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- [00:00]
Narrator/Advertiser
Lets be completely honest. Are you happy with your job? The fact is a huge number of people can't say yes to that. Too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown or one we never really wanted in the first place. But we stick it out and we give reasons like what if the next move is worse? And I've put years into this place and maybe the most common one. Isn't everyone miserable at work? But there's a difference between reasons for staying and excuses for not leaving. It's time to get unstuck. It's time for Strawberry Me. They match you with a certified career coach who helps you get from where you are to where you want to be, either at your existing job or by helping you find a new one. Your coach helps clarify your goals, creates a plan and keeps you accountable along the way. Go to Strawberry Me Career and get 50% off your first coaching session. That's Strawberry Me slash Career. Say hello to Mia.
- [00:55]
Manveen Rana
Hey there.
- [00:56]
Narrator/Advertiser
Mia runs a pet grooming service in Chicago. But getting new clients was rough until
- [01:00]
Manveen Rana
I started using Acast. I recorded my ad targeted pet owners in the area and let Acast do the rest. Now people all over the city know about my grooming services.
- [01:09]
Narrator/Advertiser
Mia's business is looking sharp. What's your secret for happy pets and happy clients?
- [01:13]
Manveen Rana
A fresh cut, a friendly vibe and a well placed podcast ad.
- [01:17]
Narrator/Advertiser
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- [01:29]
Manveen Rana
From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Manveen Rana.
- [01:34]
Luke Jones
And I'm Luke Jones. And we are back together at last, as we are every month to answer some of your questions.
- [01:40]
Manveen Rana
The reunion tour.
- [01:41]
Luke Jones
The reunion tour.
- [01:43]
Manveen Rana
This week we've obviously had a lot of questions about Iran, about the possibility of negotiations, of where the war is, of what might happen next. We will do our best to answer some of those questions in the rest of this episode and we'll try and seek some expert opinions on the ones that we can't.
- [02:01]
Luke Jones
The story@thetimes.com is how to email us the story today. Your questions answered.
- [02:11]
Manveen Rana
So one of the first questions we've had on Iran came from Hugh Smith in Edinburgh who says if not the supreme leader who has the authority to negotiate with Trump. So we're hearing a lot about negotiations happening, a 15 point plan or negotiations not happening or not happening. Who are they talking to?
- [02:28]
Luke Jones
Well, who do you think? Because actually, when you go through the list of the people who have been bumped off in the last few weeks, it spans pretty much every sort of power base in Iran. And actually in some instances they've been replaced by even harder line people. If you think at the top of the irgc, Donald Trump seems to think he's had talks going in the last few days to actually get to a point where there can be some cessation of hostilities. Is it clear in your mind who it is he might be talking to? Because as we know in the past, he, he does freely speak to people on the telephone.
- [02:56]
Manveen Rana
He does. It could be anything to anyone. It turns out there was a great quote out of the Iranian administration talking about this where they said, clearly America has become such a divided nation, they're now negotiating with themselves. Which I thought was, as rebuttals go, not a bad one. Donald Trump has been briefing that these negotiations been happening. And it's been really interesting to watch what's happened to the markets since he said that. They've sort of rallied and yet we don't know what those negotiations consist of. I mean, are these just like text messages between Steve Witkoff and the fore minister who's actually talking to them? We know that there's supposed to be talks in Pakistan. You've got to wonder who would want to attend those talks, given, as you've said, they've assassinated so much of the leadership. Why would you want to be somebody who turns up, tells them where you're going to be and at a particular time without feeling like you might be a potential target? So we now think the Pakistanis are basically brokering talks. They're forwarding text messages between the two parties. The question is, who can they negotiate with in Iran who still has a serious power base? And that's going to be an enormous problem for them. Nobody in this equation seems to be talking about the President. Pezeshkian. He's not been mentioned at all. He doesn't seem to be a part of this.
- [04:07]
Luke Jones
We haven't even seen the new Supreme Leader.
