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A
Hope for the best, expect the worst.
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Some drink champagne, some die at first the 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. Today is Tuesday, March 10, 2026. I'm John Pothorz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [00:38]
C
Hi, John.
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B
Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
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D
Hi, John.
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B
Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.
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A
Hi, John.
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B
And Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [00:51]
E
Hi, John.
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B
So Donald Trump gave a press conference proceeded by remarks yesterday afternoon and got everybody very confused because before the remarks and before the press conference, he told CBS News that the war was largely complete. So of course, we start texting each other. Seth texted and said Trump speaking at 5:30 to declare the war over, question mark. And just to parse what I think he was saying and then we can talk about how he said or what he was saying, we have got numbers from CENTCOM that say that 5,000 targets have been hit inside Iran in the last nine days. And of course, there was the these almost complete destruction of Iran's navy. So the idea that we might be running out of targets to hit from the air and that if we define this conflict as an air war against Iran, that it's going to become increasingly difficult to find things to do if everything that you wanted to do, you're getting done on a much more rapid schedule than you expected. That's the kindest interpretation of him saying that the war is largely complete, that if you define the war as that they're not they don't have much more that there is to do. They can hunt out more launchers, though the Israelis seem to be taking the lead in hunting down the launchers and in fact, toward Israel. The yesterday, the there were only 10 ballistic missiles fired at Israel from Iran, where the number was 90 the day the war started. So either their supply is getting, you know, they're running out or combination of their running out and Israel successfully hitting both the mobile launchers and the stationary launchers, they're having such success that Iran can't fire this stuff off and instead is focusing its attention on firing drones elsewhere at other countries in the Gulf. So but then when he was faced with the question of was he saying the war was over? That was not what he said at all during the press conference where he said we could take the Straits of Hormuz, he said he wasn't ruling out putting boots on the ground. And he said there's A lot more that we can do and that we might be doing. So posing this question to you guys, James Haggerty, who was Dwight Eisenhower's famous press secretary, Eisenhower had a bad reputation with the liberal intelligentsia in the 1950s, which treated this guy who had been the supreme commander of Allied efforts in World War II, as a moron. I'm not joking. Like, if you go back and look at the way liberal people, you know, Arthur Schlesinger and others talked about Eisenhower, they talked about him as though he were sort of like a brainless buffoon. He also ran for president after having resigned as the president of Columbia University. So he had not only run World War II, he was the president of Columbia University.
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D
And that was back when that was a compliment.
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B
Yeah, exactly, right. No, but I mean, Columbia was in its high watermark when he was its president. And maybe he was just a figurehead, whatever, but you would not believe the kind of disrespect that smarty pants, pipe chewing, glasses wearing, self righteous, you know, Kennedyite, whatever, talked about Eisenhower and his press secretary. Haggerty explained after Eisenhower left office that part of the reason for this was that when he gave press conferences, he was often very halting in the way he addressed topics. And Haggerty said that this was by design, that when Eisenhower did not want to address a topic or wanted to steer the press away from a topic or thought he could not talk about something, he would speak unintelligibly on purpose with practical, the practical goal of steering people away from where he was actually going on X or Y or Z topic, that he used this impression of him to his own net advantage. I bring this up only to say that Trump's press conference, he's got nothing like Eisenhower, but there was this. And of course he believes in talking forever, but there was this sense to me that he was basically going before the press to say everything is on the table. But he started the day by saying our war may be over. But in fact, the net effect of what he was saying to, you know, yesterday afternoon was I got 10,000 options at my disposal and I not sure what I'm going to pick yet, so stay tuned. Does that strike you guys as right or that he's just hopelessly confused?
- [06:40]
E
No, I mean, I think we, I think, I think we have to give him some credit for the context of the remarks yesterday. He had just come out of trying to boost the morale of the House GOP folks who are facing a really difficult midterm election, who are very worried about affordability issues, particularly the energy prices. I think trying to calm a general sort of, we've got this, the war is not going to last forever. That is energy prices and the downstream effects of those rising will not be as, as volatile an issue in a few months when you're on the campaign trails this summer and whatnot. So I heard his remarks as, as a sort of echo effect of how he'd spent his day, which is with, with these House GOP folks. I also heard it as, this is classic Trump. He's not going to, he's not going to show his hand in any way, shape or form. And some of his remarks were prepared, I think, when he was saying the war is almost over and then off the cuff, he's going to go off the cuff. So our friend Mark Halperin says that, you know, anyone who takes him, you really can't take him literally or what
- [07:42]
B
was the famous quote, Literally or seriously.
- [07:44]
E
Right? Like taking him either literally or seriously at any given point in time is a political mistake that you're making in criticizing what he's doing. Obviously, he has to keep all his options open on the table. And I think I really heard his remarks not as confusion or bumbling, but as I've just come out of trying to bolster the House members who are really worried about the midterms and we talked about energy prices. And so I'm going to calm everybody down, including the markets, which did actually calm a bit after the initial remarks. So I saw it in that context, which struck me as being actually much more a classic political move, very old, you know, an old school political move that any president in his current position would, would take.
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B
So for what it's worth, I also
- [08:28]
C
think, you know, people may underestimate the degree to which he's also talking to the Iranian leadership, what's left of it. There's no reason for him to get out there and say, yeah, we'll probably stop, you know, like we're done. I mean, he part, part of what he said yesterday was, you know, like, we could do much more if they act up, we got, we have, we can hit him harder still. And when he was asked about what he plans to do, whether or not Khamenei's son, who is now the new supreme leader, has a target on his back, Trump said, well, it wouldn't be right for me to say either way. So he, he wants to keep them sort of guessing. And once again, John, I don't, I think he and the administration are trying to figure out to what extent they're in for regime change and this absolute surrender business, unconditional surrender. And I don't think they know yet.
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E
We should add, he also talked to Putin yesterday, so that might have had an impact on the back and forth
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D
and he complimented him.
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B
Yeah, that was a very.
