C (3:27)

Go ahead.

A (3:30)

Got any idea? We're going to Islamabad.

B (3:33)

Woo.

A (3:36)

So exciting. It's great to go to Islamabad and have a negotiation over the end of a war. When the foreigner defense minister of Pakistan issues a tweet saying that, you know, Jews are a cancer on the earth and cockroach and Israel shouldn't exist and that life as we know it would be better if there weren't a Jew on the planet. That's a really great basis for a negotiation in which there are essentially three parties. I mean, I know there are really two in which we have Israel and the United States fighting against Iran with an interlocutor or a mediator being Pakistan, who is one of whose leaders wishes that Israel would. Wishes the fate for Israel that Iran wishes for Israel. So that's a great interlocutor. Very happy. Really great moment in international diplomacy. Seth, you haven't talked in days.

B (4:28)

So I am confused. I come back to you confused because right before I left for the end of the holidays, right before I left, a ceasefire was announced, a two week ceasefire. And when I came back, definitely less than two weeks later, the Strait of Hormuz was closed and Iran had fired on two or three countries that were supposedly involved in the ceasefire and was demanding that a country that is not Iran or is not supposed to be Iran, which is Lebanon, be retroactively included in the ceasefire. That clearly wasn't happening. So I, you know, the first holiday, when the first round of the holidays came in the first week, Trump had given, was planning to give his address and he gave it at 9pm that night. That was the night of the first Seder. So I had no idea what was coming, whether it was going to be peace or, you know, more war, whatever. But then it was just a continuation of stuff. This time it was supposedly a cessation of stuff. And when I came back it was. Things seemed closer to when I first left the prior week than they did before the major announcement of a total ceasefire. So I'm genuinely confused. I've been out for two plus days and this doesn't look like what it was represented to be.

C (6:03)

You would have no more clarity had you been there for it, by the way.

B (6:08)

Fair enough.

A (6:09)

If you had been online without sleeping from Tuesday night until the present moment.

C (6:16)

Yeah.

A (6:16)

Literally never left Twitter, Instagram or TikTok when you went to the bathroom. You brought your phone with you. You didn't sleep. You would have no idea. So let's go through some of the possibilities. Trump is taking a breather. He knows perfectly well that the ceasefire is being violated. He knows perfectly well the straits are closed. He's not going to stand for it. It's too humiliating. The longer it goes, the more people who might be inclined to be supportive of this effort are now driving off, off ramps like commentary contributors were. Well, correct. And Ray Takeya, who have a piece saying Trump completely misunderstood the Iranians. He doesn't understand that they're not like Venezuela. Venezuela is just a kleptocratic autocracy, and these people mean it, they mean business. They're ideologues, and you can't just bomb them and get them out. And essentially saying Trump was stupid. So that's one element of his loss of face in public opinion. Not that I think he would care all that much about what Ray Takea and Ruil Grecht have to say. But then you, of course, have all these people on the left laughing at him and saying, he blinked, and Taco Trump and all of that. And then you have the genuine bafflement of people who either believe in the war, but don't really understand what the end game was and understand that there's a problem there, or people who don't really believe in the war, but don't want to, but think that maybe good things can come out of it. And we are getting nothing back from the administration that provides anybody with a sense of what where Trump and the White House and the State Department and the Defense Department and everybody thinks we are at this moment.

C (8:22)

Well, John, you left out my favorite theory, which comes, as some of my favorite theories ironically do, from the anti Israel contingent of social media, because they always think things are going so much better, better for Israel than they are, and that everything is organized to play into Israel's hands. So that theory goes that Trump called the ceasefire to allow Israel, excuse me, to focus on Hezbollah.

A (8:57)

It is true that the ceasefire materially helps Israel focus on its attack on Hezbollah. From what I've heard in the days leading up to the. I guess Jonathan Chanzer said this yesterday, days leading up to the ceasefire, Israel is flying 400 sorties a day by air, split 200 each between Iran and Lebanon. And that once the ceasefire was declared, they turned and focused all of their attention on Lebanon. And so it is certainly true that logistically for the Israelis, there was a benefit of some sort in being called Away from that air battlefield, we don't seem to have a particular view of Israel's moves in Lebanon. There's some confusion inside the administration about whether or not they've agreed to chill it a little bit or. No one ever said that they were going to chill it. They never said they were going to chill it. And politically, nobody in Israel could say we're going to chill it just for Trump. Because, you know, there is complete consensus in the political system in the run up to this election in the fall that being a hawk is where it's at. Like, you know, it's more like saying, Bibi is Taco Bibi. That's where you want to go if you're trying to run against Bibi, not, you know, oh, what we really need to is enter into negotiations and look for a two state solution. And we were wrong to bomb people and all of that, which is what American liberal Jewish fantasists might think Israelis would be thinking right now. But from what we can tell, the overwhelming majority of Israelis don't think that at all. And that the Lebanon strike, which we still don't entirely understand, that an operation was achieved on Wednesday in Lebanon that they are not giving us the details of, but which Defense Minister Katz and others have said was a more significant hit on Hezbollah than the Beepers and Pager's operation was last year, essentially, I think, meaning that they must have figured out some way to do simultaneous. I mean, the rumors are that they have. They simultaneously targeted every major command and control structure that Hezbollah has in Lebanon, like the Beepers. But in this case, it's buildings, it's equipment, it's communications, command, control, and that they have blinded, deafened and muted Hezbollah. But we don't really know that that's the case. All we know is they're very confident in saying that something absolutely game changing happened on Wednesday. So, yeah, Israel does seem to have taken advantage of the ceasefire. Who had what? So have the Iranians. Right? Because the straits of Hormuz are still closed. My question is. We're not. We're not. We don't have degrees in psychology. Oh, Abe, you do have a green psychology. No, I do. You did some graduate work. Yeah. You did some graduate work, but it's

B (12:26)

not going to help. I minored in psych. For what it's worth.

