1060: TNL Live! Iran War Nukes MAGA

Summary

The Next Level Episode 1060: TNL Live! Iran War Nukes MAGA
Date: March 3, 2026
Hosts: Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Jonathan V. Last (JVL)
Podcast by: The Bulwark

---

Episode Overview

This live episode dives deeply into the chaotic onset and fallout of President Trump’s war on Iran, exploring its rationale, the administration's messaging, domestic political implications, MAGA coalition fractures, and the broader consequences for American foreign policy. The hosts blend sharp political critique with characteristic humor, offering insights grounded in polling, historical context, and first-person expertise in American politics. Other topics include the Biden-Ukraine comparison, public support metrics, coalition management, and a lively debate on controversial Senate candidates.

---

Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Skepticism Toward Trump’s Iran War

• Lack of Legitimacy and Clarity:
  • No congressional approval or coherent justification (03:45, Sarah Longwell).
  • “Where we are getting our information currently is not from the White House... it is from the President's private Truth Social account, which by the way, he owns.” — Sarah Longwell [02:45]
• Messaging Confusion:
  • Conflicting and shifting explanations from Trump’s administration (03:25 - 05:15).
  • “We keep getting conflicting reports from the President himself... It does not appear that this was thought through.” — Sarah Longwell [03:25]
• Corruption and Competence Concerns:
  • Peace negotiations led by business associates, notably Witkoff and Jared Kushner, referenced for their international business ties and lack of diplomatic expertise (05:00).
  • “Maybe it's because this administration is incredibly corrupt.” — Sarah Longwell [04:30]
• Historical Context on War Weariness:
  • Comparison with Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Gulf War — public aversion to new Mideast interventions is pronounced (23:44, Sarah Longwell).

2. MAGA Coalition Tensions

• Contradictions Within MAGA:
  • Many proclaimed “no more foreign wars” was selectively interpreted (“No more foreign wars led by people other than Donald Trump.” — Tim Miller [08:40]).
  • Internal party polling shows a rally for Trump, but underlying support among Republicans is “soft” (15:38, JBL).
• Trump’s Personal Branding:
  • Trump struggles with the idea that he may be perceived as following Israel’s lead and seeks to reframe himself as the dominant player forcing the war (“No, I might have forced their hand.” — Donald Trump [10:33]).
  • Hosts note that Trump wants to be seen as in charge, disliking any suggestion that Netanyahu or external forces influenced him (14:33, Sarah Longwell).

3. Public Opinion and Political Risks

• Snap Polls and Support Levels:
  • Democrats overwhelmingly oppose the war (only 7% of Dems in favor); Independents also largely opposed or skeptical (15:38, JBL).
  • Republican support is significant but noticeably weaker than for most Trump initiatives (in the 70s, lower than typical 80s-90s).
• Fragility of Support:
  • No robust "rally around the flag" effect—support jumps upon announcement, but only to 41% (18:18, Sarah Longwell).
  • “If this is his high watermark, then that means that only 41% are like, okay...” — Sarah Longwell [18:18]
• Impact of Casualties and Duration:
  • Length of the war and economic impacts (especially gas prices) are perceived as greater threats to support than casualty numbers alone.
  • “For me, it's like how long it goes on... If you're in a hot war and we're dropping bombs and sending American troops, [voters] care for a while and get really upset.” — Sarah Longwell [64:11]

4. Trump’s “Superpower” to Walk Away

• Ability to Declare Victory and Withdraw:
  • Unlike previous presidents, Trump’s lack of ideological or humanitarian constraints may allow him to abruptly reverse course (25:27 - 29:21, Tim Miller).
  • “He can just walk in any time and declare victory and say, see, everything’s great.” — Tim Miller [28:20]
• Counterpoint – Enemy "Gets a Vote":
  • Sarah Longwell counters that regional complexities, allies' interests (notably Israel and Saudi Arabia), and unpredictable Iranian responses make unilateral disengagement difficult (29:21).
  • “In a war like this, your enemy gets a vote.” — General Hertling, quoted by Sarah Longwell [29:21]

5. Republican Coalition and the War's Impact

• Deep Betrayal for Some in GOP:
  • Roots of Trump’s GOP takeover included promises to avoid “stupid wars”; this action is seen by many as a fundamental betrayal (44:10, JVL).
  • “This was the thing. It would literally be like him doing amnesty.” — JVL [44:58]
• Intra-MAGA Media Discord:
  • Key influencers like Tucker Carlson were courted by the White House for dissenting views (34:42); Tulsi Gabbard’s absence reflects lack of principle (35:22).
  • Surreal information battles among right-wing pundits (Scott Jennings’ mass casualty event rumor, 41:32).

6. Administration Corruption & Foreign Policy

• Transactionalism and 'Gangsterism':
  • Trump's personal and familial ties to the Gulf regimes shape US foreign policy toward transactional, autocratic preferences (70:05, Tim Miller).
  • “His own view of leadership, state sovereignty, and power mirrors precisely how things are in the Middle East.” — Tim Miller [70:05]
• Potential for Future Quagmires:
  • Even a fast withdrawal likely leaves political damage and talking points for opponents (30:51, JBL).

7. Notable Quotes & Analogy Highlights

• On Administration Motivations:
  • “We have an administration that lies about everything, like absolutely everything.” — Sarah Longwell [04:20]
• On Trump’s Rationales:
  • “If I had told you guys, Trump is going to be asked this question, you both would have said, oh, here’s how he’ll respond to it.” — Tim Miller [10:43]
• On Public Support:
  • “I think the biggest thing, though, is time.” — Sarah Longwell [18:18]
• On Coalition Fractures:
  • “He’s opened up a real fissure on his own side going into the election.” — JBL [32:53]
• On MAGA’s War Aversion:
  • “I will deport the illegals and I’m not gonna do the dumb Middle East wars.” — JVL [44:58]

---

Key Segments and Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------------|-------------------| | Opening—War Rationales, Skepticism | 00:57 – 05:24 | | Comparing Iran to Ukraine/Biden | 05:24 – 08:24 | | MAGA’s Internal Contradictions | 08:24 – 10:24 | | Trump’s Rationale/Evasion on Decision-Making | 10:24 – 13:44 | | Polling & Political Risk for Trump | 15:20 – 18:54 | | The Role of Casualties & War Length | 18:18 – 24:49 | | “Trump's Superpower” (walking away from war) | 25:27 – 30:35 | | Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, & Right Media | 34:42 – 36:19 | | MAGA Coalition Fractures -- History Lesson | 42:37 – 45:13 | | Deep Dive: Rationale for Iran War & Quagmire Risks | 46:15 – 47:51 | | Graham Platner vs. Janet Mills Senate Debate | 49:20 – 59:43 | | Live Audience Q&A (Foreign Policy, Public Opinion) | 61:47 – 70:05 | | Discussion: Trump–Saudi/UAE corruption | 70:05 – 72:01 |

---

Memorable Moments & Analogies

• Trump’s flip-flop on war:
  • “It would literally be like him doing amnesty… two things that were distinct.” (44:58)
• On the Gulf War analogy:
  • “In red, like, at the time, I just think that there was... still some war weariness there, but... less of this, like, feeling among the public: we’re in this quagmire.” — JBL [22:16]
• Major comic relief:
  • “JBL, this would be like you trying to convince people... that it was you that really talked me into getting hammered one night at the bar.” — Tim Miller [13:44]
• Administration chaos:
  • “We were joking in the Slack before this about what to title this livestream and Sarah was like 'It's curtains for Trump.'” [33:37]
• Public confusion:
  • “If you’re like that guy that was at the horse races this weekend and hasn’t read the news in weeks... why? You have no idea. Like, we’re bombing Iran. Why?” — JBL [05:24]

---

Conclusion & Takeaways

• The episode deeply questions both the logic and process behind Trump’s Iran War, emphasizing the dangers of incoherence, secrecy, and the MAGA coalition’s potential fracture.
• The team foresees severe political risk for Trump if the war drags, casualties mount, or economic pain (gas prices, inflation) follows—especially given the lack of a “rally round” effect.
• Trump’s transactional, unpredictable style both enables wild reversals and injects instability, leaving opponents and allies skeptical of any clear endgame.
• The episode closes with open questions on legislative checks, public opinion, and the enduring impact of this intervention on U.S. politics—as well as a spirited exchange on the merits of populist outsider Senate candidates.

---

This summary covers all major topics, captures the hosts’ wit and tone, and offers rich context for listeners or readers seeking a comprehensive guide to this live, newsy episode of The Next Level.

