Why the U.S.-Iran MOU Fell Apart

Summary

The Dispatch Podcast Episode: Why the U.S.-Iran MOU Fell Apart
Date: July 24, 2026
Host: Steve Hayes
Guests: Jonah Goldberg, Mike Nelson, David French

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Steve Hayes leads a roundtable with Jonah Goldberg, Mike Nelson, and David French to dissect the breakdown of the U.S.-Iran MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) and analyze the resurgence of hostilities between the U.S. and Iran. The conversation delves deeply into the Trump administration’s military escalations, political messaging, and the expanding regional consequences—including the potential nuclearization of Saudi Arabia and the shifting dynamics within U.S. support for Ukraine.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The U.S.-Iran Conflict: Military Operations and Escalation

• Kinetic Strikes Resume: After a months-long pause and “victory” declarations, the U.S. renewed airstrikes on Iranian targets for 13 consecutive days, focusing on dual-use infrastructure.
• Shift in Strategy: Recent strikes have included civilian infrastructure, such as bridges, power, and a desalination plant, signaling an expansion of target sets.
• Iranian Response: Iran escalated by attacking U.S. Gulf allies, including successful strikes on Amazon data centers and U.S./CIA infrastructure, allegedly with Russian and Chinese targeting assistance. Attacks extended to U.S. air defense sites in Jordan, a key component defending Israel.
• Proxy Actions: The Houthis, an Iranian proxy in Yemen, have renewed threats to key maritime chokepoints, challenging previous U.S. efforts to secure the region.

Quotes:

• “We’ve returned to traditional kinetic operations... What’s different now is we’ve expanded into some of the targets the president had mentioned before, including civilian infrastructure.”
  — Mike Nelson [01:16]

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2. The “Victory” Narrative vs. On-the-Ground Reality

• Public Confusion: Trump and officials repeatedly declared victory, the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, and triumph over Iran. Yet, renewed hostilities have spread confusion among the public.
• Overpromising and Underdelivering: The panel consistently notes the disconnect between official rhetoric and military realities.
• Cycles of Hostilities: Iran’s willingness to test boundaries and Trump’s aversion to negotiating “weak” deals keep driving cycles of escalation.

Notable Quotes:

• “We only won World War II once and we’ve won this war about 12 times. That seems like 12 times the victory to me.”
  — David French [07:32]
• “He cannot get the headline from Iran. If Iran had just paid lip service to the MoU... it would have been in their interest. But that would have given Trump the headline he wanted, and they wouldn’t give it to him. And that’s what’s got Trump in a box.”
  — Jonah Goldberg [14:17]

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3. Why Did the MOU Fall Apart?

• Misaligned Incentives: The MoU accorded Iran significant concessions, especially over control and “tolling” of the Strait of Hormuz.
• Escalating Demands: Both sides pressed hard for symbolic and rhetorical “victory,” not just strategic gains, compounding intransigence.
• Strategic Overreach: Iran may have pushed too far, reigniting open conflict and suffering for it. Still, Tehran shows willingness to accept costs that the U.S. public or president will not.

Notable Quotes:

• “Nobody has their foot on the brake here. It’s only on the gas.”
  — David French [09:25]
• “They’re not content with a strategic win... They have to humiliate and rub it in the faces of their opponents.”
  — Jonah Goldberg [14:17]

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4. Domestic Pressure and Military Logistics

• Political Fatigue: Just one-third of MAGA supporters still see the conflict with Iran as “worth the money” (down from one-half a few months ago), indicating eroding political support.
• Military Strain: Reports—possibly understated—put the war’s cost at $37.5 billion so far ($263 million/day) amid warnings that U.S. stockpiles of precision munitions are being rapidly depleted.
• Risk Aversion: The administration is trying to avoid ground troops and keep American casualties low, relying on costly standoff weapons.

Notable Quotes:

• “The way we've chosen to fight this war is using some of our more exquisite weapons... Our stocks of already critical munitions [are] in a real deficit.”
  — Mike Nelson [20:30]

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5. Role of Russian and Chinese Assistance

• Targeted Intelligence: Strong indicators suggest Russia and possibly China have assisted Iran in locating and striking sensitive U.S. and allied assets in the region.
• Multipolar Competition: The panel notes these dynamics are increasingly reminiscent of great power competition, e.g., U.S. intelligence for Ukraine vs. Russian assistance for Iran.

Notable Quotes:

• “Any rational administration should have assumed this was going to happen... This should have been part of the equation going in.”
  — David French [26:41]

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6. How Does the War End?

• No Clear Endgame: All panelists agree it’s a “maximum fog of war” situation, with neither side behaving rationally or showing willingness to de-escalate.
• Potential Outcomes:
  • Regime Collapse: Possible but unpredictable, and chaos could worsen regional security.
  • MoU 2.0: Most likely outcome is a new, unstable ceasefire or agreement, with continued tit-for-tat until the U.S. midterms.
  • Blockade & Pressure: The most promising military path would require patience and steady blockade pressure—traits not associated with Trump’s leadership style.

Notable Quotes:

• “There is no dramatic and quick way to get to a good answer.”
  — Mike Nelson [33:53]
• “All of this is the fruit of the poisonous tree of not going to get the American people’s support right from the get-go.”
  — David French [38:00]

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Other Major Segments

The Saudi Civilian Nuclear Program ([41:26])

• U.S.-Saudi Nuclear Deal: The U.S. is reportedly paving the way for Saudi Arabia to build a civilian nuclear program; concerns are raised about possible enrichment and subsequent weaponization.
• Regional Proliferation Risk: Panelists caution that this could spark an arms race, especially with Iran and possibly the UAE seeking nuclear capabilities.
• U.S. Business vs. Security: The deal is being sold as a win for U.S. companies but is destabilizing, especially given Saudi Arabia’s uneven history as an ally and human rights record.

Notable Quotes:

• “Long term strategy built on the idea that Saudi Arabia is going to continue on this sort of Ataturk-ian path towards modernization is a bet. It’s a big bet, and it’s one you can’t take back once they have centrifuges.”
  — Jonah Goldberg [44:10]
• “Have we lost our minds here? ...these are not countries that have demonstrated a super high regard for human life.”
  — David French [49:18]

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Ukraine Segment ([51:44])

• Leadership Shuffle: Ongoing turmoil within Ukraine’s military leadership raises concerns about the country’s battlefield momentum against Russia.
• Potential Setback: The recent firing and re-hiring of top officials has sparked protests and uncertainty about Ukraine’s ability to replicate its recent successes.

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Not Worth Your Time: Laura Loomer’s Flip on Ukraine ([54:52])

• From Conspiracy Theorist to Ukraine Supporter: Loomer, a prominent right-wing influencer, has abruptly begun supporting Ukraine, despite a past filled with bizarre and inflammatory statements.
• Should We Care?
  • Panelists agree her “conversion” means little about her reliability but matters sociologically due to her influence—especially given her proximity to Trump.
  • Reminder: Past credibility and intent matter even if a figure is “right” occasionally.

