The Tucker Carlson Show - Curt Mills： Trump Can Save America or Wage Another War, but He Can’t Do Both. Here’s Why.

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00:00:30.000 So it's amazing to me that over 20 years after the Iraq war, its architects and supporters are still not fully in control of America's foreign policy, but certainly influential in it.

00:00:40.420 And it's shocking to me that two months after Trump's landslide victory, a race in which he ran against the neocons, the neocons are still brazen enough to try and influence and sabotage his nominations.

00:01:00.000 Welcome to the Tucker Carlson Show.

00:01:07.540 We bring you stories that have not been showcased anywhere else.

00:01:11.860 And they're not censored, of course, because we're not gatekeepers.

00:01:14.880 We are honest brokers here to tell you what we think you need to know and do it honestly.

00:01:20.160 Check out all of our content at tuckercarlson.com.

00:01:23.140 Here's the episode.

00:01:23.840 We are days, but less than a week before Tulsi Gabbard's hearings.

00:01:29.520 Where are we in the below-the-radar war between permanent Washington's national security establishment, the neocons, and the incoming Trump administration?

00:01:39.420 I think it's unclear.

00:01:40.820 So as of this recording 10 minutes ago, Mr. Hegseth, the defense secretary, was just confirmed on a 50-50 vote.

00:01:47.680 But Hegseth's an interesting character, I believe a former colleague of yours.

00:01:50.920 Yes.

00:01:51.320 He appears to have done a bit of a conversion on his foreign policy beliefs.

00:01:58.740 And the best evidence of that is the people that he's picked so far.

00:02:02.100 So his cadres, the people that will serve us.

00:02:04.380 Okay, I ask you to pause with there.

00:02:05.440 So this is relevant to people who know Pete Hegseth from clips on acts of him from eight years ago saying things that would lead you to believe he's a pretty stout neocon.

00:02:17.680 But, okay, so that's what you're referring to.

00:02:21.180 Yeah, I mean, I think the available evidence is that he is, like, circa 10 years ago was a pretty conventional Republican.

00:02:28.680 Yes.

00:02:28.920 And he has changed his life in more ways than one.

00:02:31.500 Yes.

00:02:31.680 And so he is a question mark.

00:02:33.360 But the early evidence is the people that he has chosen to surround himself are stark departures from the man from 10 years ago.

00:02:42.840 And so that's a big deal.

00:02:44.700 It is a big deal.

00:02:45.720 Especially in a place like the Pentagon.

00:02:47.220 Yes.

00:02:47.600 Which is hard to control.

00:02:48.640 Yes.

00:02:48.980 And wants no change under any circumstances except an annually increase in the number of four-star generals.

00:02:53.840 It's the largest bureaucracy on earth.

00:02:55.260 It is.

00:02:56.000 And it exists to serve itself.

00:02:57.420 It's got a pretty abysmal record of winning wars, a pretty great record of spending money.

00:03:02.300 It desperately needs reform.

00:03:03.920 And you're saying that based on the personnel choices you think he's making, he's now the defense secretary, by the way, as we're right now.

00:03:11.240 That he is sincerely on board with Trump's foreign policy.

00:03:17.340 Yeah.

00:03:17.620 I mean, he did not need to make these picks.

00:03:19.740 I don't think he needed to make these picks to get confirmed.

00:03:22.620 I don't think he needed these picks to win any senators.

00:03:25.040 He is courting, I think, minor controversy now, which is why we're having this meeting.

00:03:32.000 He did not need to do this.

00:03:33.680 It was a move of conviction and belief and principle in his early days in office.

00:03:41.960 Before he even...

00:03:42.540 So give us an example.

00:03:43.820 Just give us an example of what you're talking about.

00:03:45.220 Sure.

00:03:45.760 There's going to be this Michael D'Amino figure who will have the Middle East portfolio.

00:03:50.360 He has been advised throughout the process by another figure named Daniel Caldwell.

00:03:54.520 These are both, you know, people in their 40s or 30s, you know, basically millennials who are veterans of the global war on terror.

00:04:04.680 They're very much in the...

00:04:06.200 So they fought in that.

00:04:07.700 Yeah.

00:04:08.340 Dan did.

00:04:09.320 Yeah.

00:04:09.600 And Michael was a CIA agent.

00:04:11.740 Yeah.

00:04:11.940 These are the guys that were hunting down IRGC, Iranian Revolutionary Guard core people in the forever wars that Trump and Vance ran on reforming and ending, et cetera, et cetera.

00:04:26.060 And so, you know, they're very much in the Vance mold of we went there, not really sure what the point was, and we want to roll back from that somewhat.

00:04:37.280 But I think you might have heard this message from Mr. Trump at least once or twice in the last 10 years.

00:04:44.740 So these, I don't know, Damien, I know Caldwell, who I think of as a man of genuine integrity,

00:04:50.840 high intelligence and principle committed to his country, I think he's proven that.

00:04:56.380 Yeah.

00:04:56.660 I honestly think he's like a wonderful person.

00:05:00.480 But he's being attacked by people who never served with a long, unbroken track record of destroying America as somehow anti-American.

00:05:09.620 Yeah.

00:05:10.260 How does this work?

00:05:10.980 Yeah.

00:05:11.480 I mean, I think that the tactics are pretty clear.

00:05:14.120 So no one reads anything.

00:05:20.420 Everybody is cynical, confused.

00:05:24.020 Says the magazine editor.

00:05:24.980 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:05:25.800 Nobody reads anything.

00:05:26.920 Yeah, yeah.

00:05:27.440 Okay.

00:05:27.600 Get a headline out there, call someone a naughty word, say they're anti a country, or they are radical.

00:05:41.460 You know, if anyone sues this publication, it will take years and years and years,

00:05:45.180 and hope that some club member at Mar-a-Lago hands this to President Trump.

00:05:50.140 Exactly.

00:05:50.520 And tries to trick him, and thinks that Mr. Trump is a stupid man.

00:05:54.920 And this is the approach, and this is what they are trying to do.

00:05:58.720 That's exactly.

00:05:59.240 And it is a cyclone.

00:06:00.840 I mean, the word has been abused by the Democrats.

00:06:03.300 They've done this to me, yes.

00:06:04.280 Yeah.

00:06:04.700 But this is actual disinformation.

00:06:07.460 Yes.

00:06:07.780 I hate to use the word, but like.

00:06:09.800 One of the publications, who are the people involved in this campaign of lies?

00:06:13.740 Okay.

00:06:14.160 I mean, I'm not familiar, and I don't know any of the people over there personally,

00:06:17.620 but the big story that's going around on both Domino and I believe Caldwell is from Jewish Insider.

00:06:24.000 And again, no one really wants to be, you know, attacked by something called Jewish Insider.

00:06:31.920 It doesn't sound very fun.

00:06:34.160 And so, they are running headlines against people, and they are attacking them.

00:06:39.660 And they, what they do is they don't say anything that is per se inaccurate, but they totally strip the context for everything.

00:06:50.300 So, what, let's go one by one.

00:06:52.960 Do you know Domino?

00:06:54.540 Just by correspondence.

00:06:56.040 Okay.

00:06:57.160 And what's yours?

00:06:58.580 Is this a radical figure, anti-American figure?

00:07:00.840 No, this is somebody who wants to pull back, I would say, moderately from the Middle East,

00:07:09.060 which I think at this point is basically bipartisan outside of the radicals within Washington, D.C. and the Beltway.

00:07:16.540 Okay.

00:07:16.820 I think this is a fair assessment.

00:07:18.020 So, the people who want to continue what we're doing at unsustainable cost,

00:07:23.080 being a bankrupt country, by the way, sending aid to countries that are not bankrupt.

00:07:28.220 Right.

00:07:29.320 Those are the radicals, I think it's fair to say.

00:07:31.300 So, what are they saying about Domino in this hit piece?

00:07:34.420 They are trying to make the reader jump to the conclusion that he is anti-Israeli, that he is pro-Iranian.

00:07:41.400 He's pro-Iranian?

00:07:42.300 Pro-Iranian.

00:07:43.040 Okay.

00:07:43.400 That he is somehow pro-radical Islam.

00:07:45.760 You know, he's pro all the scary people in the Middle East.

00:07:48.560 Radical Islam.

00:07:49.460 Sure.

00:07:50.040 Whatever.

00:07:50.600 It doesn't really matter.

00:07:51.880 I don't know the guy.

00:07:52.600 It sounds kind of Catholic to me.

00:07:54.880 They think—

00:07:55.400 You know a lot of Shiites called Domino, or is that a common name for Persians?

00:07:59.680 Not to my information.

00:08:00.740 Okay.

00:08:01.120 And again, I think it bears repeating that this person, like, was responsible for the tracking of Revolutionary Guard Corps members in Iran,

00:08:10.360 potentially sent some of them to their death.

00:08:12.200 So, the whole thing has an opera buffet flavor to it that he's being attacked as—

00:08:16.420 So, what you're saying is these are people who will say anything.

00:08:18.980 It doesn't matter.

00:08:19.840 They're kind of from the Barry White School of Journalism.

00:08:21.960 Just like, you have an objective, something you want to achieve, and whatever it takes to get there is fine.

00:08:28.620 You will say it.

00:08:29.560 It doesn't matter.

00:08:30.500 You'll call anybody anything if it serves your purpose.

00:08:35.120 They are very, very willing to destroy this person with absolutely no compunction.

00:08:39.520 Is there any evidence that he's, quote, anti-Israel?

00:08:43.560 None.

00:08:44.140 Right.

00:08:44.900 None.

00:08:45.240 And in fact, there's evidence of the contrary, which he praises the country.

00:08:49.240 Yeah.

00:08:51.060 So, okay.

00:08:52.380 He is critical of aspects of the war.

00:08:55.580 It's okay to be critical of other people's wars or your own wars.

00:09:00.560 It's okay to offer analysis of war.

00:09:02.920 Or to even state that it's not, in fact, our war, as the President of the United States just did on his inauguration day,

00:09:08.140 emphasizing from behind the Resolute Desk that it's their war, not our war.

00:09:12.020 So, I read something from a guy called David Wormser, who was one of the architects of the Iraq.

00:09:18.020 We're not from this country, not really concerned with this country at all.

00:09:22.900 And also, I think it's fair to say, you know, someone who should hang his head in shame,

00:09:26.820 given a lifetime of destruction that he's helped bring to our country,

00:09:32.000 but described these policies as anti-American.

00:09:36.280 So, I have to say, it takes a lot of balls for someone who has no interest in the United States

00:09:41.000 to accuse someone whose whole orientation is helping the United States of being anti-American.

00:09:46.640 But I've noticed this a lot.

00:09:48.140 If you raise the question, like, what are we getting out of this?

00:09:52.580 You know, the endless war cycle, we're getting bankruptcy, obviously, but, like, is this good for us?

00:09:57.860 They'll accuse you, you know, the Constantine Kizzen, also not an American,

00:10:01.400 will accuse, that wing will accuse you of being somehow woke,

00:10:05.760 and you're, like, left-wing for asking these questions.

00:10:08.500 Have you noticed this?

00:10:09.660 Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that you raise some of these figures.

00:10:11.740 We go into this all night.

00:10:13.900 I'd like to.

00:10:14.920 Yeah, they're hoping—

00:10:16.100 There's no more repulsive group in American life

00:10:18.200 than the people who continue to push death and bankruptcy on the United States.

00:10:24.580 I think that's fair.

00:10:25.680 Can't recover from death.

00:10:26.860 No, you can't.

00:10:27.480 So, I mean, I think that they're hoping that Americans don't do the reading.

00:10:36.240 They're hoping that Americans read X posts.

00:10:39.680 Yeah.

00:10:39.920 They're hoping that Americans watch random cable news hosts,

00:10:44.700 that they're zoned out, and they hear—they have, you know,

00:10:48.320 let's say they have a positive view of, you know,

00:10:51.720 certain aspects of America's role in the Middle East,

00:10:54.320 and they start tar and feathering people on the Internet,

00:10:58.940 and that there's no pushback on it.

00:11:01.080 At the same time—

00:11:02.420 But it's just—I guess the only reason I have noticed this

00:11:05.820 is because it's so over the top.

00:11:08.940 Rather than—look, I think a lot of these positions are legitimate.

00:11:12.200 I disagree with them.

00:11:13.640 You know, a ton of these people are smart people.

00:11:15.880 I know almost all of them.

00:11:17.120 Yeah.

00:11:17.220 And they could make, like, a straightforward case for their position.

00:11:20.580 Like, here's why we should affect regime change in Iran,

00:11:22.720 or here's why we should kill Putin.

00:11:24.400 I mean, maybe there's a case to be made for that.

00:11:26.100 But they never make the case.

00:11:27.700 They attack anyone who stands in their way

00:11:30.720 in the most brutal and dishonest ways.

00:11:33.460 They have no limits at all in their behavior at all.

00:11:36.500 And I just find that repugnant and, like, corrosive.

