The Esau McCaulley Podcast - Making Sense of the Iran War

Hello. Welcome to the Esau Makali podcast. The We're at war edition. Apparently this is

the first episode that I think that we recorded while we're in an official war.

What is a war, Esau? I mean, I mean, we're definitely at war. And we're in a serious

one that I think that might get more complicated a time goes on. No. But today, today we're

joined by Justin, give me any president and found in the end campaign. Thank you for

coming on Justin. It's always my pleasure. It's probably it's probably

an intro to have Justin's here because like he's like the person who I think is

one of the most sober minded when it comes to politics. Like when we do ridiculous

stuff, we know Justin, you know, it's not it. But when we do a real politics, this is

when Justin kind of shines. I have waited to form my opinion about any of this

until I hear from Justin. Yeah. And we also joined here by producer Mike. Yeah, that's

me. Yeah. And so since you're here and you're asking you an expert on foreign

politics and American policies and all of the other good stuff, we thought we would

open this up with the real question that people want to know. And so here's the

question. There's a rumor going around on the internet just there. The Tom Holland

and Zendaya, Zendaya, Zendaya are married. Do you know who those two people are

the first question? No clue. Yes. Are you serious? Are you serious? I knew it. I knew

it. You don't only think about these two people. Don't look them up. Don't cheat. Okay. Wait

wait. You have to try it. He's like, why would I bother Standflatfooted? Okay. Okay.

Tom Holland is let it be known right before we came down here with Justin. Yeah. He

saw me ask me, well, it's surely Justin will know who these people are. These people

are super friends. No, I don't think so. So Tom Holland is Spider-Man. Like the young

guy who plays Spider-Man. And the woman who put the young lady who plays Mary Jane.

Mary Jane. It's his girlfriend. And they've been dating during all of this time. And

it's been like the cutest public, you know, couple in Hollywood history. Because then

they started dating. And they were like 17, 18 years old, however they were. They were

mega famous. And they've been dating. And they were in, they were in the show. They

think they've been other movies together besides that. They've been in a couple of movies,

right? How does this impact my life as a black man from Atlanta, George? It does.

It does. I mean, I might mention it as a black, but that I was going to, it's going to

impact. And so here's the thing though, I figured you wouldn't know that. Okay. But I thought

anyway, why did you figure? Let's dig because people might not know the history between

because I feel a little bit attacked. But I'm okay. Okay. Okay. I tried to do. I think

I would know these are two of the biggest movie stars right now. I don't think you

can get mad at us for feeling. So I didn't, I didn't realize, so you let me explain.

I didn't realize, I thought that me and Justin have similar, like me and Justin texts

all of the time. And if there's an album that comes out, normally me and Justin will have

like a, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? So I thought the Justin

would just involve in like wider culture. He's like locked in a certain parts of culture.

And I didn't relate this until you said, and like this might get edited. I was named

with that woman who hadn't heard of Jennifer Lawrence. Jennifer Lawrence. And so when

you hadn't heard of Jennifer Lawrence, I was like, Oh, Justin isn't into movie culture.

And I think this is what it is. It's really basically. Yeah. Not in the movie culture.

Yeah. So these are all movie stars. It's not that Justin isn't involved in cultures,

like a particular kind of movie star. And so these are two of the biggest movie stars

in the world. And they've been dating forever. And I said, I surely he would know about

them because that's how famous they are. But that wasn't it. That wasn't even the question.

The question I was going to ask you is this Justin, what advice would you give to these

potentially? I don't know. This is actually true. We just a room on the internet to

these newlywared couples on how to have a successful marriage. It was not just going to be

the Justin. Know about these people. This is going to be Justin. Give advice to a newlywared

couple on how to get their marriage started off correct. I would say what I usually tell

newly married or people who are about to be married is that just your life is no longer just

about yourself. Yeah. That you have to think about that other person before you think of yourself.