Transcript

[JBL]

Busted appliance this is your sign to upgrade shop at Lowes to get up to 35% off and next day delivery on hundreds of major appliances. Lowe's we help you Save valid through 318 while supplies last selection varies by location. Order by 4pm available Monday through Saturday subject to availability, fees, exclusions and restrictions apply. See Lowes.com appliancedelivery for more details.

[Sarah Longwell]

Visit your nearby Lowes on Colorado street in Kennewick. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot and turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.

[Tim Miller]

Foreign. This is JVL here with my best friends Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. We're at war still. Day four maybe it's day four. There's lots to talk about with the war. We, we have so many reasons for going to war and sometimes it's for freedom, sometimes it's to take the oil, sometimes it is to protect Israel, sometimes it is to protect America and sometimes it's to end a 47 year war. And also sometimes it's not even a war at all. It's amazing. And before we, before we start, would either of you like to offer introductory thoughts as to this glorious war we are enjoying right now?

[Sarah Longwell]

I've got some opening thoughts.

[Tim Miller]

Hit me.

[Sarah Longwell]

So, you know, I do think that there is and we should just put this on the table right up front. There seems to be a question in the ether from people who don't want to grapple directly with Donald Trump's war in Iran that is specifically about us. Why don't these former neocons or potentially continuing neocons support automatically this war in Iran? And I'd like to just throw out a few reasons why before you do.

[Tim Miller]

I did write an entire newsletter on Monday about all the ways it could work out just fine.

[JBL]

Yeah, yeah. The one neocon that has some thoughts anyway.

[Tim Miller]

I didn't say those things were likely, but I did, I did say, like you never know, it is possible that we could wind up in a better end state.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure, that's fine. I do think it's worth though potentially just laying out why me. We might be skeptical.

[JBL]

Sure.

[Sarah Longwell]

Of this war. And it's just a few things. I just have a short list One, no congressional approval. Two, no case making to the American people, not in the State of the Union, not subsequently. Where we are getting our information currently is not from the White House or Oval Office addresses. It is from the President's private truth social account, which by the way, he owns. Which by the way is like a place. Yeah. Like his private. It's a private business. That is where he is currently sharing with us this information.

[Tim Miller]

Not a very profitable business, Sarah.

[Sarah Longwell]

It might be because we keep getting conflicting reports from the President himself and the members of his administration about why we are doing this. As JVL noted. It might be because it does not appear that this was thought through from many of those statements, that we don't actually have a plan for what we're trying to achieve. That is clear. Certainly not one that has been made to the American people. It might be because of things like, I don't know, there's an Internet blackout in Iran and yet Trump is trying to call for the people there to sort of do an uprising. And yet how are they going to do that? You know what we would do? Normally we would use the Voice of America, our communic, the, the, the national communications channel we had. But you know who runs that now, Carrie? Terry Lake runs that. And we've gutted it so it doesn't have the ability to do the work. So we also have an administration that lies about everything, like absolutely everything. They have bungled things like deporting immigrants to gulags in foreign countries. They've ignored courts, they have, they've been bungling the economy. They've been. Tariffs, come on, tariffs come off. There's a million reasons why. Why. Maybe it's because the negotiating is being done by Witkoff, famously in love with Putin and the President's son in law who's gotten billions from the Saudis. Maybe it's because this administration is incredibly corrupt. There's just a lot of reasons why a sentient person, even if they believe as I do that the Iranian regime is evil, even if they believe as I do that the Iranian people deserve their freedom. The idea that Trump sits in the Oval Office today after we have launched the war and sits there and says, yeah, maybe someone worse will come in or maybe somebody good, I don't know who could say people die. All of this is not reassuring. Normal people should be skeptical that this administration is the right administration to be launching this.

[JBL]

Skeptical, I think would be the minimum table. Oh yeah, I want to do one. Yes. And to that, because I saw some other folks, it wasn't even really about the neocon thing. It was the sense that I don't understand how people who are critical of Trump and even Biden for not providing more military support to Ukraine could now be upset about this. And I was like, well, I can feel that one, actually Ukraine was invaded by Russia and they're a democratic ally in Europe and they have an existing government that we know is an allied government that isn't perfect but is generally a democracy. And you know, in our community of nations and we know the leader and we can deal with them and it's not great when another quasi power invades them. And it would be good to send a deterrent effect to other, you know, quasi superpowers that want to invade allied countries of ours. So like, that is one scenario. This is another scenario where we have like a desiccated regime that had, that was basically spiraling, like the Iranian regime, at least in its power projection that did some terrorist actions. Of course that's not good. We don't support those we want to protect, obviously our interests in the Middle east, but certainly any of their allies interests. But like they weren't planning on invading Jordan. They weren't planning on invading Israel any day. Like, it's not the same. It's not the same. We did it. We chose to go in there. So, and it's, and you know, I think to Sarah's point about like the uncle, the lack of clarity about why, like it is truly, like, it's truly mind boggling that I, like, if you were not a per, if you're like not a news watcher, you know, I was hanging out with some of my non news watching friends over the weekend and somebody came up to me and goes, hey, what's been happening? I haven't read the news in weeks. So if you're like that guy that was at the horse races this weekend and hasn't read the news in weeks and is just, you know, mowing his lawn, parenting his children, going to work, checking in, checking out. Like why? You have no idea. Like what, what, like we're bombing Iran. Why? Like this was the opposite of what Trump ran on. And the whole thing is just totally preposterous in every way. And I think that like all of the caveats about the heinousness of Iran and whatever, you know, other geopolitical strategy like, could be well taken hypothetically if it wasn't these clown fucks running this thing. And like there is just no reason to give them, forget giving them the benefit of the doubt like, just give them a single, like, inch of credibility, which we'll get into some of what they've been saying, like, that there's no reason to take any of it seriously because they're just.

[Tim Miller]

There are a bunch of threads I want to pull in here, one of which is the reaction within maga where you have. On the whole. Will Summer wrote a great piece for us on False Flag that they're. You can see who the real apparatchiks are.

[JBL]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

By looking at how people are switching on this. Right. The people are like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. When we said no more foreign wars, we meant no more foreign wars led by people other than Donald Trump. Donald Trump can live. Those are just Pravda. There's also the interesting question about popularity for this war. You guys did a great bulwark take last night, which didn't even talk to me about then. Nobody invited me. That's. You know, I'm. I love it when I wake up and I see videos of my two best friends partying without my super cool.

[JBL]

Please do it instead. Okay. This is. There's something for a therapist.

[Tim Miller]

You know, you and I have a

[Sarah Longwell]

whole Instagram, a whole podcast without.

[Tim Miller]

I know. And it bothers him.

[JBL]

So.

[Tim Miller]

So there's that stuff, and there is then the. The Israel stuff and digital stuff is the smallest component of this. I would like to start by offering a video for you. Let me just set this up in context. One of the things we have heard from administration sources over the last few days is that one of the. One of the rationales for the attack was that Israel was going to attack Iran, and then Iran was going to hit US Bases in retaliation. And so we had to join in the attack with Israel from the jump, which suggested maybe that the president was being led into the war by Israel. He was asked that question today.

[JBL]

Attack.

[Donald Trump]

If we didn't do it, they were,

[Sarah Longwell]

Israel force your hand to launch these strikes against Iran.

[Donald Trump]

No, I might have forced their hand. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics. And it was my opinion, that's enough.

[Tim Miller]

You don't even need to play the rest of it. This is the most Trumpian response. Like, and honestly, if I had told you guys, Trump is going to be asked this question, you both would have said, oh, here. Here's how he'll respond to it.

[JBL]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

It's the perfect. This obvious thing has happened. And his response is, no, it didn't happen. Actually, the complete opposite of it happened. That's how strong I am.

[JBL]

But then the thing that you cut off there is. What he's saying is, oh, we had these great negotiators. We didn't actually spend. Send anybody that can speak their language, by the way. We just sent Jared and his real estate buddy, Steve Witkoff. We had these great negotiators and we came away convinced they are going to attack us. It's like, what? No. So nobody's told us that. So now we're in day four of. Yeah, we're in day four of the war. And the President, for the first time, is answering questions about it in the Oval Office and he offers a wholly new theory, which is that our negotiators heard that Iran was about to attack us. Really? Where? It's true. Yeah. Where? I mean, certainly not on the homeland. Like these.

[Sarah Longwell]

Do they have missiles that can reach us? Does Iran have missiles that can reach us? I just. Information, brand new information.

[Tim Miller]

Two weeks away from ICBMs.

