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Trump cannot enunciate a clear reason for why he's chosen to go to war against Iran, and the administration is not even bothering to coordinate a message that clarifies its objective. While the military campaign appears aimed at regime change, Hegseth denies it is. And instead of speaking directly to Americans, POTUS himself has taken on a Jekyll and Hyde approach to his rationales in a series of private interviews: he's waffled between "freedom," to installing a caretaker regime à la Venezuela, to maybe even revenge. In any event, the United States seems like it's being dog-walked by the Israelis and the Saudis, and the corrupt deals between the Trump family and Gulf Arab states may be a factor. Plus, anti-interventionist JD is in the cuck chair, and a preview of Tuesday's Senate primary in Texas.
Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller.
show notes
Hello, and welcome to the Bullwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday, so we
are back with Editor-at-large Bill Kristol, author of the Morning Shots newsletter.
A lot's happened since Friday's podcast with Amanda Carpenter, which should be a reminder
to you all to, you know, do you check it out? The Bullwark takes feet on the weekends as
news happens because we're at war with Iran now. And Bill, I just want to kind of start
with a state of play for people. If that's okay with you, you can edit or amend any of
my assessment. I will be happy to. And also we, you and JBL and Sarah and Mark Kirtling
did an excellent early Saturday, Saturday morning at 9, kind of first snapshot of where
things were. And then you and I and Mark Kirtling did something at noon yesterday, Sunday.
And I have got to say both of them were, I thought, informative and luckily General
Hurtling's there. So the rest of us can talk. And he can actually explain and analyze.
And no, I think both of you know, our analysis of what was happening on the ground and he
or at home for that matter domestically, which you particularly focused on yesterday was
good. Look, it's a very impressive military operation. You know, we took out a huge number
for Indian assets that they were working with Israel. Very close collaboration with Israel.
I mean, I may be a little surprised by that. Usually that some attempt to maintain distance.
It seems like it was a genuinely, you know, coordinated effort wiped out a large percentage
of the Iranian leadership and really a nationwide campaign against military assets way
beyond degrading, you know, key nodes of the nuclear program or taking out some missile
sites. You know, that was what happened last summer in June. This was a real attempt
to go after the regime in many aspects, I'd say. And if you look at the map of the places
we've hit, some of them were not nuclear or many most of them are not nuclear. Some of
them were, you know, ballistic missile sites. They were other forms of regime places.
The regime had assets and weapons and coordinating structures. And so the military campaign
is consistent with regime change as a goal. That's clearly it's been Israel's goal. It's
the goal of Trump articulated Blade Friday night early Saturday morning in his little
eight minute address. He's waived it back and forth on that goal since obviously. And
in terms of the military effort, finally, it's gone well, but, you know, war is a war,
right? So we've lost four soldiers sadly and some planes and others, you know, Iran is
not disabled. Let me just give a quick rundown on that. So before we get to what exactly
the goal is here, you know, as you mentioned, like a total annihilation decapitation
of Iranian leadership. I told a community, dead, Akhmadina Jad was not involved in this
government, but was I think kind of plotting a more radical coup type government. He's
also dead among familiar names, to listeners, total domination of Iranian airspace. Obviously
Israel has a ton of assets inside Iranian military leadership. So impressive in that sense.
But, you know, as wars go, you know, it's not just us bombing them. They're four American
soldiers dead. At the time of this taping, we don't know the details on that yet. There
was initially, they didn't know it's three had died of another one added this morning.
Three US F-15 strike eagles went down and Kuwait in a friendly fire incident. The pilot
survived there. The headquarters of the US Navy's fifth fleet in Bahrain has been hit.
US embassies have been attacked in Pakistan, Iraq, Kuwait. There was a mass shooting in
Austin that maybe in response to this, the guy the shooter was, you know, wearing sweatshirts
at Allah. I think it's shirt underneath that had the Iranian flag on it. Among factions
that we took, in addition to all the things you laid out, Bill, there was a tragic bombing
of a girl's school in southern Iran. Many dead there. Just really a couple of the things
geopolitically, Hezbollah's entered the war bombing Israel from inside Lebanon, Israel
responded, Lebanese leadership's not trying to expel Hezbollah. So there's kind of a second
engagement there. Trump to tap her this morning, Jake Tapper. He said, we haven't even started
hitting them hard. The big one is coming soon. And then Pete Hexath and Dan Kane had a
press conference this morning. We are coming to about get into. So that seems to be the
state of affairs. And as you kind of let us there, I think the most important question
remaining here is what exactly is the goal of what we're doing? Like what is the objective?
Was it safety? Safety for us, safety for Israel, long term safety, short term safety.
Is it regime change? Human rights in Iran, Trump's legacy, pay back for them trying to
assassinate Trump, nuclear weapons only. Like it's not really clear. And interestingly this
morning, the daily caller was originally Tucker Carlson's outlet, a very pro Trump outlet.
They got the second question to Pete Hexath and Dan Kane, because depending on press
corps has been totally eviscerated. We don't have any real journalists. But I guess Kudos
to Regan Rees, daily caller reporter who asked the question, what are our objectives? I
want to play you Pete Hexath's answer for that.
President said yesterday in his video message that we will leave Iran when we complete
all of our objectives. What are our objectives? And can you share more information on how the
soldiers who were killed were killed?
Well, I laid out the objectives as did the chairman. They're completely nested. I mean,
Iran has an ability to project power against us and our allies in a ways that we can't tolerate.
