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Foreign.
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Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On today's roundtable, we'll discuss the latest on Iran, the ceasefire, the negotiations, the blockade, the politics and more. We'll also discuss the overwhelming defeat of Viktor Orban, the president of Hungary, on the heels of a campaign swing on his behalf by U.S. vice President J.D. vance. And finally, not worth your time, Trump versus the Pope. I'm joined today by my Dispatch colleague Mike Warren, Dispatch contributor Mike Nelson, a retired Army Special Forces officer and a member of the Atlantic Council's Counterterrorism Project. And finally, Dispatch contributor Michael Sobolic, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Let's dive in. Mike Warren, I'll ask you a question to start us off. Can you bring us up to speed on the negotiations over the weekend between the United States and Iran, led by Vice President J.D. vance in Pakistan and this subsequent announcement and beginning of what President Trump is calling a blockade? What happened in the negotiations and how are we at this point of a U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz?
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Well, the status of the negotiations is that they did not go well. They failed. I think it was the pretty clear answer. I mean, there's really not much more that we know, except that what the Iranians were demanding was not what the American side was willing to accept. They could not come away with any kind of framework. And so J.D. vance, the vice president, left Pakistan really with nothing. And you could see that in his press conference, his brief sort of press appearance after how frustrated he was that there didn't seem to be any movement on any kind of agreement, and he left without anything. And I guess you could sort of draw some comparisons maybe to Reykjavik in 1986 with Reagan and the Soviet Union. But don't think there's any reason to think that Iran is going to be, you know, eager to come back to the negotiating table. So I guess there's going to be sort of another attempt at some point. But in the meantime, as you alluded to, there's now this blockade that, you know, the United States President Trump essentially issued this warning, this threat that on Monday sort of passed. And so now the United States military is blocking anything from coming in the Strait of Hormuz, as the Iranian navy has really not moved at all on its very limited amount of traffic that it's been allowing through the Strait of Hormuz. And so you have these sort of double blockades happening. The United States has asked for more negotiations. Iran has not responded. That was the sort of deadline that was hit. And so here we are Double blockades. I don't know, I'm not much of an expert actually in sort of the history of that sort of maneuver. But it does seem to me that after all of the fanfare that we heard last week about, you know, the sort of the war was going to end and that Donald Trump was sort of extending the olive branch of peace toward the Iranians if they would just grab it, it doesn't seem like there really has been much positive movement over the last, what, 48, 72 hours and here we are. And in the meantime, I should also add here that it's, I think, rattling a lot of people, particularly looking at the oil markets. This does not bode well to have this kind of seize up more seize up in this very important pathway. And I think there are a lot of people that I trust who went from feeling very uneasy to extremely uneas what this might mean for the global economy if this continues for a long time. But we'll see.
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Mike Nelson, you wrote a piece last week for us about the ceasefire, and I'm interested in your thoughts on whether you're surprised that these negotiations didn't lead to some kind of a deal. Is this roughly what you expected and what is your understanding of the status of the ceasefire?
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Well, if you look at the negotiations themselves, how they were structured, how it was going to take place, it was almost destined to fail. And it was very different for our perceptions of what was going to come out of that. And what did come out of it, I think are very different than looking at the proposal, first conversation and the status of the ceasefire about 48 hours in. So number one, we were negotiating with principals, we sent our vice president over there to make the sausage, so to speak, which is normally done at much lower levels, and then hash out before the principals get involved. Number two, this was all had a stopwatch on it with basically less than a day of time on ground to try to negotiate this settlement that was going to solve everything from the status of the Strait of Hormuz to the nuclear program to financial concerns of the Iranians, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And number three, we were starting from very disparate locations as far as what was the non negotiables, the Zoba, the zone of potential agreement was basically nil going into this with what was established. Now, I don't mean to sound like I'm being very optimistic about this because I think there are a lot of unknowns that are still to play out, but I do think this is a much Better situation for those of us who are concerned about the Iranian regime than where we were after the announcement of the initial ceasefire and the President's initial indications of what he was thinking. Number one, in his first announcement of the ceasefire, he laid out that the 10 point proposal, the Iranian one, was, I can't remember how he phrased it, but a good baseline to start negotiations which gave some legitimacy to each of those claims. And none of them were actually in our interests or represented an advancement in our position within the region. And all of them represented an advancement in the Iranian position. Number two, you saw in some of his comments to the press where he would call up random reporters and he talked, I think it was Jonathan Karl, he said, yeah, we'll have some tolling system where they, they get half the revenue and we take half the revenue off the top. Which seemed to validate the idea that they would have this permanent control of the strait, that we were going to legitimize that. So, you know, the President does shoot from the hip in his reaction to things that he hasn't necessarily thought through. I think a lot of those comments were probably in the moment shooting from the hip. I am heartened that at least the administration as a whole seems to have taken a step back and said, okay, there are things that are non negotiables and we, we are more concerned with getting a good deal than getting any deal. We saw the Vice President, who I've been fairly critical of in the past, but he did say they won't let go of enrichment and no, enrichment is what we're looking for and we're going to walk away from this. I don't think it's entirely as on par with Reagan's leadership in Reykjavik, but at least it sets us up for not rushing to a bad deal. Now where we are, we haven't actually added. It's not a double blockade per se. What we're doing is we're bringing into equity the one sided blockade that the Iranians had put in place, that we are leveling out the pain. If we and our allies are going to feel the pain of the Iranian blockade, then we're going to make sure everybody does. And I believe this is an attempt to try to create pressure for the remaining week of the ceasefire to compel the Iranians to come back to the table if it is not, if it's meant to be some kind of long term pain. And that goes into some of the things that Mike Warren was talking about, that the markets and the international community need to brace for impact for the long term economic effects. Until we figure out that question that we've asked many times on this podcast, what next? What is the next step if the Iranians don't agree?
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Yeah, I mean, Mike, on the one hand, I share your. I mean, optimism would probably be too bold a statement for me. But relative to where we were a week ago, I think you make a compelling case that we have averted the most potentially disastrous possible negotiated outcomes. On this so far, I would add there's always time, but I guess I'm not quite persuaded that we're in a good position yet. I've read some assessments from our friends at the foundation for Defense of Democracies and elsewhere about the possible utility of a blockade and what it could do and if effectively trying to change our leverage and ratchet up our pressure on Iran's economy. I think there are varying estimates on how long that might take to cause real trouble for the regime, the kind of trouble that could get people once again to venture out into the streets and protest. As you look at the blockade, again, opinions from folks who know a lot more about this than I do. Do you have a sense of easy is this to implement a blockade like this, and what's the kind of time frame that we're looking at until we might see the Iranians react? Is this something that the president would expect the Iranians to react almost immediately just at the prospect of this kind of economic loss, or is this the kind of thing the White House is more intent on causing over the long term gradually, and that we'll see the effects of when the effects are obvious?