A (12:29)

You did okay. We got a minor in psych. We got. Somebody did some graduate work in psychology. And we have me. And I did in fact read almost the complete Freud, which was really to talk about a waste of time. Now but okay, so I don't want to psychoanalyze Trump, but watching him as a player and a character, can he really sit here and let the Iranians play him for a fool? Because they're playing for a fool right now. Now maybe he's like, you know what? The troops could use a break. We're going to pre position some stuff. We're going to go to Islamabad and we're going to storm out when they behave badly and then we're going to say, these people can't be. Once again we've learned these people can't be dealt with and they're going to go full bore. Can it wait till Sunday? I guess it can wait. I don't know if the firing part

C (13:22)

of the ceasefire has actually settled into place, which seems more the case today. But the straits are still moving at a, ships are going in through at a trickle. Then it can wait till Sunday.

A (13:43)

Okay, so fine. I mean, obviously, I mean, the thing is that. Yeah, go ahead.

B (13:48)

This, you know, I wrote a piece a while ago about the numbers that shocked me about the Houthis. I don't have the exact numbers at hand. Things have changed anyway, but the point was that the Houthis had created a situation where they were char. They were essentially operating a toll operated, you know, Red Sea shipping lane. And they were positioning themselves to make a lot of money doing so because you didn't negotiate when the ship came to whatever crossing it was you, you. The Houthis. The Houthis established understandings and deals with China, Russia and whoever China and Russia told them to also include. And they were paying in, you know, bitcoin and stuff like that. But they were setting themselves up to, you know, to make millions of dollars running this port. And they're not. And they're not even really a country like the Houthis are. I mean, they, you know, Lebanon, I mean, excuse me, Yemen is split. You know, the best you could say about the Houthis is that they're half a country really. But I mean, it was a. They're putschists, they're foreign run and foreign supported. And yet these guys this, this band of Houthis had set up had positioned themselves to make a killing off of just this one thing that they could do, which is fly paper airplanes at ships running through the Red Sea trading posts and routes. And it just only gets cheaper. So the worry is that Iran basically believes that now we don't have any sort of solution to this. That's what the Iranians believe right now. They believe that if we could have opened the strait, we would have done it, or if we had the metal to stick it out for long enough amid, you know, popular opinion grumbling at Trump, we would not be granting a ceasefire. We would be sticking it out and we would be, you know, grinding it out until we've, you know, we've worn them down or whatever. And so instead, they're kind of like the Houthis now, which is that they have this one thing that makes them a real player, this one thing. But it really does make them a real player. And as long as they're able to have that, the money that comes, like, if they succeed at this, the money that comes in, it helps them, it helps Hezbollah, like all the, all the constituent parts of the Iranian problem can wake up if money starts just flowing in without any, you know, interdiction.

A (16:49)

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And I have some kind of cheesy old shirts that are kind of fraying. And what did I do? The first thing I did, I went to quints. I went to the quints website. I bought three different shirts, three different models on sale, a couple of them on sale, one not on sale, but the price so low they're coming in the next day or two. And I'm telling you right now, they're going to be great, they're going to look good, they're going to last a long time. That's what you get with quints. The kind of material, the kind of quality and the kind of price point that you just dream of. And that's been my experience with quints ever since I started buying sweaters, jackets and all kinds of properties from Quince. The best part, those prices 50, 60% less than similar brands. How is that possible? Because Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen. So you're paying for quality, not brand markup. Everything is designed to last and make getting dressed easy. So refresh your wardrobe just like I did with quince. Go to quince.com commentary for free shipping and subscribe 365 day returns now available in Canada too. Go to Quincy for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com commentary. So what's different about the Houthis and its control of the waterway and way to the south that leads to the Suez Canal as opposed to the Strait of Hormuz, which is sort of a choke point in the sense that ships have to go in, collect the oil from these refineries and then come right back out where they came in order to get back out into the open sea. So it's actually more closeable theoretically than you know, than what the Houthis. But the Houthis were firing on ships like constantly. Like I don't know how many, how many ships were hit by Houthi fire? The weirdness of this moment is that the Iranians have barely fired on anybody and they've announced that the straight is closed. So it's almost as though I love these. This is like a New York City Analogy. I used the squeegee man analogy a couple of days ago. But it's like somebody comes on your block and puts up a barrier, you know, stands up a barrier, and they're very scared. They're part of a gang, and they put up, like, a roadblock. And then they're like, you can't come onto the block unless you give us $10. Now, you could. And you don't know if they have a gun or, you know, they have a gun or whatever. You have a car. You could literally smash through there, say, hey, the hell with you. Smash through their sign and drive down the block, and then, like, you know, get out of your car with your concealed gun and, like, say, I'm sorry, you don't get to make this choice. The world seems to have decided that because they put this sign up or, you know, this, you know, road closed thing up without actually yet demonstrating the iron will to enforce the. By shooting, by blowing boats up. The boats are just not going. So they call and they say, please, Iran, may. May our boat go through the Strait of Hormuzzaragos? No. And they go, okay. And then they turn around, they go backward. So Iran hasn't even had to prove that it is going to disrupt and close down world shipping. I don't know how on earth. You cannot. I mean, I understand that there's this whole thing with the Europeans and they hate Trump, and Trump is yelling at them and all this. I don't understand how the world can let this stand.

C (23:02)

Well, who's going to be the first? Who's going to be the first to test it?

A (23:07)

Well, that's, of course, that's where the Iranians psychologically understood the kind of alteration in the way the world does things that would not have been possible, like, 40 or 50 years ago.

B (23:23)

Everybody will just flag their ships under Spain's flag and Ireland's flag, and they'll get through.

A (23:30)

Right. I'm just saying there was a very strange quality to what has gone on here, that a world conflict has been ground to a halt because of a threat. Right? So effectively, the Strait of Hormuz is the new form of mutual assured destruction. We cannot attack. We cannot do X, Y, or Z because the Soviets also have the bomb. Now, blockades are one of the oldest forms of asymmetrical warfare, dating back to the Peloponnesian War. I mean, Rhett Butler. Do you know what Rhett Butler did in his job? As in Gone with the Wind? He was a blockade runner. He was a hero to the south because he was a blockade runner. The north had blockaded the ports of Charleston and various other places. And these brave guys. I'm not praising Rhett Butler and his allegiance to the Confederacy, but this was like wild, buccaneering bravery, bringing supplies, needed supplies to the struggling South. Dealing with blockades is an old human international waters thing, and suddenly we're paralyzed by it. It's a little weird. I don't have much to say about that. It's happened. But Trump, it's not as though no one ever thought of this before or that other nations haven't had to deal with it before.