So whether that's ballistic missiles and drones, so offensive capabilities, effectively
they're Navy, which would attempt to set other terms and impose different costs, drone
capabilities, which we laid out there. And ultimately, though, this tying it back to
midnight hammer, the president has been willing to make a deal. You can't have a nuclear
bomb. Radical Islamists can't have a nuclear bomb that they wield against the world. He
gave them every single opportunity. Then we precisely took it away. And even even then
after that, they didn't have that. They didn't come to the table with a willingness to give
it away. So ultimately, that those nuclear ambitions, which never ceased, are something
that had to be addressed as well. So that's a discrete sense of what's being addressed,
you're to ensure that they can't use that conventional umbrella to continue a pursuit
of nuclear ambitions. Didn't seem to clear a lot up for me. Iran has an ability to project
power in a way we can't tolerate. That's pretty amorphous. He mentioned their Navy and drone
capabilities. A lot of countries have that. They're nuclear ambitions. In the end, saying
this is a discrete sense of what's being addressed here, did you feel like you got a sense
of what's being addressed here? Before I address that one foot down on your exit update
out of the state of the world, I would say that one thing that's been a little striking
to some friends of mine who follow the stuff with more expertise than I do is we have
not decimated Iran's counter-strike capability in the sense that they're lobbying lots of
missiles and drones at various allies at our own bases and at the UAE and many of the
Arab nations nearby. So I hope they're all decimated in another day or two, but they
may not be. And that does raise the spectre of a wider war, obviously. I thought the
Hexat Press conference this morning, it was really telling. Refuse was to be clear about
to even entertain the questions really about the goals, but to the degree he entertained
them, he was hard over on no regime change, no long-term strategy, frankly. Just we're
there to beat them up so badly they don't think about messing with us again, I guess.
I don't think they were messing with us. I heck them a lot. Honestly, in the last few
years, you know, when they were pretty badly beat up in June, so there was no imminent
threat from Iran. There wasn't even much of a medium threat from Iran at this point.
Yeah, no, if you're Israel, there were even there, incidentally, they had done a awful
lot of damage. So there was a plausibly coherent regime change strategy still shouldn't
have been done without congressional authorization, really in problems with it, but it was plausible.
I actually, the Hexat thing really hit me because I think he's sort of a totally undercut
that. And I don't really see what the coherent strategy is or the coherent rationale for
the war or the defensible rationale for the war. And I hate to say this is someone who
who's, you know, supports an internationalist and even sometimes interventionist foreign
policy and the use of force were necessary. What are our servicemen and women doing over
there? I mean, really, I don't mean that in a silly way. I mean, I honestly feel this
like personally, what, what do you, would you tell someone whose son or daughter or spouse
was serving over there? What national interest or American values are they serving?
Yeah. Well, the families of the four that have died so far. What are you telling them?
Or what? Like in the literal sense, again, not in kind of a rhetorical, you know, political
pick code pink sense, like, what is the literal reason why they are there? The administration
can't enunciate it and it changes minute by minute. So I just want to go through a couple
of the things you mentioned on the point of this being freedom in Iran, freedom for the
Iranian people or regime change in Iran brings stability to the regime. Initially Saturday
morning, Trump told the Washington Post that was the goal. And he sounded like 1999 Bill
Kristall for freedom in the Middle East was important. That's what Trump said in Saturday
morning. It offers a totally different story to the Atlantic. He talked to Michael Scherer.
He said, Trump said he's planning to start talks with the new Iranian regime, whoever
that is, and he waffles on whether he provides support for a popular stop rising. Says
you'd have to see how it turns out. Then on the regime change front, he told the New
York Times over the weekend, we have three very good choices for who will take over Iran.
Have some bad news on that. Late last night, he told John Carl that the candidates that
they had to take over Iran were killed in the initial attack. Trump, the attack was so successful
at knocked out most of the candidates. It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking
of because they're all dead. Second or third place is dead. Then hegs up this morning,
to your point, says, we're not doing nation building quagmires. No democracy building
exercise. I don't know. I mean, Trump and other people have said that they want regime
change or that they want freedom for the people of Iran. But simultaneously, they don't seem
to have any idea under what auspices that would come and minute by minute, they're going
back and forth on whether they're even interested in that or being involved in that.
One point on the media strategy you had Sarah discussed this very well. Yesterday also
on a video take, I mean, Trump's good at like giving random interviews to a zillion
different reporters and advancing his culture war, you know, agenda, whatever it is, a particular
day. This is a real war. And the president of the United States should not be randomly
calling up reporters having three or five or six minute conversations with them, giving
differing and confusing rationals for the war and then sort of signing off without it
with no clarification, no apparent coordination within the administration about what they really
want to be saying today, what they want to tell the American public who do deserve some
clarity about this. The whole public and particularly, of course, those who's loved ones
are serving over there, but everyone deserves clarity and our allies and people around
the world. It's so irresponsible. I mean, this is like a little thing in the big scheme
of things, but it is worth noting, I think, as you and Sarah did. I mean, just it's not
just silly, but it's it's damaging, right? I mean, yeah, I mean, to my point, there's
been no presidential address. And it's totally insane. Like on Tuesday, three days before
they started the war, it was the biggest address that a president gives every year at the
state of the union, like what gave one paragraph on this, then has not given a novel office
address since then has like randomly called up John Carl and Jake Tepper. That is crazy.
It's it's the biggest military operation that we've been involved in and in a generation.
The president should be telling people what the point is.
He's boasting Tepper. The big one is really coming. I don't know what that means, but if
you accept a excess account of the goals of the war, it could end now, basically. I don't
think it's any danger around doing anything to us. They'll take them so long to recover
from the decapitation of their leadership and the decimation of so many of their military
assets. Why are we continuing to fight? Now, I think there are reasons if you really want
to try to help get a better regime in place there. There may be reasons I don't know about
in terms of some assets they still have that we haven't hit yet, but we could do that
pretty quickly at this point. The whole thing is, yeah, incoherent. This might turn out
okay. It might wars are unpredictable. You can get lucky. The whole regime could collapse
even though we don't want. We're not even trying to make it collapse as it could collapse.
Right. Anything could turn out okay. Look at what happened in Syria. We don't know if long-term
Syria turns out okay, but the Turkish rebels weren't trying to even really take out Assad.
All of a sudden, the House of Cards just collapsed. Assad has gone. It's replaced with this
old al-Qaeda guy. Is he going to be better than Assad? I agree. I don't want to
preclude that, but I'd say to the degree that we are talking about a serious war by far the
largest of Trump's presidency. No congressional authorization, which by itself makes it much more
of a gamble than it's Trump's own risk-taking and then no precise goal. Very hard to defend.
I really do not believe that. Here's Pete Hanks at this morning in case this clears it up for you.