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C
I think it's important to visualize what the blockade actually looks like. And this is not necessarily a hard blockade where you're going to have blockade runners like Clark Gable and Gone with the Wind, you know, trying to avert our ships and get out in the dark of night? This is going to mirror a little bit, or it might mirror what the Iranians have done. And I don't mean necessarily in mechanics, but in the outcome. And that is commercial shipping is not going to assume a risk, or insurers of that commercial shipping are not going to assume the risk to continue to ship things through the strait if there's the potential that they will lose money on moving through the strait. The Iranians have actually targeted a couple commercial ships, but largely it's been the threat of targeting that has kept traffic from transiting through the strait, that the commercial interests just say it is not worth it. And that's what's held the shipping at risk. We are kind of mirroring that now. Just before we came onto record, the president had a post where he said, we're going to implement the same system of kill as we did in Operation
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Southern Spear, which was the action that we took in the Caribbean against the drug boats.
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C
Right. I do think it's a little misleading, number one, in terms of actual targeting and mechanics. There we were talking about Hellfire missiles against very small ships that we saw. Even those small ships. Sometimes an initial strike wasn't enough to destroy them or disable them. I also think, even beyond the mechanics of how we would target ships, I do think it's careful and someone's probably going to come up and clean this up, that the United States is not talking about hitting commercial cargo craft. I think his threat was against Iranian craft that might be smaller or other ones, but that's not too dissimilar from what we were already doing. So I really think what we're saying is we're just going to put ships out there, might do what's called vbss visit board search and seizure, where, you know, Navy or Coast Guard crewmen actually board ships and say you're not allowed to transit through. But either way, I think that the real threat is the economic cost to the insurers and the cargo ship owners themselves. And just having that threat is what's going to impose the blockade itself. I don't think we're talking about actually shooting US Navy shooting cargo ships.
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Mike, last question to you on this. How risky is this for US Personnel in the region? It sounds like it could be somewhat risky.
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I mean, I don't want to diminish the risk to our forces in theater. You know, I think it's important that we talk about when we talk we're going to war. We are at war. I saw a tweet from somebody when he announced the blockade. They said, president announced the blockade, which is an act of war. And I'm like, we've crossed that threshold. We are at war, and we remain so. So let's, you know, stop clutching our pearls about that. And when we go to war, our forces are at risk. And We've seen that 13American servicemen and women have been killed in the or died in the course of this conflict. If it continues, if it goes back to kinetic activity, where we return to conflict, I think that number is potentially going to increase. So I'm not trying to diminish the risk. And we saw, for example, even in the best of circumstances, maybe a year or two, we had two seals who drought doing a vehicle board search and seizure off the coast of Somalia. So there is inherent risk in everything we do. I will say these are the kinds of things that fifth Fleet, which is the Navy's component in centcom, is very well prepared for, very well trained for. I think that our U.S. navy counterparts have been underutilized in a lot of the surface or the ground based conflicts we fought in and they've been training in the meantime for their core missions, which are these kinds of things. So I do think that CENTCOM is very well prepared to implement this. I think the bigger, I hate to equate the two, but the bigger risk, and it goes back to the President preparing the American people is if he imposes this for the long term, that then again shoots up the prices to consumers and he needs to prepare the American people for economic pain. That should be worth it to bring about a resolution to this conflict.
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Mike, I wanted to ask, sorry to keep putting you on the hot seat here on this, but just the mechanics of these potential search and seizures you outlined could be a way of enforcing this blockade. What does it actually look like? Is it like, you know, sailors or marines, like boarding these ships? What are they going to be empowered to do? Like, what are the actual mechanics of like a search and seizure and who's doing it and what do you do? If you have something that, you know, you have a vessel that you need to seize, what do you do with it?
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C
So there are a lot of things that are within the options of the possible, I guess, as it goes to that. And I want to be clear, I am tangentially aware of the mechanics of these things. I was in a land based service, right? I was not on a scuba team when I was in. I like oxygen, I like being above water. And so I, you know, hats off to my SEAL brothers who, who were able to do it underwater. But we've done a couple of these, like I said, we've done a lot of these as part of the global war on terror that we're targeting, as a matter of fact, Iranian ships a lot of times that were smuggling weapons to the Houthis. We've done it as part of Operation Southern Spear recently against the Venezuelan tanker the Ghost Fleet, prior to the operation that actually seized Maduro. So we've done a lot of these recently. And they can be seals, they can be conventional Navy masters at arms, which are like their military police. It can be Coast Guard crewmen, it can be Marines. They can be done by small craft that come along board and use ladders for climbing, or they can be actual fast roping or air assaults onto the deck of the ship. It depends what the requirement is, what the forces on hand are. And we know that we've got, for example, two muse Marine Expeditionary Units that are in theater that are more than capable of doing some of these things as well. So the range of options of who could be doing this are myriad. What happens next? I think a lot of that has to do with, you know, the status right now. I'm sure our State Department lawyers are pulling their hair out, figuring out the legal prohibitions and requirements for doing this. And if this would be basically if a ship attempted to ignore our blockade, ignore our blockade. And we just basically said, okay, you are not complying with our directions and therefore we are going to board you and bring you into port in Bahrain or wherever it is until such a time as we lift the blockade. So again, the US Navy and the Marine Corps are very capable at doing these kinds of things. They practice them for a long time. And again, there is inherent risk in all of these things, even in the best conditions. But I feel fully confident that fifth Fleet's ready to do this if called upon.
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But to your point, I mean, it's the threat of what you've just described that is going to be too risky for insurers and commercial ships to say we're just not going to take that risk.
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C
Just to make sure that I'm not overstating the equity between the two sides of the blockade, again, the threat that insurers are looking at from the Iranians is we will put mines there, we will potentially shoot missiles there, you will potentially lose a ship to damage or being sunk. Whereas we are saying you may have a ship that we impose a cost or a fine towards. So we're not imposing the same threat in that we're not threatening to kill, you know, Filipino crewmen who are on a Pakistani flagship. But we are trying to impose some cost to make sure that if this blockage of the Strait is going to maintain, that everyone is going to feel that economic pain.
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Michael Sobolic, very happy to have you as a Dispatch contributor. Very happy to have you on this podcast. I wanted to bring you on, in particular to talk to you about something that I wanted to introduce into this running discussion for a while, and we haven't yet really taken the time to go deep on it, and that is China's view of what's unfolding in the Gulf. Maybe best place to start is Sort of big picture in the early days of this conflict. And please feel free to correct me or push back if you don't agree with my premise. I was struck by how little China rallied to Iran's defense and the difference, which I saw as a major difference between in both rhetoric and action, between the way that the Russians responded with sort of full throated support, in the cooler way that I thought rhetorically, the Chinese responded. There was, of course, early on all sorts of reports about additional Russian intelligence, help, more Russian arms, what have you. Am I seeing that right? And if not, correct me. And then what, in your view, is the biggest basic position of the Chinese government? Do they see this as an opportunity? Is this a good thing for them? Does this complicate matters?