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D
He wants to be helpful, whatever. I also, you know, the, the Guardian headline on the press conferences, Trump says Iran war won, but not one enough, which is like pretty good way of, I think, understanding Trump's mindset, which is like, you know, we, there's no re. Oh, there's almost no reason to stop winning. That's a, that's a, that's a kind of Trump way of thinking about things that we're rolling, you know, and we're going to keep rolling. Why not? Because everything we do makes them less of a threat and nothing really stopping us.
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B
I think that if that CENTCOM number is correct and we, we're not even talking necessarily about both the Israelis and us, I couldn't tell from the thing that I was reading whether we were adding the two countries strikes and sorties together. But if we were to say, just for the sake of argument that the number that CENTCOM released was the number of attacks by centcom, which would, I guess, make a certain amount of sense because it's not, it's a, it's a collaborative operation, but it's not a joint operation. It's not under. The Israelis are not flying under our command. For example, it's hard to know, even in a country of 90 million people with a very large military scattered around the country, how many more targets than 5,000 there would be for a plane to hit from the air. We know, for example, that the Israelis are operating on destroying some of the civilian security infrastructure in their flights like they are hitting. There are these three or four different security forces, right? There's the ir, there's the Iranian army, then there's the irgc, which is its sort of, I don't know how you would describe it. It's more like it's a kind of combination of the Marines, the Mossad, and, you know, Delta Force and Seal Team 6 and all of that. Right. And so there's the IRGC, there's the regular reigning army, there's the regular Iranian navy, and then there are the domestic agencies tasked with secure, you know, keeping down the people like the Basij and the religious authorities and like the, and the Israelis are going around blowing up buildings in neighborhoods that are the, the besieged police stations essentially in order to secure the possibility of A post, you know, when things calm down. So that if the Iranian people do want to rise up, the ability of the domestic security forces to suppress them is deeply compromised, if not entirely destroyed. So those are targets that we're getting. They're getting so deep or we are getting so deep that they are hitting, like, buildings and neighborhoods, which are where the besiege are. That's an amazing level of, like, down to the precinct level attack. And it is an interesting question about how much more. How many more places there are to drop a bomb on. Well, I. I think.
- [13:17]
C
To be honest, I think they. That we do have to take out Khamenei's son.
- [13:23]
B
We may already have taken out Kamine's son. The reports yesterday.
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E
Is there a mystery as to his.
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B
He wasn't at. He wasn't at the celebration of his investiture or whatever you call.
- [13:33]
E
They had a nice cardboard cutout, though, John.
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B
Really nice. And the story is that he unconscious. That he was wounded in something. He was wounded in some way, and that he might be dead. So we are getting to a spinal tap drummer situation for real. Not just as a joke, like, you know, you sort of pop up and then you're dead. But note that, you know, no one is trumpeting this yet publicly. The Israelis or. Or the United States. This is stuff that's sort of leaking out from intelligence sources.
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A
Yeah. I'm just thinking as you guys are talking, you know, it's interesting. I saw the news of the CBS interview yesterday, and I didn't read it and think, oh, you know, this war is coming to an end. And I'm sure you guys didn't either think, oh, the war is really ending in a couple of days. Because directional confusion and strategic confusion are a hallmark of this president. And the way he operates with many things, you never know whether he's gonna fire somebody or what exactly he's gonna do until he actually does it. And in the meantime, while he said this, Iran has made the Supreme Leader's son, Mujtaba Khamenei, the next supreme leader against the president's wishes. He warned them not to do it, and they did it. They had to do it remotely, like on a zoom or something, and he's not been seen in public. But meanwhile. So they did that. Meanwhile, Larajani in Iran is threatening the president. And so I think there are factors that argue against or should make one skeptical, but that this is actually gonna end today, tomorrow, you know, maybe in a week, the President will decide, okay, we're not actually pushing for full regime change, but our military objectives have been accomplished. But I do think this aspect of strategic confusion is just a hallmark of the way Trump operates and argues toward caution in interpreting, you know, exactly. Or it should inform the way we understand what the President is saying.
- [15:54]
B
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E
We should add to your list of the internal confusion about which we have limited information, a drone strike on Cyprus, which has now brought the EU into this, into this conflict, because Macron of all people said, you can't hit Cyprus. And so now in a sense, that for our coalition's needs, that's a good thing. We want more free countries on the side of what we're trying to do in Iran. And I will say I hope to hear more from the president. I was glad to hear him talk about the Strait of Hormuz. Our military should keep that shipping lane open there is that, that's something that we're capable of doing. That's a very important lifeline for, for trade, not just for oil, but for a whole number of things. And I think that would also be a very important show of strength in the region that we can control that strait. Because right now, that's another point at which the Iranians have used, as Eliana said, making threats. They've said they're going to keep their control of that.
- [22:21]
B
So by the way, you know, there seems to be a confusion here that says that the Straits of Hormuz are closed. The Straits of Hormuz are not closed. Straits of Hormuz are open. Ships. Ships are not going. No, but by choice. That is to say they don't want
- [22:39]
E
to get blown up.
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B
A they don't want to get blown up. But it's not just that. It's that insurers are saying you cannot take your, we are not going to pay out if something happens to you if you go through the stray of Hormuz, which is why Trump announced yesterday or the day before that the United States. This is like one of these complicated. Trying to understand insurance, reinsurance and shipping law. And all of that is like talk about something recondite and that you need like to go to weird schools for 20 years even to begin to understand maritime law and insurance and maritime settings. But essentially the United States government seems to have said, we will be your reinsurer. There is a whole world called reinsurance. We will, you know, we're going to work to make sure that you can take your ships through by guaranteeing something or other. So it is very important because this has gotten confused. Trump said yesterday he will not allow the Strait of Hormuz to be closed. And in fact, yesterday the price of oil started at something like $118 a barrel and fell in one day to $85 a barrel. Because he talked about the Strait of Hormuz and said he was going to keep it open. So by the end of the day, people were a lot more reassured or oil futures buyers or whoever were less buying with the idea that there might be no oil shipping around the globe. At five o' clock, they were feeling better than they were at nine o' clock in the morning. And so that's a, that is important for him to keep talking about this because if he needs to talk the price of oil down, this is how you keep the price of oil down, is by saying you will not allow the straits to be closed. And he made a very violent, true social post about this, threatening the regime in Iran with horrors untold. If they should try to take this, make this move. It's also not clear what it would mean for them to shut the Straits of Hormuz. I mean, I guess they would mine it, but we don't even know if they would.
