconditional surrender. Ya ba da da da. And then this ends up being the deal where there's no unconditional surrender and we do not achieve any of the aims that we laid out after we did what Jonathan Schanzer talked about, which is decapitate, be involved in the decapitation effort of their leadership and then like, just blow the crap out of whatever military targets that we could find. Okay, so that's where it began. And Then he laid out all kinds of terms and things like that. Okay, so where we are is that he has said, this is what I need. He gets none of it. Broaden this out to some other foreign policy. Things that have been going on. The tariffs being ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. That was the economic arm of his foreign policy that is being taken away from him. The forward, the use of American power to advance American interests without feeling shackled or with your hands tied behind your back, that's now been removed. He said again, I think to the New York Times, look, if after 60 days, you know, this deal doesn't go well, we'll go back to war. Oh, really? Does any. What odds would you guys put on us going back to war in late August after two months? Wait, is it two months? No. Yeah, like mid August. Like August 19th. All right, 60 days. Get those planes in the air.

[C]

Does anybody know what Poly Market says call she? I don't know. I'm asking.

[B]

You know, that'll help because Donald and Junior and Eric and Junior Witkoff and Junior Barrick and are all. However they're betting, that's where I'm going. So since this is really all about them enriching themselves, in the end, that's what these four years are gonna have been about, is the enrichment of about five Mafia families led by the Barzinis in the form of Trump Tower. So what is the American President's word good for now? Also the Greenland nonsense. So he spent two months, we alienated Europe with Greenland. Is he gonna go take Greenland? He's not gonna go take. What he'll do now is every now and then he'll blow up some drug dealer and then do a jig and a dance for blowing up a drug dealer in international waters or somewhere. By the way, I don't even.

[C]

I don't even want Greenland.

[B]

Criminal act, probably under. Under US Statute, by the way.

[C]

I mean, I don't even want Greenland now. It's tainted. But I will say. Because I don't want a consolation prize, but I will say that this is actually the area where I worry the most about things, because I agree with some of the things that. That Jonathan Chancellor said about what we have accomplished so far. If we, you know, and I won't repeat all that, but the missiles and, you know, destroying facilities, burying certain things, all that stuff, those are clearly, and I think we've talked about this before, those are clearly achievements that were not. That did not precede the jcpoa. So when we talk about the deals, you know, Had Obama bombed the three major nuclear sites first and decapitated the regime twice and taking out their ballistic missiles, all that other stuff, we, you know, we might have felt differently about the JCPOA than we felt. Not that we would have liked the deal itself, but again, it's just, it's a way, I think Trump should still get credit for the things that he's done and there should still be a discussion of whether this, what we are better off after than before I act. I think that that's, that's still up in the air and there's a case to be made. But in terms of American leadership, that's the real fatality here because the Iranians have been protesting since, I mean, we had the 2009 were the big ones, but for, for the better part of two decades, we've had these Iranian people. You're now Iranian people. Yes, the Iranian people. The public protests have, the debate around them in the United States has always been, should we help them? How do we help them? How do we help them without looking like it's the CIA cooing them again, blah, blah, blah. And you can, you just know that after all this, the protests, the, the most recent protests were the, were the most serious they have had in years. And they shortly were followed by strikes against Iran by the United States. It wasn't the day after, but it was pretty soon after. And we worked with the Israelis to take out the supreme leader so that, that kind of thing is never happening again. Like the idea that, that people are always going to connect the protests to this also. And if anybody even mildly suggests we should help the Iranians who are being mowed down in the streets and tortured in Evan prison basements and whatever that is going to be laughed out of the room because that is associated with everything that happened. So that's why I think about American leadership, the Iranian people. That's one, that's one example. The other example is I look at, and this is the world too, by the way. But to me, when I look at the Strait of Hormuz and I see a rogue state has the ability to cut off service in, you know, such an important choke point for global commerce. The world's reaction, the world's attitude should be if they even joke about shutting it down, we'll bury them because the world can't operate normally. If we have various areas that, you know, some, some weak rogue state that we've decapitated twice and, you know, knocked out all their air defenses, if they are still able to close off choke points. I'm not saying there's one exactly like the straight of hormones elsewhere, but there are rogue actors all over the world. What does it mean for we, we dealt with the Somali pirates a few years ago, we're going to have another one of the, those types of problems. We dealt with the Somali pirates, we dealt with the Houthis, you know, raining missiles down along the Red Sea route. We've now dealt with the Strait of Hormuz being closed. It's not going to be the Strait, but what we've done is signaled to rogue and even non state actors that the, the world is not going to come down on them like a ton of bricks for stopping up global commerce. That to me is ridiculous. But also, even if we have Keir Starmer in the UK and so we know we're not getting help from him, it does ultimately fall to the United States to backstop that. And so that those, those are reasons that I feel like American leadership took the worst hit of all in this.

