Gina Gershon: "They Treat You Differently With Boobs"

Summary

The Gist — Gina Gershon: "They Treat You Differently With Boobs"

Host: Mike Pesca
Guest: Gina Gershon
Date: March 3, 2026

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Overview

This episode of The Gist features a lively and candid conversation between host Mike Pesca and renowned actress Gina Gershon, whose new memoir, Alpha Pussy: How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs, explores her knockout Hollywood journey, early challenges in the San Fernando Valley, and coming to terms with womanhood—especially the way "having boobs" changed everything. Gershon shares hard-earned insights about survival, self-assertion, and empowerment in entertainment and everyday life, all in her signature witty, sharp, and sometimes irreverent tone.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Serendipity and Career Opportunity

[10:50–15:57]

• Gershon describes how a mishap at a Dennis Leary roast ended up leading her to a role on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

  • Initially, a technical issue forced her to redo her song and dance performance—after taking a shot of tequila.
  • In her "inebriated frustration," she leaned into a bolder, funnier performance that caught Jeff Garlin’s attention. This led directly to her guest spot on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

  “I just kind of went after all the guys, you know, and was really funny, I guess... And then Jeff was like, that's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. You have to do our show.” — Gina Gershon [12:35]

• Gershon notes that many of her favorite and most successful projects came from unexpected, sometimes awkward moments that she embraced with openness.

  “Some of the most unexpected best situations have come when you least expect them, right? But I think if you just kind of stay in the flow and say, yes, sure, yes, sure, it leads you to unexpected places.” — Gina Gershon [15:57]

2. Growing Up in the Valley: Scrapes, Predation, and Survival

[16:40–23:28]

• Gershon talks frankly about her adolescence in the San Fernando Valley, a place and time marked by intense predatory behavior.

  • Early exposure to unsafe, toxic encounters—from stalkers outside her house to being hit on at age 15 at the Playboy Mansion—taught her how to sharpen her instincts.
  • While acknowledging the difficulty and pain of those years, she sees value in the resilience they forced her to build.

  “A lot of incidents... prepared me for, you know, the late night streets of New York... you learn from all these things, you know, so at the time you're like, wow, this sucks. But later on you're like, oh, cool. It helps you... hone in your antenna to, like, crazy or danger.” — Gina Gershon [17:57]

• Gershon stresses she doesn’t judge the different ways people navigate Hollywood and life’s dangers, but feels everyone should learn to trust their instincts to avoid or exit truly dangerous situations.

  • She laments victims aren’t to blame but wants perpetrators held accountable and deterrence enforced.

  “My heart really goes out to people who have all of a sudden found themselves in situations where they didn’t know how to navigate out and they were maybe too naive to understand what was going on and really became, you know, victimized. ... There needs to be accountability and consequences.” — Gina Gershon [19:23]

• She equates her animal sense (from encounters with snakes, wolves, and alligators!) to her ability to sense danger in human situations.

3. Navigating Toxicity: Empowerment, Advice, and Setting Boundaries

[23:28–26:19]

• Gershon emphasizes the necessity for women, especially young actresses and her own niece’s generation, to be vigilant and assertive.

  • She details a recent conversation advising a friend to directly and kindly rebuff a predatory ‘guru,’ rather than avoid confrontation or rely on warning others.

  “You’ve got to be able to look someone in the eye and just say it. ... Until you could just look him in the eye and say, hey, Val, you know, you're making me uncomfortable. Trust me, he'll stop. And if he doesn't, then, you know what? Don’t go back.” — Gina Gershon [24:28]

• Gershon encourages directness and self-defense, while acknowledging she wasn’t always tough—her environment forced her to learn toughness early.

• She recognizes it’s unfortunate this is still required, but stresses the importance of being “alpha pussy”—empowered, aware, and responsible for oneself.

  “We need to be empowered and we need to be responsible for ourselves and to have our, you know, eyes open and our antennas out.” — Gina Gershon [23:28]

4. Embracing Womanhood: The Impact of Physical Changes

[26:19–27:29]

• Gershon discusses the subtitle of her memoir and what it means to "learn to love my boobs."

  • She reflects on how, as a teenage girl, the arrival of breasts suddenly changed how everyone treated her: unwanted attention, new expectations, and a need to adjust her self-presentation and how she moved through the world.
  • She comically but poignantly observes that people “treat you differently with boobs.”