- [24:55]
D
They would, they would mine it, but, but also, I think just did they
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B
have to mine it with, if their navy has been. You got to take a ship.
- [25:03]
E
You don't need a very big ship to drop mines in a channel.
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B
Yeah, I guess you're right. Yes, I guess.
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D
Well, also, it, also it seems like what's happening now is that, that the, the shipping industry just takes people at their word. I don't mean that in, you know, in a, you know, dismissive, their naive way. I just mean like when Iran says they're going to close the Strait of Hormuz, prices go up. When Trump says will be your insurance, prices go down. They, whatever is happening, the shipping industry seems to believe that it's plausible for each side to do whatever it is that they're saying. And that's, that's the key in terms of prices anyway, they, that, you know, that, just that they believe it. It's like the market reacting to news.
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B
But all of this stuff is contracts for futures and things like that. So this is all spec, this is all what's going on in the volatility of oil prices is speculation in the market. It's how much are you buying for a barrel that you'll have in a month, not what you're going to have tomorrow morning. If at 9 o' clock in the morning there seems to be a feeling of panic, you sell your oil future that you had at 62 at 118 and you make a huge fortune. And then at 5 o' clock when you sell it, if you have another, you know, if you have another barrel you can sell the future in that number drops $30. So you're still making a profit, but you're not, it's not what it was at 9 o' clock in the morning. That's why you're not supposed to be making decisions based on short term trading, pricing and things like that. Like anything, anything could cause oil to go up. It's also important to Note that in 2022, as a result, I think I said this yesterday of the beginning of the Ukrainian war, oil went up to $120 a barrel. So it's not like in the, you know, in living memory, the oil prices are higher now than they've ever been. They're not, you know, in fact, you might even think that they would have gone higher still.
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E
The slowing of production issue too, where the, the refiners and the production, like they've slowed. So there is a theory potential for, in the very near future for the supply chain disruptions. To me, we are, we have a shortage or we have a concern about that because they have had, the region has had to slow down its production.
- [27:26]
B
Right?
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E
And so there's the, and so they slow it down because they don't have enough storage for what they've made. And you add to that the Strait of Hormu, Hormuz question and you can very well see within a month some more volatility. So I think that's also at the right on the mind of, of right people.
- [27:42]
B
It's a market, it's a play. This is an open market in which people are doing trading. And so you are, they are estimating risk and they are estimating the value of risk and the cost of things and what it is to hold on to things or to sell them or to keep them or where they're going. And obviously you want to sell things for more than you bought them. That's how you become a rich person as opposed to me when I don't know what the hell I'm doing. And so you're estimating risk every five minutes. Is it this, is there a story? Is there going to be a supply chain problem? Is it, you know, and obviously eliminating the threat of Iran interfering with international ship or this war interfering with international shipping is the key to stabilizing oil prices in the long term. But Trump can't be making military decisions based on the volatility of oil prices at this moment, even though what people hear is illiterate idiocy from consumer media coverage of this. I watched, I think it was Good Morning America. It Might have been the Today show this morning talking about rising oil prices. And there was somebody standing in front of the gas station in Los Angeles and the sign behind them said that gas, you know, that the price of a gallon was like 579. It was, it was the Today show because then Craig Melvin said, Holy cow. 570. That's crazy. That's a crazy oil price. It's not. Do you drive in California? California has this astronomical state gas tax. Getting a gallon of gas in California costs more than it does in any other state, I'm pretty sure. And like, when I haven't been there in a year. But, like, you drive around, you see gas station prices and they're like a dollar or a dollar and a half more than they are even in New York State, always. But Craig Mellon lives in New York State, so what does he know about the gas, about a gas station in Los Angeles? Like, it's no, there's no question that people's prices at the pump have gone up. Right. Like it's now, as somebody said, if you have an SUV and you're filling the tank, it's $13 more this week than it was last week, but it could be $13 less next week than it is this week and then $22 more the week after. We're in a volatile world situation that is unpredictable, and these numbers are fluctuating based on a combination of factors. And as I say, because of that, Trump cannot, he can't even be sure that if he ends the war tomorrow that that will do anything to bring oil prices down, necessarily, if the situation remains incredibly vague and we don't know what the status is of the Iranian regime or who we are, anything like that. So he's on the horns of a dilemma because the Republicans in the House may be saying, help us, help us, help us.
- [30:51]
E
Well, that I. Okay, we should let. We should. It'll be interesting to see if they try to put some pressure on him to some from the strategic reserve that we.
- [31:00]
B
Is there anything left there?
- [31:02]
E
There is. I mean, so Biden did. Trump criticized Biden when Biden did that at the outbreak of the Ukrainian war. And it's not always been. It buys you a little time. But in the run up to an election, that might be a good thing. But the truth is he only has a very limited amount of power to control oil prices, as you say, John. But I think the perception will be, and perhaps even some pressure from, from Republicans on the administration will be, give us some relief even for a little Bit of time. So that'll be the question about how much is left, how much the reserve can have.
- [31:32]
B
The strategic oil reserve, by the way, it's not to release stuff to help, you know, I mean, we have it in order to deal with disruptions in supply. That's emergencies.
- [31:42]
E
Yes, exactly.