[A]

And don't forget China and Taiwan here.

[B]

Yeah, well, yes.

[C]

And like, look, the President of Lebanon is going to have to be given, you know, safe passage somewhere.

[D]

I worry again, I just want to say I do want to reserve judgment until there's actually an MOU to read because of my skepticism that there will be such a thing. I may be wrong, but I worry about the takeaway from this being that it's just too hard to stand up to Iran, it can't be done, when the reality, I think, is that the President just wasn't willing to do what it took and it very well could have been done. And I also worry that, I think Abe may have alluded to this before, that nobody viewed Obama as a hawk, people viewed the JCPOA as a concession. People now do view Trump as a hawk and he comes away with the same thing, but also with the cost of American lives. So, you know, Obama didn't go to war. Well, we did go to war. Americans did die. And we're coming, you know, if we come away with something similar, I think that's quite a costly. And then, John, we should talk a little bit because I think it goes to the same theme of the wheels coming off about FISA and the nomination of Jay Clayton, Republicans efforts to move that through the Senate really quickly. And then this New York mag piece about Biden just.

[B]

We will, we will.

[D]

That will remind everyone that it could be worse.

[B]

Okay, first of all, I honestly don't know if it could be worse because if this war ends the way I fear it's going to. America is going to be in a strategically, tactically, and militarily worse position than it was under Biden. And before Trump came back into power, that is to say, he made a choice to test America's resolve to America's ability to win war, to exert its will to change the nature of the map. And he has choked, he has chickened out, he has bled himself dry. And better that we shouldn't have done it in the first place, because we have 25 years left. We have 75 years left of this century. We have 75 years left of the century. Trump, the crazy lunatic psychotic who doesn't care about lives and will do anything and do anything, could not bear the idea of putting a boot on the ground anywhere in Iran and could not bear the idea of a single American possibly being taken hostage, which I understand. I'm not saying that either of those is a good thing. But if you're gonna go to war, you have to put boots on the ground. If you're going to go to war, you have to understand that there are sacrifices, that not only is the military, which is a volunteer military, everyone in the military has volunteered to put their lives on the lines for their country, and that the country itself may have to sacrifice in the form of wildly higher oil prices. If you think that the American national interest has to be engaged in this process, and if you go into the process and you lose it and it's a complete war of choice, you have made things worse. The situation is worse. It's worse than it was on the 28th of February. And to get to the point that Seth was going to. Which is why I'm so crazy passionate about this, when we were talking about this in January, unlike you usually are,

[D]

you're just crazy passionate about this.

