Bill Kristol: A Madman's Way of War

Hello and welcome to the Bullwark podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday. So we're back with editor at Large Bill Crystal, author of the Morning Shots newsletter. A lot's happened since Friday's podcast with Amanda Carpenter, which should be a reminder to you all to be checking out the bulwark takes feed on the weekends as news happens because we're at war with Iran now. And Bill, I just want to kind of start with a state of play for people, if that's okay with you. You can edit or amend any of my assessment. I will be happy to. And also, you and JVL and Sarah and Mark Kirtling did an excellent early Saturday, with Saturday morning at 9, kind of first snapshot of where things were. And then you and I and Mark currently did something at noon yesterday, Sunday. And I have got to say both of them were, I thought, informative. And luckily, General Hurtling's there so the rest of us can talk and he can actually explain and analyze. But no, I think both our analysis of what was happening on the ground and he were at home for that matter domestically, which you particularly focused on yesterday, was good. Look, it's a very impressive military operation. We took out a huge number of Farran assets and working with Israel, very close collaboration with Israel. I mean, I may be a little surprised by that. Usually there's some attempt to maintain distance. It seems like it was genuinely... coordinated effort, wiped out a large percentage of the Iranian leadership, and really a nationwide campaign against military assets, way beyond degrading, you know, key nodes of the nuclear program or taking out some missile sites. You know, that was what happened last summer in June. This was a real attempt to go after the regime in many aspects, I'd say. And if you look at this, just a map of the places we've hit. Some of them were not nuclear. Many, most of them were not nuclear. Some of them were ballistic missile sites. They were other forms of regime, places the regime had assets and weapons and coordinating structures. So the military campaign is consistent with regime change as a goal. That's clearly has been Israel's goal. It's the goal of Trump articulated late Friday night, early Saturday morning in his little late-minute address. He's wavered back and forth on that goal since, obviously. In terms of the military effort, finally, it's gone well, but, you know, wars are wars, right? So we've lost four soldiers, sadly, and some planes and others, you know, Iran is not disabled. Let me just give a quick rundown on that. So before we get to what exactly the goal is here, you know, as you mentioned, like a total annihilation, decapitation of Iranian leadership, Ayatollah Khomeini, dead, Ahmadinejad. was not involved in this government, but was, I think, kind of plotting a more radical coup type government. He's also dead among familiar names to listeners. Total domination of Iranian airspace. Obviously, Israel has a ton of assets inside Iranian military leadership. So impressive in that sense. But, you know, as wars go, you know, it's not just us bombing them. They're four American soldiers. dead. At the time of this taping, we don't know the details on that yet. Those initially, they announced three had died, and another one added this morning. Three U.S. F-15 strike eagles went down in Kuwait in a friendly fire incident. The pilot survived there. The headquarters to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain's been hit. U.S. embassy has been attacked in Pakistan, Iraq, Kuwait. There was a mass shooting in Austin that...

Maybe in response to this, the shooter was wearing a sweatshirt at Allah, and I think a shirt underneath that had the Iranian flag on it. Among the actions that we took, in addition to all the things you laid out, Bill, there was a tragic bombing of a girls' school in southern Iran. Many dead there. Just really quick couple of the things. Geopolitically, Hezbollah has entered the war bombing Israel from inside Lebanon. Israel responded. Lebanese leadership's now trying to expel Hezbollah. There's kind of a second engagement there. Trump to Tapper this morning, Jake Tapper, he said, we haven't even started hitting them hard. The big one is coming soon. And then Pete Higgsuff and Dan Kane at a press conference this morning. We are coming to about get into. So that seems to be the state of affairs. And as you kind of led us there, I think the most important question remaining here is what exactly is the goal? of what we're doing? Like, what is the objective? Was it safety? Safety for us? Safety for Israel, long-term safety, short-term safety. Is it regime change? Human rights in Iran? Trump's legacy, payback for them trying to assassinate Trump, nuclear weapons only. Like, it's not really clear. And interestingly, this morning, the Daily Caller was originally Tucker Carlson's outlet, a very pro-Trump outlet. They got the second question. to Pete Hegseth and Dan Kane, because the Pentagon Press Corps has been totally eviscerated. We don't have any real journalists. But I guess kudos to Reagan Reese, the Daily Call Reporter, who asked the question, what are our objectives? I want to play you Pete Hegseth' answer for that. The president said yesterday in his video message that we will leave Iran when we complete all of our objectives. What are our objectives? And can you share more information on how the soldiers who were killed were killed? Well, I laid out the objectives, as did the chairman. They're completely nested. I mean, Iran has an ability to project power against us and our allies in a ways that we can't tolerate. So whether that's ballistic missiles and drones, so offensive capabilities, effectively their Navy, which would attempt to set other terms and impose different costs, drone capabilities, which we laid out there. And ultimately, though, this tying it back to Midnight Hammer, the president has been willing to make a deal. You can't have a nuclear bomb. Radical Islamists can't have a nuclear bomb that they wield against the world. He gave them every single opportunity. Then we precisely took it away. And even then, after that, they didn't have that. They didn't come to the table with a willingness to give it away. So ultimately, those nuclear ambitions, which never ceased. are something that had to be addressed as well. So that's a discrete sense of what's being addressed here to ensure that they can't use that conventional umbrella to continue a pursuit of nuclear ambitions. Didn't seem to clear a lot up for me. Iran has an ability to project power in a way we can't tolerate. That's pretty amorphous. He mentioned their Navy and drone capabilities. A lot of countries have that. Their nuclear ambitions in the end saying this is a discrete sense of what's being addressed here.

