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The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway
Raging Moderates: Did Trump Already LOSE the War in Iran? (ft. Ian Bremmer and Dan Senor)
00:49:36
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- [00:01]
Scott Galloway
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- [00:42]
Ian Bremmer
Once upon a dismal day, Bob's ice
- [00:44]
Dan Senor
cream van looked gloomy and gray.
- [00:47]
Ian Bremmer
Although he had big ambitions, his socials lacked creative vision.
- [00:51]
Scott Galloway
That bad?
- [00:52]
Dan Senor
Maybe.
- [00:52]
Ian Bremmer
Vampirepetam I have an idea. Bob launched Canva and got into gear. Create the video in the vampire theme and make it the funniest meme. It went viral. Bob's Business Revival now imagine what your dreams can become when you put imagination
- [01:10]
Jessica Tarlev
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- [01:38]
Scott Galloway
thanks for listening to Raging Moderates on the Prop G feed. We'll be soon leaving this feed, so you're going to want to subscribe to Raging Moderates on Apple, Podcast, Spotify and everywhere else. You'll get new episodes every weekday evening, including the episode that you're about to hear. That's right, Raging Moderate subscribers get Jess and me five days a week. Subscribe now on YouTube or Substack for ad free if you're into that. Now, here's today's show. I would argue right now the momentum has shifted and that Iran is winning and that this has been what I'd call arguably the greatest snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in recent geopolitical history.
- [02:20]
Dan Senor
So my gosh, we are what, 25, 26 days into this war, you guys are talking like it's over. You guys are talking like it's over and the US is walking away with its tail between its legs. We're at war with Iran. I think everyone basically understands that, even if not everyone for political reasons wants to say it out loud. We're in war with Iran.
- [02:44]
Ian Bremmer
It's funny because you could say the same thing about Russia. And yet Trump clearly disagrees and has acted in ways that shows he disagrees for reasons that he thinks are aligned with America first. And when Trump himself is telling the American people that, that this is going to be easy, it's going to be over, there's going to be no costs. Don't worry about it. The president is driving the messaging of we don't need to be patient, we don't need to, because this war is going to be easy and it's going to be out. We're going to be done. And he failed.
- [03:14]
Scott Galloway
Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway.
- [03:16]
Jessica Tarlev
And I'm Jessica Tarlev.
- [03:17]
Scott Galloway
So I'm really excited about this. Today we're doing something a little bit different, and that is I actually really enjoy. I like Piers Morgan and I've been on the show a few times, but after watching it, sometimes I want to shower. And at the same time, occasionally I watch CNN's show with Abby Phillips, which I think they should rename. I Feel Stupider where they basically have someone come on and say something really fucking stupid and then have a bunch of B League progressives get outraged. God, I'm falling into the same trap here. Anyways, I wanted to bring on two people who have sometimes similar views, sometimes don't, and have a really thoughtful conversation and especially about the war in Iran. And I couldn't think of anyone better or two people that I not only respect but I like a great deal and would call friends. And that is Dan Senor, host of Call Me Back, and Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, and obviously my partner in crime here, Jess Tarloff. Our goal here is simple. We want to cut through the noise, figure out what actually is happening in this war and what it all means for the U.S. the global economy, and what comes next. So let's set the table. Trump says the US Is in very strong talks with Iran and has delayed potential strikes. But Iran is denying that any negotiations are happening, accusing the US of trying to calm volatile energy markets. I would agree he's sending false flags so we can engage in massive insider trading. But that's just one theory. At the same time, there are reports of indirect backchannel communications through intermediaries, including Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff involved. But those appear to be early stage and focused on de escalation, not resolution. There's also new reporting today that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, mbs has been encouraging Trump to continue the war, seeing an Opportunity to remake the region. Meanwhile, the fighting continues to escalate across multiple fronts. U. S. End Israeli strikes in Iran, Iranian retaliation and ongoing conflict in Lebanon. Lebanon. And the global stakes are increasing quickly. Oil prices have surged. The Strait of Hormuz is still partially blocked, and the death toll has now crossed 2000. I just tried to provide some context. One, where do I have this wrong? And what nuance would you add or different pieces of information would you inject to try and set the table for our conversation? Ian, kick us off. Sure.
