1069: Secret Podcast: Every Single Person Around Trump Is Expendable

Summary

The Next Level, Episode 1069: “Every Single Person Around Trump Is Expendable”

Podcast by The Bulwark
Date: April 3, 2026
Hosts: Sarah Longwell & Jonathan V. Last (JVL)

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Episode Overview

In this early, “bedhead” edition, Sarah Longwell and JVL break down the tumultuous state of the Trump White House amid an escalating war with Iran. They explore the recent ousting of Pam Bondi, speculation surrounding further personnel shakeups, Trump’s public communications (including his widely criticized Iran speech), war aims, economic fallout, and American military actions—raising uncomfortable questions about the way this war is being conducted versus longstanding American values.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Bedhead Banter & Housekeeping

• The episode opens with light-hearted banter about recording “on Natural,” neither host having time to get ready, poking fun at their appearance.
  • “We made a pact that we would do a bed head episode...I feel like I’m getting the worst end of this." (B, 00:16)

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2. Major Buckets for Discussion

• JVL’s Agenda:
  • Two big topics for the episode:
    1. Iran and the State of the War
    2. Presidential Personnel Issues—notably the firing of Pam Bondi and recent moves by Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon.
  • (A, 02:22)

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3. White House Personnel Turmoil

Pam Bondi's Firing

• Sarah’s Take:
  • Skeptical about simplistic “it’s a distraction” explanations (“I don’t subscribe to the top level analysis of everything Trump does is a distraction from Epstein” [B, 03:27])
  • Instead, sees it as part of Trump’s instinctive “narrative dominance”—whenever media coverage becomes unfavorable, Trump instinctively shifts the narrative, often via firing someone of prominence.
    • “He treats the press kind of like cats—go chase this now.” (B, 03:44)
• There’s speculation whether Bondi’s firing was linked to her upcoming testimony and/or as an offering to a political “machine” to move attention away from the Iranian conflict.
  • “These are scalps he gives to the machine to feed it when he needs something to feed it.” (B, 07:16)

Potential for More Shakeups

• JVL: “If we’re gonna do two or three more weeks of the war in Iran, that could mean two or three more cabinet firings, honestly.” (A, 07:36)
• Sarah: “Well, then Tulsi’s next.” (B, 07:44)

Pete Hegseth’s Role

• Hegseth, now at the Pentagon, fired the Army Chief of Staff—a move emblematic of the administration’s chaos and Trump’s unorthodox, loyalty-driven management style. (A, 02:22)

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4. War in Iran—Fog, Escalation, and Communication

Tensions & Unverified Reports

• Fresh Iranian claim that they shot down a US F-15, but details are unverified. Both share anxiety and dread:
  • “Hope not. Hope it’s not true. These things are piloted. It would be very, very bad to lose an American pilot.” (A, 07:56)
• First combat death would be a grave escalation, adding a new level of tragedy and risk. (A/B, 08:48)

Trump's War Aims & “Unconditional Surrender”

• JVL recalls a March 6th Trump social media post:
  • Quote: “There will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender.” (A, 09:52)
• Aides like Hegseth tried to walk that back, saying “unconditional surrender” would be defined by the president—“The president knows in his mind when they have unconditionally surrendered.” (A, 10:31)
• This rhetorical slipperiness undermines clarity of purpose.

Ambiguous, Unstable War Objectives

• Discussion of shifting, unclear objectives, leaving the U.S. on the path to exit with Iran’s regime intact, the Strait of Hormuz still disputed, and rising global oil prices.