Did you feel like you got a sense of what's being addressed here? Before I address that one photo on your excellent update on the state of the war, I would say the one thing that's been a little striking to some friends of mine who follow this stuff with more expertise than I do is we have not decimated Iran's. counter-strike capability in the sense that they're lobbying lots of missiles and drones at various allies, at our own bases, and at the UAE and many of the Arab nations nearby. So I hope they're all decimated in another day or two, but it may not be. And that does raise the specter of a wider war, obviously. I thought the HECSAT press conference this morning, it was really telling, refusal to be clear about to even entertain the questions, really, about the goals. But to the degree he entertained them, he was hard over on no regime change, no long-term strategy, frankly. Just we're there to beat them up so badly. They don't think about messing with us again, I guess. I don't think they were messing with us a heck of a lot. honestly, in the last few years, you know, and they were pretty badly beat up in June. So there was no imminent threat from Iran. There wasn't even much of a medium threat from Iran at this point. Unless you're Israel again. I mean. Yeah, no, if you're Israel's a difference. Even there, incidentally, they had done an awful lot of damage. So there was a plausibly coherent regime change strategy. Still shouldn't have been done without congressional authorization, really problems with it, but it was plausible. I actually, the hexat thing really hit me because I think he's sort of a totally undercut that. And I don't really see what the, what the, coherent strategy is or the coherent rationale for the war or the defensible rationale for the war. And I hate to say this as someone who supports an internationalist and even sometimes interventionist of foreign policy and the use of force were necessary. What are our servicemen and women doing over there? I mean, really, I don't mean that in a silly way. I mean, I honestly feel this like personally. What would you tell someone whose daughter or a spouse was serving over there? What national interest or American values are they serving? Yeah. Well, the families of the four that have died so far. And what are you talking to them? For what? Like in the literal sense, again, not in kind of like rhetorical, you know, political code pink sense. Like what is the literal reason why they are there? The administration can't enunciate it. And it changes minute by minute. So I just want to go through a couple of the things you mentioned. On the point of this being freedom in Iran, freedom for the Iranian people or regime change in Iran brings stability to the regime. Initially, Saturday morning, Trump told Washington Post that was the goal. I mean, he sounded like 1999 Bill Crystal. Freedom in the Middle East was important. That's what Trump said on Saturday morning. Offers a totally different story to the Atlantic. He talked to Michael Shearer. Trump said he's planning to start talks with the... new Iranian regime, whoever that is, and he waffles on whether he'd provide support for a populist uprising, says you'd have to see how it turns out. Then on the regime change front, he told the New York Times over the weekend, we had three very good choices for who will take over Iran. I have some bad news on that. Late last night, he told John Carl that the candidates that they had to take over Iran were killed in the initial attack.

Trump, the attack was so successful, it knocked out most of the candidates. It's not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they're all dead. Second or third place is dead. Then Hanks up this morning, to your point, says, we're not doing nation building quagmire's, no democracy building exercise. So. I don't know. I mean, Trump and other people have said that they want, you know, regime change or that they want, you know, freedom for the people of Iran. But simultaneously, they don't seem to have any idea under what auspices that would come. And minute by minute, they're kind of going back and forth on whether they're even interested in that or being involved in that. Yeah, one point on the media strategy, you and Sarah discussed this very well. Yesterday I also on a videotape. I mean, Trump's good at, like, giving random interviews to a zillion different reporters and advancing his culture war, you know, agenda, whatever it is at a particular day. This is a real war. And the President of the United States should not be randomly calling up reporters having three or five or six-minute conversations with them. giving differing and confusing rationales for the war, and then sort of signing off without, with no clarification, no apparent coordination within the administration about what they really want to be saying today, what they want to tell the American public, who do deserve some clarity about this, the whole public, and particularly, of course, those whose loved ones are serving over there, but everyone deserves clarity and our allies and people around the world. It's so irresponsible. I mean, this is like a little thing in the big scheme of things, but it is worth noting, I think, as you and Sarah did. I mean, it's not just silly, but it's it's damaging, right? I mean, yeah. I mean, to my point with Sarah, like, there's been no presidential address. And it's totally insane. Like on Tuesday. Three days before they started the war, it was the biggest address that a president gives every year at the State of the Union. Like, gave one paragraph on this, then has not given an Oval Office address since then, has, like, randomly called up John Carl and Jake Tapper. That is crazy. It's the biggest military operation that we've been involved in in a generation. The president should be telling people what the point is. And he's boasting to Tapper. The big one's really coming. I don't know what that means, but... If you accept Pete Hegseth account of the goals of the war, it could end now, basically. I don't think there's any danger of Iran doing anything to us. They'll take them so long to recover from the decapitation of their leadership and the decimation of so many of their military assets. Why are we continuing to fight? Now, I think there are reasons if you really want to try to help get a better regime in place there. There may be reasons I don't know about in terms of some assets they still have that we haven't hit yet, but we could do that pretty quickly at this point. And so the whole thing is, yeah, incoherent.

This might turn out, okay, it might. Wars are unpredictable. You can get lucky. The whole regime could collapse, even though we don't want, we're not even trying to make it collapse. It could collapse. Right. Anything could turn out, okay. Like, look at what happened in Syria. We don't know if long-term Syria turns out okay. Right. You know, the Turkish rebels weren't trying to even really take out Bashar al-Assad. Like all of a sudden, like the House of Card just collapsed. Bashar al-Assad's gone. It's replaced with this old al-Qaeda guy. You know, is he going to be better than Bashar al-Assad? Maybe, you know. Yeah, probably. Yeah. So, yeah, I agree. I don't want to preclude that. But I'd say to the degree that we are talking about. talking about a serious, as you say, a serious war, by far the largest of Trump's presidency. No congressional authorization, which by itself makes it much more of a gamble and it's Trump's own risk-taking. And then no precise goal, very hard to defend. I really do now believe that. Here's Pete Hegseth out this morning in case this clears it up for you. This is not a regime-change war, but the regime did change. I don't know how we would splice that. Why is the Secretary of Defense saying? I mean, he's supposed to be talking about the military side of it. Presumably there is a Secretary of State who might have a few views on what the broader, you know, conception of the war is. I see nothing of the president. The vice president has gone into hiding, I guess. So I don't know. The whole thing is. And he had Dan Kane next to him, who was doing the military update, which was useful. But, again, then they took 13 minutes of questions. Given the scale and scope of this operation, I'm not nearly up to, you know, what would be called for as far as responsiveness to a free people who want to know what's happening. There's literally a January 6th insurrectionist that was in the room today. Brandon Strach, I don't know if you got a question. Some other these buffoonish kind of state media. organizations that were asking them like, how did it make you feel to kill Comanius? And Kane was really being just like brass tax about like what has happened. It was basically all he did. And then you have Pete Hegseth up there like doing a Saturday night live performance of a Department of Defense Secretary attacking media outlets, calling people stupid, you know, lethality. It's like it's crazy. Just one more thing on the regime changes. We'll kind of get through a couple of these other plausible explanations for their... trying to do maybe trump was revealing something to the new york times and michael shear maybe trump really did want this to be a venezuela type thing where you bring in the iran delsi rodriguez and then We're kind of the junior partner, at least, in some of the military operations. And Israel is out there with a little different objective, and they're taken out people left and right. And I think that, you know, Israel might be okay with a period of uncertainty and, like, regime collapse. And that could be a sign that while the operations are cohesive together, the, like, mission might not be. Are you one of those people that actually doesn't want to waste money, you know, that was listening to Scott Galloway the other day and looked at your subscriptions and realized you could save some money if you were unsubscribing to the terrible tech oligarchs that are ruining our society? Here's another thing you could do to save your money. Big wireless carriers are taking too much of it.