- [05:42]
Ian Bremmer
Well, first of all, very happy to join all of you. I also think this is a very thoughtful group and people I generally like, which is always nice. It made it easier to say yes. Don't know how much we're going to agree on here, but that's fine. I think that the big news as I see it over the last couple of days has been Trump's unilateral escalation that he's going to blow up all of Iran's civilization, energy production capability, grid capability, if they don't open the strait. And everyone understood that that was an utterly disastrous idea because the Iranians would likely be able to take out, for example, desalination plants that would cause mass panic and exodus in the Gulf and would be likely to do so. The Iranians did not back down. They did not open the strait. And Trump himself said, okay, I'm not going to do that. So that's kind of the big news. Is that finding an off ramp? No, but it certainly is recognition for the first time by Trump that full on straight escalation is probably gonna cause greater danger for him than he wants to experience greater backlash. Look, the Saudis definitely, and I think the Emiratis too, they are increasingly prepared. Not just do they want the United States not to stop, but to continue degrade Iranian capabilities. But they've been having conversations about getting directly involved in the war themselves. The Saudis involved in the fighting, the UAE may be taking a couple contested islands between Iran and the uae. Both of those things might happen over the coming weeks. That's different from the UAE and the Saudis saying, we want you to go full on, take the oil and carg island regime change. I'm not hearing that. I'm hearing particularly make sure you get the ballistic missile capabilities, all of them. Make sure you do something about the nuclear capabilities, deal with that. We don't want to have to get back, keep getting back to this every few months because this is very vulnerable for us now. I will also say that in Trumplandia not only is this kind of war becoming more unpopular among his base, though, it's still over, it's still unbalanced, popular, but it's also, I mean, he is now hearing from people internally that, hey, let's really, let's have a pause. Let's have a pause. Like JD Vance, my understanding is bringing a 30 day pause suggestion to Trump the thing, let's see if, like in the conversations we're having with the Iranians, let's see if we both. Except that and then we can talk the markets down for a while. And by the way, we don't have the ground troops ready to go for all of the military options you're thinking about. And they won't be in place until like April 6th, 7th anyway, the latest being sent from San Francisco. And I have no idea how Trump's gonna respond to that. But the fact that that conversation is happening implies that there is more scope for at least calming this down for now, even if we're very, very far from a potential ceasefire. So I think that's what I'm watching very carefully now, whether they end up having conversations in Pakistan, which look increasingly likely at this point. Who is directly involved? I suspect it would be the foreign Minister, not Kaliboff. It'd be too risky for him to actually go and leave. But we'll see, we'll see where it goes. It is definitely moving very fast and obviously the danger for the global economy is really high, a lot higher than I think people have been presuming over the past weeks. And Trump is gonna have to deal with that. He's gonna have to deal with the consequences. This is gonna be, from a domestic perspective, this is going to be, I think, unpopular, irrespective of what the outcome is in the next few days and weeks, given that there isn't regime change and Americans are gonna be paying for it economically at home.
- [09:52]
Dan Senor
Well, I've been seeing similar reports as Ian, on different proposals that are being presented to President Trump. I would caution, counsel, healthy skepticism about any of these reports. Simply to say, I'm not saying there aren't different people proposing different things to Trump, but if we've learned anything about Trump is that he talks to a lot of people and who he talks to and what they're proposing is typically not a signal as to where he is heading. He keeps everyone guessing. He maintains optionality. You'll recall In June of 2025, two weeks before the operation against Fordeau, he was deep in negotiations and there was all the press speculation that what he wanted was some kind of negotiated out with the regime in Iran. And then, boom, he joined the Operation Midnight Hammer. Fast forward to February. Negotiations are going on. Kushner and Witkoff are there. The Omani foreign minister says there's stuff happening. And then there we go, end of February, beginning of June, epic fury. So I think reading into what game Trump is playing with negotiations on, negotiations off, negotiations on. Again, this person heard him say this, this person's presenting that, who knows, there are about four to five people in Trump's orbit that actually know what's going on. And I would say maybe that circle's even smaller than that. So that's, that's the first thing. The second thing I would say is, you know, Scott, you're like kind of, you tried to set the table, like, where are we? What do we know now versus what we knew a week ago, two weeks ago, a month ago? I would say the two big developments, I mean, Ian, what's going on with the Gulf states and their interest in what appears to be finishing this and not pausing and not leaving a wounded regime in place is a very interesting development. The two others is, I think there was a consensus among analysts, among political players in the US and in the west, from right to left, there was a consensus that Iran had nuclear ambitions before this war, had nuclear weapons ambitions before this war. There was a consensus that Iran is behind a lot of bloodshed of Americans and others in the West. Right. No one disputed that. How we dealt with that, how we restrained them, how we deterred them, that was open for debate. But whether or not Iran was responsible for the slaughtering of a lot of Americans, Americans in uniform, innocence was not disputed. I do think there was not a consensus on Iran's non nuclear military capabilities. I think people said, oh, Iran is saying the range of their projectiles, their missiles can't go farther than 2,000 kilometers. That's what they've said. And we just kind of got to stay on top of them and continue to reach, you know, jcpoa like accommodations with them and they won't spring out of that. And what we've learned in this war is they have been lying, like really lying. And that is, I think it shouldn't be a surprise. It's a surprise to many. When they hit Diego Garcia, there's a wake up call that, wait a minute, they have capabilities that they've been hiding and lying about. They're not necessarily about their nuclear weapons capability, but they can just be as terrorizing to the region and to Western interests and, and I think that is a whole new wake up call. And if we head into negotiations, unlike the jcpoa, you can expect that the non nuclear weapons capabilities will be a big part of the negotiation.