00:11:39.660 Even if I agreed with them, I'd be against that.

00:11:41.420 Like, what is that?

00:11:42.660 It's guerrilla warfare, the win at any costs.

00:11:45.080 Win at any costs.

00:11:47.480 I know I'm jumping around, but I'm exercised.

00:11:49.960 I just watch what's happening to a man called Steve Witkoff.

00:11:52.260 Do you know Steve Witkoff?

00:11:52.940 Yes.

00:11:53.040 Do you know who that is?

00:11:53.460 Okay.

00:11:54.080 So he's a friend of Trump's.

00:11:55.620 He's a real estate guy from New York.

00:11:56.620 I happen to know him just for other reasons.

00:11:58.000 How well did he know him?

00:11:59.180 Pretty well.

00:12:00.240 You know, just personally, I don't know a ton about his views.

00:12:04.060 I don't sense that—you know, we probably don't agree

00:12:06.440 on foreign policy in some ways.

00:12:10.320 But he was tasked by Trump, as you know,

00:12:12.160 to go over and affect some kind of ceasefire

00:12:14.220 between Israel and Hamas, and he did.

00:12:16.500 And I doubt he's anti-Israel.

00:12:20.060 In fact, I know he's not, whatever that means.

00:12:22.680 And he is being attacked as somehow an agent

00:12:26.560 of the Islamic Republic of Qatar and, like, anti-Israel Steve Witkoff.

00:12:32.000 Yeah.

00:12:33.280 And I happen to really like Steve Witkoff.

00:12:34.980 I think he's a—I just like him.

00:12:36.500 He's just a great guy, actually.

00:12:37.600 And he's really tough, and he's just a good guy.

00:12:39.860 If you had dinner with him, you'd like him, trust me.

00:12:41.900 But I'm just blown away by the dishonesty.

00:12:44.560 Rather than say, hey, Steve Witkoff, like, I disagree with you or whatever,

00:12:47.840 it's he's working for Qatar.

00:12:50.380 Yeah.

00:12:51.060 What?

00:12:51.840 He's from, like, Long Island.

00:12:53.220 What are you talking about?

00:12:54.880 This is the higher profile.

00:12:56.200 I mean, like, I mean, they're hoping, again,

00:12:58.060 that Trump has learned nothing.

00:13:01.160 They insult the president's intelligence.

00:13:02.380 But these people are disgusting.

00:13:03.620 They're liars.

00:13:04.880 And, like, if there's one thing the country said too much of,

00:13:06.960 it's lying.

00:13:07.360 Let's just stop lying.

00:13:08.220 Let's just be honest about things.

00:13:08.880 I agree.

00:13:09.380 Yes.

00:13:09.720 I agree.

00:13:10.460 We've been corroded by lies.

00:13:11.620 Completely.

00:13:12.380 The country's about to collapse because of lies.

00:13:14.740 And the people pushing endless war are one of the main vectors for that lying.

00:13:20.960 Like, because there's just no reference point in reality at all.

00:13:24.760 If Steve Witkoff is an agent of the Islamic Republic, then I just give up.

00:13:29.720 Do you know what I mean?

00:13:30.620 Yeah.

00:13:31.840 No.

00:13:32.520 Okay.

00:13:32.980 Sorry.

00:13:33.360 Lecture over.

00:13:33.760 No, no, no, no.

00:13:34.460 I mean, the Witkoff thing, in some ways, is what set the whole thing up.

00:13:37.840 Witkoff?

00:13:38.880 He's, like, the most reasonable, moderate person in the world.

00:13:43.220 No, he's not anti-Israel.

00:13:44.920 He's just tough.

00:13:46.060 I think the Witkoff thing surprised both sides, though, I would note.

00:13:49.320 Why?

00:13:49.900 So, I think, so, obviously, you knew him before, within recent years.

00:13:54.220 Okay.

00:13:54.360 So, I think, in general, the open source intelligence, to use a lame term, but, like,

00:14:00.840 I would say is that the hawks, people who want to, say, go all the way on Iran,

00:14:06.060 did not expect Witkoff to be so pragmatic.

00:14:10.300 And then, additionally, the realist and restraint camp also did not expect it.

00:14:14.520 Did not expect, all the reporting from, say, Israeli media, say, Haaretz or Sides of Israel,

00:14:20.760 that Witkoff went in there and, sort of, with both the incoming Trump administration and,

00:14:26.260 you know, the remnants of the Biden administration, forced Prime Minister Netanyahu into some sort

00:14:32.520 of deal, a deal that he had turned down six months ago in May of 2024, basically identical

00:14:38.240 deal, that threw most everybody in the loop for a loop.

00:14:44.120 And that has set off, as far as I can infer, a climate of hysteria within Israel itself,

00:14:53.260 at least among the—I'm not sure, sir, Netanyahu himself, but at least within the factions

00:14:58.580 of his cabinet that are hardline as hell.

00:15:01.960 Okay.

00:15:02.240 So, they disagree.

00:15:03.240 You know, they've had to give a little.

00:15:04.400 Everyone does in a negotiation.

00:15:06.620 Not a disagreement.

00:15:08.240 I mean, like, this will not stop unless there's pushback.

00:15:11.260 Like, all I'm saying is, when you reach an agreement, everyone gets pinched.

00:15:17.360 Okay?

00:15:17.500 That's just the nature of it.

00:15:18.740 Right.

00:15:19.380 And no one likes it, you know, but, like, tough.

00:15:22.580 That's what it is.

00:15:23.560 And my read on Witkoff is that he's just not super ideological.

00:15:28.680 I think he's pro-Israel.

00:15:29.720 You know, I wouldn't even question that.

00:15:31.500 But I don't think he's an ideologue.

00:15:33.820 He's a self-made real estate guy who started with, like, a single apartment building in Washington

00:15:40.120 Heights.

00:15:40.920 Sure.

00:15:41.040 He's a tough human being.

00:15:42.420 Yeah.

00:15:42.860 And I think you need someone who's practical and tough to affect a negotiation.

00:15:47.180 You don't want someone who's captived all kinds of theories.

00:15:50.120 Trump says, hey, Witkoff, get a peace deal.

00:15:52.660 Or, you know, get a ceasefire.

00:15:53.540 Yeah, yeah.

00:15:53.760 An intermediate peace deal.

00:15:55.220 A first step toward one.

00:15:56.180 Yeah.

00:15:56.460 And Witkoff's like, okay.

00:15:57.660 And he just shows up and he's like, hey, you, you.

00:16:00.780 Yeah.

00:16:01.280 You're like, that's, isn't that what you want?

00:16:04.160 I think, I think a lot of Israel is surprised by this.

00:16:08.500 I mean, this was lost in the absolute cacophony of 2024.

00:16:14.340 Really?

00:16:14.600 But yes, like, if you read, I read the Israeli press daily.

00:16:20.220 And, you know, there were members of Netanyahu's coalition.

00:16:25.560 So these are members of the prime minister Netanyahu, people who are not in his party, who are more hardline than him.

00:16:31.840 And they were saying, Trump's really talking about this endless war stuff.

00:16:35.060 This might be a problem.

00:16:36.440 And this was back in October and September and August.

00:16:39.200 And no one was paying attention because it was brat summer and, you know, other things were going on.

00:16:43.740 But this was coming.

00:16:46.280 And the fact that they got it done, not even before, not even during the transition itself, also surprised people.

00:16:54.920 And so.

00:16:56.500 I'm sensing inflated expectations here.

00:16:59.060 This is a foreign country, obviously an ally, a close ally, the closest ally, I think it's fair to say.

00:17:04.260 But a separate country.

00:17:06.300 And so, you know, I think realistic expectations would be we get some of what we want.

00:17:11.120 We don't get everything we want because, you know, we're not in charge of the United States.

00:17:14.320 But there's a tension here.

00:17:16.780 I mean, so first, the relationship between the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel is extremely unclear.

00:17:25.980 Yes.

00:17:26.520 Yes.

00:17:26.980 I don't think maybe only the two of them now.

00:17:30.360 Well, they have disagreed since at least 2020 over the election, but they probably disagreed beforehand over strikes in Iran.

00:17:42.780 The last time you and I spoke publicly was over the Soleimani strike in January of 2020.

00:17:48.800 And there were since then reporting in the last five years has come out that the two of them disagreed over that.

00:17:54.000 Trump felt that the Israelis didn't do their part, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:17:59.220 So for years, for at least half a decade, the well has been poisoned between Trump and Netanyahu.

00:18:04.460 It doesn't mean the relationship is done, but there's been an atmosphere of mistrust.

00:18:10.320 Well, he's had that.

00:18:12.160 You know, I've watched closely and, you know, interviewed him more than once.

00:18:17.000 And, you know, for—

00:18:17.560 Netanyahu.

00:18:18.220 Yeah, for, you know, well, moving on 30 years.

00:18:20.980 Yeah.

00:18:21.440 Because he's been in and out of office and he's had complicated relations with every president.

00:18:24.760 Yeah, I mean, I think the key thing to understand, for your listeners, anyone who's not turning this off because we're getting into the depths of Israeli politics here, but Netanyahu's situation is unstable.

00:18:37.540 Yes.

00:18:39.040 A supermajority of Israelis want him out.

00:18:42.700 They want him to resign.

00:18:44.560 He does not want to resign because if he resigns, he may go to prison.

00:18:47.320 Right.

00:18:47.840 And also, he's been a power achiever for 30 years.

00:18:52.380 Yes.

00:18:52.600 And I've noticed that people who do that often don't like to quit.

00:18:56.840 I think that's fair.

00:18:57.860 Yeah.

00:18:58.160 Okay.

00:18:58.620 So he doesn't want to quit for both reasons of his freedom and, you know, the way of his life.

00:19:04.520 Yeah.

00:19:04.880 Yes.

00:19:05.280 Okay.

00:19:05.980 Pretty recognizable syndrome, I would say.

00:19:07.840 Yes, yes.

00:19:08.320 Not confined to BB.

00:19:09.520 It's international.

00:19:10.260 Yes, it is international.

00:19:11.040 Okay.

00:19:11.400 So how does he not quit?

00:19:15.060 It's pretty clear that spectacular circumstances justify his presence.

00:19:21.360 It's very similar, actually.

00:19:22.760 I mean, there's been comparisons between him and Churchill.

00:19:25.820 It's actually fair.

00:19:27.420 Only in wartime can someone like Netanyahu at this point get a position.

00:19:31.220 I get it.

00:19:31.560 But war has to go on.

00:19:32.880 So what war?

00:19:34.020 So they have basically a deal with Hezbollah.

00:19:36.900 I think it's not like, I think that is by far the least likely that they're going to go back in there.

00:19:41.600 There are basically two options.

00:19:44.100 One, once all the hostages are exchanged, then they go back into Gaza.

00:19:49.440 Okay.

00:19:50.540 Or, I guess 1B, is to do the West Bank, which is already going on right now.

00:19:56.380 Or two.

00:19:57.400 What do you mean do the West Bank?

00:19:59.580 Invade it and exit.

00:20:01.360 I mean, there's the-

00:20:01.980 What about the people who live there?

00:20:03.060 Like, what happens to them?

00:20:04.420 Not Israel's problem.

00:20:06.280 What do you do while you're in the West Bank?

00:20:08.140 I mean, what are you doing there?

00:20:09.020 What is the point of the operation?

00:20:10.680 Do you know?

00:20:11.600 To annex the territory and build developments.

00:20:13.020 I mean, this is, this is, I mean, and, you know, the unstated thing is that they'll either export these people or eliminate them.

00:20:20.920 And so it's pretty terrifying stuff.

00:20:23.740 It's not light stuff.

00:20:25.280 This is not a light interview.

00:20:26.220 And so, the problem is, the U.S. is the military underwriter of this.

00:20:33.420 The Israelis probably can't do this without us selling them weapons.

00:20:37.040 And so, while Americans are tuned out and not thinking about this kind of thing, our reputation overseas is one of arms dealer.

00:20:45.100 And over time, that affects your children, being able to travel abroad, that affects America's reputation overseas.

00:20:54.140 It's dicey stuff.

00:20:55.500 Well, it caused 9-11, among other things, right?

00:20:57.820 So, yeah, it has effects for sure.

00:20:59.580 Yeah.

00:20:59.820 Right.

00:21:00.340 Option two is Iran.

00:21:02.440 Yep.

00:21:02.660 Which is, which is, as I'll just quote them, I'll quote the hardline perspective itself.

00:21:08.000 It's the head of the snake in the conception of the Israeli hardline and also the neoconservative right in the United States.

00:21:15.860 For sure.

00:21:16.060 And so, Israel also can't do Iran, in my view, and also in general assessments, without the help of the United States.

00:21:25.720 It's usually joint U.S.-Israeli airstrikes or even a solo invasion of Iran by the United States is the ultimate sort of fantasy.

00:21:36.040 I'm going to need more coffee.

00:21:37.440 Sure.

00:21:37.700 To proceed because you're blowing my mind, Kurt Mills.