Notable Quotes:

• “I would rather 2 million people hear good things than bad things... but it’s going to take a lot more time before I say this is worth cheering.”
  — David French [55:53]
• “As a sociological factor, she matters... She was a perfect example of the MAGA doctrine—Trump can never fail, he can only be failed.”
  — Jonah Goldberg [56:53]

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Memorable Moments

• Tongue-in-Cheek Victory Tally: “We’ve won this war about 12 times.” — David French [07:32]
• Spin vs. Strategy: “He cannot get the headline from Iran... That’s what’s got Trump in a box.” — Jonah Goldberg [14:17]
• Chaos as a Constant: “Nobody has their foot on the brake here. It’s only on the gas.” — David French [09:25]
• On Laura Loomer: “She did not stop being the woman who believed in Jewish space lasers just because she criticized the President.” — Mike Nelson [65:01]

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Important Timestamps

• [01:16] Mike Nelson summarizes U.S. strikes and Iranian escalation
• [05:53] Montage of “victory” soundbites—disconnect between rhetoric and reality
• [07:32] David French’s take on repeated “victories”
• [14:17] Jonah Goldberg: Trump and Iran both seek not just wins but humiliation of rivals
• [20:30] Price and logistics of war, depleting U.S. munitions
• [26:41] Russia/China intelligence support for Iran, lessons from Ukraine
• [31:50] Predictions: How could the war end?
• [41:26] U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal: panelists weigh risks
• [51:44] Ukraine: leadership change ramifications
• [54:52] Laura Loomer’s flip on Ukraine—should we care?
• [65:01] On conflating temporary agreement with lasting change among influencers

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Conclusion

The episode delivers a richly detailed, candid, and often darkly humorous examination of the U.S.-Iran conflict, the collapse and consequences of the MOU, current U.S. strategy, regional nuclear risks, and the unpredictable nature of U.S. political messaging. The roundtable underscores the hazardous interplay of domestic politics, military strategy, foreign intelligence, and the persistent unpredictability of both U.S. and Iranian leadership.

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If you missed this episode, this summary should give you a comprehensive understanding of its central arguments, critical insights, and the ongoing U.S.-Iran policy dilemmas.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On today's roundtable, we look at the Trump administration's renewed strikes on Iran and the months of victory declarations from Trump and other White House officials. What are we targeting? And why does America have the weapons stockpiles necessary to keep this up? How does this war end? Then we'll turn to the reporting by the Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration is greenlighting a civil nuclear program for Saudi Arabia and what that might mean for the region. And finally, not worth your time, Laura Loomer's flip flop on Ukraine. Do we care? Should we care? I'm joined today by the Dispatch's editor in chief, Jonah Goldberg, contributing writer and retired Army Special Forces officer Mike Nelson, and New York Times columnist and Dispatch contributor David French. Let's dive right in, Okay? 13 consecutive days of US strikes in Iran. Mike Nelson, what are we doing? What are we hitting? And where is this going?

[A]

Okay, so we've returned to traditional kinetic operations. You know, that we had paused for a long time, originally since April 8, and then again codified with the MoU after the Iranians decided to try to test the limits of that and shoot some of the maritime shipping. The president has returned to conducting what looked like periodic nightly strikes, but have, as you said, extended over the course of two weeks and have no signs of ceasing, at least in the immediate future. What's different from now is we have expanded a little bit into some of the targets that the president had mentioned before. We've been hitting some of the bridges that have been identified as dual use, both civilians, but also being used by the Iranian military to reposition forces. And he has suggested that he would expand that further into some of the civilian infrastructure that he's talked about before, more power plants. We are reported to have struck a desalination plant, although CENTCOM claims that was not intentionally targeted. So the nature of what we're striking seems to have changed a little bit, expanded a little bit, some of the targets set, but the intensity over the last two weeks has remained the same. What we haven't done yet, despite the administration's claims this is all about preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, is as of yet, we haven't struck any part of the nuclear program which was largely attributed and destroyed in 2025 with Operation Midnight Hammer. We know that they have reported to have repositioned some of their centrifuges to Pickaxe Mountain, as it's called, and we have not yet struck that. There are questions we saw with Secretary Hegseth's testimony in front of sask, the Senate Armed Services Committee, the other day. There are questions as to whether we have the technical capability to do that. He didn't want to discuss it in an open forum. And that will be revealed. I guess we decided to strike it. But the other thing that's happened is the Iranians have also expanded the war. Not only have they been striking our Gulf Arab allies, originally specifically targeting those countries that host our forces, Kuwait and Bahrain, and some of the civilian infrastructure there, reportedly hitting an Amazon data center, reportedly hitting some of the CIA infrastructure that's sponsored in the region with the help of Russian or Chinese targeting. But they've also expanded it, as we saw, with the loss of three of our soldiers, to strike air defense artillery sites in Jordan. Part of the thinking is that this may be to try to attrit our air defense capabilities that provide part of the shield to Israel as a preemptive attack prior to conducting strikes on Israel itself as well. We've seen the Houthis, an Iranian proxy in Yemen, threaten maritime traffic now in a second strategic choke point, the Bab El Mandeb, which is on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula on the Red Sea at the mouth of the Red Sea. You'll remember one of the original uses of military force by the Trump administration, at least this Trump administration was Operation Rough Rider striking the Houthis to try to prevent their previous interdiction of maritime traffic. So what we've seen through the war is the Trump administration has either not further advanced any of the gains that they had made before trading the nuclear program after Midnight Hammer reversed some of the status quo they enjoyed in terms of Iranian control of the Strait and reversed some of the previous gains they made, like with Roughrider, and that now the battle of Mandeb is again an issue that we have to deal with. So what we're seeing over the past two weeks is on both sides, an expansion of the war that had been paused since April 8th.

[B]

That is a fantastic summary. And you mentioned about five different things that I want to make sure that we get to, including potential Russian, Chinese targeting assistance for the Iranians, the Senate testimony, the expansion of the war, the Houthis, what have you. But before we get there, Steve, I

[C]

should also just note there's an IRGC lawn crew outside of Mike's off trying to stop the spread of this information.

[B]

So they're everywhere.

[A]

This is masters of asymmetric warfare.

[B]

This should have our alerts up. David, before we jump into Some of those detailed areas. I want to play a clip that I think gets at some of the confusion. I mean, if you, if you talk to. I'm talking to, you know, my, my kids, friends, parents. I'm talking to people at church. I'm talking to folks who pay attention, patriotic Americans, they want to understand what's going on. And they're very confused right now because for, in some cases, really more than a year, they have heard that the Iranian nuclear program has been destroyed, that we've won the war, that there's nothing left of the Iranian military. There is no navy, there is no. There's nothing to do. And yet we are back, as Mike points out in detail, we are back fully engaged with the Iranian regime. So let me just play a selection of clips for you, and then I'll get you to respond on the other side.

[C]

And we've won. Let me say we've won.

[B]

You know, you never like to say too early, you won, we won.

[C]

We won.

[A]

The bet in the first hour, it was over. You know, I don't like to say this. We've won this.

[B]

This war has been won. From the strike that took out Qasem Soleimani, to tearing up the disastrous Obama Iran deal, to the precision campaign that obliterated Iran's nuclear sites in Operation Midnight Hammer, to the decisive military victory we just achieved in Operation Epic Fury.

[A]

The Operation Epic Fury is concluded.

[D]

We achieved the objectives of that operation. We're no longer conducting sustained strikes inside

[B]

of Iran to degrade their military because Epic Fury is over.

[A]

I think we are winning that battle. But you're really going to win it over the next two weeks. When we declare total victory, it'll be a total victory. It'll happen very soon. Country is doing really well. I don't know if you heard, but we ended up the war with Iran today.

[B]

What the American military has, the Iranian

[A]

military is a historic military.