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D
I think one of the things we're seeing right now is that when you decide to play all sides in a region as complicated as the Middle east, you get pulled in every single direction when everything hits the fan and you're faced in some ways with a no win situation. So maybe we can unpack some of that. A lot of attention has been paid to how important the relationship between Beijing and Tehran is strategically and economically. And all of it is true to a point, because around 2021 or so, Iran was really having a hard time economically with the crunch of sanctions and internal unrest and a number of other things. And that was around the time when Beijing came in and said, we'll pony up over the course of maybe two decades or so, $400 billion for you guys and we want steeply discounted oil and exchange. And a lot was made of this, of China's Belt and Road initiative, their geoeconomic, geostrategic strategy, making further inroads into the Persian Gulf through Tehran. And I think it's been easy in some ways to overstate how Iran fits into China's strategy in the Middle East. Again, not to downplay its importance, but if you look at the broader region, certainly before October 7, 2023, when Hamas barbarically attacked Israel, before then, China really did try to equally play all sides involved because they needed discounted oil from the Iranians. They needed another redundant set of oil from the Gulf states. Because let's remember, China is a net importer of energy. This is one of the big asymmetries strategically between America and China right now. They're dependent heavily on seaborne imports of oil, a lot of which comes from the Middle East. And then you have the Israel element as well. Before October 7, where in the tech domain in particular, China was really trying to court them. And there was the Port of Haifa negotiations where China tried to get some sort of ownership into very strategic port that the Americans were not happy about. But over the past few years, China has made some choices. And one of those choices was after October 7th to really pick a side in this conflict as far as it related to Iran and its proxies in Israel. And they chose Iran and its proxies. And now that we are forcing the issue on our end with the war that we are waging against Iran with Israel, China is now in a difficult position where all of those Arab states that they rely on, not just in the tech domain, but also for that oil, they're having a tough time because the Strait of Hormuz serves not just Iranian exports, but as I'm sure folks are very familiar with a lot of exports from these Gulf states, too, that Iran also needs. And I think this is one of the big reasons why China pushed Iran to go to the table in Pakistan with the Vice President. This was made a number of news cycles in the past few days that on Iran side, they were getting the shoulder tap from Beijing and saying, hey, guys, you should really consider doing this. And China wants its oil, which is a huge thing. I think China also wants to be perceived as a peacemaker. They've tried to do this in Ukraine. They've approached Zelensky and said, we're very interested in your security future. Please consider us as an honest broker. And Zelensky has essentially said, thanks, but no thanks for your interest in Ukraine's future. And whenever you talk to Beijing diplomats, and I certainly did this when I worked in Capitol Hill a number of years ago, they always try to present themselves as an honest broker and as someone that can be a peacemaker. So it's low input, high gain, if it turns out in their favor. But the situation will grow, not excessively urgent, but it will grow more urgent for China because those refineries that rely on Iranian oil in particular are getting strained. And they're getting strained because of a lack of input of oil. And they're getting strained from Beijing because Xi Jinping is saying, don't you dare slow down. We have reserves, which is great, but you guys need to keep your throughput, which is hard because prices are getting higher. So China is in a tough position. I think all that, Steve, plays into maybe some of the surprising ways that we've seen China react or maybe not react in ways that we thought they would.
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B
Well, and I think it goes directly to, I think the Trump Administration's theory of the effectiveness of a blockade. Right. I mean, if they can further sort of choke that supply, it's not just that the Iranians aren't going to be getting the funds that they would be getting from the supply. They're going to be getting additional pressure from China, among many others. What would be, and I'm asking you to predict the future a little bit here. Let's assume that this blockade takes hold and is more effective than not. How patient do you expect the Chinese to be in that scenario? As you said, they, I think, initially sort of nudged the Iranians to the table and then sort of with two hands in the small of the Iranian back, pushed them forcefully to the table, what would they do next?
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D
A lot of this is going to depend on the resiliency of the Iranians, the political resiliency, and the economic resiliency. China has enough wiggle room that they're not in an urgent position where, if this were to go on for a few weeks or another month or two, I suspect Beijing would be to stomach that and be just fine. If this goes further and if the conflict is intractable, then China faces an interesting choice, which is actually a very good one for the United States. Where are you going to get this new oil from? Because the Americans and the administration are already saying to China, guess where you can buy great oil from the United States of America. And this is one of those things where we talk a lot about decoupling with China as reducing our economic exposure to the Chinese Communist Party's malign influence. But when it comes to selling oil to them, that is a dependency that goes in the other direction. And for strategic reasons, I would be quite happy for China to buy oil from America because that puts us in the driver's seat of a core dependency of their energy portfolio. When we talk about decoupling, that's mainly talking about our dependencies on them. So the longer this goes on, I suspect that China would very much prefer to not buy oil from the United States. Shocking. So they are going to want that Gulf State supply to open up again fairly quickly. In the meantime, they can go to the Russians and get even more heavily discounted purchases from oil. But Putin is going to ask for something in exchange for that. And I've. I'm hearing talk of the defense cooperation between the Russians and the Chinese getting bigger and bigger behind the scenes, maybe not necessarily in the public eye, but as this plays out, I would give it my best guess a month or two. And then you can see maybe Beijing really starting to make some difficult decisions on their end.
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B
Michael, there was a CNN report over the weekend about US Intelligence that China is preparing to deliver new air defense systems to Iran. This is not new, but the timing of it was interesting. I mean, maybe it was a leak. Can you imagine a scenario where China would sort of aggressively step up its support in kind of a public and showy way on the military front with Iran to push back on what the United States is doing with the blockade and with the ongoing war, especially as we look at the potential end of the of a ceasefire.
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D
So there are two different ways to look at this. The first is the actual assistance itself within the political context here for the actual assistance or reported assistance. What's not new, as you alluded to, Steve, is the fact that there's some sort of help coming from China to Iran in the military domain. Up until now, most of that has been at a component level and not a platform level. At least that has been reported publicly.
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B
Can you explain that distinction for us?
