1062: LIVE REACTION: Trump Doesn’t Understand His Own War | The Next Level

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Next Level (Bulwark)

Episode 1062: LIVE REACTION: Trump Doesn’t Understand His Own War
Date: March 10, 2026
Hosts: Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Jonathan V. Last (JVL)

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Overview

This live episode of The Next Level centers around the Trump administration’s handling of the ongoing conflict with Iran—now widely, yet still ambiguously, referred to as “the war”—and its domestic and geopolitical implications. The hosts dive deep into American public opinion, media complicity/confusion, administrative secrecy and manipulation, Israel’s role and long-term regional repercussions, and the swirling speculation about the 2028 political landscape. As always, the trio’s analyses are punctuated with humor, sharp observations, and some healthy skepticism about America’s political elite.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. The War with Iran: Manipulation, Opacity, and Public Apathy

• Motivation for the Live Format:

  • JVL expresses concern the war with Iran could end abruptly, making any pre-recorded takes obsolete ([01:00]).

• Public Apathy & Confusion:

  • JVL argues most Americans “don’t care” about the war—something he finds distressing ([01:33]).
  • Tim: Chews on the surprisingly muted backlash. “It’s been a little surprising to me...I would have expected a little more” ([01:58]).
  • Sarah challenges this, suggesting people care but are “deliberately confused” by the administration’s actions, notably Trump’s avoidance of overt wartime symbols (“Oval Office speeches, going to Congress...”) to keep the public disengaged ([02:22]).

• Media & Market Manipulation:

  • Trump’s selective communications and use of the press to impact markets are dissected, with Sarah linking Trump’s statements about the war’s sudden end to market rebounds ([03:46]).
  • JVL: “You can see with your eyes what’s happening” regarding military escalation, but notes a lack of public attention ([05:04]).

• American Attention Span:

  • The “price of eggs” as an example: Americans fixate on tangible, daily-life issues, but abstract geopolitics barely registers ([07:36], [07:46]).
  • Tim’s quip on object permanence: “About half of the country does not have object permanence” ([06:47]).

• Manipulated Information Environment:

  • The group discusses the difficulty of informing the public in a landscape where the White House intentionally obfuscates major events or hides key figures (i.e., Jared Kushner's undisclosed, conflicted role as a “Senior Administration Official” in Iran negotiations) ([11:10], [12:05]).

Notable Quote

“You don’t get mad at your dog for not taking his medicine. You cover it with peanut butter to get him to take it. And that is how I think about the world. I think, how do we make people understand, not just get mad at them because they’re not all reading the front page of the New York Times.” — Sarah Longwell ([05:48])

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2. Administration Secrecy & Jared Kushner’s Role

• Kushner’s Conflict of Interest:

  • Tim reveals Jared Kushner, not a government employee but with significant Saudi business ties, is referred to as “Senior Administration Official 1” in government briefings—raising ethical concerns ([11:10]).
  • Sarah: “They are not making it available to the American people [that] Jared Kushner is the person who is our main negotiator” ([12:05]).

• Diplomatic Incompetence:

  • Tim exposes the peculiar choice of Trump’s “real estate buddy” and son-in-law with Saudi ties to negotiate with Iran, historically at odds with Saudi Arabia:

    “It’s not really surprising that we ended up with dead Americans and oil prices rising when…the point person…actually is doing side deals with the counterparty’s geopolitical foe” ([14:30]).

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3. Media Ethics & Disinformation

• Journalistic Complicity:

  • The hosts debate media responsibility after CBS News simply relayed Trump’s comment that the “war is basically finished” just before markets closed ([16:25]).
  • Tim ponders how journalists should reconcile the duty to report the president’s words with their knowledge that “Trump is full of shit” ([17:49]), leading to the question—should every Trump quote include such context?

• Fog of (Information) War:

  • Uncertainty dominates as journalists struggle to verify official claims (e.g., US military actions, bombing incidents, injury counts), with both the Iranian and US regimes now considered untrustworthy ([30:17], [31:23]).

Memorable Exchange

“It is like we talked about with the Legal system where, like, regular order is over…they wouldn’t actually actively lie, you know, at certain levels. And that’s not the world we’re living in.” — JVL ([31:44])

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4. Israel: Generational Rift and Strategic Calculations

([35:02–43:21])

• Diverging American & Israeli Objectives:

  • JVL reads Israeli sources reflecting two camps: Netanyahu aims for regime change in Iran, while the military is skeptical but continues attacks to maximize gains before US withdrawal ([21:11]).
  • Tim thinks Trump’s desire to declare victory does not fit Israel’s longer-term objectives ([22:29]).

• Generational Shift in US Attitudes:

  • Sarah shares insights from focus groups—young Americans, across party lines, increasingly question unconditional support for Israel ([36:20]).
  • On the right, social media discourse among younger Republicans leans toward skepticism of why Israel receives special protection, often tinged with conspiracy thinking ([38:45]).

• Israel’s Use of Trump:

  • Tim: “If I’m [Netanyahu],...I’m going to use this guy Trump for as long as I can. I’ve got this three-year window. We’re going to kill as many of the bad guys around us…”
  • No faith that the US/Iran intervention would abruptly “resolve” strategic problems ([24:29], [26:19]).

Notable Quote

“The thing that they’re not going to be able to take for granted anymore is that generations of Americans are going to come up feeling reflexively defensive on Israel’s behalf because that’s just not there anymore. It is a massive generational shift.” — Sarah Longwell ([36:20])

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5. 2028 Election Intrigue & Right-Wing Personalities

([43:21–56:28])

• Rising Stars & Senate Speculation:

  • Discussion of hypothetical Democratic primaries, new faces (Grant Platner in Maine), and how unusual victories might shift national profiles ([43:53]).
  • “There’s going to be room for someone who is an outsider, who is a populist,” notes Tim ([45:27]).

• Trump’s Vice Presidential Shortlist:

  • Trump pits JD Vance and Marco Rubio against each other in public.
  • Tim: “If you think about Trump solely as a megalomaniacal casting director… Marco makes a lot more sense for him” ([49:28]).
  • JD Vance’s “weird politics” and perceived lack of enthusiasm about the war may hurt him as a potential VP ([52:43]).
  • JVL half-jokingly suggests Don Jr. for VP, as the “compromise pick” ([53:32]).

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6. Audience Q&A: Policy & Political Landscape

On Oil Prices & Economic Impact

• JVL notes that even after a Trump-induced market rebound, oil futures remain 20% higher than three months ago.

  “You’re going to feel these things…And the big danger…is that the Fed is in a real bind here…. The market is just assuming the rate cuts are coming. And if you’re the Fed, you now have...the inflationary pressure of this oil spike.” ([61:26])

On the “SAVE Act” (Election Integrity/Restriction Bill)

• Sarah explains that Trump has bundled “show ID to vote,” anti-vote by mail, and anti-trans measures into a single “Save America Act” ([67:31]).
• Filibuster poses a huge obstacle in the Senate; bill unlikely to pass soon. Republican states might try to comply quickly if passed ([68:57]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Media & Politicians:
  “People are dumb. Yeah. Like only, I think only like 3 in 4 people are capable of abstract thinking, you know, so like one in four Americans can’t abstract.” — Tim Miller ([08:23])
• On Transparency:
  “This is an administration actively trying to confuse and keep people from knowing what is really going on.” — Sarah Longwell ([13:17])
• On Negotiations:
  “The point person on the negotiation…has no experience, no accountability and who actually is doing side deals with the counterparty’s geopolitical foe?” — Tim Miller ([14:30])
• On Israel’s Long-Game:
  “If you’re Bibi…You know, I’ve got this three-year window. We’re going to kill as many of the bad guys around us…and see where things land in 2029.” — Tim Miller ([26:19])
• On Information Chaos:
  “In any other context, the American President’s response would have been, ‘We don’t know what happened, but we take these things seriously and we’re looking into it.’ And instead…the US President just says no, Iran did it.” — JVL ([31:23])
• On the “Israel Discourse” Generational Problem:
  “Generations of Americans are going to come up feeling reflexively defensive on Israel’s behalf because that’s just not there anymore.” — Sarah Longwell ([36:20])

