Tim, JVL, and Katie Couric: Trump, Iran and Manosphere Drama

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Hey everybody, what's up?

Welcome to a very special edition of Bullwork Takes.

I'm Tim Miller.

I'm kind of excited, I guess, to be here with JVL.

It makes me a little more excited to know he's a little nervous.

And we are, we're bringing in another special guest.

I'm improving as a host.

I've been practicing, been working my chops, but you know, I still like to aim higher.

I'm still trying to get better and better.

I'm trying to learn from the best.

And so, you know, we're hoping to do this today, maybe a little bit more.

It is our good friend, friend of the board, Katie Curric.

I'm going to pass the host chair over to her.

Thank God.

This is so exciting.

We'll watch and learn, Tim.

And JVL.

I love taking notes.

I've got my notes app out right now.

Well listen, I had so much fun with you on election night.

And when I had an opportunity to just do this weekly catch up with the two of you today,

I jumped at the chance because huge, huge bull work fan.

I watch you guys.

I read you guys.

I pay attention to what you say and the things you're talking about.

So I'm really grateful to be able to be a part of this conversation and your rights.

Since I have a little more experience to him, I'm seeing things than you do.

I thought that I would be sort of the, the my strobe of this little get to that.

JVL's blushing.

I'm going to let you know.

Sarah meeting Pete Buttigieg, there's a guy.

Well, I'm very excited because JVL's kids apparently knew who I was.

And I said, is that from Shark Tank, how do they know me?

And he said, no, it's from auto-tuning the news.

Yeah, from the Gregory Brothers, the great, great, Gregory Brothers band.

And I have to apologize because I have a bloody nose.

Oh no.

Well, you guys, I've had this terrible cold for about the last 10 days.

And I've been blowing my nose not stop.

So perfect.

So it's not about that.

It's starting to bleed.

Is it toilet seat?

I have a toilet paper.

I have a toilet paper.

This is a very classy operation.

I love that.

I love that.

We're doing some blow off the toilet seat.

And that's the real reason.

I may have to go like this for some of my hosting duties.

That's okay.

I should actually shove it up there and just leave it, leave it dangling.

Yeah, I don't, I think you know, I'm not going to do that.

It's going to make us weekly or something, JBL.

No, nobody on the internet would ever screenshot that.

Well, that is something I've never had to worry about that.

If I did something embarrassing, it would make us weekly.

That's, that's like Ols Tim.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, well, listen, hopefully we'll keep it under control.

And maybe I, I don't know what I'm going to do.

But let's talk first on a serious note about this terrorist attack at this synagogue

in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Township, West Bloomfield Township, right?

The guy ramped his car into a synagogue.

He was apprehended.

He was killed actually by the authorities.

How worried are you all about an increase in terrorist attacks here at home, given what's

happening in Iran?

Go for it, JBL.

I mean, not super worried, but reasonably worried, especially for my Jewish friends, because

I live in the New York City area and, you know, like a lot of the larger synagogues, there's

always a police car parked out front because they need to have security and protection.

And, you know, I am not super concerned about Iranian drones crossing the Pacific and

hitting California.

Right.

Well, they were reportedly going to do that.

I read that yesterday.

Yeah.

But I am reasonably concerned just about like upticks in anti-Semitic attacks, you know,

not even organized, just because, you know, there are things happening in the world and

the world is full of crazy, terrible people.

I guess I would just add to that that like, you know, obviously the risks of this are

higher.

I mean, it's just, it's added to a lot of the different potential, unintended consequences

for starting this conflict, you know, and it could be Iranian, could be a crazy person

looking for an excuse.

And we saw it in Austin.

I don't know.

We don't know a lot about that guy at this point, I guess, but he had a shirt that had

the Iranian flag and had other kind of radical language and a sweatshirt.

And then...

You had the Gracie Mansion attack?

Yeah, you had that.

And then, you know, and you've seen this across the region now, and at least a lot of people

in Iraq are upset, you've seen anti-American protests there, you've seen stuff at the

embassies in various countries, Italy, I think it was today or yesterday.

So, you know, when you, like, there is always going to be a counter-reaction when you do

something like this.

And it doesn't really seem to me that there was a lot of thought put into the potential

risks that could come following this attack, and it doesn't seem like we really have the

top guys in charge.

I mean, look, there was this New York Times article on all the people that left the FBI

or experts in various things.

We fired the Iranian counterintelligence experts.

So, you know, I don't, I was not an intelligence person.

I don't have a ton of visibility into how many, you know, plots are foiled by the experts

inside, you know, our federal agencies, but it's not zero.

And they've hollowed this stuff out, and we've got cash running the show now.

You know, I think it's legit, and the rise in anti-Semitic targeting, I think, is also

very real.

Well, and it's just overall, I would say, you do not have an overabundance of confidence

in the confidence of the people running things.

So, you know, so Katie, the, oh, they might attack California with drones story from yesterday.

So, Carolyn Leavitt puts out a statement today in which she is demanding that ABC retract

that because she says, to be clear, no such threat from Iran to our homeland exists

and it never did.

Okay, but that does run counter to things that the president has said is justification

for the war.

You know, like, it just, you look at this and you think, is anybody who's in charge here?

Well, the whole thing has the who's on first feeling, doesn't it?

Yeah.

And the very beginning, whether you were listening to various rationales for the attack, whether,

you know, timetable of the attack, I think the administration isn't exactly working

in lockstep and I think they're not the most disciplined messenger.

So it doesn't surprise me that Caroline Leavitt said that.

And I know that Gavin Newsom, just a few minutes ago, assured Californians that they weren't

in danger of a drone attack and the other hand, a doomsday plane apparently was flying

around over Fresno.

So I think everyone is feeling a bit more anxious than they were prior to this attack and

prior to Operation Epic Fury.

I mean, in the bus years, we had the colors, you know, and so I do think that the color

threat would have gone up, you know, if we're still doing that.

Gosh, I forgot that.

I wonder if they are.