And I think when you go about it that way, it's just a helpful frame of mine to walk into a marriage

with. There we go. See, that's what that's all I want. What advice do you have? I think I would

tell them that you probably each thing that you've hit high levels of success in your career,

but that they should know that they still have not achieved so much success that Justin

give any notes who they are now you didn't say. And so they need to keep working harder.

Okay. So this is what I was going to say. We're just related to this success. I'm going to

tailor this because I'm pretty sure that Thomas and they are like listening. They're both

super successful and they're both amazing. And I think when you have two people who are successful

in the same industry, they have to be careful of like not pocket watching or comparing themselves

to each other. I think they need to continue to celebrate the success of the people. So it's not like,

oh yeah, we did better than my movies. So I'm going to feel a certain way. I think they should

embrace supporting each other in their in their careers and not get into a displacement competition.

And maybe I put this other thing. It's really hard when you get famous. I don't know.

But I'm assuming that when you become a famous public power couple,

that people transfer all of their emotions to you and you become people's dream fulfillment

like relationship goals. So I would say like don't present your your relationship as the relationship

goals people because then that just creates a lot of emotion and toxicity and people began to

overinterpret everything that you do. And I've seen a lot of like cup celebrity couples who had

that super public stuff. When it goes bad, people go like no, no, no, that was real. So that's

what I would say. Be careful. Keep your stuff on the low, which is what they did because apparently

there was a wedding that there was one. I can't believe you weren't invited. There's not there's

not a single image. Yeah. So that's that's that's that's called keeping. So do you have a

do you have a word for people who idolize celebrities?

Fans, maybe stands. What are you going to know a word? A word, a word like a like advice.

It's a fettic word. I'll spend that time worried about celebrity.

In their particular kind of celebrity, you have in mind, you talk about sports athletes as well.

You talk about just movie stars. Okay. Yeah, movie stars. No, I feel like it's healthy to support

the people who do great things. I have no prophetic words, especially if you have panel LeBron James.

Okay. Anyways, the real story, the real story actually, which was behind the scenes and then

became public is apparently the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran. We're going

to let everybody know we're not going to be able to get people be played by play if everything

that's happening because by the time this is being recorded on Monday, by the time this episode

airs, who knows what it happened? Yeah. What we do know is that the United States and Israel,

like we said, attacked Iran as just recording that the that the Supreme Leader and many of the

other high ranking officials in Iran have been killed that the war that Iran has retaliated.

I think in this I think it's so far they've attacked places like Kuwait, Libya, and Saudi Arabia

somehow involved. Then in one of the attacks that at the time of this recording,

four American soldiers had already been killed and there's also been obviously civilian loss of life.

And so that's what's happening right now. I just want to hear what were your initial reactions,

Justin, when you heard about the war, what were your thoughts? Were you surprised?

What was going on with you and then maybe you'll say something and my catch was jumping down.

I wasn't necessarily surprised because it had been building up for quite some time.

It seemed that Trump was a little bit indecisive about whether he wanted to get into this or not.

Obviously it's something that maybe Netanyahu and folks like that have wanted us to get into for a while.

The other thing that hit me was it's just not authorized based on the constitution,

the first article of the constitution unique congressional authorization to get into a war.

They have the exclusive power to declare war and we didn't go through that.

Not only did we not go through that process, a clear case wasn't made as to why this is

a wise move for us. Nobody said, okay, this is what we're going to do. Here's why it's important.

You heard, oh, maybe they're trying to liberate the Iranian people.

Oh, maybe there's an imminent threat coming from Iran to attack America.

None of those things really proved to be true. The first one probably just context.

And so you wonder why what's behind this? It's not the right way to go about it and it doesn't

seem like there's a real plan. The other thing that came to mind was this goes against everything

that he ran on. Now we know the president isn't necessarily ideological. He can change with the

wind or wind, the incentive change. It is going to be interesting to me to see though

Vice President Vance, who is more ideological, who really when it comes to the isolationism and not

being interventionist and these endless wars regime change, who really it's going to be hard for

him to stand on any of that in his foreign policy when the time comes from the run if he does.