- [31:42]
B
And a lot of people think that it's stupid and that we shouldn't actually have a strategic oil reserve because then it just becomes a weird slush fund for presidents to play games and try to, you know, like assuage people, like members of their party when everybody gets worried. And it, in fact, it's a waste of money and a waste of resources. But I didn't even know that we had refilled it. So, yeah, I'm sure he could do it. This is actually one moment at which maybe he should do it or he shouldn't do it now because if things are going on further and there is actually like a major refinery that is blown up or something like that in the course of these, that's when you need to activate it, when there is an emergency. This is not an emergency. It's that there's a price. There's a price run up that is going to cause. Is going to have inflationary pressures in Europe and the United States. And while that's bad, it's not an emergency that requires immediate intervention in the market to save us from going into a depression. Right. So he would be right to keep his powder dry and not to respond. It's also March. Like, does it matter what oil prices are in March? It's probably more important what they are in September. And if he wins this war and overthrows this regime and has a regime that's more conducive, including here and in Venezuela, and doesn't play games with oil supply, like, that'll be really good for oil prices when people actually have to start voting in September as opposed to now, when people will forget what oil prices were in March, you know.
- [33:27]
A
Yeah, I think as long as it's short term, people will tolerate it. And it is true that Biden, I mean, Biden released more barrels of oil from the Strategic petroleum reserve, over 200 million, than any previous president. In response to the war in Russia, Ukraine and to the unbelievable inflation that he caused. And many of those barrels were sent to China, it resulted in the House passing a law that, that prohibited that. And so I think Trump would well be well within his rights to release barrels of oil from, from the reserve. And to explain that it's, it's far from unprecedented. Unprecedented. His president did it. And you know the numbers. The amount of oil that Biden released, 200 million, was in comparison to 17, you know, about 17 million under George H.W. bush, 20 million, George W. Bush, 30 million, Barack Obama. And that ballooned under Biden. And many of those barrels, as I said, went to China because they go to the highest bidder.
- [34:37]
B
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- [35:58]
C
I think you're right, John, about Trump keeping his powder dry regarding the strategic reserves. Because I think in all likelihood there is going to be a lot more action. I think it would be.
- [36:11]
A
By the way, Hegseth just said as much. There's a briefing happening right now.
- [36:15]
C
There you go. Yeah, because I think it would be absurd, you know, for Trump to come out and say, yeah, the war is almost over, and then have the war be almost over. I mean, that's not, that's not how he operates. He comes out and says the war is almost over and then we first start seeing what the war looks like.
- [36:39]
A
I'll just, sorry, I'm having an issue with my mic, but you guys can respond. Hegseth is doing a press conference right now with General Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and he said we will not relent until the enemy is totally indecisively defeated. But we do so on our timeline and our choosing. And which suggests to me that we're not nearing the, we're not nearing the end of this war today or tomorrow.
- [37:13]
B
You know, so Trump may have spoken imprecisely because he speaks imprecisely. So when he said the war is largely completed, as I say, get, get. Gets back to this question of they're sitting in the sit. They're, they're in the situation room or they're having whatever. They're having a. I wonder if he's redone the situation room. So there's like gold leaf around it just like there is in the Oval Office. So he feels more, more comfortable in it. But they're sitting in the situation room and they're like, well, we're kind of running out of targets. You know, ordinarily, when we were doing our, like our, our most favorable or least favorable plan, you know, where are things going to be on a spectru. We didn't really have us at this point in nine days, we're way ahead because it's almost never been the case that a major military action has taken place. And there are two countries with incredibly effective air forces pummeling this country, and it is not responding. Like, it's just like they're like at a golf range hitting golf balls, and no one is hitting golf balls back. You know, it's like they're, they're, they're in a shooting gap. No one's shooting back. So they can do whatever they, they are working at will. And, and so game planners or war, you know, people using prior military conflicts to game out where you would be after nine days if you used X amount of ordinance and you had an enemy and they had Y amount of ordinance and all of that, how you deal with the fact that they have no, they're not responding except by firing drones at buildings that are nowhere near us, you know, except for a couple of embassies that we then empty out. You know, it's like a new world. It's a new way of fighting a war. Which gets to. Maybe we should talk a little about the boots on the ground question
- [39:21]
C
because
- [39:25]
B
Fred Kagan and Amit Seagal are on Call Me Back Don Dancing or's podcast this morning. And, you know, Amit is talking about the effort to the regime needs to, they need to get rid of the regime. But, you know, like, they're working at will and all this. And then Fred says, we're looking at this backward, which is if or no they're talking about securing the, the nuclear materials. And the idea being that maybe the picture, Amit says the picture at the end of the war should be Trump and Netanyahu with these three canisters of enriched uranium between them. And that's like the hoisting of the Iwo Jima flag. Like, that is the image that says, this is what we went to war for. This is what they did. This is the material that they had that they've spent 20 years and, you know, $100 billion creating. And we have it now and we are, we are about to destroy it and congratulate and the Iranian people are free of this immiserating policy that has drained their resources and kept them in, in some penury. And for what? We've taken it out. Right. And then Fred Kagan said it's important to get the nuclear materials. I'm not saying it's not important, but it's the regime that has to go away because the regime can start making new nuclear materials. It can say it won't, it can agree on a piece of paper that it won't. But, you know, like, it's not that. Everybody knows how to make it. Build these centrifuges you get, you secure uranium from somewhere, you start them spinning, you get it, you, you enrich to 60% and then you leave it there at the ready for when you can get it to 90%, which takes a couple of weeks, and then put it on a bomb and then hurl it at somebody. So the question is, who's right here? Does getting them nuclear materials, if they somehow stage a boots on the ground mission to go into Ifsaan or Forda or whatever and go and get the material, come out and say, we've got it, we've denuclearized them and we're done. And now the Iranian people can do whatever they need to do. Or does the mission have to be that the regime needs to end because that's the only way you really end the nuclear program?
- [42:01]
E
Well, one way to get both would be, and actually Trump has mentioned this, the island of Kharg, which is, you have to, you have to break the regime by breaking its ability to get financing to continue trying, you know, to, to rebuild its nuclear program for all those things. You seize that island after having taken out everything. That's the major export area for all. So that's how it funds its nuclear program is terrorism. Yeah. You take that, if you control that and you have the Straits of Hormuz open and you've, the regime is in some disarray. You have effectively taken out the regime. I mean, what comes next for the people in terms of their ability to choose their own leadership in the future is an open ended question. But that island would not require a massive bunch of combat troops. It's small. I mean, it is a strategic location south. You know, it's what, like it's just off the coast of Iran. That's something that could be declared a victory and I think would be more important long term for preventing the regime from rebuilding itself and its nuclear program.