This is not a regime change war, but the regime did change. I don't know how we would
splice that. Why is the Secretary of Defense saying that? I mean, he's supposed to be talking
about the military side of it. If there's a Secretary of State, it might have a few views on what
the broader, you know, conception of the war is. It's nothing of the president. The vice president
has gone into hiding, I guess, so I don't know. The whole thing is. And he had Dan Kane next
to him who was doing the military update, which was useful. But again, they took 13 minutes of
questions. Given the scale and scope of this operation, I'm not nearly up to, you know, what
would be called for, as far as responsiveness to a free people who want to know what's happening.
There's literally a January 6th insurrectionist that was in the room. Today, we're in a
stockout. I don't know if you got a question. Some other of these buffoonish kind of state media
organizations that were asking them, like, how did it make you feel to kill communists?
And Kane was really being just, like, brass tax about, like, what has happened? It was
basically all he did. And then you have Hegseth up there, like, doing a Saturday Night Live
performance on the Department of Defense Secretary, attacking media outlets, calling people stupid,
you know, lethality. It's like, it's crazy. Just one more thing on the regime change will kind of
get through a couple of these other plausible explanations for what they're trying to do.
Maybe Trump was revealing something to the New York Times. And Michael shared, maybe Trump really
did want this to be a Venezuela-type thing where you bring in the Iranian-Delci Rodriguez.
And then we're kind of the junior partner, at least, in some of the military operations. And
Israel is out there with a little different objective. And they're taking out people left and
right. And I think that, you know, Israel might be okay with a period of uncertainty and
like regime collapse. And that could be a sign that while the operations are cohesive together,
the like mission might not be.
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Other potential theories I want to put forth for what the real mission is here. Revenge.
Trump to Jonathan Carl last night. I got him before he got me on the Iatola. They tried twice.
Well, I got him first. So maybe that's all this is. Maybe it's just Trump wanted revenge.
We can surround on the threat scale. Scott Jennings of CNN had said that there was an immediate
imminent threat coming that he had friends inside the administration that we had to act because
it could have been a quote mass casualty event. That turns out to be wrong. DoD briefers,
did go to Congress over the weekend and they said that Iran was not planning to strike the US
forces or bases the Middle East unless Israel attacked Iran first. Long term threat,
hegs of today saying that Iran was building powerful missiles and drones that could help
with their nuclear umbrella. In that initial clip, I put at the top, I guess that's what he's
trying to say. I guess that's the safety and security case that he's making. Yeah, I mean,
the missiles are are a danger to the region. Certainly the Israel. I don't think many people
think they're much of a danger to us here. I guess they were danger to our troops in the region
exceedingly. But Iran is being pretty well deterred from attacking US troops, right? I mean, there's
a reason they presumably haven't done it much in the last few years. And especially in the last
six, eight months, I mean, we could clobber them if they do that. And so there was no need to go in.
And again, I, it's such a horrible regime. I know so many people have been involved, honestly,
in Iranian dissident circles at Iranians who left there and friends and family have suffered.
I was moved by all the celebrations and the streets of terror and Saturday and Sunday. I so
much want to believe that this may have been the right thing to do and could work out. But I've
got to say, I've found with Trump's, you know, particular series of interviews, but they were
ridiculous, but they all tended, wouldn't you say, in the direction in scaling back the hope of
freedom. I mean, the first one, as you said, was a Saturday warning, perhaps, I think, with
the folks, Washington Post, Saturday of a day. And that was a little war. Yeah, freedom. And then
by Sunday, it's all just, you know, his personal revenge. And then I want to work it out with the
IRGC. Maybe they can cut a deal with some of the other people. We have a list of three people we
want to put into charge, as you said, but a couple of them, they're all dead. And I mean,
it's so demoralizing, really, the idea that we've, we moved unbelievable number of assets there.
American servicemen and women are at risk, four of died. I mean, others are wounded and others
are now going into combat, returning to combat for more missions. It's so demoralizing that we
don't have a serious subjective war. And sadly, it doesn't have to be, you can have much more
limited objective. And that could be serious. But that would then imply a more limited war plan.
And there's no evidence, Mark Rantling's made this point that the actual planning, which is very
impressive, is linked up to any sense of a broader strategic objective. Yeah. And the supporters
are trying to have it all the way. You know, I mean, to your point about like how I want freedom
for the Iranian people, I was also moved by some of the images. But last night, our friend
of Congress Nancy Mace posts, like if you're angry that Iranian women may finally be free,
you need to seriously examine your values and yourself. That's like, is that what we're doing?
Like is the effort here to free Iranian women? You know, because I don't know, like,
you know, I would not have been totally hostile to that mission if there was a plan and there were
allies. And we had a competent people in charge. And the case was made to Congress and American
people, right? That's not an illegitimate thing to hope for. But like, the supporters of this are
just trying to backfill any possible rationale they can. And, and you know, some of them are talking
as if, you know, this is a part of the freedom agenda. And like others are talking completely
differently. And the president is saying different things are different seconds. So anyway,
one other thing that they have put forth, according to the Atlantic, Trump told confidence that he
believes his legacy could be defined by his overthrow of the regimes in Venezuela, Iran, and
potentially Cuba. I think that there's a madman Trump element to this too. And I think I,
don't you think, obviously, a huge being high in your own supply sort of situation in terms of
his personal ability to run these things of the US military's ability, which is very great,
don't get me wrong, but it's not infinite and not, you know, can do everything everywhere.
There will be casualties and setbacks too. There's a kind of megalomaniac now, I think,
that's very dangerous, actually. We're saying like the hot guy on the crap's table, you know,
it's like this Venezuela thing worked. Yeah, you know, let's keep real let's let's keep pressing
not really a way to run a country. We hear a lot from folks in the lab and people opposed to
Trump is that everything we just talked about is all just kind of window dressing on the more
true rationale, which is advancing the domestic authoritarianism agenda, Tim Snyder, you know,
for one example, it's basically saying that the case that Trump wants us to rally to a war
because it turns everyone as opposed to the war into a traitor. And that also, you know, maybe
provides rationale for putting certain conditions or limits on the midterm elections. This
old quote of Trump, he's kind of joking, was Lensky, but you know, a lot of times Trump's jokes
have a tinge of truth to them where, you know, back in the Oval Office, where he's like, oh, you
cancel the elections during a war. Maybe that's something I should look into. You know,
and then you have kind of the Epstein distraction sub bullet to that. I don't really think that's
what's happening, but I think we should at least chew it over. Yeah, and he did say something about
the elections around messing with the 2020-2024 elections. Friday, maybe that was. Yeah, that's good.
