166. How Trump’s War is Costing America

Summary

The Rest Is Politics: US — Episode 166

Title: How Trump’s War is Costing America
Date: March 9, 2026
Hosts: Anthony Scaramucci (The Mooch), Katty Kay

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Anthony Scaramucci and Katty Kay provide an in-depth analysis of the ongoing US-led strikes against Iran under President Donald Trump. The discussion centers on the military, political, and economic dimensions of the conflict, examining diverging interests—including those of Trump, neoconservatives, Netanyahu, the Gulf states—and the emerging consequences for the US public, global markets, and geopolitics. The hosts question the administration’s strategy and highlight the risks of escalation and economic blowback, with candid insights and behind-the-scenes anecdotes from Washington.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Three Dimensions of the Conflict

[01:41] Katty Kay:

• Outlines three tracks: military, political, and economic.
• Suggests Trump’s lack of clear objectives and the impact of his impulses versus global market realities.

Quote:

"What's happening militarily, what's happening politically, and what's happening economically. Because I think they are all traveling on quite different tracks, those three things...this is the week that Donald Trump's impulses will hit up against the realities of the oil and the stock markets." (Katty Kay, 01:41)

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2. Inside Trump’s Motivations and White House Decision-Making

[03:12] Anthony:

• Trump administration lacks clear goals or a communicated vision.
• Trump's approach is transactional and theatrical, seeking a historic, personal ‘win’.
• Four key interests at play: Trump, neoconservatives, Netanyahu, Gulf states—each with clashing agendas.

Quote:

"We were ten days into it, and nobody from the administration has laid out a vision, no story arc, no idea of what it is that they really wanted to accomplish...It's almost like Ghostbusters...you're going into the brain. You got to get some orange slime on you." (Anthony, 03:12)

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3. Diverging Agendas:

• Neoconservatives (Rubio, Pompeo): Want regime change in Iran via internal collapse, no ground invasion.
• Netanyahu (Israel): Seeks long-term decimation of Iran’s nuclear and regional proxies.
• Gulf States: Initially quietly supportive; now facing reputational and economic damage.

Quote:

"Every one of those interests are going to lose in this conflict. I'm sorry to say that...even if you got the...personal fantasy outcome of Donald Trump, it's still not a great outcome for the U.S." (Anthony, 06:33–07:21)

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4. Military, Political, and Economic Status Updates

[07:21] Katty Kay:

• Military: Successful targeting, Iran’s nuclear program and proxies weakened.
• Political: No Iranian uprising; hardliners in control; US message muddied by calls for regime change and shifting objectives.
• Economic: Oil skyrocketing, global supply chains hit, uncertainty abounds.

Quote:

"The military war, which is going well...the political war...much less well. There is no sign of an uprising..." (Katty Kay, 07:21)

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5. Trump’s Public Communication and Accountability

Channeling Trump:

• Asserts authority, skips Congress, relies on theatrics.
• Blames tragedy (school bombing) on Iranians despite evidence, resists showing empathy or admitting fault.

Notable Exchange:

"Let me channel him. I am all knowing no one's smarter than me. I'm the only one that can fix this. And by the way, the rules don't apply to me." (Anthony, 10:25)

"But then have the humanity to say it's an unspeakable tragedy. And our hearts go out to all of those families." (Katty Kay, 12:17)

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6. Who Wins? Who Loses?

[13:49] Anthony & Katty Kay:

• Israelis (Netanyahu) and Russians (Putin) benefit geopolitically and economically.
• US public is the clear loser—higher gas prices, economic instability, and military spending.

Quote:

"Is there a co-presidency going on between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump? Because Trump said the other day...when Bibi says it's time to stop, we're basically going to stop the war." (Anthony, 13:50)

[16:02] Anthony:

• War polling poorly; no 'rally round the president' effect.
• Congress ineffective as a check.

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7. Longer-Term Risks, Blowback, and Geopolitical Shifts

[17:53] Anthony:

• Iranian nationalism underestimated; risk of unifying opposition against the US.
• Iran seeks to raise oil prices as economic weapon.
• Silent but strategic support from China and Russia to insulate Iran and weaken the US/global West.

Quote:

"Iranian nationalism is real and it's deep and it's ancestral...You have a martyr trap." (Anthony, 17:53)

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8. Faulty Planning & Lack of Preparedness

[19:29] Katty Kay:

• No clear planning for oil price shocks, global citizens' evacuation, supply chain impacts, or longer-term instability.
• Concerns of incompetence; allies (e.g., Luxembourg) evacuating citizens, unlike the US.

Quote:

"This is what worries me about what we've seen over the last week, Anthony, is there's an incompetence factor here. You strike the Gulf and you think that it's not going to impact oil prices." (Katty Kay, 19:29)

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9. Economic Fallout

[32:43] Katty Kay:

• Oil prices possibly reaching $150–$200/barrel.
• Knock-on effects on shipping, commodities, and agriculture.
• Global supply chains disrupted with potentially months of lagging recovery—even a quick ceasefire won’t restore flows right away.
• Iran, Russia, China accelerating dedollarization via oil sales in yuan/rubles/rupees, weakening petrodollar dominance.