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D
Yes, of course. So China wants to have plausible deniability that they want to help their partners and the states that they're closest to, while also having the ability to say, no, of course, we're not selling them weapons. So what they do is they take sub components within those weapons that could also be used in other peaceful platforms, dual use components, and they will send those kind of dual use components to nations like Iran. We've seen this in the context of ballistic missile rocket fuel, solid fuel. There's been reports of a lot of those precursors that go into the fuel shipping from China to Iran. There's been reports of drone components going from China to Iran. We all know how important the drones have been for the Iranians and for the Russians in both of those conflicts. So it's not new that China was offering some sort of capability assistance here, but the fact that these MANPADs, which are basically surface to air missiles that, you know, hoist onto your shoulder, you aim and you shoot, and Mike can speak much more to those than I can, but that is actually a platform that is not a component of a larger thing, that is a finished weapon. And if that reporting is true, that's quite interesting because as you guys have talked about on this podcast in prior weeks, the fact that we have a tens and really big slow planes like helicopters flying over the air in Tehran means that we have done quite a good job of establishing air superiority. But if you have low flying helicopters, like in the rescue mission recently for that downed pilot in the F15, then those shoulder launch surface to air missiles are interesting for the Iranians because they're highly mobile. You can, you know, if you can find them, sure, you can probably take them out fairly easily because if you're human, you can only move so quickly. But if you get a shot, you have an opportunity at changing something. So the platform is something that the Iranians need. But the timing of this is interesting about the politics here. Donald Trump is fixing to go to China soon to meet with Xi Jinping. This meeting was already delayed once because the war was still going on. And Trump said, I really don't want to go to China while I still have a little war in the Middle east happening. So this is going to be coming up in the next few weeks, if it stays as scheduled, something like this. If the Chinese were actually going to sell a weapons platform to the Iranians, that could derail more than just a summit, that could derail the trade truce that we have had with China since November of last year. And that's not me saying it, that's Jameson Greer, the trade representative, the President's trade representative saying that, which I think he said in the past 24 at the time of our recording, at least past day or two. So how this plays out is going to matter a lot. And China's already come out as soon as the president confirmed that if the Chinese are doing this, they'll get 50% tariff immediately. Xi Jinping came out, or you know, the Chinese government came out and denied this, which they had not done until Trump said that. But this will be up, I suppose, to our intel agencies to confirm whether this reporting is true, whether it has happened or whether it was about to happen. And then the Chinese will have a decision to make how they want to play this against the meeting with Trump.
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A
Hey, Michael, I want to ask, before we moved on from Iran, just we've been talking a lot about the blockade and sort of the short and medium term implications of what's happening right now. I'm curious, we have this, sometimes have this idea, maybe I'm implicating myself mostly here of China in particular, sort of being this omnipotent force and understanding us and the United States very well. I'm curious what your sense is, if you have any at all of what Beijing has learned about the United States from this war, whether it's details and specifics or sort of big picture, have they learned anything about us or about Donald Trump that you get the sense that maybe they didn't or had a misconception of before this war started.
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D
They are watching this as they always watch the strategic decisions of the United States under a microscope, because they're trying to figure out the capability and the resolve of American leadership, those two variables more than anything else. And they've seen in Venezuela with the operation against Maduro, and they are seeing now against Iran that the US Military is quite capable and they have fought a lot over the past few decades, whereas the People's Liberation Army, China's military, depending on how you're counting, hasn't really fought a war since 1979 against Vietnam. So that asymmetry is substantial. And they are checking to see not only how well are we fighting in a military domain, what is our resolve like politically with leadership? Because they are looking at this, yes, today from the viewpoint of the Strait of Hormuz, but what they really care about is the Taiwan Strait. And as I'm speaking to this, I'm recording from Taiwan for a week of meetings up here. And the Taiwanese, I can say, at least with the exposure I've had so far, are very happy that, that President Trump is doubling down on a commitment to finishing this. And at least right now, from what we can tell, is not walking away. All of that could change, which I hasten to add. But at least right now, the message that I think Trump is sending is when the United States starts something, we're going to finish it, which is a very good deterrent message to send to Xi Jinping. But then the final thing I'll say to this really good question, Mike, is you have this wrinkle of we think like we can speculate, that's the message that we are sending. What message is Xi Jinping actually receiving through the filters that he has in his own system that he has set up? And I only bring this up because another variable here is a number of these platforms and that CENTCOM is using came from Indo Paycom, Indo Pacific Command. And which makes sense because if you need to fight a war, that's the priority. And if you need to deplete some interceptors from South Korea and, and redirect some ships and some carriers, you got to do what you got to do to win. But the Chinese are clocking this, and I know they are because I was in the Pentagon recently talking with some folks over there, and they relate to me. The Chinese are asking them point blank, how are your stockpiles in the Indo Pacific looking? They see everything that's happening here.
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B
Never hurts to ask, right?
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D
It's a little on the nose, right?
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B
They're great growing. Don't even think about it.
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D
That's right. That's right. So I will add that wrinkle because it's a good deterrent message for our will to send to them that we are, you know, at least right now, we're going to see this through. But we're also depleting capability that we have in the theater that matters most for China and Taiwan, which is the Indo Pacific.
- [33:24]
B
All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the Dispatch podcast. I know our team spends more afternoons than I'd like buried in forms, double checking tax details or tracking down onboarding documents. It's the kind of stuff that eats up your entire day before you even notice. And that's why I really appreciate what Gusto brings to the table. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one remote, friendly and incredibly easy to use, so you can pay, hire, onboard and support your team from anywhere. One of the big things I love is how Gusto takes the repetitive, boring admin tasks off your plate. It's also genuinely quick to switch to Gusto. You just transfer your existing data and get up and running fast. You don't pay a cent until you run your first payroll. Try gusto today@gusto.com dispatch and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll@gusto.com dispatch one more time. Gusto.com dispatch over the past couple of months, several people I've known or known of passed away unexpectedly. I'm in my 50s, so such news is always surprising and a reminder of just how unpredictable life can be. In these moments. There's nothing more important than the financial security life insurance helps provide family members left behind at one of life's most difficult times. It's a reminder of how important it is to have prepared for the unexpected and to have something in place sooner rather than later. Coverage that can help protect your loved ones and give you real peace of mind, knowing that they'll avoid the financial stress that can visit those who don't have coverage. That's why Ethos stands out. Ethos makes getting life insurance easy, fast and fully online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, even get same day coverage with no medical exam. Just a few health questions. Offering up to $3 million in coverage with plans starting around $30 a month and access to a network of trusted insurers with Competitive rates take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through Ethos. Get your free', @ethos.com dispatch that's Ethan dispatch. Application times may vary, rates may vary. We're back. You're listening to the Dispatch podcast. Let's jump in. Mike Nelson, Let me ask you a question about that, because as Michael points out right now it looks like the United States is willing, preparing to carry this through. And yet, if you listen to President Trump over the weekend, he is sending a signal that basically, this is done. We've won the war. I mean, he's now said that, I think literally dozens of times since the initial airstrikes that we've won the war. But I want to play a clip for you of what the President said and get your reaction on the other side. We win. Regardless what happens, we win. We totally defeated that country. And so let's see what happens.
- [36:41]
D
Maybe they make a deal, maybe they don't.
- [36:45]
B
From the standpoint of America, we win. From the standpoint of America, we win. I guess I'm interested in your sense of how much does it even matter what the President says anymore? I mean, on the one hand, to Michael's point, if you hear President Trump continue to say things like, we want, this is basically over. I mean, he said several times, this is over. That could be an indication, and it certainly has been buttressed by reporting from anonymous sources over the past three or four days, that the president is just tired of the war. He wants out. He's done. He expected this to be quick and easy, and he wants out. You hear rhetoric like that from President Trump, and I would imagine if you're the Chinese, you might say, like, he seems a little antsy to be done. Does it matter? I mean, he has been saying this, as I point out, since the beginning. So if you're hearing this, are you inclined to just sort of write it off as this is another Trump rhetorical flourish, or are they paying careful attention to this?
