1063: Secret Podcast: Would You Trust These Idiots With a War?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Next Level – “Secret Podcast: Would You Trust These Idiots With a War?”

Podcast: The Next Level
Host: The Bulwark (Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Jonathan V. Last [JVL])
Episode: 1063: Secret Podcast: Would You Trust These Idiots With a War?
Date: March 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Sarah Longwell and Jonathan V. Last (JVL) dive into the current state of U.S. leadership during wartime, reflecting anxiously (and wryly) on the nation’s decision-makers and their competence in handling the ongoing Iran conflict. Their conversation ranges over political leadership, the gravity of historical moments, echoes from WWII, and the difference between true statesmanship and what they perceive as today’s unserious “video game” approach to war. The Bulwark hosts also orbit around topics like community, recent book endeavors, and the challenges of leadership both at home and on the global stage.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Community Appreciation and Book News

[02:00–08:36]

• Sarah thanks the Bulwark community for their support with her new book’s preorders and answers listener questions:
  • Yes, Audible and eBook sales count towards totals.
  • She will narrate her own audiobook and go on a book tour.
  • She’s exploring signed copies and book plates for supporters.
• JVL offers to voice quotes for the audiobook (collector’s edition) and to read his foreword.
• Both express genuine, affectionate camaraderie and humor about ongoing projects and their loyal podcast audience.
  • Sarah: “I appreciate the way that people in this community show up. …Even if you only ordered the book with no intention of reading it, just because you’re desperate for JBL to moderate a focus group, that’s okay.” [02:28]

Notable Quote:
Sarah Longwell [07:00]: “So many of these conversations are love letters between The Bulwark and the Bulwark community, which is true. But I’ve always had the belief that part of the reason that we have a community is because we are a community, like among ourselves. Like, we are close.”

Reflections on Leadership in Wartime

[09:44–13:30]

• Comparison of current leaders to historical figures:
  • Sarah recounts watching the recent “Nuremberg” and “Darkest Hour” films, admiring figures like Churchill who deeply understood the weight of history and human life.
    • Sarah [12:31]: “The human elements of what allowed Nazism to happen echo throughout the modern times.”
  • She contrasts this with the “gamification” in modern military decision-making, referencing U.S. government social media posts that trivialize war using video game footage.
    • JVL [14:37]: “Stomach turning. …It’d be terrible if it was 4chan, but it’s not. It’s people, government payroll coming out under the aegis of the United States government.”

Notable Quote:
Sarah Longwell [15:00]: “Great people hold the profound responsibility of other human lives on their hearts…comparing it to the people we have now who treat this like an actual video game…Trump himself doesn’t have the thing where he says, I take the lives of your sons and daughters so seriously that I will only put them in harm's way for the absolute necessity of the survival of our country.”

Critique of Current U.S. Leadership

[17:03–20:58]

• JVL and Sarah lament the lack of seriousness and gravitas in those currently handling U.S. war policy, especially after recent military casualties:
  • JVL [17:03]: “What he [Trump] said after the first casualties is like, ‘It’s war, it happens.’”
  • Sarah [17:35]: “Real leaders…take the lives that they put on the line for things with a sense of solemn enormity. And he [Trump] doesn’t care at all.”
• JVL describes the perverse logic and incompetence surrounding oil prices and Middle East policy, expressing confusion over shifting narratives and priorities.
  • JVL [19:14]: “If high oil prices are good, shouldn’t we have precipitated the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, like, on January 21?”
  • Sarah [19:14]: “Why has he been bragging about gas prices going down if we were supposed to have them…go up?”

War with Iran: Escalation, Competence, and Consequences

[20:58–29:06]

• JVL assumed Trump would negotiate a short war with Iran for political gain, but new developments suggest a longer, more chaotic conflict is likely.
• Sarah articulates why she always doubted a quick withdrawal: once conflict begins, events spiral, local resistance grows, and “your enemy gets a vote.” Every misstep compounds the quagmire.
  • Sarah [23:16]: “With…different people, [I] might be able to get on board…But…I do not understand how people who understand that our government has been lying from top to bottom about absolutely everything…[would] trust these same people to execute a war.”
  • Sarah [24:49]: “…Imagine trying a case now where you’ve already signaled to the public, we know we don’t have a case, but just because Trump is mad about it, you have to go forward. That’s the level of competence of the people waging this war.”
• JVL points out that warnings about Iran’s proven doctrine—closing the Strait of Hormuz in response to U.S. aggression—were ignored by planners, implying severe incompetence.
  • JVL [28:28]: “The idea that you could be blindsided by this is insane…It’s like I went up to a crocodile and I stuck my hand in its mouth and he bit me. And who could possibly have known?”