And so that's one of the things we have to keep an eye on too politically.

I want to follow up with a couple of things that you said. The first one is I remember when the

Gulf War happened. And that's the one with I think it was inside with the weapons of mass

destruction. And I remember Colin Powell coming to Congress with the charts and saying these are

where the weapons of mass destructions are. Here's why we should do it. And it was just extensive

debate leading to eventually the decoration of war. And it feels like that was the last time I can

remember a strong congressional cooperation or at least a congressional argument. And that has

often been looked back upon rightfully. So it's negatively because they didn't actually find the

weapons when they went there. And it seems that since then it has been the case that

presidents have acted and then try to get justification later. And so it might write about that

that that was like a particular moment that we've seen Congress be less involved in war since then.

Yeah. So that's I mean that's I like that you brought that up. They did may have to make a case.

So they went before Congress and made a case. Now the case that they made wasn't true.

But to your point since then Obama others have launched into these military you know conflicts

and not gotten congressional approval. That's really on Congress to a certain extent. Congress

Congress has not held them to that in Congress, which is what they've been doing lately.

Either has it's been pushing things to the presidency and letting them kind of do whatever

they want to do.

Yes.

That's one of the last times you see somebody make a case to launch what really is a act

of war.

And it's unfortunate.

It wasn't right when it happened before Trump.

It's not right now.

Something has to happen to where we push back.

I will say this, Rokana, who's a Democrat, Thomas Massey Republican, they have put up a

war power resolution, basically saying Trump does not have the power to do what he's doing.

This was actually supposed to go forward prior to them launching before Saturday.

I don't think everybody knew it was going to happen Saturday.

But this was supposed to happen weeks before.

Some people are saying even the Democratic leadership held it back, slow-walked it so

that the attack could happen and then to follow up from there.

The other thing that you mentioned is the idea that part of this was to liberate the

people of Iran.

Now, I want to make sure that these are some things that I think, when everything is talking

about something like a war, how do you get all the ideas out on the table to have something

like a legitimate discussion?

And I want to make sure I shout out at least the article that I saw by a guy named Thomas

Freeman for the New York Times.

Now, he mentioned four things that I think everyone ought to be thinking about as relates

to this war.

And it's what you said at the beginning.

First, that all of us want to admit that no one's defending the regime in Iran, that

they were repressive.

It was a radical version of Islam that's particularly oppressive towards women, that it was damaging

to the people who destroyed the economy.

They were destabilizing the region.

And then nobody actually is saying that it's bad to that particular regime.

The leaders of that regime have been taken out.

He said, that was point one.

The other thing that he said, it's not going to be easy to remove this regime because

it's embedded at every level.

And so it's not that you can go down far enough and get to this particular, like, oh, the

good guys are down here.

Like, it's going to be hard to find someone.

The third thing that he said is the oil and money are, like, can I be separated from

this war?

That we can't simply think of this as this Americans decided that we're going to do

it a good deed and liberate and oppress people.

But the part of this is motivated by our own financial and oil interest and the financial

and oil interest and the prices around oil and the money that's attached to it might impact

how long this war lasts and when it's going to end because the oil prices shoot up and

it makes the Republicans unhappy, that might be the kinds of things that force Trump and

others to the negotiating table.

The last thing he said, and I thought this was interesting too, maybe we'll come back

to this one in a second.

That we at least have to point out the hypocrisy.

And this is the part that I think I struggled with.

We have to point out the hypocrisy of waging a war that is in part linked to democratic

ideals while denying some of those democratic ideals in the United States over the last two

or three months.

And so this idea that, you know, the freedom of the people, freedom of expression is happening.