Yes, he posted on truth social about how Iran was, you know, trying to oppose him in the 2020
election, and that was part of the steel. And the excuse of foreign interference or dealing
with foreign interference is, I think, one of the obvious excuses they could try to use for
federal intervention or partial takeover apart to the 2026 and 2028 elections. So I don't think
we're going to war for those reasons. It's temps not to write, though, that authoritarian
governments want to succeed in bullying at home and some bullying abroad. You try to do more
bullying abroad. Maybe you think it rallies people to you. It's sort of big stuff in your own,
but I'm not sure the distinction almost to domestic and foreign policy at some point almost
exist in his mind. So all about him being on top of everything, you know, in charge of
bullying everyone, right? And showing he's on top, but if he's on top of fraud, you think he'll
remain on top at home and get away with doing things on the elections, or maybe
just people will be so oppressed they'll vote for him. Yeah, I tend to discount the kind of war,
you know, it's to distract him from the Epstein false thing. I hadn't really focused on
the war until you added about the personal, so, you know, comedy you wanted to get me. And so I've
got him. It wasn't wanted to kill the American president or what it's, or either, you know,
or the US had to make clear this is unacceptable. It's all personal, right? Yeah. He wanted to get
me. I got him. He got got that is much more in my mental model of Trump's mega-lomania
and how he decides things than, you know, some of the more four-dimensional chess theories of like
what nefarious activities he has in mind. I don't mean to say that, of course, you'd like to talk about
other things besides Epstein. And of course, if there are ways for them to metal in the midterms,
they'd like to do it. I just think that the other explanations for what got him to this point
make more sense to me. And to that point, let's talk about the geopolitics, because I think this
is huge. It seems like he has pushed into this in a big way by a BB and MBS. I mean, BB said yesterday
time to flat circle said sometimes this weekend that, you know, bluntly, like that was happy that
the Americans are here to do this with us. But this has been something we need to do for 40 years.
Like BB is not really hiding the ball on that, like on what his objective is here. And there's
reporting that, you know, a lot of us started back on one of his visits to the lighthouse in December
where they're talking about this and talking about how degraded Iran is and, you know, how,
you know, how confident Israel is that, like, this is a moment to go after a weekend regime,
other reporting that MBS, I guess, was calling Trump last week saying he's for this,
pushing him for this. There's, of course, a Saudi, Iranian, Shia Sunni, you know, kind of
proxy fight happening for a Germany in the Middle East. So what do you make of that part of this
story? As you say, I don't think this has made much of a secret about his desire to
deal more comprehensively with the Iran threat than he's done at the best. He's been Prime Minister
a long, long, long time and has never been able to felt he could, I suppose, deal with Iran on
the way he hoped and maybe both the military capabilities and the stuff he did to Hasbala,
which took away that threat mostly, you know, after October 7th and then getting a American
president who's willing to take the third of our fleet and move them all to the region and use
up on awful lot of munitions, he thought, okay, this is his moment. So I think that's quite possible,
as you say, he's not really, he's candid about it. What is really done if the US hadn't moved
all those ships there, I don't know, honestly, I don't know, maybe they've done a more limited thing.
But obviously, it's Trump's decision, but I think going back to your early point,
I mean, somehow Venezuela was very important, right? He did that one day in June in Iran at the end
of 12 days, he was really pounding ever on and that went okay. Then he was, he talked like Greenland,
nothing came of that so far at least Panama, but Venezuela, he, they gave him a good plan and he
did the special operations thing. I don't know the Venezuela is that much better off, honestly,
now that it was two months ago and I don't know there's going to be much better off four months
from now and I don't know a lot of oil is going to come out of there and I don't know a lot more
freedom is going to be there. But whatever, it was a victory, I mean, and then that went to his head
and I do think he now looks at the world and where can I move all the U.S. troops and beat up
someone. And in this case, it's a regime that really is awful. So people like me want to at least
be instinctively for it and Venezuela is very bad too, actually, but there are actual trade-offs
here, right? In terms of, we haven't done anything to help Ukraine, which is actually fighting in
Europe against an awful invasion. Well, because he doesn't want to fight a great power.
Right. So that's the key point I think. Yeah. That's right. I think that's key. In China,
God knows if all the China hawks in the administration, they are all lying about the Middle East.
This is they hated people like me who thought that at least it was important because we get it's
all a diversion. It's all ridiculous. We need to have all our forces ready to fight China. Now,
all our forces are busy fighting Iran, which is sort of an ally, sort of China,
out of Russia. So it weakens Russia a little bit probably, which is good for Ukraine. But
also maybe distracts us and resources that could be given to fighting Russia.
Honestly. So yeah, so maybe it helps a little bit actually. It doesn't weaken Russia.
No, it helps in terms of, I think, yeah, so much we're using things we can't help you. I mean,
we're going to move a lot of troops around and use a lot of air power and stuff. You know,
maybe we should use some of it to help Ukraine directly, honestly. They were invaded by Russia.
Iran is a very horrible regime of what they did at home over the last two months is really terrible.
And for me, it would be a ground for intervention just because it's their domestic slaughter of
their opponents. But if you are on a more strict, Pete Hegseth, the America first JD
vans, you only get to deal with countries when they cross borders. If that you can't deal with
anything domestically, isn't Russia the example of this? And the Iran hasn't invaded anyone very
recently, you know? Yeah. Also, if you're talking about, you know, defending democracy and freedom,
it's like, well, there's a free Ukrainian government that we could help, right? It's still not
even clear who those people would be in Iran. You know, and pay over the weekend, especially
MEK, which like has a more support in Rosalind than it does in Iran as best I can tell. And it's like,
okay, I'm for it. But what's the plan? And like, Ukraine, there's a clear plan. You could move
this type of assets there and have actually helped them. There's one more item on this like
the geopolitics and the incentive structures in the Middle East. This also ties directly
to the corruption story in America, right? It's like, how can you just entangle it? Is the fact that
Saudi, you know, put in a billion dollars to Trump's son-in-law? Did that give them more sway here?