The Broader, Interconnected Consequences

[26:53–27:40]

• The war is now affecting global oil markets, the stock market, and U.S. relations with Russia and Ukraine—each thread pulling on the next, destabilizing more than just the Middle East.
  • Sarah [26:53]: “It’s now having real consequences. This Strait of Hormuz thing is…now going to be a global kind of problem. It’s affecting our relationships with…Russia, which is also impacting then how things are with Ukraine. Like, yeah, these things are all connected.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On seriousness in wartime leadership:
  • Sarah Longwell [15:00]: “Comparing it to the people we have now who treat this like an actual video game…Trump himself doesn’t have the thing…that I will only put [soldiers] in harm's way for the absolute necessity of the survival of our country.”
• On government competence:
  • Sarah Longwell [24:49]: “Imagine trying a case now where you’ve already signaled to the public, we know we don’t have a case, but just because Trump is mad about it, you have to go forward. That’s the level of competence of the people waging this war.”
• On the Iran conflict spiral:
  • JVL [28:28]: “The idea that you could be blindsided by this is insane. …It's like I went up to a crocodile and I stuck my hand in its mouth and he bit me. And who could possibly have known?”
• On gratitude for community:
  • Sarah Longwell [02:28]: “I appreciate the way that people in this community show up. …Even if you only ordered the book with no intention of reading it, just because you’re desperate for JBL to moderate a focus group, that’s okay.”

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Important Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:00] – Sarah expresses gratitude for her book’s support, answers listener questions, promises a book tour/audiobook.
• [06:32] – Discussion of mutual appreciation, Bulwark community’s closeness, signed copies.
• [09:44] – JVL articulates horror at today’s military leaders in press conferences.
• [11:12] – Sarah relates WWII films to present, reflects on difference between historical seriousness and current superficiality.
• [14:30] – JVL and Sarah on trivialization of war in U.S. official communications.
• [17:03] – Compare Trump’s lack of gravity to historical leaders, seriousness about loss of life.
• [20:58] – JVL questions his original assumption about a short U.S.–Iran war.
• [23:16] – Sarah’s skepticism about trusting current leadership with war, referencing administrative chaos and incompetence.
• [26:53] – Global impacts of the Iran conflict on markets and alliances.
• [28:28] – Inevitable escalation and the ignored warnings about the Strait of Hormuz.
• [29:40] – End of main conversation and lead into additional content.

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Final Thoughts

This episode captures The Bulwark team’s blend of biting political analysis, historical perspective, and gallows humor. The hosts’ deep unease with the abilities—and priorities—of today’s war planners is matched only by their affection and gratitude for their engaged podcast audience. Listeners are left with haunting questions about leadership, responsibility, and the lessons (ignored or forgotten) of history.

Transcript

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[Sarah Longwell]

Visit your nearby Lowes on Colorado street

[JVL]

in Kennewick hello everyone, this is JVL here in my shirt with my best friend Sarah Longwell of the Bulwark. Sarah, this is one of the one of the different, one of the eight shirts that I have. The Mammoth Iger Jock long sleeve Energi XL or whatever the hell they call it. I do like Mammoth Mammoth makes really nice stuff. But as I will just reiterate for the people on Reddit who did not believe me, I do have a whole drawer of these.

[Sarah Longwell]

This is all he wears well during

[JVL]

fall and winter and two days ago when it was 83 degrees up in the New York metro area, I was wearing my other black T shirt, short sleeves. My short sleeve shirt from the Anyway unimportant. We'll get to that when the weather changes. For real. Sarah, would you like to open by saying something to the people?