While we have issued the voter restriction and we have issues related to ICE and the other

things that are happening, even like the ways in which he's talked about Congress and the

Supreme Court lately, that Trump has himself in his own posture has not been this bastion

of democracy and freedom.

And so it comes across a little bit hollow if you're saying we want to do this because

of democracy.

So which ones of those do you think was most interesting or maybe you want to follow

upon?

The regime, the how difficult it might be to transition to a new power, the role of oil

and money or maybe even the hypocrisy.

What do one of those jump out at you as being interesting or compelling Justin?

Yeah.

I think the first two are really interesting.

Trump said recently, I think it was earlier today to see it in that he was surprised

that after the attack and after the Supreme Leader was removed that Iran was able to strike

the other Gulf states, he was surprised at that retaliation.

Yeah.

When you do something like this, when you enter a war like this, how are you surprised

that something like that happens that they don't just fall apart?

That's kind of what worries me about the preparation here, how thoughtful we've been

and moving forward with this.

That's self and then yeah, you create maybe you create a power vacuum or maybe you just

can't get to the bottom of exactly how many layers of power they have.

I think they've been waiting.

I mean, this threat has been here for a long time.

And the rumors are that they've been almost smart.

They were preparing for this to happen to some extent.

The rumors were that they had four levels of redundancy at every level of leadership

within the government.

They were preparing to be, to have a lot of people wiped out and that action and the

plans would still be able to take place afterwards.

Yeah.

So let me talk about this part.

I think that part of this war and is hard for me to take this as a serious piece of

political activity, even though lives are going to be lost and a lot of things are going

on.

It feels like it's kind of arrogant.

In the sense that like Trump has been very, well, President Trump has been very willing

recently to engage in military activity as relates to bombing Iran earlier to invading

Venezuela and it feels like he's beginning to think, oh, these complex multi-layered problems

I can solve relatively quickly.

And I have this instinctive gut ability to get to the heart of it and fix the problem.

I think there was this thing that I saw online.

It might have been Justin or someone who said it to me that JD Vance said, oh, yeah,

other people have gotten involved in these endless wars in the Middle East, but they were

dumb.

We're smart, so we can do it better.

I think there is a sense of Trumpian hubris, hubris, to think that I can fix this and

nobody else can.

And the fact that he, because there isn't a, to me, consistent foreign policy that has

been articulated and readily accessible, then it looks to me like he just thought, oh,

I can fix this relatively easy.

And it doesn't feel like he's anticipated all the contingencies, especially as evident

by the thing that Justin said, like that he surprised that people can still attack after

he killed the people.

So am I wrong in seeing that some potential cucumbers here?

Maybe this is like, of course, the president is going to be a little bit arrogant.

I mean, I feel like Trump is being perfectly consistent right now and how he's acted for

the last 10 or 12 years.

Like he's always thought things were much simpler than they actually were.

We saw this in his immigration policy and the way he's tried to act it out this year.

We've seen this in all of his military endeavors that he's just like, well, I'll just go in

and, you know, take a chainsaw to the budget and we'll cut costs and we'll, and we'll cut

four and eight and we'll, we'll take out dictators and we'll do this at the other and

he just leaves a wake of destruction afterwards.

And it's, it's too early for us to have an opinion on this right now.

Maybe this could work out, but he doesn't inspire much confidence that he knows has a long

term plan here.

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And I don't think we can discount and we haven't mentioned it yet, that there may be some

undue influence when it comes to Israel.

This is something they wanted to do for a while, a baby's been saying, and here's something

that's very interesting to me or, you know, that needs to be explained.

In June, when we attacked them last year, we said we had set them back for generations

when it came to their nukes, their whole program.

Now then we come back and say, well, we had to get them now because they were a threat

to us.

Yeah.

Which one is it?

I don't, I do think there needs to be a conversation on how much influence baby and others have

on our foreign policy and where this influence is coming from.

So that's something we can't discount, it needs to be part of a conversation.