[B]

No, no, I'm out of my mind here. I haven't felt like this in a long time. Actually, we said in early January, the problem with the American response to the Iranian uprising is that there is a history of. Of America with populations under totalitarian rule rising up, and then those populations getting the idea that we were going to be the cavalry and ride in and help them and save them and help them win, from Hungary to Prague and onward, and that under those conditions, there were tragic consequences to those uprisings where they were crushed and tens of thousands of people killed and hundreds of thousands of people jailed and all of that because they got the wrong idea from us. And at least DWIGHT Eisenhower in 1956 didn't say to the Hungarian people, help is on the way. Djt, you know, we're coming to save you. He said it. I didn't say it. You didn't say it. This is why I keep saying he chose this path. We were not forced into this path. It wasn't even anything like Kuwait, wasn't even the war. We had to go to war in 1990 against Iran, Iraq, because Iraq had swallowed a neighboring country. And just as Seth says, we can't allow a waterway to be closed and have a world that functions properly. If we sat there while one country swallowed up another and announced that it was its province and didn't do something, the world would collapse into chaos because people would be countries would be trying to do this all over the place. And 52 countries said, no, no, no, you cannot do that. That wasn't a war of choice. This Trump decided to do. I was happy he chose it, but I'm under no possible illusions that this was something that needed to be done. So if twere done, twere better. Twere done quickly and had to be won, you couldn't lose. You couldn't do this and lose. And he is losing. And you may not think that the deal is gonna go through and you may wanna see the memorandum of understanding, but then I see JD Vance on CBS this Morning saying the following. Asked by cbs, the Iranians are saying they're going to have access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund. Is that true or false? And this is not quote, but whatever the term is, it's a summary of what Vance said. He said that's the sort of thing you could have access to so long as they honor their end of the obligation. So Vance is actually acknowledging that at the end of this deal, if the Iranians honor their obligation, there's gonna be a $300 billion reconstruction fund, half of which is gonna go to Witkoff and Barrack and their children and the Trump family and whoever else has sucked up to him and kissed his ass and been his corrupt, you know, second and third and fourth in charge. That's the world that we're living in now. It's worse, it's worse, it's worse. Unless something happens between now and Friday that makes me apologize for what I'm saying right now. I don't mean to bully you guys into this, by the way, just cuz I'm yelling like you can disagree with me. I just, you know, I can't see any way in which, you know, no,

[A]

John, I'm with you 99%. I have 1% of my chips on Eliana's bet that somehow the Iranians still, despite Trump's spectacle of desperation, just won't let it happen. But I don't have much hope that. And that's a pretty grave hope.

[B]

Okay, so let's move on, because Eliana does want to bring up this astounding story about the revival of the Biden or the Biden family's attempted revival of the Biden family, and the stories about their cocktail or their drinks at the Hawk and Dove. Was it the Hawk and Dove on Capitol Hill?

[E]

No.

[B]

Oh, sorry.

[D]

There are a few things going on. So Jill Biden has a new book out. I mean, these are the people who just won't go away. I'm struck by Jill Biden's got a new book out. And there's a New York magazine piece, a wonderful piece by Ben Terrace, the headline of which is Building Back the Bidens about Joe Biden. It's not just Jill. So last week, we read about how Jill Biden's doing an event for her book, and Joe Biden comes, just walks on stage and unexpectedly, and announces he also has a book coming out. It's coming out in September, right ahead of the midterms. And Democrats start panicking that he's reentering the scene. So here we get this profile from New York magazine by Ben Terrace, and it opens with Joe Biden, who for no particular reason, is in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, doing an event. And Terrace writes that it's part of an aggressive effort to remind people that Biden is more than just the loser of the 2024 election. And Biden kisses a woman on the lips, and he talks to the woman's husband, and the woman's husband says, I'd rather have had Jill here. And what struck me is Terrace interviews a bunch of former Biden aides, and he says, when I told one former administration official that I was planning on writing story about Joe Biden, the person said an obituary. Then he notes that in November, there was a Biden Harris reunion at Kelly's Irish Times, which is a crappy pub near Capitol Hill. And they were all forced to pay their own tabs. And they were pissed about it. They were really pissed.

[B]

Can I mention that the other thing that's happened in the last week is the emergence of Hunter Biden on social media, lecturing. Okay, please go ahead then. I don't want to. I don't want to trump you.