C (25:09)

Trump really doesn't want to have to do what he can do to end it, which isn't to say he won't do what he has to do. I think he will if and when push comes to shove, and I think it's when, not if. But, you know, he doesn't want boots on the ground. He doesn't want to start blowing up the infrastructure that he has threatened to blow up. So, as ever with him, he does try for this sort of, you know, 11th hour, pull out every last stop before pushing the button. So that could be what's happening here.

B (26:01)

I mean, Reagan had to deal with something very similar with the Iranians. Right. I mean, we got into a mini shooting war with them because we sent the Navy to escort chips through.

A (26:15)

Right.

B (26:15)

And what was it? 88, I assume 87. 87, yeah. So, you know, it's been a while, but what it takes is America leading the way. Then as now, what it takes is an American president sending, you know, a flotilla. You know, we're not going to get a. We're not going to get a peace flotilla from. From Turkey to. Through the Strait of Hormuz, but that's that. I mean, is there anything other than that that can be done? That seems to be what you need to do if you really want to open. Now, maybe it's different because of the way it's structured, but I don't. I mean, the basic idea is the same. We send our navy to escort ships through. They fired at us, we fired back and opened the waterway. Right.

A (27:04)

I mean, the only difference is that the world wasn't paying attention in 1987. I mean, trust me when I say the world wasn't paying attention in 1987. There were no major days and days and days of headlines about how we were engaged in brinksmanship with Iran on its behavior in the Strait of Hormuz. Nobody in the 1980s even knew what the Strait of Hormuz was. We were talking about a lot of other things, and this was. Iran was also involved in a war with Iraq that we basically were happy to see them both kill each other in. And so this was their effort to sort of change the dynamic on the ground. It was a minor news story that the United States Navy was engaged in a shooting war with Iran, if you can imagine that that would be the case. There was way more talk about the Contras, which was like a ragtag band of people in the. You know, out in the. Not in the jungle, but whatever, out and trying to, like, you know, taunt and torment the. The communist government in Nicaragua even then than there was about this. So what's different is that the eyes of the world are on this, and much of the world wishes to see us defeated. I mean, let's face it, I'm not even saying that, like, angrily. I'm saying a lot of the world wants to see us humbled and humiliated, doesn't believe that this kind of warfare is good. It's bad. It sets a bad precedent. Trump is bad. And it would be better if we somehow lost because this would restrain world powers, mostly us, but not just only us, from attempting events like this strike on Iran and things like that in the future, as opposed to following a more pacifistic model in which we accept the idea that war itself is bad and always has bad outcomes and never does anything good. And it's evil. Not, you know, it's always evil. It's not necessary. Even when you think it's necessary, it's evil. And maybe the evil outweighs the necessary. So part of this is a perceptual thing.

C (29:16)

And technology has changed since 1988. And, you know, as Seth says, Iran can fly their paper airplanes, their drones, you know, at ships. So.

A (29:29)

Right. Well, that's a big thing. And I'm just saying that, again, in terms of perception, right, in their iPhones and, you know, people can take footage of things and, you know, someone's on the aircraft carrier and something happens. We might. Someone will send a video of an Iranian something hitting an aircraft carrier, and they'll send it to their mother, and then their mother will put it on TikTok, and then the world will see a direct Iranian strike on an American boat or whatever, and then that'll be world news. So we are in an informational atmosphere that makes American action much more difficult. And of course, domestically, we have this totally divided country in which 40% of people would rather the United States lose this war than Donald Trump be credited with a success. I mean, maybe it's close to 50%. I don't know. They would rather that the country lose a war against an evil regime whose purposes are no good and whose own people are being tormented and wrecked by the regime. And that is sowed dissension, irredentism, and fomented terrorism, because they don't want Trump to get the credit for winning. And I suppose, trying to get into that mindset, I mean, I certainly knew people in the early 90s who hated Clinton on the right, hated Clinton almost the way that. Which seems quaint now in some ways, but hated Clinton the way that the left or liberals or a lot of people hate Trump. And like, when we started making noise about dealing with Bosnia, with the sort of the seeming beginnings of genocide in Bosnia, or made noise about hitting Iraq in 1998 because of its violations of the terms of its own ceasefire deal with the United States in 1991, people wanted Clinton to lose. They wanted Bosnia to go badly. They didn't want him to. They hated him so much that this was seen as his mission, and they wanted him to lose. I never myself feel that way about American action, but I am not as driven by the same kind of partisan hatreds as a lot of other people are, I guess. I don't know.

B (32:17)

And also, it's like rooting for. It's not just about rooting for America to lose, but it's like, this is all very reminiscent of everything we've been dealing with for the past couple years in terms of hostage taking, Right? I mean, the whole strategy to beat the west is some sort of hostage taking. That's the grand sort of vision, right? And then there's different versions of it and different ways it can be carried out. But this, this is, you know, and in a very different way from the 80s when they would take a plane and hold the plane hostage, you know, and everybody was diverting planes to Cuba and whatever, obviously, this is. But this. This is like, I'm gonna hold the world hostage. And, you know, it's like, everybody loves that. You know, the famous Norm MacDonald joke about. About Germany, where, you know, he says, you know, World War I was Germany against the world, and Germany almost won. And then the Second World War was Germany against the world again. And this time they really almost won. And he goes, you know, if I were. If I were there at the time, I would say, Germany, you don't get to be a country anymore. You know, it's like, looking at it from the outside, how many World wars. Does a country have to start and make a good run at. Before you're like, we have to put some system into place where this is not going to happen again. Okay, but that was half a century of, you know, almost half a century. So, you know, it feels like that it's like Iran, you know, like holding its pinky to its mouth. Like, Austin, we're going to, like Dr. Evil. We're going to hold the world hostage. And the world is kind of like, yeah, I get it. I mean, you know, they are right there. They kind of, they can do it, you know, and it's. And so the rooting against America stuff, not just from people here, but from Europe too, is, to me, it's just so insanely backward. Not just because it's insulting, but because Iran is specifically saying, this is not just America. We're not just going after Americans where we can find them. We are holding the entire world hostage. Europe's boats aren't going to get through either.

