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The Realignment
596 | Saagar Enjeti: What the Iran War Means for MAGA, the New Right, and the America First Movement
01:04:48
Saagar Enjeti, Co-Host of Breaking Points, returns to The Realignment. Marshall and Saagar discuss what the escalating conflict between the U.S., Israel, and Iran means for an "America First" movement and MAGA Republican Party that campaigned on promises to end the past two decades of American intervention in the Middle East.
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, Sagar, welcome back to the realignment.
- [00:04]
B
Thanks, Marshall. Thanks for having me.
- [00:06]
A
So let's just get into it. My first question for you is the conflict in Iran a betrayal of America First? Because you could actually argue it in different directions. And that's why this is an interesting one.
- [00:19]
B
Great question. It really depends on the, I mean, I hate, you know, to dodge the very first question, but it kind of depends on your definition, on who and what you think America first was as an idea. So we could go with Donald Trump's idea. America first is about Donald Trump and I think he does firmly believe that and I think politically he's not wrong. America first, though, you know, the idea which he claims that he invented is firmly not invented by Donald Trump. In fact, it's a long history in the United states of nearly 100 years. So if you were to say, is it a betrayal of that idea? I would say yes. But I think there's a difficulty in describing this because I don't want to emphasize to anybody falsely that this will lead to a drop in his approval ratings with Republicans literally whatsoever. Even if you were to pull so called America First Republicans, many of them would say, as long as Donald Trump is the person who's behind this war, I will support it. Now, that doesn't mean that that is technically correct. And I've done and been in this business for long enough to see deep contradictions inside of people's own personal political philosophies. But, you know, from a spiritual level, yes, I would say yes. And actually think there's a nicer and more interesting question, which is, is the war with Iran a betrayal of the America first movement? And the America first movement is an elite political project that existed here in Washington, D.C. which was a few think tanks, various numbers of staffers, and includes the current vice president, I would say, of the United States, which worked behind the scenes for the last several years to advance a more restraint minded foreign policy. And in particular, the way that this war with Iran has now proceeded, the declaration of regime change, the partnering with Israel, the full blown regional conflict which has erupted, that is absolutely a betrayal of the America first project, the movement, I guess, if you will, which again is probably less than 500 people who are working in Washington, D.C. but who are almost all, especially at the high levels, at very high positions of power inside of the current Trump administration. And, you know, we could talk all day long about hypocrisy. I actually did a segment on my own show about that and ironically, I put Trump last because I said Trump is everything to all people. But Tulsi Gabbard, the Vice President, Stephen Miller, a few of the other other people, they were unequivocally, I would say, part of the America first movement. And for them it's much more of a betrayal than anything else.
- [02:53]
A
A really great episode I recommend for folks who want to go deeper into this is Ross Douthit's interview with Kurt Mills that out Thursday of this week. So folks check that out. And during that episode I'm just going to pick up what you said about the America first movement being an elite focused one. Something Ross was really pushing Kurt on is the idea of is America First a broad popular thing that actual people care about? Because you referenced how America first is this hundred year old plus idea. We're talking about America post World War I. Real regret in American society over our decision to intervene. You have belief that we only entered the war because of the military industrial complex at the time, because of foreign interests, England, France, et cetera, pushing us in. So that led to, during the 1930s, you got the Great Depression. There was a mass popular movement of people. They were filming stadiums to hear Charles Lindbergh speak about these ideas. World War II intervention was incredibly unpopular until Pearl harbor. And part of what made FDR so effective as a wartime leader was he was able to navigate that unpopularity to the point where it actually would be a popular buy in thing once the war actually started. But I'm not sure there's actually a popular America first dynamic right now. What do you think about all this?
- [04:12]
B
Well, I mean I would challenge that a little bit. So just because people were not filling. First of all, I long for the days of when people would fill stadiums to hear political ideas of any kind. I don't think that really exists anymore, period.
- [04:25]
A
Oligarchy tour. I'll push you on that oligarchy that's
- [04:28]
B
about Bernie Sanders and Zoran Mamdani and aoc. I don't think that it's really like a. I. Look if you were to show me a non politician like Lindbergh or somebody else who's able to fill stadiums of ideas, it'd be a little bit different. But. And yeah, I mean that's a fair enough point. But I really what I would point to with the idea of mass popularization is I think that the idea and the vibe, if you will, which you've talked a lot about over the last several years, was definitely one of the we feel like we're doing too much abroad. We definitely don't like the ideas of chaos and a prioritization of foreign countries interests over our own. And we definitely feel as if the United States is falling apart or if things are and or not at control at home. That's actually very bipartisan idea. And so, you know, this idea that it's not mass popular movement is technically correct in the sense that people didn't explicitly, you know, go and fill stadiums based on this idea. But there are reams of evidence to show that Donald Trump's position specifically back in 2016 and in 2024 against the idea of so called endless wars being branded as the pro peace ticket was massively influential to his election. So I would point to the state of Michigan, which he won, remember in 2024 and the Israel Gaza conflict was a major factor in Michigan. I would also point to a lot of evidence actually in the Bronx and in a few other places where Donald Trump overran Kamala Harri compared to local progressive Democratic candidates, where he was able to actually win significant numbers of voters who were cross party voters, as in, you know, the famous Donald Trump AOC voter. We interviewed many of them on our show and foreign policy was a major deciding factor. I also think there's a spiritual level to this where the idea of prioritization of the nation above foreign entanglements itself is an enormously popular idea. And obviously it all, you know, falls apart really idea the execution. So it is a bit different. We don't have a looming war in Europe that was there. I will say, considering how often the politicians at the time in 2024 the winning ticket emphasized how they were not going to go to war with Iran, I think it would be kind of dishonest to say that it was not, at least in some part, a major part of their campaign. I've pulled, I've pulled clips of the Vice President some four days before the election, specifically talking about war with Iran. I have pulled and seen clips and tweets from Stephen Miller and speeches even of Donald Trump talking about war with Iran from weeks, if not a month before the election. As you know, every moment in those elections is highly prioritized and they spent a lot of time on it. So I think that's evidence to be
- [07:15]
A
really clear that's the right pushback. My claim is not that if you sort of magically got all of the American people and were able to say, raise your hand if the idea that America is going to be less involved in the world, if that were up for grabs, would you be in favor of that? I would say the Majority of the American people are in favor of that for sure. What I was getting at and why I brought up the oligarchy tour. And this actually explains why the elite project of anti interventionism is in a tough spot right now. There's a difference between an AOC Trump voter when they're putting, you know, in for their vote during the election, believing that, and then voting based on that, or versus not only voting, but actually putting pressure on. Because think about Michigan, right? So if Michigan, it's not just. You had people, especially in the Muslim American community, who were incredibly angry at the Democratic Party over Biden's policy towards Gaza. They also would protest, they would also vocalize. You just do not have a body of Republicans or MAGA people who are going to say this is a betrayal, this is aggressive, this is the whole problem. So I guess the question for you then is, is the central issue that at the end of the day Trump is just a cult and what basically go wrong with it?