[D]

So. So they're all forced to pay their own tabs. And typically when these reunions happen, they're covered by the funds raised by the former presidents, which are lavish. But Biden can't raise any money because donors are so angry. Then Jill Biden shows up, and a former Biden, you know, Biden alum tells the reporter that seeing Jill and her aides was like going back to your hometown Arby's and seeing your high school bully working behind the counter. I moved on in my life, but they hadn't. Then we have Hunter Biden, who's out on X doing interviews with Candace Owens, blaming Israel and the Jews for everything and announcing that, just saying, in the 21st century, no Democrat has won the presidency without a Biden on the ticket, seeming to tease a Hunter Biden presidential run. And it is incredible to me that these people claim to be all about family and all they care about is family, but they actually cannot exist in private. And at this point, everybody who works for them hates them, and they are

[A]

left

[D]

doing happy hours with people who load them, not paying for them, and showing up, you know, groping members of the public just like they were when they were in the White House.

[E]

It is.

[D]

It is an astonishingly humiliating spectacle that I thought we should call attention to because they actually can't exist in private.

[B]

I just want to point out about Hunter on X also, it's not just Candace Owens. He went on. Gavin Newsom had him on for reasons that elude me. If he's serious about running for President in 2020, don't you think he should avoid people like Hunter Biden as they have? They have the stink of everything possible on them. But Hunter Biden, wanting to come across as a rueful ex addict, understanding the difficulties and the pains of recovery and all of that, gets all huffy and self righteous, and he's like, you know what? You know what? If you're gonna attack me or attack whatever, open up all of your emails. Oh, this is defending Graham Platner. Open up all your emails. Let everything that you've ever done be exposed to such. See how great it is for you when that happens.

[D]

Did he say, show me all your tattoos? Cause I'm happy to do that.

[B]

Right. Hunter Biden. Okay, so somebody in history did say, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. That person was Jesus Christ, not Hunter Biden with his crack pipe and his illegitimate child and his laptop that he

[D]

left shipping his dead brother's wife.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Like the world of recovery does not admit of. You're getting yelled at by a recovering addict about how you're worse than he is because at least he's not a hypocrite. What a horrible person.

[C]

I mean, this. Can we say, by the way, that this. That's an interesting point though. Can we say that? Because there is this self declared redemption arc going through, and I don't want to change the subject away from Hunter Biden to Graham Platner because Hunter Biden is allowed.

[B]

Please, by all means.

[C]

But like Graham Platner has, has decided that his campaign theme now is redemption, okay? And Ro Khanna, who gets up there, Ro Khanna says, you know, if you believe in redemption, you believe in redemption. You know, we're having. But here's the thing.

[D]

The guy was cheating on his wife six months ago, right?

[C]

We could talk about redemption when he stops lying about everything about this. Like, in other words, if he had said, okay, it's a Nazi tattoo, and, you know, boy, was it stupid to do that. We were all, you know, we were all hyped up and hopped up on, on, on adrenaline and this and that, and we felt an affinity.

[D]

I don't think it was adrenaline set.

[C]

We were not right.

[B]

It was legal, right?

[C]

That's right. Whatever it is, you know, and then you come clean, say, obviously, and here's what I'm gonna do to try to repair things with the Jewish community and others and whatever. And here's, here's what you know, and his communication with his, with his exes would suggest that, you know, and all this other stuff, but he's not.

[E]

He's.

[C]

Instead, he's saying, all my opponents love Epstein. Everyone who hates me is a pedophile. This is my redemption. And I feel like Hunter Biden is doing something along those lines where it's like, don't you know about redemption? Don't you know about second chances, you idiot? You moron. You horrible, horrible excuse for, for a person. It's like, I don't think a redemptive person talks that way to me while asking for forgiveness. In fact, I don't think any of them have asked for my forgiveness. So we're, let's. Let's try to nip this in the bud here. When we talk about redemptive arcs, let's just be clear about how they work and what, in what order you do things in order to get to the redemption, which is at the end.