[B]

Will you answer the question in that context? So historic military defeat. Iran's nuclear sites have been obliterated. The first Trump. For those of you who are watching this on YouTube, you could see the dates assigned to each of those clips. But the first one came in early March. The President of the United States saying, this war is over. There's nothing more to do here. For people who are maybe not reading about this every single day or not paying attention to every sort of twist and turn, how do you reconcile that? Was that just the administration sort of puffing its chest and overstating things at the beginning, or is it the case that now There are more things to do because there have been changes in the Iranian's posture.

[D]

Well, I don't know, Steve, what you're complaining about, because we only won World War II once and we've won this war about 12 times. So that seems like 12 times the victory to me. No, look, it's very clear to me, and this is something we've said on this podcast many times, that he was sold this war was going to be Venezuela 2.0. And ever since, it hasn't been Venezuela 2.0. He's had this on again, off again mindset that is essentially, I want this to end and I want to be able to declare victory, but also I don't want to strike a deal that's going to look weaker than Obama. And so he's kind of gone back and forth, back and forth because the IRGC and Iran are not negotiating here. Can I make some informed speculation? I don't think they negotiate in the best faith. I'm just going to say that they don't negotiate in the best faith. So he's out there trying to negotiate with a partner that has been radicalized, that sees an advantage, and that it just isn't letting him have the victory he wants to have. It just isn't. But the other element here that I want to raise is, you know, look, we've put a lot of focus on Trump, rightfully so. We've put a lot of focus on his erratic strategy to the extent you could call it a strategy. We can talk a lot about what is it that he's hoping exactly to accomplish with all these extra strikes. But a lot of the reason why this MOU is over, a lot of the reason why we're fighting again right now is, you know, it could be that Iran is now miscalculating. They have been pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing ever since before the MoU. How many times have we thought, well, you have a deal on the Strait of Hormuz not to have a deal on the Strait of Hormuz. How many times has Iran pushed whatever advantage it's gained? And so far, it's interesting to me, they could have taken a gigantic win here. They had a gigantic win. They could have pocketed, and they could have pushed the nuclear stuff down the road and pushed it and pushed it. And yet they have now pushed into an open conflict once again. And I'm not 100% sure that they're going to come out ahead on this. How much more of an advantage are they hoping to get than what they had with the MoU already. You know, the MoU gave them an awful lot. What more are they going to get now? So part of me is wondering, what is the United States doing? But a big part of me is also wondering, what is Iran doing right now? Nobody has their foot on the brake here. It's only on the gas. Right.

[B]

Isn't part of the Iranian calculation that they have said, and they believe the MOU allows them to toll the Strait of Hormuz, and they want to make sure that that's something that they can take advantage of in the future because it gives them not only leverage against the United States, it gives them potential, you know, hundreds of millions, billions, depending on how long you're calculating down the road. Is that what they're primarily fighting for now?

[D]

Yeah. Well, you know, it's very clear that they wanted to assert that they control the straight, that at the end of the MoU, they control the straight, and they were even exerting that control violently before this latest round kicked off. So I again, you know, when I go back and I look at it, it could very well be the case when the smoke clears from this latest episode. It could very well be the that Iran pressed what it saw as an advantage secured, maybe even more concessions, maybe that ends up like that. But from where I sit, it looks as if Iran had an enormous amount of. Number of advantages, and it pushed too hard and too fast to assert its control, to unequivocally demonstrate that it had triumphed over Donald Trump, and now it's back in a military conflict. That does hurt it. You know, it's not the case that none of this hurts Iran at all. It does hurt it. It does hurt its military. It does hurt its. Its civilian infrastructure. It does hurt it. It's just that Iran is willing to bear costs that we are not willing to bear. But I'm just raising this because I think there's a lot of consensus that, you know, Trump is in over his head, and I agree with that. But I do not necessarily think that the IRGC knows what it's doing here.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And. And so this is one of the things that really concerns me, who is really sort of in control of this situation in a way that we can not see it extending beyond now the Red Sea. This just keeps widening. So we're in a position right now. I think it's sort of maximum fog of war where I don't think either party here is responsible.

[B]

Jonah, two interesting articles in the last 24, 48 hours from Politico one of them was about a poll that Politico commissioned itself that found that 1 1/3 of MAGA supporters, only 1/3 of MAGA supporters, thought that the Iran war was worth the money that we're spending on it, which was down from roughly half of MAGA voters just a couple months ago. And then second, and some of this is, you know, relying on anonymous sources, unidentified sources, or people speaking to Politico on background. But in effect, what one senior White House official told Politico was the president now finally realizes that he's stuck here because in order to actually win, to achieve a military victory, to get the kind of lasting results that the president wanted when he went in, he finally understands that he's going to have to do a lot of things that there's not political support for him doing, including potentially ground troops stepping up the bombing campaign. What have you. We have seen, in addition to that Politico pull, we've seen increasing concern expressed about the way the war is going, not just from the kind of Tucker Carlson, you know, anti interventionist wing of the conservative movement or the maga. Right. But John Kennedy, senator from Louisiana, in a hearing this week with Pete Hegseth and Dan Cain, very blunt in challenging the administration, saying, I'm not getting straight answers here. I need some straight answers. People have concerns about that. The president goes back and forth. There are days when he says, I don't care about the political impact of this because it's so important to eliminate Iran's nuclear program. And then there are other days where he seems very, very sensitive to the political impact and the economic impact. At some point, does that compel the president to move in a different direction or do you believe him when he says, I don't care about this now we just have to eliminate Iran's nukes?

[C]

Well, all right. So a lot going on there. First, shocking that the senator from one of the most important oil dependent coastal shipping states would be a little worried about what's going on. Right. I mean, so I want to piggyback off of something David said to answer the question. Part of the problem is both the Iranian regime and Donald Trump are different creatures. Right. And the Venn diagram has only a few shaded spots. Religious attendance is much higher among the Iranians, for example. But one thing they share is they're not content with a strategic win. Right. They're not content with winning, of checking a box, achieving a goal that they set out to win. They have to humiliate and rub it in the faces of their opponents. Right. And Trump cannot. Trump makes concessions to reality more often than a lot of his detractors think, right? They just sort of move on, create another crisis, create another controversy, abandon something. How many episodes of advisory opinion are about Trump not going to the Supreme Court after being dealt defeats because they know they'll lose there, right? And so, like, there's all sorts of examples of that kind of stuff. But because Iran is not privy, are prone to or subject to the media operations of both the right or the left, he can't make them eat crap and be quiet about it, Right? And the Iranians need, for their own domestic reasons to say we humiliated the Great Satan and all this kind of stuff. And they have tangible ways of backing up what they're saying by closing the Strait of Hormuz and now with the Houthis, you know, the stuff in the Red Sea. And that's what makes it very, very difficult for Trump to spin this. And I mean, how it's been 10 years now where I've been arguing he cares more about getting the headline than the substance, right? He can't get the headline from Iran. If Iran had just, and this gets to David's point, if Iran had simply paid lip service, lip service plus, to the MoU for 60 days and let America move on and let the news cycle move on, I think it would have been more in their interest. But that would have given Trump the headline that he wanted and they wouldn't give it to him. And that's what's got Trump in a box. It's not just that he strategically doesn't have an exit. It's that spin wise, he doesn't have an exit. And if he could have one or the other, I think he'd be inclined to take it, but he can't have either. And that's what's driving him nuts. And so, yeah, he might change his behavior. I just don't know that it gets him out of the mess necessarily. And I entirely agree with David that, like Iran can be playing this poorly, too. I think Iran is playing it poorly. I've said that previously on here because the law of unintended consequences is a universal law. It is a law that applied to Stalin as much as fdr. I mean, it's not a good guys don't have it or only good guys have the law of unintended consequences and the enemy gets a vote and all those other cliches. And it is a universal fact that you cannot guarantee the outcome of something like this beforehand. And on the polling stuff, I Think the real tell here is that the defender, whenever you hear defenders of the Iran war, including dear friends of mine, right? I mean, I listen very carefully to people I typically agree with when they defend the Iran war. They will often, I'm not saying they all do it in bad faith or anything like that, but they will repeatedly or frequently sneak in the results of Operation Midnight Hammer into this war. And I think Midnight Hammer was a success. I don't know a lot of smart people I respect who don't think it was a success. Now, how much of a success people can disagree, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, what's the status of the dos, who knows, right?