Well, let's talk about what's happening in Iran, because I'm really curious to get your

take on so much of what's transpiring and there's so much to talk about.

Now, we finally heard from junior, I guess he's probably not called junior in Tehran, but

the new leader is a man named Mojita, I can't say his name, Mojtaba Kamehni, who was the

son, the 56 year old son of the Ayatollah Ali Komehni.

And we hadn't heard from him.

We heard rumors that he had some lacerations on his face that he had fractured his foot.

People were wondering is he alive?

Is he too afraid to come out in public?

Is he afraid to be targeted?

But he did deliver a message to state TV read by an anchor, basically doubling down on

the sort of the theocratic messaging of the regime.

So it doesn't seem as if this replacement is going to be any less hard line than the

one that was there before.

And if anything, JBL, it sounds like it's going to be more hard line.

And this guy is sort of not, you know, saying the same is going to hold.

Yeah, the big thing about this is that Iran has just passed a stress test, right?

So, you know, autocratic regimes are, they tend to be very strong, but very brittle.

And, you know, so the advantages you get in an autocracy are that you have top down control.

You can do things reasonably efficiently, you can insert a lot of power, but the weakness

is that, you know, the structures don't have the ability to really flex and bend.

They'll break and snap apart.

Iran, previous to last week, had only ever had two rulers in the post-revolutionary period.

And they have now made it through a transition period from one ruler to the next.

That's always a fraught moment in any autocracy.

And they successfully endured A, the decapitation of their regime, and B, the transition of power.

Those are pretty big hurdles for the regime to have successfully mounted.

And they have now successfully closed the straight-of-war moves.

This is like the top.

If you go back and look at Iranian doctrine, this is the thing that they've been developing

for 30 years ever since the Iran Iraq War.

What would we do if Israel and the United States came for us?

And the big weapon they have is the control in the flow of oil through the straight.

They succeeded in getting that closed.

From their perspective, they're absorbing a tremendous amount of punishment, and they're

taking a lot of body blows, but they're achieving their strategic objectives.

And so I think they probably feel reasonably good about their position just from the perspective

of the regime, right?

And so when you think about these things, just from a geopolitics perspective, what do

they care about most?

They care about preserving the regime?

Well, they're in pretty good shape to do that.

And so they look like the type of, they look like they believe that at some point soon,

the America is going to come to them and be asking them to deal.

Can I add one thing to that?

I think it is real also feels like they're achieving their geopolitical objectives.

They're strategic objectives right now, right?

As if you're Israel, you're looking at this and you're like, well, and the ideal situation

would be that there was a transition of power or a regime change, we have a less hostile

leader to something that looks more like whatever, Jordan or whatever.

That was a stretch goal, you know, I think that they would like that, right?

If there's chaos, though, and there is infighting for Israel, that's a win, that's superior

to the previous situation.

And in the situation that if they had now, if status quo kept, and you know, the regime

stayed in power, you had a new leader, but their military capabilities are, are less

and significantly, you know, we've taken out a lot of missile launchers, we've taken

them on the other, you know, the type of material they have to attack Israel with, like

their finances, like their ability to fund other terror groups is diminished, like that's

a win for Israel, right?

And it's not ideal.

It wouldn't be their ideal situation, but that you could understand why they would want

that, because the threat to them was actually imminent and serious, you know, imminent

but serious.

And so, you know, from there, from both of those perspectives, you can understand why

they'd feel not happy about what's happening with the war, but like the strategic imperatives

are being met.

What about us at the same time?

What are strategic, we don't have any strategic competitors, ours aren't being met.

It seems like to me, you guys, it's like a waiting game.

So they might have taken, they might have really weakened Iran's capability, not so much,

I mean, it still has some nuclear capabilities, they haven't been able to get to, but conventional

weapons and some of the things you mentioned to him.

But Iran has some things up its sleeve, which I think the U.S. didn't us or Israel, maybe

didn't anticipate these autonomous drones.

I think we have a picture of one, they're like $30,000 a pop, they can produce them in

huge numbers.

And to shoot, and they can do pretty significant damage.

And to shoot them down, you need a patriot missile that costs millions of dollars, $30,000 per

drone, like three million, I could be wrong, but something like that per patriot missile.

We have a limit to supply of these things.

So they have those that are everywhere.

Then they have these mines, I guess, that they've lined.

Nobody really knows how many mines have been put in the straight-of-war moves, but those

are incredibly dangerous to ships passing, plus they have air power that they're attacking

ships like that tie ship.

So I feel like they may have been significantly weakened, and of course their leadership

decapitated, if you will, whatever military term you want to use, but they still have

some things that they're able to do to prolong the conflict.

And it seems to me they want to prolong it as long as possible to JVL to your point,

so that the U.S. will say, okay, we're going to stop now.

Do you see that as a potential thing to just drag this out until the U.S. almost runs

out of defensive weapons?

No, I mean, I think the war is unpredictable, anything can happen.

I think the most likely endgame for this is Trump realizes he has to get out.

And so he has to go and bribe Iran to, in order to get a deal that he can then use to

declare victory.

And so what you'll have is you'll have both sides declaring victory.

The Iran will say, look at this, we stood up to Israel and America, we survived.

We are now getting XYZ, XYZ is probably something like easing of sanctions and the ability

to sell oil and the international market, et cetera, et cetera.

Trump will say, look at that, it was the biggest, most hugely strong war in the American history.

They said it couldn't be done, but we did it.

And Iran will exit, the regime will exit in a stronger position than it was months ago

when there were tens of thousands of people on the streets trying to topple it.

Why do you think that?

Why do you think they're going to be stronger?

Because I think they're going to wind up leaving this in a, they succeeded in killing

all those people.

B, we have then stirred up, I would say a bunch of internal people who may have been on

the fence with the Iranian regime who now look and say, hold on, you just blew up

our whole neighborhood, you killed all these girls and children and civilians, maybe that

all the propaganda we've been hearing about how dangerous America in Israel is was correct.