[Sarah Longwell]

I've got two things to say just out of the gate here. One is my book is like already a bestseller on Amazon. Not enough of a bestseller though I'll tell you to get you the JVL focus group which still got a little ways to go. But as books go and pre orders go, this community, the way that it shows up is just out of control. Not out of control in a bad way, out of control in like the best possible way. And I can't thank people enough. I really tried hard to get through all the comments on the secret pod, but at some point, it was, like, getting away from me, and we were. And so I just. I want to say, like, from the bottom of my heart, how much I appreciate the way that people in this community show up. And for people who, even if you only ordered the book with no intention of reading it, just because you're desperate for JBL to moderate a focus group, that's okay. That's okay. I appreciate that. Anyway. And to answer one of the questions that was like, a dominant question. Yes, audible counts towards total sales, as do the ebooks. And yes, I will be reading the audiobook myself, and we'll have to go record that at some point. So I. And I don't know if there were other big qu. Yes, I will do a book tour. Yes, I will work out a time to figure out how to get to wherever you are in your local city so that I can sign your book. I'm working on some other options for, like, book plates or something so we can get. So I want to make sure people in this community specifically get signed copies.

[JVL]

Yeah, well, I mean, I. I basically told people who asked me, they're, you know, you know, what would it be able to get? And I basically just said, we'll figure something out. Like, I will get. If you're part of the secret podcast community, we will get you a signed book somehow.

[Sarah Longwell]

Don't worry 100%. And I'm going to. I will make. I will make all the effort to reflect back what people are doing for me here.

[JVL]

So we don't need to do this on the air. Maybe this is a conversation you and I have offline, but I have a concern about you reading your own audiobook.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, okay. Well, I don't know that.

[JVL]

Go ahead. Let me give it to you. Just for people to think about. I am hugely in favor of authors reading their own books. I read my own book. It's like a really weird and fun and bizarre experience to go through as a writer. And I remember Tim did not. And I was annoyed by it because when I listened to the audiobook version, I had this weird cognitive dissonance where my ears were hearing the reader who was not Tim, but my brain was hearing Tim's voice.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL]

And so it was, like, a weird thing going on. But what both Tim's book and your book have in common is a lot of dialogue from people who aren't you.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL]

And that becomes a little weird. Like, your book is just. It has a lot of, like, quotations from other people. And I don't know, that makes it harder for the author to do it.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's something to think about.

[JVL]

We don't have to hash it out here.

[Sarah Longwell]

We don't. I will say it's that they have people who, like, produce these things professionally, like, and so I, I, my guess is they will have thought of that and there will be a way in which maybe they have somebody that just reads the quotes, man and woman, who knows? But I think we'll address that. Hold on. I had a second thing, though, and I want to say.

[JVL]

Okay, but can I, I mean, I do want to, I, I bring to you both concerns and solutions, as I often do. I don't like to bring problems. I like to bring problems.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, no, you're going to offer to be the voice.

[JVL]

So what I was going to offer to you is for, say, the collector's edition audiobook, I could be the voice of all. And so you read the you parts and whenever you go to. And here's Lurleen the Trump fighter Trump. And you're going to read it from Pennsylvania. And I maybe, I mean, I'll just look, I can't really interrogate my process.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[JVL]

I don't know how it would come out. We'd have to see where the text took me.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes.

[JVL]

But I feel like that that's a thing that we could do. And so I'm offering that to you.

[Sarah Longwell]

I really appreciate that. That is a very kind and generous offer. And I think obviously it would be very additive and wouldn't at all undermine the central premise of, of my thesis about taking.

[JVL]

Well, that would be the champagne tier on audio, on audible. Right. So, you know, there's the normal audiobook for 1999 or whatever, and then there's the collector's edition steel case.

[Sarah Longwell]

So I was traveling the last couple of days and I'm doing final, like, touches on the book edits, and I reread your foreword. And I was thinking to myself at the time, the audiobook stuff was in my head, and I was like, oh, JBL needs to read his own foreword. But then I was reading it and I was like, at some point you just go, ARR, Like angry sound, angry, guttural sound across the page. I'll let you read that part. That's all right.

[JVL]

I would do that.

[Sarah Longwell]

Can I just say the second thing, please? Which is please, you, my best friend, you. The number of people who are like, I'm doing this because I want JVL. I do. I want JBL's footnotes. I want JVL to moderate the focus group. And I gotta say, look, I know somebody put this in a comment, and I. I loved it. They were like, you know, so many of these conversations are love letters between the Bulwark and the Bulwark community, which is true. But I've always had the belief that part of the reason that we have a community is because we are a community, like among ourselves. Like, we are. We are close and we.