- [43:04]
B
Right, but that cannot be done without human beings standing on Carg island saying, we control this now and setting up a perimeter around and saying come near us and we'll shoot. And we have to actually stay here for five years to make sure that, you know, ISIS doesn't come and take Cargill or whatever. So one way or another, either secretly and temporarily on a mission to get the nuclear materials, which everybody seems now to be presuming we're going to do, we, or the Israelis are going to do as a Special Forces action without talking that much about it, because we have no idea how that would work. This war can't end without somebody standing on Iranian territory who is not an Iranian, you know, an Israeli. Of course, the Israelis have been going in and out of Iran for years. Like somebody went into Tehran and stole the nuclear documents cache in 2018 and then drove it out of the country and placed it right there on the table for Bibi Netanyahu to do a press conference. Say, see, they've been doing this for 20 years. So it's not like they haven't been going in and out. Israelis have had boots on the ground in Iran for forever.
- [44:35]
C
But we've now, including now, no doubt.
- [44:37]
B
Yeah, but I'm saying we've established this precept somehow that Trump would be violating his own principles by putting boots on the ground. But I don't, I actually think that
- [44:49]
D
they've, they've got part of the advantage. So I think the, the right answer is taking the uranium, taking the material and, and, and hoisting it as a trophy is probably the greatest image you could possibly imagine in modern warfare and would be the exclamation point. But the reason why, I think that's even more important than, you know, what Kagan said about regime changes that think of how much the Israeli, how much intelligence the Israelis have had within Iran before this war. We know now that before the 12 Day War, Israel built a drone Factory inside Iranian territory. Inside Iranian territory. They built a, they built a drone factory they have in order to take out common a. They revealed they had the street light cameras and they watched the cars go by and they probably made everything, you know, go red lights at the times that they needed it to whatever. They literally control the flow of traffic and was watching the cars go by. After this war, my point is, after this war, imagine what they're going to leave behind in terms of intelligence gathering operations. I think that there's a feeling in Iran and it's not paranoid that the Israelis are never really leaving. They're the human Israel, the Israeli humans are leaving. The boots on the ground might be leaving for the most part, not all, but you know, it's kind of like, you know, the Red Sea diving, you know, hotel that, you know, the whole thing about getting, you know, in, in, where was it? Ethiopia. Getting the, you know, in the middle of a civil war, like there will be Israelis left and there will all also be all sorts of spy craft and all sorts of intelligence that they will know how to crack and what to do if they want to do it. That they might be sitting at screens in, you know, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv flicking channels, go watching the reality show of the Iranian government and Iranian life on their screens. So I think that actually the, the fact that they went in and did this, I think they're going to be leaving behind, you know, spy infrastructure of a mind boggling degree. And therefore they will be very confident that if they take the uranium that they have now, they'll feel good about being able to stop them the moment they try to make any, that making more will be so much more difficult for the Iranians than it was the first time going forward.
- [47:51]
C
I think, John, given that Trump and his base have made such a big deal about American boots on the ground anywhere and that in some sense this would be Trump violating his previous stance. He's not going to do this. He's not going to put boots on the ground to get the fissile material until conditions are. And this is also his way of thinking so optimal that it's not going to be a horror show. And there's still a lot of IRGC left. So I think we're not there yet. I think there's going to be a lot, you know, you talk about running, running out of targets. So I say there's a, there's a whole lot of IRGC left and they
- [48:42]
B
don't really know where it is, by the way. They don't they. There are these ideas that it could be in one place or in another place. There are two places. So it's a Special Forces mission would require doing this work in two locations. And, you know, you have to basically, obviously use explosives to blow a hole large enough to get through the rubble to get down and then figure out a way to get up and get through it and all that. You know, they don't know what the circumstances are, whether they're booby traps and stuff like that. So it's a logistical challenge. And then there's. And then there's also the question that Seagal and Kagan don't really deal with, which is, if you do this and you bring the fissile material out, is that basically the trigger for the regime change? We want the Iranian people to affect the regime change like that. There's no question. We're not going to send in 100,000 people to take out the IRGC and then, you know, like, have a regime change. We want there to be an uprising that. And that. We then want the IRGC and the Iranian army not to turn its guns on the people because they realize that they're toast and they're cooked and that they're really, you know, their future now relies on them not being punished for what they've done in the past. And so they. The seizure of the material could be the. The climax, at which it's like, you got no nuclear program. You got no navy, you got no air force, you got no air defenses. All you have are guns, and you can only shoot them at Iranians. That's it. Like, what are you defending? Like what? You are weak, not strong. Your millenarian ambitions have been throttled. The idea that you're the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the Middle east is over. And that's the sort of crushing of the spirit that we think of when we think of Japan after Nagasaki or something. I mean, it's not the same because it didn't have that, like, horrifying. This is something that has never happened before on Earth. The complete elimination of two entire cities in two airstrikes, and there's nothing left for Japan to do. But it's reasonably close. If the regime forces themselves or the supporters of the regime forces say, well, God wants us to have this nuclear material so we can eventually wipe out Israel, and God has taken it away from them, then what? You know, so that's a. That's a case to be made for the. But in any case, people have got to go in and get it People have got to go in and occupy Carg island and they're gonna have to stay in Carg island and I. And they're gonna have to stay. Yeah. And then. So. So there are going to be people on the ground. And Trump, I think, is already starting to soften the ground for the idea that there are going to be people on the ground. That's what he did yesterday afternoon is say, everything's on the table. I think it's a possibility. So he has opened that door because
- [52:13]
D
he's realizing as it's happening. Right. That boots on the ground, as we talked about a lot this week so far, boots on the ground is kind of become a euphemism for a land invasion by a major army, by, you know, by a major force to, you know, essentially drive at the capital, like as if they were taking Tehran the way they were going to take Baghdad. That's. That's what people picture.
- [52:42]
B
Right.