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• [01:00] – Opening: Why go live? War could end anytime.
• [01:33] – American public’s disengagement on the Iran war.
• [02:22] – Sarah on deliberate administration obfuscation.
• [05:04] – JVL: “You can see with your eyes…”
• [08:23] – Tim on American lack of abstract thinking.
• [11:10] – The Jared Kushner “Senior Official” briefing revelation.
• [16:25] – Debate on media’s duty in relaying Trump’s market-moving statements.
• [21:11] – Israeli objectives: regime change vs. military skepticism.
• [36:20] – Generational shift in American attitudes on Israel.
• [49:28] – Trump’s VP drama: JD vs. Marco.
• [61:26] – Q&A: Oil prices, economic fallout, Fed’s conundrum.
• [67:31] – Q&A: The logistics and politics of the Save America Act.

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Tone & Style

The conversation remains punchy, irreverent, and skeptical of official narratives, balanced with deep knowledge of American politics and foreign policy. The hosts poke fun at themselves and political elites alike, highlight the absurdities of the current political-media climate, and repeatedly come back to the core issue: Americans aren’t being told the truth, and the press, political elites, and the public are all ensnared in a web of deliberate confusion.

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This episode is essential listening for those seeking a brutally honest, often entertaining, “inside baseball” account of where America stands in 2026—caught between war, secrecy, and generational change.

Transcript

[Tim Miller]

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[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Hello everyone. I am JVL here with my best friends Sarah Longwell, best selling author and Tim Miller, also a best selling author from the Bulwark. We are going live today and to give you guys a peek behind the curtain. We're going live because I was afraid that we would tape a show and then between when we taped it and it cut out that the war would be over. And so I feared we could avoid that by, by just doing the show live. And this way if the war ends in the middle of the show, somebody presumably will let us know.

[Tim Miller]

I don't think that's gonna happen, but we'll talk about that.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I think it's unlikely to happen. Yeah, but you never know. So I mean Tim and I, you were, you and I were talking about this before the, the show. Nobody really cares about the war in America, which I find a little distressing. I don't care for it, but that's where we are. And, but we're gonna open this show with War Talk because it's important. We're going to force feed you guys.

[Tim Miller]

Sarah, do you disagree? You. I think people care about the war, just maybe not at the levels I would have expected. That's what I was saying. I was not doing the Max list. Jvl. Nobody cares. I was saying that it's been a little surprising to me like that the, the level of backlash. There's been backlash, but I don't know. To me it's just, it's crazy and I would have expected a Little more.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay. There's a reason, I think that this is. First of all, I do dispute the idea that people don't care. They do care. They also don't know what's going on. And I think that part of what has been difficult about Iran. And I just ran into this, I was taping a focus group. We have a bunch of people making statements about Iran. Like, I have a bunch of focus group sound from Iran, but I also pre taped with Bill and I'm dropping it early because I was like, events can overtake us on this. Not so much that I think it'll be over, but that you end up talking about things in the context of what you know so far and that we get more information as we go. Even part of that information is just if in a week we are still doing Iran, that is new information. Right. Because Trump, right in this moment is trying to, whether it is manipulate the markets or manipulate the American people. Trump is, seems to me to be deliberately trying to make sure that there is no. That the trappings of war, the Oval Office speeches, the going to Congress, the things that make war real for Americans, he's trying not to do those things

[Tim Miller]

and even calling it war. And sometimes like they're vacillating in and out. Like JV JD Vance yesterday is like the, the conflict.

[Sarah Longwell]

The conflict, right. He does not. He only addresses us via his personal social media profile on this. He tells reporters that the war is over right before the market closes. And I think an effort to manipulate the markets back because. But not just because I think there could be corrupt elements of that. Lots of people made a lot of money when the market's back, bounce back. But I also think it just has something to do with the markets dropping as a result of the war or oil being expensive. Those are things that make the war real. And if those things aren't happening, then Americans still remain in kind of a confused haze about what exactly is going on. And so I just want to say that I'm not sure that people don't care. I think people are being deliberately confused about what is actually happening. And Trump is trying to allow Venezuela and the first Iran bombing, which went by quickly, to be the pretext by which people judge what is happening right now. And we don't know yet if in two, three, four weeks we will still be in that place. That is when we can start to judge public opinion. But right now, I think people are in wait and see mode. Okay,

[Tim Miller]

sure.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

On the other hand, people aren't babies and they, they are capable of pulling up the front page of the New York Times and seeing, huh. We had two carrier battle groups over there. We've been running incredibly high tempo operations. And the Secretary of. Secretary of conflict did say today that today would be the most intense day yet of bombings on Iran. And like, I don't know, like, I mean, you can see with your eyes what's happening.

[Tim Miller]

JVL wants all 300 million Americans to be reading Bellingcat to be following troop and material movements. That's fine. It's an expectation. We all have different standards for the, for the public.

[Sarah Longwell]

But I read something that I've been wanting to say to you. It was something on Twitter and it was good. I can't remember who did it, but they said this. You know, people get really mad at the American people for, in, in your words, I would never say this, but for, for being stupid or uninformed. And the question is, is whether you get mad at them for that or whether you try to manipulate them in your own way. And the, they, they equated this with. You don't get mad at your dog for not taking his medicine to you cover it with peanut butter to get him to take it. And that is how I think about the world. I think, how do we make people understand, not just get mad at them because they're not all reading the front page of the New York Times.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

You got, I mean I, I do write a daily newsletter which I try to make entertaining, in which I try to educate people. I mean, it's like I'm just standing here screaming at the cloud.

[Tim Miller]

That's true. And that is, that is an effort. You got to understand though, that about half of the country does not have object permanence. So, and so it's like, that seems like a problem. The keys are jingling. That's interesting. And then they look over here and they're like, oh, the dog is barking and the keys jingling. You know, the refugee crisis in Lebanon and the bombing of the girls school, that's gone now. And so then when they come back, that's what you got to tell them again. Remember, we're at a war, we're in a conflict now. The girls school is bombed. We remember that. And, and seven American troops are dead and Middle Easterners are dead and there's a refugee crisis in Lebanon. Now they remember that again. Then the dog barked. So that's not, it's not fun. I mean, I wish that everyone had object permanence, but that's just where we're at.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

They were able to care about the price of eggs for like a full 18 months. In fact, they were able to care.

[Tim Miller]

They were able to because it's in their fridge. They don't have object permanence. Every time they open the fridge they're like, shit. Those eggs cost a lot of.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

They cared about the price of eggs even after the price of eggs went down. Like the price of eggs was totally permanent. Even after the price of eggs had corrected itself. They were still. But eggs. Eggs are so expensive. No, they're not anymore. Oh well, something else is super expensive.

[Sarah Longwell]

This is again, eggs became eggs. Eggs were a stand in for expensive.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Always a reason, right? You can always. You can always. There is some other excuse to explain away like this complicated bank.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm not trying to explain it away.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Occam'. Dumb. Yeah, it's just the Occam's razor explanation of it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay.

[Tim Miller]

Including a lot of people that voted for Kamala and are on this podcast. Watch this podcast. People are dumb. People are dumb. Yeah. Like only, I think only like 3.

[Sarah Longwell]

Who's dumb on this podcast?