[JBL]

And so you're trying to tell me that four days into a war you started, you want to share with the American people that we are in imminent risk of an attack from Iran. That was what you guys had felt. I think Donald Trump said, we felt that way. And that is the reason now, because we want to backtrack away from the Secretary of State and the speaker of the House. Say what you want about them, but they shoot from the hip a little less than the President saying that. No, actually, the imminent threat was that if Israel attacked Iran, we had the sense that Iran would then retaliate and that could include us. And so we had to preemptively attack to get ahead of Israel's attack on Iran. And it's nonsensical. And then for Trump to say, obviously we knew Trump was going to say this, but it's important just to just paint a picture of how ridiculous this is. The idea that Trump, who him and his vice president and his whole administration, like, ran for reelection on the premise that they were not going to get into war. He had an entire first term.

[Tim Miller]

You're sending your sons to die in foreign wars.

[JBL]

He had an entire first term where he could have gone to war with Iran if he wanted to. If this has been a 47 year thing. He had four years in that 47 year window where he could have done something about it, didn't do it, then ran on not doing it, said he had no interest in doing it. And then you have Israel run by Bibi, who for like 35 years has been saying we should take out the Iranian regime. And so Trump is now trying to tell us that it was him, the person who said he didn't want to do this his whole life, that was the one pushing Bibi, who has been wanting to do this for 35 years, into doing it. I mean, JBL, this would be like you trying to convince people that it was that or me trying to convince people that it was you that really talked me into getting hammered one night at the bar. You know, it was my tea totaler friend that doesn't drink. And it was really JBL's fault, you know, it wasn't me. I've been itching for a shot ever since. Ever, you know, since the podcast ended. But jvl, JBL really wanted us to do it, so we had to get hammered together. It's a silly.

[Tim Miller]

So does this do, Sarah, does this do anything for Trump in terms of his internal coalition management? Because one of the problems he has is one of the, one of the concerns I have seen expressed by some corners of the right, the ones who are a little more independent, is, holy crap, we're fighting Israel's war for them. Trump was led around by the Zionists and, you know, and, and now, like, does it help for him to say no? No, actually, I'm the one who stampeded them into it. They're just helping me with my war.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm not sure, I'm not sure if, if it actually helps. I do think that's what he's trying to do. Right. They, they recognize that one of the big vulnerabilities in the MAGA coalition in terms of the, the friendly fire they are getting from sort of the J.D. vance wing of the party. Our poster in chief is almost nowhere to be found, by the way. I just, I think that that's. They think that if Trump says it like Trump thinks I can bring people on side, they'll get onside if they know this is coming from me and not Netanyahu. And also Trump doesn't like, like he doesn't care probably that the criticism is that this is a bad word. Anything else? What he can't stomach is the idea that he's not in charge, that he's not the big bad one dropping the bombs and that we're being led around by Israel.

[Tim Miller]

That's an excellent point. So talk to me a little bit about the popularity stuff. So you guys got looked at some snap polling yesterday. It was not good. Can you just give like the, the 15 second version of that? And then I have some questions for you about casualties.

[Sarah Longwell]

Tim, you want to do it or you want me to.

[JBL]

Yeah, sure. And the 15 second version is like the Democrats are united in opposition to this. So for starters, and you look at most of us, like 7% of Democrats are for this. And it's. He's underwater big time with independence. You know, independents are looking at 19 to 25% supporting it in all these polls. There's a bunch of people who are kind of in wait and see mode. And then even among Republicans, it's not horrible. Right now he's like in the 70s, he's using the 80s or 90s on supports or issues. So he's in the 70s of support for, for this attack, but bad for him. Right. And so overall you're looking at, you know, it's like 39.503952. So it's bad, it's underwater, it's not, you know, horrific. But there are a lot of like real red flags for him, which is like when you ask a lot of the underlying questions, you know, do you want them him to keep going? You know, only 20% of people all of a sudden are for that. Right. You know, I don't have some of the numbers in front of me, but like, the gist is the Republican numbers are pretty soft. And I think that you have a little bit of a rally around Trump effect among Trump's own voters. It's like, hey, Trump, trust in Trump. You know, our cult leader, Daddy Trump. Nothing he does is bad. But, but, you know, there is skepticism and there is concern. And the underlying question, and I think, you know, if things get a lot worse, I think that, you know, there's some pretty clear signs in the polling that his numbers could drop precipitously.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And this is something you. Hold on one second, Sarah, because I want to tee you up in a different direction. Something Bill said to you in your show yesterday, Tim, which I listen to, I try to listen to all of your shows, I appreciate that, was that this is. So Bill made the very good point that he could float, Trump could float down a few more points on Epstein or on immigration or on the economy. The place where he could actually have a bottom fallout is war. Right. That that's a place where he could go from 75% approved to like 45 or 50% approve, which would be with Republicans. With Republicans. Sorry, that's what I meant with Republicans. And so that's a place where he risks losing the base for real. And so my question for you, Sarah, is, are casualties important for that? Like what, what determines whether or not that happens? Is it 6 people died vs 25 people died vs 100 people died, or is it the price of gas goes up or is it inflation sort of ticks up the next, the next Bureau of Labor Statistics report, it could be those things.

[Sarah Longwell]

I think the biggest thing, though, is time. Like if in three weeks, we are still there, because I just want to go back to the polling for one second because I think one of the most interesting things is where public support was on bombing Iran before we did it. Right. The idea of going into Iran at all was around 21%, I believe, of people who just as a general matter are like, yes, anytime we get the opportunity, let's go bomb Iran. It's about 21%. It jumps to about 40, 41%. So by about 20 points when Trump actually does it. So those are your high watermark, but people, those are the people who like it just because Trump did it. And I think what's notable, what's notable about that is that there's no bigger rally around the flag effect. Either rally around Trump or rally around the flag, which normally happens. Right. Normally when something like this happen, happens, there is a bump just on the sheer, like, let's support whatever it is we're doing. We're in a high. Like, we're in a serious situation. Let's all be supportive. That's not coming for Trump. All you got is if this is his high watermark, then that means that only 41% are like, okay, we. And this is people who think it's going to be a smash and grab job, like the first bombing in Iran, like going in and getting Maduro, where they don't have to see the aftermath. Right. And so the question, like, for me, yes, if gas prices go up, which I think is a, by the way, like an extraordinarily high possibility, that this causes gas, that oil to spike, it causes the market to drop. That's right. Yeah. It's already happening. But like, that part, it's really, for me, it's like how long it goes on. And if this is the kind of thing where you want to start talking about the Bush line or the W line or whatever we're calling it, that starts to happen as wars go on. And people don't feel like Trump is just getting in and getting out. They feel like, oh, no, we're stuck there. And so it's not even just about American casualties. It's every American base that gets bombed right now and people die. It's Americans getting stuck there. Like, if you're in D.C. one of the things you're hearing constantly is all the people who can't get out right now who are in the hotel.

[Tim Miller]

You're in Dubai or uae.

[Sarah Longwell]

And this is. This goes to my earlier point about all of the things that clearly weren't planned for. There was no evacuation of the Americans that were in these places that were.

[JBL]

We couldn't. Because there was an imminent threat. I mean, they're going.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, it was any day, time bombs, era.

[Sarah Longwell]

I mean, if you just think about Benghazi and what happened there and the. What they. How they sort of dragged Hillary Clinton in and over and over, put the. The killing of. Of. I'm sorry that I forget his name. I believe it was Chris. But the head of that embassy, that, that, that was like a real failure of security. Like, imagine all the thousands, the many, many thousands of Americans who are currently stranded in the Middle east who are under active bombing right now because nobody in their home country did anything to warn them that this was happening.

[JBL]

Yeah, just a couple of thoughts on that, Christopher Stevens. Took me a second for it to come up with, too. Who's got to die to be ghazi? But I agree with Sarah that the time matters and, like, the actual impact back home where it could be any of those things that you. That you laid out. Jbl, I do wonder how things are looked at differently now just because of the general war weariness and hostility to war in the public. Here's something. So this morning, our colleague Mark Kurt Lang has a new book out with his journals from his time in the first Gulf War. And, you know, I was. We were all kids, and I was like, I remember that, you know, being a very. A pretty quick operation, you know, that we were relatively fast. In and out was successful without a lot of casualties. So then I searched this morning. I was like, how many people died in the first. How many American soldiers died? Do you know? Do you have any Guess?

[Tim Miller]

I don't. I want to say it was three digits.

[JBL]

Yeah, it was like 200. A little under 200. Right. And like, that's a lot. Right. And so, you know, it made me kind of think about that differently. Like, in red, like, at the time, I just think that there was. Obviously, you're coming off of Vietnam, so there's still some more weariness there, but with the Middle east, there's, like, less of this, like, feeling among the public. Like, we're in this quagmire, and in, like, the grand scheme of things, they're out relatively quickly, and there's still kind of a lot of deaths for a war that didn't really do anything. I mean, Saddam stayed in power. We were protecting the Kuwait border. Yeah. I mean, you know, anyway, we could have a whole.