You have to say maybe, right? Is the fact that Qatar is giving Trump a plane and the UAE and
Qatar investing in these media companies that Trump is, you know, encouraging to be taken over by
allies in America? Is that part of it? Is the fact that the UAE is in a crypto deal with Trump?
Is that part of it? I mean, Trump is like mobbed up from a business standpoint with Saudi UAE
and Qatar in a major way. And, you know, obviously, BB has big influence with him. We have the
acute story of like the war, what's happening in the war and that crisis. But it's, I think it's
an interesting subplot that like, it seems like we're being walked around the dog track by Arab
and Israeli interests, actually, right now. Yeah, and by Trump's own wish to bully people,
he can get away with bullying and trying away from confronting Russia and China, the two great
powers, which incidentally is her link, Mark General, her own pointed out in our conversation
Saturday and Sunday with him. In the actual defense strategy, this administration produced
just two or three months ago. It's all about China and not about the Middle East. They kind of,
they're shunning the Middle East a little bit. So if Iran was such a threat, when did it suddenly
become such a threat? I mean, again, I don't want to be pedantic. I mean, who cares if they
mentioned in a strategy, maybe there are things would have changed and there are reasons you've
got to do what you've got to do militarily. I mean, they're not a threat. They're not a threat
toss, right? Like it's just, it's not even worth. Yeah. Like, right. You know, giving them any sort of
credence on that and throwing your weight around all over the world. If it's against a
noxious regime, obviously, people give you more room to do that. But it's not cost-free. I mean,
it's literally not cost-free in terms of lives and money and material and resources. It's also not
cost-free in terms of just attention and what other countries can do elsewhere and the lessons
that people learn from this. The lesson people learn from this is not that we're unfortunately,
and I say this genuinely with the terrible, with the threat is not that we're on the side of freedom.
I'd say at this point, it looks to me like the lesson they're likely to learn from this is,
you know, we have a very capable military and we're willing to go in and use it against regimes
that are kind of flat on their back like Venezuela or Iran and that already have been terribly
weakened. But we're not willing to help Ukraine fight Russia and God knows what we're willing to do
in Asia against China. I mean, maybe it's mercantilist also. It's what people take away. You know,
you can do whatever you want, actually, domestically. Because again, nobody believes that Trump did
this because of the killing of protesters in Iran. It was a heinous killing of protesters in Iran,
but we've killed protesters in America this year and we are not letting Iranian refugees come to
America. In fact, we've been sending Iranian refugees back to Iran and some of the countries that
we're dealing with in the Middle East have terrible human rights records themselves, right? And so
obviously, you know, to me, if you're around the world, the lesson is that at least as long as Trump
is around, this is like a pay for play thing. Get in, get in with Trump and you know, who didn't get
in with Trump on his corrupt BS, Maduro and Kameni. One more thing on the Arab stuff, because this
is going to be interesting to watch. It's pretty clear at this point, and obviously Saudi
is for it. We have the reporting. It's pretty clear that UAE and Qatar folks are on board with us
at least some degree. That said, the Saudi official to Al Jazeera this morning says America is a
band in us and folks has defense systems on protecting Israel, leaving the Gulf states that
host its military bases at the mercy of Iranian missiles and drones. Something to watch. Not
unprecedented that Saudi would be behind the scenes talking about how they're for America and then
to the public audience talking about how they don't trust America. So we'll see kind of how that
shakes out. But there have been serious hits. The iconic hotel in Dubai, you've kind of seen
the picture there of the airport. That got hit. There are people fleeing Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
There's a great sound for a story about how it's like charging $300,000 a pop for people to take
a 10 hour black car from Dubai and Abu Dhabi to Riyadh and then a private jet from Riyadh to Europe
to get out of the Middle East. So again, that's this kind of thing. When you go into something like
this, maybe they're on board at the start, but the case wasn't made to their populations either,
like the Emirates and Qataris and Saudis, as just who knows, right? Like how
especially this escalates, how that ends up shaking out.
And energy prices look like they might be short term. I will see what happens, obviously.
But they could, I've been so, so many, they would settle down, but maybe they'll go up. I mean,
look, you start a war, things start to happen, right? And it's almost to go bully these guys
and they bully those guys. But I also should stipulate that that has second and third order
of effects of its own as we're seeing here, right? And the Saudis may be sort of spinning for now
and just trying to pretend that they're very unhappy. But at some point, maybe they really will
be unhappy or maybe other allies really will get hit in ways that we don't retaliate. And suddenly,
they're like, what the hell is happening here? We encourage Trump to do this. We thought they
had a real plan. And now we're paying a price. And what are we getting out of it, right?
Well, there's uprising among the people. People get pissed.
Right. Like, why are we doing it? You know what I mean? Who the hell? I got it. You know,
right? You know, could there be protests and Kuwait, a UAE against us?
Possibly. Yeah, TBD on how that all shakes out. I just want more geopolitics thing was
Iran also attacked British targets. Kure Starrmer just came out and said that we can use their
bases so again, kind of how this thing trickles out remains to be seen. Too much in the energy
crisis. This is I think about what the domestic impact is on the politics. And this is part of
the reason why I just, I just think that the idea that this is a distraction for Epstein,
there'll be a rally around the flag as part of an old construct. You know, it's like the wag
the dog was a movie in the 1990s, 1990s. People really did rally around the flag. And I just don't,
I don't know that that's true anymore. We live in deep, we polarize times and we weren't attacked.
You know, maybe they'd rally around the flag if there was, you know, all the conspiracy theorists
always talk about how there's a false flag. You know, this attack wasn't real. We did it to ourselves.
Maybe there was a false flag attack on America. Then maybe that would change, maybe not.