[A]

All that stuff.

[C]

But the simple fact is that was a success, but it does not, by touting the Midnight Hammer stuff from last year as the key metric for this war, undermines the case for this war almost entirely. And I think there are MAGA people out there who've picked up on that and who just believe Trump when he said we completely destroyed the nuclear program, which Trump occasionally still repeats, which undermines his whole argument for why we had to do this a second time to keep them from getting a nuclear weapon. And so I think the incoherence, a lot of Trump incoherence, people can factor in and price in and ignore, oh, it's a strategy and all that kind of stuff. I think on this one it's just very, very difficult, particularly when you have a big slice of the, you know, the Tucker wing who won't let it go, cuz they're looking at a post Trump environment where they want this issue and they need to keep it alive. Sort of like the Epstein stuff. The White House just doesn't know how to message this. They can't get the headline they want for domestic purposes or international purposes. And that's why you're seeing support erode.

[B]

Mike One of the other reasons to Jonah's point about reality trumping all, here are an increasing number of stories about the shortages, potential shortages of U.S. weapons and missiles, in addition to the broader discussion of costs. Pete Hegseth testified this week that the war has cost $37.5 billion so far. I think there are smart people I know who think that that's understating the case, perhaps pretty significantly, but let's use that figure. Between those costs and the administration's now pushing to get more funding in an Iran word supplemental and reports of shortages of weapons and missiles, how should we read those reports? I think there's part of me that thinks, you know what? I've been Hearing about shortages of US Weaponry for as long as I've been covering this, this, and a lot of it has been sort of sky is falling stuff, and we don't seem to ever have been in real jeopardy of running out or being in a disadvantageous position. You get the sense from talking to serious people who know a lot more about this than I do that that's not the case, that this time that this is a little bit more worrisome.

[A]

Well, so the way we've chosen to fight this war and the way the President has wanted to do it is with as little risk as possible. And he's tried to underplay the risk. He's tried to underplay the cost, both in terms of the toll of American lives. We saw that most recently in kind of his. It's pretty disgusting messaging that like it's fine because I've only lost 18American service members compared to other numbers. I will point out, by the way, he does not seem to know the number of people that we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. He'd done that wrong twice. But. And then he's also done. He's underplayed the economic costs in terms of how this is going to affect international trade. Everything is easy. Everything is glorious. Part of the way he's tried to sell that is the way we've chosen to fight this war is using some of our more exquisite weapons, our standoff weapons, our prec guided weapons, and our interceptors to try to protect our forces in theater, to make this a little bit of a fight at a distance. You know, we've tried as little as possible to expose our air crews to risk. We haven't involved ground forces, although he's talked about those as options. So we've tried to fight this war in a way that limits the number of casualties and prevents him from having to face that as a cost of war. But some of the weapons we've used, the JASSMs, for example, which allows great standoff, being able to do precision strikes from a distance. When we struck the Syrian chemical weapons programs, for example, we use those munitions so we didn't have to fly within the SA4 range.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But you know, we've used those initially in the. In the early stages of the war to try to attrit the air defense systems. And then in theory, you would roll in some of the old legacy systems, which we've chosen not to do that in a way that's attributed those munitions. Additionally, using Pete Hegseth's math, again, he may have undercounted but even if you use that to back up the envelope math, I think that brings us to $263 million a day for this war, when the Iraq war costs about $10 million less per day, which was already seen as an exorbitantly expensive war. So we are spending ourselves not just in terms of economic costs, but also in stocks of already critical munitions into a real deficit. By the way, we're continuing to choose this war, and it's limiting the president's options. Again, escalate means, what if he doesn't want to accept some kind of deal? Now, to David's point, I do think that there is the potential that the Iranians have overplayed their hand. I think it's like the end of Charlie Wilson's war. There's a little bit of we'll see, but there is a rationale in their decision that you can follow. Unlike the Trump administration, the Iranians seem to be indicating they are going to align their resources and their conduct towards an end state they desire. Now, I'm not a maritime guy. I have tangential familiarity with this, but there seem to have been three routes through the strait that have opened up, two of which are directly under Iranian control and one of which hugs the Omani coast a little closer. During the actual ceasefire after the mou, much of the traffic seemed to be flowing through this southwestern route that hugged the Omani coast that, in theory, could have set up a system that would have been outside Iranian tolling. If their goal is to say, we are the masters of the Strait of Hormuz after this conflict and we will not allow this to start as a precedent, then their actions absolutely makes sense, and they're willing to incur the costs to make sure that they don't set a precedent that sets them up for something other than the end state they're desiring. So, again, I do, and I agree with Jonah, there is a certain amount where they have to rub President Trump's nose in it. That's not just enough to accept the factual win. They want to take the rhetorical or the symbolic win as well. But I also think they are acting potentially in some rational ways in the way they're conducting themselves, trading lives for strategic goals.

[D]

Right.

[B]

And they don't have. I mean, I would argue they don't. They don't have nearly as the options that we do. So they're taking advantage of the ones we have. It seems pretty clear. And we've seen this again with the stepping up of Iranian tax on US Allies and neighbors in the region, that their goal is to exact as much economic pain on the United States as they possibly can, make this as politically uncomfortable for Donald Trump as they can for as long as they can, and also to hit our friends and allies in the region so that those people get on the horn to the White House and say, this is too much. We don't want to do this anymore. You need to fix this. It sounds like reading reporting from over the past week, those calls to the White House have increased over this past week that our allies in the region are really getting to the point where I think in part due to the absence of, you know, a well crafted, well articulated plan. Where is this going? They don't know where this is going. And the White House, they're not making the case in public and they're not making the case in private. One of the other things we heard, David, this week, and Mike made reference to it earlier, is something that had long been rumored that we've probably all heard in conversation with people, but has now been reported is the potential that either the Russians or the Chinese are both. But I think the focus is on the Russians have been providing precise intelligence to the Iranians that allows them to target secret CIA operating facilities in the region. And basically we're reasoning back from looking at the attacks on these facilities and making the calculation that the Iranians wouldn't have known they hadn't attacked these before. And now all of a sudden we've seen an increase, a spike in attacks on these facilities. I think it's been notable that neither the Russians nor the Chinese have been more public in their support for Iran. I think Iran was counting on that early on. I think Iran was surprised that they didn't get that more, at least in terms of rhetorical support. If it's true that these reports over the past week are correct, the Russians are in fact helping on this kind of targeting. We think they've been helping on other targeting. Does that suggest sort of additional support for Iran that makes this more complicated for the United States to win? I mean, does that bring Russia and China in, in a more significant way?