[Tim Miller]

Just again, just to talk about ancient history, you do have to put that in the context of, like, ongoing terrorism in the region in recent years, because you'd had Cobar Towers and you had Marine barracks being blown up. And so, like, we had lost three digits worth of American service people a couple times in the region just to terrorism.

[JBL]

Sure. So anyway, so you compare that to now and it's like. And so I just, I bring that up in the context of when you're pointing out the casualty count, JBL is like, is that what would do it to Trump? And it's kind of like, I wonder in this day and age, in this media environment, with this level of war weariness, with Trump having issues within his own coalition on this, like, 180 or whatever. It was like, casualties, I think would feel a lot differently now. I think that would feel like a lot to people.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And just one other thing. So I said this. We were. We were on back in, like, January, and we were talking about the potential for something in Iran at that point. And one of the things I said was, I do think MAGA will tolerate Venezuela slightly differently than it would tolerate us doing something. Something in Iran. And the reason is it's just in the Middle east and it reminds them more directly about Iraq and Afghanistan, Middle east wars, endless wars. And I think that holds up pretty well. Like, the re. Part of the reason this is different, to Tim's point, isn't just like war weariness in general, but specifically Middle east wars. Like, this is where Americans have a fresh memory of quagmires. Like, they do have an intuitive sense that this stuff can get away from you pretty quickly. And there's a lot of Americans who remember. And this is again, why I go back to people who are like, don't those neocons want this? Whatever? Like, have. We've all learned a little bit since then. Right. We've all seen a lot. And I think that part of that makes us have additional skepticism of what this could bring without feeling like it's really well thought out, necessary. Which is the exact opposite of what we're getting from.

[JBL]

We're also in month eight, Like, I was like, really? You think about that? Right. So J.D. an old clip was going out of J.D. from Meet the Press, where J.D. is like, American people can feel good about this action. The last time we bombed Iranian nuclear facilities. Because Trump isn't like one of those stupid presidents from the past. Right. Like we're going to get in when you get out, it's going to be fast. And it's funny to see that clip go back around now because that was eight months ago. We're not real like in the, in the grand scope of things. Like the Iran project has not really been a four day project. We're already in month eight and they're telling us we've got four more weeks. We'll see how that turns out.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I, I actually feel like Trump has a superpower here that's going to let him escape this being a quagmire. But we'll get to that in a minute. First message from our sponsor, Green Chef. Anyone annoyed with misleading healthy meals Healthy. Tired of locking in for another New Year's trend? Green Chef cuts through the noise as the trusted authority on clean eating, delivering only real farm sourced ingredients. Trust every bite. With over 40 clean, customizable weekly recipes designed to give you peace of mind. Every Green Chef box delivers certified organic produce and responsibly sourced proteins and seafood. That means avoiding ultra processed fillers. You can reach your wellness goals with options like Mediterranean, high protein, high fiber, plant based and more. All clinically proven to support healthier habits. And you take control of your health without the stress. Let them do the research, the meal planning, the grocery shopping and then you enjoy low prep, low mess meals for every lifestyle. You've heard me talk about the roasted chicken with lemon crema before. That's because it really is good and the results with my family have been exceptional. It's a hit every time. Head to greenchef.com 50next level and use code 50next level to get 50% off your first month. Then 20% off for two months with free shipping. That's code 50next [e-mail] 50next level. So here's why I think that Trump has the ability to avoid any real problems. And it is because unlike anyone who has ever been president in any of our lifetimes, he has the ability to turn on a dime and walk completely away if and it doesn't matter to him what gets left behind. And as exhibit A for this, I would present Venezuela. And you know, we, we went down to Venezuela, we abducted the president of Venezuela, we just hand handed the baton over to his vice president. She's just as corrupt as he was. That, no, nobody's freer down there. Nothing's changed except for one thing. And that is if we can have the video of the president talking about the oil today.

[Donald Trump]

And we have Delsey, who's been very good. We have the whole chain of command, and they've been. You know, the relationship's been great. We've taken out 100 million barrels of oil already, and a big part of that goes to them and a big part goes to us, and it's been great. We paid for the war many times over, and we're going to be running the oil, and Venezuela is going to make more money than they ever made, and that's great for the people. The relationship has been great. It's been secret.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So he can just walk in any time and declare victory and say, see, everything's great. And it doesn't matter, like, if Iran turns into a failed state because it's ungovernable and terrorism starts spilling over the borders into Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, which, by the way, nobody's really paying attention to this. But Pakistan and Afghanistan are now shooting at one another. Like, this is a real thing that's happening.

[JBL]

We stopped that. I'm sorry. No, that's incorrect.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, sorry.

[JBL]

That's on.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, Pakistan is a nuclear power. If a nuclear power like Pakistan were to destabilize. Kind of bad, not good. Trump does not in any. There is no corner of his life in which Trump has ever adhered to. You break it, you bought it. And he can simply just walk on this thing like he could. But the reason we're doing this live is because he could walk on this war before, you know, between the end of us taping and the editing being finished in this thing being pushed out onto YouTube,

[Sarah Longwell]

maybe. I'm not sure I agree with that. I mean, I agree with you that Trump doesn't care. Right. That. That part. I really agree with this idea that. That Trump will do sort of whatever makes the most sense for him and maybe Netanyahu. The problem is. And this is something General Hertling said the first time we went live, when the day that this started happening, which he says, in a war like this, your enemy gets a vote. And that is like, Trump's going to have a lot harder time walking away from this. Like, what he did in Venezuela was switch out one dictator that was unfriendly to Trump for a dictator who was friendly to Trump. And now apparently, we're taking their oil. We're, you know, whatever. That's a different regional issue. Like, I just. The extent to which this can go off the rails and get to a point where now America is Under threat now. Like, there is a real, you know, there is a real shooting war going on between different countries. Like, it's harder to just be like, and we're out now, especially because Israel won't want us out. Saudi Arabia won't let us out. And so this is just more complicated. I think for him, it's a sticky wicket.

[JBL]

It's more complicated Venezuela. I take your point, jvl, that just like in the past, you know, George W. Bush, when things started to get hinky in 2003, wasn't just going to be like, hey, I'm flying back to America. Good luck out there. Al Qaeda, my name is Paul.

[Tim Miller]

That's between you all.

[JBL]

Yeah. You guys figured he was never going to do, do that, right? Like, for a whole variety of reasons. And maybe that is like a legitimate advantage that Trump has, that he has more freedom to maneuver than people that are constrained by ideological concerns or constrained by humanitarian concerns or it's constrained anything else. Right. I, and I agree with that. That, and he has more ability to maneuver. And I, the, the, the. Where I would quibble with you is that I think this is already bad for him. Like, if, if what you just laid out happens and we finish taping and one hour later, Trump says, you know what, we're gonna, we're gonna bring home some of our ships. Good luck to Israel, good luck to the people of Iran. You know, we're not going to go to. Into the region anymore. And he comes back, big win. Ayatollah, you know, Hosaniola got him, died like a dog. Yeah. The whole ayatollah. We've replaced him with new Ayatollah. This guy seems great. He's more moderate. Not my cup of tea exactly like that. He has eight wives, you know, like, no, like he's not. He could do that. Right. I think he's still opened up a real fissure on his own side going into the election. I think the fact that anybody died, that we wasted any money over there has created a real fissure on his own side. It's a talking point now that the left and Democrats can use against MAGA forever. No matter what happens from here into the future, even if Iran turns out great, I think it's still a negative talking point for that. Like, even if he stays around for a couple of weeks and, you know, who the hell knows whatever the dream scenario is for Iran, where it rejoins the community of nations and it's a G20 country anymore and they start doing trade, you know, I don't know and they, we kill all of the Iranian National Guard people and you know, whatever, Tehran blossoms. Like even in that case, he still now became the person that was embroiled over there, lost American lives, lost our treasure, got his eye off the ball of caring about America's economy and you know, so that wouldn't be a disaster for him. He still would survive it and who the hell knows what shenanigans he has in mind for the midterms or for the end of his term. Right. So we were joking the slack before this about what to do titled this live stream and Sarah was like it's curtains for Trump. And it's like, no it's not. It's not curtains for Trump because of Iran. But like this hurt. I, I don't. In all of the various potential outcomes, even the best case one I think creates some political issues for that, maybe minor ones, maybe modest ones that don't end up mattering that much in the long term. But I think it's a real, like he's, he's in a bad place with it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Did anybody, did you not get my joke about Trump talking about the dead Americans and then immediately asking people to look at the curtains? That's what I was talking about.