  “There’s all that going on. I said, but like, my viewpoint from the Valley was a girl who all of a sudden had boobs. ... I had this unwanted attention that I didn't want. And then I had to learn how to navigate that. ... They treat you differently. They treat you differently with boobs.” — Gina Gershon [27:29]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On facing down hecklers at the roast and turning it into a winning moment:

  “So I just kind of went after all the guys, you know, and was really funny, I guess....” — Gina Gershon [12:21]

• On learning from adversity:

  “At the time you’re like, wow, this sucks. But later on, you’re like, oh, cool.” — Gina Gershon [17:57]

• On street smarts and being on guard:

  “I tell my niece, don’t be walking down the street, just like talking on the phone, not aware of what’s going on around you....” — Gina Gershon [22:52]

• On unintended consequences of puberty:

  “I was the same person. I just had boobs all of a sudden. ... They treat you differently. They treat you differently with boobs.” — Gina Gershon [27:19/27:29]

• Mike Pesca’s warm sendoff:

  “You brought me into your perception and worldview and I’ve loved watching you in movies and I loved reading the book.” — Mike Pesca [27:29]

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Segment Timestamps

• 00:00–10:27: Intro, monologue (ads and news analysis—skipped)
• 10:27–15:57: Gina Gershon on the roast, Curb, and serendipitous career events
• 15:57–23:28: Growing up in the Valley, predators in Hollywood, developing resilience
• 23:28–26:19: Empowerment, mentoring younger women, setting boundaries
• 26:19–27:42: Boobs, womanhood, and the memoir’s meaning
• 27:42–end: Outro/ads (skipped), followed by the "spiel" on Iran and US war rationale (not included in interview summary)

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Final Thoughts

Gina Gershon delivers a memorable, honest, and humorous journey through the unexpected turns of her career and personal growth, candidly discussing the challenges of womanhood, survival, and empowerment with a mixture of wisdom and classic Hollywood storytelling. Her core philosophy—stay open, say yes, hone your instincts, be direct, and embrace your evolving self—shines throughout the conversation and her new memoir.

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This summary focuses exclusively on the Gina Gershon interview (10:27–27:42), capturing its spirit, key moments, and lessons as told by Gina herself.

Transcript

[Mike Pesca]

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[Mike Pesca]

It's Tuesday, March 3, 2026. From peach fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. There is one word, one word dominating the domestic discussion about the advisability and legality of the attacks by and Israel on Iran. President Trump used this word in his statements and so did so many other senators in describing why this was not a legal attack. And that word is imminent. Why is it important that Trump said imminent and that these senators claim there was no imminence? Well, under Article 2 of the Constitution, the President claims the authority to protect US Forces and citizens abroad and also to protect the homeland to repel sudden attacks. This is the most widely accepted core power that the President has under the Constitution. And while Article 1 powers give the Congress the ability to declare law, the exceptions are if there is an attack, and the attack doesn't necessarily have to be underway, it can be, and there is that word imminent. Now, was this attack or an attack from Iran? Was that imminent? Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, laid out a novel legal theory about that

[Marco Rubio]

there absolutely was an imminent threat. And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. And we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded because the Department of War assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked by someone else, Israel attacked them, they hit us first, and we waited for them to hit us, we would suffer more casualties and more deaths. We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage. Have we not done so? There would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen and we didn't act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life.

[Mike Pesca]