[D]

I don't think it makes it more complicated because any rational administration should have assumed this was going to happen. I mean, look, we have been providing Ukraine with exquisite intelligence information for a very long time that Ukraine has used to great effect, to great effect to degrade Russian military capabilities. The instant Russia got gets an opportunity to do the same, they were going to take it. I just don't think there's any doubt about That I would have been, I would have fallen out of my chair in shock if this was not the case. And in fact, this should have been part of the equation going in. Part of the equation going in should have been that, you know what, our enemies might use this conflict unless we have a very clear strategy where we are in control of the terms of all of our, of this engagement. Our enemies could use this in a way a version of the way we have used the Ukraine war to drain Russian capabilities, to learn about Russian capabilities, to experiment with our own capabilities as we've had an ally engaging against Russia. So I think that we should have assumed that this was going to take place and we should have planned going back to the munitions element here. We should have planned for the possibility that this wasn't going to be Venezuela 2.0 and that we were under this strategy going to be consuming vast quantities of precision munitions. And it appears that we're just stumbling next step towards next step towards next step. And the thing that is actually alarming from my perspective is when you're engaging in just short term, it's just bursts of short term thinking that makes me wonder who has the long term in mind, who has that longer term horizon in mind. And it's not clear. I think Marco Rubio would be the most likely of all of the figures in the administration. But to kind of circle back to Jonah, I'm reminded of not so much a conflict between two serious minded groups. I do think, and I agree with Mike, that Iran has a theory of the case here. It does have. It is pursuing an objective, but also part of it is it's pursuing this rhetorical objective that makes you feel like all of this is also being distorted by kind of WWE style posturing and puffery. And that is perhaps one of the most disturbing things about this entire unfolding expanding war is when you have, yeah, there are rational objectives that you can see Iran pursuing and you can see both sides pursuing irrational objectives violently. And that is what is so alarming to me about this wider situation. We're now injecting irrational objectives into an active shooting war. And so is Iran to some degree. The Times had a great news analysis of this when the original MOU was being negotiated. How do you reach a peace agreement with two parties who are desperate to declare victory and to declare it and essentially posture and crow over the defeated body of their opponent? And that is one of these X factors here that is actually driving this conflict that is most alarming to me.

[B]

All right, we're going to Take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the Dispatch podcast. The most annoying thing about being an entrepreneur is the endless paperwork drudgery that comes with building a new business. You wait hopefully until the day that it all goes away and it just doesn't. In fact, as your business grows and you add employees, the HR work of just keeping track of everything can become nearly all consuming. That's why Gusto feels like such a practical tool. It helps make payroll more organized and less stressful without anyone needing to be a payroll expert. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses, and it's all in one remote, friendly and incredibly easy to use so you can pay, hire, onboard, and support your team from anywhere. Gusto helps simplify payroll with automatic tax filing and unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price without hidden fees or surprises. Try gusto [e-mail] dispatch and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free [e-mail] dispatch one more time. Gusto.com dispatch we are back. You're listening to the Dispatch Podcast. Let's jump in. Let me ask you an unfair question to each of you, and then we'll move on to the Saudi nuclear deal and talk a little bit about Ukraine. Jonah, how does this end? I mean, obviously none of us knows how this is going to end, but given exactly what David just described here, you know, if you're a voter or if you're somebody who's worried about the price of gas, or if you're, you know, an ally sitting in Dubai, what's the prospect of this ending? Given what we've said and what we know about the two parties here, do you have any thoughts on where this is going?

[C]

Well, if you remember from war games, Dr. Falcon said that bees would probably supplant humans after the nuclear conflagration to come. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I do think. I mean, again, I think I said this last time I was on. We can't discount the possibility that the attrition stuff on Iran does cause something like. I don't want to say regime change, but regime collapse. And regime collapse isn't necessarily good, or at least not necessarily good in the way that we would like it to be good. Great for all those guys to take a dirt nap, but you could end up having Iran splinter up into a bunch of. Into civil war, into a bunch of warlords and factions like the Houthi types who still continue the Strait of Hormuz strategy and make it much more difficult to take that out because everything's sort of partisans in the mountains kind of stuff. I don't know. But I do think that the caution against straight line projections applies here as much as it does anywhere in our lives, of course. So I think this might end with the midterms. And that just creates a new reality for what the administration is consumed by and gets away with. And whether that ends with Iran having control, de facto control of the Strait of Hormuz is I think, a distinct possibility. But my much shorter answer is I don't know.

[B]

Yeah, we're all speculating. We don't know. Mike. There was reporting this week from Al Hurra, a US government backed network that broadcasts in the region that Iranians who had up to this point not taken up arms to fight the Basij, to fight the sort of internal enforcers of regime policy, had begun to do so over the past couple of weeks. I don't know that that's happening at scale, but it's certainly happening, at least according this report, in pockets in different areas. Is regime change the most likely, one of many? I mean, where do you see this going?

[A]

So I think, unfortunately, that stuff generally does not happen as quickly as some people believe. Right. There are kind of two models of irregular war or guerrilla warfare. Che favored one that happened to have worked as a fluke in Cuba once, and Mao was the other model that tends to be more successful. We should all remember his revolution took 30 years. So I think that we should not overplay what would be latent incipient rising up against the regime as something particularly when much of the infrastructure that existed for resistance was killed off in January, up to 30,000 of them might have been killed off. So it'll take a while to rebuild that infrastructure. It would take a while to present a viable threat to that, particularly since we've given them a free hand to tamping that down. I think I'm going to answer it, I guess kind of two ways. Probably the best way that it could work out and what might still most likely happen. The President should avoid what he has wanted to do, which is something very dramatic and quick. There is no dramatic and quick way to get to a good answer. Even if he decided to expend overwhelming force to overthrow the regime or invade in a small portion just to create pressure that would come with some significant casualties that I don't think would make us feel very victorious in the outcome, especially based on what we might get out of it. So I think the best way is to maintain constant pressure. The most effective thing we've done is when we imposed the blockade. And unfortunately, the President's instinct has been to release that pressure from time to time, including giving billions of dollars in oil revenue in the brief period of time that we allow for their free trade. It's like a pressure cookie. You maintain the pressure to cook things faster. If you open the lid all the time, it starts the process all over again. And that's what the President's instinct have done, to give them incentives just for the promise of negotiations. Instead, we should just maintain pressure until such a time as they either collapse or resolve a negotiation. Every negotiation is complete. And while that negotiation is taking place place, we maintain the pressure until something is actually agreed to. The President, unfortunately feels the pressure and the backlash that we've talked about in several of the polls. This started off an unpopular war at its beginning, and it has gotten less popular as it's gone on. And I think he is largely to blame for that in the way he didn't think he needed to explain it or sell it or define an end state or a reasoning for it. There is a model for this. People remember after the Iraq war was incredibly unpopular in 2007, 2008, when President Bush pursued the strategy of the Sunni awakening. That was after his midterm thumping in 2006, after he had to fire Secretary Rumsfeld. And while that brought about stability and brought us some of the goals we were trying to achieve, it did not turn around the favorability. The net favorability of the Iraq war continued to decline after the Salwa, but it still achieved what was needed to be done. So we have to have it requires something completely out of character from the President to do this, which is decide to do the thing that is best, even if it costs him politically. And because of that, I think what's most likely is we will find something that looks a lot like the mou. Again, there will be some agreement that Vice President Vance or Jared Kushner or Steve Witkoff convince him is the key thing to walk away. And then we will see, as Hegseth got embarrassed on the Hill two days ago, or as we saw with the clips, the President will continue. He will not shift his rhetoric. He will say that it was a glorious victory. It was the greatest thing ever. To Jonah's point, he'll take in Midnight Hammer and the list of accomplishments that this war, when in fact this war, at best we have that we treated the Iranian Navy, which we've given them a different way to affect the maritime domain. So they don't probably need it as much, but I think that's the most likely outcome, unfortunately.