- [04:09]
Manveen Rana
We haven't even seen the new Supreme Leader. It was nowruze earlier this week, the Iranian New Year. Normally a bit like sort of the King speaking at Christmas. There would be a recorded message where, you know, even if he was worried about his safety, he would have done a, you know, a video, a message to the nation. Instead, his message to the nation was read out by a newsreader, which is a sign that either he's very, very ill, might even be dead. You know, nobody has seen him since he's been appointed.
- [04:35]
Luke Jones
I figured Trump suggested The New York Post put it out there that he might be gay. I mean, there was so many. Did you see that story?
- [04:41]
Manveen Rana
No, but the rumor mill is obviously insane.
- [04:43]
Luke Jones
The New York Post. This is last week. Now, the New York Post had a story where they said that Trump had been briefed by intelligence officials that the new Khomeini is gay. And apparently he laughed out loud at that. Anyway, that was on the front page of the Post.
- [04:55]
Manveen Rana
Wow. I mean, this is a man who's just lost his wife and family in airstrikes. So who's left as you? Ali Larajani would have been the person you would have expected a lot of these talks to happen with. He's not only sort of very senior figure in the IRGC and intelligence, but actually he had decades of experience of talking to the west, and he was a pragmatist, basically. This is a man who had written books on Immanuel Kant. He was somebody they could kind of. I mean, I'm not sure the Trump administration is great on philosophy, but at least they could have a dialogue with. He's dead. Many of the people around him are dead. It does look like the figure that's emerging in all of this is somebody the Trump administration is talking to is a man called Mohamed Baghre Roliboff. Now, he's been a character in the sort of the kind of near the top of Iranian politics for quite some time now. He was the mayor of Tehran for years, so that's how he sort of became known. He stood to be president about three or four times. Never one, never came close. When he was mayor of Tehran, there were lots of rumors of corruption, you know, worth billions, potentially. His family would go on holidays to Paris and come back with insane amounts of luggage in a country that is so sanctioned that most people were really suffering. So, you know, he became a figure of hatred for a lot of ordinary people. The reason he survived was because he had Khameney's backing. He was a great favorite of the old Ayatollah. Now the old Ayatollah is gone, so you've got to wonder how much power he really has. He's an old IRGC hand. But at the moment the IRGC began, because you've had so much of the leadership being killed, you know, there might be a scenario where he's the last man standing and he becomes sort of the most senior. But actually, it's quite factional now. So even if you're talking to this one man, a, it means that he'll be seen in Iran as like the Del C. Rodriguez character who potentially gave away information and let a lot of the leadership be killed, in which case he's lost all legitimacy anyway. Or, you know, how can you be sure that he will be able to get the backing of the rest of the irgc, the Ayatollah, if he's still alive? And people will back whatever plan he agrees to, especially if it's a humiliating one, as the 15 points so far seem to imply. Because, you know, for a lot of people in Iran now, this is a great opportunity. They seem to be winning this war. They've got America at its, you know, on its knees. They want things like, you know, for example, after the Suez crisis, Egypt now gets a toll from the Suez Canal. They want things like that. They want a toll for every boat that goes through the Strait of Hormuz, which would help them rebuild their economy. They want the end of sanctions. They want security guarantees. They're not going to sign up to a program which is just about humiliating them at a time where things seem to be going quite well for them.
- [07:33]
Luke Jones
And it does seem we haven't seen the 15 points, but some of it has been reported. Israel's Channel 12 has said it. Things like the Strait of Hormuz not only not having a toll for Iran's benefit, but it will remain open and constitute a free maritime zone. The nuclear facilities Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo will be taken out of use and destroyed. There will be oversight again by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran will abandon the use of armed proxies in the region, something they've enjoyed doing for many decades.