- [08:25]
B
Well, yes and no. So it's really difficult. So in the immediate term, yes. And I would also say things, it's only been a couple of days. And that's part of why we can see a lot of difficulty on the horizon. So for examp example, where do you think the first right wing pushback against Bush began? It really was the Ron Paul campaign in 2008. That was what, five years after the invasion of Iraq there. It took a long time for it to manifest at a political level. Now, personally, I think this drags on. You might actually begin to see some of this. I also think that the permission structure is very different in our media today. And so I've seen a lot of pro war MAGA influencers being like, Republicans massively support this war. But actually, Scott over at the American Conservative made a good point to me. He goes, you know, Bush had 93% whenever he went into Iraq. For Republicans, Trump's got only 72%. So you actually have a third already initially who are saying that they're either undecided or negative on the campaign. So that's number one. And we're only not even one week into the conflict if we're at week number eight or if as of today, the Pentagon is currently expecting to have to surge personnel to CENTCOM in Tampa, Florida until September. I actually do think it's another story, and especially post midterms, that's another thing, is that a lot of Republicans are really sitting on the sidelines because we're going into the midterm elections now. I think those midterm elections are going to be very beneficial to the Democrats, just based on historical trends alone, not to mention some of the immediate stuff that's happening in the country. But a permission structure of a lame duck president going into a Republican presidential primary campaign, going into the idea of almost a 2006 style moment for the Democratic Party actually does change things. And Marshall, you probably know and have remembered for many of our audience is probably too young to actually have experienced much of this, but the permission structure to explicitly be against President Bush as a Republican exploded after Nancy Pelosi became the speaker of the House. And that's exactly when the Republican Party, the primary, the Ron Paul campaign, and much more began to coalesce. And all of those Fishers worked out. Obviously, John McCain did end up becoming the nominee, but as you and I know, he was no fan of George W. Bush and I often would criticize him. And in fact, Bush would even say, hey man, you can hit me on the trail if you need to. You know, I don't really care. So that's just an example of where the dynamics are all shaking out. I actually do think that the 2004-2008 period is extremely instructive for where we are right now.
- [11:02]
A
Yeah, I want to dive deeper into that because two things came to mind when you were comparing the Bush era to today. So one is that Bush actually sold the war.
- [11:12]
B
Yeah, huge difference.
- [11:14]
A
The war was a terrible and false response to 9, 11. But if you were an American, and It's the year 2003, the case was made and to the point where the majority of Democrats in the Senate voted to authorize force. Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Edwards, et cetera.
- [11:31]
B
Right.
- [11:31]
A
All of the big A list Democrats in the 2000s. The case was sold so effectively that Democrats voted to go into Iraq. So that meant that the delay of 2008, 2009 that you're referring to was going to take five years because there was a total, total way past majority consensus in favor of it. This war, this conflict. Curious when a war becomes a conflict or a conflict becomes a war. Separate topic, but there was never any selling here. I think for a lot of people. I'm sure you got these texts. So many of my friends were just like, hey, what the F. Yeah, where did this come from?
- [12:08]
B
In the lead up to the war, I would say every day, guys, if you're watching my show, you're in the top 5% of news consumers. 95% of people have no idea this is going on. And I Even said, I said one day they are going to wake up and find out that bombs are raining on Tehran and they're going to look to you and they're going to say what the hell is going on? That is not the same as Iraq. Every American, okay, not every, but the vast majority had an, we had eight months of the case, Fox News, the war was sold to Congress, we had the UN Security Council, we had a wall to wall coverage on the mainstream media. I mean, try to think back guys, what was the major story? What even last week it was not Iran. Only if you were really paying attention to the various diplomatic negotiations, to carrier strike group movements, to oil, you know, fuel and that stuff. You know, again, people who are literal news junkies, you probably had no idea that any of this was happening. And I think that is shocking to a large part of the American people. And let's not forget the context of where we're in right now is considering almost like the dopamine cortisol levels of the average American public when it comes to news. It takes a lot to actually shock people. And that's something this is going to be on par with. I don't know, the ICE shootings, something like that, things that really penetrate, which are, is very difficult today. I mean, if you were to ask me like the three things that most Americans at this point would be able to name, I would say ICE is probably like, you know, up there. Iran is probably number one. Just because of recency, I'd have to think actually hard about what number three probably is.
- [13:45]
A
Number three, it's definitely not this. But I think you and I and everyone who we know in D.C. got this one wrong. Everyone cared about the East Wing demolishing.
- [13:54]
B
I didn't get that wrong. I actually didn't get that.
- [13:56]
A
You got that. You got that right.
- [13:57]
B
I got that one right. Yeah. I, I, I, I predicted that it would be a big deal and then people care more than they were letting on. I, I, but to be fair, I have the benefit of my YouTube analytics and I could see that my initial segments, I was like, man, these are going really wrong every time that I go off on that. So anyway, I have no idea what number three is, but if you put all those together, it's like an attack on norms, an attack on, you know, it's a belief in chaos and war is the ultimate type of chaos. And I mean the economy kind of underlies all of this. Gas prices are already going up and diesel, etc. The President literally says things he said today he's like, yeah, it might go up a little bit, but if it does, it's worth it and it'll go, it'll come down eventually. I was like, yeah, good luck with that. I mean, this is Joe Biden level stuff. Biden nomics.
- [14:43]
A
Yeah. And I think the other difference too, between the 2004 to backlash in 09 dynamic that's going to be different this time is Bush was reelected in 2004. So if Bush had and Bush won reelection and did a really basically in two months, again where you and I are old enough in our mid-30s that like we, to your point, have the audience who wasn't aware of this, but 2002 Republicans won the midterms. They picked up seats. That never happens usually when you win the presidency two years later, your party either disastrously, if it's 2010, if you're Obama or just generically like Ronald Reagan, did poorly during the midterms despite winning really strongly in 1980. The 911 response in that moment was so strong for Bush over national security. They're eliminating Southern Democrats like Max Cleland. They literally picked up seats and then he wins in 2004. If Bush had lost in 2004, it a hundred percent would have been attributable to Iraq. And I think by 2005 you would have seen instant backlash. The backlash you're talking about would have happened three years earlier. So the fact that Trump is already sub 40% approval and the fact that he's a lame duck already is also going to speed that up. The other thing I'm curious about though, and this is why I brought up the oligarchy tour as like an interesting example here. So you listed aoc, Zoran, Bernie. And the way that I would think about this is if an issue is potent and an issue is real, it attracts talent to it. So you're correct that the Oligarchy tour has the advantage of having these a list like tier one politicians who are into it. But Ross was talking about this with Kurt Mills on the podcast America first in a ideological sense, in the way that you're talking about it just doesn't have the same attractive, charismatic, popular sort of following. What do you think would have to happen here? I think would attract those people.