What Rubio is saying is that Israel was going to attack Iran with the full knowledge and cooperation of the United States. By the way, and since Israel was going to attack Iran, Iran would not just attack Israel, but attack American bases. In fact, they did attack American bases. But wasn't this because not just Israel, but Israel and the United States attacked? This is classic circular reasoning and it would not fly in a courtroom. But it does not have to fly in a courtroom. The president generally has 60 days to do what he wishes. And this President will do what he wishes whenever he wishes. And it might not be good constitutional or proper civic hygiene, but that's what he's going to do. Now, there is another question, and it is a question of even though the attack was not imminent that the United States was trying to prevent, was it so serious and so potentially catastrophic as to justify a preemptive strike? Even if the preemption was years in the future? And without saying if I endorse this theory or even speculating if the administration is going to put forth this theory, it is something to think about. Let us cast our minds to five years in the future and whatever diplomacy or whatever saber rattling or whatever else transpired, Iran has a nuclear bomb. And let's even look to six years in the future. They use a nuclear bomb and hundreds of thousands of people die. But just Iran having a nuclear bomb is something that every single president with this on his mind has always said this can never happen. And I agree with that. How do you make that not happen? You don't wait for an imminent threat. You don't wait for the week or two weeks before Iran has a nuclear bomb. There has to be a hinge point, a a decision point, perhaps a point that came far in the past, from the moment when Iran had the nuclear bomb or it was imminent that Iran was going to have a nuclear bomb. And that could be considered a critical juncture, a Rubicon, a flashpoint moment, a cascade trigger. And if you didn't stop the cascade from happening, then years in the future, you'll never be able to stop what will one day be imminent. Might seem like a tortuous legal argument, but I think that it applies, or may very well apply to this situation now. We don't know the future. We don't know if some amount of negotiation might have worked. And I will give due deference to those who say the JCPOA was working well. It was true. It was convincing the Iranians to put their nuclear ambitions in mothballs. We while they accrued billions of dollars to export their terrorism throughout the world. But that's fine. That's what the J. CPOA Was intending to do. Not stop the terrorist proxies, but to stop the big one, the bomb. And this was another way to stop the big one, the bomb. And the bomb, perhaps quite plausibly, couldn't have been stopped right when it became imminent. It could only have been stopped when 40 or so senior leaders in including the Ayatollah, made the stupid move of meeting in a room in the daytime. This was the weakest the Iranian regime was ever going to be. And perhaps this was the only time, even by force, that this administration could stop an imminent threat. Not endorsing that. I'm just saying that there's something about obsessing on the concept of the imminent and being so literal about it that we would not apply or would not think was the proper thing to do in other circumstances. It is, in fact, an endorsement of being short sighted. And so often in politics, we criticize our leaders not for having the long view. I'm not going to say Donald Trump has the long view. I'm not going to get into the motives of anyone. But an insistence on imminent is literally an insistence on only seeing that which is in front of your nose. And in most walks of life, that's not the best way to think of things on the show today. Well, in the spiel, I'm going to attempt to provide a service that you might not have known you wanted, which is to supply the articulation, the actual, clear, cogent articulation that the Trump administration is not supplying for why we're in war in Iran. But first, well, what an interview. I interviewed Gina Gershon, the great actress. She's now out with a fun memoir called Alpha Pussy, How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs. That is the subtitle. It's a little tawdry, but Gina Gershon was a delight. And you know what? I want to compliment her because she could have talked about anything and she could have been one of these artists who say, look, showgirls wasn't my finest work or finest moment. But she knows that when people talk to her, Gina Gershon, they want to talk about showgirls. 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[Mike Pesca]

Gina Gershon has been in a lot A lot of scrapes, a lot of pickles, a lot of movies, a lot of TV shows. I'm not even talking about just her IMDb there's a lot of stage. There's just a lot of a lot In Gina Gershon's new book, Alpha How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs. Hello Gina. Welcome to the Gist.

[Gina Gershon]

Hi.

[Mike Pesca]

In the book you talk about how you got the Curb youb Enthusiasm and it was that you met Jeff Garland while doing a roast for Dennis Leary and there was a complication. You did a song and dance number and the lighting wasn't good. So they came and they said you have to do it again. So my first question is when you're asked to do something again that you think was really well done the first time, do you just power through it? What's your reaction?

[Gina Gershon]

Well, I was nervous after I finished it because we just didn't have as much time to rehearse a song and dance number as I would like. Even though Dennis is like, it's live. Don't worry about it. But it's like, there's cue cards. I. I don't want to, like, look at the cue cards as I'm singing and dancing. You know, that screws me up. So I did it, and I was relieved. And then I just took a shot of tequila right afterwards, and, you know. And so when they came back, they said, you have to do it again. I'm like, why? And it was a technical thing. It was shadow. And I just. In the back of my head, I'm like, well, I better do it right now before this tequila kicks in. And they're like, no, no, you have to wait until the very end of the show because it's live. And I'm like, you mean the end of the show when everyone wants to leave and they'll be annoyed to have to watch this again, right? He said, yeah. So he said, why don't you just watch the show? And so as I was watched, I said, well, I'm not going to just sit back here. And I went with my friend Richie. We were watching the show, and as I watched the show, I had never really witnessed a roast before.

[Mike Pesca]

And then I guess to interrupt, they weren't. They. They had been done in with Dean Martin and. And, you know, the Friars. But this is the first one. I think that was the Dennis Leary rose was the first one that Comedy Central did. So they were kind of bringing back the institution, right?