- [08:01]
Manveen Rana
Hezbollah and the Houthis, yeah, they would
- [08:04]
Luke Jones
dismantle all existing nuclear capabilities. And also one other interesting point, no nuclear material will be enriched on Iranian soil and all enriched mater appeal will be handed over to the iaea. So as you say, whoever is a new power base in Iran, talking to the Americans, this isn't tinkering that they would be having to sell back home. It is enormous, consequential, potentially humiliating stuff.
- [08:24]
Manveen Rana
And you have to remember something has happened inside Iran where this war has ended up. You know, people have rallied around the flag. This often happens. So even people who are out protesting against the regime are furious at this war and at the, you know, innocent people who are being turned into victims. So to sign up to a plan like this, which leaves them weakened and humil in the future, I mean, if you're a leader signing up to that, chances are you're going to be overthrown quite quickly.
- [08:50]
Luke Jones
Trump has made it very clear in the past that he thinks it's sort of up to him who might end up leading these countries. Cc, Venezuela, cc, the early part of this war. We had a question.
- [08:59]
Manveen Rana
He did accidentally kill the first three people he saw as potential candidates, which is a great trial.
- [09:04]
Luke Jones
Yeah. The trick is in the execution, no pun intended. We did have a message from Ira, who's in Estonia, who had a sort of question relating to this. Iran has a president. Is it possible to force them to give up the Supreme Leader position? It is inherently a dictator's position. Changing one dictator with another doesn't do anything. To answer that, we turned to Gabrielle Weiniger, who is the Times Israel correspondent, who has been right at the forefront of reporting on this war.
- [09:29]
Gabrielle Weiniger
Hi, Manveen and Luke. I think at this point in time, forcing Iran to give up on anything is a bit of a stretch. I think that Iran feels Trump has blinked first when it comes to Iran's supreme Leader, as we can see that with the elevation of Mujtaba, the son of the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as a leader we haven't seen or even heard from since he was chosen to take over from his father. That's how important the figurehead and the symbolism of the Supreme Leader is in this theocratic structure that is the Islamic Republic. And it's widely assumed that the IRGC is actually the ones holding the cards. The Revolutionary Guards, they're the ones that are making the calls on who to attack, when to attack, attack. They are the command center and the nerve center of the current war. So what that really means is we have a lessened judiciary, a lessened clerical religious backbone than what we saw under Ali Khamenei. Those are all really carefully structured and balanced pillars that held up the regime. Now that we have the irgc, who have a larger portion of that control, I don't see any world in which they concede to Iran's president, particularly because he's seen as a moderate figure. We can just look back at two weeks ago when he said Iran would no longer attack its Gulf neighbors. That was pretty much instantly ignored. So it really shows the strength of the IRGC and what the Supreme Leader figurehead means for them to hide behind as a face, as the face of the Islamic regime, even if he's not calling any shots.
- [11:10]
Manveen Rana
I think Gabi's exactly right there. You know, what we are seeing happening is a shifting of power bases. So even though you'll still have an Ayatollah, he won't have the same influence. It'll be the IRGC running the show, which actually means there's even less space for democracy in Iran. We might end up leaving them with effectively a military based government, which most people would think was worse. Also, I think we often forget this is a majority Shia nation and the Ayatollah is the head of the Shia. Effectively, if you took him away, they would have to look to Ayatollah Sistani in Iraq and Karabala. And, you know, it totally distorts the way the Shia power base works. You know, a lot of their sort of groups like Hezbollah and the Houthis, again, feed into that sort of looking up to the head of the Shia in Iran at the Ayatollah. If you get rid of that, you lose a lot of your credibility and your power base as well within the Shia sect.
- [12:05]
Luke Jones
So what does Donald Trump do with that? Because even the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has conceded that you can't have regime change necessarily. From the air, we know there's about 3,000 highly trained US milit personnel on their way. Not the hundreds of thousands that tipped up in Iraq back in the day, but still boots on the ground, which Donald Trump has been very critical of in previous American adventures. So is there a world where he just conforms to the taco stereotype that people have often talked about with Trump? When it came to tariffs, Trump always chickens out. He could just fold and leave it as it is and say, well, we got rid of one Ayatollah and we've killed lots of people and now it's fine.