So if you're tired of spending hundreds on crazy high wireless bills, bogus fees, and free perks that cost you more in the long run, then a premium wireless plan for Mitt Mobile for 15 bucks a month might be right for you. Stop overpaying for wireless, just because that's how it's always been. Mint exists purely to fix that. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you with premium wireless plans starting at 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and tax delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You bring your own phone and number. You can activate it and... minutes and start saving immediately no long-term contracts or hassle. I mentioned this before. This is, especially as you're getting into the kids, fans, we're looking into a wireless program for them. You know, this is something that's affordable. Not quite there yet, but we're all discussing it in the moms and dads group chat. So we're starting to think about when the right time is for kids. And, you know, at 15 bucks a month, it's not breaking the bank as much as some of these other plans would. If you like your money, Mintmobile is for use. Shop plans at mintmobile.com slash bulwark. That's mintmobile.com slash bulwark. Upfront payment of 45 bucks for a three-gibite plan is required, equivalent to 50 bucks a month. New customer offer for first three months only. then full price plan options available, taxes, and fees, extra, cement, mobile for details. Other potential theories I want to put forth for what the real mission is here. Revenge. Trump to Jonathan Carl last night. I got him before he got me on the Ayatollah. They tried twice. Well, I got him first. So maybe that's all this is. Maybe it's just Trump wanted revenge against Iran. On the threat scale, Scott Jennings of CNN had said that there was an immediate imminent threat coming, that he had friends inside the administration. We had to act because there could have been a, quote, mass casualty event. That turns out to be wrong. DoD briefers did go to Congress over the weekend, and they said that Iran was not planning to strike the U.S. forces or bases the Middle East unless Israel attacked Iran first. Long-term threat, Pete Hegseth today, saying that... Iran was building powerful missiles and drones that could help with their nuclear umbrella. In that initial clip I put at the top, I guess that's what he's trying to say. I guess that's the safety and security case that he's making. Yeah, I mean, the missiles are a danger to the region, certainly to Israel. I don't think many people think they're much of a danger to us here. I guess they're a danger to our troops in the region, but Iran is being pretty well deterred from... attacking U.S. troops, right? I mean, there's a reason they presumably haven't done it much in the last few years, and especially in the last six, eight months. I mean, we could clobber them if they do that. And so there was no need to go in. Again, it's such a horrible regime. I know so many people have been involved, honestly, in Iranian dissident circles, Iranians who left there, friends and family have suffered. I was moved by all the celebrations in the streets of Tehran Saturday and Sunday. I so much want to believe that this may have been the right thing to do and could work out. But I've got to say, I found Trump's, you know, ridiculous series of interviews. But they were ridiculous, but they all tended, wouldn't you say, in the direction in scaling back the hope of freedom. I mean, the first one, as you said, was a Saturday morning, perhaps, I think, with the Post, Washington Post, Saturday, midday.

And that was a little more, yeah, freedom. And then by Sunday, it's all just, you know, is personal revenge. And I want to work it out with the IRGC. Maybe they can cut a deal with some of the other people. We have a list of three people we want to put in charge, as you said, but a couple of now, they're all dead. I mean, it's so demoralizing, really, the idea that we've moved unbelievable number of assets there, Americans. Service men and women are at risk. Four have died. I mean, others are wounded, and others are now going into combat, returning to combat for more missions. It's so demoralizing that we don't have a serious objective. And essentially, you could have a much more limited objective, and that could be serious. But that would then imply a more limited war plan. And there's no evidence Mark Hurtling's by at this point that the actual planning, which is very impressive, is linked up to any sense of a broader strategic objective. Yeah. And the supporters are trying to have it all the ways. You know, I mean, to your point about, like, how I want freedom for the Iranian people. I was also moved by some of the images. Like, last night, our friend of Congress, Nancy Mace, posts, like, if you're angry that Iranian women may finally be free, you need to seriously examine your values and yourself. That's like, is that what we're doing? Like, is the effort here to free Iranian women? You know, because I don't know, like. You know, I would not have been totally hostile to that mission. If there was a plan and there were allies and we had a competent people in charge and the case was made to Congress and the American people, right? That's not an illegitimate thing to hope for. But like the supporters of this are just trying to backfill any possible rationale they can. And, you know, some of them are talking as if. You know, this is a part of the freedom agenda, and, like, others are talking completely differently. And the president is saying different things at different seconds. So, anyway, one other thing that they have put forth, according to the Atlantic, Trump told confidence that he believes his legacy could be defined by his overthrow of the regimes in Venezuela, Iran, and potentially Cuba. I think that there's a madman Trump element to this, too. And I think a, don't you think, obviously a huge being high in your own supply sort of situation in terms of his personal ability to run these things, the U.S. military's ability, which is very great. Don't get me wrong, but it's not infinite and not, you know, can't do everything everywhere. There will be casualties and setbacks, too. There's a kind of megalomania now, I think, that's very dangerous, actually. We're saying like the hot guy on the craps table. Yeah, it's like this Venezuela thing worked. Yeah. You know, let's keep pressing. Not really a way to run a country. We hear a lot from folks in the left and people opposed to Trump is that everything we just talked about is all just kind of window dressing on the more true rationale, which is advancing the domestic authoritarianism agenda. Tim Snyder, you know, for one example, basically saying that the case that Trump wants us to rally to a war because it turns everyone who's opposed to the war into a traitor.