[JBL]

It's curtains for Trump. Wow.

[Tim Miller]

I didn't.

[JBL]

That's nice. That's really good. We should have done that. The picture of curtains. Can we still do that? Can we change, can we change self

[Sarah Longwell]

evident enough for you guys to get.

[JBL]

I still like it though.

[Tim Miller]

So the, the, I do believe JD Vance is put in a very tough spot here as evidenced by the fact that our poster, you know, America's, America's Freeman poster has gone dark and he's

[JBL]

on desk and waters last night.

[Tim Miller]

He has tried to make it clear that he was against it but then when he was for it, it was to go very big and very fast and he's trying to square the circle of. I'm with, I'm with Tucker on all that stuff but, but also with Donald Trump in our, our beautiful relationship with Israel.

[Sarah Longwell]

Did you guys read the New York Times Tick tock of everything that happened? Because it's a really, it's a really good piece but one of the telling things is the fact that Tucker, they consulted Tucker. He came to the White House three times.

[JBL]

Sure.

[Sarah Longwell]

And so like Tucker was basically making the anti case and I just was like, this is how we're doing war. This is how we're doing war. Now.

[Tim Miller]

Did you expect anything less? No.

[Sarah Longwell]

I mean, whatever. But just to Tim's point about like it's a problem for him again, going back to things that like, really split the coalition. We've just.

[Tim Miller]

Sorry, hold on. It is funny that Tucker is who they brought in and not their Director of National Intelligence. Tulsi Gabbard.

[Sarah Longwell]

Right.

[JBL]

Wonder what she's up to. Hey, bni, you just live in the spirit of aloha. Do you think she goes into the office?

[Sarah Longwell]

Even I can't believe she hasn't resigned. I mean, this is how you know these are not people of principle. If Tulsi Gabbard had the courage of her convictions, she'd be long gone even before this. But certainly now. But instead she just, yeah, disappears.

[Tim Miller]

I'm sorry I interrupted you. Tucker. Tucker coming in and he's the one being consulted on this.

[Sarah Longwell]

You know, if you take me off my path, I'm never getting back there.

[JBL]

Why don't we go to the ad? It'll give Sarah some time to think about her path. We have a new sponsor. It's our friends at upwork. Scaling a business takes the right expertise at the right time. Upwork helps. I'm scrolling. So what does upwork help me do? Upwork helps growing teams. That's us. Quickly bring in specialized freelancers so you can move faster and take business to the next level. Get it?

[Tim Miller]

Ding ding, ding.

[JBL]

Upwork is a one stop platform to find, hire and pay expert freelancers across web and software development, data and analytics, marketing, business operations and more. They help grow your business by giving you fast access to specialized talent so you can fill skill gaps, launch projects faster and scale support up or down without committing to a full time headcount. You can browse profiles, review past work and get help scoping the role so you can hire with confidence and get started quickly with business. Plus you can add access to top 1% of talent on all of Upwork and you'll get matched to the right freelancer in under six hours. No endless searching required. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That's Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's up w o r k.com upwork.com come up with it, Sarah.

[Sarah Longwell]

No, but I'm just going to make one quick different point, which is that the other thing in that New York Times article that was pretty interesting was that clearly there had been weeks of going back and forth, which also kind of undermines this idea that it was such an imminent threat that they couldn't go to Congress, which I will say this is just a point of analysis that there's not really much to do with, but there's a lot of talk about the War Powers act and people having a vote on this. And this is one where it sort of doesn't matter because number one, I don't think they did get enough people to approve it. And number two, Trump can just veto it. And like number three, like it's already happened, like he's already gone, like it's done. And so what would they even do other than almost symbolically force him to consult them? So I think that for people who are sort of frustrated by the war powers of it all, there's not much there that can be done at this point. It is a public, to me, it's a public opinion play at this point. I was going to say something about Megyn Kelly. Now I remember what it was.

[JBL]

But go ahead, Tim, make a little Megyn Kelly note if it makes you feel any better. Sarah, when JBL asked us for our initial thoughts at the beginning of the podcast, I had something I was really excited about. It was a good little riff and I was. And then you started talking and I started talking and then I lost it. And it's been bugging me the whole podcast. I was like, what was I going to say?

[Sarah Longwell]

You still. Not now.

[JBL]

I still don't know. It was going to be magical. This content was going to be so good. But whatever, it'll just be. We'll keep it. If I come up with it after the podcast is over, we'll share it just for Bullog plus members, so subscribe today. I was going to say the vote matters for this reason. I interviewed Ruben Gallego today. They'll be out here in a couple hours. I thought he was really good. And it's important for, I think the Democrats to demonstrate the scale of their opposition to this as a political matter. And I think that it is that ties to a limiting principle. There's a legal limiting principle. Will he actually follow the 90 day limit? If this war goes past 90 days, he's got a whole shitload of other problems to deal with. And then if he wants to break the law too, like I agree with you, like, there's some limits on how they can control a lawless administration for sure. But you know, there was a, we were talking at the top about like how there hasn't been this rally around Trump effect. That was an email from political scientists that listens to us and follows us. They're like, if you look historically like rally around the flag effects happen like when you're attacked on your homeland or where there's some reason that you're rallying around a person or when the opposite the out party and like leaders from the out party are aligned. Right. Like when they're signaling from the leaders. And I think that the fact that there's been like what I think five Democrats kind of softly talking about how maybe they'd support the War Powers act and I think the fact that the overwhelming majority of Democratic electeds are signaling no to this does put some kind of restraints on his abilities.

[Sarah Longwell]

I think maybe. I'm skeptical that if push came to shove I do think you'd see a handful of Democratic defections on this.

[JBL]

I'm sure you would too. But to be crazy, don't do it.

[Tim Miller]

More than a handful.

[Sarah Longwell]

I, I think so too. That's why, that's why I like. I bet that's why I think it's good for us.

[Tim Miller]

Slotkin, I've got my eye on you.

[JBL]

I think. I think it's good for us to know. You know it's good for us to know because it's important to know what time it is.

[Tim Miller]

Sometimes you don't want to know. Sarah, give me your Megyn Kelly thing. And then we got to move on.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh it was, this was going back to the splitting the coalition conversation which is like it is worth right now following the intra maga discourse because there was a funny thing from our friend Scott Jennings who posted like and this just goes back to like people trying to get really good information out of what's happening. It is really difficult right now and lots of people are like posting garbage and we're not getting clean accounts of a whole bunch of things. But Scott Jennings posted something where like someone from the administration had called him and said I can't remember what the thing.

[JBL]

Mass casualty event. There's going to be a mass.

[Sarah Longwell]

There's going to be a mass casualty event.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's just. So this is where you get to the conflicting stories. But like they're sending people out to our administration mouthpieces to put things in the ether and Scott posted this with sirens and it was like then it was totally undercut.

[Tim Miller]

It was totally turned reporting.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. By CNN's own reporting it turned out.

[Tim Miller]

And yet CNN keeps putting Scott on the air to help inform their and give them a better picture of the world. That really is broken.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. That really is a shameless problem. But, but, but Megyn Kelly was criticizing Scott Jennings on this point by saying she's like Look, I talk to people in the administration too, but I'm not just going to like, dumbly repeat everything they said. But, like, there are big mouthpieces right now who often rush to the side of the administration who are not because the podcast listening base of MAGA that supports it, these are the people who are anti war. They're also the people who were pro getting the Epstein files out. And so you are starting to, I think, erode some of that base with things like this.

[JBL]

And it was core. It just, it is worth doing a little history lesson because some people, you know, really came into the Trump era and started paying attention to news like when he beat Hillary or like during the debate season in the general election because they're like, really? Or Trump is going to be fucking president. And so like, for. So not everybody might remember the dog days of the primary like I do. So I'm going to trigger myself right now. Like, Trump's core offering to Republican primary voters was one, these guys are a bunch of cucks and wusses that don't have the balls to beat up criminals and deport illegals. Right. Like, so there was this kind of authority machismo, authoritarian stuff on immigration and crime. But the other thing was he's like, they're also so stupid and they all sent you to these stupid wars and I wouldn't do it. And every end he was on and he was in South Carolina, I was there on stage where he was like, it was Bush's fault that 911 happened. And you know, there was chatter in that room. Yeah, it was like, as late as the South Carolina primary, there's chatter in the, in the spin room afterwards. Like, boy, did Trump really hurt himself today. Like, the Republican base might have turned on the Iraq war, but they're not ready to go all the way to, like, it's Bush's fault that Bush lied us into it. And that Bush. Yeah. And that 911 was. Happened on Bush Watt. He was asleep at the switch and maybe even there's some questions about what happened there. 911 world conspiracy theories. Maybe it was an inside job. Right. Like Trump did. And everyone else on the stage condemned

[Tim Miller]

him and won by 20.