- [37:49]
C
I think you have to look at this through a variable lens that, you know, like, we started off the conversation from the time that I wrote the piece last week till now, our perceptions of Trump's willingness to agree to a bad deal or hold out for a good one have shifted significantly. And he's kind of all over the place on this, just as he was in why We Started the War, which helps define why we end the war under the conditions under which we end the war. So I think currently two things are true. He has at least defied the temptation to declare victory under any circumstances and leave but he is definitely interested in that. He seems to have codified certain non negotiables and those are largely around the atomic weapons program or the nuclear weapons program. But he is losing interest, and we've talked about it before, that all the other or many of the other military campaigns he's chosen to engage in rather than the one, for example, in Afghanistan that he inherited, they've been short duration, they've been very limited. I would argue that Venezuela was not a complete job yet in that we haven't transitioned the government. But in his mind he has been able to accomplish everything he wants within a period of darkness or within a couple of weeks. So he's probably growing a little antsy. And yes, that I'm sure that many people are watching around the world trying to figure out, engage his level of will, resilience, commitment, et cetera, to anything. Because if we did fight the Chinese or got involved in supporting Taiwan, that would not be a quick operation, that would be a long duration one. I think it's important also to point out that when we talk about the role that China can have playing in the background, exerting economic influence to try to bring this to a conclusion, another thing to remember is the quote, unquote, honest broker who at least brought together the first round of talks is a Chinese proxy. The Pakistanis will absolutely be, you know, they are a client state of China to a certain extent and while they are nominally one of our friends, I'd argue they're not.
- [39:44]
B
Let's really emphasize nominal there.
- [39:46]
C
Right.
- [39:47]
B
That's doing a lot of work.
- [39:48]
A
Right.
- [39:49]
C
We had to deal with the Pakistanis before because of Afghanistan. We have been relieved of that requirement and therefore we should not be looking at them as a friend anymore. But I think there's going to be a lot of interest in seeing what the other forces out there can manipulate the United States into agreeing to and how that shows a level of commitment and therefore we should not give into those. The President backed himself into a corner a little bit with the conflict and with then his ultimate deadline that resulted in this ceasefire. And hopefully he is backing away from that corner. But I do think it's an open question how this ends and that's going to determine the long term determination of what kind of level of will this President and the United States in general have.
- [40:32]
B
Mike Warren, final question on Iran to you. It was notable that the President CHOSE Vice President J.D. vance to go conduct these negotiations which lasted some 21 hours. The President joked that he sent Vance because if the negotiations failed he could blame Vance and if they worked, he could take credit for having sent Vance. And one gets the sense that's sort of a joke, but not really a joke, which Donald Trump does pretty often. What's your sense of the role that J.D. vance has played here, who's widely reported, I think, leaked from Vance's camp that he was skeptical of this engagement from the very beginning. He is positioned himself as sort of the anti war voice of MAGA more than President Trump and has been relatively consistent on that, I would say. What does it say that he sent Vance and how much does it matter to Vance and his future political prospects that the negotiations didn't. He didn't succeed in coming home with a deal?
- [41:38]
A
Yeah, it's hard to figure out which mob movie reference to use at this point. Is it like, go get your shine box is there, like, you know, I'd be happy if you put up the fee for the gaming license personally. There's a sense that Trump was sending Vance there as a way of exerting, in part exerting his own power. Right. Like, you got to go there and there's no freelancing at this point. You know, there's no way that Vance is going to sort of be able to conduct his own foreign policy. He's there to conduct the president's and not his own. So I certainly took it, at least in part as an implicit rebuke of some of that leaking, which I agree with you, Steve. I think it's. It's pretty clear that it's been his camp that's been letting everybody in the American news media know that Vance was opposed to this war from the beginning. And in public, the vice President has been supportive of the president and the administration's position. But frankly, I think what he or his team or his allies are leaking is maybe a little more instructive about sort of where his loyalties lie. And I think this in some ways was a way for the president to remind him that Vance is there because of Trump. And I think that's just an important thing to keep in mind. I mean, I don't know if we're going to get to this and talk about this, but the sort of, the one, two punch of having Vance on this foreign trip sort of fail at the negotiations with Iran. And also to see Viktor Orban, the leader of Hungary, for whom Vance was campaigning for just before he went to Iran, to see Orban's party fall after 16 years in power in Hungary as well, I think was quite a humbling moment. For someone who seems to be the leading candidate for the Republican nomination in 28 at this point, that foreign policy and that sort of thing is not so easy to do on your own.
- [43:27]
D
Yeah.
- [43:27]
B
I mean, I was going to ask you about Hungary next. There's no question that Vance took up the banner of Viktor Orban with much more enthusiasm, I think, than he did going to be a. The main negotiator for the United States with Iran and these negotiations in Pakistan. But talk a little bit about that camp. I mean, it was a campaign. You know, sometimes if people say he went to, you know, Hungary to campaign or to lend a hand to an ally or what have you, they're overstating it. But not in this case.
- [43:56]
A
No.
- [43:57]
D
J.D.
- [43:57]
B
vance was actually literally campaigning for Viktor Orban, who, it must be pointed out, is an autocrat, been in power for 16 years, very close to Vladimir Putin. Vance went over there and literally did campaign events and tied the United States and our success and our relationship to Viktor Orban, imploring the Hungarian people to support him and support the kind of governance, illiberal governance that we've seen coming out of Hungary for the last 16 years. He was not alone in this. He was more visible about it. He's higher ranking. This was more recent. Right before the election, Marco Rubio also made a point to say our success is your success, your success is our success in his endorsement of Viktor Orban, beyond just what this says about J.D. vance. And I think you're right that it's going to be hard for him to fashion. I mean, there's time left, you know, lots of different things can happen.
- [44:51]
A
Sure.
- [44:52]
B
But if you're trying to make a plausible case that you're the natural follow on to Donald Trump and you're doing it in part on the foreign policy successes, I wouldn't point to certainly to Hungary as an example. And, you know, Orban not only lost, but lost decisively, overwhelming overwhelmingly at this point. What do you make of what the defeat of Orban in Hungary means for Hungary and means for sort of Europe more broadly? This was a. The victorious party is a much more pro European country. And you saw Europeans leaders celebrate the fact that Orban had gone down.