And see, I think they're likely to get something out of it on the back end economically.

I think sanctions are likely to be lifted and they're going to wind up with a better deal

than they would have gotten before the war when they were going to go shit.

And all these things have momentum, right, like the, the Hamani regime before I was dealing

with all the protesting in the streets, they are also weakened.

They're weakened economically, they're weakened militarily, you know, like obviously Israel

at least and probably seems like us too, you know, had internal anti-regime assets that

were, you know, helping us identify where these people were, they're able to take them

out so easily.

So like that, and that I think underscores like how opposite the reality on the ground

was toward to like the pitch for why we needed to do this now.

Like Iran was the regime was not at its most threatening toss.

If anything, you know, like you could imagine a counter pitch, I don't think

would have landed with the American people, which is like these guys are so weak

like now is the moment to go take them out and who knows, maybe we can get a better

leader out of this, but that's not the pitch that anybody made.

And so, you know, to just back to what JVL was saying about how the regime could end up

being stronger, like it's not that high of a bar to clear to be stronger.

And the regime was about as weak as it had been in a long time.

But it was also I was going to say JVL wasn't the pitch that we had all these

leaders in one place and this intelligence.

And this was a once in a lifetime opportunity, not to mention that the

conventional weapons threat against Israel was imminent.

That was another big argument, right?

That does seem to be an argument that is really, the Israeli officials made

the Americans who knows whether or not it was true.

And I mean, Israel clearly wanted to walk American power into the conflict.

They succeeded in doing it.

And I, you know, honestly, look, the Iranian regime is a terrible, horrible regime.

And the things they've done over the last 47 years or whatever they're people,

not to mention like lots of other people in the region, just awful.

You could have sold me a few months ago as the protests were really starting to take off in

the northern provinces.

Oh boy, these guys look weak.

If you establish a no-fly zone and carve out room here for, you know,

popular protests to gather force, then you target the Iranian leadership.

Like, you maybe could have sold me a, hey, there's a real chance to accomplish regime chains there.

If you had done it a little, a little, a little more foresight,

instead what we got was, hey, baby says that we can get everybody right here.

But we got to do it right now, right now, right now.

Come on, let's go. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. You know, you want to do it. Let's do it.

And, you know, with one Blinken said he made that same pitched Obama.

A total Blinken said that. That's not like a conspiracy podcast that said that.

I mean, Lincoln said he made the basically the same pitched Obama 10, 15 years ago.

Yeah. So I mean, I just, again, I am not averse, like,

theologically to trying to topple the Iranian regime.

And it just doesn't seem like there was ever actually a plan in place.

And honestly, it's not even clear that it was ever really the goal.

It's like, who knows? The top of the regime. Yeah.

You know, it's so interesting. I just interviewed David Petraeus, who I got to know during

their rock war. We walked around Fallujah together. It was very interesting during the surge,

if you all remember when they added tens of thousands of troops.

And I was really surprised when, when he didn't think that we had any responsibility other

than to bomb the hell out of Iran. I want to play the question I asked him and just get your

reaction on the backside. JBL is a big surge, guys. We'll go to him first.

About regime change. What about Colin?

Do we have it right? You break it? You own it, right?

Well, in this case, we're not on the ground. So we don't own it. They own it.

Who's they? The Iranians. So you're saying that the United States and Israel have no responsibility

in terms of what replaces the current, the opera scene. How do you usher in a more stable

sainter, if you will, Iran? If basically you're just blowing the place out up and then getting

the hell out of Dodge. Well, you're not in Dodge to begin with. What the objective of this operation,

I read them to you really again, is to take down some of the regime leaders, the air and ballistic

missile defenses, the missile program, the drone program, the Navy regime forces infrastructure

and so forth in any of the remnants of the nuclear program. I mean, does it surprise you that there

does that there was so little thought put into what comes next? I mean, I shouldn't be surprised.

I am. Anyway, it's, you know, you think yourself, I can't believe that monkey is going to have

fling his crap at the well. No, I guess he did it. Look, he did it again. It's always always

always amazing to see him do it. Patraeus, that was such a weird interview with you. It was.

I was so surprised. Why did he do it? Just because you're old pals.

I was kind of getting forced to do it, right? No, I asked him. I was interested in sort of comparing

Iraq and to Iran and what happened there. And I had so many questions. He filibustered.

He, the first answer must have been seven minutes long. 11 minutes or something, yeah.

It was insane. And he said complex questions, you know, can't be answered in a sound bite,

basically. And he seemed, it almost seems like he was advising the White House on some aspect

of this war. And I thought he was going to be a little more critical and a little more detached.

But I think he wanted to really support the military. But and I think he doesn't like to talk

sort of about the political ramifications and the political equation that goes into,

you know, an operation like this. But I have to say, I was surprised how

sort of in lockstep he was with the administration.

Yes, I just say manning everything. Right. He was still manning everything.

He was, you know, he's like, I just read you the four goals that were their objectives. Well,

I'm, there's been like 17 objectives. I know. The four objectives that you think that you can

support, right? And it just depends on which day, what time and which person in the administration

you're asking is to what the objective is. And the weirdness of him, he even, you asked him

something about, you know, but Trump is saying one thing and then saying another. He was like,

well, many times it can be a huge advantage to try to continue.

The unpredictable.

Right. It's like, oh, come on, buddy. Yeah.

This is a weird, weird.

And I didn't have time to ask him did the administration properly prepare the American people as they did

with the remember the build up to a rock. I mean, it was months and months and months.

And I said, and then of course it got congressional authorization. But, you know, he talked,

his answers were so long. And then at half hour, he was like, I gotta go.

And I was like, wait, don't leave me. I have so many more questions.

Here's the thing. It isn't just him. I mean, you're seeing a lot of this on like CNN and stuff too.

I think that some of the military commentator types, not our guy Mark Kirtling.

Some of the other military commentator types do want to like grade this,

as if they are commentators in a sports match.