and that also you know maybe provides rationale for putting certain conditions or limits on the midterm elections. I'll quote Trump. He's kind of joking with Volodymyr Zelensky, but a lot of times Trump's jokes have a tinge of truth to them where, you know, back in the Oval Office where he's like, oh, you cancel the elections during a war. Maybe that's something I should look into. You know, and then you have kind of the Epstein distraction sub-bullet to that. I don't really think that's what's happening, but I think we should at least chew it over. Yeah, and he did say something about the elections, Iran messing with the 2020 and 2020-24 elections. Friday, maybe that was. Yeah, that's good. Yes, yes, yes. He posted on truth social about how Iran was, you know, trying to oppose him in the 2020 election, and that was part of the steel. And the excuse of foreign interference or dealing with foreign interference is, I think, one of the obvious excuses they could try to use for federal intervention or partial takeover parts of the 2026 and 2028 election. So I don't think we're going to war for those reasons. Is Tim Snyder right, though, that authoritarian governments, once you succeed in bullying at home and some bullying abroad, you try to do more bullying abroad, maybe you think it rallies people to you. It's sort of mixed up in your own. I'm not sure the distinction, almost the domestic and foreign policy at some point. almost exists in his mind. It's all about him being on top of everything, you know, in charge of bullying everyone, right? And showing he's on top. But if he's on top abroad, he thinks he'll remain on top at home and get away with doing things on the elections, or maybe just people will be so impressed, they'll vote for him. But yeah, I tend to discount the kind of more, you know, it's distraction from the Epstein-Foss thing. I hadn't really focused on the remark till you read it about the personal, you know, how many wanted to get me. And so I've got him. It wasn't wanted to kill the American president or what it's, or either, you know, or the U.S. had to make clear this is unacceptable. It's all personal, right? Yeah. If you wanted to get me, I got him. He got got. That is much more in my mental model of Trump's megalomania and how he decides things than some of the more four-dimensional chess theories of like what nefarious activities he has in mind. I don't mean to say that, of course, we'd like to talk about other things besides Epstein. And of course, if there are ways for them to metal and the midterbs, they'd like to do it. I just think that the other explanations for... what got him to this point make more sense to me. And to that point, let's talk about the geopolitics because I think this was huge. It seems to me that he was pushed into this in a big way by BB and Mohammed bin Salman. I mean, Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday, Times is Flat Circle, said sometimes this weekend that, you know, bluntly, like that was happy that the Americans are here to do this with us, that this has been something we need to do for 40 years.

Like, Beebe is not really hiding the ball on that, like on what his objective is here. And there was reporting that, you know, a lot of this started back on one of his visits to the lighthouse in December where they were talking about this and talking about how degraded Iran is and, you know, how, you know, how confident Israel is that, like, this is a moment to go after a weakened regime. Other reporting that NBS, I guess, was calling Trump last week saying he's for this, pushing him for this. There's, of course, a Saudi Iranian Shiasuni, you know, kind of proxy fight happening for hegemony in the Middle East. So what do you make of that part of this story? As you say, I don't think Nathaniel, who's made a bunch of a secret about his desire to deal more comprehensively with the Iran threat than he's done at the best. He's been prime minister a long, long, long time and has never been able to felt he could, I suppose. deal with Iran and the way he hoped and maybe both the military capabilities and the stuff they did to Hezbollah, which took away that threat mostly, you know, after October 7th, and then getting a American president who's willing to take the third of our fleet and move them all to the region and use up an awful lot of munitions. He thought, okay, this is his moment. So I think that's quite possible. As you say, he's not really, he's candid about it. Would Israel have done it if the U.S. hadn't moved all those ships there? I don't know, honestly. That would be an interesting quote. Maybe they've done a more limited thing. But obviously, it's Trump's decision. But I think I met you earlier point. I mean, he somehow Venezuela was very important, right? He did that one day in June in Iran, at the end of 12 days of Israeli pounding of Iran, and that went okay. Then he was... talked by Greenland. Nothing came of that so far, at least, Panama. But Venezuela, they gave him a good plan and he did the special operations thing. I don't know that Venezuela is that much better off, honestly, now than it was two months ago. And I don't know that's going to be much better off four months from now. And I don't know a lot of oil is going to come out of there. And I don't know a lot more freedom's going to be there. But whatever, it was a victory. I mean, and then that went to his head. And I do think he now looks at the world and where can I move all the U.S. troops and. beat up someone. Yeah. And in this case, it's a regime that really is awful. So people like me want to at least be instinctively for it. And Venezuela is very bad, too, actually. But there are actual tradeoffs here, right, in terms of we haven't done anything to help Ukraine, which is actually fighting in Europe against an awful brutal invasion. Well, because he doesn't want to fight a great power. Right. So that's the key point. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I think that's key. In China, God knows if all the China hawks in the administration, their whole. line about the Middle East. They hated people like me who thought the Middle East was important because it's all a diversion. It's all ridiculous. We need to have all our forces ready to fight China. Now all of our forces are busy fighting Iran, which is sort of an ally. sort of of China and of Russia. So it weakens Russia a little bit probably, which is good for Ukraine. But also maybe distracts us and resources that could be given to fighting Russia, honestly. So, yeah. So maybe it helps Russia a little bit, actually. It doesn't weaken Russia. No, it helps in terms of, I think, yeah, so much we're using things we can't help Ukraine. I mean, we're going to.