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5. Oil Prices & Economic Fallout

• Outlook for oil is grim, with physical spot price hitting $141/barrel (A/B, 13:08), and concern that $150/barrel could tip countries into crisis.
  • US consumers might be insulated compared to other countries, but the fundamental misunderstanding of commodity markets by Trump is called out.
  • JVL: “That’s not how commodities work... Unless the government wants to set the price of gas in America—I mean, I worry that that might be socialism, though.” (A, 14:52)

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6. Trump’s Public Communications—A Speech in Crisis

Disastrous Iran Speech

• Both hosts highlight how poorly Trump’s recent Iran speech landed—seen as incoherent, rambling, and “breathtaking” for its incompetence.
  • “Is this ad libbed? Did anybody write this? Is he reading from a prompt?” (B, 17:51)
  • “He sounds addled and old and he’s like slurring things, but he’s also, he just sounds like an idiot.” (B, 17:58)
• JVL pushes that the speech was so off it looked like a medical event (“My contention was that it was like he was having a health event.” A, 19:43)
  • “As a pure, like, figures...do you think this guy’s in control of his mentals? Almost everybody would say, God, no. What’s wrong with that man?” (A, 19:58)
• Comparison with Biden’s sometimes halting public speaking, but distinction that Trump’s rambling is deeply confusing and offers no substance.

Voters and Focus Group Reactions

• Sarah notes preliminary focus group findings:
  • Traditional swing voters are “almost uniformly negative” about the war and blame Trump:
    • “Most people think it’s going catastrophically bad. And there’s almost no one who doesn’t think it’s Trump’s fault.” (B, 19:15)
  • Interest in discovering how “three-time Trump voters” process his speeches (A, 18:12)

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7. The War’s Conduct—Ethics, Crimes, and American Values

Questionable Military Actions

• The US destroyed a major civilian bridge in Iran, with reports of significant civilian casualties (A, 25:00-26:01).
• JVL asks if this is “war crimey,” noting that bombing purely civilian infrastructure is outside the norms codified in the Geneva Conventions.
  • “Blowing up a civilian bridge feels like something Putin would be doing in Ukraine, not something that America does.” (A, 26:01)
• Legal loopholes exist if the target has “joint use,” but, per US government claims, Iran was not using the bridge militarily.

Broader Crisis of American Conduct

• Sarah: At every step, the war is being waged outside of normal American values—from not consulting Congress or the public, to adopting authoritarian tactics:
  • “At every single juncture...what we’re doing doesn’t feel like the way we would normally do things.” (B, 30:55)
  • “From not consulting Congress to not stating a clear objective, to not talking to the American people, to doing no case making.” (B, 30:55)

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8. Inside Reporting & Trump’s Media Obsession

• JVL promises to read revelations from a new Time magazine piece with direct White House access, noting Trump’s obsession with the magazine and how it shapes who gets inside access. (A, 31:58)
• Teases further insider details for paying members.

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Memorable Quotes

• “He treats the press kind of like cats—go chase this now.” (Sarah, 03:44)
• “If we’re gonna do two or three more weeks of the war in Iran, that could mean two or three more cabinet firings, honestly.” (JVL, 07:36)
• “The president knows in his mind when they have unconditionally surrendered.” (JVL relaying staffer spin, 10:31)
• “That’s not how commodities work...I worry that that might be socialism, though.” (JVL, 14:52)
• “He sounds addled and old and he’s like slurring things, but he’s also, he just sounds like an idiot.” (Sarah, 17:58)
• “Blowing up a civilian bridge feels like something Putin would be doing in Ukraine, not something that America does.” (JVL, 26:01)
• “At every single juncture...what we’re doing doesn’t feel like the way we would normally do things.” (Sarah, 30:55)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:16 – Bedhead episode, banter and episode logistics
• 02:22 – JVL’s episode agenda: Iran war & personnel
• 03:22 – Why fire Pam Bondi? Narrative dominance and Trump’s management style
• 07:36 – Prediction: More firings as war drags on
• 07:50 – Rumors of US plane shot down in Iran
• 09:52 – Trump’s “unconditional surrender” rhetoric and staff walkbacks
• 12:30 – Oil prices, spot price, and problems for global economy
• 17:51 – The disastrous Iran speech & Trump’s incoherence
• 19:15 – Focus group feedback: swing voters blame Trump
• 25:00 – US strikes civilian bridge in Iran; is this a war crime?
• 30:55 – Broader crisis of American values in war conduct

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Summary & Takeaway

This episode highlights a White House and a nation both at war and in meltdown. Personnel are expendable, policy is scattershot, and Trump’s management is impulsive and personalistic (“narrative dominance”). As war with Iran deepens, civilian deaths mount, and economic impacts threaten to ripple worldwide, these Bulwark hosts warn of an America abandoning its own democratic and ethical norms, with the country managed by a president increasingly unmoored from clarity, restraint, and tradition.