This is one of those things where I struggle to take any of this seriously, and that's

a, that's a perfect example of, in the previous administration, these kinds of things would

haunt them.

I remember distinctively all of the conversations on weapons of mass destruction, and then when

they went in and they couldn't find the weapons of mass destruction, this is a huge deal,

like this is still echoes.

I still remember the pictures of, of the people who, but now you, you seem really able

to say we were completely successful and anyone who denies our success is just hating

the United States.

But then when you use that exact same rationale twice, no one is really pushing it as hard

as I think they could, I think there's a lower expectation on this administration to be

honest and forthright.

And so it's something that would have been a major discrepancy, two large military actions

within the course of a few months, with the exact same goals, even though you accomplished

the goal the first time, would be something that will be more politically disastrous in

a different context.

Yeah.

But we just, I think it is a discrepancy though.

Yeah.

Well, I think it is a discrepancy.

If you look at it, I mean, I've seen polls where like 20% of American support this.

I'm looking at margin-chated Taylor Greene.

I'm looking at a lot of MAGA supporters that are saying absolutely not, this makes no sense.

Yeah.

He doesn't have the support even within his base for this.

Yeah.

So I wouldn't say there's no pushback.

Yeah.

It's just getting started.

But I don't know that, you know, between him and maybe a few Neocons, they're sort of

on an island.

I think also there is, there is, I guess you're right, I guess let me take that back.

The kinds of criticisms that would be levied do not seem to have the kind of probative impact

on the decision-making that's going on there.

And I think that we can't separate this particular action from the pattern of actions that

we see from this administration.

And here's the pattern.

I think this is where we always find ourselves and figuring out how to analyze this isn't

super easy.

There is a sliver of logic that is going on here that makes a kind of sense if you turn

in the right angle by that we mean everybody, everybody would have said that the person

who was running Venezuela was doing a bad job and he should be removed.

The person who was in power in Iran was a theocrat who was murdering his people and crushing

the scent.

And nobody's going to say keeping him in power was a good idea.

But we can say that taking him out of power without a comprehensive political philosophy

under gurning it just opens it up to chaos and it's hard for us to maybe criticize the

potential outcomes before they play themselves out because I've seen other people saying

and I've seen this from like progressives who was saying we need to center the people

of Iran in this moment and if you look at the people in Iran especially the women in

Iran they're celebrating this because this regime that have been so repressive to women

they had destroyed a culture that was much more free those people are happy and it's the

exact same conversation that happened with Venezuela and we were both in both of those

cases because we were criticizing American utilatorialism.

We were seeing as being insensitive to the people whose lives were changed by this war

so Justin for the people who say we need to center Iran and the people of Iran who feel

a sense of hopeful hopefulness they haven't experienced in the last 40 years.

How might you respond to that question?

There's something to that and I'm happy that those people I mean I hope that freedom

last number one right because things aren't necessarily getting better as things are

right now we have to see what leadership comes up and if there's even a regime change

but I would also say it's deeper than that and that's where the kind of the money the

oil and those conversations come back into it that aspect of it could be good it's just

not that simple and so you you can try to center it you can acknowledge it but there's

a lot of other things at play right now to say that this was a success just because of

that because I wouldn't say that anybody is free right now we have to see how that

plays out and how all these other dynamics play into it I mean remember Iraq he's

we're celebrating in the streets 2003 whenever that was Saddam Hussein was taking out

and we all know how that worked out yeah I remember it was a similar thing around the

Arab Spring when there are all of these movements and it felt like oh this might be a chance

for the region opens up I just think that there is a certain American short horizonism

that's going on here and I don't want to belabor this and this is the part we don't want

to get knee deep into all elements of kind of Christian eschatology and dysmissatialism

and covenant theology and all of those things and if you mention that in one of your videos