move a lot of troops around and use a lot of air power and stuff. You know, maybe we should use some of it to help Ukraine directly, honestly. I mean, they were invaded by Russia. Iran is a very horrible regime, and what they did at home over the last two months is really terrible. And for me, would be a ground for kind of intervention just because of their domestic slaughter of their opponents. But if you are on a more strict Pete Hegseth, America first, JD Vance, you only get to deal with countries when they cross borders. If then, you can't deal with anything domestically. Isn't Russia the example of this? Iran hasn't invaded anyone very recently, you know? Also, if you're talking about, you know, defending democracy and freedom, it's like, well, there's a free Ukrainian government that we could help, right? And it's still not even clear who those people would be in Iran. You know, and Pompeo, Lincoln is pushing M.EK, which, like, has more support in Roslin than it does in Iran as best I can tell. And it's like, okay, I'm for it. But what's the plan? And, like, Ukraine, there's a clear plan. You could move this type of assets. there and have actually helped them. There's one more item on this, like, the geopolitics and the incentive structures in the Middle East. This also ties directly to the corruption story in America, right? It's like, how can you disentangle it? Is the fact that Saudi, you know, put in a billion dollars to Trump's son-in-law? Did that give them more sway here? You have to say, maybe, right? Is the fact that Qatar is giving Trump a plane and the UAE and Qatar investing in these media companies that Trump is, you know, encouraging to be taken over by allies in America? Is that part of it? Is the fact that the UAE is in a crypto deal with Trump? Is that part of it? I mean, Trump is, like, mobbed up from a business standpoint. with Saudi UAE and Qatar in a major way. And, you know, obviously, Benjamin Netanyahu has big influence with him. We have the acute story of like the war, what's happening in the war and that crisis. But it's, I think it's an interesting subplot that like, it seems like we're being walked around the dog track by Arab and Israeli interests, actually, right now. Yeah, and by Trump's own wish to bully people, he can get away with bullying and shying away from confronting Russia and China, the two great powers, which incidentally, as Mark General Hurling pointed out in our conversation Saturday and Sunday with him, in the actual defense strategy, this administration produced just two or three months ago. It's all about China and not about the Middle East. They're shunning the Middle East a little bit. If Iran was such a threat, when did it suddenly become such a threat? I mean, again, I don't want to be pedantic. I mean, who cares if they mentioned it in a strategy? Maybe there are things would have changed and there are reasons. You've got to do what you've got to do militarily. I mean, they're not a threat to us, right? Like, it's just, it's not even worth, like, giving them any sort of credence on that. And throwing your weight around all over the world, if it's against a noxious regime, obviously people give you more room to do that. But it's not cost-free. I mean, it's literally not cost-free in terms of lives and money and material and resources. It's also not cost-free in terms of just attention and what other countries can do elsewhere. And the lessons that people learn from this, the lesson people learn from this is not that we're, unfortunately, I say this genuinely with a terrible regret, is not that we're on the side of freedom. I'd say at this point, it looks to me like the lesson they're likely to learn from this is.

You know, we have a very capable military, and we're willing to go in and use it against regimes that are kind of flat on their back, like Venezuela or Iran, and that already have been terribly weakened. But we're not willing to help Ukraine fight Russia, and God knows what we're willing to do in Asia against China. I mean, maybe it's mercantilist also is what people take away. Like, you know, you can do whatever you want, actually, domestically. Again. Nobody believes that Trump did this because of the killing of protesters in Iran. It was a heinous killing of protesters in Iran, but we've killed protesters in America this year. And we are not letting Iranian refugees come to America. In fact, we've been sending Iranian refugees back to Iran. And some of the countries that we're dealing with in the Middle East... have terrible human rights records themselves, right? And so I obviously, you know, to me, if you're around the world, the lesson is that at least as long as Trump is around, this is like a pay-for-play thing. Get in, get in with Trump. And, you know, who didn't get in with Trump on his corrupt BS, Maduro and Khomeini? One more thing on the Arab stuff, because this is, I think it would be interesting to watch. It's pretty clear at this point. And obviously Saudi was for it. We have the reporting. It's pretty clear that UAE and Qatar folks were on board with this, at least to some degree. That said, the Saudi official to Al Jazeera this morning says America has abandoned us and focuses defense systems on protecting Israel, leaving the Gulf states that host its military bases at the mercy of Iranian missiles and drones. Just something to watch. Not. unprecedented that Saudi would be behind the scenes talking about how they're for America and then to the public audience talking about how they don't trust America. So we'll see kind of how that shakes out. But there have been serious hits. The iconic hotel in Dubai, you've kind of seen the picture there by the airport, that got hit. There are people fleeing Dubai and Abu Dhabi. There's a great Sam of Four story about how it's like. charging $300,000 a pop for people to take a 10-hour black car from Dubai and Abu Dhabi to Riyadh, and then a private jet from Riyadh to Europe to get out of the Middle East. So again, that's this kind of thing. When you go into something like this, maybe they're on board at the start, but... The case wasn't made to their populations either. Like the Emirates and Qataris and Saudis, like who, it's just who knows, right? Like how, you know, especially if this escalates, how that ends up shaking out. And energy prices look like they might be short term. We'll see what happens, obviously. But I've been assuming they would settle down, but maybe they'll go up. I mean, look, you start a war, things start to happen, right? And Trump was to go bully these guys and then bully those guys. But I also should stipulate that. That has second and third order effects of its own, as we're seeing here, right? And the Saudis may be sort of spinning for now and just trying to pretend that, oh, we're very unhappy. But at some point, maybe they really will be unhappy. Or maybe other allies really will get hit in ways that we don't retaliate. And suddenly they're like, what the hell is happening here? You know, we encourage Trump to do this. We thought they had a real plan. And now we're paying a price.