Transcript

[A]

Hello, everyone. This is JVL here with my best friend Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark. And the two of us have just rolled out of bed and dragged ourselves in front of our computers on Natural.

[B]

We made a pact. We made a pact that we would do a bed head episode because we both had. We had no time today. So we're taping this very early. And I gotta say, I gotta say. So what we said was. No, I know we're not doing makeup. We're not doing hair. I gotta say, you never do makeup and you don't have that much hair. And so, like, the difference between you as a bedhead and me as a bedhead seems not as dramatic. I feel like I'm getting the worst end of this.

[A]

I hear what you're saying. On the other hand, I need to start doing a little bit of makeup for these things just to, like, take the shine off my dome. This is a thing which. Which has been communicated to me and which I agree with. I just haven't figured out how to do that. And also, I did bring a hat, so I may put that on. I like. I just feel like this.

[B]

You know, I also brought a hat because I was like, if I rough, I was like, how bad? But then I'm not sure this looks any better.

[A]

I mean, here, let's. Let's do this. So people don't. Really don't clip this for. Yeah, I think. I think so.

[B]

This is because you took one look at me and you were like, sarah can't look like this through this whole episode. Just admit it.

[A]

You could have a hat on. Sarah, I did put my contact lenses in. That's the big thing. I did.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Okay. So there we are. We've all had our fun, and I have actually plotted out a real episode for us, even though it's crazy early. And I did some prep for this show.

[B]

Did. That's good. Because I was. As I was waking up, I was like, what are we going to talk about? I haven't had time to look at anything. What's even happened? The markets aren't open yet.

[A]

I. I gotcha. I see.

[B]

If we get a Bondi bump out of the markets,

[A]

I think that's unlikely. We'll talk about that a minute.

[B]

Okay, fine.

[A]

So I've got. I've got two broad buckets of things to talk about. I want to talk about Iran and the war and how that is going. And then I want to talk about presidential personnel, which includes both Bondi, but also Hegseth and what Hegseth is doing within the Pentagon. He fired the army chief of staff yesterday. And anyway, I, I want to explore both of those things. I think we should start with Iran, though.

[B]

Do you?

[A]

I do, because it's, it's bigger and important. But if you'd like to start with personnel stuff, we could do that and we could save Iran for the back half.

[B]

I do want to do just for one second because I'm curious. So you and I were together for the live. We went live after.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Pam Bondi got the ax. Have you thought more about it subsequently? I think at the time, one of the things I'm, I'm wondering, and I don't know that there's been the f. One piece of reporting I was pretty interested to see is if, if anybody kind of got to the bottom of why Bondi, why now? Because I don't subscribe to the kind of top level analysis of everything Trump does is a distraction from Epstein. I do, however, subscribe to what I think is Trump's narrative dominance sort of lizard brain who understands that whenever the conversation is one that he doesn't like, he does try to change the conversation. That is just, that is a pattern of how he does. It's not even communications. It's just like, okay, this thing's not going well. How can I change? You know, he's always been, he's like on a laser pointer and he treats the press kind of like cats where he's like, go chase this now. And I think he has like a real instinct for that. And I don't think it's just, I want to distract from Epstein. I think he wants to keep the conversation moving away from whatever controversy, you know, people are sort of fixated, fixated on for him. And it often works. Right, right. And so he had just given a speech about Iran that obviously was not

[A]

well received outside of Mark Levin's podcast.