- [16:36]
B
It's already going to happen. It's already happening with the Democrats on the right. Oh, on the right. It's not going to happen because they'll just face too much trouble from Donald Trump. It's. It's basically impossible at a structural political level. Somebody would have to take the bet of a lifetime. And it almost certainly still wouldn't work in the immediate term just because of Donald Trump's popularity. But I'm going to put a marker down. It will come sometime around 2000 and 2027, mid 2027. That's when the bets start to get made right around 18 months before. And some senator somewhere is going to start sounding real interesting. You know, I would predict right here, I think Thomas Massie, if he wanted to, could be the ron Paul of 2027. So it would make sense almost 27 or 20 years later, basically on the same types of issues. He's got a ton of credibility and I don't think he would mind at all go, you know, basically trying to split votes or screw over the Republican Party, which is doing its best to defeat him right now. And he's by the way, more popular than ever. And likely, I think to win his primary right now again, could be wrong. Definitely could be wrong.
- [17:38]
A
And here's the thing too, unlike Ron Paul, he's got Epstein. So Ron Paul had ending the Fed, which among a niche crew of libertarians is like the popular sexy issue. But Epstein plus backlash against Iran, conflict, war, that's a really potent, really make a huge difference in a primary style stuff.
- [17:58]
B
Exactly. I mean, you just have look, and there's going to be Trump is probably going to rig the Republican primary. He's probably going to preemptively endorse either Marco Rubio, JD Vance or maybe his son. There's not going to be a major primary as it, as we might have seen even in 2024, whenever, you know, at least a couple of people ran against him. So, so we're not likely to see that. That's really bad, by the way, for the Republican Party because it means that the outlet for all of the rage or ideas, anything interesting is going to happen on the Democratic side. And I think that that is going to be a very, very healthy process because they'll be able to subsume battle test, field test, a lot of their ideas calibrate. And then whenever that person gets to the nominee stage, not only are they going to be a, well, battle hardened politician, but they're going to be somebody who has been in the trenches in various different primaries and caucuses for 18 months compared to whoever the anointed Republican is who is basically just going to get thrust sometime in September onto a debate stage. And I don't think they're going to have any idea what hit them.
- [19:03]
A
What I'll say too, what makes The Republican side. Even less interesting is that the crew of people who are keeping their heads down right now for obvious reasons. I get it. The Nikki Haley wing, which does not like Trump, would be opposed to Trump. They are to Trump's right on intervention. So like the obvious opposition from getting lots of donors, having a clear base of the party, being able to sort of make the case that this person's ready to be president. They are. Nikki Haley is not going to run an anti Iran intervention campaign. Though I would be fascinated if they did the ultimate sista Soja pivot on that one.
- [19:37]
B
It could might do it. Yeah. I mean, I'm not really sure where that one is going to go. Look, in a funny way, Donald Trump has set the Republican Party up for the Trump for a Trump 2.0. I don't even know who that person could be, but the opportunity would exist for somebody who's willing to come in and be like, actually this was all a disaster, but not in a more of an establishment Terry and type way. I'm still a bit skeptical. Look, I mean, the cult of Trump is going to last until the day he dies, like way before, way after he's president. Here's a free Democratic talking point for any presidential campaign, which is just because Donald Trump will leave the White House doesn't mean he'll stop being president. Because the president who he nominates will always be the person in power or, sorry, won't always be the person in power. Because Donald Trump will be living in Mar a Lago demanding that the current president or any Republican politician come. He's going to be the kingmaker till the day he dies. In terms of, I mean, genuinely, I've always said this. Imagine if Ronald Reagan didn't have honor and, and, or wasn't like failing in health and just didn't decide to retire from politics. He could have ruled the GOP until the day of his death easily. He could have just sat in California and put out statements about who he was going to endorse or not. He did the right thing, ultimately handed reigns over to Bush and kind of just went away. But he didn't have to do that. And yeah, I think, I don't think Donald Trump's going to do that anytime soon, for sure.
- [21:02]
A
Something I'm curious about, and this is where this gets difficult. And this is why I opened the question of is Iran a betrayal of America first? So the problem with Iran, specifically Iran, there's a good article about this, either in the Times or the Atlantic. Trump has been pretty clear about how he sees Iran as a fundamental enemy of the United States. There was this good take on Twitter about how if a certain, like, baby boomer type who was politically engaged during the Iranian hostage crisis, like that is just like a frozen dynamic. And I think what's unique about the way that Trump could just actually argue this isn't a betrayer at all. It's like, look, the Iranians killed hundreds of Americans and maimed thousands more during the Iraq war. They fund terror groups in the Middle East. You could just make an entire like, no, no, we're America first. And unlike Obama, we're not going to do these fake bad deals. Unlike Biden, we're not going to just sort of hold back and let them do whatever they want. We are just going to settle and handle it. And then secondly, because there's a question about how this is and is different. This is and isn't different from the Iraq war. The other thing, and this is where Secretary Hegseth becomes a thing, is and you've really noticed this with, remember during the Iraq war, this was such like a tiny, like, undercurrent. But and you actually saw this during the Afghan surge, aggressive right wing pushback to the idea that we have serious rules of engagement when it comes to military conflicts. It's sort of related to sort of how a lot of people on the right thought we lost Vietnam because we just didn't take the gloves off and just go all in. Pete Hexaf is one of these people who was writing these books in the 2010s saying, you know, the reason why Iraq was a disaster was because we just didn't let us go go in and end the war and finish it up. And the other thing too, that makes this also different from that period is the Powell Doctrine. And for people who don't know, this was Colin Powell's sort of idea of like, you break it, you buy it. If you invade a country, you have a responsibility to it. I still appreciate the Powell Doctrine. I was in that weird space where I opposed the invasion of Iraq. I think that was a terrible idea. But I also supported the surge and still do support the surge because after we destroyed this country, I'm just not morally comfortable with the idea of like, whoopsie daisies. And we're just going to piece back. There is no you break it, you buy it during this administration, which is also very much like America first ideology in that sense.
- [23:27]
B
It's a little different though, Marshall, because there is actually in certain sense. So for example, we may not care about the Iranian people. I'm speaking from the Trump administration, but we have to care about the Gulf and we have to care about the price of oil. So, for example, Donald Trump, as now, currently, since the first time since World War II, is now providing insurance via the United States Development Corporation and for any of the tankers who got their insurance policies canceled in the Straits of Hormuz. And he said that the Navy will be escorting ships through the Straits of Hormuz. Now you and I both know 90% of the oil that moves to the Straits of Hormuz is headed for Asia. So actually when you break it, you do kind of buy it in terms of a permanent mission of having to secure the Straits of Hormuz from Iran. It's actually a massive overextension of some of, you know, traditional roles of the U.S. empire. I would also say while it's going to look different, it's going to look, look, it's going to be break it, you buy it with Trumpian characteristics. So, for example, the President said today I will have to choose the next Ayatollah, like whoever the next Supreme Leader is. And the assumption of course behind that is not only just regime change, but, well, what happens if the don't, if they don't choose the Ayatollah that you want them to? Well, you're going to have to enforce that. In some ways there is a never ending magnet actually in terms of foreign entanglement. And I think it's going to look a lot more like Libya or Syria. And that's where, look, opponents like me. I've been very calibrated actually when I've been warning of the disaster is I say this is going to look like Syria and, or Libya. And all of that is currently exactly what's happening. This armed Kurdish fantasy of a civil war to collapse the country, which will draw in Turkey, Iraq, many of the other GCC powers who have their own notional interests of who should be in power in Iran, in addition to air cover from the United States. This will collapse it. And in a sense, you know, you do still buy it no matter what, whether you're rebuilding the country or nation building or, or dealing with the fallout of the consequences of your actions. And I think that's why this is such a reckless and disastrous decision because we're now in a situation where that is going to happen. Like no matter what, he could, he could pull out today, declare victory, which by the way, I would still say is the best possible outcome, but he could do that today and we would still be dealing with the chaos that he has unleashed, not only in Iran, but with the Straits of Hormuz, with all of these other countries. I mean, the entire Gulf is re questioning its entire security doctrine with the presence of these US Bases and questioning whether the United States even has a real commitment to them. As you know, Korea is really freaking out about the potential of redeployment of some of their thaad or Patriot missile batteries. Japan, 90% of their oil is reading this morning comes from the Middle East. They are already having to tap their strategic reserve. The Nikkei Index is being pummeled. Not that anybody actually pays attention, you know, to some of these Asian markets, which they should, but, you know, go and read the book. So this is already like a global conflict with huge amounts of chaos that's been unleashed. And I think it's going to be rarely detrimental to our actual security interests.