[JBL]

And yeah. And he went South Carolina in a landslide.

[Tim Miller]

Okay.

[JBL]

After Nikki Haley endorses Marco and all that, et cetera. So like, and the being opposed, like, if you'd been doing focus groups back then, I do think the light bulb that would have gone off for you listening to Republican voters is like, oh, man, I knew they were against the war or tired of the war, but they're like, mad at the establishment in a way that I don't know that a lot of us who are working on the campaigns fully realized that was our bad. We were in our own bubble and we were wrong. And Trump was correct. Whether it was instinctually or strategic, whatever, he tapped into something and this. So this is like a real betrayal for some of those people. Like, this was the thing. And it would literally been like, be like him doing amnesty. Like, there are only two things that like, he offered them that were distinct. Like, I will deport the illegals and I'm not gonna do the dumb Middle east wars.

[Tim Miller]

I don't want to re trigger you

[JBL]

again, but I remembered what I was gonna say.

[Tim Miller]

Jeff put out a video.

[JBL]

I know.

[Sarah Longwell]

Let him get this out before we get to Jeff.

[JBL]

In a second. This is why this was gonna be my hot take at the beginning. We're back around to it. 45 minutes in love it for this reason. This is why I still, I really don't understand why Trump's doing it. And I, like, there is like a deep. Every time I say this, I have a lot of people replying to me and emailing to me. Like, Tim, it's obviously that he's like, BB has compromised on him on the Epstein files. And I'm like, I think with Trump's base, if they found out that he was raping 13 year olds serially, I think that they would be more likely to forgive him for that than getting into a Middle east war quagmire. I don't think it's compromised. I don't think it's a distraction from the Epstein files. Like, I don't, I, I, it is like, it's truly insane. It is like amnesty. Like, it is like, it is like Trump waking up one day and being like, we're going to do a big amnesty, Dusty. You know, I've heard the complaints like, it, I just, and that is like the thing that is really flummoxing about for me about all of this. Like, why, like, he's gonna risk this to keep his buddy BB and MBS happy? I guess I just think it's really befuddling and stupid. Maybe he's just like a 12. He's 12 and he likes the fireworks and he wants, he was getting bored. I don't, I don't know.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, doesn't, doesn't recent recency bias suggest from his perspective that he can do anything he wants and it winds up okay?

[JBL]

Sure. But why does he want to do this, he could also do anything. Like, literally invading Greenland makes way more sense to me than this. Like, if I had woken up on Saturday morning and said, Trump really did it, like, we got marines on the ground and nuke and we've taken out somebody in the embassy. Right? Like, I would have been like, that's crazy as fuck, by the way. That's crazy. How do we live in this world? But, like, I get it. I doubt that is in line with Trump's.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, he'd at least been talking about that for a long period of time. He's gone through a whole series of making the case about why we do it, telling us there are mineral strategic objectives. Like, this is why the Suddenly, like, how can you guys not be on board? We're like, he has said nothing. Like, we haven't. He said the opposite of this the whole time. So we're sorry if we're skeptical about why he's doing this or, like, not sure about the motives or the plan or anything. El, this is not the same as when your American government says, hey, this thing happened. Like, we're good and we're taking these actions for reasons like, that's not what happened. He's retconning and a reason after we did the bombs. And they're all different reasons.

[Tim Miller]

All right. We had an entire section on anthropic and the Department of Defense. I'm just going to cut that. We got to move on, people.

[JBL]

You don't want. The people want to hear. You just bash me over the head with the Jeb tweet, don't they? You're not going to give that to them.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, I wasn't gonna.

[JBL]

It's a little sadomasochism for the audience.

[Tim Miller]

If you want Jeb, Jeb put out a video praising the brave historic operation, whatever this one is Warhammer 2000 and Eternal Freedom 69. So I'm glad that. That Jeb Bush finally decided to come out of his hole when something happened where he felt like he could praise Trump. Wouldn't want to say anything when it might be taken as criticism. But anyway, that's all.

[JBL]

Keep it coming.

[Sarah Longwell]

I didn't see Jeb Bush's tweet.

[JBL]

Yeah, I mean, you know, he's wanted to video.

[Tim Miller]

Sarah.

[JBL]

It's a video. He's wanted to overthrow the Iranian regime for a long time. So at least if maybe took out the ayatollah, it would have. He would have had a case made. You know, the long, long, long track record of maybe Jeff can wait till

[Tim Miller]

it Turns out okay before, like, like, you know, because if Iran turns into Libya, that's not better.

[JBL]

Yeah, right.

[Tim Miller]

It's different, but it's not better.

[JBL]

Filing a disagreement with my former boss on this one.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. We were going to talk about anthropic. We're not going to talk about anthropic. We're going to talk very.

[JBL]

They're great. They're better than the open air. They're not great, actually. But if you have to pick good

[Tim Miller]

enough, better so far. Cancel your chat. GPT sign up for Claude. That's what I did. We are going to talk about the Texas primary tonight, live again. Three of us together again. It's amazing. So we're going to put that to the side right now. I want to talk. So, Sarah, you and I very briefly talked about Graham Platner in secret show and you kind of won me over in the moment. But then over the course of the weekend, I saw, I think, another like Nazi thing with Platner and I just thought, I'm sorry, like, how many times

[Sarah Longwell]

I won you over? What I. Because I don't. I think Graham Platner is not good. I think.

[Tim Miller]

No, but you, you made like.

[JBL]

But the voters.

[Sarah Longwell]

But just in terms of what voters want.

[Tim Miller]

Right. You made the case that, that voters want him, not Mills, in that he's still preferable to Susan Collins, which I think I agree on. Because who isn't preferable to Susan Collins? And that it's basically okay. Like you could replace. It can be like a Fetterman. It can be a one and done.

[JBL]

I am. Sarah's going to do an ad. I think I'm going to surprise people by being the most pro platinum person on the panel. So I want to make that case after the ad and then Sarah and

[Tim Miller]

you can, while she's doing her read, Tim, go look at some questions because we are going to take questions from you guys, the audience.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, let me do my ad here, guys. It's for One Skin. We've talked before about why One Skin really stands out as a skin care company. It's not hype or just fancy packaging. It's real science. The founding team are longevity researchers who asked a deceptively simple question. If many visible signs of aging, like wrinkles, fine lines and loss of elasticity, are driven by so called zombie cells, what if you could actually reduce those cells to slow the aging process down instead of just covering it up? The research led to OS1.1 Skin's proprietary peptide. It's the first ingredient proven to switch off Those damaged cells actually slowing skin aging directly at the source. There's a lot going on right now and we're all doing our best. You don't have to let this horror show moment in our politics. Age your skin 25 years. There's plenty to be worried about. Worry line shouldn't be on that list. That's why I just sit here every day and I just go like this. I just do this because my forehead just wrinkles constantly. One Skin's products are backed by extensive lab and clinical data, including four peer reviewed clinical studies to validate their efficacy and safety on all skin types. Plus They've got over 10,000 five star reviews and have been recently featured by Bloomberg as a leader in skin longevity. It really shows you don't need a complicated routine to achieve healthier younger looking skin. Born from over a decade of longevity research, OneSkin's OS1 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthiest skin now. And as you age, for a limited time, try One Skin with 15% off using code the next level at One Skin co. The next level. That's 15 off One Skin co. It's my One Skin with code the next level. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Thanks once again. Did I get all that? And I get the.

[Tim Miller]

You did. I'm sorry, I was distracted because G money is at my door going, hey dad, can I play pinball while you're taping? During the Q and A. Pinball while we're taping.