- [13:16]
Jessica Tarlev
Super interesting what you guys have said so far and so thankful that you could join us. I know schedules are crazy. I want to talk about what success looks like because Scott and I have been obviously talking about this over the course of the last month and trying to make room for, for the potential of what could go right. And you know, my politics are very clear. I, I'm not, you know, a big fan of Donald Trump and this felt, you know, rushed and all the reporting around the pressure that Netanyahu was putting on Trump to do it on his schedule versus what might have been best for the United States, etc. Was clouding my vision of this. So could you guys talk a little bit about what a mission accomplished, not necessarily in the Bush sense, but really a feeling of success for us looks like and quiet those I guess who are saying or maybe amplify if that's what you agree with those that are saying there is no way that we can actually degrade their capabilities, that this won't crop up again and will this will have to be a recurring nightmare that we come back or they will, to your point, Dan, have these ballistic missile capabilities again in a year or two and then, you know, we're back home and either have to go back or we leave our partners in the Gulf with a huge mess again.
- [14:41]
Dan Senor
I think that the Israeli leadership and the American leadership have two different measures of what is success. Jess, what should be the focus? There is some overlap, but they do have two different measures of success. Which is to say I think Israel's experience is Iran has been a menace to Israel, to the region, to the west, to the world and there's no negotiating with this regime. The regime has to go now. How it goes and what replaces it is open for debate and obviously is a subject of discussion within the Israeli leadership. And the Israeli leadership is not explicitly saying success or failure is determined based on regime change, but that's effectively where they're at. Whereas the American leadership, I think Trump in particular is open to that if it doesn't require a long, drawn out, multi month war. He's also open to a version of Venezuela.
- [15:39]
Ian Bremmer
Right.
- [15:40]
Dan Senor
Delsey Rodriguez, who's our Delsey Rodriguez? You know, it's not regime change as instead as Neil Ferguson has coined the term, it's regime alteration. Can we just alter the regime into one that's much more manageable and that we can deal with. So that's, you know, I think if Trump could accomplish that, and I think so far it appears it's going to be harder to do that than many thought. But if Trump could accomplish that, that would be success. Where I think there's overlap between the US And Israel is, as you suggest, that just the degradation of the capabilities. We may not agree entirely on the outcome, but let's just make sure that whatever Frankenstein emerges from this war in Tehran in the form of a regime or post regime, they simply don't have the capabilities to wreak havoc. So let's just. Literally, which is what they've been doing. They've been taking out their naval capabilities, they've been taking care of a lot of their offensive capabilities and their defensive capabilities. And, and really now the whole, what they're trying to do, especially the Israelis, is taking out the whole industrial base that supports the production of missiles and drones and so just systematically take out the menacing weapons infrastructure of Iran so that even if there is not regime change to something much more constructive and responsible, at least whatever exists will not be able to pose the threat to the US And Israel at the end of this. And by the way, on that front, we can get into a conversation about the Strait. And on that front, though, I do think they're making a lot of progress. And I think Trump doing what he's doing right now with this negotiations, I'll wait a few days. It's buying him time. If you look at the military operations that are happening day to day right now, the taking out the industrial base that supports weapons production in Iran is still happening right now, even though Trump is talking about negotiations.
- [17:29]
Jessica Tarlev
Do you think that that can be an enduring solution? Or is it a question of in a few years when you have a theocracy? I mean, Dulcie Rodriguez isn't an ayatollah. Right. She's, she's just a girl.
- [17:42]
Dan Senor
Yeah.
- [17:43]
Ian Bremmer
Give her time.
- [17:43]
Dan Senor
Yeah, yeah.
- [17:44]
Jessica Tarlev
She's only been in there for, you know, a couple months. But is this doomed to repeat as so much of what goes on in the Middle East?
- [17:52]
Dan Senor
You know, the Israelis have this term that they use mowing the lawn, which has basically been the, the essence of their policy with regard to Hamas, ironically, over the last couple decades, which is they are never going to get, this is all pre October 7th. They're never going to get into a long, drawn out, full frontal war against Hamas and try to eliminate Hamas. Obviously, that attitude changed after October 7th. So everything between basically 2005 and October of 2023, was Israel mowing the lawn every couple years? 2008-2012-2018-2021, and I mean, every couple years, there were these skirmishes between Israel and Hamas. And what Israel would say at the end of any of these operations is, I mean, unofficially, they'd say, we've mowed the lawn, they've been degrading their capabilities, they can rebuild their capabilities, and we'll have another skirmish. Again, I am concerned, and I think this is where you're going with your question, that that is where we're heading with Iran.
- [18:51]
Jessica Tarlev
Yes.
- [18:51]
Dan Senor
So is it better than doing nothing? Yes. If we seriously degrade their capabilities and then Israel or the US or both have to go back in in a few years. Well, if that gets us some semblance of quiet and sort of reigns in Iran's ability to threaten the region and threaten us, that's better than doing nothing. But I do worry that it's going, to your point, wind us up back in a situation where Israel or the US or both have to keep mowing the lawn.