[B]

David, any, any other path to ending this than they've discussed?

[D]

Yeah, you know, I, I think it's most likely that we would have Memorandum two, you know, some, some sort of sequel that, you know, we, I think the most likely thing is you sort of enter into a kind of on again, off again, tit for tat sort of arrangement and relationship that will last at least up until the midterms. I think an MOU2 that ends this before the midterms is also a possibility. It's very difficult to see any sort of resolution between now and then, though, that provides any real clarity to the American people about this situation, because I honestly think that Iran doesn't want to give Trump that gift. I think Iran is very well aware of American political dynamics, is very well aware of American political calendars, and I think it thinks it can extract a lot or gain quite a bit of advantage between now and then. And if the Democrats win, you're going to have maybe more financial constraints that come down upon the Pentagon in that circumstance. You might actually have some real efforts in the War Powers Resolution front to try to wind this all down. And I hate to be a broken record on this because I've raised it only about a billion times. All of this is the fruit of the poisonous tree of not going to getting the American people's support right from the get go. You launch into a very high stakes confrontation with one of our three greatest enemies, after Russia and China, without popular support, without any of it at all, at all, and without any effort to rally the people. And what Mike was saying was exactly correct. What you're actually going to need right now is a sort of double down strategy. If you want to prevail militarily, you actually need. And when I say double down, I don't mean ground invasion, but double down in the kind of length and persistence of the blockade strategy that Mike has talked about. To me, that has the best prospect of moving the needle without escalating into ground troops. But it requires an enormous amount of patience, it requires an awful lot of resolve, and it requires a tolerance for risk and those three things. And it's very obvious that Trump has a vision in his mind of military activity, of military action. That is, I get in and I get out and I make everything happen with no muss, no fuss, minimal casualties, and that's just not an option. The Iranians are giving him. They're taking that off the table and he's obviously flailing. He doesn't have a plan B. Mike's plan B is far more viable than others that I've seen. I just think if you want to see Trump's support collapse through the floor, I mean, you might actually finally penetrate the MAGA barrier is if you have hundreds of American deaths in Iran, that would do it. So of the viable possibilities, you know, I think Mike has laid out perhaps the only one that has any real chance of moving the needle in our direction. And I just don't see them having that kind of persistence, that kind of patience, that kind of resolve when Trump is so mercurial about this, the on again, off again nature. So I think Memorandum two is of the options most likely, but I wouldn't even necessarily consider it probable. I would consider it most possible of the options.

[B]

I mean, there are a lot of bad next steps or a lot of bad potential outcomes. Sending Steve Witkoff and J.D. vance back in seems to me, given how they were schooled on the first time around, seems to me not very promising next step. I want to go around quickly and get your brief responses to two other developments in the news this week. The first, Jonah, I'll start with you is a big scoop from Michael Gordon at the Wall Street Journal on the United States pursuing a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. This is for civilian, ostensibly for civilian nuclear use, nuclear facilities. The United States companies would basically block out most of the other companies that would compete to help build this infrastructure. It's being touted as a win for the US Business community, but it carries some risk. This is something the Biden administration had considered, had talked about, never took the final step. And there are, there's a lot we don't know, which is one of the reasons I don't want to spend a ton of time on this. The reports so far are vague. We haven't seen any of the paper. But it does carry risks that any help the United States gives to a Saudi civilian nuclear program would allow for Saudi enrichment. The president of the United States sent a truth social post out Thursday morning suggesting that'll never happen. Others aren't so sure. The question to you is, in this moment, when we are doing most of what we're doing in Iran, to send a message that Iran shouldn't have a nuclear program. This is unacceptable. The timing of this announcement raises some questions.

[C]

Yeah, well, sure. So does the substance, I guess. This is one of the, like. We've talked about this a few times on here, I think that one of the reasons why Trump likes dealing in the Middle east so much and why his inner circle, the Witkoffs and the Jared's and all these people like feeling in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states is because it's closest to their own business models. It's how they see the world too. Like backroom deals, one hand washes the other. And that's good and bad in the sense that you've actually gotten some of the best foreign policy successes if you take the two terms together from the fact that they all speak that same cynical kind of Bakshish kind of language. That's how you got, you know, the Abraham Accords and all that. And so I'm reluctant to get way over my skis without getting more details on this. Maybe this is the, you know, good faith precursor because Saudi Arabia has wanted this for a very long time for accepting the Abraham Accords. I don't know that. I'm not even sure I'd bet that one.

[B]

The President put that out this morning, that this was that next step. So you're, that's certainly what the President is saying for sure.

[C]

But as we've just spent about 40 minutes discussing, because Donald Trump says things does not necessarily make them so, but it's, it doesn't necessarily rule them out either. Right. Moreover, I mean, I defer to Michael on this stuff, but my understanding is that, you know, the Saudis paid for the Pakistani nuclear weapons program and there was always this sort of wink and a nod understanding that if the Saudis really needed to bomb a nuke off of Pakistan, they'd be able to bomb a nuke. And so I don't like the proliferation. I think it's interesting how upset Israel is about this and probably speaks to some lack of coordination. Either that or it's some public posturing. So look, all said and done, I don't want Saudi Arabia to have a nuclear program. I think they've made actual progress towards being a better country over the last 10 years, at least a better ally over the last 10, 15 years. But MBS has not necessarily consolidated support among a lot of people that gave money to Osama bin Laden and built madrassas around the world from spreading terror. And a long term strategy built on the idea that Saudi Arabia is going to continue on this sort of ataturk lekan u path towards modernization is a bet. It's a big bet and it's one that you can't take back once they have centrifuges, you know, and all that. The idea, the thing that bothers me the most about it is that they don't want to buy the uranium. They want to enrich it themselves. And I think that is troubling. It's destabilizing. And I think we're heading into a world where there's going to be more nuclear proliferation. And this is just an early chapter in that story.

[B]

Mike.