- [12:46]
Manveen Rana
Or we could send troops into reverse. Genuinely, I think nobody knows which of those two options will happen. Now, as you say, he is a man who is usually governed by the taco instinct. He's made announcements over the last week where you can tell he's got an eye on the markets. Everything he's saying about the war is about influencing the shape of the markets. If the markets are, as we're hearing, turning into a long term decline. We've had warnings from people like Larry Fink at BlackRock talking about recession, recession, global recession. This would be sort of a global economic hit for years. This will have a massive impact. He won't necessarily want that to be his legacy. So does he try and tacko out of this, send all of those troops into reverse? But there are clearly people around him, and we suspect Hegseth, Pete Hegseth in the Pentagon, various others who are egging him on.
- [13:37]
Luke Jones
Well, to the extent that Trump at That press conference actually said, well, General Keynes, his top military bod, and Pete Hegseth, when he talked about maybe bringing this war to a close, Trump quoted them as both as saying, aw, really?
- [13:49]
Manveen Rana
I mean, I'm not sure that's really how General Kaine feels. Because there were warnings coming out of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before the war began that they weren't sure they had enough missiles and interceptors. They were worried they were too hollowed out to be able to sustain a long war, which is what this is turning into. And you know, the troops is so interesting because he started off talking about Marines making their way over, presumably to take Carg island, but that would have meant the Marines on boats would have had to go through the Strait of Hormuz, which is blocked, which is kind of the problem, in order to get to Carg island, take Carg island in order to try and unblock the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, there's a weird sort of cyclical problem there.
- [14:24]
Luke Jones
You mentioned missiles. Let me bring in a couple of questions and one from Eamon who's in Carrick, on Shannon in Ireland, who says, how long can Iran hold out against US And Israeli attacks? And then also Andrew who sends a message from here in the UK says how many missiles are left and when will their destruction be completed and can they reach the uk? So a question about actually, does this war slightly wrap up because each side has depleted solar?
- [14:48]
Manveen Rana
Well, it's a great question and we can't know for sure. We know that the rate at which Iran is, is sort of attacking its neighbors and Israel with ballistic missiles is slowing. A lot of people are taking that as a sign that maybe their stocks are running low. We know that the Israelis and the Americans have been very successful at hitting some of their missile launches. So even with the stocks, it's how they managed to get them up in the air. You know, they are being hit. They are hitting some of their reserves of missiles too, which has definitely cost them. But the Iranians always warned that if this war began, it would be a long war. There is a sense that they have a strategy for this. And if they are slowing down, it might just be because they see this as a long war and they're conducting it accordingly. You've had the shock and awe phase. Now you're sort of slowing down into something that you can sustain for longer.
- [15:34]
Luke Jones
But also if you want to wreak havoc on the Straits of Hormuz, actually, as we've seen previously, it might just take a rocket propelled grenade on A speedboat firing at some passing oil tank. And that could be enough to really doesn't take much to spook ships going through.
- [15:48]
Manveen Rana
It can take sort of. It can take drones, it can take sort of.
- [15:51]
Luke Jones
And they've got tens of thousands of those.
- [15:52]
Manveen Rana
Thousands of those. You know, they've basically, with the Shahid drone, they kind of innovated really early on. They are very much at the forefront of drone production. We also don't know how much they're being restocked by the Russians, potentially the North Koreans. We don't know what those deals are and how much is going on in the background, because for the Russians, this is a great opportunity. Chaos in the Middle east means nobody's looking at them for a while. Also, when people look back on this period, I imagine it'll be studied for years. Whatever you think of the Iranian regime, which I think everyone concedes is an evil regime, they have carried this out. This is an amazing example of asymmetric warfare. They've been very clever. They started off using drones, which cost them very little and wasted a lot of interceptor missiles, effectively, from America and from the Gulf on very cheap drones. Interceptor missiles which are launched in order to take out missiles that are coming at you. So there's asymmetry to take out a very cheap drone. They've understood how to turn the might of the American military against them, and they are so lucky with geography that even when, you know, Donald Trump is saying he's eviscerated their navy and their air force and their missile stockpiles, they are still in a position where they hold the upper hand. They have brought America and the Gulf to its knees because they have this absolute control on this chokehold which, you know, as you say, you know, can take very little. You can do it with drones, you can do it with very cheap mines that we know they have a huge stockpile of mines. It's very easy for them to stop the global economy. And as long as they can do that very cheaply, it almost doesn't matter how many missiles they have left.