- [19:22]
Ian Bremmer
Dan is focusing on the part of this that is going the best for the US And Israel so far, which is that the military, the conventional military capabilities of Iran are being very significantly degraded. Very significantly. The naval capabilities, the ballistic missile capabilities, they had more than the Americans had believed going in. It's taken longer time than they thought it was going to take, but they are making that progress. That is the positive side of this. You cannot stop there.
- [19:55]
Scott Galloway
Right.
- [19:56]
Ian Bremmer
I want to add two components here that make me feel less upbeat about what is happening and what the future will bring. The first component is that while it is true that today the United States and Israel have different thoughts on regime change, Trump was kind of hopeful that this was going to go to regime change. I mean, he was the one that said, you know, we're going to rescue the Iranian people. He was the one that said at the beginning, iranian people take your government. And then a few days ago, he's like, well, I understand why they're not taking their government because they're going to get blown up. Those are two different things. Right. So the fact that it is more likely than not that the regime that is going to continue to be in place is a brutal, repressive regime, and that the people that will suffer the most before the war, during the war, and after the war will continue to be the Iranian people is a loss, maybe. You know, I'm not saying a lot of Americans or Israelis care that much about that, but we should and it matters. So that's one component. The second component, which is the other side of this, is that although Iran's conventional military capabilities have been significantly degraded, their economic capabilities today are a lot higher in terms of leverage and position over the strait than it was before. And they're making a lot more money from exporting oil. Now this is coming from the same Trump administration that hammered repeatedly the Obama administration for the pallets of cash that they were able to get as part of the jcpoa, the Iranian deal. And now because Trump is so focused on we need to make sure that we get as much oil out as possible, he's allowing the Iranians to sell their oil at a premium to non Chinese sources. The Indians just agreed. Reliance just bought that oil at a $7 premium, 110 to $120 a barrel. And the Iranians, the estimates are they're gonna end up making like $14 billion on the back of that. And that's if the sanctions that have been lifted snap back in 30 days. And no presumption that's actually going to happen with the same regime. And we know what they're likely to do with the money, cuz the regime hasn't been removed. And so that's a real problem. Where I see this going is I think there have been two big places of major overreach that have been unilaterally brought by Trump on the Americans internationally. The first was Liberation Day China. The United States puts tariffs on every country around the world using ipo, which they didn't really have the legal right to do. As we've seen from the Supreme Court. A lot of countries very, very concerned about that back down, say Mr. Trump, what can we do? We'll cut a deal with you. The Chinese don't. The Chinese say, actually we've got real leverage, our leverage. Even though you're a bigger economy than we are, our leverage is critical minerals. And we will take the pain because we can outlast you. We are more patient than you are. We can take more pain than you will. And as a consequence, we're gonna force you to the table and we're gonna have more influence. And I've seen that happen over the last year. China has more leverage with the United States now in bilateral dealing because the Chinese showed the Americans that they are more prepared to take long term economic pain than the Americans are, more than Trump is. And I think that what the Iranians have just shown on the Strait of Hormuz is a similar strategy. Much smaller scale. But Iran is saying, yeah, we're a lot less capable than you are militarily. You just blew us up. But we believe that we can outlast you and that you're going to taco eventually because we can cause more pain and we can handle all the people you're killing and we can handle all the conventional military strikes because we can stop these tankers from going through. Now, we don't yet know how Trump is going to respond to that. We don't know. Maybe he's going to use these troops and he's going to take coastal areas and take islands in the Strait and eventually take Carg island, and maybe that'll work for him. Maybe in the medium to long term, the US Will control Iran's oil and the Strait the way they control Venezuela. Maybe that's what Trump wants. But that's enormously risky. It might not work. It'll cost immensely economically, and it's gonna lead to a lot more Americans getting killed. He'll make the decision. It's Trump's decision. Nobody knows, as Dan said. But he also might back down. And I think it's wholly plausible that he will back down as he has with the Chinese, because he understands that ultimately declaring a win is better than what ends up following from all this. I don't have a strong. I certainly don't have a crystal ball, and I agree completely with Dan that ultimately Trump is keeping his own counsel on this. It's not gonna be what JD Or Marco or Radcliffe come in and tell him or suggest. And what they suggest will only be a piece of what they're telling the people they're gonna suggest, because with Trump, they're like, yes, sir, how high, sir? But I do worry that even though Iran's capabilities have been seriously degraded, there are other big issues that will persist on the back of where we're likely to be coming out of all of this.
- [25:09]
Dan Senor
So a couple things in response to Ian. One, he mentioned it a second. You mentioned a second time the deployment of ground forces or troops. I just think we should establish, just for the. For the audience, what you and I are talking about when we refer to these troops, because I think people hear this now, and they think Iraq, you know, 2003, 2004 and beyond. And it is not that small. It is not that. Right.
- [25:30]
Ian Bremmer
Talking about 70,000 troops total.
- [25:32]
Scott Galloway
Right?
- [25:32]
Dan Senor
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So in the lead up to the Iraq war, we had the equivalent of the naval and air power assets that we have now in the region for this war. But the one other thing we had in the lead up to the Iraq war was a quarter of a million troops. We do not have that in the region, and wisely so. By the way, Iran is about four times the size of Iraq and it's about more than double the size in terms of population. Iran's population is more than double the size of, of Iraqs. So we're not sending troops to occupy Iran. There may be some targeted operation like the targeted operations like the Marine Expeditionary Force that is going to probably wind up there on the coast there to deal with the hits on the tankers by the drones and these boats in the mines. So it's very targeted, small number. I'm not saying it's not a risk. It's not a form of escalation. And obviously, as Ian said, there's a risk to lives, even if the total number of forces deployed is smaller. But it is not some massive ground operation. That's the first thing. Second thing, the Iranian people have been courageously fighting against this regime at various points over the last couple of decades in ways that we in the west don't pay enough attention to and deserve extraordinary respect and support and should have called for presidential support and presidential acknowledgement to put a spotlight on it. In 2009, there was a big uprising. In 2018, in 2022 was a big uprising. The Iranian people have been taking to the streets and risking their lives against a regime that was brutal and strong. And I would say, I agree with you, Ian, that this, whatever's left of this regime, if it remains in power, its intentions will be to be brutal and perhaps even more strident and more, you know, than what, if you can believe that, than what the Iranian people have had to deal with. But one big difference is I think they will be weaker. Right? The principal tools and instruments of repression in Iran are being weakened every single day as a result of what the US And Israel are doing. They're taking out the commanders and the infrastructure and the bases of, of the Basij Domestic Security Force. They're taking out the leaders and the infrastructure and the personnel of the irgc. Now, as you know, the history of uprisings and when they're successful and when they're not, we always get it wrong. No one ever sees it coming. Who knows? You know, everyone was anticipating that Kiev would fall, you know, after 72 hours. When Russia invaded Ukraine, everyone was saying that the Taliban, you know, would, would never fall. After the US went into Afghanistan after 9, 11, I mean, the intelligence community didn't see the fall of the Soviet Union.
- [28:15]
Scott Galloway
Did anyone see Assad's fall coming?
- [28:17]
Dan Senor
No, Absolutely. Absolutely not. So getting it right is very hard to anticipate. There's a whole flywheel of what has to be in place. But I gotta believe if the Iranian people have this history of taking enormous risks to challenge this regime, they probably will be more inspired to do so when they see that what is left of this regime is a shadow of itself as a result of what the US And Israel are doing right now. And it may be easier for them to do something about that regime than it was just a few months ago. We saw what happened just two months ago. Over 30,000 Iranians were slaughtered in, like, a couple of days. Who knows what their capabilities will be now, A and B, who knows what the morale is of the personnel in these institutions that do the repression in the country will be after so many of their colleagues and supervisors have been killed.
- [29:11]
Ian Bremmer
My fear is that this Iranian government, as much as it is being eroded and hit militarily, they are showing a lot of capacity because of what they're doing in the strait and because of the money they're making. So, again, I think that there is a give and take there, and this is not. If. If Trump had a uniform strategy that was, we're going to do everything possible to ensure that this regime will be degraded, then I'd feel more comfortable with what you're saying. I don't. I don't think that's true at all.
- [29:40]
Jessica Tarlev
If you aren't already, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube page to stay in the loop on all the politics news. Let's take a quick break. Stay with us.
- [29:51]
Ian Bremmer
Hey, John Stamos and Colegarde here. So, look, you're 45 or older and at average risk. You know what? That probably means it's time for colon cancer screening. Look, it doesn't start at 55 or 50, or even 46 if you're 45. You've got to prioritize getting screened, because if it's found early, it's highly treatable. So get going. See if cologuard is the right test for you. Hi, I'm Brene Brown. And I'm Adam Grant. And we're here to invite you to the Curiosity Shop, a podcast that's a
- [30:19]
Scott Galloway
place for listening, wondering, thinking, feeling, and questioning.
- [30:23]
Dan Senor
It's gonna be fun.
- [30:24]
Ian Bremmer
We rarely agree, but we almost never disagree.
- [30:28]
Dan Senor
And we're always learning. That's true.
- [30:30]
Scott Galloway
You can subscribe to the Curiosity shop on YouTube or follow in your favorite podcast app to automatically receive new episodes every Thursday.
- [30:42]
Ian Bremmer
There's basically been one guy in Republican politics who's argued for a regime change in Iran for years and for America
- [30:49]
Dan Senor
to take a proactive military role in making it happen.
- [30:52]
Ian Bremmer
Ambassador John Bolton, President Trump's former national security adviser. But now even Bolton says Donald Trump is messing it up. As far as we can tell, he did no preparation of the opposition actually inside Iran. No coordination, no effort to see what they would do, no effort to support them, to provide resources, money, arms, if that's what they wanted. Telecommunications. Just no coordination at all. And they don't seem prepared for it. How Trump lost the Republican Party's biggest Iran war hawk today, explain every weekday and on Saturdays, too.