- [52:43]
D
Boots on the ground meaning. And he's trying to say, we're not going to invade, we're not doing land invasion to occupy Iran. That's what he wants to say. But the truth is that, yes, any kind of military action this extensive requires some boots on the ground. It can't be done with zero boots on zero ground. And he's just trying to, you know, to walk that line that it's easy to say at the beginning we're not sending soldiers, but then you get to a point where it's like, okay, you have to send, you know, a certain amount to do certain things. And also, as this, A, as Carg Island, B, as the, as the. As the idea of seizing the uranium came up, new opportunities present themselves over the course of a war. And you'd be crazy not to consider an open window that you found unexpectedly.
- [53:38]
B
Right. Okay, I want to move on and read you a tweet from cnn. Hold on, Sorry. I want to read you a tweet from CNN about the scene near Gracie mansion when the two 18 and 19 year olds threw the IEDs that fortunately did not go off. And of course, now my computer is not working for me. Okay, this is from cnn. Yesterday, two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could have been a normal day, enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather. But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti Muslim Protestant outside of Mayor Zoran Mamdani's home. Here's what we know so far and a link to the story, which is by the way, the story itself is not as bad as this piece of social media writing. It does layer.
- [54:54]
A
Harry Weiss is coming for you. Cnn.
- [54:57]
E
I mean, this only time. I wish I. I would say, I hope it was AI that wrote that
- [55:03]
B
terrible, terrible tweet, but it's instructive because, what is it, 13 years since the Boston Marathon bombing. And you remember when the. The brothers, the two brothers who were responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing, it was like, what. They were so nice. They, they. They're really. They're very athletic. And then Rolling Stone put the picture of.
- [55:33]
C
They were bros.
- [55:35]
B
They were bros. And put. Put the picture of. Again, I can't remember their last names. My memory is. But, you know, put one of the pictures because they're so. They were so attractive. You know, he was like a movie star. People said of. Of. Of bro number one. So it is not as though we do not have a history of the bizarre.
- [55:59]
D
And these guys referenced the Boston Marathon bombing, right?
- [56:02]
B
Yes.
- [56:03]
D
In their interviews with police.
- [56:05]
B
Right?
- [56:05]
A
Yeah. They said they wanted to kill more people. The story is also. It is like a case study in passive voice writing.
- [56:12]
B
Yeah. They. Their lives changed. They could just think if they had only crossed into New York City to enjoy the warm weather in Central park, but instead, in a moment, their lives change. That is a formulation that we use to deal with somebody who gets killed in a freak accident.
- [56:35]
E
No, I was going to say it's like the ChatGPT prompt was give me the opening to a fun rom com where someone gets murdered by a bomb. I mean, it just. It was so. It was shocking. Shocking.
- [56:46]
B
But. So I don't want to, obviously, this. I'm just using this as an example. But. But of this perspective that A, you can't hate the media enough, and B, that there is a mindset in the world of people who write and cover the news that says that what you are supposed to do is characterize people of the Islamic faith who end up doing violent and destructive things or talk in horrible ways in ways that minimize their connection to Islam and minimize their responsibility for what it is that they themselves have done.
- [57:33]
A
Yeah, you're supposed to characterize them as regular Americans as opposed to people with any ties to foreign entities or immigrants. I mean, these two people were children of immigrants. And we see this all the time in Minnesota when people who are members of the Somali community are presented as Minnesota men.
- [57:56]
B
Yeah, but by the way, just. Just to. Just to. Just to put a button on what you just said about them being immigrants. So the Afghani kid, his Parents come here, I think in 2009, get naturalized. They live in a house whose estimated Zillow value is $2.5 million. So not only is this kid a child of immigrants who came to America to escape this wars or whatever, but they have made a huge success of themselves. He has grown up in the United States. It sounds like he was born in the United States because he's an American citizen, I believe, I'm not quite sure. Grew up prosperous, wealthy. This is a, this isn't a two and a half million dollar house apartment in New York City which is now upper middle class housing. It's in Newtown, Pennsylvania. And so therefore it's really, really, really, really, really nice. And so he has no reason to feel anything but gratitude for the United States and the bounties that it has given him and his family. And of course he has gone in entirely another direction. Two other things to point out about the Gracie Mansion protest and what's going on this week. One protest, there were, there was a protest at Gracie Mansion anti, you know, the, against the Muslim takeover of New York City, right? Run by this white supremacist January 6th guy. The number of people in front of Gracie Mansion doing this protest was 20. So it's like a Westboro Baptist Church protest, one of those God hates fags protests from the 2000s where they would go places and then There would be 500 people, Westboro Baptist Church. There would be five people from Westboro Baptist Church and 10,000 people screaming at the people from the Westboro Baptist Church. Here we have 20 people. The number of counter protesters, 150 because it's Manhattan. So what did they do? They did this for the clips. They did this to, who knows, to rake in money from other lunatics who want to give them money or whatever. The protest itself had no teeth, had no participants, was not popular, did not bring 15,000 people to complain at Gracie Mansion. In fact, it had the opposite effect. And then we have this indelible footage of the liberal American goody goody guy, you know, making a speech about how you don't belong here and you, you know, go, we're New Yorker, right? And then what do we see as he's speaking? We see one of the two kids basically come up behind him, throw the IED and then jump over his head, throw the IED and then turn around and run back down East End Avenue away.
- [61:03]
C
He literally used the hippie kid to propel himself.
- [61:08]
B
40 year old man.
- [61:09]
C
It's a beautiful image of how these politics actually work.
- [61:13]
D
Yeah, it's not just a beautiful image of the politics in its symbolism, but it is also the rare event in one of these, you know, progressive protests where the indelible image is not of somebody staring down a line of NYPD cops in riot gear or something, where they're trying to look like, you know, Tiananmen Square tank man, it's the other side. It's very rare. But the two indelible images that came out of this are, you know, the. The pinko commie being used as a launchpad for, you know, the Islamic terrorists ied and the cop jumping the barricade to chase him. Those are two that have been like. It's just very. It's. I just think it's worth noting that, like, the. The images of this event are not of, like, the sort of progressive PR creation where they worked really hard to create an image that looks like, you know, the state is, you know, a boot stamping on their face forever. But actually, you know, was this kind of X ray, like this truly, unbelievably revealing, accurate version of what was happening?