[JVL]

But, like, I'm keeping this pinball machine right here warm for you.

[Sarah Longwell]

I know, I know.

[JVL]

Before I deliver it to your house,

[Sarah Longwell]

it's gonna be amazing.

[JVL]

Me, Barry, Carson, we're all gonna come over and like, raising a barn. We're gonna carry it down to your basement.

[Sarah Longwell]

All I'm saying is hashtag blessed. Everybody deserves to have a best friend as good as you.

[JVL]

And editor, I. I wrote a hell of a foreword for this book.

[Sarah Longwell]

For a guy who hates people, you love your people pretty hard.

[JVL]

Well, you know, people who hate people are the luckiest people. Isn't there a song about that? Okay. Also, I feel a little weird about this because we have not asked people to buy books for three years. The last time we did this was Tim's book. And then in nine days, we have you. And then Mark Hertling's book comes out and then Andrew Weissman's book and all three. I got my copy of the Herkling book in the mail yesterday. Very excited.

[Sarah Longwell]

Mine is ordered. Do you know did you see that that a lot of people are ordering ours together?

[JVL]

I did. I did. It's a, you know, also bought together. Yeah, I like that. I'm really excited for remarks book. If you haven't go pick it up. If I. If I don't return, I think is the. I don't have it. It's upstairs. I could ask G money to go bring it down to me. But I'm really excited to. To read. He is. Well, that guy's something else.

[Sarah Longwell]

I love Mark. You know, we have been so.

[JVL]

We have him. Can you believe that he's with us

[Sarah Longwell]

and the people who have.

[JVL]

Like.

[Sarah Longwell]

Because, you know, Sam Stein came to us and was like, hey, I see what you're doing here. Like, I can. I can help, like, bring me in. And we were like, I don't know. And then, like. And then we did and we were. We were convinced. And then. And he's amazing. And then, like, Mark Hurtling was just like, writing some pieces for us, and he's like, do you guys want me to. You guys want me maybe do this some More. And we were like, yes, please. And now he's our full time guy. And of course it is obviously also helpful now that we are actively at war to have him and his analysis. But he is the loveliest human being ever. We've just really lucked out in that regard.

[JVL]

So I, I wrote this earlier this week. You may not have seen it. I cannot imagine being a parent whose child was in the armed forces right now and watching Pete Heth's press conferences, because I would think to myself, holy shit, my child's life is in the hands of a fucking moron. Like this guy who's just like sitting up there. Like today he was, did you see this today? And his thing was like, I can't wait till David Ellison gets hold of the fake news. Cnn. Like, and the difference between that and like, and Mark Hertling, who is little. I mean, the, the highest compliment I could pay is that if. If Flash was in the army and Mark Hertling was his commanding officer, I'd be able to sleep well at night.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL]

Because that guy's judgment and wisdom is just off the charts.

[Sarah Longwell]

You know, you and I didn't, as we often don't, didn't really come up with topics before we sat down, but it occurs to me as you engage in this conversation, that's something that I did. So like I said, I was, I was traveling and I was doing a lot of work on the book, but like, at some point you get too tired and you're on a plane and was like tons of flight delays and everything. So I was kind of in airport hell yesterday. And so I watched a couple movies over the course of the travels, and I watched both Nuremberg, the new one with Russell Rowe, and then I watched the Darkest Hour, which I had for some reason I think I'd never seen.

[JVL]

It is the Churchill one with.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's the Churchill one, yeah. Yes. With the same guy who's in.

[JVL]

The guy we love.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes, the guy we love. And he's amazing.

[JVL]

My brain is saying, Jeremy Irons, even

[Sarah Longwell]

though I know it's not Jeremy, it's not Jeremy Irons. And it's going to come to me in a second. But I was watching both those movies and I think I've been gravitating a little bit to some of the. Not just World War II, though, a lot of that, but movies about people who take their role in history profoundly seriously. These are movies about serious people, like the Nuremberg. And not only Nuremberg, which is. It is also about the Supreme Court justice at the time who was Hoping to make chief justice, but decides to go to Nuremberg and lead those trials because he understood the importance of setting the precedent for international war crimes prosecution. And that only by doing that could you keep this type of thing, what the Nazis did, from happening again. And it's. It's an interesting. It's based on a book that. I didn't know this Raimi, the guy who, you know, was in the Queen movie.