[Gina Gershon]

And maybe I should have really watched a lot of. But I remember watching it, but I don't remember, like, I think I was, like, the only female. And so some. And, you know, showgirls had come out, so obviously the. A lot of the guy, you know, the comedians were roasting me as well. They would say things about me, and I'm like, wait, wait, why are they turning on me? They're supposed to be Dennis. And Richie's like, honey, you know, everyone, you're everything. Everything's up for grabs. And I'm so. I just kept drinking, and by the time I got to do my number again, I. I had a whole different take. I said, just play it. I'm playing this differently this time. And I was so mad. So I just kind of went, I was like, oh, you want to play? Fine, I'll play. So I just kind of went after all the guys, you know, and was really funny, I guess. Although I was just like. And then Jeff was like, that's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. You have to do our show. I'm like, no. Why was I being, like, completely, you know, skewered anyway? And I said, yeah, whatever. I didn't know what curb enthusiasm was. And then when I got that call on Monday, you know, to play, you know, the Hasidic Jew one last time, I was like, what? They said, no, no, no. My friend's like, don't worry. You play yourself. You just go and improvise. People just play themselves. But lo and behold, when I got to the set, I actually was playing the Hasidic Jew who has had the hops for Larry. So, yes, and we just played from there. Made it up.

[Mike Pesca]

A more revealing than average Hasidic Jew, I would say. The buttoning on the shirt. Typical of the most. Of most Hasidic Jewish women that I've met. Although you have had how much interactions with dry cleaners or Hasidic Jewish women afterwards who've given you notes on the verisimilitude of the performance?

[Gina Gershon]

None. Not that I can.

[Mike Pesca]

I understand. Like, maybe you're not in the communities of the Chabad community, but you don't go into dry cleaners. They don't say something to you like, you're the. This is among the most prominent dry cleaners ever. Ever portrayed on screen.

[Gina Gershon]

You know, I think a lot of people didn't realize it was me because a lot of times people were like, oh, my God, I didn't know that was you until I saw the credits. I don't know. Maybe the dry cleaners I go to, they just don't watch the show.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, man. But people.

[Gina Gershon]

And yet they probably commented on it. But it hasn't been dry cleaners, and it definitely hasn't been Hasidic women. Sorry.

[Mike Pesca]

The dry cleaners don't watch the show, but by law, every dry cleaner has to have a picture of every celebrity whose stuff they dry clean on the wall. I don't know why that is. Every diner owner has to have Tele Savalas, and every dry cleaner is their arm around whoever dropped off their jumpsuit.

[Gina Gershon]

That's true. I have. They have a different picture from me, from, I think from some magazine cover. And I don't know, my guys. I don't think they've washed it. Nope, it's true. No one's ever mentioned it to me. Sorry.

[Mike Pesca]

So isn't it good that this accident of the show not going well? The first time there was a shadow, and then you show your improv chops, and then you get not only this part that becomes recurrent, a bit of a recurring part two or three, you have this friendship. Friendship with Jeff Garland that flourishes. I went back and watched the Curb youb Enthusiasm podcast, and Susie Essman said, oh, you were good friends with Gina beforehand. And Jeff said, no, I just met her at the roast. Our friendship flourished out afterwards. So it's. Yeah, it's like one of these happy accidents that you have to be open to.

[Gina Gershon]

I mean, I think in the book, I talk a lot about. We're not a lot. There's. I think there's a couple chapters I. In my life and in my career, I think some of the most unexpected best situations have come when you least expect them, Right? But I think if you just kind of stay in the flow and say, yes, sure, yes, sure, it leads you to unexpected places. And, you know, my career hasn't been, like, completely conventional. You know, I've done many different things just because the wind kind of blew me in that direction. I just kind of went with it. And I had a lot. Like, my most fun jobs I've done have definitely been completely from happenstance, you

[Mike Pesca]

know, so we didn't get into. And I do recommend so much of the book, Growing up in the Valley, which is not a nostalgic, licorice pizza take on the Valley. There was a lot of, I'll use the word predation back then, and you had to, like I said in the intro, get yourself out of scrapes. Even if Lenny Kra Kravitz was a high school classmate of yours who you jammed with. And so it leads to. You have to be strong. You go through all these travails as people who are accomplished do, and it forges you. But what do you think of the question of. While it's true that who you are now or at any point was the sum total of everything that happened to you as you went back and wrote this, did you say to yourself something like, it sucks that all this happened to me, or was it more, you know, while it did suck at the time, it did add up to things that I could use. Use for my art, or just the

[Gina Gershon]

person, the resilient person in the Valley.

[Mike Pesca]

I'm talking about. I'm talking about guys coming up to you who are maybe stalking you outside your house. I'm Talking about, you know, being 15 and essentially hit on at the Playboy Mansion. And I'm talking about all the rough stuff with being a young actress in Hollywood. So is the. Is it more of sucks and regrettable or who I am now?