- [17:33]
Luke Jones
What about the point of Andrew's question where he says, can they reach the uk because also Sylvie, who's in Singapore, says, can Britain defend itself against Iranian missiles being fired at the uk? We did have that scare a few days ago of some kind of missile heading towards our military base in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which wasn't successful, but it got a lot of people spooked. Well, and the Israelis themselves saying Iranian missiles could be raining down on Paris and London and Berlin.
- [17:57]
Manveen Rana
So it spooked people because up until now, the Iranians have always claimed they don't have missiles that go further than 2,000km. So they've always said, look, we are only ever going to be in a regional war, we're not a threat to you. We don't know why you're attacking us when we can never attack you back. Basically, that was part of their argument. And then when the missiles were launched towards Diego Garcia, they were suddenly traveling at double, double that length. And you got the feeling they haven't been entirely honest about the sort of missile. Funny that, about the sort of missiles that they have. Whether those could, I mean, you know, they didn't successfully reach Diego Garcia, so whether they could successfully reach Europe is a whole other question. Whether it would be easier for them to use smaller, cheaper missiles to hit us if they wanted to hit us, hit us in places like Cyprus, which they haven't since the start. And even at the start, you know, they were hitting British base, but they're kind of hitting American assets on it. So it's interesting to know whether. Whether they would even see us as a target right now, whether they're concentrating elsewhere. And on the question of whether we could defend ourselves, that's a whole other nightmare. In the Strategic Defence Review last year, one of the big gaps in our capability that was pointed out is that we don't have anything that would sort of be missiles to take out missiles, effectively. No air defenses, nothing like what the
- [19:12]
Luke Jones
Israelis have protecting territory, no islander, nothing
- [19:16]
Manveen Rana
to protect the island should we be under attack in that way. We are very reliant on NATO and there are some capabilities in Poland. But, you know, at a time where everybody's running out of interceptors and NATO is expected to protect the whole of the European mainland as well, it does feel like we are relying on very few interceptors to save a very big patch of land.
- [19:40]
Luke Jones
Both those questions hinted at it being missiles coming for us, but actually, isn't the point about the Iranian regime that the fear here on home soil would be terrorist cells or some kind of awful terrorist attack? Not necessarily intercontinental ballistic missiles hitting the capital.
- [19:56]
Manveen Rana
Yeah, there is. So, you know, again with asymmetric warfare, there are so many different ways in which you can attack a nation and make a real difference. You know, why would you bother wasting a very expensive missile to hit one building in London when you could have a terror cell here taking out, you know, a huge patch of London if they wanted to, or. And we've seen Iran has been quite Good at this. Cyber attacks. You know, we are so vul to cyber attacks that can absolutely disrupt our way of living. You know, they can take down emergency services, they can take down electricity, or, you know, they can get at our infrastructure through cyber, which takes very little. And they can do from afar as well. They don't even need people, you know, boots on the ground, effectively.
- [20:38]
Luke Jones
This, of course, all could be a lot worse.
- [20:40]
Manveen Rana
We must remember that.
- [20:41]
Luke Jones
We must remember that. And actually, Oliver in Cambodia sends an interesting question. He asks, why have countries such as Saudi Arabia and the uae, despite repeated missile and UAV attacks on their infrastructure, actually refrained from launching retaliatory strikes? I guess, you know, we could be thankful that it hasn't fully unfolded into some massive regional war, let alone third world war.
- [21:04]
Manveen Rana
It's not a huge, you know, the Middle east isn't completely on fire yet, which is what would happen if they were retaliating.
- [21:09]
Luke Jones
And they have the means to do that.
- [21:11]
Manveen Rana
They have. Well, they do. Although. Although they are running out of interceptors too. So whether they want to begin accelerating at a time like this is another question. It's a really interesting question about the Gulf. A few years back, the Saudis and the Iranians were pretty much in a state of open warfare. I lived in Beirut at the time as a reporter, and Beirut had been turned into a tit for tat playground. It was a proxy war between the two. They would bomb each other's embassies and the Lebanese would be caught up in the middle. But it was all Iran and Saudi trying to have a war without having a war, because the moment they started attacking each other, it would cost their economies. They would do it elsewhere. And we've seen proxy wars between them happening in lots of places. That all stopped a couple of years ago. There was this reported rapprochement between them because MBS Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince in Saudi Arabia, has great plans for what the Saudi economy could be. And they include things like Neom, this futuristic city that takes up a huge part of the coast. None of that will work in a post oil economy when you really need a plan B. None of that will work if there is always a danger that you might be attacked by a neighbor. You know, Neom, if you look at it, takes up a bit of the coast right next to the Red Sea. If the Houthis are launching cheap drones at you, your entire futuristic city is gone. Nobody's going to want to live there. Nobody's going to want to visit. So they realize the entire Gulf. I Think realized that their economic future lies in stability and that means not going to war with Iran and trying to make this stop as soon as possible.
- [22:47]
Luke Jones
Something often said to you by the types who have moved from the UK to Dubai wherever it's just so safe you can leave your Lamborghini with its door open on the side of the road and nothing will happen.
- [22:57]
Manveen Rana
Well, I mean if you're in Dubai, who's going to want to pay stupid money for a penthouse in a tall glass building when you think there might be an Iranian drone coming your way in a couple of days? So it's in their interest to make this war end rather than than retaliating accelerating and getting caught up in a war that would be self destructive as much as it was destructive of the Iranians. Everyone can see this could end disastrously for everyone and for global energy supplies because all these gas fields get caught up in the middle as well. So they'll be wanting it to end. There are lots of interesting reports about potentially mbs, the Saudis putting pressure on the Americans to keep it going. A lot of people in Saudi are briefing that just isn't true. There is definitely anger building and it's interesting because it's anger directed at the Iranians. There's a lot of anger about why they've suddenly ended up being caught up in this and why they're being attacked when they didn't launch this war. There's also anger at America because a lot of these countries allowed America to build bases on their land because it gave them a sense of a security guarantee and then when they were being attacked, where was America? So it'll be really interesting to see what happens at the end of this whenever it ends, whether there is a huge pivot away from, from the sort of the American system effectively that is kind of, you know, this agreement, this great agreement that's stretched across the Gulf where there's always been a relationship between the two, whether they'll now be looking elsewhere and if they are, it'll be China.
- [24:18]
Luke Jones
Well, how will this end? When will this end? The war, not the podcast.
- [24:22]
Manveen Rana
I mean both.
- [24:24]
Luke Jones
Both. Well, we've more after,
- [24:45]
Narrator/Advertiser
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- [25:40]
Manveen Rana
Hi there.
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Manveen Rana
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Manveen Rana
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- [26:27]
Luke Jones
Manveam we're talking about what is happening in the Middle east, the war that is raging. And I guess one of the things that might actually hem in what Donald Trump is doing at the moment is how it is screwing up lots of the economic challenges and things happening around the world. Harry Knox says, how are the effects of this war in the us, such as rising petrol prices, affecting Trump's traditional base? And is there any polling to indicate a general stance amongst them? And with the midterms approaching, how might any threat to his base vote alter Trump's course? Now, we sort of hinted at earlier on in terms of the effect the markets might have on him, but if he starts seeing meaty polling suggesting that actually your working class voter who lent you their vote in the past is now actually worried about their rising gas prices that might spell disaster?
- [27:14]
Manveen Rana
Well, there were accounts from the first Trump administration. You know, there was a lot of pressure from people around him at the time to launch war on Iran. You know, particularly people like John Bolton who were in the administration at the time. And he considered it very ser seriously for some time. There were rumors that he'd actually asked the Pentagon to draw up plans and he didn't go through with it because his answer at the time was always, but what would it mean at the petrol pump, at the gas pump, he was Very aware that it would cost him votes and he didn't want to take that risk. It's interesting that he's done it now. He's off. You know, there are moments where he said during this war that he didn't think war in Iran would mean they would block the Strait of Hormuz. He clearly hasn't thought this through. He's now seeing it will affect. Affect the prices at the petrol pump. So America is now in a position where they are mainly energy independent. They produce enough of their own shale gas, they don't have to worry about energy prices, they do have to worry about petrol prices.
- [28:07]
Luke Jones
Can I put it into context though? Because they complain about that and yet we know they enjoy very cheap petrol prices.
- [28:12]
Manveen Rana
Very cheap. But for some reason that is always a trigger for a vote. I was once told by an American pollster who worked for Obama that you can also always work out who's gonna win the next election depending on petrol prices.
- [28:25]
Luke Jones
The pandemic did this to me. But I have increasingly become the kind of person who could tell you the diesel price to a tenth of a pence of any petrol station within a two mile radius of my home.
- [28:33]
Manveen Rana
I'm alive, so I'm useless.
- [28:35]
Luke Jones
You become obsessed with it. The current US diesel price is $5.38 per gallon. That translates to 105.7 pence per litre in the UK. The current diesel price in the UK is 173.8 y. So they're complaining about a rise to what is essentially 105. We have all been dealing with 103.
- [28:58]
Manveen Rana
They would argue, though, they travel greater distances and that sort of travel, that's their fault, but that travel is inbuilt into their daily routines. So they feel the difference when the prices go up and that's why it costs you votes.
- [29:12]
Luke Jones
But in terms of the MAGA base, though, obviously, as we discussed ad nauseam previously, it is such a strange coalition that he's assembled. So actually you are seeing that there's no kind of MAGA view on this because. Because I guess the blue collar worker in a state that turned red for Donald Trump is thinking one way about this war and all the promises that Donald Trump has made in the past about not getting involved in these foreign entanglements. Then you've also got your kind of podcasty outriders, your Tucker Carlsons, your Megyn Kellys, Tucker Carlson, someone like him, particularly against this kind of war, lots of them hardening against the traditional support of Israel that the Republicans have had so Much though the split is moving in several different ways and is pissing numerous people off for different reasons at the same time.
- [29:57]
Manveen Rana
Yeah, it's so interesting. Cause it feels like when Donald Trump came along, he sort of cleaved the Republican Party into, like, the old Republicans who had a sense of, you know, an importance of alliances around the world, a sense that America was the great policeman, the superpower that needed to be out there and being seen and very big on defense. And then you had the MAGA base who were much more about, you know, draining the swamp, wanting an end to forever walls. You know, that is the mandate that he elected on the idea that he was not the president who would get them into another forever war in the Middle East. He was the person who brought peace. He ended wars. He didn't start them. So for that base who voted for him on that mandate, this is a real violation. And the polling does show it's hugely unpopular in America, this war. But for the old Republicans, who, many of whom are like sort of never Trumpers, who've always hated Donald Trump, there is a weird moment of still not liking him and not wanting to approve of him. But actually, for many of them, Iran is like the red button issue. You know, they see, what would Donald
- [31:01]
Luke Jones
Rumsfeld make of all of this?