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00:25:43.760 Just one quick digression about Steve Wyckoff.

00:25:47.300 Sure.

00:25:48.700 I think it's really significant that he's not a professional foreign policy figure.

00:25:53.420 He hasn't spent a career at the State Department or, you know, doing bilaterals for his career.

00:26:01.760 You know, he's just a smart, tough, competent person who is charged with a task by the president,

00:26:09.000 and he got it done.

00:26:10.520 And maybe we need more of that.

00:26:13.700 I mean, you know, there are certain parts of statecraft that, you know,

00:26:16.220 probably it's helpful to have experience in statecraft, but some of it's just pretty straightforward.

00:26:21.100 Yeah.

00:26:21.260 They get a ceasefire.

00:26:21.800 Okay.

00:26:22.020 Yeah, no, no, I know.

00:26:24.260 I mean, I think there has...

00:26:25.220 Could anyone from the State Department have done what Steve Wyckoff did, do you think?

00:26:28.700 No, especially without the president's informatter.

00:26:31.220 Of course not.

00:26:32.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:26:33.020 But even if Trump had, like, called someone in and been like,

00:26:35.640 okay, Mr. Career Diplomat, can you affect a ceasefire?

00:26:39.220 He'd be like, well, it's very complicated.

00:26:41.440 No, it's...

00:26:42.020 Wyckoff's just like, hey, ceasefire, stop.

00:26:44.780 No, it's the same.

00:26:45.440 I mean, like, the international relations has been made into...

00:26:49.860 They have to make it into, like, a pseudoscience.

00:26:53.320 Exactly.

00:26:54.680 Smart.

00:26:55.140 Exactly.

00:26:55.560 Just like everything else.

00:26:56.400 Yeah, just like everything else.

00:26:57.080 Just like journalism or...

00:26:59.300 Yeah.

00:26:59.920 Even education.

00:27:01.060 Yeah.

00:27:01.100 Like, you can't teach third grade without a master's degree.

00:27:03.880 Yeah.

00:27:04.000 Are you kidding?

00:27:04.580 Yeah.

00:27:04.800 So it's just needlessly complex.

00:27:05.600 When the first requirement is, do you like third graders?

00:27:07.840 It's nothing to do with your master's degree.

00:27:09.620 The whole thing isn't...

00:27:10.300 It's absurd.

00:27:11.180 Yeah.

00:27:11.320 And then, you know, it's the same thing of all of academia, which is, like, people's

00:27:14.360 theses are increasingly more Baroque.

00:27:16.540 And, like, nobody actually knows large things, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or at

00:27:22.040 least know it in a way that is applicable in power in real life.

00:27:28.280 And, I mean, maybe things are changing now.

00:27:31.460 But, like, also a lot of the foreign policy establishment, it's different now in the second

00:27:35.640 term, but wouldn't work with the first Trump term, wouldn't work with their team.

00:27:38.720 And I think that was through discredit of the country.

00:27:40.960 I think that was...

00:27:42.200 I think that just did not serve the country.

00:27:44.800 Well, of course it didn't serve the country.

00:27:46.380 Well, we know the country hasn't been served, because look at the country.

00:27:49.860 And so I think, you know, we can say of all players, they didn't serve the country.

00:27:54.160 That would include the media.

00:27:54.960 And there have been times when I didn't serve the country, like when I advocated for the

00:27:57.760 Iraq War.

00:27:58.140 I mean, we're all culpable to some extent, but it's just remarkable to me that people are

00:28:02.940 continuing it.

00:28:03.520 So now, instead of telling us that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, or that

00:28:09.200 Osama bin Laden attacked us for our freedoms, or whatever the lie of the day was, the new

00:28:15.600 idea is that Iran is, quote, the head of the snake.

00:28:18.480 How many Americans have been killed by Iranian proxies in the United States over the last

00:28:21.820 20 years, do you think?

00:28:23.140 How many Americans in the United States?

00:28:24.660 Yeah, have been killed by Iran-sponsored terrorism.

00:28:28.100 Right around zero.

00:28:28.720 How many have died of fentanyl ODs, drugs whose precursors come from China?

00:28:33.640 Millions.

00:28:35.120 Well, more than a million.

00:28:37.600 More than a million.

00:28:39.200 Yeah, yeah.

00:28:39.480 Okay.

00:28:40.180 I think, I mean, look, to play to play.

00:28:41.820 I'm so like, what are you talking about?

00:28:44.200 The Iranians backed proxies that killed U.S. troops in the Iraq War.

00:28:48.700 Yeah, well, of course.

00:28:49.840 But we shouldn't have done the Iraq War.

00:28:51.600 Well, Iran took over Iraq because we took out Saddam Hussein in a majority Shiite country.

00:28:58.900 I happened to be there for that.

00:29:00.080 And even I, as a 33-year-old moron, was like, wait a second, in just a basic interest in

00:29:05.320 demographics, like, isn't this going to go to Iran now?

00:29:08.040 Yeah.

00:29:09.580 Anyway, yes.

00:29:10.960 Right.

00:29:11.520 Right.

00:29:11.740 But I just find it amazing that there's been no public conversation about whether or not

00:29:19.280 the United States should go to war with Iran.

00:29:22.240 There's been no case laid out.

00:29:23.800 At least in 2002, they had the decency to lie to us in a pretty complicated, sophisticated

00:29:29.100 way about weapons of mass destruction.

00:29:30.960 Now, it's just like, shut up.

00:29:32.760 You're anti-American if you ask questions.

00:29:35.120 And it feels like we're moving toward a conflict with Iran.

00:29:37.760 Is that a fair?

00:29:38.700 I think we have been moving towards one.

00:29:40.640 And, you know, I think basically the biggest risk of a democratic administration is a war

00:29:48.520 with Russia.

00:29:49.620 Yes.

00:29:49.760 And the biggest risk of a Republican administration is a war with Iran.

00:29:52.980 Yes.

00:29:53.260 So, my rule is always, that's why it's more ethical to be a Republican, because at least

00:29:57.440 the Iranians don't have nukes yet.

00:29:59.360 So, that's actually, like, pretty close to my first principle.

00:30:03.160 Like, just outright.

00:30:04.700 Well, you've simplified it.

00:30:05.520 Yes, yes.

00:30:06.460 But the Iran war would be still, like, the worst and, like, not something that we should

00:30:13.060 pursue.

00:30:13.480 So, and look, foreign policy experts at this point will chime in on this conversation being

00:30:18.440 like, oh, well, that's just so unrealistic.

00:30:21.180 That's not actually what we want.

00:30:22.620 This is actually just a ridiculous externality.

00:30:24.600 But I think it is worth noting that we have done wars toppling governments throughout the

00:30:30.640 region over the last 25 years.

00:30:32.660 So, number one, it's happened very recently.

00:30:35.220 Number two, it is kind of the explicit goal of the hardliners.

00:30:39.040 And the hardliners keep moving the overage window in their direction.

00:30:43.060 And so, while this is perhaps not 100% certain, but hardly, there is a hard drive towards doing

00:30:51.680 this, and picking off Pentagon deputies and allowing leaders like Trump and Vance to be surrounded

00:30:59.960 by hawks and no dissenting voices whatsoever is absolutely essential towards any road to war.

00:31:09.440 And I have to say, the amount of calculated deception on the right, so all of a sudden,

00:31:14.960 Barry Weiss, who's a leftist, becomes a conservative because she's against trannyism or something.

00:31:20.800 You know, every normal person is against that.

00:31:25.260 But it's pretty obvious that the whole purpose of her organization, the Free Press, and her

00:31:31.180 career in journalism is to kind of soften up the right for war with Iran and to attack

00:31:38.440 anybody.

00:31:39.340 And she had this whole constellation of people, you know, Neil Ferguson and all these kind

00:31:44.400 of people who had weight to the project, but who really are all kind of paid to flack for

00:31:50.480 war with Iran and attack anyone who's not with the program.

00:31:53.500 I felt the sting of this, so I didn't really understand how this worked.

00:31:55.980 But then, you know, someone with like thoroughly moderate foreign policy views, I don't really

00:32:00.820 want war with anybody.

00:32:01.680 I'm not against anybody.

00:32:03.480 And all of a sudden, you're like, wow, you know, people are calling you anti-American.

00:32:07.820 Well, there's precedent for this.

00:32:09.220 So what you're just, I don't know, I don't know any of the people you described personally.

00:32:12.740 But I'm just saying like, there was, you said the problem with voting Republican is

00:32:16.800 you're more likely to wind up with a war with Iran.

00:32:19.500 And I agree with you.

00:32:20.060 I'd much rather have a war with Iran than a war with Russia, but kind of don't want

00:32:23.460 either one.

00:32:24.400 And it's just interesting how the groundwork, I just know because I've been in conservative

00:32:28.920 media my whole life, all of a sudden all these new people and you're like, oh, Barry Weiss,

00:32:32.940 are you really conservative?

00:32:34.380 Well, not at all.

00:32:35.420 Then what are you doing here?

00:32:36.440 Oh, you're trying to convince me that I'm not allowed to oppose a war with Iran or I'm

00:32:41.000 going to be written out of the conservative movement or something.

00:32:44.180 Okay.

00:32:44.420 So if a lot of people are comparing Trump to Reagan these days, and I think it is an inaccurate

00:32:49.320 comparison, but there obviously are comparisons that are very different human beings, is basically

00:32:54.640 my position.

00:32:55.340 So if you accept that Trump is the biggest cheese since Reagan on the Republican side,

00:33:00.620 what happened in the Reagan years?

00:33:02.300 So the neoconservatives, that is people who came from the left and moved to the right,

00:33:08.960 were very, very savvy, effective, and reasonable at domestic policy.

00:33:15.000 They were very, very good on the crime issues of the day.

00:33:19.380 And their periodicals gained currency because, hey, actually, we should clean up the streets

00:33:26.560 of New York, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:33:29.120 And some of them were, I knew a lot of them, and some of them were really smart, decent

00:33:33.160 people, too.

00:33:34.100 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:34.380 And by the way, some of their foreign policy viewers were not crazy at all.

00:33:37.420 They were, they recognized the Soviet Union was evil.

00:33:39.620 Like, the first generation of neocons, Midge Dector?

00:33:43.120 I mean, I kind of love Midge Dector.

00:33:45.120 I don't know.

00:33:45.780 Do you know what I mean?

00:33:46.360 I don't think that they were all nuts at all.

00:33:48.280 Yeah.

00:33:48.860 But by the 90s and 2000s, you know, if you believed in, you know, some crime enforcement

00:33:56.020 in New York, you also had to believe towards the march towards regime change in Iraq.

00:34:00.760 And so, again, again, don't want to sound like-

00:34:04.620 I'm skipping that part of the buffet line.

00:34:06.300 Yeah.

00:34:06.520 I will take the safe city and the thriving economy.

00:34:10.420 I'm going to leave out the forever war.

00:34:12.180 Is that okay?

00:34:12.800 But I think it is the essential pitch of this new generation of neoconservatism, which, of

00:34:16.880 course, does not call itself that.

00:34:18.980 But it is moderation on the social issues.

00:34:21.380 Let's turn down the volume.

00:34:22.840 Yeah.

00:34:23.360 And at the same time, over here in column space over here, a little news item about what's

00:34:29.760 going on in the Red Sea and why the U.S. needs to care.

00:34:32.960 And it's a drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip.

00:34:35.520 And it can go on for months and years and years and years.

00:34:39.200 And all of a sudden, we super care about the Houthis in Yemen.

00:34:42.880 We super care about Iran.

00:34:46.180 And we have to underwrite a war in Israel until every single member of Hamas is dead.

00:34:54.480 And it's just not clear that the U.S. national interest is there, to put it lightly.

00:35:03.800 Yeah.

00:35:04.240 And I guess what I object to is, I mean, I'm never offended by people with different ideas.

00:35:09.960 Um, I'm never offended by someone who makes a sincere case, affirmative case or something

00:35:15.140 that I disagree with.

00:35:15.940 Okay.

00:35:16.280 And by the way, maybe he's right and I'm wrong.

00:35:18.220 I've certainly been wrong a lot.

00:35:19.200 But the part where I get enraged is the bad faith.

00:35:25.040 And so you ask questions like, well, is this in our interest?

00:35:27.580 Well, you hate so-and-so.

00:35:28.940 Well, I don't hate anybody.

00:35:30.200 And I certainly don't hate that.

00:35:31.620 Certainly don't hate that country.

00:35:32.980 I like it a lot, actually.

00:35:34.140 Yeah.

00:35:34.260 Um, but there's no room for it.

00:35:36.940 They don't, they're preventing discussion.

00:35:39.120 Yeah.

00:35:39.960 And, um, and a lot of these people have the gall to describe themselves as, you know, warriors

00:35:46.980 for free speech.

00:35:47.780 When, of course, free speech is the last thing they want.

00:35:50.520 And they've gone out of their way to prevent any kind of open conversation about the most

00:35:54.700 important topics in our collective life.