Quote:

"They're doing dollar weaponization in reverse...accelerating petrodollar bypass deals, pushing oil sales in yuan and rubles and rupees... putting de-dollarization pressure on the Americans." (Anthony, 34:13)

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10. Domestic Political Fallout and Ironies

[38:13] Anthony:

• Trump’s “America First” strategy hurting his own working-class base.
• Republican coalition fracturing between isolationists (“out now”) and hawks (“destroy Iran”).
• Iran doesn’t need to 'win,' just make the war costly; US public opinion turning against continued involvement.

Quote:

"The transactional deal maker, Donald J. Trump, who wanted cheap oil, triggers the most expensive energy shock in a generation. Look at the irony there." (Anthony, 38:58)

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11. Final Words and Concerns for the Future

[41:34] Katty Kay:

• Warns of longer-term Iranian retaliation and resilience (“terrorist cells in positions around the world”, “doesn’t take much to do a lot of damage”).
• Both hosts express concern about strategic drift and lack of clarity.

Quote:

"You could destroy the regime. You can take away their military capability now. But...what really worries them is the longer-term ramifications of this." (Katty Kay, 41:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Trump’s goals:

  "He wants a big, visible, historic win...he wants perpetual tension and that he wants it to be culminated with a dramatic gesture of him meeting with the political leader of Iran." (Anthony, 03:34)

• On Iran’s counterstrategy:

  "You want to blow up my country, but I have a plan in place I've been working on for 20 years to blow up your economy." (Anthony, 32:31)

• On American pain:

  "Trump’s base, America first working class voters...getting crushed." (Anthony, 38:58)

• The take on US leadership:

  "...We have a bunch of bozos running our government. And it's distressing to me." (Anthony, 39:52)

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Timeline of Important Segments

• [01:41] – Intro to the crisis: military, political, economic overview
• [03:12–07:21] – Dissection of key actors, goals, and White House thinking
• [10:25–13:49] – Trump’s approach and the school bombing tragedy
• [13:50–16:02] – Netanyahu, Putin, and the 'winners' of the war
• [17:53–22:12] – Nationalism, historical wounds, China/Russia’s roles
• [24:10–25:51] – Miscalculations about Iranian opposition and new regime leadership
• [32:43–37:46] – Oil markets, supply chain chaos, economic war, and dedollarization
• [38:13–41:34] – Republican coalition split, American pain, global terror risks
• [41:34–end] – Concluding thoughts, longer-term worries, preview of bonus content

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Final Thoughts

The hosts present a nuanced and often critical look at the Trump administration’s prosecution of war against Iran, highlighting both the real-time and strategic consequences for America and the world. They raise doubts about the wisdom, planning, and intended endgame, and challenge the administration’s narrative, offering a sobering account for US and global audiences watching the crisis unfold.

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For more political insight and future episodes, subscribe at TRIP US.

Transcript

[Anthony]

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[Katty K]

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[Katty K]

Welcome to the rest is politics us with me, Katy K. Here in Washington,

[Anthony]

D.C. you know, Washington has catty K. That's a positive. It has cherry blossoms. That is also a positive.

[Katty K]

Also nice. Yes.

[Anthony]

But Washington also has politicians, Caddy K. And these politicians are causing a lot of damage to the world. So what are we talking about today?

[Katty K]

Here we are now after, gosh, it's only been 10 days, it feels like a year of the strikes against Iran. And I want to look at three things. What's happening militarily, what's happening politically, and what's happening economically. Because I think they are all traveling on quite different tracks, those three things. I think this is the week that Donald Trump's impulses will hit up against the realities of the oil and the stock markets around the world. And we will see whose impulses win, who's stronger. But I suspect that the oil markets are going to start really curtailing what he can do in the region. I think we're also starting to see who the kind of political winners and losers are out of this around the world. But where this ends and what the administration actually wants out of this is this just another kind of element on Donald Trump's lazy Susan brain. And Iran is coming around and then he'll move on. And you know, at the end of this week, he'll walk away and declare victory in some form or other, having left open the very objectives. I think we could see that happen at the end of this week, too. I think there is a strong feeling as we start this week in Washington that if it goes much beyond this week, then this is not the campaign that the White House had anticipated. So what are you looking at as we start week two?

[Anthony]

You know, I think it's important to. At least for our viewers and listeners to lay out what they're trying to do so far.

[Katty K]

I'm glad, you know, I'm thrilled that you actually have a clear sense of what they're trying to do.

[Anthony]

I don't actually 100% know, and I think that's the irony of the whole thing. We were 10 days into it, and nobody from the administration has laid out a vision, no story arc, no idea of what it is that they really wanted to accomplish. I also want to talk to you about what happened in Oman, because it seems like. And the Iranians are leaking this. They gave everything.

[Katty K]

On the diplomatic front.