[B]

But, you know, I think I get

[A]

the impression that Hunter is trying to build a kind of a new Wild man brand. I mean, redemption's a part of it, but, you know, he's out there on Twitter saying, you know, all sorts of stuff. He's like really trying to get in everyone's face, rebrand himself as the sort of the one time screw up who has a really good point to make, who has a contribution. And there's all this commentary on X around his tweets, like had he only done this before, he would have been an asset to the Biden administration. You know, so people are buying into it. It's this idea that like, and it's, you know, this is the story of this century in America, which is you lean into your scandal, you don't hide from it, you push it in everyone's face and you sort of, you don't really bear all, as you guys are saying, but you act as if you are.

[B]

So Friday, after the controversies relating to the resignation of Tulsi Gabbard and the temporary appointment of a non intelligence official, Trumpy psycho named Bill Pulte to be the interim or acting or whatever, Director of National Intelligence, causing Republican hawks in the Senate who are ordinarily relatively friendly disposed to Trump to rear in horror. Trump sees a reason and decides to appoint Jay Clayton, former U.S. attorney to the job of Director of National Intelligence only just to give a sense of what happens when administrations go off the rails and become incompetent in the four eyes of last week's Talmudic the Mishnah that came out from Bill Safire. Eliana, what happened with the appointment of Jay Clayton, which had to happen in other ways.

[D]

Okay, so, so FISA expired at midnight on Friday going into Saturday. And Trump nominated Clayton, who's the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He's a former FEC chairman. FEC or sec? Scc. Right, right, sec. He is, you know, highly respected. His nomination was immediately praised, but the nomination came a day too late to actually prevent FISA from expiring. And well, we should explain why because

[B]

the idea was that the FISA they, because of Pulte, there was a block on the right authorization.

[D]

Democrats had said they will that the Pulte nomination, they were holding FISA hostage due to the Pulte nomination. I actually think that's silly because FISA is essential to national security. And while they may oppose Pulte for reasons of national security, I mean, they're saying he's not competent enough to sit atop the, you know, Directorate of National Intelligence, fisa, which allows intelligence, the intelligence community to listen to conversations between foreign nationals and American citizens when they're suspected of criminal activity, terrorist activity. That's essential. So I personally think that's silly. But anyhow, that is what the Democrats were doing. By the time the Trump administration nominated Clayton, whose nomination was well received by Democrats and Republicans alike, it was too late for him to be nominated to reauthorize fisa. The House had already left. So Clayton will get a hearing on Wednesday and the Republicans, Republican leaders are trying to push him through so quickly that Pulte will never serve as head of DNI. So they want the intelligence committee to waive a 48 hour rule to vote the nominee out of the panel, out of the Intelligence Committee, which would require the unanimous consent of the panel panel and then they want all 100 senators to agree to no debate on the floor and to a roll call vote on Clayton's nomination on Thursday. So they want to push this through as quickly as possible. It would require a flawless hearing from Clayton on Wednesday, so that's something to look out for. However, Trump is now demanding to attach to FISA the Save America act, which is simply a no go. It does not have 60 votes on the floor of the Senate and the House has not agreed to the version Trump is demanding. So I think all of this underscores kind of the chaos and incoherence and incompetence that we've been talking about. And FISA, FISA related information is responsible for over 50% of the items in the President's daily briefing. It's really, really important. And once you miss it, once you miss the information in a conversation, you can't go back and get it retroactively. Like you miss the conversation that takes place and you just miss it. So it's a big deal.

[A]

Can I ask though, isn't there some murkiness about whether or not it can be extended, whether it's sort of grandfathered in to be extended through March?

[D]

Anyway, there is some murkiness around whether there's a legal authorization to extend it for a year after, through March. I don't totally understand that and I think parts of it will lapse and parts of it will be extended.