00:35:58.260 So I'm just, I'm just bothered by the lying.

00:36:00.900 There's too much lying.

00:36:01.900 Don't you think?

00:36:03.140 Absolutely.

00:36:03.500 I would say, and by the way, I'll even go farther and say, having worked for Bill

00:36:07.180 Crystal for five and a half years.

00:36:09.540 William Crystal, the editor of the Weekly Standard, that was the absolute, uh, launching

00:36:14.180 point magazine of the Iraq war.

00:36:15.720 For sure.

00:36:16.320 And I was there.

00:36:17.060 I mean, I started the very first day of the Weekly Standard, August 1st, 1995, 30 years

00:36:22.500 ago.

00:36:23.280 And I thought Bill Crystal, I still would say it was a great boss, you know, interesting,

00:36:28.000 fun to talk to, funny as hell.

00:36:30.720 Um, obviously I think he's taken a really dark turn in his life.

00:36:33.480 It's been kind of a disaster and I feel bad for him.

00:36:36.520 But one thing I'll say about Bill Crystal circa, you know, 2000 is that he would make

00:36:41.740 an actual case for his views.

00:36:43.900 He would say, we have to go in and take out Saddam for the following eight reasons.

00:36:48.040 And he would write.

00:36:48.700 And you would say this is in 95, 96, 97.

00:36:50.980 I mean, I was there for all of that.

00:36:52.180 And I wasn't paying super close attention because I was dumb and I was focused on other

00:36:56.320 things.

00:36:56.720 And I was like, oh yeah, it's his foreign policy, hobby horse, you know, he's into that

00:36:59.580 stuff.

00:36:59.820 I'm not that into it.

00:37:00.900 I didn't understand the stakes.

00:37:02.300 I didn't really understand anything actually when I was like a kid.

00:37:04.440 But I always admired and still admire his willingness and that generation's willingness to make their

00:37:11.080 case, to write some paper.

00:37:12.340 Here's what we're for.

00:37:14.040 That is gone.

00:37:15.660 And now it's just like, can we censor the people?

00:37:18.200 Can we call them names to the point where they get kicked off social media?

00:37:20.800 So there's no counter argument.

00:37:24.100 Well, even Crystal himself had stopped writing.

00:37:26.820 Well, he could never write.

00:37:27.820 Not a genius, I will say, but, you know, an affable, amusing person in meetings, you know.

00:37:34.860 I mean, probably the most successful political organizer of the last 30 years.

00:37:39.160 Yeah, and tireless, you know, and there are good things to be said about Bill Crystal.

00:37:44.100 Obviously, he's called me a Nazi like a hundred times, but that's kind of the point.

00:37:48.140 I'm not a Nazi.

00:37:49.200 I'm not for the Nazis.

00:37:50.860 I just don't, you know, I've got different views.

00:37:53.040 And that's the turn that I'm really bothered by, is just the pure ad hominem attempts at

00:38:01.040 censorship.

00:38:01.180 That's an attempt at censorship.

00:38:03.500 And Barry Weiss engages in that, like, relentlessly behind the scenes, using all kinds of proxies,

00:38:10.460 some of whom I know.

00:38:11.940 And I just want to say it out loud.

00:38:13.580 I just want to say, oh, this is deception here.

00:38:16.240 Okay, so I hope people know that.

00:38:17.780 I think it makes it impossible for the new president to do what he's promised to do if

00:38:23.600 he doesn't solve this conundrum.

00:38:26.080 Well, tell me what you mean.

00:38:26.860 So, I mean, if the president wants to send troops to the U.S. border, and the president

00:38:32.020 wants to rebuild the American economy, and the president wants to focus on China, and the

00:38:39.600 president wants the moral credibility to end the Russia-Ukraine war at some point.

00:38:45.760 Yes.

00:38:46.080 The U.S. expanding the war in the Middle East, even with prolonged arms sales, corrodes

00:38:56.160 his political capital.

00:38:57.140 Who's going to pay for that?

00:38:58.540 The United States.

00:38:59.760 No, but I mean, we literally are operating in the red to the tune of trillions of dollars.

00:39:05.420 Like, how—

00:39:05.820 In what world can we afford that?

00:39:08.420 Well, it's a very complex topic.

00:39:10.060 We don't have any functioning community hospitals left.

00:39:12.980 We have the reserve currency, and we can keep writing debt until it causes an inflation

00:39:19.880 crisis, which a lot of people thought would happen earlier and did not.

00:39:22.740 And even our inflation crisis in the 2020s was mild by global standards.

00:39:27.060 So, accordingly, we've got plenty of room for the big enchilada, which is an Iran war.

00:39:32.900 Yeah, so this—it just feels like a big deal.

00:39:38.160 It's a big deal.

00:39:38.640 To me, and it feels like it's worth—I mean, certainly, if you comment on this, you do ask

00:39:44.540 yourself, is it really worth it?

00:39:46.100 You know, do I want to get into this?

00:39:47.540 By the way, a lot of people I really like and I'm friends with violently disagree.

00:39:52.420 I know.

00:39:52.640 So, you run the risk, which I really don't want, of rupturing friendships over it.

00:39:57.360 That's the last thing I want ever.

00:39:59.900 And you think, all right, maybe I should be quiet.

00:40:02.440 But it does seem like that's a huge step.

00:40:06.460 And at the very least, the public ought to understand that there are highly motivated

00:40:12.200 people pushing us toward that.

00:40:14.340 Do you think that we will participate in a military action against Iran?

00:40:18.000 Well, the big question is right now—so, there's a new Iranian president.

00:40:22.740 So, the previous Iranian president died along with his foreign minister in a helicopter accident

00:40:27.480 over the summer.

00:40:29.020 A little mysterious.

00:40:29.640 Are you going to use air quotes around accident or—

00:40:32.120 I mean, a lot of things happened last year.

00:40:34.380 It's very possible.

00:40:36.020 I mean, I don't think—

00:40:37.280 Everyone got killed last year.

00:40:40.020 So many accidents!

00:40:41.780 The Iranians' equipment, helicopter equipment, to my understanding, is old.

00:40:46.480 And it is a rough part of the world.

00:40:49.340 And it's possible that it—it's likely that it just went down.

00:40:54.600 And, again, I would say—

00:40:56.720 I would not fly in a helicopter with Iranian officials.

00:41:00.240 I'm just telling you that.

00:41:01.320 Yeah.

00:41:01.360 And, again, if you think it was Israel, the Israelis pretty much took credit or didn't

00:41:07.580 deny all the other assassinations that occurred last year.

00:41:10.380 I don't—

00:41:10.860 Speaking of Hamas leadership, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:41:14.580 Just for the record, I try to suspend judgment because I know a lot about what countries do.

00:41:21.240 And I do think—this is one thing I'll say in support of Israel.

00:41:25.180 I do think that it is—you know, it isn't fair to just single out Israel and say they're

00:41:30.160 doing naughty stuff.

00:41:31.760 Like, lots of people are doing naughty stuff.

00:41:33.260 That's just a fact.

00:41:33.980 My only—you know, the only point where I would feel like I want to say something is

00:41:39.780 if the United States gets sucked into it.

00:41:41.740 Sure.

00:41:42.540 Now, we're talking about our interests, my country, where my family's from.

00:41:46.800 And I think it's fair to speak up then.

00:41:48.500 Yeah.

00:41:48.840 So, I guess maybe the 2025 zoom out, you would say there was an election in Iran right afterwards.

00:41:56.120 Yes.

00:41:56.380 A lot of people disagree with our perspective, will disagree with this term, but the more

00:42:02.620 moderate candidate—people think there are no moderates within the regime—but the less

00:42:08.860 hardcore candidate, one, this is the first time this has happened since Trump left the

00:42:13.260 Iran deal.

00:42:15.040 And this person, it is not clear how much power he has within the system.

00:42:21.480 The supreme leader is old.

00:42:23.020 It's not clear how old.

00:42:26.140 And there will be a succession crisis to succeed the supreme leader should he die.

00:42:31.120 So, it is this weird situation where every time Iran is in a crisis—and they're in a

00:42:35.500 crisis right now.

00:42:36.140 They're in an electricity crisis by all reporting.

00:42:38.640 Again, don't know if we can trust all the reporting, but they can't keep the lights on

00:42:42.020 in Tehran fully.

00:42:44.120 And what will they do?

00:42:45.400 And so, every time Iran is at a decision point, there is a fracas between what I will call

00:42:51.720 the moderates and the hardliners within their government.

00:42:55.520 The hardliners want to go for the bomb.

00:42:58.660 They think, we can't trust anybody.

00:43:01.340 Right.

00:43:02.020 We need to get the bomb.

00:43:05.600 They also recently signed a defense pact, just short of mutual defense pact, but a security

00:43:12.120 arrangement with the Russians.

00:43:13.580 So, they seem to have a bunker mentality right now.

00:43:18.440 If U.S. intelligence or Israeli intelligence or Western intelligence assesses that they

00:43:24.440 are going for the bomb in a real way, so they can either be true or false, but if they assess

00:43:30.680 it, then there will be severe pressure on the new administration to do airstrikes on Iranian

00:43:39.220 nuclear.

00:43:39.480 Look, I don't want Iran to get the bomb.

00:43:41.840 I don't want anyone to get the bomb.

00:43:42.840 I'm against the bomb.

00:43:44.140 Okay.

00:43:45.140 But I was around when Pakistan got the bomb.

00:43:47.320 Yep.

00:43:47.780 And Pakistan is a country with a lot of wonderful people in it.

00:43:51.820 Kind of a great country in a lot of ways.

00:43:53.940 Spent a fair amount of time there.

00:43:55.420 However, the government of Pakistan-

00:43:57.860 Is arguably scarier than Iran.

00:43:59.260 You think?

00:44:00.600 Harvard Osama bin Laden, et cetera.

00:44:03.340 ISI has been, you know, really a source of disorder in South Asia for a long time.

00:44:07.960 And they've exported nuclear technology, including to North Korea.

00:44:11.580 So, no one's ever said anything about that.

00:44:13.860 Like, it's not a crisis that the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has the bomb.

00:44:18.380 I don't really get it.

00:44:20.380 I mean, why was that not a crisis?

00:44:22.460 Why do we do nothing to stop that?

00:44:25.040 I guess it occurred basically when the U.S. was still quasi-pro-Pakistan over India.

00:44:32.660 And it was-

00:44:34.100 That was a bad bet, by the way.

00:44:35.500 It was a Nixonian bet, actually.

00:44:36.960 He really didn't like Indira Gandhi.

00:44:39.380 It was basically-

00:44:40.000 Okay, well.

00:44:40.740 He basically was-

00:44:41.400 I think we can say longitudinally that was a bad bet.

00:44:43.760 He just didn't like one person and it didn't really matter in the Cold War.

00:44:45.940 That was like betting on Wang computers over Apple.

00:44:48.640 Like, it just kind of didn't turn out.

00:44:50.160 So, I'm not holding a Wang in my-

00:44:55.360 So-

00:44:56.260 But the point is-

00:44:58.360 I might want to cut that.

00:44:59.920 This was a bit of a-

00:45:01.020 No, we're keeping the Wang in.

00:45:03.160 Okay, yeah.

00:45:04.140 Look, all I'm saying is-

00:45:05.700 My father sold Wang computers.

00:45:07.200 Oh, did he?

00:45:07.880 Oh, I'm so sorry.

00:45:08.460 I didn't mean to make it personal.

00:45:09.400 No, no.

00:45:09.820 Well, no, it's just-

00:45:11.020 At one point, the top sales in the country were Wang computers.

00:45:13.720 Yeah.

00:45:13.840 Your father sold some Wangs.

00:45:15.260 Yes.

00:45:16.000 Is this actually going out?

00:45:17.000 No, of course it's actually going out.

00:45:18.440 Are you kidding?

00:45:18.900 Yes, yes, yes.

00:45:19.860 Oh, yeah.

00:45:20.380 R.I.P.

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00:47:58.340 Look, all I'm saying is it's important to maybe dial back a little bit on the moral outrage and assess the world as it is, assess what you can do, you know, create a hierarchy of priorities.

00:48:15.160 Like, we don't want other countries to get nuclear weapons.

00:48:17.280 I think that's, I'm with the neocons 100% on that.

00:48:21.020 But, you know, in a complicated world that we don't actually control, what can we do?

00:48:27.640 What are the limits of our power given a lot of other factors like our domestics, our economy, the needs of our people?

00:48:33.960 Like, you can't do everything.

00:48:35.400 That's all I'm saying.

00:48:36.200 Yeah, no, I mean, so I think Trump should complete the work of his first term, which is he revoked the JCPOA, the Obama-Iran deal, and he should do a Trump-Iran deal.

00:48:47.000 Well, he's sending Wyckoff over to do that, apparently.

00:48:48.620 So, Wyckoff, the aforementioned, not only did what he did with the Israelis, he was promoted for it, per reporting.