[Tim Miller]

Me. I think only like 3 in 4 people are capable of abstract thinking, you know, so like one in four Americans can't abstract. So it's hard to be upset about what's happening in Iran when you can't. When you can't visualize it in your brain.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Okay, well I want to, I want to. I want to make it clear that I don't just mean that normal people are stupid. Because here's a thing that happened today. I don't know that either of you guys have seen it. Steve Witkoff was on cnbc.

[Tim Miller]

Really dope.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Interviewed by Carl Quintanilla. I'm just going to read you the exchange. Carl Quintanilla, do we think the Russians have shared intel about US military assets? And if so, why would we be giving waivers on oil sanctions? Steve Witkoff, I can tell you that on the call with potus, the Russians said they have not been sharing. That's what they said. We can take them at their word.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, he doesn't have the ability to abstract. I just thought about that. You know, you have to take them at their word. Carl Quintanilla is great, by the way. Good follow on social media.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

God, I want that guy to work for the Bulwark so much.

[Sarah Longwell]

Steve.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Hey, Carl, we want you here.

[Sarah Longwell]

Buddy is very dumb. And also I'm not sure we're not in this war in part. I mean this is why people don't want you to look too closely at the war. Because then you would have to uncover, and I assume at some point we will get a little bit of a tick tock about Jared, the President's son in law and Putin loving Trump's golf buddy Witkoff doing the negotiations on this.

[Tim Miller]

Can we do a quick aside on Jared for a second?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

Because I was having a conversation today and something I was told, something that maybe other people know that I just don't know because this key wasn't jiggling in front of my face, and that is that the administration has been providing briefings on the negotiations in Iran, or they were providing it before we started the war, but also in Gaza and Ukraine. And when those of us, the dummies out here get the news, and it's in the New York Times and it says a senior administration official said that negotiations do this, that and the other. Did you realize that Jared Kushner has been one of those senior administration officials on those briefings? Like they call him Senior Administration Official 1 on the briefing. Does he work for the government? I don't believe that he works for the government. And I think that he is in business actually with the counterparty in some of these negotiations where he has a financial stake. And the press has just been reporting these calls because the White House says we have to report it. A Senior Administration Official 1. They've just been reporting this. A Senior Administration Official 1, when it's Jared Kushner, who's the president's son in law, who's on the take from Saudi Arabia to the tune of like 10 figures. So this was news to you guys too? I was like, really? I was like, okay. And I knew he was out there doing the negotiations, but anyway, maybe a small thing.

[Sarah Longwell]

Can I just, can I just say that to the earlier fight we were having about, you know, how much, like, obviously I think voters should know that we are at war. Like, it is crazy that we have

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

a Secretary of War. We had to rename the department the Department of War because we weren't gonna be politically correct. But now we have to be very precious about how we use words around this, this ongoing special military operation.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure, but, but here is my point. My point is that we have an administration that intentionally tries to hide the truth about what's happening. In fact, whether we are at war from the public, they are not making it. They are not making available to the American people. Jared Kushner as the person who is our main negotiator, they're not even telling us that's who's briefing People Tim is. Tim just found that out. I didn't know that, but honestly I'm surprised because I haven't seen a lot of evidence that people are getting briefed at all because we're getting so little information about.

[Tim Miller]

This was before the war. Just to be clear. This was during the period between when the protests were happening and the negotiations were happening before we started the war or. It was killing me. I was like, where did the goofy thing where a politician was talking about conflict in an abstract way come from that JD Vance did? It was in the loop. In the loop. Great. We're going to climb the mountain of conflict anyway. So it was before we climbed the mountain of conflict when we're still in negotiations, that there were background briefings happening.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And so I just. As we. I know everybody loves to call the voters stupid and obviously it's a country with 370 million people.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

You don't like to do that.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, I. My defense is not in people not seeking information. My defense is to the. Is that they. This is an administration actively trying to confuse and keep people from knowing what is really going on.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

So I guess this is jv, you

[Tim Miller]

know, a little bit more about the geopolitics. I'm sorry, I was really stuck on this. The Kushner thing. I've just really been stuck on all day today. Okay. It's correct that the Saudis and the Iranians don't like each other very much. Right?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Correct.

[Tim Miller]

So their foes.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Correct.

[Tim Miller]

Fighting for kind of regional hegemony even a little bit there. Not quite.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

The Saudis are not expansionists. The Iranians are. The Saudis just don't want the Iranians to come trucking across the board.

[Tim Miller]

They've got some conflicts between them, religious, political. So we are sending, you know, before the war when we're, when we were going to solve this diplomatically because remember, Donald Trump was going to solve all the wars with his Art of the deal. We weren't going to go to wars when we were doing the diplomacy. Who we sent to Iran to do it was Trump's real estate buddy he's in business with and his son in law who's in business with the Saudis.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

Who the Iranians don't like that much.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

And nobody else was there, apparently, according to reporting. So it's just the two of them doing the deal. I mean, it's not really surprising that we ended up with dead Americans and oil prices rising when like the point person on the negotiation with someone who has no experience, no accountability and who actually is doing side deals with the counterparty's geopolitical foe?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Well, I mean, I don't think it's fair to blame them when we all know the real, the real blame here, the onus is on the Nobel Committee because had President Trump be given, been given the peace prize, which he deserved, then surely they would have been able to reach a deal. The immense respect that the Iranians have for that great prize would have, would have, I'm just moral force of it would have brought them to the table to get this done. And in a way, couldn't we say that the Nobel Committee itself created this war just with its Trump derangement syndrome?

[Sarah Longwell]

Fair.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Makes you think.

[Sarah Longwell]

Just, just give it to JBL on this one.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Okay, so I want to, I want to talk about the back down here and about the, the attempt to climb down. Tim and I did a thing on this. You and I did a thing on this. I just assume it's happening any minute. And I am curious as to where you guys are on this. But before that, I just have a question about media ethics. What do you guys think of the CBS News reporter who got a phone call from Trump yesterday shortly before the markets closed in which he gave her a quote about, yeah, the war is basically finished. It's, it's, it's basically done. And she just stenographied that thing right up. Okay, here it is. Put it up onto. With no context, no challenging, no questions about. Well, Mr. President. Yeah, well, I mean, it wasn't part of her report.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we don't know. Like we aren't on.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

The call was simply to put out a, a statement. He could have done that himself on Truth Social. Instead he used CBS News to launder that into the markets. And CBS News is just happy to do it.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I guess. I don't. And he's calling lots of people and what he, he is manipulating the media, no doubt. I would say that. I don't think that what, what we just did is anything different from what like 19 other reporters have done in this situation, which is like, which is trouble putting these people in a bind. Right. Which is like, okay, well, the President is making war news with me on the phone right now. And it's different than what he said 20 minutes ago to someone else on the phone. So I guess I should tell people that because I have news, you know, and so I do think, you know, it would be an interesting conversation for like a journalism lecture for people to have, which is like how to handle that. I don't know, do you sit on it until after hour? You know what I mean? I don't, I actually don't know. I think it's a tough one.

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't know. I might be with JBL on this because I think that like, at what point, if you are a professional, right, you're a journalist, you know that Trump lies to the, to the press all the time. You know, he's lying to the American people all the time. Now I agree with you, Tim, that it's difficult to just like not put out. Like the President called me right now

[Tim Miller]

and was like, hey, I'm ending the war. Yeah, I've seen you've been, I've seen you've been shit talking me. Guess what? I'm ending the war right now. Like, I would probably tweet that, like the President just called me, said he's ending the war. Now President's full of shit and I don't trust anything he says. But there you go. But like, can cbs, can any, can ndc, can anybody's reporter write that?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Why couldn't they? Isn't that how we got here? Because people.

[Tim Miller]

But since the President's full of shit, why are, why do the, why are the markets even reacting to what he tells to some CBS reporter? It would be. Another thing to say is like, does the CBS reporter need to say Donald Trump is full of shit every time he, every time they quote him? Because Donald Trump is full of shit. Everybody knows that. I don't know.