Justin but I do think Christians there is a kind of implicit influencing this entire

conversation even if people don't have a highly articulated understanding what's going

on part of it is the United States auto support Israel and I think that in its most extreme

form it is this idea that you know in certain eschatological scenarios in time scenarios

Israel plays a final role in this eschatological battle the third temple needs to be rebuilt

or the temple needs to be rebuilt so the sacrifices can you know occur the you know there's

there's there's an entire list of things for which you need Israel to be in place and for some

people that means that no matter what the the modern nation state of Israel does we should support

I want to say this and I don't want and maybe I just want to talk about Jesus for a little

bit talk about the Bible and I don't want to get into like an exegetical back and forth but I

want to actually go back to the Old Testament for a second and think about this particular thing

even if we were to grant which I don't I'm not dispensationalist I don't think there is a

outline eschatology scenario that we need to help make happen God made this promise to Abraham

that he was going to have a kid Abraham believed that promise but Abraham decided he

was going to help God along hence the birth of Ishmael and Ishmael represents within the narrative

this idea that we need to help God fulfill his own promises and God doesn't use Ishmael God says

no you're going to actually the line's going to come through Sarah and she's going to have this

son called Isaac one of the things that I have always thought was odd was that there's this

supreme confidence in the sovereignty of God and his eschatological scenario but the idea that

we need to be the ones you're bringing about it's like Ishmael like logic and so I want to say to

people even if you believe that this is an eschatological scenario it's not like God's going to go

oh man I need the state of I need the United States of America to keep Israel around so that we

can then have these things it's me is rooted in and kind of engineering and fulfillment of

prophecies that even themselves don't trust in the providence of God and so I don't necessarily

believe that I don't believe let me really clear I kind of I'm kind of more in the covenant

system of like okay all the promises that God have been fulfilled in the Messiah Jesus and what

we do in current American or not current American politics what we do in current world politics

is simply do this as Christians we ask what is true and what is just and if Israel is doing what

is true and what is just then we say okay it is good if they're doing something they shouldn't be

doing then we say that it's bad like I don't think there is a favorite nation status that

exempts you from analysis according to the standards of God so I think that what we can say from

all of this is regardless of your opinions about Israel the nation state in its role and whatever

prophecies they're going to happen in the future we shouldn't trust that to God it would

us our job right now it's the as as citizens of the kingdom of God is to look at the actions that

are unfolding in front of us and asking ourselves are they just that they're unjust did I leave anything

out on that Justin or there's anything you want to add to that Mike I don't Mike doesn't Mike

was raised on left behind movies okay so the others entire thing triggers so just to let you speak

first they will let Mike come again no I mean I think I think what you just said was excellent I

hadn't looked at it from the standpoint of Abraham trying to help God out yeah I mean I just

think that's really strong and the other point is you said this there's no point in the Bible

where there's a group of people that regardless of what they do guys just like I'm with you yeah no

you you you're looking at what's if you do good then God is with you if you're unjust he's not

mean that's part of the covenant that they had with him so for us to say regardless of what's going

on we have to support one group or another just doesn't hold for me yeah we we're all as Christians

we're always supposed to be able to say to assess whether something is just whether something is true

whether something is is wrong or right yeah and so any theology that takes us out of that

framework doesn't work so I'm I'm all for it if if Israel's doing something needs to be done

let's let's be with them if they're not don't try to use the Bible to say we have to support

them anyway that that doesn't make sense I agree with everything you all have said I kind of

want to take this back okay to politics okay that's politics I just wondering now between we now

have a foreign war when Trump said no more foreign wars okay grocery prices have not gone down

they've continued to go up yep the the Epstein vials have not been fully released like is there a

chance do you see between now and the end of his presidency will the mega base actually turn on