00:48:57.200 It has not been confirmed to my understanding by the transition or the White House.

00:49:01.340 But per the FT and, I believe, another outlet, Wyckoff is getting, quote, the Iran file.

00:49:06.080 Within the Trump universe, that's as much power as the president wants to give it.

00:49:10.520 But as of filming, his role is expanding.

00:49:14.980 And if Trump wants a lasting legacy of peace and prosperity, there needs to be an accommodation with the de facto government of Iran.

00:49:27.300 So, of course there does.

00:49:29.200 This is just, this is totally insane.

00:49:32.160 It's counter to our interests, I guess, is what I would say.

00:49:34.140 Yes.

00:49:34.280 But if you were Trump and you say to Steve Wyckoff, hey, Steve Wyckoff, go get a, you know, ceasefire in place, and he comes back like 20 minutes later with a ceasefire, wouldn't you say, okay?

00:49:46.800 We like that pace.

00:49:47.860 I like that pace.

00:49:49.500 Wouldn't you send him to Iran?

00:49:50.620 I would.

00:49:51.360 Yes.

00:49:52.140 Yes.

00:49:52.700 Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, I mean, and this is actually something both Trump and Obama, who apparently get along now, at least perfunctorily, agreed on.

00:50:02.260 Well, they both dislike Michelle, I think.

00:50:04.540 So, they, remember Obama on the debate stage in 08, said, and he was, he was just howled down for this, whatever you think of Barack Obama, said, we should meet with the Iranian leaders face to face.

00:50:17.780 And Trump did similar maneuvers in the first term.

00:50:21.800 Well, yeah, why wouldn't you?

00:50:22.080 Yeah, with Kim Jong-un, et cetera, et cetera.

00:50:24.560 And, again.

00:50:25.800 Well, he's sucking up to dictators.

00:50:27.300 Oh, shut up.

00:50:28.040 I mean, was North Korea policy more stable from 2017 to 2021 or 2021 to 2025 when there was no engagement?

00:50:35.500 I don't think after 25 years of this nonsense, killing dictators and watching their countries become more chaotic and more dangerous to the United States and the world, that we have any obligation to listen to people who chirp like that.

00:50:46.860 No.

00:50:47.320 Sucking up to dictators.

00:50:48.120 Shut up.

00:50:48.840 To link it all.

00:50:49.280 I don't know anything, actually.

00:50:50.840 Some of the, so we started this conversation with, you know, sort of the campaign against the cadres that are now serving Secretary Hexeth.

00:50:59.560 The people that are leading it, as far as I can infer, are oftentimes many of the people that were behind the original Iraq war.

00:51:06.720 And so.

00:51:07.020 Well, yeah.

00:51:07.700 Yeah.

00:51:08.060 So, this may seem obvious.

00:51:09.520 Well, I'm 55, so this is driving me completely insane.

00:51:12.140 I mean, I thought after we discovered that the pretext of the war was a lie, that those people would, I don't know, don ashes in sackcloth and go, like, sit on a pillar for 10 years.

00:51:23.660 I think a lot of Americans assumed that they did.

00:51:25.740 So, we do this for a living.

00:51:26.760 Oh, no, they didn't.

00:51:27.280 They went around the World Bank and they still run the State Department.

00:51:29.840 Yeah.

00:51:29.980 And Toria Nuland, who was an architect of the Iraq war, was an architect of the Ukraine war.

00:51:34.240 Like, this just doesn't end.

00:51:35.660 But most Americans have real jobs and don't know this.

00:51:39.940 And so, these people are disguised or shrouded from public view.

00:51:44.400 And they are still quite effective at driving home an agenda.

00:51:49.220 In fact, I would assume they will win absent pushback.

00:51:53.760 Oh, they'll definitely win absent pushback.

00:51:55.700 Oh, 100%.

00:51:56.580 Yeah.

00:51:57.500 So, they are still.

00:51:58.320 That's why I wanted to interview you.

00:51:59.400 Yeah, they're still hegemonic.

00:52:01.240 And even if they're a minority government, so to speak.

00:52:06.860 Yeah.

00:52:07.640 And I'm, because I've spent my life in the media, I'm very kind of fixated on their enablers, their agents in the American news media.

00:52:19.220 And one of them who's working, has been working for years on their behalf, on behalf of Permanent Washington, the foreign policy establishment, every bad idea, is Jennifer Griffin at Fox, the Pentagon reporter.

00:52:29.400 Who is now, you know, basically texting Domino.

00:52:35.500 Is that the?

00:52:36.680 Michael Domino.

00:52:37.260 Yeah, is, you know, running around on behalf of, you know, her sources at the Pentagon, doing their bidding, trying to torpedo these guys because permanent staff doesn't want to be challenged on anything.

00:52:53.320 And, okay, you know, there's a role for that kind of behavior.

00:52:58.080 It's called lobbying.

00:52:59.740 But it's a little crazy that, like, a supposed news reporter would be acting like that.

00:53:03.620 I'm not guessing.

00:53:04.200 This is a fact.

00:53:04.940 She's doing that right now and has been doing that kind of thing for as long as I've been paying attention, like, a couple decades.

00:53:11.140 How does that continue?

00:53:12.300 Yeah, I don't know her personally.

00:53:13.320 But what I will say is the role of most Pentagon reporters has always struck me since I've done this as extremely hierarchical.

00:53:22.880 I mean, it—

00:53:23.660 What do you mean by hierarchical?

00:53:24.420 It almost felt like the reporters worked for the Pentagon.

00:53:26.640 Well, of course they—

00:53:27.260 Yeah.

00:53:27.560 So, I mean, in any place that I've worked that had a Pentagon correspondent, and that was the only way you stayed in the room, and—

00:53:37.120 Isn't this a democracy where we have civilian command of the armed forces and the entire federal government works for the population of the country, its voters, its citizens, its constituents, shareholders?

00:53:51.120 No.

00:53:52.400 There's no sense of that whatsoever in Washington at all.

00:53:54.920 Yeah.

00:53:55.380 It's like, what are you doing here?

00:53:56.280 I think it's fast-moving.

00:53:57.560 I mean, you didn't see criticisms or skepticisms of the military from the right until the very last few years, including from the new president, including from organs of conservative media.

00:54:10.260 I think it started with Mark Milley, but also the sort of—

00:54:14.560 Well, some of us were at it before that.

00:54:15.980 Troy, I know, but in public opinion—

00:54:18.500 It was considered a fringe position.

00:54:20.680 It's not fringe.

00:54:22.340 Yeah.

00:54:22.700 You know, I just refer you back to the pivot point in American politics in my lifetime, which was the 2016 debate in Greenville, South Carolina, where Donald Trump, home of the highest percentage of military veterans of any state, famously, and Donald Trump came out against the Iraq War.

00:54:37.840 And all the dumbos at the channel I work for and in Washington are like, oh, he's lost it now.

00:54:42.660 He'll never get the nomination.

00:54:43.640 He's offended all the veterans.

00:54:44.800 And, of course, all the guys whose lives were destroyed fighting these wars, not on behalf of the United States, not to the benefit of the United States.

00:54:52.400 They were filled with many emotions, frustration, shame, rage, sadness, and they immediately knew what he was talking about.

00:55:03.640 And no one in D.C. knew what he was talking about.

00:55:04.780 I think he overperformed his polling.

00:55:06.560 He was insane.

00:55:07.360 He was polling a certain—he was ahead, and the Bush family came in.

00:55:12.000 That's when—it was the last stand for Mr. Jeb in February of 2016.

00:55:17.040 And George W. Bush campaigned finally for Jeb.

00:55:19.880 And it was like, we've got to keep him in the race, we're going to make our stand, and he did the big, fat mistake, that is Iraq debate.

00:55:28.220 And I think Trump is up 10 or 15.

00:55:30.660 I think he won by over 20 in that debate.

00:55:33.220 Don't quote me out of that, but it was something like that.

00:55:36.520 It was right before the primary.

00:55:37.820 It was over the polling.

00:55:39.120 So, like, not only did he not go down and still won, he went up and then clearly triumphed.

00:55:44.380 That was the moment when I was just, you know, whatever his flaws, I was for Trump because here was a guy telling a real truth, a hard truth that no one wanted him to tell and was rewarded for it.

00:55:56.880 And I just felt like that was—that's consistent with my principles and beliefs, which is you ought to tell the truth, and a healthy country rewards people who tell the truth, not people who lie.

00:56:05.540 There's a cynical bet, though, I would say that—and it's a cynical bet on Trump, and it's a cynical bet on Americans, and it's a cynical bet on Republicans and independents, which is—I'll just—let's use the actual language of center-left or left-wing media.

00:56:24.260 It's a cult, and once the cult leader leaves, we can just go back to 2005 and implant the same old free trade, open borders, endless neoconservatism.

00:56:39.700 And actually, the people that are driving the opposition to these selections in the Pentagon agree with President Trump's critics in spirit and in practice.

00:56:56.240 You know, that's an interesting analysis.

00:56:59.520 I mean, it's like MSNBC-level dumb person analysis, but it's also like a real analysis.

00:57:04.660 And there is a sense in which devotion to Trump has a religious quality to it.

00:57:08.140 I mean, that's undeniable. I was just in D.C. for the inauguration. I can confirm that.

00:57:13.000 And there are a lot of reasons for that.

00:57:15.500 You know, I think a lot of voters feel like Trump is the only person who cares about them.

00:57:20.360 He's their only option.

00:57:21.840 And so they're on board regardless because where else are they going?

00:57:24.520 And I think that's true, A, and B, I think that's a reflection of, like, how badly the leadership of the country has failed.

00:57:32.240 People will take anything other than that.

00:57:33.680 But I also think saying true things out loud changes history.

00:57:38.320 I think that's the lesson of history.

00:57:40.040 The only people who actually change history are not the ones who marshal the biggest armies, but the ones who speak the truth out loud.

00:57:45.360 I think it's a holy act.

00:57:46.800 I think it's a transformative act.

00:57:48.820 And all of history is the story of that act, actually.

00:57:52.180 And sometimes it, you know, it takes centuries for the consequences to unfold, but they do.

00:57:57.800 It's inevitable.

00:57:58.380 It changes everything.

00:57:59.160 Once you, that's why there's such a, almost a crazed attempt to shut down people from speaking.

00:58:06.160 Why speaking?

00:58:06.940 They don't care about violence.

00:58:08.160 They care about talking because they understand correctly that that's what matters over time.

00:58:12.520 Right?

00:58:12.900 So once Trump has said all this stuff, there's kind of no going back.

00:58:16.980 No.

00:58:17.840 Do you think, I mean, that's my view.

00:58:19.120 I don't know.

00:58:19.820 No, I don't agree with the cynical bet.

00:58:21.720 I think it's a bad bet, which is why the tactics are increasingly hysterical and marginal.

00:58:27.940 But we're robbed of like a real debate.

00:58:30.520 I mean, I don't know.

00:58:32.060 You know, if you think it's so important to kill the leaders of Iran and get into a full-scale war with a real country, which Iran is, which is part of a real coalition.

00:58:42.700 They won't say full-scale.

00:58:44.180 They'll say that the Ayatollah has to go.

00:58:48.580 It's very important to use as scary words as possible.

00:58:51.720 Ayatollah, the Mullahs, the Islamic Republic emphasize, you know, and again, like, basically the bin Laden who's dead runs a country, even though these are different ethnicity and a different religion.

00:59:05.560 And so it doesn't really matter.

00:59:06.700 You're stupid.

00:59:07.620 And we need to do this again.

00:59:09.760 And like, they won't say an invasion.

00:59:13.400 But again, some of the people pushing this stuff didn't say an invasion in 1996.

00:59:18.300 They softened the ground for it.

00:59:23.420 But where's the debate on it?

00:59:24.200 I guess that's the point.

00:59:25.140 There wasn't a debate.

00:59:26.020 I mean, it's a little harder here, too, because on the question of Russia, it's been surprisingly effective for them to just dismiss all criticism as sponsored by Putin.

00:59:36.020 Like, you don't think it's a good idea to prop up the Zelensky government.

00:59:40.300 You're a Putin puppet or whatever.

00:59:44.700 You want someone to do something?

00:59:45.720 Can you really call like a white American Christian guy a puppet of the Mullahs?

00:59:50.420 Probably not.

00:59:51.720 It's like, I don't think that works, right?

00:59:55.220 Does it?

00:59:56.880 I guess they're trying it with Steve Wyckoff.

00:59:58.580 You're a tool of cutter.

01:00:01.520 Oh, so you're referring to—

01:00:02.740 The Shiites.

01:00:03.520 I just don't think as a rhetorical matter, it's quite as easy.

01:00:06.780 Should we address the actual allegation?

01:00:08.420 Yes.

01:00:08.680 I mean, so Wyckoff, I believe, took his real estate firm, took some sort of investment from Qatar.

01:00:13.520 Okay.

01:00:14.520 So, first of all, I would say, throughout the Trump entourage, a lot of them have worked with Gulf states.