[Sarah Longwell]

So, so here, here, here. But here's a bunch of things we don't know that I would just throw out there. Like if she asked a follow up question, which one might assume she did, like, did he call and say, hey, here's the statement now I'm hanging up.

[Tim Miller]

No, there are follow up questions. I don't, I don't have it in front. I can pull it up. I didn't know where to talk about this, but go ahead, keep going.

[Sarah Longwell]

I just, I think that there is some. But simply by adding the line, however, the President has been giving conflicting indications. Like something that I think contextualizes accurately the fact that he has not been telling the truth about this. Like not editorializing but, but contextualizing like with her. And, and I, like I said, I don't know what else was in that. But I also just that statement, I mean, some of this, Sorry, but just really quickly, some of this is like a failure across multiple vectors because it is both the reporter reports it and then let's say that is a longer interview. But everybody just picks up that one statement that circulates and then the markets, which are so easily manipulated by Trump, they bounce back based on that one statement without looking any deeper. So like everybody in this machine is getting played.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Yeah. All right, so we gotta take a quick break for you, Tim, to bring us a word from our first sponsor. When we come back, I want to do a little bit of Israel discourse in order to get us into the maximum amount of trouble possible.

[Tim Miller]

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[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

So I want to, I want to read to you guys from a piece in the owl monitor today. Just gonna, just give me, give me 45 seconds. Set the table here. Here is a senior Israeli diplomatic source telling Al Monitor on conditioning of anonymity. We're seeing an internal struggle and deliberation inside the administration here. He's talking about the Trump administration, about what is the right thing to do now to continue with full steam ahead or to find an elegant exit route in Israel too, opinions are divided. The political decision makers, namely Netanyahu as well as the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency, continue to believe in the goal of Regime change in Iran. The military is more doubtful, but continues its persistent and widespread strikes in Iran, just in case Trump shuts the window of opportunity. There are many missions and goals. An Israeli military Source told Almander, etc. Etc. Every additional day of attacks is a gift. Regime change will take time, but if sanctions are tightened, the American armada remains here and imposes a crackdown on Iran, the regime will ultimately fall. You need patience. So the Israeli military, if I'm reading this correctly, seems to be thinking, yeah, no, we're not going to be able to make the regime fall here.

[Tim Miller]

And this is, so this is circuit back to how you started this, which was with, you know, you being of the position that maybe this thing just ends by the time, you know, folks get home tonight. This is why I'm a little bit more skeptical of that. Right. I do think that we are not aligned with Israel, our partner in this war, at least on the medium term.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Our daddy, our boss daddy.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. The president of the, you know, the lead partner. We're sitting in shotgun. And if Donald Trump decides to tuck tail and say, Iran, good luck, you know, I don't think Israel wants to embarrass him right away. Right. Like, they'll probably let that hang for a little while. But is Israel gonna, like, let's say Donald Trump did it today. Let's just say. And it's, and it's Khomeini's kid that is still in charge. Do you think Israel's gonna let that stand? I mean, Israel obviously has insight, has that has that inside circle locked. I mean, they were able to just decapitate, like, the top 20 leaders of the, of the previous Ayatollah regime, so they'd be able to get to this guy. I found it very hard to believe that they're going to go to all this trouble and then be like, okay, we're just going to leave his kid in charge. Meanwhile, Israel's already said that they are going to continue fighting Hezbollah and southern Lebanon even after the Iran war ends because Hezbollah attacked them after, after this war started. And so, you know, and the Iranians have some say over this. Right? Like, are they going to continue to let Western boats through the strait? You know, and they're, they're saying that they'll let any boats through the strait as long as the countries have expelled their, the American and Israeli embassy. Embassy officials. So Trump might want to. But, like, there are other players here, and I think it's complicated.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And this is the thing, if we already have now. Okay, so Trump, we've been at this a week, week in a couple days now. We've got the sun. Also the. We, we traded one Khomeini for another Khomeini. This Khomeini is just as bad and is also has nuclear ambitions. So if. Now obviously they gave us many reasons why we needed to go bomb Iran, but assuming that one of the reasons was that Iran can never get nuclear weapons and they cannot have this hard, these hard line ideologues or whatever you would even call them, it's more dangerous and dark than that in charge. Well, then we have not achieved our. Trump has not achieved his stated objective. Rubio hasn't achieved his stated objective, which means we have to continue until the given objectives are met. Like, this is why I also don't think it can just happen.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Can't they just say that they're mad?

[Sarah Longwell]

No, this is, this is.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

No, the Americans could, no, the Americans could just do that. Like Trump could just say, just got off phone with the new Khomeini. He's a tremendous person, much different than his father. He was weak and embarrassed. He cried like a dog and begged me to call off the military and gave us everything we wanted. He didn't say that.

[Sarah Longwell]

I guess he could, I mean, I guess he could just say that. And, and do you know what? There is truth to the fact that they are Trump. Trump doesn't care that if he like broke it, he bought it. He doesn't care about any of that. That being said, it would be pretty humiliating for him. Like, and I do think Israel would try to make him, would not make it easy on him if he then sat out, set it out while they continue to pursue nuclear ambitions or other ambitions.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, nuclear thing is a little bit of a, you know, fig leaf. And like they're, they're concerned about nuclear but. And Israel is as concerned more probably about the funding of terror that was happening in the region and you know, weapons that can reach Israel, you know, proliferating. And so again, like, are they just gonna, and at the point, if, if looking at this from the standpoint of Israel, okay, if you, like you were, you're, if you're BB you're thinking it, this is our chance, right? Like we're, we're declining in popularity in America with both of the next two presidents. I know this guy. I know how to manipulate this guy. He likes it when we win and when we do flashy things, I'm going to tell him that we're going to be able to do that. I'm going to give him all the credit. I'm going to use this guy Trump for as long as I can. I've got this three year window. We're going to kill as many of the bad guys around us that are coming after us and see where things land in 2029. Right. Like that's, that's, and it's rational, actually, from his perspective. It's, you can disagree with the morality of it or whatever, but it's rational. And, and so if you're them, are you satisfied with Trump leaving with Khomeini junior in charge? I don't think so. I don't think you are. That.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

It's all been a gift, though. If you think that every day is a gift and that you're playing with

[Tim Miller]

house money, they think they're playing with house money. I think they're thinking, I think they're thinking, fuck it, let's, let's get rid of Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Let's try to get a more pliable leader in there. Can we get a, can we get our own mbs, you know, into, can we get our own Del C. Rodriguez into these other countries?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

And now he's always been very pragmatic on this stuff, right? He's willing to fund him Hamas when it's politically useful and then only goes super hardline after the October 7th attacks. I, again, I just, I could see it a bunch of different ways.

[Sarah Longwell]

I think, I just think this is, I think it's getting to the point where this is a really, it's really hard to do analysis about this war because we don't have any information and we're not dealing with straightforward brokers.

[Tim Miller]

And they don't have a plan.

[Sarah Longwell]

And they don't have a plan.