[Gina Gershon]

I think everything that happens in your life is probably there for a reason, you know, or not there for a reason, but you learn from it, hopefully. And a lot of incidents, you know, growing up in the Valley in a very toxic environment, prepared me for, you know, the late night streets of New York when I dealt with certain encounters which prepared me for certain, like, sleazy Hollywood moments. Like, you learn from all these things, you know, so at the time you're like, wow, this sucks. But later on you're like, oh, cool. You learn, you. It, it helps you, you know, hone in your antenna to, like, crazy or danger or, you know, you know, and hopefully you learn. You know what I mean? It's like, listen, this is. I get along, really. I've had very strange encounters with a lot of animals that I should have been dead, you know, I mean, like killer snakes and live wolves and swimming with alligators, like, really weird stuff. And I, I have been lucky. And I know with the whole cat thing, I can deal with animals and I'm very in tune with that. And yet I wouldn't walk through the jungle by myself after dark.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes, some would argue that you have to make it in Hollywood.

[Gina Gershon]

Huh?

[Mike Pesca]

Some would argue that you have to. To make it in Hollywood. Walk.

[Gina Gershon]

No, you don't.

[Mike Pesca]

That is.

[Gina Gershon]

No, you have to make a decision. You know, some. You make a decision and. Or if you find yourself in a really uncomfortable situation, hopefully you learn how to kind of gracefully. I had, for me, I had to gracefully navigate my way out of things just because I wasn't comfortable with certain situations. And I'm. Listen, I don't judge anyone. Everyone wants to deal with things the way they want to deal with it. If they want a certain thing and they don't care how they get it, you know, or. And they're comfortable in that situation, then that's. That's them. I, I can only speak for myself. And you know what? And I want to really be clear, you know, I'm not talking about like, all of a sudden you're finding yourself in a really dangerous situation with like a murderer or a rapist or a complete psychopath. One would hope that your antenna and your instincts would be like, oh, wow, this is not a safe environment. I'm going to get the fuck out of here. You know, or don't put yourself in that position in the first place. And. But sadly, you know, sometimes my heart really goes out to people who have all of a sudden found themselves in situations where they didn't know how to navigate out and they were maybe too naive to understand what was going on and really became, you know, victimized. My, you know, my heart really goes out to all of those people and it just. And you know, the truth is, like, it just makes me angry, you know, because it's like, yeah, we shouldn't even. I mean, I wish we lived in a world where there were no victims. You know what I mean? But sadly, I just think it's annoying that for the, you know, perpetrators or the, or the bad people, you know, there should. There needs to be accountability and consequences. So maybe it's a deterrence so this doesn't keep happening.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, but the individual too has. They have to do everything they can to. And sometimes you can't but to either extricate themselves or to find ways to navigate out of that. I mean, when.

[Gina Gershon]

Listen, sadly, we live in a world where, oopsie, you have to be on your toes. Do you know what I mean? And it's sad, but it's just true. And all this that's going on now, all these horrible dealings that we're seeing, you know, before our eyes, it's not like stuff, it hasn't been there, it's just being revealed for the first time and we're really understanding what's going on. And you know, unfortunately, the world we're living in now, you have to. You know, I found myself the other day walking down. I was in London and I was feeling very jaunty, as I do when I'm in London. And I had an umbrella because it was going to rain. And so I was spinning my umbrella around, like walking through the park, you know, feeling just. It was just so beautiful. Nature's always so, you know, healing and soothing. I just was feeling quite jaunty and I realized, like, wow, you know, these days I haven't felt that way walking down the streets of New York in a while. Like, I'll take an umbrella even if it's not going to rain. And I spin it around almost as a secret silent message of, like, do not mess with me. Like, it's almost like a deter. It's. It's a shield. It's a shield. It's like a. And that's really sad that that's the world we're living in right now, but we are. And so you Know, I tell my niece, don't be walking down the street, just like talking on the phone, not aware of what is going on around you. And that's just the way it is at the moment. You know, we're living in that sort of, you know, so just, I just, I hope in the whole alpha pussy thing is just, hopefully it'll. It empowered me to think this way. And like I said, this isn't a tell all, but if someone can, like, we need to be empowered and we need to be responsible for ourselves and to have our, you know, eyes open and our antennas out.

[Mike Pesca]

Because if people.

[Gina Gershon]

There's a lot of toxicity around, you

[Mike Pesca]

know, if people of your niece's generation or younger actresses ask you for advice, do. I'm sure you give them a version of what you just said to me. But is there anything else? Any specific empowerment pieces of advice you give?