A (34:39)

But that's exactly the point that I made about what it is that people think now is going to happen if we end in this position, which, again, like Abe, I don't think will happen. I don't quite know what happens from here, but within this position of irresolution, in other words, if Iran has played this card, it doesn't put the card back in the deck. That's what Trump meant when he said the strait will open naturally at the end of this conflict, meaning we'll win. They'll be back. They'll be in a cage. No one's gonna close the straight. The strait's been open. The threat's been made. If things happen that sort of, as I said, this kind of conventional world opinion would like, which I think is Trump humiliated. And the idea of this war taken on by Israel and the United States has been proved to have been a calamitous miscalculation. They still, they still have to deal with the strait. They, I mean, so we're out, like, right, we lost, we're out. We tried to do what we could. We did the face saving thing. We're out. We're done. Oops. America, it's a disaster. Trump's discredited forever. Neoconservatism is dead forever. Somebody's got to open the strait. Iran will never open the strait again. Why would it? Iran sets up the toll booths forever. There's a new 10% or 15% tax on world shipping. Somebody's going to have to stop them. They have now. They are now in the position of cutting off their nose to spite their face. And their grounds are going to be, well, if Israel and the United States hadn't started this in the first place, it never would have happened. So therefore it's our fault. Fine. Again, let's just follow this through. It's our fault. It was a disaster. Everything was a disaster. And an entire way of thinking has been discredited. And it shouldn't have happened. Look back, we look at it and we see the disaster. It shouldn't have happened. What do you do now that this, that this weapon, that Iran has now taken this weapon and it's now holding this weapon? Doesn't everybody have to try to destroy the regime in order to get the toll booth removed? I don't mean us. Like I say, we're done. We took our shot, we lost, we're humiliated. What does China do? Suddenly China has to like, pay a toll to Iran. It's interesting. My kids, something's going on with their sheets. Go to their beds. They're like half off. They roll around at night, sheets are slipping off the corners. Also, pillows kind of look mushy and crappy and old. This is one of these things. I'm told most people actually keep their bedding way longer than they should. It wears down. You don't realize how much it's affecting your sleep and making your bed look ugly until you finally make the decision to replace it. And most people think they need a new mattress. But the biggest difference usually comes just from replacing what touches you every night. That's why you should upgrade your bed with bowl and branch. They make everything your bed needs needs signature organic cotton sheets, pillows, blankets and comforters, all designed to be breathable, incredibly soft. Get better over time. Most people start with the signature sheets and a lot of customers buy two sets so they can rotate them. They've also added the waffle blanket. And now the whole bed just feels amazing. So upgrade your sleep with bowl and Branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping@bolandbranch.com commentary with code COMMENTARY. That's Boland Branch. B O L L A N-D Branch.com commentary code COMMENTARY to unlock 15% off. Exclusions apply. I'm going to tell you a quick story about my kids beds. One One night I had to lie down on one of my kids mattresses and like, my head went backward and I thought, boy, this is bad. And as it just so happened that week, Brooklyn Bedding decided that they wanted to try to advertise with Commentary. And they offered to send us a mattress so that we could test it to see if we were a good product for them. And they were a good product for us. Got one, put it on my son's bed. It was so fantastic that I got two more for each of my daughters. That's how committed I am to Brooklyn Bedding, a company that focuses on integrity and hard work. They built a mattress in the USA with high quality materials, real attention to detail. It's that classic American ethos. Do the job right, stand behind your product, build something that lasts. It uses Glaciotex covers, copper infused foams, temperature regulating materials to help keep you cool and comfortable all night long. And there's 129 comfort trial. Love it or they'll help you return or swap it hassle free. So go to BrooklynBetting.com and use 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. BrooklynBedding.com promo code commentary.

B (40:33)

I also think that they, what we discovered is that Iran could do this not just whenever it pleased, but it could do this at a much worse moment for the world and the west than this, right? What if China goes into Taiwan and what if, you know, a war erupts? China is invading, you know, our ally in the Pacific, Australia is there. Russia is still in Ukraine. You have the, the, at that point, you have, you know, the rumblings of a world war. I mean, we've got a land war in Europe and a war in Asia. You know, we're getting pretty close. You know, we're going to be involved in somehow, you know, at that moment, Iran could close the strait. At the moment that Chinese ships land at where, you know, wherever they're at their strategic docking place. The moment those boots hit the ground, the Strait of Hormuz closes. What happens then? They could cripple the global economy at a moment when it could tip, you know, a global military conflict to China and Russia. I mean, there are, this is sort of, you know, Bret Stephens once wrote that piece for us, right, about the, the, you know, the things that could happen, the catastrophes that could happen. And, you know, and this, that feels, this watching this feels like one of those, feels like the kind of thing that he wrote about. Like, I'm not sure I realized before this conflict how badly needed it was to confront the problem of the Strait of Hormuz, because we have buzzing, growing conflicts around the world. And this is a key ally of Russia and China, and they obviously will get something back for their trouble. So, you know, this is. To me, it's like, I get, I get the idea that, well, if we didn't do this, you know, we wouldn't have found. But to me, it feels like, well, if we didn't take the scan, we wouldn't have found the tumor.

A (42:43)