[JVL]

Oh, Raimi Malek. Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Raimi Malik. Thank you. He's in it. So it's about this. There's the psycho. He's a psychiatrist or psychologist in the movie. And. And he's interviewing Goring, who was the second in command of the Nazis and who was one of the only people they got alive to stand trial or one of the. He was the highest commander to have to stand trial at Nuremberg. And this is the guy who basically, literally wrote the book on the idea that there was nothing. What people wanted to believe was that there was something about the Nazis that was unique, something about the Germans at the time and that made them different from other human beings, that it couldn't happen anywhere else. But of course, his thesis ultimately was this is in human beings. And there are conditions that when those happen, like it could happen anywhere if you have like these conditions. Right. And the reason that one of the Supreme Court justices wanted to do that was to say the only way we keep this from happening again is to bring it out into the light, to condemn it. Clearly you can't just sweep it under the rug. This is a profound. And if you watch it, it's. This is a little French village of me, I guess. But if you watch it in the context of what we are in right now, there's a lot about it. Again, this is. We are not. This is these. I'm not calling anyone a Nazi. I am saying that the human elements of what allowed Nazism to happen are echo throughout the modern times. And there's just a lot in there to chew on about, I think how we. Because you asked this question a lot like, what do we do when it's over? How do you handle it? And that is what this movie is about. And it is. Thought it was very thoughtful. Go ahead.

[JVL]

Have you seen the. Just the social media clips being put out by the. The United States government.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes.

[JVL]

Intercutting gun camera footage with video game stuff like Nintendo WWII, hole in one golf and call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. I mean, I just stomach turning again. That would be terrible if it was 4chan, but it's not. It's people, government payroll coming out under the aegis of the United States government.

[Sarah Longwell]

I just, and I'm sorry, but this is sort of my point. Like the Churchill movie and Nuremberg movie, these are about people who understand the moment in history that they're in. But the thing that strikes me in it is how great people hold the profound responsibility of other human lives on their hearts. Like Churchill's whole thing. And this has happened. So it's like he becomes Prime Minister. It's right around Dunkirk and it hinges. It is the hinge point in history where he's got to decide whether he's going to fight the Nazis or not fight the Nazis. Now, remember, because I was sort of thinking about this in the context of Iran, and he almost negotiates a peace with Mussolini and Hitler, like using Mussolini as an intermediary, almost tries to broker a peace agreement with Hitler that Neville Chamberlain had kind of started because this is early in his tenure. But the thing was like that army was on the advance. Like the, the German army. They were, they had just taken over France, they had taken over Holland. Like, they were on the march globally. Okay, that. So he was saying, we're going to fight to defend ourselves, to defend Britain. And he decided not to acquiesce, not to capitulate that moment. But he also, part of why he wanted, why he was considering striking that deal is because the lives of the soldiers who were trapped at Dunkirk weighed so heavily on his heart. And so watching these movies, which are about real historical events and figures, comparing it to the people we have now who treat this like an actual video game or a fun or war movie that's just a popcorn flick, is he doesn't have. Trump himself doesn't have the thing where he says, I take the lives of your sons and daughters so seriously that I will only put them in harm's way for the absolute necessity of the survival of our country.

[JVL]

What, what he said after the first casualties is like, it's war. It happens.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes, I remember.

[JVL]

Can you imagine if Joe Biden had said that after like the Afghanistan pull out?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, but can I just say that it's not that he's right.

[JVL]

Imagine if Barack Obama had said that.

[Sarah Longwell]

But he's, he's, he's, he's right. As a, as an objective matter, people do die in war. The problem is it's the way he said it. It's the, it's, it is. This is, it is this point. It is the fact that like, he does not.

[JVL]

It's not solemn with him. It's like, yeah, that's right. Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's just like, oh, well, yeah, this is what happened to me. But like, real leaders, they. They take the lives that they put on the line for things with a sense of solemn enormity. And he doesn't care at all.