But I just don't see it in the polls. We right now, Ipsos is the first pull out, 27% support,
43 oppose means a bunch of staunch sure. So events will matter. Independent said that this was
noteworthy, 19 support, 44 oppose a bunch, I'm sure a lot of times people think about independence
wrong. A lot of independence are kind of these, you know, folks that don't pay a lot of attention,
aren't big fans of war, aren't reading foreign affairs, magazine, you know, and don't like
have deep thoughts and all that. So I thought it was pretty noteworthy how that among independence,
it was less popular, only 7% of Democrats for. And you mentioned the energy prices.
It's just guess there's only up about 10% here, but 50% in Europe this morning. Again,
we'll see how that all plays out. But I just think even if this goes well, at home, it feels like
something that's going to be a political problem for Trump. I mean, yeah, I just say events matter
so much. You said this yesterday too. Wars are real. And events, things are very event dependent.
And we'll see what we learn that in Iraq, obviously, look right, mission accomplished.
Whoops, that's so good for Bush, you know, and but I agree. I mean, this could be bigger
than F.C. in actually in terms of its actual effect. I mean, this could be a defining moment
of the Trump presidency. He deserves to pay price for it in a story politically on the other hand.
I hope it's not in a sense that I hope we don't suffer some horrible defeats. And that becomes
what's defining, but we could obviously in terms of our geo-strategic position as well as in terms
of just, you know, obviously, actual losses there in the region. I think the Democrats are pretty
safe ground. You said this yesterday in just opposing the war, right?
I think so. And you saw some blowback to Mark Kelly who was kind of waffling on this a little bit
yesterday. I think that Democrats, if they want to be on the more hawkish edge of the party,
and they want to be on the more, you know, flag-weighting patriotic freedom end of the party,
I think taking the Bill Crystal position for this podcast would be totally fine, right? Like,
that I have no love for the Iatola. This regime is horrible. Like, if we are working with allies
and had a legitimate plan to help support the people in the streets, I would be for that. But
like, that's not what this is. This is a shit show. They don't have a plan. They have an offer to
plan for people who are dead. They haven't come to Congress for support. They haven't made a case
to the American people under this administration with the way they've behaved and how they've
lied and how corrupt they are. I'm a no. No war with a run. I just, to me, like, I feel like
that's a totally appropriate place to be that's not really going to alienate anybody except for,
you know, small niche groups that have, you know, various interests. Now, when I think, I think
the actual vote they'll have in Congress or votes, I guess, in each house are basically
on some versions of war power resolutions, which require Trump to come back and get authorization
within 60 days or something like that. It's a little confusing, 90 days, I'm not too sure. But
the normal charge that would make me hesitate of four days into a war, you shouldn't
demoralize our troops and how to cut them by voting to get out or something like that or cutting
off funding. That's not what the vote is. The vote is a kind of Trump has to do what he should have
done before and come to Congress. That sometimes be little on the left and understand why. That's
just process. They've got to be war, you know, ferociously anti-war. They can, but it's, I think
it's not just process. A, it really is the constitution. It is like we're in a constitutional crisis
that he's gone to a major war without Congress, different from a one-day strike and or killing
Soleimani. There's no justification. There's no authorization for this. They have to use, if they
use one at all, it'll be the 2001 Cairo authorization and Iran's, but it's a terror sponsor. But
man, that's 25 years later. That's a bit of a stretch. And again, it's a stretch for the kind of war
we're fighting. If you're knocking off the head of the IOTC, who has genuinely sponsored terror
all around the region, most of which is killed Americans, Hasbola, that's one thing. A major war
like this, you need to go to Congress. So, you didn't go to Congress. So, I think Congress has a
very sound ground and say we need to speak up now and insist that he come back to Congress.
And that's defending the Constitution. That's not a tax problem, necessarily. It's not even being
anti-war. People can say if they wish. I didn't see where Kelly's comments, but I might say if I
were there, look, I can see we could vote, could have voted for this, you know, if we're properly
explained and defended. And we had to go here at strategy to authorize certain use of force. It's
not like you're necessarily fully 100% anti-war. Most of them would have been and probably certainly
would be at this point. Maybe I would be too. But so, I think the Congress argument isn't just a
process argument. It has to be a constitutional argument. I agree with that. I mean, I just look,
I think that to be blunt, the politics of this are going to be better just being against it
all the way down. But that said, putting them on the record matters. Like the Rock War vote
matters. You know, like this war vote would matter. And I think it's a tough vote for
honor Republicans, by the way, which we can get into next. But I don't know if you have a more
thing on the Democrat side of this. I think as you said, the Iraq vote, I guess you were thinking
I was thinking too of the original authorizing vote. But then there was a whole bunch of other
votes, you know, funding and so forth as we went forward. And it's not like this thing just goes
away. I mean, maybe it'll end in a week and everyone will forget about it in two months. And
it's a kind of Venezuela. That would be Venezuela, right? Sort of a slightly better maybe
government takes over. It's not too much chaos spilling up beyond its borders. It's not a huge
refugee flow. It's just kind of not great, but not terrible. And everyone kind of moves on. I think
that's possible. In that case, it won't help Trump. I don't know, hurt him that much. But I mean,
most of the other outcomes that I can think of are much more problematic, obviously. And so I
don't know would it be crazy for the Democrats six months for now to say we end the war? End it,
you know, right? No, three months. I mean, maybe that would be a 90 day authorization. I
revisit 90 days in the war. To the point about how it would be a tough vote, I think,
even for Maga, Sager and Gentie, who is over breaking points. I just thought this was blunt
in how he put it on Twitter. Because this is the most profound campaign betrayal in modern U.S.
history. He's more on the Maga isolationist right. We've seen David Sen out of Ohio already
starting to put out statements kind of hedging. Massey would be against this presumably,
Rand. So, you know, how far that extends out into Maga world, the House, TBD, the Lauren
Boberts of the world. I don't know. But I think it's a real potential problem for them. And it is
highlighted by the fact that the person that is the biggest avatar for isolationist,
Maga politics right now is the vice president, JD Vance. He's missing. He's not sent to tweet
since the war started. He loves to tweet. He sent a picture of him at like the kids table.
And like a backup situation room with Tulsi next to him. It was like JD Vance and the
Cuck chair. I just want to play a couple of clips from JD Vance. One was from the campaign,
an interview with Tim Dillon, and the other one was from Meet the Press a couple of months ago.