- [26:34]
A
To be clear, my sort of use of break it you buy it was really in the nation building sense. And this is where I think there's an incentive not to do nation building, because the example you picked is actually a perfect one. So the insurance, using US Naval assets to secure the Straits of Hormuz, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Not even 5% of the new consumers are looking at those things.
- [26:59]
B
Right.
- [27:00]
A
So, like, it's going to affect naval readiness and it's going to cost all this money, but no one really cares about that. The thing that people would care about is X number of American troops are on the ground engaged in something. So that's sort of the delineation I'd make. And this is also the less. And this is actually why Venezuela was a disaster, because it encouraged the idea.
- [27:21]
B
Yep.
- [27:22]
A
And this is also the way they argue. They are America first. They're like, look, we're different than Bush. One of the questions that Ross was asking Kurt was, is this still the George W. Bush Republican Party in a way that it really just is not. And why intervention needs to be sort of niched down as a framework is they're like, we're not occupying the country, we're not sending in. So what Venezuela provided as a model for we can use the thing that we are absolutely best at, our special Forces and our air superiority, and we're not gonna put boots on the ground. So that's how we're not Bush. So the question for you would then be, you're bringing up Libya, you're bringing up Syria. Once you create these chaotic situations with both the Libyan and the Syrian Example, whether or not you supported intervening against Gaddafi, whether or not you wanted us to arm the rebels in Syria, those sort of zones of chaos, they produced the refugee crisis in both, in both countries that destabilized Western politics. And we're still dealing with the aftermath there. It fueled terrorism, led to the rise of isis, which then forced us to reinterve in Iraq after Obama left in 2011. What do you think Trump would do if this turns into Libya? Because you predicted this could be like a reality last year after the bombings.
- [28:37]
B
Double down. They'll always double down.
- [28:39]
A
What does double down mean in this case?
- [28:41]
B
I think Trump is, you know, Saurabh Amari had a good take where he's like, you know, you guys are all talking about Iraq. This is a lot more like Vietnam. And I mean, that sounds really catastrophic, but you have to understand the strategic logic and actually the personality of both Donald Trump and of lbj. Fundamentally, neither were actually really foreign policy people. They were domestic policy people. Famously, LBJ would be like, I wish I could just call the son of a. And negotiate with him on the phone. And he just never understood. They're like, dude, they're not negotiating with you. They literally will just die. They don't care. They will literally die. Over a million and a half, what, 2 million Vietnamese, North Vietnamese were killed in the war. They still think it's like the greatest victory. They, they viewed it as a heroic sacrifice in an ideological struggle against the titanic west in a victory for communism. That's kind of. I mean, listen to their rhetoric. They're fanatics. They're crazy. I mean, yeah, in a certain sense they are. This is genuinely existential. We've created the situation for the Iranian regiment where at the beginning, I think that they understood they were going to take 90 casualties at the top for command and control. They planned it for that. That's why they decentralized their entire command with the IRGC and said, look, if the Ayatollah gets killed, go do whatever you have to do. Pierce. Pre prepared strike packages, and we're not negotiating till the very end. We will establish genuine, credible deterrence. Their capacity for suffering is 10 times, no, not even 10, 100, 1,000 times higher than the United States and even the Gulf countries in terms of the people killed, their population, their, you know, actual security forces that are there on the ground. They will fight to the death. They will. And there are hundreds of thousands of them inside of Iran. 92 million people, remember who live there. So just consider what security force that's necessary to Maintain order across that entire population.
- [30:22]
A
That's much bigger than Iraq's population. Just like so much bigger.
- [30:28]
B
On the day we invaded Libya was what, 11 million? I want to say on the day of the intervention. I forget what Syria is, but yeah, this is orders of magnitude bigger. So we have potentials for refugee crisis, for chaos, for, for collapse. But the reason why I think Vietnam is a real, you know, let's pick up books, let's encourage everybody. Pick up a book. How did Vietnam start? It's like, well, it's like, well, we got to keep the South Vietnam, so we just got to send a few military advisors. I mean the very first advisor that went over to Vietnam, it was like four or five hundred people. And then slowly it starts to ratchet up. Every single time that we have an off ramp, we're like, no, we're going to double down because of the prestige of the United States. The foreign minister is on television today, today saying we are ready for a ground invasion of Iran. They want us to invade this. This would be the best thing that could ever happen to them, both from their population standpoint and for like in terms of drawing them all together. And also they want to turn this into a quagmire for the United States and to draw as to a long and a drawn out conflict. And I believe that that's why they are already upping the ante, because the Iranians believe they have to inflict a maximum amount of pain, maximum amount of pain for the United States, for Donald Trump, electorally, for all US Allies in the region, so that everyone will coalesce and will say, okay, enough high risk strategy. But for them it's existential, right? So they don't care. The alternative of that is going to be the escalation where we're like, oh my God, they won't give in, so we have to pound them even more. We're already running low on our interceptor stocks. That is really bad for the people of Iran and also for the ideas of escalation because it means what we're going to have to use these gravity bombs, some of these dumber munitions, things that are either going to put American pilots more at risk and more importantly going to cause a ton more civilian casualties inside of the country. This is exactly what happened with Vietnam in terms of the strategic logic. And I think that Trump is going to be extremely susceptible to the same political trap that Johnson fell into, which is you have to double down at every turn because what did he say? I can't be the first American President to lose a war. And people would tell him, sir, you're not going to lose. Like you're the one who is losing right now. But he would always fall prey, you know, to this idea around prestige, especially with the people who are around him. He's a lame duck president. You know, even LBJ had political consideration. Trump has none. So all of the ingredients for a years long problem are already laid. And I mean, look, I'd be happy to be wrong. I'd be happy if Trump just picked up the phone tomorrow on True Social and was like, we're withdrawing and, and it's over. But that's the problem is that even
- [32:59]
A
then he'd say, we won.