[A]

Yeah. So I think, you know, Joan is right, that the Saudis have demonstrated a willingness or a desire to be more of a regional ally and counter some of the same threats that we see there. And while that instinct might be good and MBS might be very aggressive about it, I think some of the application still raises questions. We saw this in the Saudi and Emirati war against the Houthis in Yemen, that while there was enthusiasm there, the application, the way the Saudis conducted strikes, even with all the technical capabilities we gave them, was not always the most responsible or professional. So even if this results in a Saudi nuclear weapon, we are still relying on somewhat erratic actors to use it in a rational fashion, or at least use it as a Trump partner. Rational fashion. There are a lot of questions about the regional dynamics as well. So I think if the regime survives this current war, regardless of anything else, this is going to stiffen their resolve in their desire to get a nuclear weapon. It's actually going to convince them they can look at how North Korea is treated versus how they are treated and say, if we have a nuclear weapon, no one will mess with us. So just surviving this will. Will create a further incentive for them to desire the nuke that they've already pursued to prevent the next Epic Fury or Midnight Hammer or whatever we or a future administration would ever do against them. Now, add to that the fact that they're one of their major regional rivals is being given tacit endorsement to get a nuclear weapon. It's going to increase that desire at least double. I think, also it's most likely that you will then start seeing the desire or the pursuit of an Emirati nuke, not because they see Saudi Arabia as a rival, or at least not an adversary, but they do see it as a rival for strategic influence within the region, and they will want to retain that same capability. I know we are entering into a world, I think, or at least there's endorsement of us entering into a world, the fracturing of the world order in general into a multipolar world away from the monopolar or even the bipolar world that existed in the Cold War. And I think the only thing that's more dangerous than that is a multipolar nuclear world where we have more powers that are making decisions about how to use or retain these weapons independent of our control or our influence. We already have the problem that we did not want, as Jonah raised, that we have a relatively unstable country in Pakistan, that if they collapse, the question of what happens with their nuclear programs is a big one we have to deal with. And Saudi Arabia is not exactly. There is plenty of resistance domestically. There's resistance within the royal family, as we saw eight years ago when MBS imprisoned all his cousins in the Ritz Carlton. So there are a lot of questions about what retention of this kind of weapon would look like. And I know on, on this podcast, you know, Kevin had presented the idea of that we should sponsor a proliferation to Japan, that we should allow Japan to pursue nuclear weapon. I think regionally speaking, that's significantly different in that Japan's regional threats already have a nuclear weapon. It will not incentivize anyone else. It would just be a check against China and North Korea. Whereas this, I think, would incentivize some of the other regional powers to pursue nuclear weapons.

[B]

And Japan has demonstrated for decades that it's a good ally. The Saudis, David, are, shall we say, complicated allies.

[D]

Have we lost our minds here?

[A]

If we're, if.

[D]

I mean, can. Can we just be real? It was not very long ago that Saudi Arabia was the chief theological and intellectual exporter of the very kind of radical Islamic theology that empowered Al Qaeda and later isis. Okay, so let's just get real here. You have MBS modernizing here and there or whatever. And the thing about the Saudi royal family is if you look at their conduct, they remind me a lot about. I'd love to use this, you know, this potentially apocryphal French politician quote, there go the people. I will follow them, for I am their leader. They, they are very responsive to trends in the region and will often latch onto some of these things as a means of sort of retaining control and influence and preventing threats to their rule. And so Saudi Arabia is not a country that has demonstrated a long standing commitment to peace and stability in the region and responsible governance, or even governance that's remotely in our interests. Remotely. Okay. I think a lot of people, when they hear about nuclear proliferation, they think, well, Japan or maybe South Korea or Poland, you know, some of our allies that are stable and responsible have been part of the broader alliance. They don't immediately go to Saudi Arabia, the uae, places that are involved in active, active conflict, where, let's just be quite Frank, here, this is something that I think should be really in people's minds. These are not countries that have demonstrated a super high regard for human life. If you look at the Saudi Arabia bombing campaign in Yemen, as Micah said, one of the things that I'm ashamed by is how much civilian death has been inflicted through American weapons that we have given Saudi Arabia that they have just used in a fashion that is disgusting in Yemen to no real military effect. The Houthis are still there. You know, the Houthis are still quite powerful. And so you're talking about regimes that have not necessarily demonstrated that they have the highest regard for innocent human life. And then here you're talking about empowering a nuclear program where they would retain enrichment capacity. What are we doing? What are we doing?

[B]

Mike, I want to ask you briefly about the sort of leadership shuffle in the Ukrainian military to see if you can just explain that to us before we move on to Not Worth youh Time. There were a number of stories. This is a story that unfolded over the course of the week. Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired a top military advisor, then sort of changed his mind. There were protests in the streets. Can you just walk us through what happened, what it means, and will it affect the momentum that we've seen building on the Ukrainian side of that conflict?

[A]

Well, I'll take the last part first. There is real concern that it is going to, because this all started with the firing of the minister of defense, Fodorov, who was largely seen as kind of the adopter of the technological innovations and tactical innovations that have been so successful in the recent months for Ukraine. It seems to be, or there is at least rumors that this was based out of a sense of personal political disagreement between Zelenskyy and Fodorov. Fodorov had been seen clashing with the military leadership, who some were perceived to be a little bit mired in the old ways, and that Zelenskyy sided with the commander in chief of the military and fired him. As you saw, there was widespread backlash, protests in Kyiv. A lot of the international Ukraine watchers and supporters were shocked by this and expressed concern over what this would augur. And then while Zelenskyy hasn't overtly acknowledged the mistake and rehired Fodorov, he then relieved the commander in chief, who was seen as some of the inciting incident, and replaced him with his deputy. So we're not sure how this, how this norms out. We're not sure what the continuation is going to be. But There is concern because he was seen as the one who had been so adaptive to the new technologies and the ways that Ukraine was able to create success, that there's concern that whoever follows on next and the new infrastructure is not going to be able to replicate that the way that he did. So it might have been a wholly unforced error on Zelenskyy's part.

[B]

Before we take an ad break, I'd like to encourage you to 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 [e-mail] join and if you use the promo code roundtable, you'll get a month for 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 to friends, exclusive town halls with the founders, and much, much more. Okay, we'll be right back.

[C]

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[B]

you were getting away?

[C]

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[B]

welcome back. Let's return to our discussion. David, let me start with you on Not Worth youh Time, a Ukraine related Not Worth youh Time today. Over the past several days we have seen prominent Trump supporter, noted conspiracy theorist, general whack job Laura Loomer basically take up the cause of Ukraine. She went to Ukraine, she's in Ukraine. She's putting up videos that I think can only be described as propaganda videos. And she's now rallying, trying to rally Americans, trying to rally maga to Ukraine's side in this conflict. My question to you is, should we care? I mean, she's so many of the things that she said have been self discrediting. She is a conspiracy theorist. On the other hand, she has 2 million followers on Twitter. She has the President's ear on these things. How do you think about a development like Laura Loomer flipping sides in the Ukraine Russia fight?

[D]

Well, let me just put it this way, Steve. I'll just put it as simply as possible. I would rather 2 million people hear good things than bad things. So if she is switching sides, and maybe it's because somebody you know who knows I don't want to even speculate as to why this occurred is very abrupt. I would rather her say good things rather than bad things. As far as whether this is some kind of actual conversion, like, look, I'm the last person to say that somebody is beyond redemption. Redemption is available to all. It's going to take a lot more time before I'm going to say that this Laura Loomer shift is something that is interesting, something that is genuine, something that is worth cheering. But for now, I'm just glad she's not saying a bunch of stupid crap and is saying better stuff. So I'll just be about as limited in my praise as that.

[B]

That's fair. Jonah, do you care what Laura Loomer is saying about Ukraine?