[Gina Gershon]

A lot of these stories came out of not a lot, but I noticed that. Actresses for sure, and, you know, younger women, like, you know, millennials or whatever, they would tell me these stories. Oh, one had just gone to a, like a spiritual retreat, you know, and she was mortified because the guru, you know, was kind of hitting on her and, like, being sexually aggressive with her. And I was like, like, hi. Why do you think people become gurus? Like, they're. But I said, no. So what did you do?

[Mike Pesca]

It's in the job description.

[Gina Gershon]

Yeah, yeah, I'm always very suspicious of that. And she was like, well, you know, I told everyone around me, like, beware of this guy, and, you know, he's doing this and this and this. And as she kept talking, she was, you know, looking all around and not. And I said, did you ever just say to the guy, hey, you know, don't do that. You're making me really uncomfortable. Oh, no, no, no, I could never do that. I. I can. And then, you know, I tell her the alpha pussy story, the cat. I said, you've got to be able to look someone in the eye and just say it. You could be really nice about it, you know, I mean, this guy clearly wasn't gonna jump on her and murder her, you know, or. I don't know. I said, you could have just left. I said, but until you could just look him in the eye and say, hey, Val, you know, you're making me uncomfortable. Trust me, he'll stop. And if they. And if he doesn't, then, you know what? Don't go back. If you're uncomfortable, don't put yourself in that situation. And that would tell her certain stories, she's like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Well, you know, you're, you know how to deal with that because you're tough. I'm like, yeah, but I wasn't always tough. You have to learn how to be tough. I grew up in, like, kind of the cesspool of the Valley at that very particular moment. There's a lot of gross people around and I. You learn how to navigate. So, you know, I was fortunate that I, I had to learn that from an early age. But. And like I said, it's unfortunate that we even have to think this way sometimes, but unfortunately we do.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, hearken to the ways of the Alpha Pussy. It's actionable advice. It's life in film. It's the story or some of the stories, some of the great stories as told by Gina Gershon. Alpha How I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love My Boobs. I always, you know the subtitle, I get a little, well, I get a little nervous about saying that, but why not? Why not just embrace it? Most of the Maldom of America has.

[Gina Gershon]

But you know what? The truth is, I thought about this a lot. I mean, the book cover, you know, which I took a lot of time designing, it would have just. It honestly would have looked better just saying Alpha Pussy because it's such a strong name. But I think how I Survived the Valley and Learned to Love my boobs. I don't know, I felt like that's kind of what it's about. You know what I mean? It's like in the description, it's like the Valley, like kind of these formula of years. And, you know, it was being a woman and like all of a sudden when my boob showed up, people treat you differently. A whole shift happened and it was like, wait, what's going on? I was like, I love Paul Thomas Anderson's movie so much. And he's a friend. When I saw, you know, Boogie Nights, right, I had friends, you know, like, we kind of grew up around the same time. I said, you know, I had friends who like turned into porn people. And, you know, there's all that going on. I said, but like, my viewpoint from the Valley was a girl who all of a sudden had boobs. So then the eyes were, you know, I had this unwanted attention that I didn't want. And then I had to learn how to navigate that. Yeah, because I was the same person. I just had boobs all of a sudden. And then just. People treat you differently. They treat you differently with boobs.

[Mike Pesca]

It's just a thing there is the idiomatic phrase. I can imagine. I can't really, but I can. But you. You brought me into your perceptive perception and worldview and I've loved watching you in movies and I loved reading the book. So Gina Gershon, thank you so much.

[Gina Gershon]

Thank you so much, Mike. Take care. Foreign.

[Mike Pesca]

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[Mike Pesca]