[B]

Not well received. It wasn't just panned. It was I think like a real head scratching moment from a lot of Republicans who were like, oh, no, like. And somehow even his team had managed to leak to reporters like, oh, he's going to talk about NATO, he's going to talk about. And none of that came to pass. He didn't talk about anything of substance. And I think and it rattled the markets. And the, the one piece of new reporting I saw is that Susie Wiles is sort of going around to the people who briefed the president and saying, you've got to start giving him a more realistic picture of both the public opinion response to this, but the way that this was reported and obviously I don't know if this is entirely true, but also seemed like he, he doesn't even have a clear picture of what's happening on the ground. And this I think can dovetail into your Pete Heath stuff, which is he doesn't have reliable people reporting to him. Right. If Pete Hegseth thinks that the, the war is kind of his thing and the war's going quite badly and perhaps he told the president that they could get in and out in a matter of days and it wouldn't happen and it's getting away from him that Hegseth. So it's actually Iran personnel. And the point that I'm making are all connected. But, but I guess the, the one thing I would say is I don't have a better explanation for why now on Pam Bondi other than Trump really wanted to give people something else to chew on unless there was something else coming. Like I, I, she was supposed to testify on April 14th. I think that they were doing everything they could to keep that from happening. Sounds like she still has to testify on April 14, even despite the fact that she's not going to be, although she's still going to be in the role for a period of time. There's like a transition period. And so it sounds like he just said to her it's time. And I don't know, there may be

[A]

a transition period, but I'm not sure she's there. Like, it's not clear to me that she is in Washington at her office.

[B]

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. So anyway, this is all to say if there's going to be more personnel shakeups. I don't know that I think it's because he has some vision for what a next level cabinet of his looks like. I think it, these are, these are scalps he gives to the machine to feed it when he needs something to feed it to move us away from the thing he doesn't like talking about, which right now is the war in Iran. And now I've transitioned you.

[A]

And if we're gonna do two or three more weeks of the war in Iran, that could mean two or three more cabinet firings, honestly.

[B]

Well, it seems like they're setting the stage for that. Right? It's like, well then this is Tulsi's next.

[A]

Tulsi will be next then. So we'll talk about all of that. I would say this morning we have news. A claim by Iran that they shot down an American F15. Unverified. Hope not. Hope. It's not true. These things are piloted. It would be very, very bad to lose an American pilot. So I don't. I don't.

[B]

Do you mean bad? Sorry? Do you mean bad? Obviously, if an American pilot is killed, that's awful. But do you mean in terms of doubt, the escalatory effects of losing.

[A]

No, no, I just. I just. I just mean that, you know, an American pilot killed or captured, I'm not sure which would be worse, frankly. It's bad. Like, this is.

[B]

Yeah, no, I understand. I understand that it's bad on its face, but I guess I'm just asking.

[A]

It's a combat death. I mean, it's our. It will be our first combat death, I believe. Right. I mean, we have had soldiers killed on their bases. I mean, this is. I'm making, like, a weird distinction. They're all combat desk. Right. If you are killed by an Iranian missile or drone on a base, you are killed in combat. But that is different from being like a tip of the spear soldier out there executing the mission, who is shot down. And I don't know. I mean, maybe. Maybe it is. No, no different. But just feels terrible to me and it's very sad and I hope it's not true, because you can't trust the Iranian media any more than you can trust the American government. Okay. So I want to remind you of something that I did not remember until this morning. On March 6th. I'll wait for you to put your cross on.

[B]

It's my birthday.

[A]

Donald Trump put out on Truth Social. There will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender. Oh, yeah, I had forgotten about that. In our discussion of the shifting war aims. I mean, so the President once said that our goal as a country was unconditional surrender on the part of the Iranian regime. Now, immediately following that, both Carolyn Leavitt and Pete Hegseth tried to walk that back. And what they said was. They said that actually. Actually unconditional surrender is something the President determines. The Iranians don't get to determine whether or not they have unconditionally surrendered. The President knows in his mind when they have unconditionally surrendered.

[B]

It's up there with all the declassified documents and that.