- [31:33]
Jessica Tarlev
Welcome back.
- [31:34]
Scott Galloway
I just want to talk a little bit about an operational execution here. So I think there was real valid justification. There are no good wars, but there's just wars. And I was more hopeful about and saw the justification for at least what I'll call military operation. Air defenses are down, unique moment in time, a wobbly regime, the ability to further neuter connection and support for terrorist groups and proxies, wreaking havoc all over the globe. Take their munitions capability or production capability, industrial capacity for producing weapons down, destroy their missile launch capability, perhaps topple the regime, secure the nuclear sites. I think there was a lot of very valid reasons for why to do this. Why now? And quite frankly, it feels like operational excellence with strategic incompetence. And I'll start with you, Dan. Where are we? Okay, no clear messaging. Hard for Americans to identify a set of objectives around what we're doing. Why now and when we're going to declare victory and leave to a disaster, in my view, for global opinion of Israel and Jews. Communications that I think have been errant and ignorant and misplaced from the Trump administration and former Trump administration officials, essentially saying that Israel is wagging the tail here, which I think is going to be disastrous for Israel over the long term. An inability to do any sort of scenario planning that didn't see the choke point of the Straits of Hormuz, which will likely put the world into a recession. Inability even at the most basic level to extract Westerners or a plan for extracting Westerners out of the region. So hats off to the military execution of US And Israeli forces. Strategic incompetence that I would argue right now the momentum has shifted and that Iran is winning and that Iran has basically said the enemy gets a voice, they get a say in a war. And right now it feels like their voice is winning and that this has been what I call arguably the greatest snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in recent geopolitical history. Dan, I'll let you respond to those comments first.
- [34:01]
Dan Senor
So, my gosh, we are, what, 25, 26 days into this war, you guys are talking like it's over. You guys are talking like it's over and the US Is walking away with its tail between its legs. It's just, I think every. Imagine if we were commenting on other very important wars. Think about if World War II was being covered. Like this war where every day there were a thousand tweets, tweets and posts and podcasts analyzing, you know, hour by hour. Every, you know, this person just met with FDR and FDR's mood is this.
- [34:37]
Jessica Tarlev
And I mean, can I just like. Because I love what you're saying and it's important. I just want to add inject into it those were also wars that we bought into and that were sold to us. And this, literally everyone woke up and was like, WTF is happening? Except for, you know, people in the highest levels of government. So don't. Doesn't that affect.
- [35:01]
Dan Senor
I actually think since World War II, you'll be hard pressed to find wars fought by the US that weren't deeply wound up being deeply divisive in American society, in American politics. So.
- [35:15]
Ian Bremmer
But it almost.
- [35:16]
Dan Senor
That doesn't matter. The point is, I take your and Scott's point. The President needs to be out there explaining and persuading every day, every week what we're doing and what we're trying to achieve in a consistent way. Whether or not that could unite the country, I'm dubious because I think many on the left are rooting for failure in the war against Iran because they want Trump to have a political setback. Yeah, but narrow, much narrow. It's far less. If you look at MAGA Republicans, it's the polling shows the overwhelming support for what Trump is doing. There's not this consistent across the board. Congress, the House, the Senate, people running for president, you know, are. They're just like rooting for failure. So I don't know if that would have the effect in this environment, in this highly polarized, highly political environment. I don't know, Jess, if it would have the effect that we want it to, but it's still. We should do it anyways. The President should be doing it anyways because strategically we need to just be explaining to the American public constantly what we're doing, first of all. Second of all, Ian said that I laid out what is working and he laid out what isn't working. I do want to add the reaction of the Gulf states to me is really, really interesting. I have been following for some time relationships warming, cooling, maybe warming again, then cooling again between Israel and the Gulf states. What we are seeing today I have never seen before where the chief of staff of the IDF is on the phone multiple times a day with his counterparts in Arab countries across the region where Israel is fully integrated into centcom, with all these Arab states, where the Arab states, as you said, MbS and the Emiratis and I think the Bahrainis are as pushing for, as an aggressive response to how Iran has fought this war as Israel has. And so that'll be very interesting to see when this war ends. But I think from Israel's perspective in the region, Israel's not feeling so alone after October 7th. They were feeling alone last couple years because of the war on Gaza. They were feeling alone. It made life complicated politically for these Arab states the way Israel is fighting the war in Gaza. I supported that war, but there was no doubt that there was a very political, calculated response for many capitals in the Sunni Gulf. I do not think that is the case now. And if that has durability, if that has a shelf life after this war, I'm not so sure we're gonna look at this as Israel so isolated. The last thing I'll say here is Walter Russell Mead has a very thoughtful piece in the Wall Street Journal today that like he said what I've been thinking. So even though I was thinking it, I do want to give him credit. He basically said the hawks and the doves both got this wrong. Okay? He says the hawks underestimated how hard it would be. The Iran hawks, the Iran doves overestimated how accommodating Iran, the regime would be if we just worked with them in mechanisms like negotiations in the jcpoa. And the wake up call, as I said at the beginning for the Iran doves, is there's no accommodation with Iran. So it's we're at war with Iran. I think everyone basically understands that, even if not everyone for political reasons wants to say it out loud. We're in war with Iran. It's a matter of when that war happens or whether it goes on and then off and then on again, how we fight the war, how we explain the war. But I don't think anyone could have any illusions that we are at war with Iran and this war revealed it.
- [38:48]
Ian Bremmer
It's funny because you could say the same thing about Russia. And yet Trump clearly disagrees and has acted in ways that shows he disagrees for reasons that he thinks are aligned with America first, which is. It's an important point that I want to make, but let me address the first two first, which is that you said that it's only 25 days and so the American people should show patience. You're right, of course. But President Trump on the phone with the G7 leaders said that the war was going to be over within days and that the Iranians were about to surrender unconditionally. And when Trump himself is telling the American people that this is going to be easy, it's going to be over, there's going to be no cost, don't worry about it. The President is driving the messaging of we don't need to be patient, we don't need to, because this war is going to be easy and it's going to be out, want to be done. And he failed. He utterly failed because he thought it was going to be that easy. So that's why there's no patience. It's not because the American people can't handle it for the right reasons. War for the right reasons. American people can fight for the right reasons. But this is. The President is not. Has not been communicating with his people truthfully or trustfully. And therefore he has lost a lot of the American people on this and on other issues. So that's a point. I agree. There's no question that the level of Gulf alignment with the United States and Israel militarily and on intelligence in fighting Iran has become of necessity, but has become higher. That is, of course, very different with the way the Gulf states feel about what's happening in the west bank right now, but the way the Gulf states feel about what's happening on the ground in Lebanon right now. And those things are going to be problematic for Israel, in my view. And I also think that there's going to be big consequences for the Israelis long term, globally. We've already seen how much anti Semitism was picking up before this war. That's obviously going to continue. I worry about that. Different story, longer point. The final point is on whether or not Trump is going to succeed in selling this war to the American people. And the consequence, it will eventually happen. I think that Trump got the American people right in a lot of ways because he understood that Americans were sick of not having secure borders, said, I'm gonna secure the border, and they were sick of being sold a free trade message without people investing more in US Manufacturing. So I'm gonna do something about that. And his implementation was poor on both of those things. In some ways, he over, over egged it in tariffs and he over egged it with ice. But the baseline message he got the American people and he also got the American people with, I am sick and tired of Americans fighting for wars that aren't actually in the primary interest of the United States. And he did that on Ukraine. I believe the United States should be supporting the Ukrainians. I do, in a way that Trump does not. Right. I believe it matters because the Russians invaded Ukraine. It's a sovereign nation, democratic. Russia's a dictatorship. We invited them to NATO. Our words should matter. And I believe that. Right. And then Trump unilaterally says, no, it's far away. It's the thousands of miles away. The Europeans should spend all the money. We shouldn't spend any of it. And you know what? That's pretty popular among the American people. And you know, I now see on Israel, Iran, this war is very popular in Israel because of course, you know, in the same way that supporting Ukraine is very popular, like in Poland and the Baltic states and the Nordics, but it ain't popular in the United States. Why not? Because you've elected a president twice that said, we're gonna stop doing this. And so now you might think that Trump is completely misguided in that message, but the point is, he's aligned with where the American people are going, is you've forgotten about us. So stop this. Don't fight for Ukraine. Don't fight for Europe, don't fight for Israel. Don't fight for the Gulf states, Don't fight for Taiwan, don't fight for Japan. Stop this. And I think that the longer this goes, yes, only 7,000 troops, but every troop matters. Yes, only $200 billion he's asking for in the special distribution for the pentagon, but only 181 billion was spent on Ukraine over three years. And yet Americans are like, why are you doing this when you're not taking care of me at home? And yeah, I don't think 4000 kilometer lying about their ballistic missiles is a credible ex post argument for the average American Trump voter. I don't. I just don't. Now you and I can have a very intelligent, pointy headed conversation about, like, you know, grand strategy and realpolitik and what it means for America long term. But I'm talking about, like, what got Trump elected. This did not get Trump elected. Absolutely not. And I think he's gonna pay.
- [43:27]
Dan Senor
Among Trump voters. I really think that there's A tendency among many of us to fixate on a handful of very loud, high volume, self appointed evangelists for the maga, right, and listen to the things they're saying and over interpret what that means where the Trump electorate, where Trump's coalition is. The reality is if you look in poll after poll after poll, CBS just came out with a new poll, it's over 80% Trump voters, well over 80% support what he's doing right now, what he's doing in Iran.