[Tim Miller]

I was like, it's honestly like, what we're doing here is, you go, you know, you're a zoologist that goes to the zoo and like the monkeys have been throwing shit against the wall and you're, and they're, they're like, why are the monkeys mad? And like the local zoo's like, why are the monkeys mad? And they bring in the experts and the experts, like, well, you know, this poop formation on the wall here makes me think that the monkeys need more space, right? It's just like, you can't, you can't analyze something when they don't fucking know what they're doing. Like, they're, they're just, they're living minute by minute. Can I, can I bring up something just happened, JBL to your Point on the journalism. This is Javier Blast posted this. Nothing against this guy. I don't know this guy at all. He reports for Bloomberg on energy issues. He writes as breaking US Navy escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz. Says Secretary Wright, Chris Wright. So I don't know a lot about Chris Wright. I decided to work for Trump, so I don't really trust him. But I don't know him to be an inveterate liar like the President of the United States. So that makes sense. Chris Wright tells him that he puts the news up. Jen Griffin posts a couple minutes later, a couple minutes ago, this is not true. I'm told from US Military sources no military assets have escorted tankers to the Strait of Hormuz. Okay. Chris Wright then backtracks this guy. Javier says, I deleted a previous post. And it's just like, what do you do if you're these guys? What are you supposed to do? You're a journalist that covers energy issues and the Secretary of Energy says, I have a breaking news item for you. The military is working together. I mean, I guess maybe you wait. You have to wait. No call. I need a satellite image.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

This guy just told me this thing. Yeah. I have no way to verify independently whether or not it was true. Right. Yeah, because that's the world we live in now.

[Tim Miller]

Right?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

This is, I mean I was talking with, forget I was talking to my wife about this this morning. Right. The, the Iranian school. Right, the girls school.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

When that story first hit, my initial reaction was, well, maybe a school got blown up or maybe it didn't. The Iranian regime is notoriously unreliable. You cannot trust anything that comes out of the, the regime and you never have been able to. This has been going back for decades. Right. And then it turns out that the Trump regime is basically saying, I mean this is the, the tragedy of all of these innocent people being killed is a normal tragedy of war. The really evil thing in it is that in any other context, the American President's response would have been, we don't know what happened, but we take these things seriously and we're looking into it.

[Tim Miller]

Right. Right.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

And instead the US President just says no, a rant in it. Which means that you simply can't trust like non interpretations or what you can't trust actual factual statements coming out of the American regime.

[Tim Miller]

Not they're buying themselves time before they come clean. You know what I mean? All that stuff that's worth criticizing that normal governments do.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

It's, it's, it is like we talked about with the Legal system where, like, regular order is over. Right. I mean, there used to be a set of assumptions where, yes, you know, public officials might shade the truth or spin or whatever, but they wouldn't actually actively lie, you know, at certain levels. And that's not the world we're living in.

[Tim Miller]

Speaking of lying, here's another thing coming across the transom. This is from. I just want to make sure we're crediting the right people here. It's from Reuters. They've done really good shit on this in this war, to be honest. The folks at Reuters exclusive as many as 150 US troops wounded so far in Iran. In Iran war. Not in Iran, the country. Two sources familiar with the matter tell Reuters that's just like, again, in past war. It's not as if the American government didn't lie in the past around wars or didn't cover things up, but just the fact that there is no reliable information coming out that, you know, that. Had you asked yesterday. Really, had you asked Caroline Levitt yesterday. Okay, so we've heard now CENTCOM has told us that there have been seven American troops that have died. How many other, like, injuries are there? She was. She's as liable as anything to have said zero. Yeah, right. Or we don't know of any, or if there are any.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

We would have told you 150. We couldn't have trusted that.

[Tim Miller]

Right, right.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

All you can say is, well, this person said that they have a history of lying.

[Tim Miller]

They're obviously hiding figures. And like, this has been bubbling in like. Like military blogs for the past few days.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Yeah. All right. We gotta keep moving. We still didn't get to Israel, but we're gonna get there. I promise we're gonna get there. But now a word from our next sponsor. Lisa, you don't know.

[Tim Miller]

Israel's been the tease on both apps. That's great. Advertisers love that.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

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[Sarah Longwell]

How do you sleep?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I'm going to share that with you.

[Tim Miller]

Thank you.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

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[Tim Miller]

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[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

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[Tim Miller]

Israel. Israel.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Israel. So I was listening to the really wonderful show the two of you guys did without me yesterday, which is performing great on the charts. And I was not a, it was not a hate watch. I was just really basking in it. I love it. I love it when people succeed without me. And I was very interested in the turn your Israel conversation took. And I think it could only happen because I wasn't there. Because I wasn't there to stake out a maximalist position to then force you guys into defending and rebelling against two of you wound up in a nearly jvlish place all on your own. That was interesting. And I do wonder if this so this one the most interesting. You said Sarah was talking about the young voters you're hearing in focus groups and I have just been wondering about this if we're if Israel is creating a generational public opinion problem for itself and turning itself into a pariah state in over the long run. Yeah, I don't know that Israel cares about that. Or at least I don't know. This is really regime cares about that. But, but it does seem like whether or not they care about it, it could be important in the future.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I mean I, I actually think Israel writ large might care more about public opinion in the United States around this war than Trump does. Because Trump already won his election, doesn't have to convince anybody of anything. He doesn't care about J.D. vance and Marco Rubio and what he's making them carry in terms of weight on this. But Israel, I think probably cares a great deal or should care a great deal about American public opinion around Israel. And the thing that they're not going to be able to take for granted anymore is that generations of Americans are going to come up feeling reflexively defensive on Israel's behalf because that's just not there anymore. Like I am watching, it is a massive generational shift and it manifests in different ways. On the Democrat side, it is about APAC funding. So Democrats are now using. This is. I did a focus group pod with Axelrod and I was playing him a bunch of sound from Democrats in Illinois because they got a primary there. And the number of people who are using APAC is the wedge issue around which they are judging the. Actually, the more moderate candidate who did take APAC money versus the more sort of the one who did the F. Trump ad and was running against ICE and running against taking APAC money. She went from a moribund nothing campaign, has way less money to now being even if not ahead of him in polling. And so on the Democrat side, it really is the APAC money. On the right, it is more that there is a. I don't understand why we're not allowed to talk about Israel. Like, they feel the. They feel their elders kind of bearing down on them in a certain way. And these are not Nick Fuentes, but they are kind of Candacey a little bit like they're a little Candace pilled.

[Tim Miller]

It makes sense. So they. Their big formative thing over the last 10 years was listening to Republican influencers tell them that they shouldn't be canceled, they should be able to say anything that they want and that there was this big conspiracy around.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Covid Weiss talks about dangerous ideas and how much she loves them.

[Tim Miller]

Right, exactly. And this was that this is what they all grew up in. Right. Was like their formative years in politics. Like this was the big issue that the libs want to cancel people and they don't want to let us give you alternative theories about horse medicine and Covid. And so now they're like, wait a minute, why is this the one thing I can't give my alternative theory on? Right. Like that's again, it's rational. A lot of times it's leading them to some pretty dark places. But like, if you think about it from that perspective, that makes sense to me.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. I mean, the number of like Epstein, Epstein Massad things that people get. And then you ask people what they listen to and then you hear Candace and you're like, I see where this information is coming. Let me tell you what, these are not insane. Like, these are sort of like they were swing voters and, and kind of. But see, the problem is, is like they're well informed in the sense that they are taking in a great deal of information. The Information is just toxic. And so like, right. It weirdly, there's like an adult conversation, which is the one Tim and I, I think we're trying to have around Israel's role in American foreign policy. And then there's like a more a children's level conversation that is still a bell curve and has some like, why, why would we go to war for Israel? Why are we sending Israel that much money? These things that are kind of reasonable places for people to do within these tales on both ends that are tinged with a much more dark, anti Semitic, territorial.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, my thing on Israel, I don't know if I would have called myself the adult conversation on that because, you know, I don't know, we're all still doing. I'm, I'm doing my. I'm not, I'm not a fucking expert and I'm not positioning myself as a Middle east expert. The point I was like, the conversation I was trying to have with Sarah is because we both are pretty like practical, right? I like, sometimes, you know, I feel like I bristle at centrist and moderate because sometimes centrist and moderate means like mushy and like, unable to decide. And like, I don't feel that way myself. I have like really strong views about very. About various things. But. But I'm also not like an ideologue, right? And so about very. An ideologue about very few things. And so it's like, you know, like, I take in the information I have, think that there's a lot of reasonable, rational reasons to think based on what was happening between the 90s and 2010, that a lot of the countries around Israel and other people around Israel wanted to do them harm and had horrible leadership. And you know, and you know, maybe it could have been benefited if. If that leadership had changed to something more appealing to me. And then we tried to do that and you saw it happened, right? And so I just, I think that to me it's like not even really a left and right thing. It's much just a practical thing, like an issue. For just another example I didn't get to on the pod yesterday. An issue I'm kind of left on is like criminal justice stuff. I bristle at jails and all this. I don't know, I think we over police and all that. Like, that's my natural instinct, like from a libertarian left standpoint. And so. But then like I watched what happened in the Bay Area when Chesa Bowden came in as district attorney and you know, you had to fund the police stuff and they Said not to stop arresting people for crimes on the street. And all of a sudden I was like, you know, okay, like, I'm taking in new information and I still am for civil liberties and civil rights and I still have, you know, kind of a left, some leftist views on criminal justice. But maybe we went a little too far there. And like, I feel to me like the Israel issue is just an opposite. It's like the other side of that, which is like, you just watch the behavior and watch what's been happening and it's like there's not, there's a lot of reason to distrust the leadership of Israel right now and the choices that are being made in Israel. And I don't think there's any reason to reflexively defend it out of fear that somebody's going to call you an anti Semite. So that's. That was where I came down.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I love that for you guys. That was great.