Trump or like it just feels like they are expressing more and more frustration with him he's doing

more and more things that are in violation of the promises he's made are are they going to turn on

them I think that people overestimate what happened it wasn't the mega base it was like what what

decides the election then he has his base I think it's like a third and a third on both sides it

doesn't really change a lot and then there's the middle third it kind of goes one way or the other

and there's a significant turn of that section this is important towards Trump rooted in a couple

of things they might have thought were important and I think that is that group of people that he

he has significantly lost and I think that's going to show up in the midterms so even if so what I'm

saying is if he loses two to three percent of the mega base because my 32% of America the 28%

of America I think that's less significant than if there's a 10 to 15 point swing in the

conservative in the moderate version of the of the Republic and I think that's I think that's what

we're saying here I don't know so in other words I think we we should stop asking for the end of

the Mac they are going right or not it's it's so cool like I am seeing on the far right that core

30% that have been right and die they are starting between Epstein and this I ran war they are

starting to critique Trump like I haven't seen before yeah I think that the entire which I don't

I was never thought was really going to happen the we want a third term let's kind of change

the constitution he's so amazing that this can never end I think that energy is mostly gone yeah

and that you're right that maybe that people are now starting to to read the tea leaves and then

there's more of a willingness to break from Trump because I think people can see the end of

Trump as an individual being version who's in power and then looking towards what's coming next

so Justin am I right about this or do you think that well maybe I should put it this way

do you think it's more significant the potential loss of the a portion of this core

maggot base or is it more influential the potential like loss of that moderate 10 to 50 percent

this one gets way in the last election yeah I mean the the folks who were kind of swing voters

that swung his way that's what's going to kill him in the midterms yeah right that's going to

really hurt him it's also going to hurt him that a lot of mega voters are just probably not going

to come out so that I think the Republicans are have a really rough time in the midterms because

of both of those things yeah the the one that hurts the most to your point is going to be those

folks who maybe swing voters that just you know go the other way because of many of the things that

you just named but but but I don't disagree with the idea that there are some serious fault lines

in a mega based on Epstein and based on how they didn't just not think that he's focusing on the

things that he said he was going to focus on that those are major issues for a lot of people's

before I think you could see that mega base kind of yeah the trade Trump by the end of this and

like find the next replacement and yeah it could be interesting but yeah and I think that I think

that part that you also left out as the pro life portion of the mega base I think that I think

one of the things that we will look back on in the Trump era was that he just made promises

to a bunch of different people that he couldn't keep like there were certain mutually like

exclusive elements of his constituency that I think that the the further we get into this the more

clear it is that all of these things couldn't actually be accomplished and their ears it

sorry I don't want to so if you think about like the kind of

Kennedy kind of weird health people over here who are kind of quasi conspiracy theory they

just are gloved on they're not ideologically consistent in any particular way with a either

isolation list of pro war foreign policy then there's the pro life people who are just there because

he's more pro life than the Democrats and then there's the like mega people who are there for

immigration there are there are list of seven or eight things but there's not a intellectual

through line from the beginning to the end and say we're just a coalition of people who all we're

getting something from Trump and I think that now did not everyone's not getting those things

it's becoming disappointed it's almost like I was thinking about those TV shows you know the TV

shows when you first wanted to watch the TV show you're kind of excited because you don't know

what this show is going to become and the characters are interesting but eventually every TV

show has to turn into what it is and once it turns into what it is some of the people who thought

it was going to be a different show kind of turn it off and I think right now the fact that the

Trump television show isn't coherent is actually clear to people yeah I mean he is we've known this

for a long time he doesn't run on principles or ideals it's simply I'm going to say what I need to

say to get the support that I want I feel like I want to ask one more like I'm question about this

maybe we were to do the whole podcast on it's it's kind of a war it's kind of a big deal kind of

big deal some people are saying that this is like a 3D chess move just he's already shaking his ear

hi I hate this I hate this take I hate this take but go for it yeah yeah where like this like what's

going on in Venezuela and Iran is this kind of four steps ahead to weaken Russia and China

and we need to understand this war in the context of the wider geopolitical thing that

because it was happening in Iran and Venezuela is going to force Russia to come to the negotiating

table and like in the war in Ukraine is there is some kind of their potential that this is a

sophisticated bit of foreign theater that us normals can't see just and it's someone who

analyzes this that do you see the the China Russia mega move via Iran in this

there may be some impacts on China for instance who gets a lot of their oil from Iran yeah but no