[C]

Well, I mean, I care that she is saying it. Right. I don't invest. I'm like, with David, like, I don't. I don't invest a lot in her analytical skills or intelligence, but as a sociological factor, I think she matters, right? I mean, as a political factor, she matters. As an influencer and all that stuff, she matters. You know, I don't agree with Candace Owens about how dinosaurs are fake and gay, but I think the fact that we have influencers who get traction out of saying the moon landing was faked, that dinosaurs didn't exist, and if they did, they're super gay, the fact that these people have audiences is something that you can't ignore just because you think it's something that makes you want to cut yourself. So, as an analytical matter, I care. Moreover, and I'm being a man of the Old Testament, I'm even less inclined, I'm less inclined towards automatic redemption than David is. But I will say that I think, you know, speaking of the Old Testament, you know, I talked about this a little bit with Rebecca Heinrichs when she was on the Remnant a couple weeks ago. Not in the context of Loomer herself, but like, generally speaking, all other things being equal, if you are an Israel supporter, you're probably a Ukraine supporter and a Taiwan supporter. And whether it's a cynical thing or it's an ideological or an idealistic thing, whatever it is, once you understand the argument about how small, scrappy countries fighting for democracy and survival deserve the support of the world's greatest democracy, and that they're valuable allies, both ideologically but also materially, there's a transitive property to it. You don't just say, you can't just make those arguments about Israel. Right? You gotta start making those arguments about other countries that are in a similar plight. And so in some ways, it was very weird. And I think the weirdness could be explained by the fact that she's back guano crazy. But it was very weird that such a powerful and committed supporter of Israel was also buying into the propaganda from Russia about Ukraine. And I think it's because she was never very politically sophisticated. She doesn't understand that going back to at least Stalin's doctor's plot, but Certainly in the 1970s and 80s with Zionism equals racism and all that garbage, Russia has been one of the primary movers of anti Israel propaganda, and it remains as such to this day. And so it was weird that someone who was so pro Israel would completely ignore all that and buy Putin's garbage. And I think it's explained again because she's crazy, but also because she was during calmer moments before October 7th and before all sorts of other things, she was bought into the idea that Trump is always right.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You know, she was a perfect example with all the mishigos that she was doing in the early months of the Trump administration, getting people purged and fired as secret deep staters and all that kind of stuff. She was a perfect example of the doctrine, the MAGA doctrine of Trump can never fail. He can only be failed. And I still think that's sort of where her head is at. But now, the plight of Israel in all this, I suspect, is one of the reasons why she has opened herself up to the reality that you can't make arguments for Israel without at least appreciating the arguments for Ukraine.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it's. I have very mixed feelings about even mentioning her on this podcast or asking you all this question, which is why I put it in the not worth your time. And to the podcast, on the one hand, you know, she has said things pretty consistently over the past decade that are just absolutely crazy. She changed herself to the front door of Twitter, you know, all of the sort of hysterical comments and moves. On the other hand, Jonah, as you point out, she is undeniably influential. You know, there was a time during the late stages of the 2024 campaign when Susie Wiles, campaign manager and now White House chief of staff, put in place sort of the infrastructure to keep Laura Loomer away from the president. She didn't want her on Trump's campaign plane. They worked hard to do that. And then there was a moment. I don't remember what the issue was. There was a moment when Laura Loomer shows up at the White House after Trump is reelected. Surprises everybody, including apparently Susie Wiles, because Loomer had kind of penetrated the attempts to keep her out. And I think she did so because she has the President's ear. On the one hand, it says something about where we are in this moment, that she has the President's ear on anything. On the other hand, as Jonah says, Mike, it is better if she's saying things like what she's saying on Ukraine to the President than if she's encouraging the President to get in bed further with Vladimir Putin.

[A]

Yeah. So Laura Loomer is and has been crazy. But we can't deny her influence, not only with her audience, her 2 million followers, but as we've said with the President, she is probably single handedly responsible for the gutting of NSC 1.0 under Mike Waltz.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

That she got several people fired. And largely that infrastructure hasn't been rebuilt. You know, it's just been merged with State under Marco Rubio.

[B]

And even before that, I should say, Mike, just to jump in, even before that, not only getting people fired, but the influence she had in blocking people from being hired, including people who we would probably all describe as pro maga, but sensible or might have criticized the President on one issue or another over the years. She fought hard to block all of those people.

[A]

Right? Correct. And so she has demonstrated influence. I would agree with Jonah that this is probably born out of her, her earnest support for Israel and her concern about antisemitism, about which she has also been good on that fight. But I think there's a step in between, and I think that step is Tucker Carlson. I think she is seeing how much Tucker has been stoking the anti Israel talking points, some of the domestic anti Semitism, and has kind of positioned herself as the opposition in the fight for the President's soul against Tucker. And if Tucker is pro Russia, then she has positioned herself to be anti Russia. And I do think that where we all started with her being crazy, she engages in any number of conspiracy theories and wild conjecture. But the things she said about the war in Ukraine have been correct. As far as I know, she hasn't engaged in the wild conjecture about Lindsey Graham's death that some people did. But it's been largely. Russia is an adversary. Ukraine is fighting for their independence. She's gone over them during firsthand reporting from Ukraine. So I welcome her honest reporting on the conflict that matters to, you know, the fight for a scrappy country that's trying to retain their independence and protect their people. But we should never assume that she has suddenly become rational and joined the community of interest of people who want stable governance.

[B]

I think that's the important point is she was crazy. She said a ton of crazy stuff. There's every reason to believe that she will continue to be crazy. We should treat her as that, even if she occasionally. I mean, this is the broken clock being right twice a day thing. It bothered me. And I'd be frustrated if people who believe what I do suddenly start treating Lorna Loomer as sane or wise because she's now saying things they agree with in much the way that I would say. Much of the anti Trump left, anti Trump right suddenly embraced Marjorie Taylor Greene right when she started criticizing Donald Trump. I mean, you couldn't. She was on every cable show everywhere forever and suddenly treated with tremendous respect because she was saying things about Trump that they wanted her to say about Trump. And Marjorie Taylor Greene is every bit as crazy as she has been right from the beginning of this.

[A]

She did not stop being the woman who believed in Jewish space lasers just because she criticized the President.

[B]

Correct. Right. All right, well, we'll leave it there. Thank you all for joining. Thank you, guys. Let me give a peek at this new dispatch merch. We've got dispatch T shirts. I'm told any shipping delays have been ironed out. So if you want. If you're watching this and you want a dispatch T shirt or a dispatch hat, we'll pop the link for the dispatch store into the show notes. But I encourage everybody to give it a look. There's some good looking stuff there, actually.

[C]

And I should tell this listeners that despite widespread rumors that Steve personally vetoed any remnant swag being manufactured that has not yet been proven, even though the suspicions are obviously well grounded.

[B]

Let me actually take this opportunity. I thank you for pointing that out and knocking down these rumors that are sort of Loomer esque, we might call them. Let me take this opportunity as just

[C]

discuss sometimes loomers and in fact, correct. So not. Yeah.

[B]

Not only am I not opposed to. To remnant merch, I mean, for the 12 people who listen to the remnant, if they all went in and bought the, you know, remnant merch, that could be very lucrative for the dispatch.

[C]

No, the.

[B]

We would like to have remnant merch. We will have remnant merch soon. And I also think we should increase. This will surprise you, Jonah, but I'm on record in public saying I think we should make a special effort to have more Zoe and Pippa merch, more Jonah dog merch. I think it would do well and I think give the people what they want, at least in this. If not on editorial matters all the time, at least in this, give the people what they want.

[C]

I concur.

[B]

All right, thanks. See you all next time. Finally, if you like what we're doing here, you can rate, review and subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice, which helps new listeners find us. As always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns or corrections, you can email [e-mail] we read everything, even emails from Laura Loomer. That's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in. And thank you to the folks behind the scenes who made this episode possible. Noah Hickey and Peter Bonavech. Thanks again for listening. Please join us next time.