01:00:21.700 And as far as I can tell, the real estate business is rife with investments from Gulf states.

01:00:28.680 And then additionally, as far as I'm aware, this is hardly that man's network.

01:00:31.780 Well, the domestic—I mean, you can't buy an apartment in New York because there's so much Chinese money in the residential real estate market.

01:00:37.180 So, like, okay, so the argument is what?

01:00:40.560 You're only allowed to invest in your own country's real estate?

01:00:43.560 Okay, let's start here.

01:00:45.100 Let's ban foreign investment in our real estate markets.

01:00:47.280 Oh, no, that's anti-capitalist.

01:00:49.740 Just the whole thing doesn't make sense.

01:00:52.360 What are they saying?

01:00:54.020 What?

01:00:55.340 Well, I mean, with the Qatar argument specifically, I mean, I think it's an unusual place.

01:00:59.900 It was supposed to be the Eighth Emirate, so it is separate from the UAE.

01:01:03.580 It is the most conservative of those emirates, I would say, at least in terms of the government.

01:01:10.540 They have a perspective.

01:01:11.700 They spend money on media.

01:01:13.800 They spend money on press junkets.

01:01:16.180 They have an influence operation.

01:01:18.080 No question.

01:01:18.620 But the idea that this small, jetting, LNG-dependent peninsula controls U.S. foreign policy, hook, line, and sinker, top to bottom, if you think that, I don't think you're extremely curious.

01:01:42.080 I think it's worth having an honest, I've never seen one, there never has been one, but an honest conversation about foreign influence on American policy.

01:01:49.960 I think that's a totally legitimate topic, and we've kind of done a lot of lying and pretending, for example, that Russia has undue influence over American foreign policies.

01:02:00.920 It's absurd.

01:02:01.640 But why not have that conversation?

01:02:05.080 Are there foreign countries that exert influence on American policy, whose interests supersede those of American citizens in the minds of policymakers?

01:02:13.600 And there may be some of those.

01:02:15.480 How would we rank Qatar, you know, in terms of its influence?

01:02:22.120 Maybe not in the top three.

01:02:24.080 Yeah, no.

01:02:25.380 Right.

01:02:25.640 So, just having lived in D.C., this whole conversation is, like, so infuriatingly false and just silly.

01:02:35.360 I mean, are they running intel operations against us?

01:02:37.840 There's a lot of Qatar surveillance in Washington.

01:02:41.640 A lot of Qatar agents running around the Willard Hotel.

01:02:45.740 I don't think so.

01:02:46.960 Maybe.

01:02:48.380 Very well disguised.

01:02:50.760 Like, what are you talking about?

01:02:52.420 I mean, our country's doing that.

01:02:53.720 Are they hacking the Pentagon's mainframes?

01:02:56.840 I don't think.

01:02:57.180 Oh, China's doing that.

01:02:58.460 Right.

01:02:58.700 Okay.

01:02:58.960 So.

01:02:59.180 Yeah.

01:02:59.920 But making the allegation, though, is a kind of armor, though.

01:03:03.580 It makes you seem informed.

01:03:05.380 It makes you seem like a sort of a spy master.

01:03:09.060 You know, like, I know something you don't.

01:03:12.120 I'm more serious, quote unquote, than you.

01:03:14.580 Everyone traffics in that nonsense.

01:03:15.700 Yeah, yeah.

01:03:16.080 Like, let's not have a conversation.

01:03:18.040 And it's very anti-democratic, small d.

01:03:20.760 Of course.

01:03:21.360 It is not agreeing to disagree.

01:03:24.580 It is not saying we have different values and, you know, shaking each other's hand and

01:03:27.400 walking out of the room.

01:03:28.440 It is shutting down the spirit of the system.

01:03:31.740 Well, so that's exactly the complaint that I have.

01:03:35.020 And that's the problem that I have with Barry Weiss.

01:03:38.300 It's the problem I have with Jen Griffin.

01:03:40.000 It's the problem I have with The Washington Post.

01:03:42.720 And just so much of the media coverage of foreign policy is based on insinuation.

01:03:49.220 And, like, the cruelest sort of character-destroying insinuation is that you're not loyal to your

01:03:54.540 own country.

01:03:55.180 No, they reach for the biggest sort.

01:03:59.460 Oh, they go, man, they go right for the face.

01:04:01.540 And I just think that that's beneath a great nation like ours.

01:04:05.420 I think it's beneath any decent person to behave.

01:04:08.720 Like, if you have evidence that someone's selling out his country, tell me what it is.

01:04:12.360 But to start with that, to accuse Steve Wyckoff of being a tool of Qatar, it's, like, so over

01:04:18.460 the top.

01:04:19.000 I just feel like it's important to call out the people doing it and say, you're disgusting.

01:04:23.160 We're not listening to you anymore.

01:04:24.660 You have no influence except that that you project through aggression and threats.

01:04:29.420 And, like, we're not playing along anymore.

01:04:32.940 I think a lot of it is effective in Republican politics.

01:04:35.540 Yes.

01:04:36.220 Because, you know, so you were there for the inauguration, I observed a week ago.

01:04:41.680 Um, and, uh, you know, I've always observed that, uh, is usually when I meet someone from

01:04:49.180 a red state, like a deep red state, uh, Oklahoma or Alabama, it's often their first time in

01:04:53.160 Washington, D.C.

01:04:53.940 Yes.

01:04:54.360 It's very, like, uh, Roman province, uh, visiting Rome for the first time.

01:04:58.240 Totally.

01:04:58.760 And, uh...

01:04:59.260 I'm here from Gaul.

01:05:00.180 Yeah.

01:05:00.500 Show me around.

01:05:01.260 Yeah.

01:05:01.640 And, um...

01:05:02.480 Yeah.

01:05:02.960 Uh, versus, uh, I would say Blue State America actually has a lot...

01:05:06.640 The coasts have a lot more familiarity with D.C.

01:05:09.220 Yes.

01:05:09.520 Back and forth, airport access.

01:05:10.920 I think that's right.

01:05:11.760 Et cetera, et cetera.

01:05:12.820 So when they hear, uh, the argument going on in the Capitol, there's actually a de facto

01:05:18.360 trust, um, there that might be not as much there on the Democratic side.

01:05:24.140 There's actually, there's actually a more jaundiced cynicism on the Democratic side.

01:05:27.880 So it's less effective.

01:05:28.700 They assume that the, despite it all, despite all the failures that you've announced, that

01:05:34.240 you've reported on fairly tirelessly, they assume that the people in D.C. know what they're

01:05:38.480 doing, um, and I'm not sure that's the greatest default assumption.

01:05:43.860 Well, I, I mean, I think the track record is pretty, uh, speaks conclusively.

01:05:48.640 Um, I mean, look, I, uh, respectfully to the new president, I mean, Donald Trump, again,

01:05:54.500 is the only U.S. president who has, was not a general or a former statewide official or

01:06:03.240 federal official to get the presidency.

01:06:05.920 And with all due respect to the new president, a healthy country doesn't elect something like

01:06:11.320 that.

01:06:11.700 It had that level of outsider, that level of outsider could only exist within a polity that

01:06:18.040 was deeply sick.

01:06:19.300 And, uh, I think he knows that.

01:06:21.780 I think he recognizes that.

01:06:23.440 And the fact that, uh, uh, the Capitol doesn't imbibe that lesson, I think they're imbibing

01:06:30.120 a little bit more, but it's like, uh, I mean, it's still bizarre.

01:06:34.680 10 years on, I mean, Trump, June, 2015.

01:06:37.500 So June this year, 10 years of Trump, you know, longer than Obama at this point, the Trump

01:06:42.200 era, uh, in spirit, um, in length, uh, it's like, well, maybe there's something wrong with

01:06:48.420 this country, but it's like a 5% recognition.

01:06:50.280 It's not a, it's not a 95% recognition.

01:06:52.300 I think national, I mean, first of all, I agree completely.

01:06:54.940 And I wrote a piece at the very beginning of this whole saga, almost 10 years ago.

01:06:58.080 Donald Trump is shocking, vulgar, and right.

01:06:59.920 Yeah.

01:07:00.520 He's winning because you failed.

01:07:02.200 It's simple, you know, obvious.

01:07:04.640 It was five years ago this month that people started to drop dead in the central Chinese

01:07:08.880 city of Wuhan.

01:07:10.500 Five years since the beginning of COVID.

01:07:12.780 And yet for some reason, we still don't know answers to the most basic questions.

01:07:17.200 And one man knows those answers.

01:07:18.920 His name is Dr. Tony Fauci.

01:07:20.660 And now a documentary filmmaker called Jenner First is out with a new film explaining exactly

01:07:26.560 what happened.

01:07:27.220 The film was called Thank You, Dr. Fauci.

01:07:29.360 We'll see it exclusively here on TCN.

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01:08:06.240 Anyway, I don't think DC gets it.

01:08:08.480 But I also think at this point, Trump is the most powerful president, certainly since

01:08:13.400 Roosevelt.

01:08:14.560 Interesting.

01:08:15.360 And the potential for, you know, achieving his promises is really high.

01:08:21.120 America has greater problems in its head since the Great Depression, maybe even bigger

01:08:24.200 than it had then.

01:08:25.400 And we have a chance to address them.

01:08:27.880 Probably not solve all of them, but make some headway on things that could help Americans.

01:08:31.720 It's sealing the border, stopping the chaos, just taking a breather so we can figure out

01:08:36.460 how to fix the country.

01:08:37.680 And the only thing that could derail that is another foreign war.

01:08:41.940 We can't do it with this stuff.

01:08:43.500 It is an actual choice.

01:08:45.660 It's an actual choice.

01:08:46.700 We cannot do the border if we do the Middle East.

01:08:49.600 So you had, what, 200,000 people a year dying of drug ODs and no one said anything about

01:08:53.600 it and endless lectures about Ukraine.

01:08:56.460 And it's no disrespect to the Ukrainians, who I really feel sorry for.

01:09:00.440 But like, that's so unbelievable that that happened.

01:09:03.360 It's like a bad dream.

01:09:04.800 And now we've woken up from the dream and we have this chance.

01:09:08.460 And I'm sorry, I just, you know, with respect to Barry Weiss and Jen Griffin, you can't do

01:09:12.860 that to us again.

01:09:13.800 I'm just not going to go without a fight this time.

01:09:16.440 We have to reorient toward our own interests.

01:09:19.920 That's no disrespect to any other country, to our allies who we wish well and will help

01:09:24.460 to the extent we can.

01:09:25.160 But like the idea that we're responsible for all these other countries when we're dying

01:09:28.780 here, no mas.

01:09:31.460 Is that a radical position?

01:09:33.460 That's my actual position in my heart.

01:09:34.960 That's my actual position.

01:09:36.040 I agree.

01:09:36.800 But it's very upsetting, not only to leaders of some foreign countries, and this is not

01:09:44.080 just the Middle East.

01:09:45.340 We didn't even talk about Russia, Ukraine.

01:09:47.680 But like, I mean, that perspective is obviously very, very relevant for extricating the United

01:09:53.200 States out of the Russia-Ukraine war.

01:09:54.620 And almost every European capital is unhappy with that.

01:09:58.820 And, you know, you can have a conversation with a nice Danish person, and you might agree

01:10:04.240 on immigration or trade or wine.

01:10:07.780 But you mentioned like, hey, I'm not really sure the United States should be underwriting

01:10:11.360 a quagmire in Ukraine.

01:10:12.740 And like, the conversation shuts down.

01:10:14.120 It is stunning.

01:10:15.220 Well, they're hell-bent on suicide.

01:10:17.580 The Western Europeans, and not the Eastern Europeans or Central Europeans, but the Western

01:10:20.980 Europeans have decided to kill themselves.

01:10:24.120 And it's almost like if someone's standing on a bridge or in a window of a skyscraper and

01:10:28.280 you're trying to talk them back in, it's hard.

01:10:30.340 And who knows why that happens?

01:10:32.520 I think there's a supernatural element at work, is my personal view.

01:10:36.160 But whatever you think the cause is, that's what it is.

01:10:39.120 You destroy, you blow up Nord Stream, destroy the German economy, and you're not allowed to

01:10:42.520 say anything about it in Germany, I don't know that we can help you at that point.

01:10:48.200 You know what I mean?

01:10:49.160 Like, if you're that intent on self-harm, that anxious to destroy your own civilization,

01:10:54.360 make it impossible for your children to live there, then you're killing yourself.

01:10:58.300 You can't help someone who doesn't want to help himself.

01:10:59.940 Like, go ahead and jump then.

01:11:01.200 Kind of.

01:11:01.700 That's how I feel.

01:11:02.900 But just from an American perspective, like, all of this has been bad for us.

01:11:06.560 There's no way to pretend otherwise, except to launch into some airy moral lecture about

01:11:13.480 dictatorships and Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain or something.

01:11:17.200 Just shut up.

01:11:18.020 Okay.