[Anthony]

On the diplomatic front, they gave them every single thing that they wanted. So why wasn't that enough before the kinetic activity happened? And I want people to at least see it from a lens of the diverging and converging interests. Right. So where are they diverging? Where are they converging? So let's just stop for a moment and get into Trump's brain. It's almost like Ghostbusters, if you remember the scene where Bill Murray slimed. You're going into the brain. You got to get some orange slime on you. But what does Trump want? He's very transactional, and he's very theatrical. So what does Trump want? He wants a big, visible, historic win. And so he genuinely believes only he. He is the only person that could do this, and so on and so forth. And so he wants perpetual tension and that he wants it to be culminated with a dramatic gesture of him meeting with the political leader of Iran. So his goal was blow everything up, scare the daylights out of these people, make them submit the way the Venezuelans did to the American orthodoxy, if you will, and then have this very grand dramatic gesture. But up against that caddy are the Rubio Waltz Pompeo faction of the Republican Party, which are their neoconservatives, and they're hawks, and they want regime change without a ground invasion. Okay, so they want the Islamic Republic to collapse from within. They've said repeatedly on Fox and other places that the regime only has a 15% level of support from its citizens. And they're hoping that they can do what Rumsfeld and Cheney wanted in Iraq. Yeah, exactly. Full on revolt. And everyone comes to the way of the Americans. And so this is the naivete of the neoconservative. It's just astonishing. 25 years of trying this stuff, it's never worked. And then let's go to the Netanyahu piece. Netanyahu is basically in his mind saying that he wants a permanent elimination of Iranian's nuclear capability. And again, just speaking from Netanyahu's point of view, these guys have called for the destruction and the elimination of his state and the result of which he is ready and obviously ready to fight them. And he's done a better than good job of convincing Donald Trump for four decades. He couldn't convince any other president to do this. And he's looking at this from I can decimate Hezbollah, the Hamas, the Houthis, the Iraqi militias that are sponsored by the Iranians. He's been waiting to do this for 20 years. Okay, so the last piece caddy are the Gulf states.

[Katty K]

They're pissed and they've suffered a huge reputational damage as a safe haven. Even if this all blows over in a week.

[Anthony]

Right.

[Katty K]

They're already paying the cost of this. Those Gulf states, people are going to think twice about moving to Dubai now.

[Anthony]

So they quietly. But I mean we have to tell people because they're denouncing it now and they're sending open letters to denounce Trump. But they were in quiet support of it. Yes, because they didn't like the state sponsoring of terrorism from the Iranians. They didn't like the constant disruption of economic activity in the area. So those are the four different things going on. And I'm here to tell you I think every one of those interests are going to lose in this conflict. I'm sorry to say that, by the way, because obviously I want the absolute best outcome for everybody. But Katty, even if you got the quote, unquote, best outcome, the personal fantasy outcome of Donald Trump, it's still not a great outcome for the U.S. look,

[Katty K]

I think that there, I mean, lots of ways of framing this. I think you could look at the military campaign, the military war, which is going well, they're managing to get the targets they want. I've heard that the Israelis feel that in a couple of days they may have run through their whole target list, in which case the ballistic missiles have been severely downgraded. There's no indication that the Iranians would be able to rebuild their nuclear weapons or nuclear threat within several years. So that's a massive downgrade. There's the political war, which is going much less well. There is no sign of a uprising, which is what Donald Trump had called for when he said that we're here to support you and this is your last best chance. And then it's over to the Iranian people. Well, there is no sign of the Iranian public protesting and being out there on the streets at the moment. And another problem on the political front, they've just nominated another hardliner to run the country. So there's no sign that the reformists are taking over and could be an interlocutor in the short term at least. And then you've got the economic war. And that's also going pretty badly at the moment with talk of oil possibly going to 150, maybe even $200 a barrel, along with all of the other knock on effects of the Straits of Hormuz not working. So I think there are ways in which this, there is a scenario and I wanted to get your reaction to this, Anthony, in which Donald Trump could have said at the beginning of this, look, after all of these decades of aggression from Iran towards American assets, towards countries in the region, all of the destabilizing that Iran has done and the terrorism that Iran has exported, we could not afford to let them have nuclear weapons, we could not afford to let them have ballistic missiles. And the regime is weakened. And this was an opportunity to really cripple the regime, to deprive them of their aggressive military capabilities. I'm sorry, this is going to be a very difficult two weeks. You'll see oil prices go up, there will be violence in the region. But hang tight, it will be worth it. I think if Donald Trump had said that at the beginning of this campaign and not got distracted by regime change this weekend he said there might be American boots on the ground this weekend. He said there has to be total surrender a couple of days ago. He says we have to pick the next leader. If he had not got distracted by broadening his ambitions because he's high on power and thinks he's kind of can play God, then I think actually that is a kind of clear, simple message that he could have sold around the west and potentially sold to the American people as well. But why didn't he do that? Why didn't they make that very limited military objective the objective? And instead in Donald Trump's brain, while you're up there kind of rootling around, you're Finding all of these megalomaniac ambitions and distractions.

[Anthony]

I am going to channel him.

[Katty K]

Now, they could have hired me. Right. I could have been Caroline Levitt.

[Anthony]

Yeah. But hopefully you'll have some kind of exorcism for me after I channel him. But let me channel him. I am all knowing no one's smarter than me. I'm the only one that can fix this.

[Katty K]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

And by the way, the rules don't apply to me. So I'm not going to go to the American public and ask them for permission. I'm not going to go to the American public and try to sell them on this. I'm not going to go to the Congress and try to sell them on it. I'm just going to do it and I'm going to do it with great theatrics because I know best and I'm the strongest. I'm tough and I'm the strongest. And Hegseth is actually in trouble with Trump. And you say, well, why is he in trouble with Trump? He's in trouble with Trump because last night on the plane, Trump said that the Iranians bombed the school.