No, you know what this is. Let me give you an analogy to this too, which is very interesting because I think that's a very important way of looking at it, that Iran has always had this as an arrow in its quiver. Never, I mean, did sort of semi activated 40 years ago, got bit back, had to focus on other things. Technology has changed its ability to harass and torment shipping. Anybody's ability to harass and torment shipping is now vastly easier because of these, like $40,000 things. You can put a little firecracker on and scare the bejesus out of any ship that goes by you okay? In 2002, the Bush administration's Christopher Hill made an announcement. He said, North Korea has gone nuclear. The world needs to know that North Korea has gone nuclear for 15 years, as Paul Jagot documented in a really great piece in the National Interest. I don't remember quite when for more than a decade, America had been bribing North Korea not to go nuclear. There'd be a thing where they would. There would be some intelligence about an underground test or something was going on. And then we'd send them $300 million in food aid, and everybody would go, why are we, why are we helping? The North Koreans are deliberately starving their worst regime in the world. And then something else would happen. And then we'd send them $500 million in food aid, or we'd arrange a loan with so and so. We'd say it's okay if China did thus and such. And all of this was designed explicitly as North Korea is running out of money. It says, we're going to go nuclear. We write them a check and they forbear. And this worked for a time until they decided that it was no longer going to work and that they needed the bomb. And it was at that moment that the United States had these two choices, one of which was to pretend that it was still working. We could have pretended, we could have said, they're not nuclear, but we decided to let, or the government decided to level with the American people in the world to reveal the existence of this New threat. This crazy regime which had a nuclear weapon which could now potentially threaten its neighbors, meaning Japan at that point, given the nature of its rocketry. And the response when Hill made this announcement was the entire foreign policy establishment saying, what are you doing? Don't tell people. What are you crazy? Now everybody knows that they're nuclear. This doesn't help anything. Should have kept it a secret. Iran has always had the capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz. Now the world knows that Iran has the capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz. Is that a bad thing to know or a good thing to know according to you, Seth, and according to the logic that I'm laying out here, it's a good thing to know because now you have to stop it. And weirdly, we're right there in a position to stop it. And the world is opposed to our making, taking, including Europe seems to be opposed to our taking the measures that would be required to stop it. They're not even. Not only are they not willing to help by helping do the flotillas or escort ships or whatever, they seem to want us to fail.

C (46:32)

You know, and there's another way to look at this, which is that the reason Iran has now activated this tactic is because the US And Israel have beaten them down in every other way. This now is all they have left. So it's this one thing now. This is the home stretch. And as you say, Jon, we're right there. This is.

A (47:05)

We're right there. We could use a little moral support, which we're obviously not gonna get. Cuz Trump doesn't get moral support, cuz he's an amoral player and he does not enlist the world in this kind of cause that would allow for moral support. That's one of the things that he has surrendered with his behavior is the ability to impress upon the world that the United States is doing something for the good of the world that the world should support. He just doesn't have that in him. And he's allergic to the kind of rhetoric that would lead to that. And we just simply have to deal with that and so does he. Unilateralism has a cost, and this is the cost. So we don't get that. But logistically, by the way, I just

C (47:51)

want to say, yeah, you know, counterfactually we think this is the cost of unilateralism. For all we know, there would be no support of the kind that we really need under other circumstances as well. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

A (48:08)

I think the rhetoric There would be a lot more soothing rhetoric that, yes, NATO, you know, supports our great ally the United States in its efforts. Meanwhile, let's go to the cafe and you know, there's an exactly 8 o' clock showing of the, of, of Breathless at the Cinema Tech and we can all go, you know, watch it again. I mean, there's that, you know, sort of like the you, you know, that great line, stripes, when Harold Ramis says, and if we go into battle, I'll be right there behind all of you. That's what NATO could have done here, but it's not. And nor is the rest of the world. And so it's like, well, you made this problem so you get us out of it, but we're also going to attack you while you're trying to get us out of it.

B (48:57)

Right. I mean, that's the thing is, the thing that really gets me is the doctor doesn't, the doctor didn't cause the cancer by discovering the tumor and we're being treated as though we put this cancer into the world. So, you know, it would be more reasonable for them to say, you know, I'm glad we found this and realized how easy it is for Iran to do this. I understand there needs to be something done about it. This was still an ill conceived war. We don't support you going in. This was exploratory surgery that had too many risks. Whatever you want to say, you could balance it out by saying, I really would rather we not have found out this way. And I still don't think this was a good idea. But it revealed a tumor that we have to take out. We understand that. So you can, I think, say, you know, you can't. I think you can compartmentalize if you want to. I think you can compartmentalize. Unless you are so driven to stick it to the Americans that you just, you can't think past these two things. You could make a critique of the war while putting Iran on notice that you also won't be taken hostage when they. Right, no, you're raking a face. But I think you can compartmentalize if you want to.

A (50:19)

I was, I just want to add

C (50:20)

one, one thing here, which is that the same framework applies to Iran's attempt at a strike on Diego Garcia. Everyone's like, oh, now look what Trump has got the world into. The other way to look at it is you didn't know that they could jigger a ballistic missile to get that far Europe.

A (50:46)

Aren't you glad you know now? Yeah. Well, no, because then they have to then knowing it. I mean, that is the thing about the tumor, right? It's like, I don't. You're telling me I have a tumor and I need to have surgery. I'm not in pain. So, like, now you're gonna make me have surgery. I'm gonna have to recover. It's gonna really hurt the hell, you know, like, I could have just lived in sweet ignorance, and then maybe I would drop dead, you know, one day, but then I'd be dead, so I wouldn't care. Or I'll deal with it when it gets really, really, really, really painful. But, like, you know, I don't feel anything, and you're telling me I'm sick, so. Yeah, people do that.

B (51:31)

But even that would be better than what they're saying, right? I could even accept that from the Europeans saying, right? I, I, you know, not all tumors need to come out right away. It doesn't mean we need to, you know, go in right away.

A (51:45)

Right?

B (51:46)

And you know, this. But this is something we may have to deal with down the line. It's obviously a tumor. That's what I'm looking for. It's like, we all agree this is a tumor, right?

A (51:55)