Our interest, I think, very much is in not going to war with Iran, right? It would be huge
distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country.
I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements
in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb
presidents. And now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national
security objectives. So this is not going to be some long drawn out thing.
You can see why JD is an out there today and he was saying this is not going to be some long
drawn out thing. So it was months ago after the first attack on Iran and now very much is,
I mean, even if it isn't a long drawn out thing in the Iraq war sense, it's drawn out a lot longer
than he said it was when he was on Meet the Press a few months ago. And so I think this is real,
he's in a real pickle. And Trump has said three or four weeks, just kind of the plans,
of course, that was a plan with Israel. And again, that is just even leaving aside.
What about Ryan hits neighboring countries and they ask for a protection? What about if our troops
are not safe in Bahrain because Iran still has missile capabilities and we haven't changed the
regime. And some IRGC thugs taken over and decided he's going to try to make us pay a price.
So we just, we're going to need to beef up support there. We'll have to be maybe continued
raids to try to take out their missiles beforehand. I mean, again, this is where the dynamics of war
become so unpredictable and problematic and why, you know, you shouldn't start down this
road unless you've thought through different options, but also unless you're willing to stay
the course. I mean, it's to some degree or other, right? I mean, and that's where I think,
I don't, I kind of assume, well, where are you on this? I kind of assume Trump deep down
is where JD is and says that he wants to, he'll want to get out at some point and he'll pull
the plug and hope that the world won't quite notice how much disarray he's leaving behind.
Well, will he get sucked in? I mean, those are sort of two. I think that Trump is
a little bit jekyll and hide on it. You know, I think that, I think I do think I'll want to get out.
I mean, you could tell that already in some of these phone calls that that was his instinct.
Another phone call since we've been on, I just got sent was I talked to Brett Bayer.
Has it called you yet, Bill? You know, phone line is open.
We talked to Brett Bayer, he told him he was the Venezuelan models that they're going for.
But the Delci Rodriguez of Iran is dead. So, okay, we'll see how that goes.
Also, the Delci Rodriguez of Iran, I mean, whatever you think of, God knows I have nothing to
use for Maduro and they did a huge amount of damage to that country.
Iran is a theocratic state, but it's a Delci Rodriguez of Iran is not like the Delci Rodriguez
of Venezuela, who could be bought off to some degree and knew the whole security structures,
a bunch of thugs and corrupt people. Iran is plenty of thugs and corrupt people, but I don't know.
You can't leave me that regime in place is going to be not quite like leaving the Venezuelan
regime in place. No, for sure. I mean, look, I'm not, I'm no expert on the internal politics of Iran,
but I've been doing a lot of reading and it's like, yeah, and there's just a lot more different
contingencies and groups and, you know, it's a very complex situation. Like, yeah, I do think
his instinct would want to be like JD wine to leave after, you know, like he's got his scalp,
you know, demonstrate U.S. strong and now we're out. But like, as we've been talking about this
whole 50 minutes, like events can get out of control, things can get out of hand. And, you know,
Trump is also, you know, driven by kind of like the masculine, you know, small dick. I need to
respond. I need to push back. If they hit us, I need to hit you harder kind of elements. So,
right? Like, you know, he might want to get out in three weeks, but we have four Americans dead.
Don't want to minimize that, but what if Iran has a much more successful attack than that?
Like, what if there's an attack where dozens die? There's a terrorist attack somewhere.
This is, you know, like the oldest story in the book, World History of, you know,
been getting into pissing matches where it's just escalation, escalation, escalation. So,
I think that's also possible. Just back to the political part of the JD thing.
It's not as easy as like, oh, there's this maggot crack up where there's this isolationist wing
and there's this, you know, more interventionist wing. It's more complicated than that, right?
Because like the Republican electorate, I think instinctively is more America first, right?
Like in a pure vote, like, you know, outside of context of everything else, would you want
America to be entangled in foreign wars or not? It would be like 70-30 on the isolationist side,
I think. I think that there, but there remains a strong pro-military interventionist wing
in the party that those people still exist. There's not a majority anymore. So, that's like a quarter
of a third of a party, let's say that they'll be on board for Trump. Then you have another
third basically that's like in a cult. And so, whatever Trump says, they'll be four, basically.
So, that takes you up to about 60% of the party. And right now, if you look at polls on that,
episode's poll I met, I read it, it was like 13% that was against. The big risk for Trump is
when you get into Bush territory where like 40% of the party is like, no, this is crazy. And
that will be event dependent, et cetera. But I think you can see the seeds of that in the
mega right wing media. Fox will be cheerleading for this. Fox couldn't be more excited,
but the more alternative media side, you know, from the Nick Flintes racist young right,
all the way towards the comedians who have been for them, towards even like the Megan Kelly's world.
I think that there's a tucker. There's going to be a lot of ranging from skepticism to hostility,
depending on how things go. Developable for what you made earlier in this context,
like it's very, very important, which is this war is a dynamic and things can spiral,
so far, which is where the downside for Trump here is greater, I would say, than the downside,
even on maybe the economy or Epstein or all the obvious ways in which we've talked about.
Trump has lost popularity and could continue to drift down from 40 to 38 to 36,
a little bit of recession, a little, he's mentioned more prominently in the Epstein
fossil, a million different things like that, obviously, more ice outrageous. But those really
probably are incremental as they have been, they can add up. This is the one thing that could
really catastrophically capsize his work, right? And what if things go badly? We went through this
with Bush. I mean, your ratings don't go down. What are two points? If you get casualties and a failed
war and a war spilling out further and further commitments, then as we did in Iraq to try to save
the situation after we've screwed it up, and suddenly, you know, you're at just a whole different
political universe. So I think you're right. I think this is the one issue where Trump could go
from 14% defections to 40% defections in six months among his voters for sure. And I think I
like this, getting into a prolonged entanglement here where there are a lot of deaths and economic
collapse are basically the two things that could cause that. I think basically the cultists will
be the bulwark keeping Trump from 40% negative among his voters in any other scenario. You know,
who knows, alien attack or something. It's who the hell knows what could happen. But yeah,
no, the risks are great. Anything to find on that? I want to get to the Texas primary tomorrow.