[Tim Miller]

I did get called an anti Semite because of that, though. So.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

You did.

[Sarah Longwell]

You know, I didn't actually look. Did we get rest reactions?

[Tim Miller]

No, a lot of positive folks. A lot of positive reactions. But, you know, no, the bigger anti Semite attack on me recently has been defending Graham Platner because I want to be like, I don't Grandpa. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I think that you need, you need to provide. If you want to call him a Nazi and a Jew hating Nazi, you have to bring me some, A little bit more evidence besides the tattoo, because I think that the tattoo has some pretty explanations of being a fucking drunk guy in the military that thought it was a skull. Like, I need something. I need another data point. And like, when I requested that.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

What the Stu Peters retweet.

[Tim Miller]

It was a retweet and a delete. Everybody. Is everybody that retweets Stu Peters a Nazi. I've seen a lot of people retweeting Stu Peters lately because he's anti the war. And I've seen a lot of folks

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

who are just giving you the other data point.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I guess my point is we've seen his whole Reddit profile and he had a lot of mean things to say about cops, rural white people, black people, not tipping that well, not a lot of comments about Jews. And so I just, I'm looking for a little more evidence. And, and many people then didn't provide that evidence, but instead they called me an entice. I might like him. So whatever. I don't know. I don't think that's really winning a lot over A lot of hearts and minds.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, not in Maine because Grant Platner is still running away with it. I, I would have, I would have a very difficult time like personally supporting Graham Platner. But like as just an analytical matter, he is appealing to voters in Maine much more than.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

All right, let me finish drinking what you just put in your mouth.

[Sarah Longwell]

Careful.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I don't do it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Do it. If he says to do it, take it out of your mouth. Oh, no.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Graham Platner comes out and schlongs Susan Collins by 10 points and his performance with white working class males is just out of the park. Does he immediately become a second tier Democratic presidential hopeful?

[Tim Miller]

Obviously. And there's a long time between now and then, but like, obviously, yes,

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

that's great.

[Tim Miller]

There's nobody in that lane except aoc. And I don't know if I'm aoc. I'm like taking out Chuck Schumer seems like a lot more realistic path. But.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Sarah, what do you think about that?

[Sarah Longwell]

I think we're over indexing a little bit on. I agree with Tim that people tend to run away with those types of people. Like to his point, like if Talaria go right, if Talarico wins in Texas and Graham Platner, like people will be like, we really needed that seat. That was amazing. This person's winging in winning in a swing state. Shouldn't we give them a heck of a look? And then I think they will give them a heck of a look and then they'll go nationally. This guy might be a tough sell, but

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

boy, that's great.

[Sarah Longwell]

I mean, I don't know, is the same thing true of Josh Shapiro when he beats Stacey Garrity in Pennsylvania by 30 points?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

No, no, it is true. But, but it's true about Josh Shapiro because Josh Shapiro is a very normal, high quality politician. He isn't grand plan. That's what I'm. I mean, the weirdness of it, you

[Tim Miller]

know, sure, Josh is going to run. My point is, is that there is going to be a desperate demand among Democratic voters for a fresh face and for an outsider. And right now there's nobody that's filling that gap that, that lane 20, 28. And I'm just saying it would be him if he did that. There's. That's so many ifs. He could still lose his prime. It's a long way away. And by the way you look at those polls and they're great for Graham Platter and I think that's certainly going to help in the primary because a lot of Democrats are very practical voters, but Susan, or whatever was her name, Sarah Gideon. It's like she was winning every poll and then, and then Susan Collins beat her by eight. I mean's a hard state to pull. And so, you know, this is a million ifs away. I'm just, I just as an objective, analytical matter, like there's going to be room for someone who is an outsider, who is a populist. And if he were to win in Maine, he would be somebody people would look at.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

All right, I want to get to JD Versus Marco.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Little widow. Widow Mako. But first, sir, you got to give us our last ad of the day.

[Sarah Longwell]

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[Tim Miller]

I was just scrolling through the chats and we got this one from Clean and Sober Nation. I appreciate. It's great. I'm proud of you on your journey. There are this channel helped me remain, retain my sanity and heal after voting against Harris in 2020. I'm sorry, $10 super chat on YouTube. There is 10 bucks enough. Maybe. Maybe another five.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I mean, church has always been in favor of indulgences.

[Tim Miller]

Is 10 bucks enough? I don't know, maybe another 40. I'm just kidding. If you want to donate to Second Harvest, though, you should. We appreciate it. It's all good. Welcome aboard. Waters.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Michael, if you see any good questions in the chat, go. Go and throw them in the box.

[Tim Miller]

I got him. He sent it to me.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

He sent me. All right, I'll try to leave some time for us to do that. So here's what I want to talk about. We had Trump yesterday saying that JD Was a little less enthusiastic, little less about the Iran war.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know if I love the impression.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

And then he said that Marco Rubio might go down as the greatest secretary of state in history. Daddy wants his boys to fight.

[Tim Miller]

Did you. With the other element. Did you say it? And I know you're sorry. When I was looking at the questions of, like, he asked, like, 25 people and they all said, marco at Mar a Lago does that. Yeah. Was that like the. It was all Marco. Yeah. He does want them to fight. I. To me, it is. If you think about Trump solely as a megalomaniacal casting director and reality star. Right. And not as an ideologue. Right. Where, like, he put on America first was like a skin suit for him that he put on. Some of it was instinctual because he himself is like a nativist old man. Right. But some of it was like. Also, it wasn't like, you know, there was no real ideology around it. It was like, instinctual. Marco makes a lot more sense for him. It's like JD As JD is a subhuman because the new Marco looks rough. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, isn't that good.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

But I didn't look the way he used to.

[Tim Miller]

That's true. But he is more affable. You know, he's. But you could see him as a character on a TV show. He's gonna need a makeover, you know, Donald, not to give him some Makeup and give him some tips, whatever he's doing with the hair and all that. I don't know what to do about the ears because the Pinocchio ears are a problem for Marco. But like, besides that, JD Is, you know, he's a subhuman with a recessed side profile and extremely unappealing. And it's also, and Trump also doesn't like, JD Sucked up like a little too hard. You know, Trump starts to resent people that suck up too hard. It's like the Michael Cohen thing. Right? Like, you know, Michael Cohen was his fixer forever and he was loyal and people. And, you know, Trump started to feel like, this is sad. That was part of the breakup. And then Markoon testified against him. But in the beginning it was like Trump's like, no, you're not gonna come and have a senior role in my White House. You've been shining my shoes for the last eight years. And like, there's a little bit of that with JD And Trump. So I'm not, I don't think it's not surprising that he's doing that. Well, the vote, you know, I don't know if the voters. Trump would have to be a pretty full throated endorsement. Like, Trump would have to really go all in for Marco. And I don't know if he'll do that. That he, he really only goes on for himself.