[Katty K]

Yes.

[Anthony]

Even though you have Tomahawk missiles sticking out of the ground. The school was hit twice inside of 40 minutes. Two Tomahawk missiles sticking out of the ground. Iranians don't have Tomahawk missiles. And so he said that the Iranians bombed the school. They turned to Secretary Hex says, is that true, Secretary? He says, we're investigating it. Go take a look at the body language between Trump and Hecseth. I guarantee you he tore his head off when they went back into the plane away from the press.

[Katty K]

Well, that's the second cabinet member in a week who has contradicted Donald Trump publicly. And it didn't end very well for Kristi NOEM.

[Anthony]

And so 168 kids died. 14 teachers died on the second strike. Caddy, parents died. Parents were rushing to the school to try to get their kids out of the school, and then another missile hit them and the parents died. So those are civilians. It's an unspeakable tragedy.

[Katty K]

But then have the humanity to say it's an unspeakable tragedy. And our hearts go out to all of those families.

[Anthony]

Well, he blamed it on the Iranians. They're cutting off the heads of babies and, and all of this other stuff. But Caddy, the minimum win is going to be the most likely one. And so just hear me out for a second. Here's the minimum win to your point about the targets and the destruction Netanyahu, I was going to say that he set the nuclear program back five to 10 years. He's going to say that the proxy network has been defanged and some elements of it has now been defunded. Okay. He's going to say the conventional military and this is the stuff that they've been exporting to the Iraqi militias has also been more or less liquidated. And by the way, and this is me being critical of Netanyahu, but I just want to share this. Iran will become a more poor and more isolated country and the Gulf will probably be like the following, that it will be less of a threat to its Gulf partners.

[Katty K]

We could be back there.

[Anthony]

Yeah, exactly. So 93 million people, you put them into more poverty, you've hurt their economy.

[Katty K]

You've heard the military anti Western, not less anti Western.

[Anthony]

Okay? So to me, even if you got the best of the best outcomes, these are not great outcomes for the west and these are not great outcomes for the Americans. But Caddy, they are good outcomes for the Israelis. We have to just be honest with people.

[Katty K]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

You know, and this, then, this is a question you've got to be asked in Washington. Is there a co presidency going on between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump? Because Trump said the other day, oh, you know, when, when Bibi says it's time to stop, we're basically going to stop the war.

[Katty K]

Well, and then the reporting in Washington this morning is that the Americans didn't like the amount of strikes that the Israelis launched against oil facilities in Iran over the course of yesterday, Sunday into Monday, and were taken by surprise by that There had not been the coordination. Trump doesn't like it because he doesn't want any more destabilization in the oil markets. I had an interesting conversation with a senior intelligence official in Europe, actually, and one of the things they pointed out was that there are two big winners from this war. And after your description as Anthony of the school, I don't like to put this in crude political terms in terms of winners and losers, because there are now hundreds of families who have just lost their little girls. But in the geopolitical context, there are some people who are benefiting from this destruction and violence more than others. One of them, as you said, is Benjamin Netanyahu. But the other one who's benefiting is Vladimir Putin. At the moment, he was getting $40 a barrel for his oil. He's now getting $80 a barrel. The ordinance that has been spent on Iran is not now going to be even if The Europeans tried to buy it. It's going to be harder for them to buy it for the Ukrainians to defend themselves against the Russians. So the second and third consequences of this are beneficial to Russia at the moment. I mean, they're doing very little. Everyone in Washington is in a froth about the reporting that the Russians are giving intelligence, the Iranians to attack Americans. I'm told that that's not really a very big deal. The Iranians don't have much capacity to act on that intelligence. And the kind of intelligence they're getting is not particularly helpful. But it's certainly the case that this is not bad news for Vladimir Putin. So you've got Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu who are doing well out of this. What about the American public? How is the American public doing out of this, Anthony?

[Anthony]

Well, I think the American public doesn't like it. It's polling very poorly. Trump is polling very poorly on this issue. Usually when you have a call to war, the president gets a bump. When people rally around the president, they say, okay, we got to rally around. But he didn't explain it to anybody. And so he doesn't have the bump. The do nothing. Congress hasn't been effective of stopping the President. I think this war powers vote they'll try to use during the midterm elections because it's split down the middle. But I wrote down last night a couple of things and I'd like you to react to them because I'm trying to be channel. I'm trying to channel. I know the personalities. I know Rubio for 15 years. I don't know Vance that well, though I've met him a few times. Trump, I know. Well, I'm trying to channel the person heck, Seth, I worked with at Fox News, what would keep them up at night? Now, the first thing that makes me say, maybe nothing. Maybe they're that stupid where nothing is keeping them up at night. Because he says some ridiculous things on 60 Minutes last night about, well, almost like genocidal. He's talking about the Iranians and nothing keeps me up at night. I keep them up at night. He was trying to channel Jim Mattis. But here are things that would keep me up at night, okay? Iranian nationalism is real and it's deep and it's ancestral caddy. And if you go back to 1953 when the MI6 and the CIA replaced their democratically elected leader with the Shah, okay, that's still the original wound. And so you have a martyr trap. Second thing that here is you may have A population that hates the mullahs, but they may hate American and Israeli bombers more.

[Katty K]

After this, you mean?

[Anthony]

Yeah, after this. Yes, it's something to think about. Okay. And then the second, second thing for me is what they said last night, okay. The foreign minister and I said to you earlier this morning, the foreign minister said, hey, we don't care. We have a terrible economy. You've cut us off from the rest of the world. Our goal is to send oil prices to 150 to $200 a barrel. Good luck. Good luck with your Western economies at those prices. Okay? And so that lands directly into the wheelhouse right now in America because the Americans were the MAGA people again. Marjorie Taylor Greene, we elected you to end forever wars to help us with Joe Biden's inflation would have happened anyway, but you know the narrative. And so if I'm them, I'm super worried about these things. I'm also super worried about the relative silence of China. We both know that they've got intelligence boats in the area. We both know that they're helping the Iranians. They're doing it very quietly, however. But it just feels like to me that the Russians and the Chinese are going to help insulate the Iranian economy when this is over, because it's in their best interest to do that. And they don't need to do it the way a Donald Trump would do it, with bombast. They're going to do it in the undercurrent of the geopolitics of it.

[Katty K]

That is true. The striking silence from China, the fact that the Chinese are now banning exports of refined oil, even though they're sitting on a lot of it themselves. The Chinese feel like they're in a strong position at the moment. They can wait out what is happening. They have the supplies of oil to wait out what is happening. And they don't want Iran crippled in the long run. And there is now a growing kind of global south coalition of which China, India and Russia are kind of a part, where they oppose this sort of adventurism on the part of the United States. The way that this is panning out inside Iran, to your point about, do you create a population that is more anti American? I spoke to a friend of mine who's in Iranian exile this weekend, and they had been actually, when they. About a week ago, they had suggested to me that they were kind of excited about the prospect of what might happen. They were nervous, but they were excited about the prospect of what might happen. And now they're super depressed. Now they see that Donald Trump is not going to follow this through, having launched these strikes which have hit the Iranian public. And remember, there's 90% of the Internet is still out, so the opposition can't mobilize even if it wanted to. There's no way for them to communicate around the country. Iranians who are living out of the country are having problems getting in contact with people who are in the country. I think this is at risk of flipping from having been quite supportive of the idea because there is so little support for the regime, of regime change, because I've lived in countries with Sharia law. It is an awful way to live. And there are a lot of Iranians who hated it. I have a lot of sympathy for that proposition that they wanted to get rid of the ayatollah. And there was celebrations when the Ayatollah was killed. But now you get crickets from the Iranian opposition. And Iranians in exile are feeling already disillusioned because they see that patience is going to run out. They see the oil prices. They see that actually there was not the planning that there needed to be for the consequences of this. I mean, why. This is what worries me about what we've seen over the last week, Anthony, is there's an incompetence factor here. You strike the Gulf and you think that it's not going to impact oil prices. Why aren't you already having the discussion about the strategic oil reserves or having the discussion about the gas tax? You don't plan for bringing your expats home. I'm hearing of people who have two passports who are being brought home by the Luxembourg government, not by the American government. So then you think, well, if that wasn't planned for, what else didn't they plan for? How confident are we feeling? Yes, we're hearing that the military strikes are going incredibly well, but what else didn't they plan for?

[Anthony]

Let me tell you what I know, and let me tell you how these guys think. So what happened here is Netanyahu is putting huge pressure on him and Lindsey

[Katty K]

Graham, I'm told Lindsey Graham.

[Anthony]

And they meet the day after Christmas, pounding Trump. We got to launch missiles. I'm going to do it. You got to do it with me. All the stuff that he threatened Obama with that Jake Sullivan's talking about, what,

[Katty K]

Donald Trump is not able to say no to Bibi Netanyahu. Since when can America not say no to the Israelis?

[Anthony]

Well, well, okay, so that's. That's one element of it. But I want you to hear the pitch because this is what they do to Trump. You know the guy, Bill Pulte walks in, he shows a picture of Donald Trump and FDR and he says, FDR invented the 30 year mortgage. And look at you, you're going to invent the 50 year mortgage. TRUMP gets super excited and immediately puts out on Truth Social. We're going to have a 50 year mortgage. Of course, that's like indentured servitude, so it dies on the vine. But they pitch him a few weeks back and they say, listen, the Six Day War was a monumental cornerstone of Israeli history because the Six Day War, they pushed back the Egyptians, they obliterated them, they took the Sinai Peninsula and they forced secularism in Egypt. They got Sadat in charge and forced secularism 11 short years later, you got the Camp David Accords with Jimmy Carter and you had peace and stability in the region between those two adversaries. And so the Six Day War is the model here. We're going to hit them super hard. 85% of the people hate the regime. In the 12 day war last year, they didn't do anything. They just said, hey, hello, we're going to hit these targets, get your troops out of the way. And so Trump is sitting there because he's impetuous, and Trump is sitting there because he's theatrical.

[Katty K]

This is the pitch and only you can do it. All of your predecessors have been too weak.

[Anthony]

So I just want people to understand what they do to Trump. Right. So they go in there with the Six Day War pitch.

[Katty K]

It's a form of flattery.