[JVL]

All right, so I want to talk a little bit about Iran stuff because it's all that I've been paying attention to. And I would like to ask you to interrogate one of my priors. Okay, so we're taping Friday at one o' clock in the afternoon. Last night, we got words that One of our KC135 supertankers that refuel things crashed. All six crew members dead. Yesterday, Donald Trump, in a virtual meeting with the G7, said that Iran was about to surrender. This morning, we got word that the Marine Expeditionary Force is moving assets into the Middle East. That's new. We also had news yesterday that we are further easing sanctions on Russia to allow their oil to flow. And we got a new line being peddled by multiple members of the administration, which is that high oil prices are good, actually, because America produces a lot of oil. Great. And, I mean, I immediately thought, well, shit, why didn't we start this war last year then? Yeah, I mean, if high oil prices are good, shouldn't we have precipitated the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, like, on January 21?

[Sarah Longwell]

And why? And to your point, wait, why, why, why has he been bragging about gas prices going down if we were supposed to be having them, if it was good for them to go up? Why does he keep telling us how good it is if they were low?

[JVL]

So you may have comments on any and all of these, and I am here for them and I'd like to hear them. But my working assumption from the beginning has been that this would be a reasonably short conflict, that Trump would at some point go to Iran and bribe them and say, we are going to leave and we are going to, on Date X, begin removing sanctions on your economy. We're going to get you access to funds internationally. We're going to let you sell oil in the international market. We're going to help you out. And then simultaneously say, in America, we beat them. Nobody ever said it could happen, but we did it. Maybe that's wrong. Like, I mean, I really just assumed that that's the most likely scenario of where we're going. Like, and I figured that was like a 90% scenario. Maybe not. I mean, maybe this does get longer and maybe it does get out of Control. And maybe he does feel like he has to keep doubling down. I don't know. I mean, I, so I'm just trying to think through ways in which my assumptions could be incorrect with all of this based on. Because the new information doesn't look like what you'd expect if he was looking to declare victory and leave.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I mean, you know, I love to disagree with you on a variety of things, but I, I, I feel much more confident in my opinions on domestic matters and I often look to you on international stuff because I think you've just got, this is like your bailiwick in a way that it has not and has never been mine. That being said, I have always, I always agreed, disagreed. I think both Tim and I disagreed with you a little bit about the idea that Trump would just get out of there. Now on one hand, I, I, I don't reject it the way I might some other ideas. I just, I'm just not sure I agree with it in part because, well, the reason I could see that he would do that is that Trump doesn't care about the you break it, you bought it thing. Right. Like, he could go in there, destabilize the entire region and still be like, and I'm out of here. So I, that was always a possibility. That said, I, the, the what Hurtling said early on about how your enemy gets a vote and what we have just seen over our, the course of our active lifetime, not from movies, but from actually watching these wars and how they become quagmires is like, once Iran bombs American ships, once Iran, you know, once our, our, our men and women are, are killed in flight. You know, they're like, there are a ways in which each of these things precipitates the next and creates, it makes it harder and harder to just walk away. And also like this idea of, and again, this is a very simplistic framework, but having watched some Middle east wars, it does not necessarily endear people to us when we bomb them. And so whatever we might have gained by going in and backing up the Iranian civilians who were protesting, you know, six weeks ago, the choice to bomb them both when and how we did, I'm not sure that it has created the environment where the, the people are in a position to rise up now, in fact, it's like becoming an ecological, like, it's becoming, yeah, it's like disaster zone. My guess is, is that it probably creates, potentially radicalizes more people against us. Like, does it create a new terror regime in which, you know, inflamed passions against the United States become dominant. I mean, like, I don. I don't know, but this idea that these things can escalate and get away from you quickly always seemed to me to be like, yeah, especially when these people aren't the most competent. And can I just say, this is the last thing I'll say, because this, the. The people who are mad at us or at Bill or whatever for being like, you guys have always said that Iran was so bad and you're not. Why aren't you on our side about this and everything? And the thing is, and Tim and I talked about this a little bit, too, you might, in different times, with different people, be able to sell me on the idea that Iran is historically weak and this is an opportunity. And like, you go make the case to the public and you make the case in the State of the Union and the more hawkish Sarah could maybe get on board with that. Maybe, I don't know, like, this was a hypothetical, but with. I do not understand how people who understand that our government has been lying from top to bottom about absolutely everything has been incompetent from top to bottom. I was just talking about this with Andrew Weissman on the illegal news, and he was talking about how Trump, remember when they pulled back, they withdrew their case against the law firms, right? They're like, yes, Trump did these executive orders against the law firms. They were ruled unconstitutional by four different, you know, courts. We were going to fight that, but we're not going to fight that anymore because obviously the courts are right and we're wrong. And then so they withdraw it. And then the next morning come back and say, like, oh, no, no, no, sorry, we're not withdrawing it. Because Trump got mad being like, you're making me look weak. So they bring it back. Imagine trying a case now where you've already signaled to the public, we know we don't have a case, but just because Trump is mad about it, you have to go forward. That's the level of competence of the people waging this war. And so the idea that these guys would blindly be unwilling to use their brains to compute that, like, just because something in theory could be good, that the people in the position of executing it. It's not all are like, incredible military. It is actually there's like, you're going to do this. You're going to wage this war with Hegseth. Like, it's wildly irresponsible. These are not responsible people.