[JBL]

Here's my case for Graham Platner and then we'll hear your rebuttals. I want to start by saying this. I think that if I was in Maine personally under my own and had my own vote and I was just speaking for myself and I was an analyst, I think I'd. I vote for Janet Mills. I probably do it holding my nose. And if it was the governor's race or a mayor's race or it's just one person, it's an executive, they're running for mayor of my town. I would want the 79 year old lady that has demonstrated herself to be a career public servant to like make sure the trash pickup is on top. That's not what this is though. It's a national election for the U.S. senate and it is absolutely critical that the Democrats figure out how in the fuck to win working class white people if they ever want to have any power or control again. It's critical they figure it out. Is Graham Platner the magic potion to that? We don't know, but it's worth a try. We know that Janet Mills is not. And I wish this was happening. I've said this a million times in Florida or Nebraska. I wish we were trying this out in a race that wasn't as important as the main race. But, you know, wish, you know, we can't get our wishes in this world. Obviously, we all know that. And so we're in Maine. And my view on this. Just one more thing and I'll hear your bottle. Is that like, yeah, the tattoo seemed really dumb. Okay. Also, some of his Reddit posts are pretty mean, but I think if you went through my whole social media archive, you'd see some shit that, like, I had some pretty bad takes when I was 23. I have some bad takes now from time to time. The going on the latest one, like, he went on a podcast with somebody that advanced a Charlie Kirk conspiracy. I'm kind of like, wait a minute, I thought we wanted the candidates to go on podcasts like this. Now we're going to be mad about him going on this podcast because the guy had a crazy theory. It'd be one thing if you went on the podcast and Graham was like, hey, love your show. Which he did say, I particularly love your Charlie Kirk takes. Or if the guy was like, hey, Graham, what do you think about my idea that Mossad really killed Charlie Kirk? And Graham was like, I'm interested in that. We don't know. We need to hear more investigation.

[Tim Miller]

Tell me more.

[JBL]

That's not what happened. They didn't talk about podcast. They talked. Everything he said on the podcast was normal. He, quote, tweeted Stu Peters, then he deleted it. Isn't that what we want people to do? Is he. You know what I mean? Like, I prefer them to not quote. I just, I don't think. I think that the word Nazi gets thrown around with him because he had the stupid tattoo. And he also happened to do interviews with other guys that are Nazi ish. Does anybody that's making that accusation actually think Graham Platner is a Nazi? I don't think he's a Nazi. I think he's too far left for my taste, to be honest. I don't think he's a right wing Nazi. Anti Semite. If he turns out like it turns out that we learn more where he's advanced anti Semitic views, we could reassess. But for now, it seems like the people want change. They want an outsider he can speak to working class people that were Obama, Trump voters, that were Bernie voters, and the Democrats need to figure out how to do that. And as far as I'm concerned, all of the complaints about him have been kind of ticky tack. And I'm open to seeing more information as the primary goes on. But as of right now, for a Senate race, not a governor's race, I think Platner, there you go. That's my case. Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

And so I was, I said something not quite as emphatic as you, but I think the conversation that JBL and I were having. So first of all, I was referencing the focus groups that I have done in Maine are so pro platinum or you wouldn't believe. And part of the reason is that, look, if you are Chuck Schumer and you don't want Platner, like, the problem with Janet Mills is that it seems like nobody learned a lesson about 80 year olds, which is that, you know, and like, like you can't do it right now. There's like nothing more triggering to voters at the moment than oh my God, you're going to put an 82 year old in office. Like, you can't do that. So they're like, I'll take the young guy who's doing direct camera. And a lot of the voters in the focus groups, they like Janet Mills. Like, they feel warmly toward her. They just think it's insane to put up an 80 year old woman. And so I agree with that. That's the part where I'm like, that was the wrong choice if you wanted to sort of close out the primary. Second of all, the, just the appetite for something new. And I also think people don't believe he's a Nazi. Like they might, they know that there's some controversy, but like, nobody thinks there's. Like they think Nick Fuentes is a Nazi. They think, you know, like, like they think Graham Platner might have been an idiot when he was younger, which Graham Platner talks about. Right. And he sort of addresses these things. I will say for my own, for me that if I were voting in Maine in that primary, I would probably have to vote for Janet Mills, but partly just because I'm me and like, I can't.

[JBL]

Like, you're a small C conservative. It's not even a conservative. It's just like, why take the risk? Like the case for Mills is kind of like, we know she's been a fine governor. Right. Like, it's a small C Edmund Burke conservative inside of you.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, it's the part of me that's like. And it's like, this is a really important seat and it seems like. And I'm glad all this stuff's coming out in the primary because if. If nothing else, at least the voters in Maine will do choose eyes wide open. What he is. I do think, sort of there's a tendency, though, for people to be like, he might be another Fetterman. And that's the. Like, you can't rely on him. And I think this is a weird thing. They're doing this to Talrico too, where they were like, he'll be another Fetterman, which I don't think any of these guys. I think Fetterman's a very specific case. But if what you mean is he had a stroke.

[JBL]

Yeah, he got a lot dumber. Like he lost some mental capacity and then all of a sudden was MAGA arguments were making a lot more sense to him. All.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what his. I mean, we all know he had a stroke. I can't speak for everything that's happened to Federman, but I, I don't think that everybody needs to be like, suddenly everyone who has some. And, and. And now I'm not talking about any of the Nazi stuff. Now I'm just talking policy wise, that somebody who is tacking specific, talking specifically to the working class and who has heterodox views about things, that they're automatically going to be another Federman. I actually think Platner, sans a lot of the other stuff, is a pretty good model for a candidate. Like, I do think people should be experimenting with that. I would just struggle a little bit from. Struggle a little bit. I. At some point, Tim, there's the tattoo and then there's like, you retweet Stu Peters because Stu, Peter shows up in your algorithm and like, you're looking at a lot of people like, like, it just feels. It's starting to feel a little weird. And so I would just. I would approach this with caution. Is. Is. Is my take right now.

[JBL]

Same.

[Tim Miller]

All right. Two things. Then we'll. Then we'll move on. I. I just would say that I have been saying from the very beginning, what if the answer to recapturing these voters is that you suck? Yeah. Yeah. What if the answer is, well, we gotta find some dumb people who believe crazy shit and have unsavory associations and if we can just have them wear the blue T shirt, that's how we get out of this. Fix. I personally would be more comfortable if we could just get out of it with like neoliberalism, incompetent technocrats. Yeah, I, I realize these are my own preferences but this is, this is like the, I'm laughing about it, but this is the problem of creating a popular front is that you wind up having to hold hands with a bunch of people who.

[JBL]

There are only two parties in the country. I just want to say this like they're only like, like you need 70 million people to win in these days to win an election. And so there aren't 70 million technocrats, college educated technocrats in the country unfortunately. So you need some other people. And I guess my thing on Platner is I also, and I actually don't think that I will get this treatment in return from our friends like Sam Sader and some of the Lefty Guys on YouTube. I wish they would. We'll see. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't want to impugn on them but like at some point I will be asking of people like hey on the left like in a southern state you might need a pro life pro cop. I want to cut regulation. Democrat who's a young guy like Platner and also said some weird things online and also has lefty. You know what I mean? Maybe you agree with them on anti war stuff and he's a Democrat, you know like you got to try different and Platinum is not going to be my cup of tea. Exactly. But it's at least he's doing something. He's resident. It's resonating. He's doing something.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. We are also going to try taking some questions here live on the air.

[JBL]

Let's do it.

[Tim Miller]

You're doing it.

[JBL]

Who wants to go first? You're. I've. I've chosen some JVL and Sarah and Tim questions. Who wants for who wants the first?

[Tim Miller]

You're driving man.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, give it to jbl. He's talked less than us.

[JBL]

Okay. Jbl. On my JBL question list I have. Do you think this war. This is from Christine. Hey Christine. Do you think war will provide cover for the Chinese to take Taiwan? Do you think this gives affects the Chinese calculus at all?

[Tim Miller]

No, to the extent. So the serious answer is China is probably doing some reassessment looking at how their anti aircraft defenses have been defeated. They're probably also happy about seeing how many anti missile munitions the United States is expending. And they are also probably realizing they don't need to take Taiwan. The whole world is realigning to their specifications.

[JBL]

Anyway, our friend Pat Kanke over there, also on YouTube, we met him in Minnesota, had a question for JVL, which is he'd love to hear your Catholic thoughts on this through the Just War theory.

[Tim Miller]

No, you wouldn't. No, you wouldn't. We're not going to do just war theory here on this. We're not doing have a popular show which lots of people watch and listen to.

[JBL]

Iowa, the people want to hear your thoughts on Just War Theory.

[Tim Miller]

Now, believe me, people want to hear more thoughts about vampire economics than they want to hear Catholic Just war.

[JBL]

You refused. You're refusing?

[Tim Miller]

Refuse.

[JBL]

Okay, well, then we'll go then. We'll go.

[Sarah Longwell]

Not an ask me anything, are you?