[Anthony]

Yeah, but they also compare it to Egypt. They say, well, you're going to have your own six or 12 day war. You're going to decapitate the regime, you're going to put a secularist in there. And then like you did with the North Koreans, you're going to fly over there and you're going to have this only you can do it deal. So that's what they did to them. And I want people to know that. So number one, they're sitting there listening, saying, okay, that's effing crazy. And then the other thing they're saying is, okay, that's also part of the probably true. Given everything that we know about the situation.

[Katty K]

The trouble is that we don't have the person to do the deal with. And as you said at the beginning of this, you know, basically they are counting on the idea that the Iranians are like him and will do some kind of a tracks and actional deal for money. And they'll want to get it done. But now we've got this new Ayatollah Motaba and there are reports that he has $100 million in prophecy assets around the world. So maybe he will do the deal. But he's also clearly a hardliner. I don't think these are the people that Donald Trump thought after 10 days he was still going to have to be negotiating with. I think he thought this would be quicker than this and that the public would rise up because he's seen the polls and he's seen the dissatisfaction. He'd seen the uprisings in January. But this is a battered, abused population. And right now they are not in a mood to rise up if they don't think that the Americans are actually going to be there to support them. Which, looking at the oil markets, they may well not be.

[Anthony]

Yeah, they don't have the arms.

[Katty K]

And you bomb a school, it's going to make. And then you deny that you bombed it and you don't express remorse and apology. I don't think that's going to help the American cause in terms when they come to try to negotiate. I think that's that side of the strategy has gone wrong. He may still be able to say, declare victory along the lines of the narrow operations that some of the military people are laying out. He may decide he's done in a week, the economic cost is too high. He's going to declare victory anyway and he may get away with it. And then we move, move on. And there isn't a big knock on effect in the midterm elections in terms of the economy.

[Anthony]

I just want to say three quick things about the new leader.

[Katty K]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

Okay. So I'm going to read you a quote. Okay. Motaba is widely viewed within the regime as a capable and forceful leader and manager who may someday succeed to at least share national leadership. Okay, that is US embassy cable picked up by WikiLeaks. And that's a US embassy cable from 2008. Okay. That's number one. Number two, the father did not want him in this position. You know, he tapped his father's phone. There was a rivalry and there was some anxiety between the son and the father. Okay. A little bit of patricide going there. And he was not pleased with the idea of his son's leadership and he didn't want the idea of him being raised as supreme leader, ever raised during his lifetime. Okay. And I just want to read you this one last thing because I did some homework on this last night. In addition to having all this money and he has a flat in London. He's a hardliner.

[Katty K]

He's an IRGC apparatchik.

[Anthony]

He is. And he was also, when he was in the Iranian Iraqi war, as a younger man, he was in the most ideological part of this. Okay, so when you are looking at this, okay, and Ali Hassam, who's a pretty competent Al Jazeera correspondent, says that this guy is a confrontational leader and we're not expecting any moderation. Now Trump called him a lightweight and Trump did his flex. He's not going to last if he doesn't listen to me and take orders from me. Do you think this guy's going to take orders from Donald Trump? Caddy?

[Katty K]

This is not Delsey Rodriguez. I mean, this is not the person they thought they were hoping. This is not Deng Xiaoping. This is not Gorbachev.

[Anthony]

These are people that have been raised in martyrdom. These are people that see the Americans as imperialists. These are people that see the Americans as interventionalists in their 5000 year old civilization. And there's something ancestral here that everybody should be aware of.

[Katty K]

Okay, let's take a break there and then we will come back and talk more about the cost to the American people.

[Anita Anand]

To some, he is the revolutionary hero who restored China to its rightful place on the global stage.

[William Drimple]

To others, he's a brutal despot accused of presiding over more civilian deaths than either Stalin or Hitler.

[Anita Anand]

Mao Zedong has one of the most recognizable faces in the world. Yet he started life as a rural boy in a muddy provincial village.

[William Drimple]

A rebel son who hated his father survived a 6,000 mile walk across China and rose to become a figure of

[Anita Anand]

titanic proportions from Empire the Goal Hanger World History Show. I'm Anita Anand.

[William Drimple]

And I'm William Durmpel.

[Anita Anand]

In this six part series, we're joined by world renowned expert Rana Mitta to explore the life of the father of Communist China, Mao Zedong.

[William Drimple]

We'll track his rise from a bookstore owner to a guerrilla commander. And we'll witness his ruthless elimination to secure total power.

[Anita Anand]

We'll explore the greatest famine in human history. A catastrophe where Mao himself predicted that half of China may well have to die.

[William Drimple]

And we'll descend into the dark experiment of the Cultural Revolution. A time when ancient temples were burnt, children denounced their parents and a nation worshipped a mango as a sacred relic.

[Anita Anand]

And we'll play a clip from the series at the end of this episode for you to listen to.

[Anthony]

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[Katty K]

Yeah, and moms are always tricky to shop for.

[Anthony]

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[Katty K]

And what I love is that you can preload it, right, Anthony, with photos, you can personalize it. So even if your mom isn't great at tech, you can make it easy for her.

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[Tabby]

This episode is brought to you by the Folio Society and it's Tabby and Dominic here from the book club Goal Hangers latest show.