It's a tumor anyway. Okay. But you know what? I've done this 45 minutes here. We're 45 minutes. And I've been trying to cast my mind outside of my own mindset, right? In framing all of this to say the war was a mistake. What do you do if the war was a mistake? You still have to activate the American military to open the Strait of Hormuz. That's why Trump went with the ceasefire, because he said we can't have the Strait of Hormuz closed. Okay. I think as I keep. I will never tire of saying that the end game of this moment has got to be a change in the regime in Iran. That end game does not have to be in April of 2026. It does not have to be in September of 2026. The regime cannot survive this and the war be deemed a success. We have that. We have a record of that from 1991, and we have other records of it. And so the regime has to change, because no configuration of Iran under these circumstances can be an honest actor, as we've seen since Tuesday night, where they are still firing on things and they're closing the strait and all of that, and somehow that's fine with them, and they said they wouldn't, and now they're doing it. So they're not a that small bore is what happens when Iran is left to its own devices, even after 52 days of having been hammered the way almost nothing has ever been hammered except the island of Malta during World War II. Okay, so, but I want to pull away now from the. Let me try to think this through like I'm not me and go back to being me. And what I'm saying is Trump's temptation was. Trump found himself in a position. He decided he needed to say that the ceasefire was a thing on Tuesday night. Trump's temptation is to not restart the war somehow and to come up with some truth social tweet that will get him out of this in some fashion. And I just, I don't. I think that based on his behavior, he's many things, but he's not really inconstant in the sense that when he pursues a policy, the policy does not change. If he is pursuing an anti immigration policy, it never changes. He doesn't go pro immigration. He does this, he does that, he suspends that. He takes ICE out of Minneapolis. He, you know, because that's not working tactically. But his goal doesn't change. And his goal is to get rid of the Iranian regime. That is his actual goal. He's not saying it's his goal. He doesn't want to do regime change in the sense that he doesn't want to have to be responsible for the regime after it's gone. But that is his goal. I don't think his goal or he doesn't need regime change. He wants the nuclear materials, which I think is probably the same thing, regardless. But. And I just. His goals don't change. He's not a different person today from the person he was on Tuesday morning when he said, I'm going to destroy your civilization, even if he didn't mean he was going to destroy their civilization.

C (55:40)

Someone wrote a piece.

A (55:41)

I don't see how he goes to Islamabad or Vance goes to Islamabad and leaves saying, we've made a deal.

C (55:49)

Someone was. Yeah, someone wrote a piece yesterday. And I'm sorry, I can't credit them because I don't remember who it was. And it was somewhere that I don't normally, I don't read regularly, but they, they framed sort of a theory of Trump as soft taco, which is that Trump doesn't chicken out. He sort of pulls back on the optics when things get heated, as in Minnesota, as with Doge. But as you're saying, John, the policy goals remain the same.

B (56:34)

There's something else here that he does that he's Getting used to that is having a weird effect on things, which is that he knows who are the two people on earth who can swing the stock market basically whenever they want. And they have a stray thought, right? Donald Trump and Elon Musk are basically the two people who every few years Elon Musk will tweet something like, maybe I should buy so and so, and then he'll have like, you know, an SEC investigation or whatever. Though you can't say that publicly. You can't, you know, whatever. But those are the two guys who can really send the market running. Trump realizes that he can also calm the markets by saying things like, well, we'll have a ceasefire and you know what, maybe we'll cooperate at all with the Iranians. Like, the market doesn't care because the market is like, the market is like an animal in that way. You know, it's like if you're suddenly the threat is no longer bearing its teeth at the market and so the market settles down, the hair on its, you know, on its neck goes down and its claws get retracted and, you know, whatever. But the, the effect of this is that there are, there's a whole world of people who are listening to every word and they're like, wait a second, we're going to co run a toll situation with Iran. So we're like, we're going to share the, we're going to basically allow them to have a 50% ownership stake in the Strait of Tehran, like in response to this. Now that's not something that's going to happen. I firmly believe that this will not end with a US Iran co toll booth in the Strait of Hormuz. Okay, but the effect of it is that if he throws out ideas like this every so often, the markets calm themselves and we have this weird situation where he's incentivized to talk peacenik and quickly runs out of sane things to say. And so like, the peacenik things that come out of his mouth to calm the markets are totally insane. And the markets are like, we love this idea. This is great, let's do this. So how he maneuvers, you know, he's pushing himself into this world where I don't. Does he know what's real, what's possible, what's, you know, that's what I'm concerned about.

A (58:59)

Okay, so that you raise a very interesting point. Then, of course we have all these weird questions about the betting markets and the role the betting markets are playing and the fact that there's this new actor in the form of the betting Markets and crypto, where people might be running safe haven into crypto, which will enrich people who are friends of his and relatives of his. And so there's all kinds of weird moving pieces that should properly give people pause. But in the grand design of things, Trump is sitting there with the knowledge that he cannot conclude whatever this is with Iran holding the blackmail over the Strait of Hormuz. And he will. There are various stratagems that can be applied to ensure that that does not happen. There is the announcement of the flotilla support. There is some effort to put boots on the ground, to occupy the high ground, to keep, to place some anti aircraft batteries right there, to shoot things down that might be flying out of Iran to hold positions on Carg island, to choke its own revenues off, whatever. There are many modalities that can be taken into account. And again, a ceasefire in the course of a war does not in and of itself mean that nothing is happening. I mean, we should remember that in the course of ordinary conventional wars, this functions as a battle. It's been like a 48 day battle. That is to say that there have been military constant, until the ceasefire, constant hostilities day after day after day after day after day, every day. Right. That's actually not usually what war is like. Battles take place as spasms, you know, that take place over a week. Sometimes there is a siege, right? I mean, the siege of Leningrad, the siege of Stalingrad, you know, sieges that take forever. But it's not that the guns are firing 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So this is a battle. This battle came to a ceasefire. Sometimes there are ceasefires and then they start up again. And we're gonna start up again. Unless Iran is a very different place from what I think it is. When they get to Islamabad, from what we're hearing, they may not even go to Islamabad, or if they go to Islamabad, they're gonna say, well, you better pay us reparations. And you know, and Israel has to stop doing whatever it's doing in Hezbollah. It has to pass reparations and you have to shine our shoes and you have to convert to Islam and whatever, and then they'll say, enough. That will be so offensive that he will get really angry. And even though J.D. vance as the chief negotiator has every incentive, given his own interestingly precarious political position, to try to want to bring a victory back from Islamabad in the form of a ceasefire, he's going to have to walk away. If he's gonna maintain any kind of residue of credibility with Trump. If they are as insulting toward Trump as I imagine that they are likely to be, they will be.

C (62:19)

Because, Jon, not only are they not an entirely different regime than they were before, but as Jonathan Schanzer pointed out on the podcast this week, because of the beating the regime took, they have to show some form of cosmetic strength or strength to buck up their support among Iranians. So their obstinacy now is going to be at an 11. I mean, it always was, but it's gonna be at a 12.