[A]

No, this is. But this is real. This is actually what they suggested. And Hegseth said that. I mean, whether or not the unconditional surrender, whether or not there's a formal ceremony in Tehran or something, that's not what it's about. The President will know when they are so destroyed and they cannot fight or do anything that even if they don't say it out loud, he'll know that that was their unconditional surrender and that's our war aim. Even that walk back seems to be now abandoned because again, it sounds like we are going to leave eventually with the Strait of Hormuz still under Iranian control, which would mean by definition that they can still do fighting. Oil prices are worse than they look. So I don't know if you tagged this yesterday. So there are like three types of prices for oil. Most of the time when we talk about oil prices, we're talking about a futures price, which is I make a deal with you to buy today to buy a barrel of oil that gets delivered in May or something like that. And depending on how far out you are making that deal, the price varies. The futures price, generic futures price for oil right now is about $111 a barrel. Not good. Not good. Billy Bob Thornton would say, oh, that's bad, right. There is then a spot price for oil, which is a one time contract, meaning right now, like we're not making this deal to be completed in a week. It's what we're making a deal right now. And then there is the physical spot price. And the physical spot price is I want to buy an actual barrel of oil from you right now here. You know the physical spot price of a barrel of oil was yesterday. What, $141 per barrel, was it? Mm.

[B]

Wow. Because I've, I've heard a lot of people say that any if like you start topping 150 at any given point, like you're so far out. Do you know what it does? Is. This is an unfair question because I can't imagine you do know this, but like, do you know how it correlates to actual gas prices? The.

[A]

I don't. Yeah, I'm sorry.

[B]

No, that's okay. I just, I, I, you know, right now we have gas prices that are roughly the same as they were in 2022, when we were sort of dealing with. 2022 is an interesting year because it was Covid was mostly was starting to be at our backs from a, like the critical period. But we were dealing with all the supply chain disruption of not being able to come back online quickly enough after years of things being disrupted by Covid. And so it was like we felt like things were kind of back to normal and that we're trying to go to restaurants or we're trying to do things, and then gas prices are still really high. And we don't, still can't find things at stores and there's, you know, not enough people working at restaurants. You know, there's still all kinds of tail, tail end effects. But, and so I think like in recent memory, people remember four dollar gas goes over five dollars. Like, do you see, I saw a report yesterday that they are, I can't remember which country it was now, but they're telling people to start conserving gas because it's not even as bad for us as it is for other countries. Like we are going to, other countries are going to be plunged into a, a crisis of scarcity with oil.

[A]

This is a small thing, but when Trump in his speech was like, you know, it doesn't matter what happens to the oil because we have plenty of it here. That's not how commodities work. Because if you can sell, if an American oil company can sell their oil for $150 a barrel to South Korea, then they will sell it at $150 a barrel to South Korea and not sell it at $70 a barrel to American. Like that's, that's how commodities work. You know, like, it's not like, don't worry, we have so much right here that we'll just have $70 a barrel oil or $60, $55 a barrel, which is I think what it was right before the war anyway, you know, so these free marketeers don't, unless, unless the government wants to set the price of gas in America. I mean, I, I worry that that might be socialism though.

[B]

Yeah. Here's the thing that I think it's funny because we've been spending the last 10 years trying to explain to people how stupid Donald Trump is. And it's always complexified by the fact that he has a certain lizard brain that makes him quite good at campaigning, quite good at talking to voters, quite good at knowing what issues resonate with voters. But he's not a smart guy about a lot of things. He's certainly not smart about how I think global markets work. Like, and, and unlike Trump one Trump, you know, Trump's first term, he was surrounded by people who did know those things. Certainly he was surrounded by people who were in decision making positions and were the ones making the decisions. Not anymore. So much like Trump is making this decision. Trump is the one dictating this. Like he's, when people, you know, a lot of these conservatives want to make fun of the no kings rallies because they're like, he was democratically elected, he's not a king. When in the History of America. Certainly not in my living memory have we had somebody so unilaterally making decisions over so many, like whether it's the tariffs, whether it's going to war, like Congress just doesn't exist anymore, which we all know that. But it is wild and like, Trump is an idiot. Like, listening to that Iran speech, the things that were striking to me, it was almost breathtaking. And it shouldn't be because we've listened to a lot of it, but it was breathtaking in both. I was like, is this ad libbed? Did anybody write this? Is he reading from a prompt? Or he just kept saying over and over again. Like they've never, like you've never seen, like we've ever known it, you know, that weird verbal tick. And I'm like, first of all, we have seen things or we have known. Like, you know, it was, it was bizarre. And he sounds addled and old and he's like slurring things, but he's also, he just sounds like an idiot.