[JVL]

I mean, hell, you could have 10 weeks ago when there were mass demonstrations against the regime in Iran. And you had a massive, I forget whether it's the west or the north, but there was, you know, a province where this had been a hub and people were, were gathering to. It would not have been crazy at that point to say we're going to establish a no fly zone over this, this place. Anybody who wants to rise up Iranian regime can come here and the United States is going to provide for their security and we're going to see if we can grow a rebellion here and eventually do some air strikes and try to topple the. I mean, that would not have been a crazy thing to try to topple the regime that way. It is, it's a, it's just weird because this does not seem to have been thought out. It does not seem to have had any ideas about what the objectives would be. And at the end of the day, the most likely thing is I think the Iranian regime winds up stronger afterwards than it was beforehand, which is why some of us think it's not a great idea. But, you know, that's fine. Maybe we'll be wrong. Maybe it'll all be great. That's the good thing, right? We are going to get an answer.

[Sarah Longwell]

We are. The one thing that does seem true now, though, that I think we didn't know a couple of weeks ago is like there was a period where it's like, is Trump just gonna kill their leaders and kind of walk away smash and grab job just like Venezuela, just like the first bombing. The answer to that now appears to be no. Like, this is certainly we're in its third week. Stock markets are down the third week in a row. Oil is up and like, it's now having real consequences. This Strait of Hormuz thing is like an actual, is like now going to be a global kind of problem. It's affecting our relationships with these like Russia, as you say, which is also impacting then how things are with Ukraine. Like, yeah, these things are all connected.

[JVL]

They're absolutely all connected. I in the other feels like a weird show just to be saying, hey, again, this giant war thing, the people doing it are very dumb. There's a CNN story yesterday, I think, about how the war planners were all skeptical that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz. And again, I, I am not Mark Hertling, like, you know, I pay, I pay a little bit of attention to this stuff. And this has simply been part of Iranian doctrine for how to fight a war of aggression waged by the US And Israel. Like, this is, you just go, you know, I wrote about this this week. Just go to the Institute of Peace, which is part of the US Government. There's an entire section of the science. There's just white paper after white paper explaining how the Iranian doctrine of defense has evolved over time and go back to like 2010, and they're like, and here, if we were to strike them, it's clear that they would try to close the Strait of Hormuz. This is the thing they talk about here, how they talk about trying to close the Strait of Hormuz. The idea that you could be blindsided by this is insane. I, I just don't know. I don't even know what a, a good analogy for it is. It's. It's like I went up to a crocodile and I stuck my hand in its mouth and he bit me. And who could possibly have known?

[Sarah Longwell]

Who could have seen that coming? Yeah, well, you know, it's, here's the thing, in their defense, all right, there were a lot of pull ups that needed to get done. Like you had to go on a road show and do pull ups, places you needed. You did need to scream at some generals about facial hair. And so, you know, they were busy. Like, there's a lot of things they had to do.

[JVL]

Got to get on the horn with Floor Shine.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right.

[JVL]

Get the Floor Shine folks in.

[Sarah Longwell]

Exactly how could they have been expected to know?

[JVL]

I want to talk a little bit about the Florsheim stuff, but let's do it on the other side. And I also want to talk to you about your conversation with Andrew Wiseman, because I am very interested to read his book. I cannot wait to read it. I'm certain that he. But I have a question for him that I am certain he addresses in the book, but I would like to preview with you.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, great.

[JVL]

On the other side, come join us. Come be part of Bulwark Plus. We don't ask for much. If you don't want to, that's fine, too. We're not going to take it personally.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

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