- [44:00]
Ian Bremmer
I'm telling you, I think it will
- [44:02]
Dan Senor
change, but the support is high. I think there is this tendency in, to, to think about decisions in war and national security, particularly post 911 in the last couple of decades in very binary terms. So we either think of war as endless war. If we get involved, we'll never get out. If we get involved, it's quagmire. So that was the characterization of Iraq and Afghanistan, or it's do nothing. Yes, there's bad things happening around the world, but our only option, the only responsible option is to do nothing. Obama draws the red line in Syria. 600,000 people are slaughtered, many more permanently displaced, and we do nothing. And he uses chemical weapons and we do nothing. And so those are like the two extremes. I do think where Trump is is this possible model of a third way, which is not saying we're never gonna use military force, but if we use it, we are gonna be very targeted, very surgical, and we're not gonna get ourselves bogged down now. We'll see how this goes in Iran. He's been doing this a number of times over the last year in various parts of the world. Most recently obviously Venezuela at the end of the year, but. And obviously in Iran in June of 25. We'll see where this lands in that. But we are, we are. My only point is we are so far from Trump violating the core commitment from his campaign in terms of how he would conduct national security. I'm not saying it can't get bad and we could go on some kind of detour, but we're just not there.
- [45:32]
Jessica Tarlev
Now, I just want to add, you're definitely right. I mean it's 80, 90% in some polling in terms of support for this, but when you mention boots on the ground, it plummets. And you are seeing it show up in other ways of judging the president, like how they think about him on the economy, how they think of him on immigration, you know, whether he's paying attention to issues that affect me. Over 70% say he's not focused on that so, you know, it's manifesting in different pockets.
- [46:00]
Scott Galloway
Here's where we are. Can't secure nuclear stockpiles, unlikely to register regime change without boots on the ground. There are amphibious warships, there are Marines being deployed, what, 60 seconds or less if no one has a crystal ball. Ian, you go first. What do you think happens here in the next 30 days?
- [46:20]
Ian Bremmer
On balance, I think it's really close call. I think he does actually deploy these ground troops because he feels like he needs to do something more on the nuclear side and because leaving the Straits this vulnerable to the Iranians is a really bad place to put the Gulf states and eventually and to put the global economy.
- [46:38]
Scott Galloway
So is it take Kharg and trade it for opening the or securing safe passage through Hormuz? What do you think?
- [46:46]
Ian Bremmer
It looks if you do that right. All I'm saying is you take Karg and the Iranian. The likelihood that the Iranians respond in really damaging ways is high. So maybe in part, part the, the decision on taking car comes to how much they think they've really degraded Iran. So even if they want to, they can't do that much damage in return by the time they get there. Again, this is. It is really hard to make a call on this, but we're talking about really big stakes.
- [47:09]
Dan Senor
Dan, I think this war will probably go approximately, approximately 60 days from when it started, which means we still have a few more weeks. I, I agree with Ian. I don't think. Well, first of all, I don't think the negotiations are going to go anywhere. A and B, I think Trump still thinks he has some tools in his toolkit that he can use militarily before he wants to wind things down. And I will say that I just want to come back to something Ian said. He talked about Russia and Ukraine, and I agree with him. There are four major threats to the United States today. China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. Three of those four have a capability that makes it a nuclear capability that makes it very hard for the United States to ultimately confront them. Iran doesn't have one yet and it wants one. And I think they are going to wind up coming out of this much farther from that, reaching that goal than they were three weeks ago scarily enough,
- [48:07]
Jessica Tarlev
I believe we are early days. And so, Ian and Dan, thank you so much for your time. I hope you'll come back and we can do this again. It was, I loved it. And to have you back there was super valuable.
- [48:19]
Dan Senor
It helps that Ian and I are friends.
- [48:21]
Scott Galloway
Dan, Senor Ian Brenner, thanks very much. Jess, thoughts?
- [48:28]
Jessica Tarlev
I love civil disagreement. I do it for a living, though sometimes it's way less civil than what we just saw. I thought they brought really important points to it, and I'm better prepared for the Five today than I was when we started. So thankful for that conversation. What about you?
- [48:43]
Scott Galloway
Yeah, I think we as a society are desperate for a thoughtful, civil conversation that softens the beach where you're willing to listen because you're not focused on them basically calling each other idiots.
- [48:56]
Dan Senor
So.
- [48:56]
Scott Galloway
And also, I just have a lot of affection for both of them. I think they're good men and smart and I learned from both of them and I disagree with both of them on a lot, but I just always come away smarter. Anyways, good luck on the Five.
- [49:08]
Jessica Tarlev
I'm going to use that mowing the lawn thing with the Israelis. That's important that they have signed up to continue to do these kinds of things. And the question is whether we are going to sign up to continue to do these things to keep the region safe.
- [49:21]
Scott Galloway
Have a good show.
- [49:22]
Jessica Tarlev
Thank you.
- [49:42]
Dan Senor
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- [49:58]
Ian Bremmer
Call it compliance or call it compliance. Get it.
- [50:03]
Dan Senor
Join the 15,000 companies using Vanta to prove trust. Go to vanta. Com. Calm.