- [45:32]
A
Yeah. The leader of that party, Peter Magyar, is a former member of Orban's Fides, I believe I'm pronouncing that right, Fides party. And so this is not simply a sort of opposition party, but it is a splinter, it's sort of a dissident party from Orban as well. So I think it is significant and it's a indication that, you know, look, Orban had a gathered a lot of power in an authoritarian way. But at the end of the day, Hungary is still a democratic country and it shows that there is a cost, maybe not the cost that freedom loving people would hope there would have been or it didn't come on the timeline that folks would like. But after 16 years he's out of power. And he's out of power in large part because even his own people in the sort of the form of Peter Magyard are revolting against that and against sort of Orban's power grabs. The thing with the sort of J.D. vance and you're correct, Marco Rubio, new nationalist, new right sort of obsession with Viktor Orban is just frankly bizarre to me. I don't really have a satisfying explanation for it. I mean, Hungary is, I don't mean to disparage Hungary here, but it's a small landlocked kind of backwater of Europe, but is not any sort of major power within Europe. And so for the United States, I mean, this is the United States of America we're talking about to sort of tie our future and our success to this kind of little illiberal corner. And the government, I should say illiberal government of Europe, I don't quite understand the point of it. And I think that it really does show that Vance in a lot of ways takes his cues on a lot of these things from what is getting a lot of attention in the online right sphere. And this happens in domestic policy as well as I think in foreign policy and in the sort of online, hyper, online right, far right, nationalist right, whatever you want to call it, world Hungary is put up on a pedestal as it's a country under Orban that has embraced its Christian heritage and they have, you know, supposedly reversed their falling birth rate. They didn't actually do that, but they sort of implemented these kind of pro family policies as the nation name for it that a lot of J.D. vance's allies would like to see implemented in the United States. The problem is Hungary has never been a particularly good or even decent example. And I think these results really kind of show the folly that Vance and Rubio and others have in sort of embracing Orban.
- [48:06]
B
So I mean, I have to say, like, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. I've followed these kinds of debates for three decades. The best way I can describe it is bizarre. It's just, to me, it's just totally bizarre that any segment of the American populace, to say anything about the political elites and the political elites in power, would invest so much in supporting Hungary for all the reasons that you suggest, Mike. It just strikes me as very bizarre. Mike Nelson, I want to ask you a final question on this and then I want to ask Michael Solick a question about Taiwan before we get to not worth your time. This was clearly a defeat for Viktor Orban, a Putinista. He was really sort of a last holdout among Europeans with power in his sort of open and vocal support for Vladimir Putin, doing Putin's bidding in the halls of sort of European debates. Does it matter beyond that? I mean, it's certainly a symbolic defeat. Does it matter in a practical way? What do you expect to see from the new government in a way that could help, say, Ukraine in its war against Russia right now? Anything much? Not much.
- [49:11]
C
Well, I think that as Mike Warren pointed out, you know, Peter Magyar came from Orban's party. And so some of the same things, some of the pro nationalist and anti immigrant or immigrant enforcement policies that Orban had championed seem to be those that Magyar is going to continue. So there is that still that focus on enforcing some of the, or preventing some of the migrant flows that originally started after the Syrian civil war. As you said, Orban and his foreign minister, Peter Siarto, acted as these spies within the house of NATO and the eu. We've seen there were leaked calls and leaked conversations between Sharto and Sergey Lavrov that seemed to suggest, I will gladly get you whatever you want, pass it to our embassy in Moscow and hand it over to you in a courier bag so you can see exactly what's going on inside in Brussels and in conversation with NATO. So inherently, it's a good thing that is no longer happening. I think it's also good as the nominal advocate, as we've been since the end of the Second World War for individual liberty and the cause of freedom, that there is a government that repressed some speech within their country is gone and that we're replacing that. But I think it's important. Going back to J.D. vance, it's not just an obsession with Hungary and it wasn't just going to campaign for Orban. He really went over the top so far as spreading lies and conspiracies about things that Zelenskyy had said about Orban. There was a story. There was a story that Zelenskyy, being a comedian and kind of a smart ass from time to time, was asked about what happens if the EU doesn't provide you with support. And he'd say I'd give the phone number of the people who block it to my soldiers and let them have a conversation about it. Right. J.D. vance took that and claimed that that Zelensky had threatened to send a Ukrainian hit squad to assassinate Orban and said that with a straight face during this you know that the Ukrainians are coming to kill your president if you don't vote for it. He was way over the top. He was outright dishonest and it's not the first time he has campaigned for these post liberal parties. He did it for the AfD in Germany. I think we have to face the fact that J.D. vance is actually a post liberalist true believer that he sees virtue in these causes and the fringe right parties that are springing up in Europe and would like to bring some of those ideas home.
- [51:24]
B
Yeah, it seems to me not terribly America first. Before we take an ad break, please consider becoming a member of the Dispatch. You'll unlock access to bonus podcast episodes and all of our exclusive newsletters and articles. You can sign up@thedispatch.com join and if you use the promo code Roundtable, you'll get one month free. And speaking of ads, if they aren't your thing, you can upgrade to a premium membership. No ads, early access to all episodes, two free gift memberships to give away, exclusive town halls with the founders, and more. Okay, we'll be right back. If you've got Spring Fever, Lowes has the cure.
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B
Soil offer excludes Alaska and Hawaii welcome back. Let's return to our discussion. Michael so last question to you and of course we could spend an entire episode we could probably spend an entire podcast year talking about China and Taiwan. But you are there in Taiwan right now. I hope you'll share your thoughts with us after you've spent your week there. But just initially as you sort of adjust to the time zones and get ready to do the hard work that you're going to do over the next few days. What are your impressions of where Taiwan is right now? What's the Taiwanese are people are thinking? And how seriously is the Trump administration taking the possibility of China moving at
- [53:15]
D
some Point on the Taiwan side first, the overwhelming issue of the moment is their defense budget. There's a lot happening over here, but the story in Taiwan right now is the budget. It matters right now as an urgent matter. Because of the upcoming meeting between Trump and Xi. The dynamics at play are as follows. It is already well known that Xi Jinping will ask Donald Trump to slightly shift U.S. policy toward Taiwan. Ever since Bill Clinton's presidency, the United States has had this position that we do not support Taiwanese independence. Steve, we could do a whole podcast on the inane stupidity of our diplomacy for Taiwan over the past how many decades, and this is a subset of that. But the word games in our Taiwan policy are insane. What Xi Jinping is asking us to do is to amend our word games in their favor to say we oppose Taiwanese independence. The reason that he's asking for that primarily is because the ccp, the Chinese Communist Party, has a narrative that Taiwan is all alone in the world, that nobody is going to ride in to save Taipei if the balloon goes up and either the straits are crossed or there's a blockade or some sort of gray zone action meant to compel the political surrender. They want the world to believe, and they want Taiwan to believe that Taiwan is alone, and they want America to believe that it is a lost cause to prevent the inevitable. It's very much Star Trek and the Borg, you will be assimilated kind of approach to what they want to do. So the reason the defense budget matters here is because Xi Jinping wants to be able to tell Donald Trump, look at these guys across the strait. You have been asking all of your allies and all your partners to pony up 5% of spending on GDP. The Taiwanese cannot even pass the defense budget, and they cannot hit that marker or get significantly closer to meeting that marker. So you're going to tell me that you care about them? You're going to tell me that of all these, if we put Taiwan on the table, there's things I can put on the table, too, as the leader of China, for you, Donald Trump, that you care about and you want from us, like you're telling me that you're not even willing to have a conversation about this. That is the posture that Xi wants to have in that meeting, face to face with Trump. So on what Trump will do, it is a fool's errand to predict any sort of future behavior from this president. So I will not even try to do so.