[A]

Did you disgrace that speech by any chance?

[B]

Not yet.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I mean, we've done a couple. So we did not sit and focus group that specifically. And.

[A]

But because that's what I would love. I would love a focus group of like three time Trump voters who watch that speech.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Where you just ask them about the speech itself.

[B]

Well, here's what I would.

[A]

You don't even need to come. Like, I just want to, like what, what do they. If you voted for him three times and you watch that, did you come away thinking, yeah, that's right.

[B]

We're.

[A]

When everything's good. That's all I want to know that

[B]

I don't know yet. I will say this weekend's focus group POD is super good. And it is about both how people think things are going in the country and also Iran specifically. And I, it's all with these swing voters. And I, unlike in 2025 where you got a lot of people saying, well, you got to wait and see. Rome wasn't built in a day that is gone. People are like, it is terrible. I don't know what he's doing. I don't want to be at a war with Iran. Like it is. It's not 100%, but it is.

[A]

Are these Biden to Trump voters?

[B]

Uh huh. Yeah. But they are. I would say to a person, nobody thinks things are going well. Most people think it's going catastrophically bad. And there's almost no one who doesn't think it's Trump's fault. There's a Couple people who are still like, well, you know, we gotta wait and see, and if it all comes together, but not so much. Not like that is an outlier opinion at this point.

[A]

That's interesting. So what did you. You and I haven't talked about the speech. I. My contention was that it was like he was having a health event.

[B]

Yeah, I did watch you guys after the speech and I saw you say that.

[A]

I mean, just as a pure, like, figures. Like, just if you watched it as a neutral observer, like, as an undecided voter, you watched that and then you were asked, so do you think this guy's in full control of his mentals? Right. I think almost everybody would say, God, no. What's wrong with that man?

[B]

Yeah, that guy doesn't. That guy seems sort of unwell. Certainly not. I see the problem. The thing about the health event is it's a. It's too much of a direct comparison to what happened with Joe Biden, where Biden seemed to, like, stop in the middle of a sentence and, like, lose the ability to talk is what happened. Which felt more like, oh, God, oh, God, what's happening? And then he said a bunch of things like that then made absolutely no sense.

[A]

We defeated Medicare.

[B]

Yeah, we defeated.

[A]

But a lot. I mean, that's. Honestly, I keep thinking we defeated Medicare while.

[B]

That's Right. So when you listen to Trump, though, it's sort of, It's. This is the problem. You can't do the direct comparison because they don't ever sound quite the same.

[A]

His voice was soft and reedy and like, he didn't even have his crazy howling at the moon energy.

[B]

He didn't. He did not have big lunatic energy.

[A]

Right, Sorry, that's. That's the. God, I love that phrase, fears.

[B]

But this is where, when you were listen. When I was listening to him, and this is why I, When, When I. We have done the focus groups, I just haven't watched them yet because sometimes I stay. I'm like a little bit behind because I'm trying to do it for the episode.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But the. I will be. I will be interested in just a. If they heard anything about it, because sometimes his speeches don't break through. But I'm interested because they interrupted prime time that maybe more people did watch it. But it's unusual for people to be like, oh, the President's speaking. I will go check it out. Like, from an average person. But if they did watch it, part of what was difficult about the speech, right. We all went into it thinking, okay, we're going to get new information. It's going to be about, we're either boots on the ground or we're getting out of this war. Like, it's either going to escalate or it's going to de. Escalate. So the weirdest thing about the speech was that it contained none of those things. And it was like, when Trump did that other. The speech, maybe it was before the State of the Union, but there are other times where you're like, you, you tune in because you're like, I actually want information. Trump is going to provide us necessary information that is going to inform the future of the country. And then he just starts talking, and it's that he's doing the stump speech about how, well, I'm so great. We are the hottest country in the

[A]

world, Hottest country ever. We were totally dead a year ago.