A (62:55)

Right? I suppose we should not end this week without discussing Trump's nuclear option. Trump took the nuclear option against the, against the woke right podcast bros and girl girls specifically. What was it, Tucker? Alex Jones, Candace Owens, Megan Kelly? Was there somebody else mentioned in there? I can't remember. The tweet is an act of rhetorical brilliance that will be studied for centuries to come against once calmer heads have prevailed, that people understand that Trump has sort of inaugurated a new form of leadership communications that has its own set of rhetorical rules that have purchase. So they just, they pushed him too far. The word satanic, I think over the past weekend that was the moment that made him so they're low iq. They're stupid. Candace Owens is ugly. In fact, she's way uglier than the very distinguished and beautiful Brigitte Macron, whom she falsely accuses of being a man and whom he hopes will win billions in a lawsuit against Candace Owens for making this claim. They're not maga. He's maga. They stand for nothing. He stands for everything. And you know, this is a petty matter in many ways because this is all about how they are gaining audience for the, you know, on the Spotify list and where they stand on the Spotify list of most listened to podcasts and what they're garnering and all of that. But the confusion of them with a political movement. Trump is now literally challenging the idea that if you're, you're either with me or you're with the terrorists. I mean that is literally sort of what this tweet was about. You cannot like me and like Tucker Carlson any longer, said Trump. Do we think that that's going to have an effect? Are they going to get scared? Are they aside from whatever influence they may have, which I don't think they will have anymore with him or inside the precincts of power. Not that I think Candace did, but Tucker obviously is in a weird position here. Is it going to matter?

C (65:43)

J.D. vance is in a weird position here.

A (65:45)

Very.

C (65:46)

Yeah, yeah. I had this thought, which was that, look, obviously I'm glad he split with this group of misfits. I do sort of wish he said there are a bunch of anti American grifters. That's all. Because there's a certain elevating quality to the President of the United States spending that much time and energy and that long of a social media post on you. I think in some sense they're delighted because it raises their profile.

B (66:34)

Well, it's funny.

A (66:38)

Let me just respond to what Abe said because he does conclude by saying MAGA is about winning and strength and not allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons. MAGA is about making America great again. And these people have no idea how to do that, but I do. So he didn't say they're anti American grifters, but he said they have no idea how to make America great again. So maybe that's not quite there, but he's. But he's.

C (67:06)

I just mean, I wish he was more dismissive as opposed to. So as opposed to attacking them at the great length he did. I think it actually would have worked. You know, it's counterintuitive, but I think it.

A (67:23)

Yeah, as I say, I'm not sure he is who he is. And there's. The tweet itself has many interesting angles, including the misnaming of Marjorie Taylor Greene as Marjorie Trader Brown, which I think was not a mistake. And him sort of like throwing shade on Candace Owens, not only about her looks but also praising. And the character of Brigitte Macron, which. Boy, talk about something coming out of nowhere like that. He likes Brigitte Macron. He doesn't seem to like Emmanuel Macron as far as I can tell anyway. So I'm.

C (68:06)

Neither does Brigitte.

A (68:07)

I'm a supporter of the length myself, but that's me.

B (68:11)

Well, see, he's not anti Europe. Clearly he's rooting for France.

A (68:16)

Remember, France has a weird relation to NATO though. Remember France was always very France De Gaulle didn't like NATO either. So.

B (68:24)

Yeah, yep. Take that, Lafayette. I think that the other interesting part of this is the way that some of their complaints sound like the. Those of us who have been deemed squishes for years. You know, like Megyn Kelly, she. One of the things that in the Time story about the dust up, they highlight how she said the other day something like, well, he just. He sounds like a movie villain. Can't he just be normal? Can't he just be a normal person? And it's like, you know, some of us have been slightly more politely maybe requesting that this, be that this change take place, you know, over the past 11 years, whatever. It's been since he, you know, since it was clear that he was running, whatever. But it was like we were always, people always made fun of it because they were like, oh, I'm sorry about the mean tweets. Tweets, Sorry, neocons about the mean tweets. You're so sad about the mean tweets, but meanwhile he's saving the world and doing this and that and he put Gorsuch on the bench and he put this person on the bench and he put overturned Roe v. Wade. And you're upset about mean tweets, but that's how they sound now. The Megyn Kelly's of the world, the Tucker Carlson's, they were mo. They were just Candace Owens for sure. Alex Jones. These people were as dismissive as anybody of the idea that Trump's tone matters. Or, you know, it's like watching them tone police Trump is just, it's an amazing thing to see because it's like suddenly they realize that it matters what a president says and whatever, but they have no credibility to make that complaint. They've been arguing for literally a decade, a decade that that doesn't matter.

A (70:08)

I remember when he said that Megyn Kelly had blood coming out of her wherever and that that was why she was so mean to him at the first debate in 2015. Now she's like, can't he be normal? Isn't this where this all started? Isn't this literally where it all started? With his incredibly personal attack on Megyn Kelly for asking him a question about his treatment of women? That was where Trump exploded out into the national consciousness as a guy who was going to evade every rule that had ever been established in American politics. She was the target. What, crocodile tears? Is she crying now? Can't he just be normal? Can't you be normal? Can't you be consistent for five seconds instead of whoring after Spotify list position like, hold to your point, stop attacking Israel, stop being an anti Semite, stop being a hypocrite, stop being a coward and stop whining. Yeah, because we weren't whining. We're like, don't do this. It's self destructive. I think it's actually pretty clear that it is in a lot of ways self destructive, as I think the last week has shown with the, you know, blow up a civilization and then, oh, my God, how do I get out of this? I'm not going to blow up their civilization, but right.

B (71:34)

And We've had congressional deals fall apart because, you know, we've had, like, budgets dissipate into the air because Trump tweeted something about it.

A (71:44)

Yeah, but like, to get them saying it's. He's being so mean to me. Oh, well. Wow. Amnesia is a hell of a drug. If you start a podcast, apparently it's just Etch a Sketch your entire life, Megyn Kelly, and then say that, you know, can't Trump be normal? Okay, I want to make a quick recommendation and then we'll close out for the. For the weekend. I managed earlier this week to go see in a movie theater Goodfellas, the 1990 Martin Scorsese gangster sort of real life gangster movie about the Mafia, which I really haven't seen since it came out. And it is no shocker to say that it's a masterpiece, which it is, and one of the most propulsive movies ever made. Which it is. And one of the most interestingly and brilliantly structured movies ever made, which. Which it is because it's essentially in three acts. It's the temptation of Henry Hill, who is our hero. The maturation of Henry Hill as a gangster, increasingly involved in violence and frenzy, and then the collapse of Henry Hill into drug addicted paranoia and an understanding that the world he is in features no loyalties. And there's a world of psychopathy in which the only way that he can save himself is through becoming the worst kind of a stool pigeon. So it's an amazing piece of work. But what really struck me this time is how moral it is that the whole point of the movie is that it is a corrective to the Godfather, which came out and changed everything, was a corrective, was itself a kind of effort to take the Mafia and turn it into sort of like a story of a grand American tragedy. The kind of nature of the way in which America both creates villains or something like that. This is a movie about the evil of the Godfather. It's a movie about dealing with the fantasy that these people do things because they want to help their family, or they have no other choice and there's nothing else for them to do. They are, in fact, all amoral psychopathic monsters and they deserve nothing but the worst. They have no admirable qualities, their charms fade, their evil surfaces and is undeniable. And what you're left with is nothing except Henry Hill realizing that he is a schnook, which is the last word that is spoken in the movie. It's great. It's really great. I was really stunned by how great it Was. And so I recommend it highly. Very violent.

B (74:59)

Rest in peace, Ray Liotta.

A (75:01)

Rest in peace, Ray Liotta. Absolutely.

B (75:03)

My favorite thing about that, by the way, was that when he died, he died in 2023, 2022 or 2023. When he died, he had all these other projects in the works. And he's so good in things as. And as a. He could sort of be a character actor, too. He didn't have to necessarily be pigeonholed. He had all these other things in the works. And movies started coming out with him after he died. And I was caught between. This is wonderful, because it's like getting a visit, you know, beyond the grave. And also it's slightly creepy because it's like getting a visit beyond the grave. I didn't like a year. A full year after he died, he had a scene in the Cocaine bear movie.

A (75:46)

That's right. But, you know, there's one thing about this which is interesting, which is this the phenomenon of the kind of, like, surreally great casting of somebody who never remotely approaches what he was able to do in that movie ever again. And it's this kind of, like, flare up.

C (76:04)

You could say that for all the leads in the movie, actually.

A (76:08)

Well, Pesci did My Cousin Vinnie after it, and that was a pretty interesting burn. Paul Sorvino never was anything remotely like this, but I am struck. It's sort of like these things, like where Tony Curtis is in the Sweet Smell of Success. It's one of the greatest performances ever on film. He was nothing like it before. He never did anything remotely like it again. Yeah, Scorsese got Liotta at exactly the right moment in exactly the right way, doing exactly the right thing things, and he fit it like a glove. And nothing else ever quite fit it the same.

C (76:47)

You know, there's another aspect of it, when I've seen it recently, that struck me, which is that at the time Goodfellas was made, the Mafia as it was, still existed to a large degree. As it was. As it was portrayed today, it's a very different thing. I mean, they're still out there, the mob, but it's. They're doing digital crimes. They're doing, you know, sort of like white collar extortion and, you know, online gambling, you know, all that stuff. And it's not.

B (77:28)

They're driving in Uber Eats at night.

C (77:30)

Yeah. So it's almost. There's. There's. It's also like. It's amazing because to me, it doesn't seem that long ago. Obviously it was, but it's a historical document in that sense.

B (77:42)

Well, it isn't in that way. It was more accurate than the Godfather movie. Part of the point of Goodfellas is that it was flimsy. The whole thing was flimsier than it looked, and it felt when you had the barrel of a gun pointing at you. But the whole structure was really not as strong as it was. And, you know, the Godfather sort of made it to be these, you know, these, like, sort of unbreakable systems. But Goodfellas was like, you know, at

C (78:12)

one point, it was, poke a hole

B (78:13)

in the boat and it'll sing.

A (78:15)

Yeah, but, I mean, the Godfather was an effort to take the Mafia and make a mythology out of it that these were, like, you know, the Roman emperors or, you know, a Balzac novel in American terms. And Goodfellas is like, the hell with that. These guys are goons, thugs, vicious monster. They only have this success because they gather together, and they're constantly turning on each other and they're constantly killing each other. And once you get in, you can't get out. And it's also worth pointing out that it's a historical document because it's set. It was made in 1990. It's really set in from 1960 to about 1970, when the Lufthansa. The famous hijacking of the. At Kennedy Airport of a Lufthansa. What do you call it, Cargo was pulled off. And then that's when the. When the swarm came in and they broke up this. This ring. So it sort of ends as Henry Hill goes into the Witness protection program. And that's already 15 years earlier than the movie was made. And what also came between then and the movie was the breakup of the Mafia, the Ravenite Social club, other things that Rudy Giuliani, as D.A. you know, as the U.S. attorney in New York, helped Shepherd, which was the kind of RICO Statute destruction of the Mafia, when they went in. And you then heard all of these tapes from the Ravenite Social Club in Greenwich Village, when you heard what they sounded like and what they didn't sound like was you come to tell me about what you would like for your daughter, and I would like to help you, but we have our own. You know, and it would. That's not what they sounded like. They didn't sound like Marlon. The conversation between Marlon Brando and the heads of the five families. They sounded like every horrible person you ever met, speaking basically illiterately and like, they could barely even get a sentence out without a profanity. So that was a very startling thing that we had so lost our sense of who a thug actually was. Anyway, it's a great, great movie. And it is like seeing the Sopranos in Small Bore because like, every single person in the movie was later in the Sopranos. Like every tertiary character. Frank Leotardo is Joey Batts, that kind of thing. You're like, oh, my God, there's Frank Leotardo. He's so young. Look how young he is. Because it was 10 years for Sopranos.

B (81:07)

And Leota was in the HBO post Sopranos postscript movie, the one they made, you know, the Many Saints of Newark. Yoda was in that too.

A (81:20)

So bad. Yeah, it was so bad. Okay, goodfellas recommendation War starting again or other recommendation. We'll be back on Monday. So for Seth and Abe, I'm John Pod Horror. Let's keep the candle burning.