- [62:29]
A
There's a great newsletter, Pirate Wires, by these tech guys out in California, and they comment on the one thing not in these images. And just note, at press time, Mamdani's wife was liking Balat, the Bombers ballot's post on Instagram.
- [62:50]
C
Can I just add something. Yeah. About that, because people are making. Some people are making a big deal about the. The anti Muslim protest aspect of this. And here's the thing about that. If you're Mamdani and you become mayor, when you decide to embrace or support terrorist hatred or.
- [63:13]
B
Or
- [63:15]
C
lunatic bigotry and you invite that, you don't get to pick and choose the brand that you have now summoned. Once you start playing that game, you. You are. You have set off a kind of arms race in that area. And this is what happens when you have abnormal politicians with abnormal politics.
- [63:45]
B
Let's talk about that for a minute, because this is what's important. Gracie Mansion was the site. Gracie Mansion is the mayor's mansion in Carlshirts park in New York City. And Mahmoud Khalil and his wife Eva Braun have moved into the mansion together. And there they are. And it's Ramadan, as you may know. So during Ramadan, you fast until sundown, and then you have a meal. And we learned that Mamdani and his wife. Huh?
- [64:20]
A
You mean.
- [64:21]
B
So Zoran Mamdani and his wife Eva Braun are there, and her name is Whatever the hell. I don't even want to know what her name is. I'm gonna call her Ava Braun until somebody. Until somebody insists I call her Born in Texas.
- [64:37]
E
Born in Texas.
- [64:38]
D
Right. That's the great thing is that she. She's from Houston.
- [64:41]
B
Yeah.
- [64:41]
D
And she refuses to admit that she's from Houston.
- [64:43]
B
She's like.
- [64:44]
D
All her social media is like, I'm from Damascus. It literally says that on her social media.
- [64:51]
B
She and Balacha together, like Texas woman.
- [64:55]
D
Thank you.
- [64:57]
B
So for Ramadan, Eva and Zoran invite over Mahmoud Khalil and his wife. Mahmoud Khalil, you remember it was announced, Marco Rubio announced that he was deporting that the State Department under. Under the grounds that the State Department has the right to deport people who are working against the interests of the United States. And we have now had this like, year long battle to deport Mahmoud Khalil. And Mamdani had him over to dinner with his wife.
- [65:33]
A
Real quickly, John, we should just note Khalil was the chief negotiator of Columbia University apartheid divest during the mayhem that took place on the Columbia campus.
- [65:45]
B
I want to read you just some things that Khalil has said and then just reflect on the fact that Mahmoud Khalil was having dinner with the mayor of New York City two days after two Islamist terrorists threw IEDs in the direction of Gracie Mansion. That cops, you know, that it's fortunate they didn't go off when they did a controlled demolition of the. According to the NYPD's terrorism. The head of the terrorism bureau at the NYPD, the. The bomb's effect was substantial, like it was a serious bomb. It's just that they didn't figure out how to ignite it properly. Okay, so Khalil Mamdani has described, according to our friend Simone Roda and Benzoquin at fdd, a victim of cruelty who was punished merely for exercising his First Amendment rights. That's what Mamdani has said of Mahmoud Khalil. Here's what Mahmoud Khalil has actually said on October 7 and after he justified the attack as something that, quote, had to happen to break the cycle. Okay? And of course, he says that Israel committed an ongoing genocide. So while Eva Braun is liking posts celebrating the October 7th, can I just add one?
- [67:12]
A
One other thing. Columbia University apartheid divest. The group on whose behalf he's negotiating. It's not like Columbia University is some, you know, pro Israel institution. They have banned this group. They do not recognize it as a legitimate group. And when Trump began this military operation in Iran, they put out a post on social media that said Death to America. Right, so this is the group on, you know, that he was acting as a representative of.
- [67:51]
B
So let's, so let's just go through the week. Saturday, there is a demonstration. Saturday there is, there is a demonstration or there's this anti Muslim demonstration. These two homegrown ISIS following terrorists make nail bombs and throw them. And Khalil, and then, excuse me, Mamdani issues a social media post talking about how evil the white supremacists are and naming them and saying that this has no place in our city, and then says, but you know, it's even more terrible that there was a violent act and thanks to, to the cops for doing what they do because they're so great. Not saying. While he is condemning the white supremacy of the 20 protesters who are outnumbered by 150 protesters and saying nothing about the ideological motivations of the bombers, which were notable since the bomber, since the kid who jumped over the head of the, of the guy saying hate has no place here in New York shouted aha, who Akbar as he was throwing the projectile. That happens. The NYPD is going and giving public statements and giving press conferences about what they're finding out about the two bombers who are now in FBI custody, as is the FBI talking about what is in the bomb shutting down 82nd street the next day because there's a, there's a car that seems to have materials in it that are consistent with the making of more nail bombs. Has to, has to, you know, like basically turn that car into a bomb site, shut much of the neighborhood down. So that's two days relating to a potential ied, homegrown factory on the streets of New York. FBI saying this is ISIS linked? We don't know. We're interviewing people to see if they're part of a network. And Mamdani, not naming Islamic terrorism as the cause of this, has a supporter, an open supporter of Islamic terrorism whose organization, as you say, Eliana, called for Death to America on social media as Americans are fighting in and over the skies of Iran. He is the mayor of New York City. We are through the looking glass. It's not surprising what were we warning about all last year? It's all coming true. And you know, and this is all happening as synagogues are being shot up in Toronto. Three synagogues fired upon in Toronto in a city in which for three years now, the authorities have treated Islamic activity against Jews or Islamist activity against Jews as just something that they're not going to really engage with ideologically or as a matter of, you know, that Everyone has their right to an opinion and stuff like that. And the chickens are coming home to roost there.
- [71:05]
D
And shot at, not, not for the first time, I believe one, at least one of those synagogues has been shot at multiple times.
- [71:12]
B
That's correct.