[Sarah Longwell]

So here, here's the. I did a focus group pod, not a. Not the full thing wasn't about this, but, but we got into it where we were asking people about J.D. vance. The strange new respect for Marco is in the focus groups where people are like, I didn't like him. And so many of the, especially the younger voters, they don't know him from the before times.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

Like, he's just MAGA establishment to them. And so I think for people like us, we've seen the Marco transformation, but a lot of voters haven't. What doesn't surprise me though, if Trump's talking to elites. Of course they want Marco. Of course they want Marco. JD Vance has really weird politics now.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Keep strikes back.

[Tim Miller]

But.

[Sarah Longwell]

But I will tell you, Trump is literally.

[Tim Miller]

Tucker told Trump not. Yes. Yeah, it's crazy.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And. But J.D. vance is. Has a real problem here. Did you read this part? The part where he's talking about the enthusiasm for the war and he was like, yeah, I talked to J.D. vance. He was less enthusiastic than I, but he's still very enthusiastic. Of course J.D. vance isn't enthusiastic. Like, he is going to have to carry this around. This is genuinely bad for him in terms of his future. Trump doesn't care about his future. But this is good for Marco and good. But Marco is still, I think, an elite pick. J.D. vance is a. Still more the America first pick. But he's, it's, you're gonna, he's gonna find himself in that sour spot where like he can't, he's gonna either have to shit on Trump or he's gonna have to defend things that the base doesn't want him to defend.

[Tim Miller]

It's not surprising. 25 rich guys at Mar? A Lago. Like, smart.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

That's, that's, I mean, I'll, I'll just say that the obvious compromise pick, Don Jr.

[Sarah Longwell]

He's never gonna let the Dodger think

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

that's, that's the best because everybody will think that means that they can make him work for them.

[Tim Miller]

Can I, can I offer another Mar? A Lago news item?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

Wasn't on that line, but I just want, I want JBL to kind of react live. This is from the Daily Mail, which is the only source to get real news for what's happening inside our government. MAGA attorney Alina Haba quietly divorced millionaire husband Greg Rubin last month and moved to a mansion down the street from Mar? A Lago. It's all the information I have. Just wanted to throw that out there in case JVL had any thoughts about that.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

I mean, I don't know what she thinks she could get out of it because she's not going to be the fourth Mrs. Trump,

[Tim Miller]

so. Interesting.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

She's already gotten her, her pretend government job and she doesn't need the money because she's a rich girl anyway. I, maybe you can move. Maybe it's love.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I'm sure those two crazy kids are in big love. Let me, let me just offer one different perspective, which is there are much, much like Kristi Noem and her boyfriend Corey Lewandowski. There are many people around Trump and around Mar? A Lago that are younger and handsomer. I mean Trump is like an 80 year old man. I just this, there is just because Trump has been like paying off.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Just because he's been paying off prostitutes or whatever. And all of the tabloids of that stuff still weirdly helps him because it gives people this sense that he's like, no, Trump's still like a virile whatever. No, he is like got bruised. He's the crypt 80 year old man. Hands and weird rashes and swollen cankles and like he's 80 and he's taken

[Tim Miller]

even worse without the makeup.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right. So I just, I think there is, there could be something totally not related. Yeah, it will be related to Trump, but it's not Trump.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

It's the new Studio 54. I have, I have something. Wait, guys, I'm sorry. You just have to get this tease. I have something for you, Tim and Sarah that's too hot for the show. Please remind me once we get off. All right, I think we should go to some questions. Tim, if you'd like to give questions. Unless there was any other, any other news topics?

[Sarah Longwell]

Hold on. Somebody in the chat is doing the. They want JBL to moderate a focus group and she's telling me not to forget to let JBL moderate a focus group. He only gets to moderate a focus group if we sell 20,000 copies of my book. That's the deal. So go preorder it if you want that.

[Tim Miller]

Speaking of which, Mark Hertling has a book out today as well, which I have got to read you.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Did he send you a copy? Because Amazon should be delivering my copy today.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it's excellent. It's great. I want to get the name right. I don't have it right in front of me, but it's kind of like a, it's like a coffee table book. Mark Hertling said this so I can say it. It's kind of like it also could be a good bathroom if I don't return. If I don't return. So it's like, you know, these little lessons, these little vignettes from his time in Gulf War one and then he ties it to broader life lessons. It's really excellent. So folks should go check that out as well. Sure. I'll go to Q&As. Give us your Q and A's on subs. Well, actually, one more thing, Sarah, before you Q and A on polytechnic, because I haven't had a chance to get to it. The, the Montana stuff is pretty interesting. Like the, the, the map expansion is pretty legit and, and I feel like we find we're going to Texas next week. Come see us buy tickets for the Austin event blorc.com events and, and that race is going to be interesting that I don't know. I start to look at the map and nothing against Tal Rico, but like Alaska looks in potential Montana, there's potential Iowa. I think that there are some second tier states that are, that are coming into play here. So I don't know, sir, what are your thoughts on that while I get

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Switcheroo and in Montana.

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[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, so look, here's the thing. Montana is a very red state. Tester lost by seven or eight points and he was like really deep in Montana. But there is an interesting independent candidate and I got to tell you, these kinds of switches that these candidates are doing where they hold out until the last minute and then they basically put in the person that they want to do. Voters hate that they hate it. And it wouldn't surprise me if the libertarian ish voters out there decided to ding this person for it. So if it is a wave year, super low interest from Republicans, they don't have a Democrat candidate, although that's annoying for them because there are popular ish Democrats that could have run if they knew that Steve Daines was going to drop out, but because he didn't do it until the very last minute, they didn't run. But instead you do have an independent candidate that people could vote for. And so I will I'm going to at least look be watching that race. It went from A race. It's still rated on Cook Political as like, I think like an R, you know, not, not lean R, but I forget what the term is. However, it went from being a state that I wouldn't have watched to a state that I will watch and care about it. So that's meaningful.

[Tim Miller]

All right, let's go to the Q A. Let's try to keep it tight on this with everybody. Just a few war things since that's what we talked about at the top. Don't get to other issues. Vicky says do we think with oil prices going down, this puts less pressure on the admin to get out of Iran quickly? I don't know that they are. And there's, I think it's been since we've been on, there's some news breaking that Iran has put some mines in the Strait of Hormuz, allegedly. There's some reports from Jennifer Jacobs is posting that. And so I think it was Stavridis was warning about this as well. Admiral Serviti So we don't really know. But I don't think they're out of the woods yet at all. And, and the oil prices going down. What do you think about that?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

JBL so I wrote about this today. If you look at the futures curves, even after the giant correction yesterday, which was spurred by Trump saying, we're almost done, don't worry everybody, the war is almost over. The futures still had prices at like $84 a barrel by July. July don't show us getting back to 67 until for another year. So we're into 2027 before you see 67. I will remind everybody that three months ago, so, so 12 weeks ago, the futures had $55 a barrel as far as you could see. So like even the hey, maybe things are back by 2027 number is still 20% higher than everybody thought it would be three months ago. You're going to feel these things. They're going to be present in the macro economy. And the big danger, and this is what I wrote about today, is that the Fed is in a real bind here. You've had job losses 7 in the last 14 months. You've had much slower GDP growth than expected. The economy is slowing down. The market has already priced in at least two more rate cuts coming this spring and summer. The market is just assuming the rate cuts are coming. And if you're the Fed, you now have in addition to slightly nagging inflation, which is not worrisome, but not great, you then have the inflationary pressure of this oil Spike sitting underneath it. And they've got to be thinking themselves, well, shit, if we, if we can't cut rates as aggressively as we want and we're sort of caught. Dan, if we do. Dan, if we don't. And there's danger both ways, it just, it creates all sorts of problems which, if this was an event that had happened that America had had no control over, that's, you know, like. Well, sometimes countries in the Middle east have revolutions. Sometimes they go to war against one another. This is a thing that nobody in America was asking for and that the President of the United States chose to do.