- [31:02]
Manveen Rana
Exactly. You know, I mean, and lots of American generals who have experience of Iraq and always felt that Iran was the great problem, and they never could persuade an American administration to take the Iranians on properly. This is the moment they've been waiting for.
- [31:15]
Luke Jones
But it's Donald Trump doing it.
- [31:17]
Manveen Rana
It's Donald Trump doing it. And also they hate the way he's doing it, and the fact that he's sacked so many of the senior people in the Pentagon who thought this was a bad idea, the way he's conducting it, the way he's not sort of bringing allies with him, making no attempt to make it look like it might be within the bounds of international law, not even going to the UN and pretending. So everybody's torn. It's such an interesting moment. I actually did Times Radio with John Bolton the other day, who was National Security Advisor during Donald Trump's first administration. And he was saying, this is a war he's called for for the last 30 years, but even he thinks it's been conducted badly. So it's really interesting to see whether Donald Trump will find a coalition to back him come the midterms.
- [31:59]
Luke Jones
And there is an argument you can construct where you might say, well, Donald Trump is coming to the halfway point of his second and final term in office. So what does he care about upcoming elections and what voters think this is maybe Trump unleashed. But actually, if in the midterms, you see control of one or both of the House or the Senate, Senate go into Democrat control, there is actually a lot that could happen which would infuriate him. Would committees start trying impeachment hearings again? Would there be investigations into things that he's done with the power of being able to subpoena people and the rest? There is a world in which political control switches, and it can really screw him up in a way that would terrify him.
- [32:44]
Manveen Rana
It certainly could. And it's really interesting talking to American journalists about this. Many of them are immediately jumping to the conclusion that that means he will try and do something to subvert democracy come the midterms. So, you know, they're talking about some of the measures that have already been taken. There will be ICE agents outside voting booths, which means a lot of people will be too, too afraid to turn up and vote.
- [33:04]
Luke Jones
Yeah, and we've already seen a long tail of that. We've seen FBI agents raiding Fulton county where they were seizing all the ballots because obviously, Trump long ago had complaints about Georgia and him needing to find extra votes there in previous elections. And then also this huge bill, which is. Which has been being debated in the Senate about requiring people to have ID when they go to vote and the rest of that. So he's already making moves on that election security front, as he'd call it.
- [33:27]
Manveen Rana
So I think that's what we can expect to see come the midterms. There'll be a real row about whether this is democracy in action.
- [33:36]
Luke Jones
Quite a meaty Q and A episode. Again, Manveen, when we next do this, we could sort of swap recipes instead, couldn't we? Or describe our perfect sundae.
- [33:45]
Manveen Rana
I bake sometimes. We should do that.
- [33:46]
Luke Jones
Yeah, exactly. Just have a sort of take the foot off the pedal for a moment.
- [33:50]
Manveen Rana
Do you think it'll ever calm down?
- [33:52]
Luke Jones
No. I dare to think what we'll be talking about in a month. Living hope, Manveen. Absolute pleasure as always. And that is it from us. If you want to send us a question at any point, the storyatthetimes.com is our email address. I'm Luke Jones.
- [34:04]
Manveen Rana
I'm Manveen Rana. The producer today was Olivia Case. The executive producer was Tim Walklate. And sound design and theme composition were by Malicetto.
- [34:13]
Luke Jones
Bye.
- [34:13]
Manveen Rana
Bye.
- [34:42]
Narrator/Advertiser
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Luke Jones
What?
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Luke Jones
I've been calling for 13 months.
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Luke Jones
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Luke Jones
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Luke Jones
Not a chance.
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Luke Jones
Hey, marketers, here's something to note. 75% of listeners don't consider podcasters to be influencers. Yet 84% say a podcaster has changed their mind about something they once believed. That's the paradox of podcast influence. It's built on credibility, not clout.
- [35:28]
Manveen Rana
Trust, not trends.
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Luke Jones
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- [35:39]
Manveen Rana
Get the full report free@podcastpulse2025.com.