[William Drimple]

Now, Tabby, as you know, there are some books that you read once, but there are others you especially return to again and again. And those second kind of books, they really deserve to look last, don't they?

[Tabby]

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[William Drimple]

Every book is produced with specially commissioned beautiful artwork and a specially commissioned introduction that puts the story in its context.

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[Anthony]

Now we can talk about the economy. You want to blow up my country, but I have a plan in place I've been working on for 20 years to blow up your economy. So Katty, how are they blowing up the global economy?

[Katty K]

Well, first of all, the American public, as I understood it, elected Donald Trump to go to war on prices, not to go to war on Iran. But I think you're right. They're doing everything they can right now to blow up the US and not just the US but the global economy. We're looking at a serious energy crunch in Asia. You've got 1 in 10 of the world's oil tankers trapped in the Persian Gulf at the moment. You sent me something. Goldman Sachs is talking about oil prices going to 150, possibly even $200 a barrel. You are getting Americans already starting to pay more. It's not just oil that is being squeezed when the Straits of Hormuza shut. You've also got sulfur, you've got fertilizer, you've got aluminium, a whole bunch of things. Commodities, knock on a commodities that come from that region that are also being squeezed at the moment. In a way, the economic angle of this, I think Anthony, is the most dynamic angle this week because it's the most unpredictable. This has to end quickly for there not to be. My understanding is, you know, much better about this than I do, but my understanding is that this has to end really within the next week for there not to be weeks, potentially months of knock on effect on global growth. Because having paused your refineries in the Gulf and your export capabilities, it takes a while to get them back on stream again. So what do you see as the economic impact?

[Anthony]

Yeah, I mean, let's just add to it. Just sort of remind people we learned this in Covid. The supply chain isn't an on off switch. The UAE doesn't say, okay, we're stopping oil production because I can't ship the oil into the Gulf. And then you say, okay, well now we're going to restart oil production, okay, it takes three, six weeks before we can get everything up and running again. So it's not, it's not like a on off switch. So 20% of the global oil supply coming through there, they've slowed it down, okay? They're trying to do what I call petro state contagion. They're hitting everybody to get everybody in a tumult. The UAE has to be, in my opinion the most concerned about it because they've got 10 million people living there, nine of which are expats and expats, as you know, are mobile. And you don't want to put at risk this great virtuous circle of their economy. Real estate, luxury, all the different things that they're doing there. They're doing dollar weaponization in reverse. And just hear me out for a second because this is something that one of my buds explained to ME yesterday afternoon. They are accelerating petrodollar bypass deals, are pushing oil sales in yuan and rubles and rupees and they're doing this through their back channel networks. And this is going to put de dollarization pressure on the Americans. Okay. So the prices are going up and they're moving away from the petrodollar. They are also using. Remember Iran has its own 8200. What is 8200? That's the cyber squad inside the Mossad and inside the idf. Okay, and what are they doing? They have previously targeted Saudi Aramco and the US banks. Okay. And they're now attacking the Swiss system. Okay. And they're attacking the energy grid in the Gulf. The energy grid in the Gulf is under assault. Now they're not hitting the desalization plants yet. Now there are reports that we hit one of their plants. We could argue whether or not that's a war crime. I hope to God we're not hitting their plants because that's inhumane, frankly. I mean you don't want to go in that direction. But here's the core logic of it all. Okay, ready? I can't win the conventional war, but if I create asymmetric economic disruption and I raise the cost of the conflict into US politicians which we know are short term caddy until they break. Okay. And this is the same playbook frankly that has Hasbullah has used militarily, but they're just applying it to finance. Right? So, so to me I'm sitting in Mar a Lago and I'm now going to be Donald Trump again and I'm getting pitched on the six day war for Iran and I'm getting this little historical thing and I'm saying okay, this is wonderful. And there's nobody sitting there saying hey man, just to let you know They've been working 20 years on the counterplan on the counter play and you're not thinking about that.

[Katty K]

And how do you feel about oil gas prices at 150?

[Anthony]

So both. So Hex Seth is not thinking about that and you know, weather vane Rubio is not thinking about that. And you, you would Chip Vance, I mean he's basically non existent right now. But again I just want to explain to people what is going on and why we haven't anticipated it. Because we've lost our way, Katie. We've lost our process.

[Katty K]

Well, because there aren't enough people around the President and every president needs no people around them. And this president in this term doesn't have enough no people around them. So, Anthony, here you go. Let's close with this. This is the president posting on Sunday, short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for USA and world safety and peace. Only fools would think differently. All caps. Maybe we're fools.

[Anthony]

And Katie, we didn't even get into the fact it's 900 to a billion dollars a day of what's being spent.

[Katty K]

Yeah.

[Anthony]

And he doesn't have it. He doesn't have it in the budget for that. So he's got to eventually go to the Congress.

[Katty K]

And you have Tommy Tuberville, conservative Republican senator, coming out in public this weekend saying, well, I just hope that they had planned that we have enough missiles when they started this war, which made it sound like he wasn't particularly confident that they had actually planned for that because you've got American munition stocks being downgraded too because of this huge onslaught that we're seeing. But anyway, Hegseth is happy because he says this is not a politically correct war and none of the rules of law apply.