- [33:00]
B
No, but that's, I would listen. No one would be happier than me if he was like, we have achieved a massive victory in Iran and hostilities are over. But that also belies the Israel question. You know, the entire time that this is going on, the Israelis, they're not confused. They're not having debates about war. And this is special combat opera. No, they don't care. They are blowing the shit out of that country. They are attacking the border, the border guards, the people who are right there on the Iraqi border. The Mossad and the CIA have funneled millions of dollars worth of weapons into these Kurdish militias. They're bombing as many people in civil society as they possibly can. It's all documented. You can go and look it up for yourself. There's a quote in the Financial Times floating around, if we get a new regime, great. If we have protests, great. If we have a civil war, great. This is from an Israeli security official. It all works out to their benefit. And so that's another part of the issue here. You know, the presumption that the United States is fully in control. Israel is going to do what Israel is going to do every single day that this war continues. They're going straight to their aim. They want to collapse the regime. They want it to. They want a civil war. They want to turn it into a rump state and which is incapable of yielding any power whatsoever in the entire region. And that's like another X factor on top of this, which actually I would argue makes it 10 times more difficult to extricate yourself because you've unleashed this hell. And part of it is that you don't even know what you've unleashed into the world.
- [34:26]
A
Something I'm curious about. So the Trump administration was very clear that one of the reasons why we went when we did is because the Israelis were going to go. So we're backing up. It's a whole thing here. But as you know, with the history here, ever since basically post 9 11, every single administration has received significant pressure from Israel to jump in and go. So Bush pressure to go, Obama, Biden, this is part of the story. Yet it just hasn't worked. And this is why the central just problem for all of us, I think you and I could fall in this trap of like creating, not even creating because, like, there's enough sort of breadcrumbs there of like thinking about these debates and moments in terms of ideology, it feels unsexy. But sometimes it is just the person like Donald Trump is obviously the key factor here. So to what degree do you think makes Trump unique in terms of 21st century American presidents of all this?
- [35:21]
B
Oh, with Israel. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, there's a, there's a lot of theories that are out there about their own personal, you know, his relationship with Israel. Leave it at that in terms of how they've, you know, interacted and, or put pressure on him. And, and while, by the way, I do. Look, let me put it to you this way. Marshall, who launches a war of choice nine months before the midterm elections, which he didn't sell to the American, does that sound like normal politician behavior?
- [35:48]
A
Nine months before that, you said you ended their nuclear program, right? So, like, you declare victory and then nine months later you do something even bigger.
- [35:57]
B
Let me just say, like pure politics. Can we agree? Donald Trump is a good politician. If I asked him that question, what do you think he would say? We know what they would say. We also know what the vice president would say. We know what all of his advisors would say. So that's pretty weird, right? There's no like, exigent circumstance which actually required any of this to happen. Right now, outside of Bibi's own personal mission in life, which was to bomb and destroy the Iranian regime and not to mention his own political fortunes in the country. Not sure if you saw this. Trump demanded that the Israeli president pardon Prime Minister Netanyahu immediately so he can just focus on the war. Sure. He just did that of his own accord. So I'll put that, you know, his own, like, personal stuff aside. I think he also, look, this is the sugar high of Venezuela and this is where the Israelis got to, got so lucky is that Venezuela and Midnight Hammer went so well. Trump was like, you know, the meme online. You can just do things. He took that literally, but he took that well past his logical conclusion. Also, let's Give it to Trump. Ok, Trump is on the craps table and on the role of his life. He almost got shot and killed. He survived all of these indictments. What is like 93 charges and 11 different play. He won the popular vote. He got every person who he wanted in his cabinet. They told him if he bombed Iran, it would start a war.
- [37:14]
A
No, that's Matt Gaetz erasure.
- [37:15]
B
Okay, all right. Almost every 99%. All right, that's pretty good. It's a good record. He got the vast majority of the people who wanted in his cabinet. He bombed Iran. Nothing happened. He took out Venezuela, nothing happened. And then the third time, so imagine the conventional wisdom every single time is like, you can't do this, you can't do this, can't do this. Right? And the same generals who have cautioned you before, advisors, others are like, hey, sir, this one is really different. Well, his recency bias is such, especially with Venezuela, that. And he keep, by the way, I'm not the one bringing up Venezuela all the time. He's the one who keeps bringing it up all the time. He did an interview today, in that same interview where I talked about how he wants to select the new Ayatollah, he goes, we need to find our own Delsey. We need to find Delsey Rodriguez. So, like, this is his modal reference preference for all regime change going forward, which is really instructive. And so when the Israelis are like, listen, we're going to kill them, we're going to strike them no matter what, you can do it or you can deal with some of the consequences, which again, I mean, there is a third option. Tell them not to. Which many other presidents did and successfully and exerted enough pressure on them to do so. So regardless of whatever personality thing was involved in that decision, he also thought, yeah, I can just do this one. I can just deal with it. We'll kill the. They really believed they could kill the Ayatollah and they would come crawling back and they would make some deal with some guy in the irgc, even though everyone told them that wasn't going to happen. Also, don't listen to me, Donald Trump. We were surprised that they went after the Gulf country. They actually didn't believe they were going to do it, even though the military, the CIA, open source analysts, anybody who was in touch with people in Iran, my own sources, they all told me it's the opposite. They're like, no, this will be the big one. They're going all out, all in. They have to. They really believe they're like, look, we'll solve our relationship with Saudi Arabia tomorrow. Today we fight for survival. And I mean, doesn't take a genius. We've seen this how many times throughout history. Gamblers, they'll come up on the right side over and over and over again. And then finally they do one last roll. That's what somebody says, hey, just pick your money up and leave. And they're like, no, just one more. And that's the one that breaks your entire bankroll. That's what's. Look, it could be, I, I could be wrong too. He could still be somebody. Let's say he just loses half of his money in this, which he could, you know, fine, that'd be still a victory compared to the opposite. But structurally, I don't see it happening. Everything that he does is about doubling down, not giving in to pressure, not admitting that you're wrong. And also, as I said with the Israeli layer on top of all of this, he cannot pull out the way he normally does. Let's say with tariffs. He can't just say, I'm done. He can't just say, actually the tariffs are over because he has to contend with what's happening with Israel and if he can't exert influence on them once, how's he going to do it again or a second time? And he also has the problem of the Iranians who are like, we're not talking to you, dude, we're going all out. Like, no matter what, we are going to keep this going to punish you as much as we possibly can. So structurally, in a variety of levels, he has a lot of problems in his option matrix. And history tells us that we always escalate, almost always. Before you really give in or experience a lot of pain. It's just too painful for a lot of these politicians early on, especially this early on, to say, nope, no, actually it was all a disaster. And any road for that type of thing, for any victory for him would require capitulation from the Iranians. It's just not, it's not happening yet.
- [40:42]
A
This is the problem with everything. Foreign policy, national defense. Defense, national security. Once you open up Pandora's box, it's actually harder, especially in these 21st century conflicts.
- [40:56]
B
Right.