What are we getting out of it, right? Or there's uprising among the people. People get pissed. Like, why are we doing it? You know what I mean? Who the hell? I got it. You know, could there be protests in Kuwait, a UAE against us? Possible. TBD on how that all shakes out. Just one more geopolitics thing was Iran also attacked British targets, Keir Starmer, as came out and said that we can use their bases. So again, kind of how this thing. trickles out, remains to be seen. You mentioned the energy crisis. This is, I think about what the domestic impact is on the politics. And this is part of the reason why I just, I just think that the idea that this is a distraction for Epstein, there'll be a rally around the flag as part of an old construct. You know, it's like Wag the Dog was a movie in the 1990s. In the 1990s, people really did rally around the flag. And I just don't. I don't know that that's true anymore. We live in deeply polarized times and we weren't attacked. You know, maybe they'd rally around the flag if there was, you know, all the conspiracy theorists always talk about how there's a false flag. You know, this attack wasn't real. We did it to ourselves. Maybe if there was a false flag attack on America, then maybe that would change. Maybe not. But I just don't see it in the polls. Right now, Ipsos is the first pullout. 27% support, 43 oppose, means a bunch are still unsure, so events will matter. Among independents, I thought this was noteworthy, 19 support, 44 oppose a bunch unsure. I think a lot of times people think about independence wrong. A lot of independents are kind of these, you know, folks that don't pay a lot of attention, aren't big fans of war, aren't reading. Foreign Affairs magazine, you know, and don't like have deep thoughts on all that. So I thought it was pretty noteworthy how that among independents it was less popular, only 7% of Democrats for. And you mentioned the energy prices. It's just gas price is only up about 10% here, but 50% in Europe this morning. Again, we'll see how that all plays out. But I just think even if this goes well, at home, this feels like something that's going to be a political problem for Trump. I mean, yeah, as you say, events matter so much. You said this yesterday, too. Yeah. Wars are real, right? Events, things are very event dependent, and we'll see what we've learned that in Iraq. Obviously, it looked great, mission accomplished. Whoops, not so good for Bush, you know. But I agree. I agree, but I agree. But I agree. But I agree. But I agree.

we don't suffer some horrible defeats. And that becomes what's defining. But we could, obviously, in terms of our geo-strategic position, as well as in terms of just, you know, obviously actual losses there in the region. I think the Democrats are pretty, are on pretty safe ground. You said this yesterday in just opposing the war, right? I think so. And you saw some blowback to Mark Kelly who was kind of waffling on this a little bit yesterday. I think that Democrats. If they want to be on the more hawkish edge of the party and they want to be on the more flag-wading patriotic freedom end of the party, I think taking the Bill Crystal position for this podcast would be totally fine, right? Like, that I have no love for the Ayatollah. This regime is horrible. Like if we are working with allies and had a legitimate plan to help, you know, support the people in the streets. I would be for that. But like, that's not what this is. This is a shit show. They don't have a plan. They haven't offered a plan. Four people are dead. They haven't come to Congress for support. They haven't made a case to the American people under this administration with the way they've behaved and how they've lied and how corrupt they are. I'm a no. No war with Iran. To me, I feel like that's a totally appropriate place to be that's not really going to alienate anybody except for, you know, small niche groups that have, you know, various interests. Now, and I think the actual vote they'll have in Congress or votes, I guess, in each house are basically on some versions of war powers resolutions, which require Trump to come back and get authorization within 60 days or something like that. It's a little confusing 90 days, I'm not too sure. But the normal charge that would make me hesitate of four days into a war, you shouldn't. demoralize our troops and then to cut them by voting to get out or something like that or cutting off funding. That's not what the vote is. The vote is a kind of Trump has to do what he should have done before and come to Congress. That's sometimes belittled on the left. I understand why. That's just process. They've got to be war, you know, ferociously anti-war. But I think it's not just process. A, it really is the Constitution. It is like we're in a constitutional crisis that he's gone to a major war. without Congress, different from a one-day strike and or killing Soleimani. There's no justification. There's no authorization for this. They have to use, if they use one at all, it'll be the 2001 Al-Qaeda authorization and Iran's, but a terror sponsor, but man, that's a 25 years later. That's a bit of a stretch. And again, it's a stretch for the kind of war we're fighting. If you're knocking off the head of the IOCC, who has genuinely sponsored terror all around the region, some of which has killed Americans, Hezbollah, that's one thing. a major war like this, you need to go to Congress. So he didn't go to Congress. So I think Congress has a very sound ground to say, we need to speak up now and insist that he come back to Congress. And that's defending the Constitution. That's not attacking Trump necessarily. It's not even being anti-war. People can say if they wish, I don't. I didn't see Mark Kelly's comments, but I might say if I were there, look, I can see if we could vote, could have voted for this, you know, if it were properly explained and defended and we had a coherent strategy to authorize certain use of force. It's not like you're necessarily.

fully 100% anti-war, most of them would have been and probably certainly would be at this point. Maybe I would be too. So I think the Congress argument isn't just a process argument. It has to be made a constitutional argument. I agree with that. I mean, I just look, I think that to be blunt, the politics of this are going to be better just being against it all the way down. But that said, putting them on the record matters. Like the Iraq war vote matters. You know, like this war vote would matter. And I think it's a tough vote. for a lot of Republicans, by the way, which we can get into next. But I don't know if you had a more thing on the Democrat side of this. I think as you said, the Iraq vote, I guess you were thinking I was thinking, too, of the original authorizing vote. But then there was a whole bunch of other votes, you know, funding and so forth as we went forward. And it's not like this thing just goes away. I mean, maybe it'll end in a week and everyone will forget about it in two months. And it's a kind of Venezuela. That would be Venezuela, right? Sort of a slightly better maybe government takes over. It's not too much. chaos spilling up beyond its borders as not a huge refugee flow. It's just kind of not great but not terrible. And everyone kind of moves on. I think that's possible. In that case, it won't help Trump. I don't know if I hurt him that much. But I mean, most of the other outcomes that one can think of are much more problematic, obviously. And so I don't know. Would it be crazy for the Democrats six months for now to say we end the war, end it, you know? Right. No, three months. I mean, it would be a 90-day authorization. I revisit 90 days. And the war. To the point about how it would be a tough vote, I think, even for MAGA, Sager and Genti, who is over breaking points, I just thought this was blunt in how he put it on Twitter. He goes, this is the most profound campaign betrayal in modern U.S. history. He's more on the MAGA isolationist right. We've seen Davidson out of Ohio already starting to put out statements kind of hedging. Thomas Massie would be against us, presumably, Rand. So, you know, how far that extends out into Maga World the House? TBD to the Lauren Bobrits of the world. I don't know. But I think it's a real potential problem for them. And it is highlighted by the fact that the person that is the biggest avatar for isolationist. MAGA politics right now is the vice president, JD Vance. He's missing. He's not sent to tweet since the war started. He loves to tweet. He sent a picture of him at like the kids table and like a backup situation room with Tulsi Gabbard next to him. It was like JD Vance in the cuck chair. I just want to play a couple of clips from JD Vance. One was from the campaign and interview with Tim Dillon and the other one was from Meet the Press a couple months ago. Our interest, I think very much, is in not... going to war with Iran, right? It would be huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country. I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements in the Middle East. I understand the concern, but the difference is that back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives. So this is not going to be some long, drawn-out thing. You can see why J.D. isn't out there today, and he was saying this was not going to be some long darned up thing. This was months ago after the first attack on Iran, and now it very much is. I mean, even if it isn't a long-drawn-up thing in the Iraq war sense, it's drawn out a lot longer than he said it was when he was on Meet the Press a few months ago. And so I think this is real, he's in a real pickle. And Trump has said three or four weeks was kind of the plans, of course, that was a plan with Israel. And again, that is even leaving aside. What about...