I don't I don't see this as a 3d chess move you see the indecision you see the surprise at the

retaliation right it's just not that well thought through up into this point and so yeah I think

that's some wish cast it's you know people trying to make this something that it really isn't

make it deeper and maintain their myth or their romanticized view of who they want Trump to be

uh but no I don't I don't see the evidence of that I mean Justin I know you don't know who Michael

Scott is right I'm assuming the office TV show I know Michael Scott don't play me I mean you didn't

was but like Michael Scott has this has this quote where he says sometimes I'll start a sentence

and I don't even know where it's going I just hope I find it along the way yeah and that feels like

the epitome of Trump's Iran strategy right now I don't really know what I'm doing I'm just gonna

start something I'll figure it out and like I just anyone who thinks he's playing 40 chess just

read a transcript of one of Trump's speeches and you tell me if this is someone who is playing 40

I know we got to about the world I think we figured it out Justin you do watch TV you watch TV

you don't go to movies do you okay what's the last what's the last movie when you see in the theater

what's the last theater movie when you went to see

oh it's been a while yeah because and this is no shit like Michael I mean Tom Holland is a thousand

times more famous than Michael Scott but like I just think that he watches television he's into music

we got that stuff he doesn't go to music doesn't he movies yeah like Michael Scott was big

I'm like you're a lot younger when I'm watching that's gonna be all that stuff yeah so I just don't

my kids might know I don't pay attention but you're right I don't do a lot of movies yeah

but let's not try to lighten what would just happen you can set me up yeah so it's all good I

will be back so don't try to make excuses remember this I was just trying to get to the

anyway we want I want to end on the on the on a quasi serious you know all right because I think

and I know this this is this is this once again we wish for filmer we don't know what's

gonna happen with this war we don't know the outcomes with this gonna be good or bad it could

it could turn more catastrophic you know the people I ran could establish the markets and it

could be more freedom than this every bend but I talked about a long time ago that we are we have

to give room for people to kind of wake up and not mock them when they get to this place where

they recognize so there's no one at the steering wheel and I have tried to and I even asked just

then to try to convince me and I tried to get you to try to convince me that there is a

undergirding philosophical approach to war and peace that is motivating this president's actions

and I just don't see it and it's not because I just and it because he refuses to make that case

he refuses to sit down and talk to the American people as if we're adults and explain his actions

and he's unable to see criticisms of his actions and anything other than hatred of America we

talked about I said Justin in our tech stream so I was like bringing out that you know there was

somebody who was talking about the war and it was Ted Cruz who just said this person hates America

and there's this inability to see the other side as anything other than enemies of the American

people and to me this is the this is the the epitome the epitome of like this danger of being

wise in one's own eyes and the refusal of many counsel and I think that what people who supported him

can still say is to say this I supported somebody who doesn't listen to anybody but his own instincts

and those instincts aren't undergirded or anything that is that is deep or philosophical or it's

even rooted in the good of the world broadly speaking but it's rooted in my opinion and someone's

attempt someone's overestimation and their ability to fix problems that are more complex and that

kind of attitude is going to get us in danger and we've already experienced those consequences

in the United States and hopefully those that same attitude doesn't spread itself globally thank you

Justin so much for coming in to give me your political analysis Mike you saw I guess thank you

for coming to I feel like I played a pretty instrumental part thank you thank you thank you

for your political analysis yeah we'll see y'all next time to eat some of coli podcast

the e-summon coli podcast the production of holy post media produced by Mike stay low

stray low if you know now you know edited by Seth Gore vet like a Corvette music by Rob nor

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