- [40:56]
A
So like Vietnam is such a tragedy because to your point about how they misread the Iranians you referenced, like Vietnam is this like ideological struggle. Like I actually disagree with that. And that actually was, I think, what led to the disaster on the US side because it was an anti colonial struggle that was not about the debate between capitalism and Western democracy, like reading it as this like domino theory thing that was ideological was the central misread. Instead if you just said to yourself, oh wait, this is an anti colonial struggle and literally all of the, or almost all of the post World War II anti colonial struggles have ended up winning. If you frame Vietnam in those terms, you're like, you know what, this is a French problem. We're not here to defend the remnants of the French empire. We're going to stay out because this is not going to lead to all of Asia becoming communist. Right. That was the correct assessment and they didn't make that assessment. So in this case just, it's so helpful to hear from you just like the articulation of misread of the Iranians. But one thing I want to add too to the sort of like, why are things different with, with Israel and the United States and Iran this time? This is also where you don't have to get into sort of like theories. Let's say there's a spectrum of like logical theories all over the conspiracies. But the actual straightforward thing is this is where we're suffering from like Trump's hatred of Obama. Because think about the Iran deal, right? The Iran deal was the response because I think something that people do too often on the anti war side is they don't accurately assess what the deal is. Iran having a nuclear weapon would not be good for the Middle East. It would lead to nuclear proliferation. Iran definitely is, I think, an enemy opponent of the United States. Now you do not have to invade every single enemy you have. So that's not me endorsing what we're doing now. But the Iran deal was the basic response of like, look, we agree this wouldn't be good, so let's do this deal to make this really be dealt with. Trump, you saw this during term one went after every single thing that was. Obama coded it so he just wanted to get rid of it because it was just Obama's Iran deal. Whoever is sort of like in the anti Iran deal thing, you and I both know there is definitely just a straightforward meeting where they're like, Obama's terrible, you're great. You never would have negotiated this terrible deal. So that's like the other thing. On top of it, it basically got rid of the clear alternative to this situation.
- [43:13]
B
Yeah, I totally agree with that. In terms of the Obama esque stuff, especially about red lines, I was told directly that when Trump talked himself into some of these, Iran can never have ballistic when he started adopting Israeli security interests as his own. Like ballistic missiles specifically. He, he screwed himself. And also because he gave the greatest rhetorical gift possible to the people who wanted war with Iran. They're like, sir, you can't be like Obama, you have to enforce your red line. And he was like, oh, you're right, I do have to enforce my red line. Even though literally nobody would say that. Like, nobody. And it's funny, considering his cult of personality. He could have just be like, this is what I'm doing. And everyone would be like, okay, whatever. You know, be one of those where on Fox News everybody would play it up and say he's actually the biggest genius. A few, you know, right wing Zionists on Twitter would be upset. But that's nothing. You know, it's not really a meaningful political constituency. Look, the moment he accepted Israeli framing as his own, it was over. And I will say I predicted this. I was like, look, they'll talk nuclear. They will not talk ballistic missile. They can't do it. It's existential for them. You can't ask them to basically allow themselves to be pounded by Israel at will and just say that we're going to guarantee the security. I'm like, they're not going to believe it and they shouldn't believe it. And they didn't. And that's exactly what happened. So we're in the. Look, we're in it now. And it's tragic. You know, it's funny, you know, coming back to Vietnam, I do think you're undercounting the ideological aspect a little bit to the anti colonial struggle. That's kind of what makes Vietnam so interesting. Like the North Vietnamese cause is they were both deeply ideological communists, but also anti colonial. So it was a way for them to merge their ideology with a popular struggle. After getting the Vietnamese people, the North Vietnamese people, to buy in and to accept so many casualties about Western imperialism. But you're not wrong in terms of how we should have perceived it. Exactly. But the French empire, like, why do we have to do this? Exactly.
- [45:07]
A
FDR explicitly is like, I don't care about preserving the French and British empires. That was his whole thing.
- [45:12]
B
Listen, Ike remains one of the goats for being like, I don't care about DNP Ben Fu. He's like, it's not my problem.
- [45:17]
A
And to give people context, Dien Bien Phu, it was one of the most disastrous 20th century military operations. The French deployed thousands of French soldiers to basically force the V. The North Vietnamese to fight them. And it was a disaster. They deconstructed their artillery, moved it through the jungle, surrounded them, and just pulverized them into surrender. The French asked Ike to use nuclear weapons to save Dien Bien Phu. And that was before we had just like the total norm against you. So this was appli. This was within reason. And Ike was just like, nope. So very important context there.
- [45:52]
B
No, you're. You're totally right. And listen, it's one of those where people will write a lot of books about this period. There's the political aspect, which I do think is really important. I think this will really reshape the entire Democratic Party in, like, a crazy and an interesting way. Already Gavin Newsom is saying Israel, it's okay to call Israel an apartheid state. I mean, that's insane. That's like something that you couldn't even say two years ago, let alone a year ago, considering Gavin's own comments and say that we need to question our security relationship with Israel. I also think, though, in the globe, let's just consider how much this is going to accelerate, like fundamental questions for a large percentage of the US Empire. And so the Gulf is a major part of that. I mean, whenever it comes to security guarantees, weapon systems, Asia is already, as I said, re. Questioning some of our security commitments. The Chinese are going to be doing a lot of math and from what I have heard, are already trying to surge intelligence sharing with the Iranians. I don't think it's an accident, Marshall, that Iranian shahed drones were able to hit some of the most sensitive areas of US Bases. Last time I checked, Iran does not have that capability. And that is something basically which the United States does for Ukraine. Right. They do all of their battle damage assessments and they do their targeting. They go, here you go. Here's the exact coordinates. Go ahead and fire. You think China and Russia aren't going to be doing that? I do. I think they already are. They'd be stupid not to. So you can see how this is really going to reshape things in a way where, look, maybe it was inevitable. It probably was. But you get. At the end of the day, you always get the time and place of your choosing. You know, military always. People always like to say that at a time and place of our choosing, if we're going to stake and we're going to risk it, it needs to be risked for the right thing or at the right level. And I do think that that's really a lesson here where we got dragged in either by the President's idiocy or by Israel.
- [47:47]
A
I think Both Kurt Mills said it was 5050 when asked that very question.
- [47:51]
B
I yeah, good. Yeah. I mean it's irresponsible. Look, it's pretty annoying frankly, for a lot of the people who are just like, it's only Israel. I'm like, that's a lot of agency that we're removing from the President and his national security team. So I'll say it's both. I think it was both. And with those both, now we have to contend with again a whole set of questions which nobody wants to do. And yet now we have to. And that's. It's tragic.