01:11:19.000 The Churchill thing's really essential.

01:11:20.580 It's just played out.

01:11:21.400 It's played out.

01:11:22.300 I mean, it's played out in...

01:11:24.040 But there's a gamble that some of this stuff isn't played out, though.

01:11:27.200 I mean, there's a gamble that, I mean, I think people have...

01:11:34.760 This country has a generational problem, right?

01:11:37.460 Generations don't get along.

01:11:39.520 I think that's fair to say.

01:11:40.820 For good reason.

01:11:41.860 Yeah.

01:11:42.580 And I think there's just a bet that a lot of the voters that made the decisions in the

01:11:48.620 90s and 2000s are dumb and don't care about their kids' future and will vote for the exact

01:11:55.700 same thing.

01:11:56.300 Clearly they don't.

01:11:57.040 Yeah.

01:11:57.440 Sorry.

01:11:58.020 And will exert pressure on the new administration to do the same thing.

01:12:02.040 And I think there's a bet that the president is a desperate, cynical man who will do whatever

01:12:08.980 it takes when he's pressured.

01:12:12.140 And I think the early evidence is that it's untrue.

01:12:15.180 I mean, I don't...

01:12:16.120 I mean, the...

01:12:18.400 The evidence is that Trump is less cynical than even his supporters thought he was.

01:12:22.160 I think that's the truth.

01:12:24.060 I mean, there's...

01:12:25.420 Do you want to discuss the Pompeo, Brian Hook stuff?

01:12:30.500 I would.

01:12:31.240 I was just reading the Barry Weiss editorial about how pulling Pompeo's...

01:12:36.000 What did she say?

01:12:36.880 I didn't read it.

01:12:37.720 It's outrageous.

01:12:39.220 It's a betrayal of Trump's promises.

01:12:42.260 Mike Pompeo.

01:12:42.720 Is that what the free press argued?

01:12:45.040 Yeah.

01:12:45.380 That you can't...

01:12:46.000 You're not allowed...

01:12:46.780 You are required to pay for Mike Pompeo's security detail.

01:12:50.420 And I will just say, point blank, as someone who has faced greater physical threats than

01:12:55.880 Mike Pompeo.

01:12:56.380 I can promise you that.

01:12:58.380 I, you know, if I have security, I pay for it myself.

01:13:00.740 Like, wow, why does Mike Pompeo, as a private citizen, get to stick me with the bill for

01:13:04.560 his security detail?

01:13:05.900 Like, how does that work, Barry Weiss?

01:13:07.680 And the point is that Mike Pompeo is a faithful servant of the kind of ideas that she is here

01:13:14.900 to push on the rest of us.

01:13:16.460 And therefore, he will be defended at all costs.

01:13:18.880 But, like, let's just be honest about what's going on.

01:13:21.120 Anyway, sorry.

01:13:21.580 Yeah.

01:13:21.780 I mean, details roll off.

01:13:23.160 The government doesn't usually advertise it.

01:13:25.280 No, everyone's got a detail.

01:13:26.640 Fauci has a detail.

01:13:27.820 Yeah.

01:13:28.500 Yeah.

01:13:28.660 Because he's in my dog park in Washington.

01:13:30.140 I hear about it.

01:13:30.700 But I think the interesting thing, so it's very easy to just glaze over Trump fighting

01:13:35.460 with officials, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:13:38.060 You know, and sort of the ur example of this is Trump versus Bolton.

01:13:41.300 And we talk about that and it's fun, but it's kind of over, right?

01:13:44.200 Bolton's not in the mix.

01:13:45.500 And, or at least with Trump.

01:13:47.240 And like, you know.

01:13:48.380 But he's still got bits of egg in his mustache.

01:13:50.520 And I don't have his cell anymore, so I can't tell him, but he needs to fix that.

01:13:54.300 Yeah.

01:13:54.500 I, so, Pompeo and Hook.

01:13:59.640 I mean, look.

01:14:00.700 Tell us who they are.

01:14:01.980 Mike Pompeo.

01:14:02.220 Yeah, so Mike Pompeo was the former Secretary of State, former CIA director, former Kansas

01:14:06.920 congressman, former West Point valedictorian.

01:14:10.620 Harvard graduate.

01:14:11.420 Harvard law graduate.

01:14:12.680 Osemic user.

01:14:15.060 Sorry, I'm just doing the whole CV here.

01:14:17.680 Okay, right.

01:14:18.180 So, and he was.

01:14:21.400 I'm so bitchy.

01:14:22.240 I'm so sorry that I said that.

01:14:23.780 It's beneath me.

01:14:24.680 I shouldn't have said that.

01:14:25.680 The Bolton-Trump feud is old.

01:14:27.620 The disagreement with Pompeo is potentially quite new.

01:14:32.400 And so by all available information, Pompeo was in the mix for Secretary of Defense, most

01:14:40.820 likely, in the days after the election.

01:14:44.640 So much so that his son, Donald Trump Jr., intervened in a sort of online campaign.

01:14:50.720 And, you know, other allies within that milieu stopped both Pompeo and the former UN ambassador

01:14:58.200 to South Carolinian governor, Nikki Haley, from getting administration posts.

01:15:01.920 I had heard about that, yeah.

01:15:03.780 Yeah, yeah.

01:15:05.100 Pompeo.

01:15:06.940 Patriotic Americans rallied, as they did in Boston in the 18th century, to act on behalf

01:15:13.920 of their nation at some personal risk, but they did it anyway.

01:15:17.720 Unsung heroes.

01:15:18.740 One of Pompeo's former deputies, Brian Hook, who ran something called the Iran Study Group

01:15:23.940 and had various other portfolios and titles at the State Department.

01:15:27.460 He's actually someone Pompeo inherited from Rex Tillerson, his predecessor.

01:15:30.420 He kept them on.

01:15:33.580 Brian Hook, at various points throughout the transition in the last 100 days, was reported

01:15:40.080 to be running the State Department's transition at some point.

01:15:43.760 Then was rumored, again, rumors, it's rumored, I don't post about it, I don't tweet it out,

01:15:50.960 I don't write about it, but it was rumored to have been fired.

01:15:54.120 Very unclear.

01:15:54.740 Here, Trump, in the days leading up to him taking the Oval Office oath, issued, essentially,

01:16:07.240 an enormous denunciation, a fatwa against Mr. Hook.

01:16:12.120 Extraordinary.

01:16:12.920 To say, not only is this guy not in the mix, I hate him.

01:16:16.220 And he said that.

01:16:18.820 So that occurred.

01:16:20.540 And then additionally, both Hook and Pompeo's security detail was removed in the last few days.

01:16:30.460 I don't know that Brian Hook has served in government in four years.

01:16:33.420 He definitely has not served Mr. Biden.

01:16:34.420 Why would he have a security detail paid for by taxpayers?

01:16:37.340 Not an expert on who gets Secret Service details.

01:16:40.380 Can I just, I just want to say.

01:16:41.580 Actually, I can actually directly answer that.

01:16:43.700 Yeah.

01:16:44.080 So the key thing here is that there is an allegation, a belief, many in the intelligence community

01:16:51.680 believes this, that there were serious, credible plans by the Iranians to assassinate

01:16:59.180 members of the Trump high command, as it were.

01:17:02.200 So Trump, Hook, John Bolton, et cetera, et cetera, in revenge, principally for the Soleimani

01:17:09.980 assassination.

01:17:10.140 Because they've been creating a lot of terror attacks in the United States, you've noticed.

01:17:13.720 Oh, no.

01:17:14.480 No, that was in Tifa.

01:17:15.400 And so, that is the essential, that is the causes.

01:17:20.040 I'm just going to have to scoff at all of this.

01:17:21.640 I've heard a lot of this.

01:17:21.980 The causes belly for us.

01:17:22.800 I hear this all the time.

01:17:23.740 I think the key thing here is the critique on Trump always was he fired Bolton, but he

01:17:29.980 didn't really understand why.

01:17:30.840 So he just, he soured on the guy, but he didn't change any like policy.

01:17:35.820 You know, he didn't learn.

01:17:37.360 This is the sort of pedantic way of looking at the president.

01:17:42.040 But with the Hook and Pompeo removal from his inner circle, there is, I think, very credible

01:17:53.000 evidence that Trump's personal grudges are now blending quite heavily with policy.

01:17:59.180 He doesn't trust the Iran hawk old guard.

01:18:02.840 A lot of the Iran hawk old guard think tanks struck out in getting transition officials and

01:18:10.720 officials in this government.

01:18:11.640 And again, circled around this very unlikely Pentagon, helmed by a guy who has changed his

01:18:20.060 life, it appears, in pretty severe ways over the last five years, both ideologically and

01:18:24.580 morally, is this very new Pentagon that is now being targeted by all the usual suspects.

01:18:34.540 And it is the biggest story in American politics that people aren't talking about.

01:18:41.020 So if I could sum up what I think you're saying, it is that Donald Trump may have actually broken

01:18:46.240 the grip of the neocons on Washington.

01:18:48.040 I mean, you control the Pentagon, you control the military.

01:18:52.820 I mean, it's the...

01:18:54.260 It just seems like this is, because there was always this question about Trump, like you

01:18:58.860 get up and you give these speeches where you say, we don't want more pointless wars, I

01:19:02.980 believe, in peace through strength.

01:19:05.200 Not a wuss, it's not Jimmy Carter, but like, you know, you assert American power, but you

01:19:09.940 don't embroil the country in wars that you can't win for no reason.

01:19:13.080 It's a very moderate, sensible, common sense, I would say, view.

01:19:19.120 So you say those things, but then you hire John Bolton.

01:19:22.140 And the question is why?

01:19:23.980 And Trump would say, I've heard him say, well, I hired Bolton, I beg your pardon, I hired

01:19:28.660 Bolton because he's a lunatic.

01:19:31.220 And he's a warmonger freak.

01:19:33.220 He's obviously like watching war porn late at night, and people can smell that on him.

01:19:38.220 And so when he goes into a negotiation, he scares the crap out of everybody.

01:19:41.200 And then I show up, you know, he's the heavy and I'm-

01:19:44.780 Bad cop.

01:19:45.400 He's the bad cop.

01:19:47.220 I mean, I've heard Trump say that.

01:19:48.760 And I didn't know if I believe that or not, but I'm starting to think that I should have

01:19:54.560 just believed him because it sounds like Trump's actual instincts are what he says they are.

01:19:59.980 Yeah.

01:20:00.200 I mean, the Bolton firing itself is, again, ancient history, but it's circled around an issue

01:20:04.980 of policy.

01:20:05.700 Oh, I remember.

01:20:06.340 Yeah.

01:20:06.740 So, I mean, Trump had invited the Taliban, which was then the outlaw, not government

01:20:12.220 of Afghanistan, as it is today, to Camp David on 9-11.

01:20:18.020 I just love the sound of it.

01:20:19.560 So Trump invited the Taliban to Camp David.

01:20:21.580 He did.

01:20:21.860 He literally did that.

01:20:22.720 I mean, I don't have to, I mean, I'm just reporting the facts here.

01:20:25.180 So, so-

01:20:25.940 I mean, it's a great sentence.

01:20:27.600 So Donald Trump invited the Taliban.

01:20:28.960 So tonight, who's coming for dinner tonight at Camp David?

01:20:31.020 I don't know the Taliban will be here.

01:20:32.060 Bolton, Bolton was wiped out before this meeting never happened, but it was the instigating

01:20:40.380 incident for the final breakdown of their relationship.

01:20:44.200 I do think it's important, Kurt, to just recognize the inherent hilarity of a lot of,

01:20:48.800 you know, just, it is, in addition to being grave and, you know, historically significant,

01:20:53.360 it's very funny.

01:20:53.960 It is quite, it is.

01:20:54.560 Very funny.

01:20:55.080 A lot of this stuff is very funny.

01:20:56.020 It's sort of funny.

01:20:56.660 Yeah, yeah.

01:20:57.180 Yeah, it's pretty great.

01:20:58.140 Yeah.

01:20:58.280 Um, so under, you're, you're very restrained and businesslike and precise as a reporter

01:21:04.640 should be, as an editor should be, but the story that you're telling, I think, I don't

01:21:08.040 want to put words in your mouth, is a, is a, is a story of like real change.

01:21:12.560 Yeah.

01:21:13.120 Finally, we actually appear to be getting to like a foreign policy that puts America close

01:21:19.560 to the center of the, of the action.

01:21:22.200 Yeah.

01:21:22.960 Is that, is that what you're seeing?

01:21:24.020 No, I mean, I, I mean, I mean, I mean, if he sees this through, this is, this is the

01:21:28.400 biggest presidency, uh, certainly since Reagan, you alluded to FDR, uh, I mean, it is moving

01:21:33.820 the ship of state, um, and people are going to try to stop him from doing it.

01:21:38.820 Yes.

01:21:39.020 But they're not, but not, they're not going to, they're not going to say that he's bad

01:21:42.160 though.

01:21:42.880 They're good.