Iran hits neighboring countries and they ask for our protection. What about if our troops are not safe in Bahrain because Iran still has missile capabilities and we haven't changed the regime. And some IRGC thug has taken over and society is going to try to make us pay a price. We just need to beef up support there. We'll have to be maybe continued raids to try to take out their missiles beforehand. I mean, again, this is where the dynamics of war becomes so unpredictable and problematic and why, you know, you shouldn't start down this road unless you've thought through different. but also unless you're willing to stay the course. I mean, it's to some degree or other, right? I mean, and that's where I think, I don't know, I kind of assume, well, where are you on this? I kind of assume Trump deep down is where J.D. is in the sense that he wants to, he'll want to get out at some point. And he'll pull the plug and hope that the world won't quite notice how much disarray he's leaving behind or will he get sucked in. I mean, those are sort of two. I think that Trump is a little bit Jekyll and hide on it. You know, I think that he, I do think he'll want to get out. I mean, you could tell already in some of these phone calls that was his instinct. Another phone call since we've been on, I just got sent was I talked to Brett Baer. Has it called you yet, Bill? You know, phone line is open. You talked to Brett Amy Coney Barrett, told him that the Venezuela models that they're going for. The Delsi Rodriguez of Iran is dead. So, okay, we'll see how that goes. Also, the Delsi Rodriguez of Iran, I mean, whatever you think of, God does I have nothing. They're used for Maduro, and they did a huge amount of damage to that country. Iran is a theocratic statement. Right. It's a Delsi Rodriguez of Iran is not like the Deli Rodriguez of Venezuela who could be bought off to some degree and the whole security structures, a bunch of... thugs and corrupt people. Iran has plenty of thugs and corrupt people. But I don't know. Leaving that regime in place is going to be not quite like leaving the Venezuelan regime in place. No, for sure. I mean, look, I'm not, I'm no expert on the internal politics of Iran, but I've been doing a lot of reading. And it's like, yeah, and there's just a lot more different contingencies and groups. And, you know, it's a very complex situation. Like, yeah, I do think his instinct would want to be like JD, like JD wanting to leave after, you know. He's got his scalp, you know, demonstrate U.S. strong, and now we're out. But, like, as we've been talking about this whole 50 minutes, like, events can get out of control. Things can get out of hand. And, you know, Trump is also, you know, driven by kind of like a... the masculine, you know, small dick. Like, I need to respond. I need to push back. If they hit us, I need to hit you harder kind of element. So, right? Like, you know, he might want to get out in three weeks, but we have four Americans dead. Don't want to minimize that. But what if Iran has a much more successful attack than that? Like, what if there's an attack where dozens die? There's a terrorist attack somewhere. This is, you know, like the oldest story in the book, world history of, you know, been getting into pissing matches where it's just escalation, escalation, escalation. So I think that's also...

possible. Just back to the political part of the JD thing. It's not as easy as like, oh, there's this maga crack up where there's this isolationist wing and there's this, you know, more interventionist wing. It's more complicated than that, right? Because like the Republican electorate, I think instinctively is more America first, right? Like in a pure vote, like, you know, outside of context of everything else. Would you want America to be entangled in forward wars or not? It would be like 70, 30 on the isolationist side, I think. But there remains a strong. pro-military interventionist wing in the party. Those people still exist. There's not a majority anymore. So that's like a quarter, a third of the party, let's say. They'll be on board for Trump. Then you have another third, basically, that's like in a cult. And so whatever Trump says, they'll be four, basically. So that takes you up to about 60% of the party. And right now, if you look at polls, I met, episode's poll I met, I read it. There was like 13% that was against. The big risk for Trump is where you get into Bush territory where like 40% of the party is like, no, this is crazy. And that will be event dependent, et cetera. But I think you can see the seeds of that. in the MAGA right-wing media, Fox will be cheerleading for this. Fox's going to be more excited. But the more alternative media side, you know, from the Nick Flintes, racist young right, all the way towards the comedians who have been for him, towards even like the Megyn Kelly's the world, I think that there's a Tucker Carlson. There's going to be a lot of ranging from skepticism to hostility, depending on how things go. Develop a point you made earlier in this context. It's very, very important, which is this, war is a dynamic, and things can spiral and so forth. which is where the downside for Trump here is greater, I would say, than the downside, even on maybe the economy or Epstein or all the obvious ways in which we've talked about. Trump has lost popularity and could continue to drift down from 40 to 38 to 36, a little bit of a recession, a little, he's mentioned more prominently in the Epstein files, a million different things like that, obviously, more ice outrageous. But those really probably are incremental, as they have been, they can add up. This is the one thing that could. really catastrophically capsizes, right? If things go badly, we went through this with Bush. I mean, your ratings don't go down. What are two points if you get casualties at a failed war and a war spilling out further and further commitments then, as we did in Iraq, to try to save the situation after we've screwed it up. And suddenly, you know, you're in just a whole different political universe. So I think you're right. I think this is the one issue where Trump could go from 14% defections to 40% defections in. six months among his voters for sure and i like this getting into a prolonged entanglement here where there are a lot of deaths and economic collapse like are basically the two things that could that could cause that i think basically