- [48:17]
A
One comment and then one final question. What's frustrating here too. You've done some great coverage on Breaking Points. You've also tweeted a bunch of the work talking about how disastrous the situation with missile defense is in terms of like really using up our stocks of these things. Shifting resources from Asia in a way that is going to only encourage more militarization and potential risk taking within East Asia itself. That's not great. I'm someone who believes in America being involved in the world so that we could be stabilizing as a force. I think we stabilize things. It's not a shocker that as we seem less committed to Asia, Japan is remilitarizing more aggressively that you're seeing talk of these things. There's a reason why the French are increasing the number of nuclear weapons as a reason why the Poles are talking about becoming nuclear. I think that you could really allow things to de statewide. Basically our goal should be stability. It really annoys me because during the Ukraine war, you know, I did a lot of arsenal democracy interviews with like right wing VCs and people were sort of like, Biden's not serious. Like it's time to build. We need to rebuild the arsenal of democracy and rebuild the munitions and rebuild our stocks. And we just weren't prepped to actually have the amount of resources we need to actually do this. So you. There are just so many things that even if you support the sort of approach to the Iranian regime, this is just not the way that you would do it.
- [49:38]
B
You know, there's all these big brain. China, like any objective observer is like, this is a disaster whenever it comes to interceptors oil. I spent all afternoon reading the Asian papers. I cannot find ace I Japan. Somebody can check me Japan Times, Korea, Korea Herald, Straight Times in Singapore. There's not a single laudatory piece. They're like, this is bad. This is really bad for us. The I talked earlier about The Japanese hitting their spr, their stock index is way down. They are significantly rethinking, you know, all of their own security commitments. Also look, I'm not pro Ukraine, but for the Ukrainians, you know they're, it's funny, the Ukrainians are trying to show up their battlefield prowess because they're the have the ability to deal with these shot head drones. Guys, Putin, Putin is doing backflips for oil at $80 a barrel. They just funded the Kremlin war machine for five more years. So yeah, it's great for Ukraine, but one of the problems for them is that if they want future Patriot missile batteries or others, they're not coming. They're, they don't exist. We only, I don't forget exactly how many Patriots, but the Thad number is 15. We fired 150 during the 12 day war. God only knows how many that we're firing right now. You know those Patriots, this is probably the problem with the asymmetry of warfare. The patriots cost of $4 million each. The Saudis and the Qataris and the Emiratis and the and Kuwaitis, they're popping those off at Those shahed drones. 4 million for a $25,000. Right. The Ukrainians, because they have real constraints, you know, right now they just have to accept they're like, yeah, we're gonna have to take casualties, right? So they have roving guys in helicopters with belt fed machine guns popping off on the drones. I hope it doesn't look like America sometime soon, but it might be. And that's part of the problem for a lot of these Gulf allies. You know, for them this is a real issue like the prestige of Dubai. I wouldn't say it's over, but it's going to be, it's going to be. I mean can you imagine getting stuck in Dubai, not being able to fly anywhere? You've got these hotels getting hit, refineries, US bases, citizens. I mean people, look, they may be monarchies, but they still have to respond somewhat to domestic political input or they won't remain a monarch monarchy anytime soon. I also think the China question, you know, this is the thing Marshall, where the belligerence here of the United States has actually really validated the Russian and Chinese framework. So Trump being like, I don't give a about international law and actually we can just go take over Venezuela with the Monroe Doctrine. The Chinese are like great, please keep it going. We love this spears of influence. We can go in and just kidnap them, do whatever we want, demand referendums, demand that they sell us x amount of chips and they can no longer sell it to them. Nobody is more excited about this than the Russians or the Chinese. The validation of that. Now personally I've always thought, you know, the world works that way. But to explicitly have it declared by the President of the United States is something that not nearly enough of these, you know, neocon norms respecters or at least like, like the people who really love this project in Iran have grappled with outside. They seem to have 5D chessed some way that this is actually really good for screwing over China. China gets to do battle damage assessments on some of their newer technology. They get to try and drag the United States into a war. They get to do intelligence sharing and you know, try to kill American soldiers to the extent that possible. Try to turn it into a Vietnam or in Afghanistan they get to study all of our cruise missiles, all of our anti ship programs, submarines, right? They're, they're looking at all of this stuff and the Russians for the same thing. First of all, the world's attention is literally single, singularly commodified. Ukraine found that out, remember on October 7th. October 7th was a disaster for Ukraine because it drew the entire world's attention. The US empire, all of our weapon systems suddenly had to compete between two people. So for the Russians, the price of oil has gone up already. The Europeans are begging the Ukrainians to let Russian gas flow via pipeline so they can buy it. I mean, you know, are the ironies certainly abound there. There's real problems if you're a person who cares about some of these other areas of the world. And I think, yeah, this is on Trump, this is on Bibi, they're the ones who got it baby. Could care less about literally everything I just said. But for Trump, I mean if you do care about these things, I really beg you to think about it because look, you know, like I said, it could end tomorrow and you still unleashed such an insane amount of chaos. That's another thing. Sorry to go on, but this is why the Venezuela thing annoys the shit out of me is who declares victory after a month? Like it's literally been two months. You have no clue. Remember last time you and I talked on Iran, I was like, look, could be the end. I think, I don't think it will be. I think it will very likely transform into a regime chain bombing operation. Hate to be right. Same with Venezuela. What two months we're going to declare victory? You have no idea. How about the American empire is now deeply bogged down with Iran. All of the diplomats, secretaries of state and others are now going to be facing bigger problems. You keep your eye off the ball, next thing you know there's a coup in Venezuela or a bombing or a civil war or drugs. Oil. Well, you know what if the oil prices skyrocket and they're like actually we want to sell it to somebody else. You have no idea how this is going to work out, which is why you shouldn't get in these damn conflicts in the first place.
- [55:07]
A
I think the real thing that frustrates me is as I'm hearing you and then Kurt earlier talk about this, we're in this worst of all world situation because imagine, imagine the following scenario. So like this is sort of be the best case scenario if Nikki Haley as the president, she's going to strike Iran. But she took seriously the idea that there are trade offs vis a vis Asia, Ukraine. So they upped thaad missile defense protection or they made sure our missile stocks were ready. They sold it to the American people. So there was buy in. And you're not feeling like you have to use these like little windows in these like different dynamics. That'd be one thing, that's one extreme. The other extreme would just be. And I would disagree with, I would, I disagree with both but like in terms of pure ideology, I'm not, I'm not a restraint. I didn't say isolationist. I know that's a slur. So I, I'm not going to use that word. But you know what guys, we actually are just going to focus on the western hemisphere. So we're actually done. We actually are pulling out. We actually are. Ukraine wouldn't take our deal. We're out. Okay. Europe figure it out. But we're doing neither of these things and it's just the worst combination of both. So we're not going into full arsenal of democracy mode the way you'd need to keep the commitments that the Trump administration is still keeping. But then they're also still doing things. So it's a terrible combo. Here's the last question. This was. I'm sure you got this question a lot from people. This is like my number one sort of text and DM from people. Why does this keep on happening? And by this I mean everyone's basically aware of the fact we've talked about this before every Single post Clinton President 90s were such that you wouldn't even have to make a statement about we're not going to intervene because it just wasn't something you really think about. W. Bush, Obama, Trump won, Biden. They all say, we're going to retrench, we're going to withdraw. Like you said, this is a popular position within, within the American people. Why does this not happen? And I think that my, my answer to this, and this is what's so frustrating about the Trump one. In the case of Bush, Bush had weirdly, barely left the country before he became president. He went to Mexico a lot. He visited China when his dad was the equivalent of an ambassador there because we didn't recognize China. So it wasn't a straightforward thing. But he wasn't engaged in international affairs. So, like, he really meant it. I believe in my heart of hearts when he said, why are we doing Yugoslavia stuff? We just need to focus on America. Then events happen. If you are going to run to be president, you have to have learned the lesson by now that this is what everything inevitably becomes about.