01:21:43.320 They're going to go after.

01:21:44.280 No one will ever say great.

01:21:45.200 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no.

01:21:46.340 Well, I just want to counter signal by saying, I think what you're saying is true.

01:21:50.180 I think it's real and I've never admired Trump more.

01:21:54.780 Um, I don't, I don't think I'm going to ask us around the Trump question, but this is like

01:21:58.780 the America really needs this.

01:22:00.440 It's just super important and it's not radical at all.

01:22:03.300 It's not attacking anyone or canceling our ally ship with any country at all.

01:22:09.220 It's just, it's, you know, readjusting expectations for what we can achieve.

01:22:13.600 The reason that I started covering war and foreign policy principally, um, is that, uh,

01:22:18.860 the reality is that U.S. domestic policy is a morass.

01:22:22.040 It's impossible to get anything done.

01:22:23.580 Uh, Obama tried to do a healthcare plan.

01:22:26.560 They did six years in, they couldn't even get the website working.

01:22:29.120 You know, the country's hard to govern, but externally, the president is imperial.

01:22:34.360 He's God.

01:22:35.000 They, they, most, quite literally the most powerful person on earth.

01:22:39.540 And, uh, if you want to burnish a legacy real quick, you do big things in foreign policy.

01:22:46.400 You do shocking things in foreign policy.

01:22:47.460 That's what all the Republican senators have figured out.

01:22:49.320 You do surprising things in foreign policy.

01:22:50.260 You're John McCain, like you're, you know, whatever.

01:22:53.060 You've got a lot of problems in your personal and public life, but you can bomb around Eastern

01:22:57.840 Europe and get treated like an emperor.

01:22:59.620 Right.

01:23:00.280 And feel like you're doing something.

01:23:01.700 You're, you know, Jim Risch or Mike Rounds or some like U.S. senator nobody's ever heard

01:23:06.960 of, even in his home state.

01:23:08.160 But when you travel to Romania to tour a NATO base, people are like, oh, you know, Senator

01:23:12.680 Risch is here.

01:23:14.000 You know, it's like.

01:23:15.400 The foreign relations chair.

01:23:16.740 Yeah.

01:23:17.360 So.

01:23:17.960 Right.

01:23:18.500 Yeah.

01:23:18.720 Yeah.

01:23:18.860 Yeah.

01:23:19.040 And so that's a, that's a big, that's a big motivator for our lawmakers, isn't it?

01:23:25.480 Sure.

01:23:26.560 For sure.

01:23:27.200 Yeah.

01:23:27.340 I mean, yeah.

01:23:28.660 I mean.

01:23:29.180 You go to Idaho Falls and no one's like, oh, I can't believe you're here.

01:23:32.820 But you know.

01:23:33.720 Chairman Risch.

01:23:34.780 Yeah.

01:23:34.920 Chairman Risch.

01:23:35.600 Chairman Risch.

01:23:36.840 It's like such an absurd.

01:23:38.860 It's anyway.

01:23:39.520 Excuse me.

01:23:41.940 Interesting.

01:23:43.140 So.

01:23:44.000 And I interrupted you because I can't, I can't control myself.

01:23:47.240 Zero self-control.

01:23:49.500 And get on the topic of pizza or neocons and I'm just out of control.

01:23:52.480 Tell me your analysis of Trump canceling the security details for Brian Hook and Mike Pompeo.

01:24:01.880 Well, he seems to have the authentic view that these people can afford it.

01:24:06.360 Yeah.

01:24:06.660 Especially with Fauci and especially with Bolton.

01:24:10.640 He specifically flagged them.

01:24:12.040 Yeah.

01:24:12.240 And Pompeo, like, who's now running around being like, I'm actually, I'm a businessman.

01:24:17.560 He's on a board of a Ukrainian company as well.

01:24:21.800 And.

01:24:21.960 Well, he's on, I think, more than one board.

01:24:23.700 But he's certainly running around, including with people I know, saying, I'm a really kind

01:24:27.760 of a business guy.

01:24:28.840 Look, I mean, so the Pompeo things, I mean, is like, I mean, it's supremely interesting

01:24:31.820 because I, you know, I think it's somebody who probably would have positioned himself

01:24:37.960 to run in a major way had Trump lost.

01:24:40.840 I think it's somebody who's not going to quit being president.

01:24:43.120 This is not an unintelligent man.

01:24:46.180 Pompeo is smart.

01:24:47.260 This is, yeah.

01:24:47.820 This is a real fighter.

01:24:48.480 He's not dumb.

01:24:49.240 No, I agree.

01:24:49.840 This is a real fighter.

01:24:51.200 And I don't want to say he's part of the cynical bet crowd, but he's making a bet that

01:24:56.180 the Trump thing will pass and I will be able to steamroll people like Vance and even

01:25:01.500 Rubio in the future because I'm more vicious.

01:25:04.580 And in the meantime, you know, maybe make some money, influence the debate, et cetera,

01:25:12.400 et cetera.

01:25:12.860 And he's very impressive if you don't know.

01:25:14.940 I mean, I like, I mean, if you don't come in with huge foreign policy convictions, as

01:25:19.220 I think you and I do, he can be very persuasive.

01:25:22.720 Just for the record, I had no foreign policy convictions.

01:25:26.180 I don't think I'm ideological on the question at all.

01:25:28.620 I just think in general, our foreign policy should serve.

01:25:31.680 I am.

01:25:32.460 I mean, I mean, like, I mean, so I think this was very interesting about some of these

01:25:36.660 Pentagon picks, not to keep linking it back, but also the vice president.

01:25:40.660 A lot of these people, my generation, the millennials fought in these wars.

01:25:44.420 Oh, yeah.

01:25:44.800 And although the baby boomers, forget it, we're now old, you know, and we grew up and

01:25:50.840 we're quite mad about it.

01:25:52.660 And it's a bipartisan thing.

01:25:55.000 It's not just like a Democrat, you know, anti-Iraq war, indie music thing.

01:26:00.080 It's like young Republican people hate it too.

01:26:03.680 Oh, I agree.

01:26:04.060 And they might hate it more, actually, which is actually the interesting thing.

01:26:08.420 And the Republican Party, frankly, under Trump, might be a vessel of anti-war sentiment far

01:26:16.660 more effectively than the Democrats.

01:26:18.040 I mean, I didn't see a lot of protests for the Ukraine war.

01:26:20.920 Remember, the Israel stuff was pretty interesting.

01:26:24.460 That was probably what was number one threat to Biden circa April.

01:26:27.680 Remember that?

01:26:27.820 For sure.

01:26:29.200 But, you know, if you look at the conversation online, if you look at the sentiments of

01:26:33.140 younger conservatives, younger Republicans, the anti-war stuff is big and it's not going

01:26:39.200 anywhere.

01:26:39.820 And I think that also drives a sense of a timetable, which is, you know, we've got these

01:26:45.060 older people in their 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s.

01:26:47.500 They have a certain belief set.

01:26:48.840 They're the people that voted for the stuff in the 90s and 2000s.

01:26:52.140 And we get this stuff done now before the United States turns, you know, on both parties

01:26:58.840 on this stuff.

01:26:59.980 And this was always, this was-

01:27:01.160 So we can't afford it anymore and our allies pivot to China and sell even more defense technology

01:27:06.220 to China.

01:27:08.200 Yeah.

01:27:09.120 I do think they're, okay, so the backbone of support for these wars has been evangelicals.

01:27:14.760 Let's just be blunt about it.

01:27:15.920 It's everyone, you know, beats up on the neocons or whatever, these fervid intellectuals in

01:27:20.320 Washington.

01:27:20.640 But really, the foot soldiers of this have been Fox News viewers who are not ideological.

01:27:26.420 They're not intellectuals.

01:27:27.580 They're not, they're just normal American patriotic, heavily evangelical people.

01:27:33.080 And the truth is, I think a lot of them are beginning to recognize that their religion

01:27:37.940 does not support this at all.

01:27:39.660 Yeah.

01:27:39.840 And it's really clear, Genesis 6, why do we have the flood?

01:27:44.240 Why does God kill everything on earth?

01:27:46.420 All the people except Noah and his family, all the animals except the ones in the ark.

01:27:49.920 Why does he do that?

01:27:51.080 He spells it right out because they're committing violence.

01:27:53.580 That's why.

01:27:55.100 So it's like the idea that, I mean, the Iraq war breaks out and all these preachers are like,

01:27:59.340 no, no, no, really?

01:28:00.200 We have to fight Islam and kill all these people.

01:28:02.500 And that's what God wants.

01:28:03.960 That's not what it says at all.

01:28:07.120 And there's no mention of any specific secular government in the New Testament.

01:28:10.980 Sorry, guys.

01:28:12.240 And I think a lot of Christians are beginning to realize this.

01:28:14.860 It doesn't, because you're a Christian doesn't mean you have a specific political agenda at

01:28:18.640 all, I don't think.

01:28:19.780 Yeah.

01:28:20.340 But if your political agenda is like violence, that's prohibited.

01:28:25.740 Sorry.

01:28:26.860 And I, it just, it could not be clear.

01:28:29.000 It's on every freaking page.

01:28:30.500 So I don't know the deception involved in this was just like mind boggling that these

01:28:34.200 preachers could get up on Fox News and tell you that like, yeah, killing people is what

01:28:37.800 Jesus wants.

01:28:38.740 No, that's not true.

01:28:40.600 And I, I just feel among people I know a growing recognition of that.

01:28:44.860 And I think it's a huge problem for the war lobby, which has used these people as its

01:28:49.180 supporters.

01:28:49.900 And you see it in the Congress, you know, I'm an evangelical and I'm for another war with

01:28:54.680 somebody.

01:28:55.960 No, you can't do that anymore.

01:28:57.520 I'm hoping people are zoned out.

01:28:59.080 You do think that?

01:28:59.940 I, I, yeah, I think that they're hoping the country's old, tired, zoned out, can't

01:29:04.360 oppose it.

01:29:04.940 And they're hoping that these initiatives can be achieved piecemeal, you know, start

01:29:11.840 by bombing Iran here, et cetera, et cetera.

01:29:14.900 Maybe the government will collapse, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

01:29:18.040 To be replaced by what?

01:29:20.460 The same people who replaced Assad and Gaddafi and Saddam and the Taliban.

01:29:24.800 I mean, I think, okay.

01:29:26.160 I mean, to take the other side, I mean, I mean, the Assad thing is, that's like pretty

01:29:31.300 close to the best case scenario of how that could have gone.

01:29:33.500 I think in Iran, it would go way, way, way worse.

01:29:37.840 It's a much bigger country.

01:29:39.720 It's hard to know.

01:29:40.560 You're rolling the dice.

01:29:41.440 You know, you start killing people and things go sideways.

01:29:43.780 Like you think it's, it's pretty close to Iraq and Afghanistan combined, right?

01:29:48.360 You have, you have, you have urban, you have, you have the, you have the capacity for major

01:29:52.140 urban violence, a la Iraq.

01:29:53.660 You have huge cities, not that Kabul is small, but you know, you have that.

01:29:57.600 And then additionally, you have the mountain element.

01:29:59.600 So any, any outlaw contingent can just flee there.

01:30:05.140 I mean, and, and, and we learned this with our Southern neighbor.

01:30:08.320 Right.

01:30:08.460 Why is Mexico ungovernable?

01:30:09.820 The mountains.

01:30:10.620 The entire coastline.

01:30:14.000 Right.

01:30:14.440 Why is Kentucky ungovernable?

01:30:15.900 Same reason.

01:30:16.480 Okay.

01:30:16.900 Yeah.

01:30:17.460 Yeah.

01:30:17.980 I mean, so just kidding.

01:30:18.880 No, no.

01:30:19.160 I mean, it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's hard to, it would be very, very, very difficult.

01:30:23.220 And ask Saddam Hussein, who tried to invade Iran and didn't work out for Mr. Hussein.

01:30:28.420 A lot of things didn't.

01:30:29.800 So.

01:30:30.180 No, I, I agree completely.

01:30:32.580 Well, you have actually given me, I asked you to come for this conversation.

01:30:37.840 It's late at night.

01:30:38.940 I was very exercised about it.

01:30:40.160 You were nice enough to come and, um, we're in a hotel room in some city, but, uh, I thought

01:30:45.760 I was going to be more depressed by the end, but actually I feel really heartened by what

01:30:49.240 you said.

01:30:50.960 Thank you for having me.

01:30:52.460 Well, thank you for making me feel a lot better.

01:30:55.320 Kurt Mills.

01:30:56.360 Appreciate it.

01:30:56.980 Thank you.

01:30:59.340 Thanks for listening to Tucker Carlson show.

01:31:01.120 If you enjoyed it, you can go to tuckercarlson.com to see everything that we have made the complete

01:31:06.480 library, tuckercarlson.com.

The Tucker Carlson Show - January 25, 2025

Curt Mills： Trump Can Save America or Wage Another War, but He Can’t Do Both. Here’s Why.

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