And now the spiel. So I've spent a couple of segments in the top of the show and then my conversation with Eli Lake essentially putting forward rationales for this war, at least presenting to you what the best phrased scenario is for why we would go to war in the upcoming days and weeks. We will see if those rationales prove correct. And also I'm going to bring on people who are critics, articulate the criticism. Of course, all of that. That's what we do on the gist. And just so you know, from my worldview, most of the incoming media that I've been reading is quite critical of this war. And one of the pieces of criticism is that the administration, Donald Trump, hasn't even told us clearly why we're at war. That's probably true. Trump deserves that criticism. So yesterday Eli Lake and I talked about broad, sweeping histories of Iran and what might happen or not happen with a wider conflict. And today you heard me talking about the idea of this war being imminent or not imminent. And yesterday I played a clip of Chris Murphy who was saying an air war has never achieved this objective. I talked about Kosovo a little bit. Kosovo had NATO troops on the ground. Donald Trump says that won't be happening in this war. This is all background, right? This is all, I think, a good faith effort to try to articulate but also explore what might be the case for war, even if you or I disagree with it. So the bulwark, and I read the bulwark. It's valuable. But in the bulwark, Bill Kristol, and he wasn't alone. This is the editorial position of the publication, I believe. And Kristol, of course, is one of the architects of the Iraq war. So I'm not going to talk about motivation, but he is one person right now who is making the case that Donald Trump hasn't made the case. He wrote in an article in the Bulwark titled what is the Point of War? So first he quotes CNN interviewing Mark Wayne Mullen, the senator from Oklahoma. When asked what the point of the war is, Senator Mullen said, this isn't war. Yes, that is about the worst argument you could get from a Republican senator or really anyone. And while it's correct to dunk on that particular answer, Mullen has given better answers and many, many other senators have given better answers. So let's not cherry pick. Let's not nut pick, as the expression goes. Mullen, by the way, seemed at one point not to know that the ayatollah, the current, well, not current, but the recent Ayatollah Khamenei was not Ayatollah Khomeini. You can understand why he gets them wrong, the names, the beards, the title ayatollah. But if the ayatollah who led the Iranian revolution, we're still alive, maybe he'd have a much better claim to being a holy or blessed figure who has the favor of God because he, he would be 123 years old. Again, if I criticize Kristol for maybe picking on a Mark Wayne Mullen comment, maybe I've done the same. You listen. It does seem to me that Mullen didn't realize we've gone through a couple ayatollah is. Now, we knew that the only way

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to stop this guy because keep in mind, he's been saying he wanted to be a nuclear power since 1979. You can go back to his talkings to what he said in print and what he said publicly, that he wanted to bring Iran into nuclear power for

[Mike Pesca]