- [71:13]
A
Just to round this out, we should spend two minutes talking about, you know, when Jewish Insider and then CBS News do a report rounding out the picture of Mamdani and his wife by noting, oh, she liked social media posts justifying and celebrating the October 7th attack. We get a round of criticism of them for reporting on this, saying that his wife's views are not relevant. We have the mayor coming out saying his wife's a private citizen. Well, at the same time, we've lived through how many rounds of reporting on Ginny Thomas and what her views are and Martha Ann Alito hanging a flag in a certain way. Well, two days ago, we just got a New York Times report on the New York Congressman Dan Goldman and his wife. And at the outset of the Trump administration, how many stories did we have on Pete Hegseth's wife? And she's playing too big a role in the administration. And he has a really big photograph of her in his office. And that's strange. And she, you know, her role's big and oh, my, oh, my goodness. And yet we have a cacophony of people saying it's inappropriate to report on this. You know, I'm of the view that it rounds out our picture of the man. People's spouses are important. It's informative to know about them. And the, the, the reporting on the Supreme Court, just justices, was being made not to round out the picture, but to argue they should recuse themselves from cases. So it's a qualitative difference, but it's amazing to see the volume of shrieking that shouldn't be doing news reporting about this at all.
- [73:08]
B
Okay, look, that story about Corinne Levy Goldman, Dan Goldman's wife, was the initial story, right? The story came out out of nowhere that Dan Goldman, who was locked in a primary battle in brownstone Brooklyn and lower Manhattan, Dan Goldman, of course, became famous basically as the MSNBC Trump should be, you know, put in an electric chair and shot into space and thrown into a garbage can and put in a wood chipper because he's so evil. And this project, and he's a very rich guy. Levi Strauss there gets himself elected to Congress on the basis of that, of these media appearances. But he is now being challenged from his left by another Jewish guy, Brad Lander, New York City Politician of uncommonly filthy, disgraceful, self hating, poisonous vintage, making it so that if I were in this district once again in the horror show that is 2020, 2020's politics in New York City, I would have to vote for Dan Goldman, whom I revile, in order to prevent Brad Lander, whom I revile more, from becoming a member of Congress. Though I'm not really a voter in the Democratic primary, I might have to re register in order to vote against Brad Lander. Okay, out of nowhere a story comes out that, that Dan Goldman's wife liked posts, you know, that are sort of right wing is defenses of Israel posts like by the. By the Twitter guy and Wokeness and some other people. Okay, so this is a hit. Somebody got somebody on the Lander campaign developed this material about how Corrine Goldman had liked these posts, gave it to Jeffrey Mays of the New York Times, who he and his editor should both be thrown in a wood chipper also for publishing such filth and treating it as though it is outrageous that a Jewish Zionist should like posts that defending Israel after October 7th. It's not even the worst of it. The worst of it is that Dan Goldman like basically threw his wife under the bus because he said, like most married couples, my wife and I do not always share the same views and any tweets she has liked as a private citizen, do not speak for me, said Dan Goldman. And I hope that she, you know, like poured Maalox into his coffee for doing this. Anyway, my point is that out of
- [75:49]
A
nowhere, man of the year, though, for having such a great wife.
- [75:53]
B
I know, but out of nowhere, out of nowhere, this piece comes out as a hit on Dan Goldman to try to help Brad Lander. That's why somebody decided to go look at Rama Eva Braun Mamdani's Twitter feed to see what she liked. If this thing hadn't. The first blood was drawn by going after Corinne Levy Goldman, who is, you know, and not, you know, this attack on Mamdani's wife and that he had to come out and say, she's a private citizen. How dare you treat her this way. That was the second shot. The first shot was at Corrine Goldman. And I just want to point out that the Goldmans were in Israel on October 7th with their two very small children and were like, couldn't get out of Israel and were there for like two weeks dealing with the aftermath of October 7th, which they lived through. So did she like some, you know, hostile posts? Yeah. Is this something that's worth a news story only, as you say, to celebrate her in the pages of the Washington Free Beacon. But this whole thing with Mamdani and his wife and whether or not she is a private citizen or not, was activated by a left wing hit on a left wing congressman for being insufficiently anti Zionist. Just so we have clear the universe in which we are the universe in which we're the universe or the air that we're breathing now in which.
- [77:33]
D
Can I add one more thing about the way the New York Times characterized it. The New York Times did a, did a story on Rama Duaji on the, on Doron's wife and the tweet after, you know, the Jewish insider and the free press did reporting on it. The New York Times did a sort of response story and they, they, they quoted one, one person outside of those involved, one single person. The one single person they quoted in the story was the head of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, Sophia Elman Golan, who was, you know, you know, political insiders know that she's, you know, been one of the great as a Jews of, you know, of our era of flitting back and forth between different coalitions to, you know, denounce her people and, and all that stuff and play that, you know, Jews in the service of the czar role. But she, so she is, she is the only person quoted and what she said, and here's, here's how the story ends. Ms. Elman Golan said it was unfair to equate Ms. Duaji's social media likes with those of Ms. Goldman's, in part because Mr. Goldman's wife serves as his campaign treasurer, while Ms. Duaji has had no official role in Mr. Mamdani's campaign for mayor. So the Times story frames the Duaji social media activity as a non story in the sort of, sort of meta defense of their own refusal to do that sort of digging. In the first place, the reporting didn't come to them. And as a justification, implicit justification of their own going after Goldman's wife.
- [79:24]
B
Well, look, I'm sure it was a lovely dinner that the Mamdanis had with the Khalils because they all agree on everything. They agree Israel shouldn't exist. They agree that Hamas was justified in raping, murdering and slaughtering and injuring 5,000 Israelis on October 7th. They're bloodthirsty, they're monstrous. These are also very likely political marriages of convenience in ways that we do not entirely understand. So I hope they had a really wonderful time and that when they go to hell when they die, they have many dinners together where they can enjoy themselves just as they did at the dining room table in Gracie Mansion. And we'll be back tomorrow. For Abe, Eliana, Seth and Christine, I'm John Pod Horowitz. Keep the candle burning.