[JBL]

We'll go to a Tim question then. Which is more fun? Omar Rejecto asks, what's the worst call? Trump evades invades Iran or Nico trades Luca Boy, Nico got protested at his own office. You know, you've done something bad in sports. You're a general manager and you make a decision and you know, you're in sports, usually you've everybody likes you. Like, you have a cool job, you run the sports team and then you drive and you park in your nice spot right by the stadium and you go out and people have signs that are like, death to Nico. You know, you did a really bad job. Trump. I don't think that's happened for Trump yet. So I think Nico worse than Trump so far. But if Iran gets worse, could be, it could. Trump could pass Nico for worst management. Sarah, I've got for you, Alex Kubacek. Does Average Joe American really care about foreign policy when they don't even know where Iran is on a map?

[Sarah Longwell]

This is a great question. Because they do not care about, like, the theories of foreign policy. And they will get bored with lots of foreign policy. I think there's a reason that in America, after Trump took out Maduro and we get a new dictator, Americans, like, totally checked out of that. Like, everybody just stops talking about Venezuela. I don't think people are going to proactively go in search of foreign policy. Once we're in a hot war and we're dropping bombs and we're sending American troops, they care for a while and they get really upset about it. And then, I mean, that's why when we talk about the Bush line, it is George W. Bush left office with a 32% approval rating. Why? Because people felt like the war in Iraq was a failure. And so that. And nothing more. Nothing was driving his. That was like before the market crashed. So nothing I would say being in a hot war and having a shitty economy by the way, which is like you put those two things together and that's where things start to really matter to people.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's stock up savings time now through March 31st. Bring in for storewide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Oreo, Haagen, Dazs, Charmin, Tide, Sparkling Ice, Reese's and Special K. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings. When you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pickup or delivery restrictions apply. See website for terms and conditions.

[LifeLock Announcer]

Are you a fraud paying American? It's a fact that one in four honest, hard working tax paying Americans has been a victim of identity theft. With Lifelock Identity Theft Protection though, if your identity is stolen, they fix it guaranteed and get you your money back. Last year the IRS flagged over $16 billion in refunds for identity fraud. That's billions of dollars that could come from your salary, overtime or second job. But this year you don't need to stay a victim. LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second for your personal information and alerts you to threats you could easily miss on your own. And if your information does fall into the wrong hands, only LifeLock has US based restoration specialists who are backed by the million dollar protection package. Because this tax season, fraud paying American is something no American should have to claim. Visit lifelock.com iheart and save up to 40% your first year. That's 40% off. @lifelock.com iheart Terms apply.

[JBL]

Pretty funny. My buddy over the Tennessee holler, Justin Canoe, went outside of like the House, Tennessee House Republicans lunch or whatever when they're coming out. He had a big map and was asking them to point to where Iran is on the map. And like one of the fucking rednecks walks over there with confidence. He's like I got this and points right at a rock. So good. Nailed it. Okay, this one's for everybody because I don't know how it didn't make it to our show. Outline. It's from Steph P. Why did Cash Patel fire FBI members of C12, the unit that is focused on Iranian intelligence? Last week he did that. Not last year, in the initial purge last week.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, we don't, I don't know the answer. Like the answer is either Cash Patel is a moron. Like, I'm not sure how we've, like, we have a lot of very stupid people in this administration. It's very ironic that J.D. vance goes around and being like, well, you know, that was dumb presidents before, but now we've got this smart president, you know, who can't find Iran on a map. Trump. Donald Trump can't find Iran on a map. But I don't know why he did it. Unless now I'm. Now I'm just going to put on secret POD rules. I'm totally speculating, but if there were people who were pushing back, like, as they were doing the negotiations, as they were talking about these interventions, and they knew they had people internally who were opposed to this for reasons that they had intelligence or whatever, and they got rid of them. That's what they've done over at doj. Like, they've just basically gotten rid of anybody who disagrees with what the administration's policy might be. So that's possible.

[JBL]

It's great.

[Tim Miller]

So I can tell you. Oh, go.

[Sarah Longwell]

Why did you. Let me answer if you know?

[Tim Miller]

Well, because this is unconfirmed. This is rument. But the word on the Strasse is that the actual. The, the trip to Milan for the Olympics, the Olympic stuff, was all cover. He was meeting some intelligence sources there, which suggested that the Iranian counterterrorism unit within the FBI itself had been penetrated. And so he needed to. The whole thing about, like, oh, look at me, I'm just chugging beers with my buds. That was.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's a psyop.

[Tim Miller]

It was psyop because what he was really doing was figuring out where the mole. The moles were. And that's why he cleaned them out. Because otherwise maybe the terrorism would have come from the Iranian plants within the FBI.

[JBL]

All right, last.

[Sarah Longwell]

The FBI is still functioning without Dan Bongino.

[JBL]

Me neither. Lastly, we had. Well, Doug asked about Trump's bleed, about whether we have enough munitions. I talked to Mark Hertling about that. It's gonna be publishing like two hours, Doug, so take a look for that. Hertling's better to answer that question than any of us. Here's my last one for jvl. I think, Sarah, if you have any thoughts on this. But it is curious, which is how the corruption ties into all of this. The relationship that Trump and Kushner built with Saudi Arabia and the uae, it seems like this war puts a damper on that. And if you're gonna be building hotels and casinos and racetracks in the Middle east, do you want drones Landing everywhere. Can you make sense at all about the corrupt business dealings that Trump has in the Middle east and how that's impacting the decision making right now?

[Tim Miller]

Do you want to go first, Sarah?

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't know the answer to this.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. It is, in retrospect, totally unsurprising that the area of the world in which Trump feels the most comfortable operating is the Middle East. And that's because his own view of leadership, state sovereignty and power mirrors precisely how things are in the Middle east, where they're run by ruling families, they're dynastic, there is no popular sovereignty, and the will of the monarch is indistinguishable from the interests of the state. That is precisely how he sees the presidency and how he views his own relationship with America. And so he's able to be completely transactional with them. And it is not, you know, and they understand the same thing. They look at him and they see a guy who, they're like, yes, I can do business with this guy. We'll give him a plane. We'll push a few hundred million dollars in through his crypto. Like this is, you know, then. And then MBS is able to say, hey, Iran scares the out of us. And it's right there. It's right over there. Could you please do something about this? BB will hold hands with you. And this is a big part of it. It's just gangsterism, right? This is, you know, it's. It's pure gangsterism. And it's all about his own interests. The weakness is that if you did get somebody in like the IRGC who came out of this and was clever enough to say, all right, I'm going to find some way to put some money in this guy's pocket, which is what Delsey Rodriguez did. They could get to a. They could get to a pretty okay place. They let him declare victory. They say, oh, yes, the great American father had, you know, really, he showed us. He showed us. And here's 9. 9 million barrels of oil. And please go on your way, Mr. Trump. Right? And then, you know, 10 years from now, we. They have the watches, we have the time.

[JBL]

Tierra. That was from her. Thank you for that question. That's it. That's the show. We'll see you guys tonight.

[Tim Miller]

Buy some tickets in Austin. We still have a few tickets left in Austin, Texas. Go to the bulwark.com events. Come join us, guys.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's weird that we sold out Dallas before Austin. Obviously, Austin's a much bigger venue, but let's go I bet JVL a a pinball machine.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, that we sure did.

[Sarah Longwell]

So don't put me on the hook for a pinball machine. Don't do it. Go get your tickets.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe skip us. Just watch the replay on on the Internet and let me get a pinball machine.

[Sarah Longwell]

Stop talking to people out of coming to the show.

[JBL]

Come to Austin. We're live tonight at 9 o' clock ish Eastern. Keep an eye on the feed guys.

[Tim Miller]

Good show. Incredibly long show, live show. We'll be back together again tonight.

[JBL]

Great.

[Tim Miller]

Good luck America.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. It's Stock up savings time now through March 31st. Bring in for storewide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn uneligible items from Activia, General Mills, Nature Valley, A W Monster Energy Coffee Mate and Pete's Coffee. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy drive up and go pick up or delivery restrictions apply. See website for terms and conditions.

[LifeLock Announcer]

Are you a fraud paying American? 1 in 4 tax paying Americans has been a victim of identity fraud with Lifelock. If your identity is stolen, they fix it guaranteed or your money back. Last year billions in refunds were stolen. Could be from your salary, overtime or second job gone. But this year you don't need to stay a victim because this tax season, fraud paying American is something no American should have to claim. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com iheart Terms apply.

[JBL]

Quick choose a meal deal with McValue, the $5 McLeal, the $6 McDouble meal deal or the new $7 Daily Double meal deal, each with its own small fries, drink and Four Piece McNuggets. There's actually no rush. I'm just excited for McDonald's for a limited time only.

[Tim Miller]

Prices and participation may vary. Not valver McDelivery.