- [55:59]
A
Come on, Michael, give it a stab.
- [56:01]
D
Oh, man. I think we can have scenarios. I will deflect from that gracious invitation by laying out a few brief scenarios here. Scenario number one, which right now I actually don't think will happen, is that Trump gives and says, sure, I oppose Taiwanese independence, which maybe that will happen. But the reason I don't think it will is I've heard enough from folks inside of the administration from a few different camps that I am more believing that it actually will not happen as opposed to that at will. But if that did happen, that would be a pretty dark day for Taiwan. I do think what is probably more likely is that Trump holds fast on where our current diplomatic language is on that. But then if Taiwan is not able to pass this budget, it's going to be very bad for them as a whole. And this is where a super brief conversation into some domestic politics matters a lot. Steve. The Democratic People's Party, the dpp, which is a progressive party, has had the presidency in Taiwan for a number of years now and there's going to be a national election coming up in a few. But what is happening right now is a live debate here in Taiwan over a bigger investment in their defense to get closer to that 5% of GDP figure. And the out of power party, well, the bigger out of power party, the KMT or the Nationalist Party, is much more favorable to cross strait engagement and diplomacy with China than the DPP is. This is an issue where I think the KMT for domestic political reasons, do not want to hand the party, the ruling party, a win on something as big as an increased defense budget. They have a view that the drone manufacturers in Taiwan, which are some of the most important companies in the world right now for having drone warfare from a standpoint where you have few and fewer components from China, Taiwanese is a really something worthy of attention and investment from people like the United States. But the KMT views that as a kickback to DPP legislatures from businesses in their districts. So there's some domestic policy things here that are a little murky and a little tricky. And you layer that on top with the party chair of the KMT just a day or two ago going to visit Xi Jinping in person, which is a burnishment to her own stature because she can say, listen, I can meet with Xi Jinping and then presumably if she really thinks this, I can then turn around and meet with the Americans. I think she's in for a rude awakening if that's where her mind is on this. Nobody in Washington at the end of the day is going to care who the holdup is in Taiwan if the defense budget is not passed, I fully expect Trump will punish all parties across the board equally and will not discriminate. He's going to say, you guys, to not figure this out. If you can't take your own security seriously, how can you expect us to stand up for you guys? And then that's where things could truly go south. So a lot really hinges on whether or not the opposition party, which I will hasten to add, is the majority party in Taiwan's legislature. So this makes everything so much more complicated, too. But, but not to miss the forest for the trees here. Taiwan just needs to figure this out. They need to figure this out. And the final little variable here that I'll point to in 2020, there was a really interesting book by a columnist at the Washington Post, Josh Rogan, and it was all about President Trump's first, first term China policy. And there's this little vignette in there where there's an unnamed GOP senator in the Oval Office with Trump talking about Taiwan. And as Josh recounts in this book, Trump reportedly said Taiwan is like 5ft away from China and like a million miles or whatever away from America. If they ever invade, there is not a expletive thing that we are ever going to do about it. So that's how Trump talks about Taiwan privately, reportedly. But then you also have Trump having publicly deterrent messages to Xi Jinping over the past few years about Trump. Donald, don't move on Taiwan while I'm president. So I feel like I just gave you a very complicated, murky answer because the present is very complicated and very murky because we don't know whether this budget is going to pass or not.
- [60:27]
B
Well, that's what we do here at the Dispatch. We're happy to do complicated. We don't want to oversimplify things. We like to make things accessible and like, allow people to understand them. And I think you did that very well. By the way, Josh Rogan is a terrific reporter. And if he wrote it, I believe it, I believe it happened. He was wouldn't put it in his book unless it happened. And finally, before not worth your time, Mike Nelson, I'm coming to you for Dispatch recommends anything that you've read in the Dispatch over the last several days that you would recommend that our listeners should give a read.
- [60:56]
C
Absolutely. So last week there was a piece from Eric Adelman and Franklin Miller about President Trump's animus towards NATO and what a withdrawal from NATO could mean for the world. It lays out much broader than just the current consternation about the war with Iran, on what we have gotten out of being part of NATO and what the dangers of a US withdrawal would be for the world.
- [61:16]
B
Yes, that was a terrific piece.
- [61:18]
A
Mike Warren, Jesse Singel is a contributing writer at the Dispatch. He had a piece that headline was Trans Issues are no Conspiracy in which he really deals with the sort of provenance of those trans bathroom issues that emerged in states like North Carolina and kind of flips the accepted narrative on its head that these were political wedge issues pushed by social conservatives. And in fact, he documents, I think, pretty well that in fact, the opposite is the case, that there were sort of more radical activists on the, on the pro trans side of things that really made Americans care. And of course, the what those activists didn't count on is that a lot of Americans didn't agree with them. So it's definitely worth a read. And Jesse is just an expert on those issues.
- [62:01]
D
Michael Sobolic, There's a really interesting piece from George Yancey that was just published called Identity Politics is a Problem for Conservative Christians Too. And I think it unpacks some trends that I know a number of you at the Dispatch have been tracking for a while, and I certainly have as a conservative and a Christian, over the rise of an illiberal approach to politics wrapped in the cloak of Christianity. And I think, I think George does a really, really good job of unpacking what that has looked like and then spelling out some of the concerns about it.
- [62:37]
A
That was a great piece.
- [62:38]
B
Excellent. My problem, I mean, I guess this is the problem by nature of my job. I have about 30 that I'd like to recommend, including Mike Warren's piece on Friday, but a couple that I'm just gonna mention quickly in passing. Then we'll move on. Pope Leo's Case against the Iran War is Not Political by Michael Renault and Dan Hugger went out yesterday for Dispatch Faith highly relevant to the ongoing Trump Pope Leo back and forth that has consumed most of the day that we're recording Monday. Then there's also Luther Ray Abel has a piece called Come Sail Away With Me in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Sheboygan is about an hour north of where I grew up. We used to call it Chevagus. It's a great piece about a great place. But what I really want to recommend we'll put these all in the show notes, but I really want to recommend is today's Morning Dispatch, Monday's Morning Dispatch that gives an overview and a sort of a big picture look at the results of the election in Hungary. What it means puts it in great context. Terrific writing, really. I mean, my view is people should get their news from lots of different places and sort of try to bring them together and understand reality that way. But if you had to just read one thing, it would be a pretty good one thing to read. Finally today, not worth your time time. Speaking of the pope and Donald Trump, it was late Sunday night, if I'm remembering this correctly, Donald Trump attacked the pope. And when I say attacked, I mean attacked. Really, really went after the pope.
- [64:06]
A
He didn't physically attack him. Steve, just to be clear.