[Anthony]

So, yeah, I mean, he really talks like an imbecile. It's actually embarrassing to listen to him talk. But I want you to think of these ironies before we leave. Caddy, the transactional deal maker, Donald J. Trump, who wanted cheap oil, triggers the most expensive energy shock in a generation. Look at the irony there. Okay, Trump's base, okay, America first working class voters, they drive trucks, they heat homes with oil. They live paycheck to paycheck, getting crushed. Caddy, the Republican coalition now fracturing. This is between the isolationists who want out immediately and the conservative hawks that want, I guess, I don't know what they want. I guess they want to blow up Iran. I guess because they blew up Iraq with such great success, they want to blow up Iran. So, so just I just leave our viewers and listeners with the following thought, okay, Iran does not mean need to win the war. They just need to make it expensive enough so that the Americans, and I'm talking about the man on the street, Americans, Caddy, demand an exit. And that, and that's basically where we are right now. Unless you're telling me that I have this analysis wrong. And Trump has this unbelievable idea that he's kind of come down like he did from Mount Evil with the orange tablets for the tariffs. We're going to have another liberation day here. And he has some idea that you and I don't know. And for those of you watching on YouTube. I am wearing Chico's bail Bonds T shirt now. Where is that from? That's from the Bad News Bears. A mid-70s. Of course, I'm aging myself because we have the Bad News Bears running the American government. And I thought, Chico, who sponsored the bad News. Yeah, these are bail bonds and there's the Liberty Bell there. Let freedom ring. We have a bunch of bozos running our government. And it's distressing to me.

[Katty K]

Yeah. Too many questions about why America went in. Too many questions about why it didn't plan for some pretty basic things like oil prices going up and people getting caught in the Middle east and water desalination plants getting struck. And then we haven't even got into the idea that there could be longer term repercussions. You could destroy the regime. You can take away their military capability now. But the people I have spoken to in American and in European intelligence and said what really worries them is the longer term ramifications of this. Do you still have a terrorist cells that the Iranians have? Like you said, they've been planning for this for years, that they still have those in positions around the world and it doesn't take much for them to do an awful lot of damage.

[Anthony]

Exactly.

[Katty K]

Okay, week two, Week two. We'll see where we are at the end of this week.

[Anthony]

So, Katty, before we end, founding members. Okay, we'll see you on Wednesday. Episode three of Becoming Trump.

[Katty K]

This is a very good episode because I think a lot of this episode deals with when he starts flirting with politics. What was it that drew him into politics initially when he was looking at something called the Reform Party? Was it purely transactional because he thought it would help his business and his brand? Is that why he started doing it? Is that why he's doing it now? And I think you also see in that episode some of what you are seeing playing out right this week, which is that belief that he alone could fix it and that he never made a mistake. You never admit to a mistake. So even you saw that with the school. If Americans bombed that school, which is what the video footage looks like, that these were Tomahawk missiles, that is why the President is blaming somebody else. And it's something he learned right from when we looked at this in the 70s and 80s and 90s. So it's worth a listen. That comes out later this week, episode three. And if you'd like to listen to the whole series, do sign [e-mail] to become a founding member. We'd love to have you in the club. Thank you guys. Thanks very much for listening. We will be back later this week, of course, for all of you with more of what is going on in the States.

[Anthony]

Thanks guys. See you later in the week.

[William Drimple]

Hello, it's William Drimple again from Empire. Here is a clip from our recent six part series on Mao Zedong.

[Dominic]

The greatly forward was supposed to be, on its face, a kind of highly rationalized bureaucratic system called working out what China could produce and then, you know, working upwards so that you would produce, you know, enough food for everyone to, to eat and crops that could then be exported to increase China's GDP and everything would be great. But basically because all the figures are being fiddled by officials who are too terrified to give the real information in case they get arrested or, you know, kind of fired from their, their jobs, they pass on statistics upwards, say yes, it's all going great and we're kind of producing huge amounts of grain and product and up, you know, in the cities and then, you know, beyond that to Beijing. The guys at the top are saying, oh, well, this is great. Well in that case we can export lots to the Soviet Union. So you have the kind of obscenity of out in the countryside, there isn't enough food for people to eat while the grain is being seized and exported from the country to bring in money for the state. This is very much a rural phenomenon. And that's significant because of course, shortly before this, the system which still exists today was started up in China of a sort of Soviet style internal passport system. It's called the hukou or household registration scheme. And it basically means that you can't just simply wander around wherever you want in China. You have to sort of have internal permission. So people in the cities were no longer really kind of interacting that much with the countryside. They're kind of almost separated off. And while people in the cities, you know, found there was a certain amount of deprivation, the devastation was really out in the countryside where essentially it turned into mass starvation. About 1959, 1960, 61, it became clear in the countryside there simply wasn't enough food to go around. But when the news came through to the top leadership, including Mao, he basically chose to ignore it. He didn't exactly deny it, but he basically said, well, you know, we need to keep going. And he said something like, if things are not going so well, then let's just not say anything about it and keep going. And that led to one of the great confrontations of that period, which is the conference Communist Party Top level conference held at Lucian.

[William Drimple]

We hope you enjoyed that clip. To listen to the full series, search Empire World History Wherever you get your podcasts.