[B]

I want to explain the depth of my rage about what Trump is going on here with Trump. To conclude the podcast, something I texted you guys yesterday, but a weirdly apposite story from the world of popular culture many, many years ago. Because, you know, as I've said, I've never voted for Trump. I didn't vote for Trump either of these three elections, but his presidency through 2025 surprised me, impressed me. There were things I didn't like. But the pursuit of antisemitism on college campuses and elsewhere in America. The use the agreement to use Title 6 to try to get at this, the Operation Midnight Hammer, various other things. I thought, okay, well, maybe I misread him, or I was unfair, or you take the good with the bad, whatever. At least it's not Biden as. As Eliana would say. And then what happened over the weekend and the way that he was talking about Netanyahu, whom he had praised and praised and praised and now is saying is very difficult and has no judgment and is awful simply for not saying, okay, you go, boy. Thank. Gee, what a great idea to end the war, make us not fight to stop the northern part of Israel from getting bombed by Hezbollah. Right, okay. So in the 90s, a playwright named Paul Rudnick wrote a play called I Hate Hamlet, a comedy which is actually pretty good. And in the role, the lead role, he cast, they cast a British actor named Nicole Williamson. Brilliant actor, very troubled person, alcoholic, very bad record of misbehavior. And he showed that misbehavior in the course of the run of i8 Hamlet on Broadway, missing performances, showing up drunk, and then at one point nearly stabbing his co star with a scabbard, a guy named Ethan Handler, who had to be restrained from calling the police and having him arrested for assault on stage during a performance. Okay, so Rudnick, the show collapses. Everything is terrible, and they have to close it. And it was gonna be a hit. And Williamson destroyed it. So here is what Rudnick writes at the end of an essay he wrote about this experience in the New Yorker that reflects how I feel about Donald Trump. I attended the closing night performance, and afterward I went backstage. On a small table outside Nichol's dressing room, there was a bottle containing his blood pressure medication. Nicol believed, I think, that if you could just get to the theater, if he could just only step on stage, he'd be fine. Some nights he'd saunter in at 5, even 10 minutes after 8 with an 8 o' clock curtain, knowing that we'd hold the curtain. But there was one performance when he'd overslept or passed out in his apartment, and his understudy had gone on, although he hadn't spoken in weeks. The next day, Nicol called me, assured me that everything was fine and that he'd be on that evening. Then he abruptly hung up. For the first time, he sounded shaken. But after the final performance, I had no intention of talking to Nicoll. I was still too angry. As I was heading upstairs to bid Farewell to the more lucid actors. The door to Nicholl's dressing room swung open. He stood there, a soused lunatic 52 year old hamlet. We stared at each other. Nicoll finally spoke and his tone was both kind and accusing. He said, you knew this was going to happen. And then he smiled and shut the door. So I knew somehow that this was going to happen. I knew. And I think from the moment that we started this war on the 28th of February, and we were talking about it in very triumphal terms, I nonetheless thought to myself, and I think I tried to try to convey this to people who listen to this podcast, that the war had to be won for it to be of any use and that the proof of the pudding would be in the eating. And we are losing. If we haven't lost this war today, I don't know what possibly could happen between now and Friday that would cause Trump to back off and go full bore. I thought last week or the week before last there were plenty of provocations that would make that possible and that clearly then nothing was going to stand in the way of him walking away from this and trying to wash his hands of it. And so I just think, you know, if you were a supporter of this effort to rid the world of this evil regime and its irredentist, millenarian efforts to want to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth in the form of the nuking of Israel, if that's the kind of person you were, and you therefore said, okay, I have reservations about Trump, but okay, those reservations are now, in retrospect, justified. And maybe, like me, you can say to yourself ruefully, you knew that this was going to happen. So we'll be back tomorrow. For Abe, Eliana and Seth, I'm John Pothor. It's Keep the candle burning.

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