The cultists will be the bulwark keeping Trump from 40% negative among his voters in any other scenario. You know, who knows, alien attack or something? Who the hell knows what could happen? But yeah, no, the risks are great. Anything fine on that? I want to get to the Texas primary tomorrow. The only thing I said is that a full effect the long hoped for, hey, will Republicans and Congress ever de facto? Will candidates ever defect? This is the one thing that really could lead to it, I think. Yeah. All right, so there is election tomorrow in Texas. We're going to Texas, March 18th and 19th. Dallas sold out. We still got tickets in Austin. Come hang out with those March 19th. Theborg.com slash events. There are two Senate primaries, Senate primary on both sides. Cornans, incumbent, Republican, Ken Paxton, the corrupt, just disgusting on a personal level. All of the. vices of MAGA encapsulated into a single man, into a single vessel. That's Ken Paxton, Bernie General. He's primary in John Cornyn. Another MAGie Guy, Wesley Hunt, got in hoping to, like, offer, like, more of a clean-cut MAGA alternative to John Cornyn. That hasn't worked out. He's in the teens and the polls. It seems like it's going to be Ken Paxton or John Cornyn. On the Republican side, the Democratic side, we have Jasmine Crockett versus James Talarico. I've talked about this race adenosium. I do not. particularly think this primary has served the democratic interest that well in winning the seat, which I do think is winnable if Ken Paxton wins. The new interesting poll came out over the weekend that has Tel RICO. barely beating Jasmine Crockett. And it's really a coin flip. Jasmine Crockett's winning with non-collegeal voters, older voters, black voters, and it's led to a lesser degree with women. Tellerica is winning with younger, college-educated voter to a lesser degree with men. Slight edge to James Talarico's Latino voters. That might be the battleground. Any thoughts on either side of the Texas Senate race tomorrow? I mean, I assume Pakistan, assuming Hunt doesn't surge unexpectedly goes to a runoff. It will take enough votes, presumably if it's close. presumably more of those hunt voters are Ken Paxton inclined, I should think. So you've got a slightly favored Ken Paxton for the actual nomination. Do you think, yeah, for sure? I have a friend that's still in Republican politics that still, you know, that is suffering through the hopeless. Really? That's a little suspicious. Yeah, I know. I asked about that race, and they felt very strongly that Ken Paxton was in pole position there without a Trump, unless Trump comes in and saves corner. Yeah. which he didn't do this weekend. He went to Texas this weekend. Some people were thinking to endorse it. If it goes to a runoff, I guess that would extend the timeline for Trump to. But then he won't do it if he thinks he's going to lose. Cornish will lose. And I am I totally unformed gut instinct? I mean, if I were there, I'd vote for James Talarico. But I think Rocket beats him. I just feel like the momentum seems greater on her side. But I could be totally wrong. It could be very close, much less likely to be a runoff. Yeah. Look. James Talarico is at least presenting a case to Trump voters. I'm not sure if it's a winning case, but at least he has a theory of the case. And to me, that's what separates him from Jasmine Crockett. Jasmine Crockett has no message for Trump voters. Jasmine Crockett's message is that she will energize non-voters to vote. And like that just, that might work in Georgia. I think that'd be an interesting race, an interesting political science case in Georgia. That is, there aren't enough non-voting Democrats to win a Texas Senate race. Maybe.

If the economy tanks and gets in the Iran war, sure, like accidents happen all the time. People accidentally win races when there's wave elections, so that could happen for Jasmine Crockett, but she hasn't presented one. That's where I fall on the Tel Rico side of this, but this primary has hurt Tauri. He's going to need turnout with black voters. I think that'll be, you know, I think that'll be add to the challenge for him in the general now because of the nature of how this race is gone where it's gotten really personal, particularly on the Jasmine Crockett side aiming at James Talarico in a way that I don't think was very helpful. Just a little subplot. On the Texas races tomorrow. Dan Crenshaw, not a friend of the pod. Yeah, your friend. And Tony Gonzalez, the congressman who has six kids in a marriage, had an affair with his staffer, the staffer. set herself on fire, killed herself. Tony Gonzalez got congratulated by Trump at the rally this weekend. I'm clear what the congratulations was for. But both of them are in primaries. And I don't know that it serves the pro-democracy mission at all for either of them to lose their primaries. But we would enjoy it. It's nice to enjoy the pain of people that deserve it. And Dan Crenshaw has been like the most, the biggest condescending prick and like the biggest disappointment possible of all of the quote unquote normie Republicans. And I don't know. If you happen to be living in Dan Crenshaw's district. And don't have a horse in the James Talarico Jasmine Crockett race. Consider pulling that Republican ballot tomorrow and voting against him. Just a thought. One idea. But I don't know if you had anything there. I like the idea of Tim Miller doing in Dan Crenshaw, he's but such a pain. But, you know, Gansel is not to get too high and mighty and moralistic. I mean, he bullied this staffer, it seems like, right, into this affair in a really horrible way. And sadly, she committed suicide, it seems. He shows up Friday at this Trump rally. It was Friday in Texas? Yeah. And they're all there, John Cornyn and these guys. Trump explicitly welcomes him right from the stage. Yeah, congratulations. The others are all fine with being with him. I mean, it's nauseating, really. I mean, this guy, he's fine. He's fine. The Republican Party's fine with him. Speaker Johnson's fine with him. John Cornyn, the establishment Republican, who's a... in my dealings with him in the past, in the before times is a nice guy and a decent guy. He's fine with just being up there. I don't know if he's literally on stage with Gonzalez, but being in the group, let's say, with Gonzalez. None of them has said a word. As a single Texas Republican that we know of said a word that, you know, this guy should resign. It's a disgrace that he's, I hope he, I mean, it really would be good for the country if he lost, honestly. Yeah. No, nobody said any of that. I mean, in part because the Republican House majority is so narrow now that if Gonzalez resigns, like Thomas Massie, as like a controlling vote on a lot of stuff. So that's the reason. And also just that they, it was just depraved. And the Trump era has removed, you know, any sort of.

moral red line from consideration if you're in republican politics like there's literally nothing that you can do to cross the line now in republican politics pretty pretty dark stuff bill crystal thank you um another monday in the books we'll see you next week hopefully who knows who knows what's happening in this world tomorrow i think we'll have a double header we get a good one for you tomorrow so everybody we'll see you back here then The board push. Well, I'm a truth at it. Oh, shit, I got a head rush. The board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and editing. The board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Crow.