The only thing I said is that will affect the long hoped for. Hey, we're Republicans in Congress
ever defect. We'll will candidates ever defect. This is the one thing that really could lead to it, I
think. All right. So there is election tomorrow in Texas. We're going to Texas March 18th and 19th
Dallas sold out. We still get tickets in Austin coming out with those March 19th, the bulwark.com
slash events. There are two Senate primaries, Senate primary and both sides. Cornens, the incumbent
Republican, Ken Paxton, the corrupt, just disgusting on a personal level. All of the
vices of Maga encapsulated into a single man and to a single vessel that's Ken Paxton,
Attorney General, he's primary. Cornen, another Maga guy, Wesley Hunt got in hoping to offer
more of a clean cut Maga alternative to Cornen. That hasn't worked out. He's in the teens and the
polls. It seems like it's going to be Paxton or Cornen on the Republican side. The Democratic side,
we have Crockett versus Talleriko. I've talked about this race. I had Namaziam. I do not particularly
think this primary has served the Democratic interests that well in winning the seat, which I do think
is win a ball of Paxton wins. The new interesting poll came out over the weekend that has Talleriko
barely beating Crockett. It's really a coin flip. Crockett's winning with non-college voters,
older voters, black voters, and let to a lesser growth women. Talleriko's winning with younger,
college educated voter, to lesser degree with men, slight edge to Talleriko,
Latino voters. That might be the battleground. Any thoughts on either side of the Texas
center race tomorrow? I assume Paxton, Cornen, or assuming Hunt doesn't surge unexpectedly,
goes to Rada off, but some will take enough votes, presumably if it's close,
presumably more of those Hunt voters are Paxton inclined, I should think. You've got a
slightly favor Paxton for the actual nomination. Do you think you have for sure?
I have a friend that's still in Republican politics that is suffering through the
whole place. That's just a little suspicious. I know. I asked about that race, and they felt very
strongly that Paxton was in pole position there without a Trump. Unless Trump comes in and saves
Cora. Yeah. Which he didn't do this week, and he went to Texas, we can some people were thinking
to endorse it. If it goes to Rada off, I guess I would extend the timeline for Trump to.
Then he won't do it. If he thinks he's going to lose, he's going to lose.
And I'm like totally uninformed, got instinct. I'm not if I were there. I'd vote for Talleriko,
but I think Rocket beats him. I just feel like the momentum seems greater on her side,
and I could be totally wrong, could be very close, much less likely to be a runoff.
Yeah. Look, Talleriko is at least presenting a case to Trump voters. I'm not sure if it's a
winning case, but at least he has a theory of the case. And to me, that's what separates him from
Rocket. Rocket has no message for Trump voters. Rocket's message is that she will
energize non-voters to vote. And like that just that might work in Georgia. I think that'd be
an interesting race, an interesting political science case in Georgia. That is there aren't
enough non-voting Democrats to win a Texas Senate race. Maybe if the economy tanks and gets in
the Iran, where I sure like accidents happen all the time, people accidentally win races when
there's wave elections. So that could happen for Rocket, but she hasn't presented one. That's
right. I fall on the Talleriko side of this, but this primary is her Talleriko. He's going to need
turnout with Black voters. I think that'll be, you know, I think that'll be an ad to the challenge
for him in the general now, because of the nature of how this race has gone. It's gotten really
personal, particularly on the Crockett side aiming at Talleriko in a way that I don't think
it was very helpful. Just a little subplot when the Texas races tomorrow, Dan Crenshaw,
not a friend of the pod. Yeah, you're friend. Tony Gonzalez, the congressman who has six kids
in a marriage had an affair with his staffer, the staffer set herself on fire, killed herself.
Tony Gonzalez got congratulated by Trump at the rally this weekend. I'm clear what the
congratulations was for, but both of them are in primaries. And I don't know that it serves
the pro-democracy mission at all for either of them to lose their primaries, but we would enjoy it.
It's nice to enjoy the pain of people that deserve it. And Dan Crenshaw has been the
most the biggest condescending prick and like the biggest disappointment possible of all of the
quote unquote, normie Republicans. And I don't know if you happen to be living in Dan Crenshaw's
district and don't have a don't have a horse in the Talleriko Crockett race, consider pulling
that Republican ballot tomorrow and voting against him. Just a thought, one idea, but I don't
know if you had anything there. I like the idea of Tim Miller doing in Crenshaw, he's
been such a pain. But you know, on Guantal is not to get too high in mighty and moralistic. I mean,
he bullied the staffer, it seems like right into this affair in a really horrible way. And sadly,
she committed suicide, it seems. He shows up Friday at this Trump rally. It was Friday,
Texas, yeah. And they're all there, cornering these guys. Trump explicitly welcomes him right
from the stage. Congratulations. The others are all fine with being with him. I mean,
it's nauseating really. I mean, this guy, he's fine. The Republican party's fine with
them. Speaker Johnson's fine with them. John Corning, the establishment Republican, who's a,
is it in my dealings with him in the past in the before times? Is it a nice guy at a decent guy?
He's fine with just being up there. I don't know if he's literally on stage with Gonzalez,
but being in the group, let's say with Gonzalez. None of them has said a word. It has a
single Texas Republican that we know of said a word that, you know, this guy should resign.
It's a disgrace that he's, I hope you, I mean, it really would be good for the country, if you
lost, honestly. Yeah. No, nobody said any of that. I mean, in part because the Republican
House majority is so narrow now that if Gonzalez resigns like Nazi as like a controlling vote on
a lot of stuff. So that's the reason. And also just that they, it's just depraved. And the Trump
era has removed, you know, any sort of moral red line from consideration. If you're in Republican
politics, like there's literally nothing that you can do to cross the line now.
And Republican politics pretty, pretty dark stuff. Bill Crystal, thank you. Another Monday
in the books. We'll see you next week, hopefully. You know, it's what's happening in this world.
Tomorrow, I think we'll have a double header. We got a good one for you tomorrow. So everybody,
we'll see you back here then.
The board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason
Brett. The board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason



