00:04:51.520They know that that currency works with him, that he wants to be told these things.
00:04:55.920And the people who do tell him, well, he tends to go back to the well quite a bit.
00:05:00.760But on the other hand, we hear people saying that behind closed doors, he fully recognizes the, shall we say, strategic difficulties of the current position that the U.S. is in with regard to Iran.
00:05:15.560We're all trying to figure out who's where and saying what.
00:05:19.220And, you know, we've heard rumors that even Marco Rubio, who had other, I mean, he has no love for the Iranian regime, but he had other priorities.
00:05:28.060You know, he has his various ethnic missions he wants to carry out south of here.
00:05:34.280And we also hear that J.D. Vance was not sympathetic.
00:05:41.620But how much of this is also an attempt to try to salvage something for himself in 2028? Is Trump winking at these leaks about J.D. Vance because they know that this thing might in fact hurt his political prospects?
00:05:54.980I don't know how to put it all together, what's really going on, but I will say that it is deeply demoralizing that even when you get a guy who in Jeb Bush's face says – right to Jeb Bush's face says, your brother lied us into a war over nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, that even that guy comes – and again, I know people will say to me, you shouldn't have been naive, that's the way politicians are.
00:06:20.860that's not necessarily true some politicians get in office they do exactly what they say they're
00:06:24.340going to do but as scott horton says what tends to happen is they keep all the bad promises they
00:06:30.660made and they break all the good ones and i think some of us thought well maybe there's a chance
00:06:35.120here this might defy horton's law but unfortunately not quite well tom uh there's a people in the
00:06:43.340audience despite our best efforts of trying to get your audio set before we got started
00:06:47.080still saying it's very hard to hear you so pretend like the guy behind you it supports the fed and
00:06:52.680just really all right i will do that i apologize i don't know what's the matter with the setup
00:06:56.960but i i've i'm speaking as if i'm really really outraged which indeed i am yes yes give give the
00:07:04.240full projection as if someone is letting you know that an expansionist foreign policy is somehow wise
00:07:09.460uh but uh look i'm one of these people like i was a classic talk radio listener before i ran into
00:07:17.020donald trump's presidency i'm like well i'm not a huge ted cruz fan but maybe he's the best choice
00:07:22.280in this field and then he got up in front of that field and embarrassed jeb bush and ted cruz and
00:07:28.900marco rubio and all of these people specifically on foreign policy i am a foreign policy restrictionist
00:07:35.160because donald trump sold me on the idea and then i went back and started reading guys like pat
00:07:40.820Buchanan and others and realized, oh, no, this isn't just Donald Trump. There's a long running,
00:07:46.040like, you know, conservative, right leaning understanding of why this is the correct way
00:07:51.660to approach foreign policy. So it was good to know that while Donald Trump was saying something that
00:07:56.080was effective and persuasive and true, that there was also like an intellectual genealogy reaching
00:08:02.960back into my own belief system that also showed this to be the case. So when you have a guy who
00:08:08.340goes out there and gives exactly the argument that sways you into this position it's quite the
00:08:13.420whiplash to then be told that you are insufficiently loyal to the guy for continuing to hold the
00:08:18.460position you were argued into by exactly this political actor and to your point people can say
00:08:24.020oh well that's naive or foolish to hear what a politician says and believe it fair enough but
00:08:29.160then what are we doing with democracy let's just stop the whole thing right like if i can never
00:08:33.240believe a single thing any politician ever says for any reason or their positions on it well then
00:08:39.280there is legitimately no reason to continue to engage in this political system in any way that
00:08:45.900said i do think that the factions that you were alluding to inside the administration are real
00:08:51.120and one of the things that makes me believe that are the stories coming out like you said we've
00:08:56.860seen for a while, people who are very clearly neocon adjacent, guys like Max Abrams, others
00:09:03.340are have been arguing to get rid of of J.D. Vance. They obviously don't like the fact that Trump
00:09:10.080was in any way inconsistent on their understanding of foreign policy. They do not want the MAGA
00:09:15.800nationalist understanding of foreign policy to continue in any new administration. And I'm
00:09:21.740noticing who's being targeted by the media so this like last news cycle about this last week
00:09:27.440we've seen two different attempts to dislodge anti-war or more nationalist voices inside the
00:09:35.600right so the first one i want to talk about which is part of the the headline of this episode is
00:09:41.200tulsi gabbard now i know tulsi gabbard has suddenly lost credibility with a lot of kind of anti-war
00:09:48.000folks because of her own willingness to step out in this moment and do kind of what joe kent is
00:09:52.820doing i do understand and i think joe kent has also said he understands why people stay in the
00:09:58.060administration to try to use the level of influence they have in that scenario and it's very clear that
00:10:03.740other people are worried about that because literally two days before tulsi gabbard issued
00:10:09.800a very important report on possible manipulation of war funding through ukraine to subvert the
00:10:16.700American elections, we got guys like Josh Hammer running out and setting up these conspiracy
00:10:22.440theories about Islamic fifth columns run by Tulsi Gabbard trying to undermine the war in Iran.
00:10:29.020And so when I see all the wrong people targeting people like Tulsi Gabbard and J.D. Vance,
00:10:35.040Stephen Miller is starting to get a bunch of stories about how the White House has suddenly
00:10:39.160lost confidence in him and maybe he's impossible to work with. And J.D. Vance is using mean words
00:10:45.820towards Benjamin Netanyahu when they're in discussions and, you know, the Iranians want
00:10:50.680to talk to him because they think he's more reasonable in these discussions. When I see
00:10:54.640all of this stuff getting run out there, I know some people are like, oh, well, it's a hedge
00:10:58.820against him. I see the opposite. In the last Trump administration, we watched this movement from
00:11:04.480original MAGA people slowly transforming into the John Bolton's administration, right? Like that
00:11:10.440was the transition we saw over time. I feel like we're seeing something similar here where the
00:11:15.280president hits a policy wall pivots to something like foreign policy instead because he feels like
00:11:20.340can get something done gets frustrated starts replacing a bunch of people who were there with
00:11:24.460the original uh idea the original message of the administration and we end up something more like
00:11:29.820the neocon establishment am i reading this wrong do you see any possible uh version of this that
00:11:35.660could go that way well i have heard a lot of people say that in foreign policy he has a lot
00:11:42.760more free reign because of what we've kind of all more or less uh implicitly agreed over time
00:11:49.860the president's powers on foreign policy ought to be now i disagree with that i think the president
00:11:54.420has way too much power on foreign policy but the point is given the status quo i think he felt like
00:12:00.140i can get more wins on the foreign stage than i can with federal judges blocking me all the time
00:12:05.580obviously that's going to take a whole lot of work and we do need to focus on that too uh so so i
00:12:12.080think there is something to that the thing is you can't as you were saying you can't do this much
00:12:18.240of a 180 uh like for example if you wanted to focus on foreign policy wins you could have focused
00:12:24.220on what he said apparently quite recently which is maybe we can get troops out of germany yeah
00:12:30.160for heaven's sake maybe we can you know it's just something like that that's so obvious so obviously
00:12:36.420a waste of money that's so obviously a relic of the cold war past and yet it's so obvious
00:12:42.140but no one can talk about it it's not ever on the table but if he did it it would show you know
00:12:48.320things that have been off the table are now on the table i would consider that a win we save a lot of
00:12:53.380money we we go after an expensive relic of the cold war i mean you know you could have done things
00:12:57.880like that big big money saving things you know if i can't get these people to cut spending uh here's
00:13:03.120here's where i'll cut it you know a policy that that outlived its usefulness 35 plus years ago
00:13:09.420how about we get into that so he could have done that but also you can't go around talking about
00:13:14.220the cost of housing as cavalierly as trump has because he did say and again i know we're we're
00:13:22.480supposed to be naive for taking him at his word but i i think if ron paul said i'm going to do
00:13:28.160certain things about housing whether you like ron paul or not you know darn well he would do those
00:13:32.540things i mean that's just a fact you know he would not have launched this war in iran i mean that
00:13:36.380that's a fact i can take his word for things because he's being honest with me but all the
00:13:42.240same we have trump saying we're going to cut housing prices i don't remember the exact percentage
00:13:47.780but it was a big percentage and he said a lot of it has to do with regulation and we're going to
00:13:53.060get in there and cut those prices and now it's well who really you know everybody's bored by
00:13:57.080housing prices and and and i don't want to cut them too much because the boomers are using their
00:14:03.180houses they like atms and they feel wealthy because of the value of their houses so i can't
00:14:08.740cut them too much what i can do is make it easier for you to borrow so you can be paying for your
00:14:13.340house the rest of your life i can try and do that i mean this is you can't do that you can't be so
00:14:18.260in their face that yes i'm focused on iran and by the way i'm also not listening to your domestic
00:14:25.200concerns it seems like people keep saying well you can walk and chew gum at the same time yes
00:14:30.580but he's walking and like drinking sulfuric acid at the same time you know don't do that
00:14:35.620i mean i i don't think we can walk and chew gum at the same time that's been my point the entire
00:14:41.760time if we don't seem to be able to walk or chew gum show me you can do either show me you can do
00:14:47.780one of these we don't successfully regime change people we never do it it never works and it
00:14:53.740certainly never works as some aerial bombardment so we can't walk we also don't seem to be able to
00:14:59.100reduce housing prices so we can't chew gum so don't tell me we can't do that we can do them
00:15:03.460both at the same time because if you can't demonstrate an ability to do one of the things
00:15:07.580then maybe trying to multitask is not the play now as i've said many times i think that
00:15:13.060donald trump is still critical because of what has happened on immigration it's not sufficient
00:15:18.160it's not what I want we need more however I simply cannot deny that January 6 you know guys would
00:15:24.060still be in jail and the borders would still be open and would probably be looking at 8 million
00:15:28.040new illegals this year and you know some discussion of amnesty if we had gotten a Kamala Harris
00:15:34.480presidency that's just the case that doesn't mean I like Donald Trump's current position especially
00:15:38.960on foreign policy but I'm not going to lie to myself that there's just no difference or you
00:15:43.560know it doesn't matter all if Trump's in office but that said that doesn't mean I'm going to let
00:15:47.400him off on the things that we were promised that are not occurring and when i've been told
00:15:52.500repeatedly that involving ourselves in long sustained you know operations in the middle
00:15:58.600east is a mistake and every day we get another indication that this thing's going to go longer
00:16:03.340i'm saying okay we get it you tried this it didn't work at the very least can we cut our losses and
00:16:09.500back out but the problem now is the straight of hormuz because obviously before this iran had
00:16:15.380pseudo control over it but they were not exercising the control they were not taxing people to go in
00:16:21.100and out of there they were not blowing up ships for trying to move through this area now because
00:16:25.720their position has been pressed and they are in an existential war with you know israel with
00:16:31.300america backing it they recognize that if they take their thumb off the dead man switch they're
00:16:36.640going to get blown up like israel's not going to call off and neither is the united states if they
00:16:40.940see this and so they're just going to sit on that straight and lock it down in perpetuity
00:16:45.080even if we walk out of there so now we've got you know scott beset and others saying well you know
00:16:50.280we're just going to escort uh you know these these uh oil you know uh carriers through here we're
00:16:55.980just going to have this permit basically pseudo permanent military presence in order to make this
00:17:00.560happen which i don't even know if we can do at the moment like we're not even willing to go in there
00:17:04.580and alleviate the situation but we're starting to see other world leaders people in south korea
00:17:09.460talking about the energy crisis that this is generating and so now just again as we guys like
00:17:15.660you and i have warmed so many times you had a situation that was not ideal but was workable
00:17:21.620and now we've gone in and create a scenario where we have to stay in the middle east possibly for
00:17:27.440years to generate the exact scenario we had before we even stepped in there yeah exactly so going back
00:17:34.720to your point about domestic policy particularly immigration it's particularly if you favor those
00:17:40.100policies that you should not want this happening because yes this is so unpopular even if we just
00:17:46.200look at it from a purely machiavellian standpoint this is so unpopular that it's going to mean
00:17:51.840you're not going to get the closing of the border for very long because it's going to lead to a
00:17:56.500backlash that's going to lead to the worst people in the world coming now there's a these days
00:18:00.820there's a huge competition for that title but the worst people in the world coming back into power
00:18:05.040and they're going to be energized and and and you know ready to give as as good as they got and then
00:18:11.340some because they didn't get you know nearly as much as some of us thought they should so that's
00:18:17.840the thing is that even if you thought well at some point we have to confront this iranian regime
00:18:22.300i mean i view the iranian regime as at most an occasional nuisance i don't go for this whole
00:18:28.480they've been at war with us for 47 years when you get out of here you know another thing about that
00:18:33.400about neocons that they're they're always so over the top with the with the rhetoric you know and
00:18:38.380if you read like the old right the conservatives of the 50s if you read people like felix morley
00:18:45.520who was the editor of human events uh for quite some time uh but also i guess not just felix morley
00:18:52.760and then the people of Pat Buchanan descends from.
00:18:56.860But if you look at like Garrett Garrett or John T. Flynn,
00:19:00.020or you look at some of these people from those days,
00:19:45.720You know, so there are vices in America that we all wish people didn't have.
00:19:50.820but but they've been around since the beginning of time usually the best you can do is manage them
00:19:57.040keep them in the bad part of town away from the normal people but going around trying to abolish
00:20:02.600everything be happy if you have a country that's prosperous that functions in which there are
00:20:08.780families that are flourishing in which there are schools that you dare to send your kids to
00:20:13.680be happy with that instead of this thought that i have to be concerned about some regime on the
00:20:19.420other side of the world or that somebody's not living in a democracy. Be happy with what you
00:20:24.000have, because that is about all you can expect in a fallen world. Well, it's hard not to notice
00:20:31.720where the priorities are in this moment, because I'm sure you've been aware there's a conservative
00:20:37.820civil war going on on that portion of the right over what MAGA is and what we should be doing
00:20:44.200and what foreign policy should look like now this existed to be fair before the war largely over the
00:20:51.120issue of israel and then we got a war where literally the secretary of state walked out and
00:20:56.900said yeah we did it because israel made us do it and that did not help the situation now don't get
00:21:03.240me wrong i think there would have been a problem beforehand but what i'm getting now despite all
00:21:09.960of this is people running around and still telling me that it's conspiracy theories on podcasts
00:21:15.380that are driving away the voters. That's what's going to lose us stuff. This is so delusional
00:21:20.480that when I appear on shows, I have people ask me, well, why do you think the president's
00:21:25.420numbers are going down? And none of the options they provide me are he started an unpopular war
00:21:31.200on behalf of a foreign country. That's how incredible the silo is in the middle is this
00:21:37.080thing. And I have a lot of sympathy for people who are telling me that the way that Candace Owens
00:21:43.240or Ian Carroll conduct themselves is irresponsible. I love Tucker Carlson, but I even disagree
00:21:49.400with him when I had him on on certain positions or attitudes he's taking in different scenarios.
00:21:54.380So I understand that disagreement. But what I cannot abide is people telling me that Ian Carroll
00:22:01.800or candace owens is somehow making the republican party less popular than hiding the epstein files
00:22:09.780and starting a war in iran it's just absolutely delusional you have to cut these people out
00:22:17.200you have to remove them from the right if you don't we will never get anything done i want to
00:22:23.420focus on domestic policy i want that to be the only thing we care about we have way too much
00:22:28.320going on in the United States, and it all needs to get fixed. I want to avoid talking about any
00:22:32.680other foreign country, including Israel. But apparently, it is literally impossible for me
00:22:37.820to get a domestic agenda done because we're too busy chasing the foreign policy aims of a foreign
00:22:43.600nation. So I can't shut up about this anymore. And I hate it because I really do not want to
00:22:48.840talk about this stupid country in the Middle East ever again. But I seem to have no other option
00:22:53.820because it's literally the domestic agenda being held hostage and i'm told that noticing that is
00:22:59.620the real problem not the fact that neocons have once again driven us into a disaster for domestic
00:23:05.440policy by going on the offense in foreign policy well i'm in exactly the same situation i mean i'm
00:23:11.580not primarily a foreign policy guy in terms of my knowledge background so it's not what you know
00:23:18.020what would be my preferred thing to talk about but it's like during coven you know well i don't
00:23:23.120really like talking about infectious disease but i guess i have to because it's remaking our entire
00:23:28.700society and likewise i mean my gosh if you look at my x feed these days particularly the replies
00:23:34.820it's like that's all i'm talking about and then you get accused of you're obsessed with israel
00:23:39.980i wouldn't be quote obsessed with israel if you weren't obsessed with it the first place
00:23:44.260look at my feed a year ago there was none of this this is entirely in reaction to what's going on
00:23:50.300And yes, as you say, this has nothing to do with me one way or the other.
00:23:54.840I wish Israel well the way I abstractly wish well every country in the world, but I have a million things that concern me, and the ethnic hatreds of one country or another in the Middle East are not among them.
00:24:07.820But you're right, it's gotten to the point, and of course we all know the routine now, and it's embarrassing.
00:24:12.720The everybody's an anti-Semite or if you look at Mark Levin, I think somebody actually compiled all the times he has replied to somebody and simply said Nazi.
00:24:24.320That's his entire reply is Nazi. That's that's Rachel Maddow level.
00:24:28.840And this guy can't talk on any other level. He can't imagine that there's any argument against him.
00:24:35.560And I mean, I think at this point, the magic words, we all know the magic words, white supremacist, racist, racist is passe.
00:24:59.780the way they they throw these terms around thinking well this will shut down discussion
00:25:06.120just as it did when jesse jackson called everybody a racist well that did actually
00:25:10.780shut people down at that time because there was a time in american history when i think the average
00:25:16.320person thought that words like that were being used in good faith and that they were being used
00:25:21.860to point out truly revolting behavior that we should all oppose and then they they got a little
00:25:27.700wise to the the the racket and realize no this is actually just an attempt to silence people
00:25:33.620there's never an argument make an argument if you think i'm a bad person tell me what's wrong with
00:25:39.020my argument don't just call me a name so now they've gotten to the point where yeah i suppose
00:25:43.540it still has some force i mean in your professional life you probably don't want it coming up that uh
00:25:48.940you posted x or y on on x and you shouldn't have done this and you should have said this instead
00:25:53.560of that but more and more among people who you know can be honest no nobody cares about these
00:26:00.120names you get called a racist quote-unquote nobody thinks that means anything you call an
00:26:04.180anti anti-semite these days everybody just knows that means you're against the war in iran like
00:26:08.700every basically everybody knows that and yes you can find some people who are truly like you know
00:26:14.900they would like to just you know murder a whole bunch of people well obviously i have nothing to
00:26:18.740do with that but that is a vanishingly small number of people it's overwhelmingly just people
00:26:23.480who say there's I have criticisms of this particular government and because you have
00:26:28.020criticism of that particular government they say well why are you singling it out there are a lot
00:26:32.400of governments in the world why are you singling it out well I'll tell you why because I see my
00:26:37.100politicians going over there hundreds of them at a time and posing with the leader of that country
00:26:42.020you know like idiots I see a thousand Christian pastors going over there to be propagandized into
00:26:48.920a false theology so they can come home and propagandize their congregations to take a
00:26:53.960particular position in foreign policy. I don't see Qatar doing that. I don't see Oman doing that.
00:26:58.760I don't see Nigeria doing that. And I haven't even gotten to the funding. So that's why we feel this
00:27:05.720way. And they have to realize this on some level. But what have they got to say? I mean, because
00:27:10.800they have to realize that, of course, a patriot would oppose all those things. So what have they
00:27:15.360god except to call you a jew hater i mean come on get that's the best you can do get out of here
00:27:19.940well and i think that's the big problem tom like you said obviously there are people who truly do
00:27:25.280just have ethnic hatred in their hearts and whatever i don't want to be associated with
00:27:29.320that that's not my game i if i had any inclination towards that i certainly would just say it but
00:27:34.580that's simply not the case what we do see over and over again however is the attempt to conflate
00:27:40.820that with anyone else who has problems with our current foreign policy our current relationship
00:27:45.640and i'm sorry but when you let guys like josh hammer run around and say oh well anti-semitism
00:27:51.600is genetic to european people when he's literally talking about like race science and how we can't
00:27:57.960help ourselves from being evil because we're genetically programmed and he doesn't get
00:28:02.820anything he's running around spreading conspiracy theories he's lying about your americans of
00:28:07.700european descent in the most absolutely bigoted way possible and the people there never get linked
00:28:13.760to him he doesn't he can appear on every major television program with his like absolute like
00:28:19.440feverish ethnic hatred you know and his complete uh you know ability to spin uh conspiracy theories
00:28:25.200but we get no pushback there but then when it comes to the other side oh well you're all just
00:28:29.700one thing you all just believe this everyone's a nazi the end like that rhetoric is only going
00:28:34.720to work until the boomers are gone. And I say that sadly, because losing the boomers is not
00:28:40.540going to be a good thing overall. I know a lot of people think that that transition is going to be
00:28:44.000great because, oh, all of a sudden these boomer ideas go out. Well, so does a large percentage
00:28:48.520of the American population that still remembers what America was. You're going to pay a cost when
00:28:54.060the boomers are out the door as well. But ultimately, one of the truth is that whether
00:28:58.740you like it or not, through just historical erosion and demographic shifts, the idea of
00:29:03.960this eternal world war true to guilt that has been stapled on to the american mindset since 1945
00:29:10.000is just going to be gone it's not going to appeal to anybody dispensational theology is on its way
00:29:15.640out i am an evangelical i talk to people under 50 all the time nobody's buying this anymore like all
00:29:21.280of this stuff is fading this is the last gasp of it and they know that which is why i think that
00:29:27.080israel and you know neocons are going hard in the paint on this because this is the very last time
00:29:32.380they're going to be able to pump that well for anything and without it they simply cannot get
00:29:36.420the job done and this is where the the key question comes up about what are the difference
00:29:44.020the the the different um interests of israel in the united states because of course
00:29:48.660the standard claim is that we are politically coordinate israel in the united states we have
00:29:54.800the same goals well you know as with any two countries sometimes you have the same goals
00:29:59.180but other times you don't and the ted cruises of the world seem to think it's a metaphysical
00:30:04.640impossibility that our our interests could be discordant and so one example of that is this
00:30:12.000war in iran where you do hear voices coming out of the white house one of them being trump's own
00:30:18.100voice saying well we're going to attempt to do this or talk to this person or whoever it is
00:30:22.700they're talking to who knows and then he no sooner does he say that then israel goes and knocks out
00:30:28.280some bit of civilian infrastructure somewhere that totally undermines him i mean at one point
00:30:33.220trump even had to put in all caps israel will not do any more bombing of this place you know he had
00:30:38.660to be reduced to that but to getting to your point the reason i raise this is that the more israel does
00:30:45.380that the the more of a quagmire it creates the harder it makes it for the u.s to get out and so
00:30:52.520the longer we wind up staying there now you know so i i think the thinking is if you can get the u.s
00:30:59.360in at the beginning we can keep them in through various means we can make it strategically
00:31:03.980impossible for them to withdraw and so even as the political support for the mission uh falls
00:31:10.280and even as support for israel falls over time as it has been uh what are they going to do declare
00:31:15.400they've lost and try and get out they're going to have to stay around and and and and keep slogging
00:31:21.940it out i guess and so that is definitely a case where the interests diverge i have no interest
00:31:27.380in seeing this happen and i have no interest in seeing americans taking the brunt of it we just
00:31:32.700heard uh i don't know if it was today or the other day from israel that in any proposed ground
00:31:39.260invasion there won't be any israeli forces i mean could you try to make it a little less obvious
00:31:44.860i mean you're just handing material to people now tom i'm trying not to rave like a lunatic but
00:31:50.920it's getting harder and harder. When I have a country who clearly, clearly went out of their
00:31:56.800way to drive us into this war and announced just a day or two ago, as you say, not only are they
00:32:02.760not going to send any ground troops to help us in the war that they wanted to start, that they want
00:32:07.540us to fight, but they are expanding their control of Lebanon right now. They're expanding because
00:32:14.040of course, Israel's not fighting one war. They're fighting several wars simultaneously because
00:32:19.500that's what sane rational you know western countries do they open up nine fronts all at
00:32:26.620the same time and then they demand that you go in and fight a ground war in a place that they can't
00:32:32.660bother to put their troops in while they expand on an entirely different front let's also not forget
00:32:37.160the israel you know encouraged us to help topple the government of syria and then just a few months
00:32:42.080later started a war with the new government of syria that they helped to install because they
00:32:47.500decided they no longer liked it this is our partner in this conflict now again i have no
00:32:53.700particular desire to ever think about israel again if they want to go and try to conquer the entire
00:32:59.940middle east godspeed i don't care what i don't want is my blood my treasure my people my country
00:33:07.920being pulled into this over and over again because these people cannot control themselves it is very
00:33:13.980clear that whatever you feel about israel's current position or their possible divine right
00:33:20.200to any given land that they are not someone who puts the priorities of the united states
00:33:25.860before their own and i don't blame that i don't blame them for that they're not supposed to
00:33:30.380my leaders are supposed to so i'm very very tired of my leaders telling me that i am somehow
00:33:37.180anti-american or hate some disparate group of people somewhere because i can see the obvious
00:33:43.740that this is an unreliable ally that is not putting our interests first and is costing us
00:33:48.760far too much. This story about Ukraine should be a massive national scandal. If we really
00:33:56.240saw government agents in the Biden administration coordinate with the Ukrainians in order to
00:34:01.700funnel foreign aid and war funding back into the U.S. to manipulate the election, that should be a
00:34:09.960nation-shattering scandal that should be dominating the news. But we're not talking about it because
00:34:15.260gas is two more bucks a gallon. After 19 years, they're back. Frankie Muniz, Brian Cranston,
00:34:23.920and the rest of the family reunite in Malcolm in the Middle, Life's Still Unfair. After 10 years
00:34:28.880avoiding them, Hal and Lois demand Malcolm be at their anniversary party, pulling him straight back
00:34:33.880into their chaos. Malcolm in the Middle, Life's Still Unfair, a special four-part event streaming
00:34:39.020april 10th on hulu on disney plus but at the same time i think we're probably talking about it more
00:34:48.040now than we ever have uh okay you know when we think back to 2002 and three now in 2002
00:34:55.640uh the iraq war hadn't started yet but you could tell it was coming from the from all the chatter
00:35:02.500and it seemed like inevitable and it didn't matter that the enthusiasm really wasn't there for it
00:35:07.760I mean, there's more enthusiasm for this, for the for the Iraq war than there is for the present one.
00:35:12.820Oh, yeah, definitely. But but still, you know, they had to they had to come up with phony baloney reasons in order to get people on board.
00:35:21.360But at that time, it was very difficult, actually, to be a Pat Buchanan because pretty much everybody on the right, you know, had been raised on neocon radio.
00:35:32.100And they thought that, well, I guess I have to support the military because that's what I as a conservative do.
00:35:37.400because the liberals are weak, and as a conservative, therefore, I must be strong.
00:35:42.260And being strong means deploying the military.
00:35:45.520And I always remind people, actually, if you look at the mainstream left,
00:35:48.620like the Hillary Clinton left, these people favored the Spanish-American War,
00:35:54.020World War I, World War II, the Korean War, most of the Cold War,
00:35:58.040Vietnam for most of the time until people turned against it.
00:36:05.720I mean, they favored, obviously, funding Ukraine.
00:36:08.360These people have no shortage of wanting to get involved in war.
00:36:11.560So if you're thinking you're sticking it to the libs, I think you're misunderstanding who the libs are, for one thing.
00:36:17.700But today I think it's actually easier because I think Buchanan was ahead of his time.
00:36:25.880And at the time, nobody could quite understand it.
00:36:27.740It was like, Pat, we really like what you have to say on so many other things.
00:36:31.660And that's what they said about Ron Paul.
00:36:33.040I love Ron Paul except for his foreign policy.
00:36:34.940And I used to say the foreign policy is the best thing about it. You know, so now like that has had a lasting impact. And today you and I can have this conversation and it might seem a little cheeky. But on the other hand, it's not exactly completely out of left field. Now people expect there to be this kind of dissent within the ranks of the right. And that is that is absolutely only going to grow.
00:36:58.820And, of course, the more sour this thing turns out to be, I mean, first of all, I was about to say the more sour it turns, the less likely we are to get into future ones.
00:39:09.560That's a reason to stop having an ally.
00:39:11.700That's the end of an allyship right there.
00:39:14.480The minute that an ally tells you we're going to go to war and get your guys killed to drag
00:39:18.300into this war so you better go whether you're ready or not whether you have a justification
00:39:21.940for not whether you've had this conversation in your country or not whether or not you have a
00:39:25.440plan or not that's the end of my relationship with that country forever like i don't understand
00:39:30.660how anyone cannot see this but i'm still told that it's podcasters tom podcasters are destroying
00:39:37.020the conservative movement and if we could just shut up those stupid podcasters the same one that
00:39:41.080the left told us we're winning the election on behalf of donald trump with people who had never
00:39:46.040voted republican before in their lives as long as you get rid of those people then we'll have
00:39:51.240saved america yeah it's i mean it's it is a ridiculous and absurd and and uh uh you're
00:39:58.320you're fooling yourself to to fall for that kind of a miscalculation then in terms of the war
00:40:03.040given how uh how low the approval level uh has been for this thing since it started
00:40:10.340the idea that if if there's a ground invasion and there are american casualties this will rally the
00:40:16.700american public to the war is is certainly false it will rally them further against it like we
00:40:22.660didn't want this to begin with so why do you think you know whereas if 90 of people had favored a
00:40:28.120righteous invasion and then we hit some trouble that might lead to people rallying to it but not
00:40:34.500in this situation so it's it's and the other thing is i just talked to andrew day who's senior editor
00:40:41.300at the american conservative the american conservative was founded as a magazine back in
00:40:45.7202002 as i said when when there was a lead-up to the iraq war but it hadn't happened yet
00:40:50.400and pat buchanan was one of the three founders of that magazine and so andrew uh day kind of keeps
00:40:56.360that tradition going and he said that in order to get out of this it's going to be trickier than
00:41:03.220you think and now this is not original to him but it's going to be trickier than you think because
00:41:08.000iran is not an adversary that can just be stepped all over and then you leave and say it's over
00:41:14.120they have a say in this matter and they can continue the status quo for a while they can
00:41:20.900continue raining down missiles on israel they can keep the strait of hormuz closed it's going to be
00:41:25.240hard to just declare victory and leave and it's also going to be hard to negotiate because who
00:41:30.680would trust the u.s regime as a negotiating partner at this point so andrew day says what
00:41:36.720it might take is for trump to say we are divorced from israel so you don't have to worry that this
00:41:42.500is going to happen again and i said well you know there are a lot of things i'd like to hear
00:41:46.080have happened and i can almost guarantee you that while we're praying for miracles we'll put that
00:41:51.540one on the list yeah that that is not on the list i have a very short list that but that is definitely
00:41:56.660not on it yeah it really is a scenario as you say that was designed from the beginning to ensure we
00:42:05.000couldn't back out of i mean if you don't see that as plain as day i can't help you like you you just
00:42:10.740probably shouldn't be in the political analysis game strategy isn't for you you know find find
00:42:15.540something else accounting you know there are plenty plenty of great professions uh that don't
00:42:19.920involve you making a mistake of this magnitude but we're in this scenario either way now right
00:42:25.040And so this is the huge problem. A lot of people are talking about alternative runs. You know, oh, well, we'll have maybe a libertarian candidate. Rand Paul will step in or Thomas Massey will step in and and, you know, they'll be able to run against the Trump administration's war record while also still providing some kind of right wing alternative.
00:42:46.160now i i give libertarians a lot of uh guff which i'm sure you get in return for for talking to me
00:42:52.200but um i do think that well and again libertarians i'll give you the credit where it's due and i
00:42:58.700agreed with you this time so you can't be mean to me about it uh you were right about the war
00:43:02.340right we were all right about the war right but it's not about being right it's about having our
00:43:06.700country win so the question is what do we do next now i understand why people like positions taken
00:43:12.420by Rand Paul and Thomas Massey, especially given the current scenario. But I just don't see either
00:43:17.820of these guys as winning national elections. Massey just doesn't have, I think, the charisma
00:43:22.360necessary. And while I think Rand Paul has more time in the spotlight and probably probably has
00:43:26.960a little bit more ability on his feet in certain scenarios, I've noticed that immediately his
00:43:31.760campaign, possibly that he seems to be floating, is about like balanced budgets and things.
00:43:38.140we're not hearing a lot on immigration and this is what always worries me i look i know that there
00:43:43.520is different strains of libertarianism and so the open borders libertarians are not the only ones
00:43:48.340however even when i get libertarians that kind of admit we probably need border security they
00:43:53.800never seem to take it very seriously it's like the 19th you know issue on the table i think if
00:43:59.760you want to win a populist right coalition you have to put immigration first so if someone like
00:44:05.860ron paul or thomas massey was to go ahead and outplaying trump on the right it would have to
00:44:11.720be with stricter immigration policies would have to be with more aggressive immigration agendas
00:44:17.180along with more aggressive anti-war agendas and other things and i just don't see either of them
00:44:21.780making that move is that my misconception is is there any validity to that i hear that i think
00:44:27.400massey has a better i don't have the data off the top of my head i apologize but i think massey has
00:44:32.600a better voting record on immigration than people give him credit for but i hear you uh on on this
00:44:37.720and in particular just yesterday i i posted in response to a post rand had put up on x and i i
00:44:46.420like i like rand i he has many good qualities and and i will say even though i know he frustrates a
00:44:54.040lot of people it is hard to be rand and it's hard to be thomas massey you have no idea the pressure
00:45:00.460these people are under to conform sure it is extremely lonely and difficult to be them and
00:45:05.640so we at least owe them the respect for that but i responded so he he'd said we need to make sure
00:45:12.160that there remains you know a free market um uh forget what the second one was but relating to
00:45:18.420free market uh anti-war voice on the right and i said uh rand you got to put anti-war number one
00:45:26.320on that list because oh it was free trade there was a second one and i said you know free trade
00:45:30.980is great but you know i put a bunch of z's there like no one's gonna rally to that i mean like we
00:45:36.500already know that like why are we gonna why are we gonna launch something that we know no one's
00:45:39.940gonna have any interest in you know like when i go when i go to the polling place i'm motivated by
00:45:43.980cheaper flat screen tvs not not my ability to get a home or i mean take care of my children it's
00:45:48.680flat screen tvs i care about but i i mean i can have a populist view on immigration and on lower
00:45:54.540prices simultaneously i mean i can certainly make that case right but but my point was the what the
00:46:00.320times call for now is is not really what the times might have called for 25 years ago maybe i think
00:46:06.200it's different i think first of all there's a racket going on in involving uh the military
00:46:11.320industrial complex and the making of foreign policy like there's a racket here and it involves
00:46:15.980israel and a pack and a whole bunch of other people and if you're not going to make that at
00:46:21.940least a major plank of what you're doing or it's just an afterthought and you don't talk about it
00:46:26.620unless people ask you that's not what the times call for okay that is just not so whatever your
00:46:32.380opinions on tariffs are that's not the primary thing people are thinking about i think massey
00:46:37.980i i i used to think because initially when he um was elected he was uh very quiet very soft-spoken
00:46:46.520you know he voted the way i liked but you know you wouldn't think of him as being a national figure
00:46:53.300but i think he's gotten a bit more fire under him after he's you know observed years and years and
00:47:00.160years of being that you know there are these memes of you know here's thomas massey at the
00:47:03.820beginning of his term and he's all bright and smiley but here he is today and he's like a wreck
00:47:08.480you know so i think that has had an effect on him but but they're not the only two i mean they're
00:47:13.400the only two who could plausibly be called libertarians who would be in the mix because
00:47:18.300of course there's jd vance even now even with the iran albatross uh he still has good numbers
00:47:24.920you know the the political prediction markets still have him uh you know in the lead but i also
00:47:32.020wonder i also wonder i know he said no i wouldn't do it but you know here's we were talking about
00:47:38.060can you trust politicians sometimes when people say no i'm not going to run for office they're
00:47:42.560not being entirely sincere and by that i'm thinking about tucker carlson because he is i know he
00:47:50.100doesn't have political experience doesn't matter he is a fantastic communicator you know i am very
00:47:55.360critical of people in terms of public speaking and stuff like that and yet with with with tucker
00:48:02.320i listen to his monologues and i think i wouldn't change one syllable of that because the things
00:48:07.980Part of the reason they hate him, it's not simply that he's had second thoughts about the U.S.-Israeli relationship.