- [57:46]
B
They don't learn.
- [57:46]
A
So we'll put that to the side for a second. But in the case of Biden, Biden's okay. We're going to leave Afghanistan and we're going to focus on building back better in the IRA and the CHIPS Act. We're going to reshore our manufacturing. Yeah, Kabul went disastrously, but you know what? We're just going to move on. Ukraine happens. Bush. Why does Bush go from restraint to intervention? 9, 11 happens. Obama, he leaves, leaves Iraq in 2011. ISIS happens. In all of those cases, these were presidents who at various levels made either correct or incorrect responses to someone else doing something. Right. They had to react, and that's where the mistakes came from. And I will always be sympathetic to people reacting right, especially if they were not the one who, like, started the situation. We chose to do this. This is unprecedented. So basically everyone's like, why is this happening? And what I usually would just say is, and this is why this Trump situation is so unique. My usual answer is there actually is no conspiracy. The candidates are not lying when they say they're going to pull back and not intervene. They actually just have not developed a good theory of the case. Biden actually thought that after Kabul it was going to go great, and then he was just going to focus at home and make everything normal. Wasn't aware of that Bush wasn't aware of. Yeah, but like, you don't like humanitarian Clinton intervention, but what are the other types of intervention that you would like? What would you. I wish someone just asked him, like a terrorist attack happens, what would you do? That's the sort of thing they're missing. But, but. So my point is, there's no conspiracy here. No one's actually lying to you. This is about bad candidates and people not asking good questions to them and them not learning the lesson. With Trump, this is a little different because he chose to. So that's my framework. I'd love to hear, like, your closing thoughts on this.
- [59:29]
B
I don't know. And that's where some of the stuff where I'm like, man, I don't. I don't get it. And, you know, not to get too dark or anything, but, like, there's. It's. It is fundamentally different. This is a genuine war of choice. This is more of a war of choice than a Iraq. And I've been trying, you know, Crystal said on our show, she was like, I think this is worse than Iraq. And I was like, well, no, because of, you know, the number of dead and invasion and all that. But then I was like, well, kind. Because we were like, we just woke up one day and we're like, this is it. This is the deal. Regime change. But to be honest, you know, when he chose to do it, he did not do it in a vacuum. And I don't think you can overestimate how important Venezuela was to his psyche and to his understanding of the world, where he has a Putinesque framework, where he's like, I just get to decide people in my general sphere of influence what they do. Tariffs, too. Right? He's like a king, like a Roman emperor, who just gets to decide who the governor general of provinces are. And every once in a while, he can just go in and raise them. But what he forgot is about the influence, the extension, I think, of that empire, regardless of some of the people who talk to him, it. And also with the Israelis. I think the Israelis have studied Trump more than anybody else. You know, if anything, I haven't talked enough about, badly about the Iranians here. And I don't mean in terms of the way that they were act, you know, 47 years or whatever. They negotiated terribly. They were too proud. They vastly overestimated their own influence and ability to set some credible deterrence in the early days. And from what I understand, they did not kiss Trump's ass enough, nearly enough. And that's all on the Ayatollah, just so you know.
- [61:03]
A
And this is what the Ukrainians learned after the disaster of that first meeting.
- [61:07]
B
And for people saying the world shouldn't work this way, I agree with you, okay? But that's reality.
- [61:11]
A
You and I talked about this when the strikes were about to start, I think it was actually right after the strikes had started. And I said, why don't the Iranians. Because I'm aside from me thinking the Iranians. Not just thinking, knowing that the Iranians conceive of themselves as our enemies, why have they not realized that Trump is a fundamentally unique threat to them and their regime? But because he's term limited, you just have to survive. So kiss ass, lie and just sort of survive rather than doing the sort of thing that you said. You just really echoed, like, my thoughts because the math here was pretty clear about understanding who you're dealing with. This is why I was also very annoyed. You know, you know this. I'm aggressively pro Ukraine, but I was just, like, shocked at how badly Zelensky handled the White House Oval Office meeting. I was like, guys, that was the most obvious thing of all time. Zelensky, you're literally an actor. Act, smile when JD Tries to provoke you. Here's the actual last question. This is, I think, the tougher thing that you and I get that asked this question so much. I think we should just put it on the record. What does this mean for the fact that you and I have done a lot of work which has been premised on saying no, never Trumper or no liberal of the New York Times, this new right, this populist movement, you may disagree with it, and people know this. I pivoted from the right, like, years ago, but even until a year ago, I was still basically saying, look, I totally disagree with this worldview, but this is a legit thing that you should take at face value. I am more embarrassed over that defense than being interested in the right in the first place. That's the weird thing that I've kind of ended up there. So I'm just curious, what's your reflection on? Was this all fake? Was this sort of intellectually inclined people constructing narratives and reading into things?
- [62:53]
B
I don't think it was fake, but I think it was ultimately powerless. And I think that the people at the top of that movement are cowards who are not actually willing to enforce. For all the big talk about enforcing power and the GOP and lessons learned, they were cowards. There are people who were not willing to stand up to Israel. They were definitely people who are not willing to stand up to the President. I mean, look, at a certain point, there's only so much you can do. So I'll defend them in summary respects. Like, you can't tell the President that he's wrong and expect to still have
- [63:17]
A
access, considering the takes that were offered before the election. I'm not just talking about people who are in the presidential line of succession. If you could guess who I'm talking about. Reading some of the op eds that some of the people who haven't resigned were writing in the 2020s, you've reminded me of something that I also got wrong. The way that I justified why the restraint thing was just totally real at the level of people would rather resign and ruin their careers than have what's happening happen, was I was like, guys, you just do not understand how much the Iraq war and how disastrous it was for this crew of people has made them serious and ideological on this point. And my actual take now is I'm actually convinced that a lot of the people who are in, you know, these spaces right now, they would have voted for the Iraq war. They wouldn't have resigned.
- [64:04]
B
Yeah, they would have. They would have supported it. They would never, and they didn't. And we have the evidence, because they're not. They're still working with it. They're not doing anything. Look, the vice president can't leave, but a hell of a lot of other people can. If they wanted to, they could decide that this is a fundamental departure from literally everything that they wrote, everything that they work for, everything that they talked, all the tweets, all the op eds over the years, the speeches at various different conferences. So if you're still supporting this, you're full of shit. And actually, all you care about is power, and that's fine. You know, I made this joke to you in person. It's like an avatar. I see you.
- [64:38]
A
That is where we will leave it. I actually hope that we're not just doing this in nine months again, because we've just established a crook cadence here. So, Sagar, thank you for joining me again on the show.
- [64:47]
B
Thanks.