[B]

And so, like, I think for. For somebody who's a political observer, it seems like a. Not just a health event, but it's, it's just like, utterly bizarre that this even. And even when you're like, I know Trump does this, but still you think, okay, he's winding up to something like, okay, we got to get through sort of the Trump preamble of how this was all Biden's fault. Country's dead, we're back, we're so hot. And then it just kept going into, like, well, we'll, We'll. We'll bomb them if they don't do this. And then. But also, maybe we're making a deal. And also, we've obliterated their things. And so it's just, it's stem. And then all of a sudden, he's like, the Vietnam War was two years and 19 months. World War I was nine months and three days. And you're like, well, wait, now what is happening? That was the part where I was like, is he stroking out? Why is he just telling us how long previous wars were? Because it didn't even have a. It didn't really have a point other than, I guess, what he was telling us. And this, this is my only point with people. You have to listen so closely to that speech to understand both how bizarre it is and how, like, if you're just listening to it, I think you're just kind of out at sea because he's out to sea. There's nothing to grab onto. And so I don't even know how somebody who's not like you and I, who goes in with clear expectations of what you want to hear and, like, a firm sense of how Trump sort of talks and whatever. I don't know how somebody, just a normal person would be like, what am I hearing right now? Like, I feel like somebody, a normal person would just turn it off and be like, this is boring, or I'm not getting anything out of this.

[A]

Maybe, I mean, if they were there for the. Don't worry, this will be less than World War I. Like, I, I again, I just don't know how you listen to that and don't think. What the is he talking about? He's saying this isn't World War. Yes, obviously it's not World War I. The whole reason we voted for you was so we wouldn't have. Yikes. So one of the throwaway lines in the speech was that we will bomb Iran back to the Stone Age. This is, this has long been a conservative trope. Like, it's like a conservative fantasy about bombing some enemy somewhere back to the Stone Age. I think it comes.

[B]

Does anybody know? That's not how bombs work. They're not time machines.

[A]

Very funny. I can't believe you're able to be that funny this early. We're going to drop deloreans on them and, and you know, if, if lightning strikes, then they'll be. But this is, I don't know if this is like a Curtis LeMay thing or if it's somebody out there who's listening to this can pop in the comments. The origins of the phrase, maybe it's Curtis Lemay, maybe it's Dr. Strangelove. I don't know. But then yesterday we did blow up the largest bridge in Iran. It's a civilian traffic bridge linking Tehran and Karaj. The Iranians reported 8 dead and 95 injured civilians. Again, this is what the Iranians report. Can't trust them. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. Iran famously alters these sorts of casualty reports. They were correct about the bombing of the girls school, though. I'll just say that. And we were incorrect about it. So.

[B]

Not me, because we, the bulwark were

[A]

correct about it, not we the bulwark. I went, we, the United States government and the President of the United States were incorrect about that. So I. Does that feel vaguely war crimey to you? Blowing up a civilian bridge feels like something Putin would be doing in Ukraine, not something that America does.

[B]

So I don't want to say I don't know how war crimes work, but I guess what I mean is there are things that I think are obviously war crimes that anybody could decipher. And then I think there Are things that could make sense in the context of a stated objective and a particular kind of threat that you say, well, we had to do this for the following reason. For American interests that are clearly stated and we understand why they're doing it. This could fall into that category of. But how would we know? How would we know?