And it's like, oh, hey, I mean, it is true that if you're just grading this on like

who has eliminated more of the other side's military weapons and material and missiles,

like we're crushing them, right? You know, like we're winning 28 to 3.

It's like the Patriots Falcon Super Bowl. Like they're the Iranians are not, you know,

where they're eight Americans that have died. That's tragic. I think like 1,500,

some of our audience have died, depending on what reports you're looking at.

And so I think that from a military standpoint, you know, what he said there,

like those four goals of how we're going to take out their capacity on, you know,

medium-range weapons and their drone capacity and hopefully their nuclear capacity.

Like that might end up being true. And I circular back to kind of my original point is,

I understand why that would be an important objective for Israel, because that's a real danger

for them. Like none of those weapons are ever going to reach us. And so there is this question

of like grading this like it's a sports match on who is taking out who more or like it's a video,

like a military video game about like who's degrading the other side more. It doesn't make any sense

in the in the American context because we don't know why we're that like we're not, we don't know

what the what victory looks like. And so taking out some of their missiles like who cares.

I also think JVL, I don't know if you do, but there's been such little discussion about the

geopolitical ramifications, you know, like, you know, not only with Betrayus, but just in general,

with what comes next and how does this destabilize the region? And, you know, gaming out what happens

with either a more hard line Iran or a different regime or any kind of diplomatic or political

effort to try to form some kind of opposition to the current theocracy. I mean, it's just like

there's no discussion about that. It's all about war games and video games and using these weird

videos that are in or cut with, you know, Nintendo games. We have an example. I think they just put

one out today where they're interspersing war video with video games and, you know, wrestling matches

and all kinds of weird stuff. It is so bizarre and it's it it seems so soft mooring, doesn't it?

Lower and you're like 16 years off more. I think it's like elementary school. The world is

Yeah, it's a can imagine Eisenhower doing that.

Right. Patten, like it's it's crazy. Absolutely crazy that we're going like, I guess we're speedrunning

all the video game systems. We did we've done Grand Theft Auto. We've done Call of Duty. We've

now done we next up is I guess switch. Maybe they'll do switch to with Mario Kart or something.

I just but here's a little question. Who do you guys think this is for? Right. It's not it's not

for the enemy, right? It's not like prop a wartime propaganda trying to demoralize the enemy to

get in. It's not a siop in that way. Is it for domestic consideration? Which I know who it's for.

If you look at the polls, it's interesting. Like the crosstabs of the polls of who supports the war.

The kind of independent Trump voting independence are not happy with it with it. But then if you

look at the Republicans, if you there's one poll that that broke them out between, do you consider

yourself a Magger Republican or a regular Republican? And one might think that like the Magger

Republicans would be more hostile to this because like the whole point of Magger originally was

that it was a rejection of George W. Bush's Neocon globalist interventionism and that the

regular Republicans might be more for it because they were around for a rock one and they liked it.

So you might think that wrong. The Magger Republicans are like 95 to four in favor of it. And the

non-magger Republicans are like 70, 30. And so what that tells me is that this stuff is for

the nationalist Magger Republicans. You need to give them a reason to be for this. Like you've

been telling them for years and years, we're not going to do these stupid wars. You know, we're

we're not I'm not dumb like those other presidents that cared about this stuff. And so to get them

on board, you like got to give them something. And I think what they're giving them is like Rara,

America, Hell yeah, we're killing the bad guys, Jingoism. And I think that that's who it's for.

That's why I think that's interesting because there is sort of this, you know, if you listen to

petexeth and Islam poetry and you listen to sort of the way they are portraying this whole conflict.

There's this this very muscular macho, you know, our soldiers won't let us get into a quagmire like

the soldiers who were in a rock. And Afghanistan, I saw Bill Crystal talking about this, which was

so insulting to the military who served honorably and bravely. It's not their fault that the mission

was was not, you know, didn't lead to what they wanted it to lead to. And was in many ways

for nothing or for not. But I just feel like it's just part of this to your point, Tim, this

Rara manly. Let's kick the shit out of the enemy. And, you know, isn't this fun? And kind of the

same same vibe is as the Trump video of of of releasing excrement on the on the on the protesters

for the No Kings day. This kind of I can't even I don't even know how I would describe it. But,

you know, I wanted to ask you about as a transition to cash patrol because he is trying to prove his

manhood as we know in some really crunchy ways. There was a that locker room video with the US

men's hockey team. And now he is literally bringing an UFC fighters. I don't know if you all

saw this to train FBI agents. So is that more of the same, you think, appealing to this hardcore

mega base with this super macho. Like, let's let's get them. And when the men are men. And, you know,

I've got something for you on this. You ready? Just pulled it up. This is another Bill crystal,

two Bill crystal shout outs. Maybe like four years ago now, I was working on a project that didn't

come to fruition. And Bill crystal was like, have you ever read Umberto echoes or fascism? And

I was like, I don't know, maybe hint college or whatever one, but I don't I don't recall it. And

he's like, you should read it. And I said, okay. And so I was rereading it. And this he echo like

lays out the qualities. He tries to describe what the qualities of Mussolini's fascism are.

And what it and how it's different from typical politics. And number 12 is one that's stuck with

me. I just googled it. Since both Firmnet war and heroism are difficult. The earth fascist

transfers his will to power to sexual matters. That is the origin of machismo. The UR fascist hero

tends to play with weapons. Doing so becomes an erstats phallic exercise. That includes the

else of disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of non non machismo sexual habits.

That's what it's just that. Like that's all right. It's like goes back to nineteen for it's the

same shit that they were doing in 1942. Having said that, this is not landing very well in the

manosphere. We have a bite from Joe Rogan talking about this. I think it was yesterday other day

before. Let's play it and talk about how this is playing with young men because apparently not

very well despite this macho macho man attitude. Crazy. I know it's going to be very high security

and high stress and weird to have a fight at the White House in the middle of a fucking war.

The war will be sorted out by June, but quite honestly, I'm not confident that that's going to be

the case. Okay, so I know you guys have read all this stuff about Gen Z men, all the very same young

men who seem to support Donald Trump in 2024 suddenly saying, hey, wait a second. He said no

forever wars. He said no, you know, entanglements internationally. God, am I going to get drafted?

And by the way, I feel sort of hopeless about my future. How come he's not responding to that?

So talk about sort of the political ramifications of this, you guys. JBL, what do you think?

I mean, I'm not I am on this because I look at it and part of it like, yes, echo and

or fascism. The other part is like Cash Patel is like one of the make-a-wish kids and he's just like

he had Donald Trump's election in 2024 has allowed cash to just like live out all of his childhood

dreams. And one of them was to get to hang out with real UFC fighters at Quantico. And so what's

a way to hang out with guys who probably wouldn't want to like hang out with him otherwise?

Well, I'll just give them honorary G-man badges and pretend that they're training agents which,

again, I'm sorry, if you know anything about either law enforcement or, you know, mixed martial arts

is preposterous, mixed martial arts is like a highly technical discipline, which adheres to weight

classes and rules and all sorts of stuff and point scoring and when you're in law enforcement,

that's not those things are not applicable. Like when they're learning, you know, to to fight in

box and wrestle and law enforcement, it's much it's much more central combat techniques.

So what is this really about? It's about Cash getting to live out his dreams. And for Trump to

bring UFC to the White House is I think he just I mean, I it's just like bread and circuses,

I think like your collegial stuff. It's interesting to see that Rogan is opposed to it because like

I understood Rogan being pressured at the war, you know, because Donald Trump did like go on

to show and says he wasn't going to do a war in Iran. And so you feel stupid kind of actually

you feel like you got fooled. So I understand why he'd be mad and and be against it. But being

against the MMA fight on the on the White House line is kind of like, because Rogan takes it

seriously. Right. But but since he considers himself serious. But right, it's like he he's been

part of the like disintegration of the type of seriousness with which we used to expect from our

politicians, right? Like and leaders. You know, and so it's like I was the I hate to pick on Shane

Gillis, but I was watching because he's like probably the most normal of the manosphere guys, but

I saw a clip of him where he's like making fun of this same thing. I'm like making fun of all

these guys and the make a wish part and they're at the MMA thing and they act like they're tough and

cool. But it's like guys, you're the FBI director now. Shouldn't you be, you know, getting bad guys

and protecting our communities like don't you have real work to do. And it's like I don't think

it clicked with any of them that they liked that, you know, Donald Trump was a good hang.

Like he was a better hang than Hillary, right? And so they liked that. But now and now that he's

in there and it's so unserious and it's comically unserious, you know, it's almost like there's

some cognitive dissonance that hasn't quite been resolved yet for these folks, which is like,

wait a minute, maybe I should maybe the good hang part was not what I should have been prioritizing.

But anyway, but what's what is going to be the impact politically you guys? I mean, the the

midterms are what seven months away or something like that. Do you think that this is going to hurt

Trump? He's trying to to get the mega base, as you mentioned, Tim, excited about this,

but there are a lot of independents who are saying, hey, this is not what I voted for. You know,

we don't even have healthcare in this country. And you know, what what do you see? And also oil

prices, right? Gasoline prices having increased. I don't know if that's going to be a short-term

pain thing or if it's going to be temporary, but they do say that it could take weeks, even months

to open up the straight-of-war moves. So this could have a serious trickle-down effect, not to

mention grocery prices, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, are you, are you hesitant to talk about

sort of the impact of this for the midterms? I'm not. I'm more optimistic than JVL, I think.

So do you want optimism first or pessimism? Let's have the bad news first. Okay, JVL,

let you go. And then I'll I don't know that I'm maybe you're more optimistic than I am.

So I have been, you know, I do not have a Bloomberg terminal account myself because they're

really expensive, but I have some buddies in finance. Hey, Jeremy, who have been sharing their

stuff with me. And so I've been obsessing with all the oil futures curves. And I mean, we are

projected to be well over $80 a barrel out into July, June, like automatically. We were only 30 weeks

away. We think they're about 30 weekends left between. By the way, that barren's piece JVL said

it could go up to $150 a barrel. Yeah, I mean, and you know, at that point, like I don't even know

what the world looks like. You know, I mean, but as the, you know, Tim's got this landman line

that he's been using, you know, you get near 90, 90 dollars a barrel and everything the American

economy has to readjust its prices. And this if the war ended next week, it would still take

several weeks to a few months to get all of the logistics like, no, we have thousands of ships

lined up. We have plants which have come offline, fertilizer deliveries to like Brazil where they

need to plant crops that are going to come mature in the late summer. Those are already gone,

right? So you've introduced this gigantic logistical, you know, clusterfuck into the global

economy that even if you stopped it tomorrow, it's going to take weeks and months to to work

itself out. And you're only 30 weekends away from the election. So I just, I don't know how bad it

can get, but I can tell you it can't get much better. Like we have a really hard cap on the

up potential upside for good news for the administration. And I just why are you pessimistic about

the midterms? No, there's one saying I don't think it made it. You predicted my bit on landman.

I have so few bits and said to get called out like that was kind of embarrassing. I'm sorry.

I thought that you were going to do the, the people are stupid. And they voted for Trump,

even though the economy is, I thought that's where you're going to go. So anyway, I, here's,

I'll just add on, I agree with everything. JBL said turns out we don't have a disagreement on

this, but I'll just add on the campaign side of it. You can already see on the map like the way

the map is expanding. You know, like you have in Montana, both Republicans and the House and

the Senate drop out of the race. All of a sudden that race is like now on the map. It's not

something anybody was talking about at the beginning of the year. You look at that Nebraska

independent race. I think a lot of people giving that a second look. You know, Mary Peltola gets

in. You have Alaska. So I, I think that six months ago, I would have said that the Democrats had

no chance at the Senate. And I think it would have been in part because of like Democratic strategic

incompetence and, and just like the, the map and the Democrats issues right now with the demographics

of the country and how the Senate map is biased towards working class white people. But Trump has

found this up so bad. The, like the Democrats, I think, have a real chance to take both

houses of Congress now. And it's not really a lot of what they've done even. I mean, I think that

they have nominated Peltola and Tallerico who were better than alternatives. So they've added a

couple of states to the map. You know, they haven't done everything. I wish the Democrats would have

done in my dream world to make to expand the map. But it's been pretty good. And, and so I just,

I think, I think Platner, Platner, Maine, yeah. Okay. We'll talk about that later. I keep getting

2028. Keep getting trouble on that. And so, you know, look, I think the combine,

um, the people who are upset about the war, who are in Trump's coalition, who are off.

Well, people are just like, what's the point of voting? I think a lot of mega voters will just be like,

I'm, you're, you're trying, you have to get me, I have to get excited about John Houston and Ohio.

Like, you're a mega person. You don't know who this guy is. He's a generic white guy that looks

like an old school Republican. You're pissed about gas prices. You're pissed about groceries. You

came into vote for Trump in the first place. You're going to vote for John. You're going to take

the time to go vote for John Houston. I don't think so. I think, and I think that a lot of the

Democrats will be very excited to vote. So I think that right now, you know, the map is expanding

and things are working worse and worse for the Republicans. I want to talk to you guys about

Texas for a minute, because I am obsessed with James Telleriko. I am. Have you seen the memes

about him that if you like changed his look and grew a beard and put on a gold chain and they're

like some AI pictures of him. I'll just under two. He looks very cool. Like, you can make him look

really cool. You know, he's got the pasture look, but it's like, we give him a full makeover.

That's so funny. Well, you know, he, I, he got my attention during the whole reapportionment

battle, and I interviewed him. Gosh, about a year ago. And I was so impressed by

how eloquent he was and how measured. I love seeing him go on Fox News and basically embarrassed

some of those anchors because they weren't listening to what he was saying. He asked him a question,

and I don't even know this anchor's name, but he just, he was totally flummoxed by the whole thing.

Do you think James Telleriko has a chance? And do you think that Trump, John Kornin has recently

been sucking up to Trump, hoping to get his endorsement, compacted in more maga than John Kornin,

really, I think his, I mean, sort of more red meat. What do you, do you think the Democrats could

actually win turn flip the Senate seat in Texas? We're in Texas next week for our live shows. Come

out. Wow. It's often Austin, the board.com. Are you getting Telleriko to come do an interview?

Maybe. Who knows? Well, after we ought to wait and see, after going to the shows.

The, uh, the, uh, the viewers, we haven't saw all the tickets before we tell you. Um, the, um, I,

I think he has a chance. Uh, I think he's going to have to really, I think the primary kind of

hurt him. And I think like you really got to stop. Yeah. Well, because there's so little margin

for air in a state like Texas. I mean, Trump, why don't I double digits? And you got to kind of

figure out like everybody dogs my boy, Beto, but that first race he ran, he almost cracked the nut,

which was you have to simultaneously excite the base. And you have to demonstrate to

traditional Republican voters that you care about them enough that they either, you know,

maybe decide not to go for the vote in the midterm or they, you win some over. And Beto did that.

He traveled the whole state using red Texas a lot. He made a real big case. I remember that.

I worry a little bit that the primary, you know, creates some hard feelings with black voters.

I don't know if that's that state of that is sticky enough, but it's just something to monitor.

Just be crock. It has been very gracious. She has been great and kudos to her on that. She's

been great. And then, you know, you end up having all this focus on some of their, you know,

more lefty cultural views. And that maybe turns off some of the red part of the state. I just

think it made the task a little more challenging. You have somebody like Peltola in Alaska,

for example, who I mentioned, who's like, not a fire brand on any of that stuff, you know,

and she's fish family freedom. And that is maybe a little bit more of a, of a logical path.

So I don't know. I think Texas might be a little tougher than some of the other red states,

but he's talented. And I think that if he can manage to give a message to Trump voters,

and if he can get an assist by the economy tanking, maybe though I do wonder, Texas might be the

place best suited to whether the economic storms ahead. I mean, I think that they're,

they're open and champagne bottles in Midland this weekend. Who is it?

Who is it? Who is it? Yeah. Who is it? Get right. You're right about that. But who's

going to be Ken Paxton or John Cornyn in the runoff? What is that next month, you guys?

Yeah. Depends on how hard Trump goes for Cornyn as Dancer. Like if Trump half-ass endorses him,

I don't know. It's a guarantee he wins. Like if Trump goes down there and endorses him,

cuts an ad, makes a big deal out of it. Trump can drag anybody across the line still in

Republican primaries. But you'd have to like really try, I think. You disagree with that, JBL?

I don't, I don't disagree. I think that the incentives actually suggest that Trump probably won't

do that. He bails. Yeah, it was like a trial balloon. And he saw what happened. It's like you know

it. What's he going to put himself out for? For John Cornyn. For John Cornyn. Okay.

He's got other things. I, if you're Trump, you think to yourself, why would I put anything

of mine on the line for this guy who I don't really like? Megalomania, he likes to endorse,

would be like audacity. What about what he's doing to Thomas Massey in Kentucky? You know, he's

going down there. He's trashing him because I guess Thomas Massey had the audacity to speak out

against him. What did Thomas Massey do anyway that pissed Trump off so much? Epstein. Epstein.

Yeah. Right. Yeah, it was Epstein. And I think it's going to work, right? He'll, he'll unseat Massey.

I was interesting. Sam and I talked about it on the pod today. It's fascinating. It's the first

real test of Trump in a Republican primary ever. Like none of these guys they've never done what I've

always, I've been begging some Republicans to do this for like 10 years, which is oppose them on

something from the right and then stay. Try to fight them. Stay Republican. Don't do, don't be

10. Brian Kim. Brian Kim did it. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Brian Kim did it. Stay

election. The only other way. Yeah, yeah. And a bit of federal. This is like a house or

senate election. You're right. That was a governor's race and a house or senate election bucking

him and holding line. Like there's Cheney bucked him and then kind of mailed in that house race.

Like, let's just be honest. Like she didn't really try that hard in that house primary, right?

And then most of them retire. And so that's my girlfriend. Yeah. My girlfriend.

And TG retired. Yeah. Massey sticking it out. And if Massey could, I don't think it's a zero

percent chance, Massey could hold on. And if he does, that was the, yeah.

What about, you know, you know, Andy Bashir, obviously, extremely popular governor in the state.

So I mean, if that's any evidence that conservative voters or Republicans can cross lines and

Kentucky, maybe they'll, maybe they'll appreciate. Plus that the Epstein issue is such a

interesting and there's so much crossover, right? In terms of, you know,

Marjorie, the Marjorie Taylor greens of it all. So a lot of those voters in Kentucky may

appreciate Thomas Massey, right? Even if they're MAGA for standing up for the Epstein survivors.

His district is kind of interesting too, because it's Kentucky, but it's like he's like the Cincinnati

suburbs. He's got a little bit the parts that are in Kentucky. So you have more of the college

educated kind of, I don't think it's a, I think he could potentially survive. It would be delicious

if he did. But JBL, you think that he's in trouble. I mean, I, I think it's at best a coin flip,

but I haven't seen it. I'm sure he has some internal polling. I haven't seen it. It would be,

it would be nice if he survived. Well, we were going to talk about my Gavin Newsome interview,

which we'll do another time because I almost feel like that's really in the future in terms of

talking about 20, 28 in candidates. So we wanted to tell me what you thought of about him though.

You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. First of all, I really liked him. I thought he was,

you know, we talked a lot about his book. And so his sort of origin story, his father,

abandoning for all intents and purposes. The family, when he's three years old, his mom had to

work multiple jobs. Had this weird kind of duality and his childhood with his father, you know,

was kind of a consiginary to the Getty family. And so he had exposure to this great wealth. And yet

his mother is, you know, humping it at three jobs, trying to support his sister and himself. He had

severe dyslexia as a kid. That was really interesting. He was, he was much more humble than I anticipated.

I did have this whole conversation with him because I've been in LA for the last six weeks.

So of course, whenever I see people or meet people who have friends out here, I ask them,

what do you think of Gavin Newsom? And rarely do they have much substantive criticism.

This is what they always say. And I said to him, Governor, what do you think the one word people

use when I ask them about you? And he said, resilient. I said, no, slick. I said slick. Yeah.

Everyone says you're slick. And I thought he handled it pretty well. I said, you know, is it your

hair gel cat? You know, can you de-slickify yourself or it's just your two polished? But I thought

he was pretty self-aware and surprisingly self-effacing. I made fun of the best is yet to come,

you know, Kimberly Gilfoyle. We kept talking about, we had to do other podcasts to talk about

these little sidebar issues. You know, I think that I did ask him a pretty tough question about

California, about the budget ballooning and what has it gotten him? And obviously some of the bad

things about California, with the highest poverty rate in the schools. Dick Kristoff's article about,

you know, worse than Mississippi. And, you know, he's pretty good with the combats. I don't have

this intimate knowledge of California public policy to be able to say, well, wait a second.

But I thought, do you want to hear the sound bite real quick? Do we have time or do you want to do

that? We'll do that another time about California. People should go over there to the Katie

Kirk and watch the whole thing. Yeah. My Gavin thing is just in one sentence is, I think

this problem isn't slickness. The question is, how does he avoid what I call the Kalmala

conundrum, which is that the progressives and liberals think you're a corporate chill and that

the centrist think that you're a California liberal? Yeah. You want the opposite. You're just kind

of a man without a country that way, isn't it? Yeah. Two words. Two words. Chad. You get a good

chat. You just chat people. You just chat the whole alpha alpha male. You're just like, yeah,

you're just like the whole electorate. Okay. You're going to have to explain to me what you guys

mean by that, because I have no idea what you're saying. You're brain-mogging us right now. So,

you don't have to know what it means to do it. Okay. Well, you'll have to explain that to me offline.

All right. So we wanted to end with talking about my current obsession, which is love story,

which is on Hulu, Ryan Murphy's latest extravaganza. You know, it's been interesting for me to watch,

because I did the last TV interview, which Jonathan Kennedy Jr., and we actually have a clip of that,

so you guys can just look and see how truly ridiculously handsome he was. So go ahead and roll

that, you guys. I'm from a political family. I think there was a lot about politics and the life

of politics, especially for young children, that she thought was heavy stuff, and that it was

better to have a sense of who you are in your own place in life before you really took that on.

So that kind of healthy skepticism, I think, was an important part of her parenting, and probably made

my sisters an eyed life easy. Right. Yeah. Because, I mean, if you look at a lot of political families,

and a lot of families who grow up with the incredible glare of this spotlight that you all have,

and you see you in your sister, you think, God, they're remarkably well-adjusted or seem to be,

you know, who knows? It seems to be. But, you know, I think it's a real tribute to your mom,

that you all turned out to be really nice productive people. Oh, thank you. She would,

she would be glad to hear you say that. She took a lot of pride in being a good mother.

Talk about frame-mogging. Wow.

I have a two-second story about this, so this is slightly before my time. I've spent 25 years

the weekly standard with Bill Crystal. In a weird, confluence of events, I best knew

JFK Jr. as the editor and publisher of George Magazine, which was a very cool, glossy,

political magazine. I was on the cover, JBL. Were you on the cover? Oh, my God. So, you have that?

I don't know. I don't think I should have had it ready. They can effort that while I vamp.

Oh, I got it. So, it came out a year before the weekly standard, and while Bill Crystal was

trying to set up the weekly standard, get it going, JFK Jr. came down to the offices,

just sit down with him and give him some lessons learned. Very, very,

I'm really, unbelievably gracious. And the story about this is that every woman who worked

at the what was becoming to the weekly standard came in dressed like they were going to breakfast

at Tiffany's or something. They were like, it was very much magazine. People just dressed like

magazine people like this basically. But when John John was going to be in the office that day,

everyone came in and like cocktail dresses and pearls and just have you been watching at JBL?

No, I haven't. I just saw that. Oh, there's that. Oh, my goodness. You got a little press thing

in your door. Is this a Charlie Chaplin thing? No, it was sort of like, you know,

who's man? What's the news, man? Exactly. Why everyone fears Katie correct? L-O-L.

That's so far. It's true. Timothy McGrady.

I saw the Darryl Hanne. Rush Limbaugh losing his bite, if only. Yeah.

I saw the Darryl Hanne op at about it. That was my first. And I just immediately, again,

I don't know anything from anything here. But my sympathies were automatically with Darryl Hanne.

Yeah, I think they did her dirty in this series and really treated her unfairly. And as she said,

it was sort of the the needing to have some kind of villain to play against

Carolyn Bassett. And I thought they were pretty unkind Caroline Kennedy too, made her seem

really cold and judgmental. And yeah, I haven't said that. I mean, it's I can't be. It's fun to

watch. It's kind of a trip down memory lane in the 90s pre-internet. And you know, it's fun to

look at the clothes and the fashions. I think the actor who plays JFK Jr. looks very much like him.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Right now. All right. So here's my disagreement. This is

I pigeon less so to me. Carolyn Bassett, I always describe her looking like kind of like a

Medigliani painting kind of interesting and different, but somehow really beautiful. But very

unique looking and Sarah pigeon, I think is more traditionally classically beautiful. But go ahead.

No, this is so interesting. I just want to hear you talk about this. I'm going to have one

sentence about the show. I know nothing. I got as a child. So I don't know these. I've loved it.

Don't run it in the drama. Sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I've I've learned it for the drama.

But my impression not knowing these people is like the JFK Jr. guy just doesn't have the it

like the it factor that the real JFK Jr. does. Like I literally I was blushing just watching you

talking to him for one second. And I love Sarah pigeon. She's amazing. I got like the character.

Again, I don't I don't know Carolyn Bassett. I could have I would have I knew nothing about it.

Like the show I've learned everything Calvin Klein and I would have spelled her name wrong.

Like it just wasn't. So to me, this is like I'm learning about these people in a way that's

different from whatever they're, you know, like the two-dimensional view I have about John John

and the Kennedy. So I am kind of interested. So you have an opposite view. Like you lived this.

I mean, literally you interviewed him. So yeah, I mean, you know so much. I haven't read the book.

It was based on which was came out a couple of years ago.

You know, I think a lot of license was taken with their story obviously.

Did they get the essence of their relationship? Perhaps. It feels a little creepy and voyeuristic,

but I think it's I think they were they were so beautiful. Honestly, it's just kind of fun to watch

really, you know, ridiculously good looking people. What about Ethel? What about Ethel?

Did you ever interview Ethel? No, but I was so interested. She says near again,

something I know nothing about. Well, Ethel, I felt so bad for her about overall. I went to look

to see when she died. I was like, did she at least die before RFK June, you're dead this

non-sensory, but you know, is he alive? Yeah. No. His character isn't in the show. At the dinner,

isn't he? He's at the dinner. Oh, yes, you're right. Tatiana, my watch one episode with my

daughter and Tatiana's a little girl is in it. My daughter started crying because, you know,

she was she my daughter went to Yale at the same time Tatiana Schlossberg was there. And she was

just so crushed by, you know, her death at 35. And they do portray Tatiana as a little girl

with Caroline in the park. Yeah. And it's sort of heartbreaking. But I don't know. I think it's

it's been interesting. You asked about Ethel Kennedy. One of my very closest friends was Ethel's

secretary at Hickory Hill. And she told me I said, was Ethel Kennedy that awful? And she said,

well, she did make me cry a lot. So I guess she was she was tough, but I guess she was tough,

but what she clearly resented and who knows it it makes sense was that, you know, I think in

one line, doesn't she say Tim something like I could wear a green dress and nobody would look at

me. They'd all still be looking at at Jackie and, you know, the quizzing people about politics at

the dinner table. I was like, that is going to be I'm stealing it from Ethel and I'm a grandpa.

I'm like, that's going to be me. It's like come to dinner at the house. I'm doing, we're doing

a news quiz before I thought that was so rude, so rude to her. And I was mad at him for not

signing her up for breakfast too, you know, he was kind of a lung kid in some ways. And I don't

think he fully appreciated how clannish the catalyst. I'm acting like I know this, but how

clannish the Kennedy scene and how, you know, how difficult it was to integrate into that whole

world. Well, I promised you a hard out. Oh, thank you. I could be sure to have the whole hour on

this. I know there's a series isn't over. Maybe we can just do it when the whole series is over.

Yeah, because I have some funny stories about how I got that interview with JFK Jr.

Good tease. And I'm going to follow up on that. But I just want to remind everyone just because

while we're here with your audience, I have my substacks show coming up in an hour. And I'm going

to be doing a lot more on Iran with Richard Haas. And we're going to be talking about the

Epstein files to get everybody up to speed on substacks. So if you want to join me. And so enjoy

Texas. You guys, when is the live show Dallas Wednesday, Austin Thursday, Dallas is sold out

Austin. We still got tickets. Go to the. Where do you where do you have these events in Texas?

It's at the Paramount at Austin. I mean, it's at the Paramount, which is like downtown,

can all six street. I've done. I've been there. I forget where we're at in Dallas.

It's doing Dallas. I forget the name of the place, but it's where Lee Harvey Oswald was hanging

out of the movie theater. Oh my god. Really? Yeah. Oh, now wait time. It just brought it full

circle. We did. In a very sick way. I didn't want to say it. Okay. Anyway, you guys, thank you guys so

much. This was really fun. Let's do it again. I'm going to go take care of my bloody nose. Please.

Thank you for fighting through it. Okay. We'll see you soon. Bye. Good to see you. Bye.