- [64:09]
B
Fair. Thank you for the clarification. Rhetorically had attacked the pope for many things, among them being weak on crime. Over the years, Donald Trump has attacked all sorts of people who are held in high esteem by the American public, by in some cases the world. And it doesn't seem to have really hurt him over the years. So I have a sort of half serious question and then a less serious question. And I'll start with you, Mike Warren. Does this full frontal attack on Pope Leo, is it likely to hurt him with Catholics who like Pope Leo or with the American public at large, number one. And number two, if you were to think of someone else that the president could attack who might be even more popular than Pope Leo, who should Donald Trump attack next?
- [65:02]
A
All right. Well, the first question, like, I think that in some ways, why should we be surprised? You know, this is not even the first pope that Trump has attacked. This is before he was elected president in 2016. But Trump went after Pope Francis, Pope Leo's predecessor and the chair of St. Peter. So that didn't seem to hurt him. Although I do think, and I've been saying this now for a couple years, and maybe one day I'll be proven right about it. I do think there is a cumulative effect and look, we are seeing it in his approval rating that actually the more that these kinds of things come out, where Trump is saying things that just make people, even with his in, especially within his own coalition, uncomfortable. There are a lot of American Catholics who voted for Donald Trump and who are good churchgoing American Catholics. And we should remind everyone that Pope Leo is the first American pope. So there is even this more this added element of pride from American Catholics in Pope Leo, setting aside all of the sort of spiritual leadership as a Catholic myself that we accept from the popes. So I do think, think on the margins there's likely to be just further deterioration of Trump's overall pretty dismal approval among Americans. And this just throw it on the pile of all kinds of other things, both sort of ridiculous and also substantive, that Trump does and says that Americans just increasingly don't like. As far as someone that he could attack, that would be even more outrageous and get even more Americans upset. It'd have to be Dolly Parton. I mean could you imagine Donald Trump going after Dolly that also weak on crime? Yes, she absolutely is. And we're going to do something about it. Maybe, maybe we'll even invade Dollywood to make a statement.
- [66:49]
B
So here's what's, here's what's unbelievable. I'm tempted to just end not worth your time there because no joke, that was my pick. Was that your was Dolly Parton. There was a new poll out by UMass Lowell that has Dolly Parton as the most popular person in the United States, the most beloved figure in America with net favorables 83 points ahead of Donald Trump. So my vote was going to be for Dolly Parton. Michael Soblick, picking up on Mike's earlier point, there was something else that the president did in the past 24 hours. I'm not sure if in Taiwan you've had a chance to see it, but he put posted this picture of him sort of depicted obviously as a Christ like figure blessing somebody, potentially healing somebody. I think it was an AI generated image and this did draw sort of considerable pushback from many prominent Christians, including prominent Christians who support Donald Trump. Is something like that potentially damaging to the president beyond just this news cycle? And I should note that the president came out and denied that he was a Christlike figure in this picture and said it was obvious that he was just a doctor trying to fix a patient and it was just the fake news that had him as this sort of deity.
- [68:11]
A
A doctor dressed up as Jesus Christ I think is maybe what he was going for.
- [68:15]
B
We will post the picture in in the show notes as well.
- [68:18]
A
By the way, Steve, I don't know if you know this. I think around the time we started recording the president's deleted that image from his social media. So just throwing that out there, Michael.
- [68:28]
D
I did see the image in question and shocking, not surprising I suppose. And as a person of faith, as a Christian, very offensive for any elected official or any political leader to equate themselves to Jesus Christ is I think you could put that in the category of blasphemy. So not at all surprised that that Christians pushed back. I was maybe surprised to see who a few of those people were pleasantly surprised to see a number of very publicly quite vocal supporters of Trump over the years express some outrage over what he did. The fact that he pulled it down is interesting. And that, I suppose, signals that a lot of that outrage got through to him in a way where he realized this just was not worth taking a fight over with folks in his own base that have been, interestingly, some of his most vocal supporters and faithful supporters for a long time.
- [69:27]
B
Yeah. Mike Nelson, thoughts on either of those? And if you have a nominee for the next popular person the president could
- [69:34]
C
attack, I won't try to top Dolly Parton, but I'll just point out that much of last week, the administration went on full court press to try to tamp down a story that came out of the Free press that back In January, the DoD, on behalf of the administration, had coerced or threatened the papal Nuncio and basically sent a message saying, get your Pope in line. Right? And they went on, like I said, a full court press. It is outrageous to think that the administration would ever threaten or try to coerce the Pope. And we're all good with the Pope. And they got statements from our ambassador to the Vatican and the Papa Nuncio released a statement saying it was overplayed, and it was all put back in the box just in time for the President to then release a tweet saying, just to be clear, I absolutely hate the Pope. So it's alive and well again. And what I found interesting was, you know, there was this period of time for, I don't guess, about four hours, where many of the president's defenders in the evangelical movement were saying, this is great. Yeah, there's no problem. Go ahead, attack the Pope. And then the Trump as a doctor image was released. And then they're like, whoa, it's fine when you go against the Catholics, but when you take on the faith as a whole, now we're outraged. I'm shocked that there's gambling going on here. So I don't know. The biggest thing. We've talked about it a couple different times. The biggest distinction is not that the Pope or the papacy has changed, it's that the President has thin skin. Now, I am a Catholic who fought in a war that the Pope at the time said was not just. We did not have a deluge of American Catholic soldiers claiming to be conscientious objectors before the ocean, Iraq war. Yet John Paul II came out against it, as a pope should do, to speak his conscience about the leader of the faith. This Pope said the statements that originally sparked up the outrage back in January, largely about what we were doing related to Venezuela and talk about Latin America in general and what we were going to do. It would have flown under the radar. Most people didn't notice. I, as a Catholic, didn't even notice that the pope had said that in January. It's all this Streisand effect where the president chooses to pick these fights because he can't take the slightest bit of criticism and draws more attention, you know, damages in his coalition in the process.
- [71:43]
A
Can I say, though, Mike, it is maybe a positive sign for broadcast television because what actually seems to have prompted this particular outrage was that three American bishops in the Catholic Church were interviewed simultaneously on 60 Minutes, which aired on Sunday night. And so, you know, for everyone who says broadcast TV is dead or going the way of the dodo, it still has the power to cause an international PR crisis, right?
- [72:11]
B
Well, Dolly Parton was the right answer. Mike Warren, thanks for preempting me and thank all three of you for joining. Michael, so great to have you. Thanks for joining us in the middle of the night. Taiwan, Mike Nelson, always good to have your expertise and authority. And Michael Warren, well, you're just Mike Warren, but we're happy to have you anyway. Finally, if you like what we're doing here, you can rate, review and subscribe to the show on your podcast, player of choice to help new listeners find us. As always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns or corrections, you can email us@roundtableispatch.com we read everything, even the ones from people who don't love Dolly Parton. That's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in in and thank you to the folks behind the scenes who made this episode possible, Marguerite Howell and Peter Bonaventure. Thanks again for listening. Please join us next time.