[A]

So I've done a little. Because I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago, and so I did a little bit of a dive on war crimes and how it works. And, you know, Geneva Convention has pretty well defined categories of things you. You aren't allowed to do, one of which is civilian infrastructure, which would be roads, bridges, bridges, power plants, water filtration, that sort of thing.

[B]

Oh, that's basically everything we keep threatening

[A]

to blow up, right? But there's a great deal of American jurisprudence on this, and there's a gigantic loophole. And the loophole is something which has joint use, is legitimate, which means that if civilians use it, but also it provides value to the military, then it becomes so in other words, there is a power plant which is providing 95% of its output goes to the city, 5% goes to a key military installation. That means the power plant can be blown up, and that is not a war crime. Okay? And so I could see, like, you know, blowing up the bridge. If the Iranian military was using this bridge to move personnel around, they were bringing. This bridge was important in bringing tanks to the front or shifting air defense resources using this. But, like, then you could be like, okay, I understand that. That would fit under the. The category of joint use. I mean, from everything I've been told by the American government, Iran is not moving tanks around. They aren't moving anything around because they're all hiding in their holes and they don't have any tanks anymore. And to the extent that there are problems, it's because there are people in hardened bunkers with stores of drones that are launching them. And so in the American description of how the war is going and what the Iranians are doing, it is not clear that this bridge was of any use to the military. And that's why it starts to feel kind of war crimey. Do you know what I mean? Like, it again, like, there. You can very easily imagine scenarios in which, yes, this is why you blow up bridges in all of Europe during World War II, right? You're preventing the enemy from resupplying one position because you're, you know, we don't need to go into this. Everybody knows it. That does not seem to be what is happening in Iran and does not seem to be. The president himself said that he wants to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age, which if you just take it at face value is not a military objective. That's a war crime. Right. Saying I want to country. That's, that's just destroying the Stone Age. That is, that's what that is. And I, I mean, you know, nobody's gonna get wrapped up around this. I'm, I feel like the only person out there saying, I thought we did not wage war like Putin, like put. Putin's goal is like, I'm going to make it so that Ukrainians freeze in their homes over the winter because that's how I'm pursuing the war. And that's what authoritarians who do war crimes do and not what liberal democracies that adhere to the rules and the laws of war do.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Am I being too precious? Is this.

[B]

You're not. It's, it's not that. It's that I think you're explicating something that most people are like, you're sort of digging down into the specifics of how we're doing this in a way that does not reflect American values, where I think that's just sort of what every, everybody understands. I think that this doesn't represent American values broadly because at every single juncture, the way that it has been waged, from not consulting Congress to not stating a clear objective, to not talking to the American people, to doing no case making to the American people, to doing a, an address to the country that had again, no stated objectives and just said like in every way what we're doing doesn't feel like the way we would normally do things to the way Pete Hegseth communicates. And so it's not that I think you're being too precious. I just think you're, you're focusing on one other piece of a way that this isn't what we do.

[A]

Yeah. And which brings me to the timepiece yesterday. Did you read the time? It's the Eric Cordier piece. This guy is really plugged in. He's, he gets very good access with Trump, I suspect being at Time magazine is an advance. Not to knock Eric and his reporting skills, but Trump's own personal fixation with Time magazine and his, like it every, the world exists in Trump's mind as if it was still 1965. And so for him, time is maybe 1965, but yeah, one of the most important news outlets in the, in the world. And to be, I think Eric Cortez

[B]

is the only person who works there. Like, is there another reporter at Time magazine?

[A]

Molly Ball was there for a while. I don't think she was, but she's

[B]

at the Journal now.

[A]

Yeah, keep going. Anyway, I want to read some excerpts from this to you. And it's pretty clear from the piece, if you do what we do for a living, you can. You can see who sources are. All right, well, you know what, guys? We'll take the rest of this. We'll take the rest of this just for the members. Come and join us. Come on.

[B]

Now's the time. It's a. I don't know. It's always the good time. But you should. You should be a member. If you like this, you should come.

[A]

Listen, if you would like to hear Pete Hegseth being hung out to dry, come do it now.