stability, for his, for his purpose. In either case, Kristol writes, why do we go to war Now? The administration hasn't offered a coherent explanation. Over the weekend, President Trump suggested several purposes and backed away from some, leaving confusion. His aides tried to clean things up. Yesterday, having Trump read military objectives from a teleprompter at the White House. Well, yes, that is how presidents Communicate and sometimes it's a good thing to write things down beforehand so you get them right. Crystal none of the objectives, destroying Iran's missile capabilities and its navy, ensuring Iran can't obtain a nuclear weapon or support terrorism explain why we had to go to war now. Nor do they explain why we are engaged in such an open ended and massive military campaign. Well, I can explain if they didn't explain and I do think they explain more than Kristol says they explain. It's this, it's that this is a hinge point, a point of weakness when the Iranian regime, who is doing all those things, trying to get nukes and supporting terrorism, when they can be effectively attacked, when they can be stopped in a way that in the future they might not be able to be stopped plausibly. So this is a time of extreme weakness for the Iranians. And if the United States were to destroy Iran's missile capabilities, this is the time to do it. Not after they restock their missile program entirely, which was more than decimated and not after they resupply with much better, faster, literally supersonic missiles from China. Iran is becoming, or was set to become a full on client state of China filled not just with their weaponry but their back end technology replacing the creaky old systems that, that have been so easily penetrated by intelligence forces from Israel and the United States. So penetrated that you see these decapitation strikes from Israel and the US Being successful. So if we wait for the Chinese technology to come into place, we won't be able to do this again in the future. Kristol goes on to criticize Trump and his words that the threat became untenable. Kristol says there's no claim of self defense. Well, maybe not in those words, maybe not in the words that he quotes, but the entire explanation is pretty much even if Trump doesn't make it a long term claim of self defense, Kristol says there is no imminent danger. I talked about this yesterday. It's true. It's true. There will be no nuclear bomb in a day, a week or a few months. You have to claim imminent danger in order to take military action without authorization from Congress. If you're the president now, Donald Trump doesn't care about Congress and he's essentially lawless. And I'm not excusing him for that. He also did make the calculation that he wouldn't necessarily get the authorization from Congress. So he acted without Congress. It's all probably unconstitutional. It's not adhering to the best practices of governance. But does that mean it's wrong in terms of protecting the American people. You get default to process. Most of the people who are think this is a bad war to begin with, but it is also possible that this was a necessary war. We'll never know because in a few years, if the war hadn't happened, Iran might have acquired nuclear weapons and then we could look back and say we could have done it then. And if that were the case, would you also say but it was good that we didn't and we'd rather live with a nuclear Iran than Donald Trump going outside the procedures for getting his War Power act or for getting congressional authorization before he took action, Dinging Trump, dinging Rubio, making them suffer a bit for their dearth of compelling arguments. That's fine and fair. And it does further make the case that needs to be made that Donald Trump does not adhere to American laws, which is bad. But in terms of justification for a war that recognizes a long term threat threat which can only be addressed in the present, the threat is long term, but the opportunity is now. It can in fact be a rational justification for war and still be outside the laws of the United States. What? How could something be true but outside the laws? This happens all the time. We could think of hundreds of incidents where the United States laws are inadequate to address a long term threat. Like say what Donald Trump has done with climate change. Maybe he's doing the opposite. With an acute threat of the acquisition of nuclear weapons. There is almost no Venn diagram of people who think this is true. Donald Trump right on both or Donald Trump wrong on both. But it's possible that he's accurately describing a long term threat and acting outside the law on the one and inaccurately describing a long term threat and acting outside the law on the other. I'll also read another argument from the Chicago Tribune. This was from Daniel de Petras titled Donald Trump's Pitiful case for Going to War with Iran. And he's right to light upon the fact that Donald Trump has not made a good case. However, the Petrus concludes there is no case to be made. Quote, sure, Iran's missiles pose a threat and then he cites missiles that have struck Saudi Arabia and Israel. And yes, Iran's short range missiles can reach a good chunk of Washington's military infrastructure structure in the region. But it's not like this is a new development. He's wrong. They have restocked their missile systems since the 12 Day War. Every day they're gaining capability or were before they were struck. And like I said, and this is the big thing, China supersonic missiles. The word China is nowhere in this article. Iran was restocking and supplying themselves with Chinese supersonic missiles. The forestalling of that is in fact an excellent justification for military intervention if you could get it from the Congress and achieve it without too many costs from the US if it can be stopped, it should be stopped. Donald Trump doesn't make this case. Well, Donald Trump lies about many things. Donald Trump exaggerated or lied about the obliteration of the nuclear system. Which brings me to the Petras, his next point. What about Iran's nuclear program? The Petrus writes, surely the Iranians are making a dash to the bomb, right? Wrong. Before the first Trump administration stupidly withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal, Tehran's nuclear apparatus was essentially under lock and key. Well, even if I grant that description, who owned the lock? Who held the key? It was Iran and they could get out of it at any time. Now there's a reasonable case that the JCPOA was maybe not sufficient to fully deter Iran from having a bomb, but working in the short term. I accept all those arguments. But if Iran's bomb making capabilities were destroyed, literally destroyed, and if the uranium they already possessed were seized, that would go far beyond what the JCPOA was achieving. And the JCPOA tradeoffs was giving Iran billions of dollars which they use to fund terrorism throughout the region. In the world. The Petras writes, despite what US officials are telling the public, there is no evidence whatsoever that Tehran's nuclear program was close to a bomb. That's not true. There's plenty of evidence, you know, depending on how you define close. Too close for comfort, I would say. Just the other day before the war, my leisure reading drew me to the Institute for Science and International Security, quote, a probabilistic approach. What is the probability that Iran will build nuclear weapons? I'll cut to the chase. They said about 28%, optimistically. But they also pointed out that even if their centrifuges were destroyed and isis, that is the unfortunate name of the Institute for Science and International Security. They're no Carnegie Endowment, they're more hawkish than other international organizations, but they have a pretty clear eyed assessment. They point out that even if the really good centrifuges were destroyed, there are gas centrifuges and it's enough. And they have enough uranium to make WGU Wex weapons grade uranium for over 10 nuclear weapons. And it wouldn't happen in a week or two, but it could happen in a month or two. And add to all of this the Chinese weapons program that they talk about. Well, this was a threat. You tell me. Is a 28% chance according to this organization in two months enough of a threat? Well, add in everything else we're talking about, such as the Chinese systems, such as the Iranian previous slaughter of the people of their country, such as the desire, the demonstrated desire of the people of their country to rise up and is the extremely important thing, such as the weakness of the Iranian regime, then maybe, yeah, it does add up to what the critics are saying, that the administration is not giving an articulation for war. And that is something of the steel manning of the case for war. Here it is in a paragraph. The United States and Israel went to war in order to totally destroy Iran's ability to make nuclear weapons, to secure the hundreds of kilograms of fissile highly enriched material they already have, and to prevent the further acquisition of advanced Chinese weaponry. And oh, by the way, should regime change occur, which is more likely than it ever has been in the last 47 years, good. That's worse it you might disagree, but that is at least the case for war. And that's it for today's show. Cory War produces the gist. Jeff Craig runs our socials, Kathleen Sykes runs the substack and Ben Astaire books. Our guests, Michelle Pasco oversees them all quite benevolently and she also, like the ISIS assessment, is 28% optimistic. Improve to Peru and thanks for listening.

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