[Tim Miller]

It's hard to follow up that with this one. But I'm curious for both of you. Kurma Wa asks, what if Trump and co accidentally stumble into success really fast? Is that even possible? Based on what you just laid out, jbl, is the damage done at least economically?

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Sure. I mean, it's always possible.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

And the economic damage will work out over time. Right. And once the war is over, you haven't structurally changed things.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

It is possible. You get the. Maybe Khomeini's son is slightly more amenable to, to working within the international community. Maybe he's willing to, to be 5% less antagonistic to his neighbors and things get a little more peace. I mean, you could see that. I don't know that anybody anywhere would take that bet without getting really big odds.

[Tim Miller]

And I don't see how that really even helps America. Like, it gives him a talking point, I guess, potentially Trump, but that's about it. This is for you, Sarah Russell West. The opposition is failing to make the strong case that the war is illegal, dangerous and wrong. Congress and media are complicit. Do you agree with that? There's not a strong enough case being made.

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't know about complicit. I mean, it depends on, on which I do think ineffectual. I think that especially for, for Democrats, you know, we didn't get to the part we were talking about, the SAVE act that's coming next. Oh, is it? Okay, I guess I'll just throw this in there that, that I do think Democrats in Congress, it's less that they're complicit, much more that they're ineffectual, don't know how to fight back. But I will go back to my earlier point and say part of what's hard about it is that this, this like, administration is giving people. Nobody is used to the way this war is happening. No. Like they are lying to them constantly they're using them to manipulate markets. And so they've, it's not complicit so much as they have got to start operating in the now. They've got to start stop operating on the old board. That was like, you can trust the administration when they tell you about injury counts or death counts. You can trust the information they give you about did we bomb the school or not. Like all of that stuff is different now.

[Tim Miller]

I would say I came to the media's defense earlier, so I'll attack them right now. The mainstream media thinks coverage of this a lot is just way too,

[Sarah Longwell]

you

[Tim Miller]

know, like bending over backwards to take a good faith approach to what the administration is doing. And like having on, like we feel like we have to have on. We have to have a couple Iranian diaspora voices to talk about how happy they are. And it's like, well, sure, like, yeah, there are many people that fled around that are happy, but anything good that happens comes under the construct of a war that was illegal, that had no clear rationale, that is going to cost us a ton of money, that is costing us lives, that is creating a refugee crisis.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

Like there's all of these bad externalities that are happening that anything good underneath that, I get it, the media doesn't, it doesn't have to rail against Trump every day like we do here. But I think that there's been a sense of being conspicuously interested in trying to paint positive picture on various things that are happening. Okay, on SAVE Act, Bridget combined two questions from Bridget and Karen W. Trump is saying no more legislation signed until SAVE act is done. This is a terrible bill. Do you think Congress will pass it anyway? Karen, why aren't more reporters pressing Republicans on how the Save America act would actually play out? Will every American have to re register? How would that even be done in time?

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, here's the quick on the Save Act. So first of all, it used to be the SAVE Act. Now they have put, they have changed it to the Save America Act. So understand that the new Save America act is that Trump took all of his. All right, you're going to have to show ID and you know, no vote by mail and you know, you have to show your proof of American citizenship. He took that and then he combined it with a bunch of trans stuff like no, you know, men and women's sports, whatever. So he combined those into the Save America Act. And now though, the problem is is it's a grab bag of Trump's priorities, which means it becomes a filibuster conversation it is now the kind of thing where Trump wants Thune to get rid of the filibuster so they can pass this. Thune is saying he's a hard no. This is going so far as to influence the Texas race where Donald Trump was set to endorse John Cornyn, the establishment candidate, because the Republicans were all after him to do it. And then Ken Paxton came out and said, I will drop out of this race as long as you pass the SAVE act because that's so important to me. That is essential. Which caused the White House and Trump to withhold their endorsement of Cornyn and wait for a little bit and Trump is saying this is the only thing that matters. We'll pass no other legislation till the SAVE act goes. But this is fundamentally now a filibuster conversation. He cannot pass this without 60 votes.

[Tim Miller]

I don't see how it would work logistically. Also to your question, Karen, and time, also the states run these elections. And so I do think that it potentially could help them in red states where there are Senate races like Montana that we just mentioned earlier. If they could jam this through, I think those states would bend over backwards to try to comply and use this as a way to try to harm access to the vote for Democrats or just broadly assuming that would hurt Democrats. But I think it's a really big uphill battle to get it passed and they have such narrow majorities. They have to both kill the filibuster and basically get every Republican vote. Like they have such a tiny margin for error really fast. Exarcher asks, will I ever have an anti anti maga type conservative on a pod or roundtable discussion? Tune in tomorrow. Julie, you've already had, you had Ross douth it on like nine months ago. You people are crazy.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

He said will you ever. Oh, Brian, you've had Ross doubt that.

[Tim Miller]

I have had them on. I know we've got one tomorrow though. Tune in.

[Sarah Longwell]

Dude, I can't wait.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

The other David Sachs guy.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, Jason Calacanis. We had him on. Yeah, I have him on from time to time. We got one tomorrow. We'll see how it goes. Julie, heard Sarah on NPR this morning. If Trump only goes to his billionaire buddies, think how can we fight and take down the Epstein class while still being for a free market economy? Oh boy, that's a big question for me.

[Sarah Longwell]

That is a big question.

[Tim Miller]

We'll save that. Sarah will get to that. Back to you that on that one later. I will make her answer that. In another venue, Andrew Steele wants to know if JBL has any other shirts.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

What I have is I have eight copies of this shirt. I have them in different colors. This is. This is my favorite shirt from the beginning of fall through the end of winter. It is a mammoth Iker jock. I love it. It's perfect. And then once we are into spring, I will transition into my spring and summer T shirt, of which I have 22 copies. Same shirt, just 22 versions of it.

[Tim Miller]

I don't. I think there's no better place to leave it than there.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

What's the big deal? Isn't this how everybody lives?

[Tim Miller]

No. There was a whole episode of Seinfeld about this where he dated a girl that had the same outfit and he like, he tried to sneak into her closet to see if she only has the one outfit or she has 10 different versions of them or whether because he was concerned that she wasn't washing it enough. I don't know. It's unusual.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Okay, fine.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, days of the tank tops, where I get to see all your flesh on a podcast.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

That was back before we were doing video, Sarah, when it was just you and me. I'd be wearing. Wearing shorts and a tank top.

[Tim Miller]

Just be like, hey, what's up?

[Sarah Longwell]

It's my favorite.

[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Oh, the good old days. All right, guys, we will be together next week live. We're gonna do it live. And I don't know when this show will drop because of that. These are all things that we're going to be deciding. Tbd. Everybody else, we will see you then. Hopefully the war will be over. That would be nice. Good luck, America.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Are you looking for a refresh this spring? Make sure you take some time for self care with savings on all your favorite hair care Essentials. Now through March 31st. Shop in store or online for participating hair care items from Pantene, Head and Shoulders, Aussie and Old Spice and earn four times points. Points can be redeemed later for discounts on groceries or gas. Offer ends March 31. Restrictions apply. Promotions may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

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[Sarah Longwell]

100 million.

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[JVL (Jonathan V. Last)]

Terms apply.