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Yes Retreat, Baby, Yes Surrender · Politix

0:00
My smelling a rat here has less to do with what is the right
0:03
amount of time before
0:05
index funds have to buy shares of newly traded stocks than why
0:11
did they change the
0:12
SPEAKER_00: rules for this man on the basis of these cockamamie promises?
0:20
SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, you're listening to a free preview of the Politics Podcast.
0:24
Donald Trump will either surrender to the Iranians on Friday in
0:27
Switzerland or
0:28
SPEAKER_00: scuttle the deal in the face of overwhelming opprobrium and humiliation.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Who can say?
0:34
So we'll discuss the deal to cut a deal that Trump is banking
0:37
on to get him out of
0:38
SPEAKER_00: his own mess and what that means for global politics going forward.
0:43
Then Elon Musk figured out a way to become a trillionaire by
0:46
forcing millions of
0:47
SPEAKER_00: people with regular retirement accounts to fork over our money.
0:51
We'll talk about the SpaceX IPO and exactly how mad you should
0:53
be about it.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: If you want to hear the whole conversation,
0:55
SPEAKER_00: you can upgrade your subscription to paid at politics.fm.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Politics Podcast.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm Brian Boyler.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Matthew Glacius How are you doing?
1:24
Are you still recovering from this weekend's two great American
1:28
sporting events?
1:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm on cloud nine, Nick's victory.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: I've been waiting for this my whole life.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: It was also a thrill to finally see motocross come
1:40
SPEAKER_01: to the White House lawn.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Oh,
1:42
SPEAKER_00: I guess it's three American,
1:43
SPEAKER_00: because there was NBA Finals,
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Motocross,
1:45
SPEAKER_00: and the cage fighting tournament,
1:48
SPEAKER_00: or whatever it was.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, love the UFC.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: No,
1:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:51
SPEAKER_01: I've focused,
1:52
SPEAKER_01: like a patriotic American,
1:53
SPEAKER_01: on professional basketball and international soccer these days.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: A lot of good stuff happening.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: You know,
2:01
SPEAKER_01: no,
2:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
2:02
SPEAKER_01: it's like,
2:03
it's incredible vibes when a team that you've voted for a long
2:07
time finally wins,
2:08
SPEAKER_01: you know?
2:09
SPEAKER_01: It's really nice.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't care anymore about the destruction of the country.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: Are you,
2:14
SPEAKER_00: we're going to get to Iran in a minute,
2:18
but are you one of those liberals of the mindset that even
2:22
though we all know that
2:24
SPEAKER_00: the UFC event at the White House was trashy and corrupt and blah,
2:28
SPEAKER_00: blah,
2:29
SPEAKER_00: blah,
2:30
that it doesn't make sense to criticize it on those terms
2:33
because we might offend
2:35
SPEAKER_00: the heartland Americans who just love UFC?
2:39
SPEAKER_00: Or are you more of the mindset that just attacking- No,
2:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
2:42
SPEAKER_01: the genius of,
2:46
SPEAKER_01: you know,
2:46
a big difference between Trump's first term and his second term
2:49
is that people have
2:50
SPEAKER_01: like a generally down view of the economy.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: So now anytime Trump does anything that like people are mad about,
2:59
SPEAKER_01: you can always just be like,
3:00
SPEAKER_01: Trump should be addressing people's economic problems,
3:03
SPEAKER_01: not staging a bullshit UFC match on the White House lawn.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: And like,
3:08
SPEAKER_01: it's not like,
3:09
SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
3:10
SPEAKER_01: you're not going to like flip Alabama with that line,
3:13
SPEAKER_01: but it's like a totally reasonable thing to say about anything wrong.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: that he's doing, you know?
3:19
SPEAKER_00: But I'm speaking more of like the president,
3:22
SPEAKER_00: whether he is elected by a downscale majority or an upscale majority,
3:28
SPEAKER_00: whatever,
3:29
is supposed to be a serious person taking the country's
3:35
interests seriously.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: And like,
3:39
SPEAKER_00: that doesn't mean that they never do anything touching sports,
3:44
SPEAKER_00: but it should mean that they don't
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Turned the White House into an arena.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
3:50
SPEAKER_00: And that that is like gauche and unbecoming.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: And so now you're aesthetically in this sort of elitist mode.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: But to me, it's like, A, just attacking Trump a lot is good, period.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: And B,
4:06
I kind of think that like the president should be a serious
4:10
person is something
4:13
SPEAKER_00: that even most...
4:15
SPEAKER_00: UFC loving Republican voters.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I have like very mixed feelings about this, right?
4:20
Like obviously like Mom Donnie has like really like associated
4:25
himself with this
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Knicks playoff run.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: You know,
4:32
and also like James Dolan who owns the Knicks is like a
4:36
conservative Republican and
4:37
SPEAKER_01: a close personal friend of Donald Trump.
4:39
Now,
4:40
if you imagine a circumstance in which the owner of the Knicks
4:43
was like a...
4:46
a wealthy Pakistani businessman who had been a longtime critic
4:50
of the U.S.-Israel
4:51
SPEAKER_01: alliance and who loved – they would have an even closer relationship.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: So just to say,
4:58
I don't have a problem with Democrats criticizing the tackiness
5:02
of this UFC thing,
5:03
SPEAKER_01: whatever,
5:04
SPEAKER_01: whatever,
5:04
SPEAKER_01: whatever.
5:04
SPEAKER_01: I just – I also do think that we should all as –
5:07
rational people understand that it's like a little hard to be
5:11
totally objective
5:12
about this Dana White who owns the Ultimate Fighting promotion
5:17
is like a big Trump
5:20
guy you know himself and also like there are a lot of UFC fans
5:25
in America so Trump
5:27
is choosing to leverage the head of UFC's Trump fandom into
5:33
trying to get UFC fans
5:35
SPEAKER_01: to like Donald Trump and
5:37
SPEAKER_01: You know,
5:38
when Biden was unpopular and Trump was the opposition candidate
5:43
and he was running
5:44
SPEAKER_01: as the guy who's going to fix your economic grievances,
5:47
SPEAKER_01: this like Trump at the UFC fight,
5:50
SPEAKER_01: you know,
5:50
SPEAKER_01: it wasn't like a political masterstroke,
5:52
SPEAKER_01: but it clearly worked for him with some viewers.
5:55
And these are just the kind of things that fall flat when,
5:58
you know,
5:58
you're already unpopular.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: And now it's like,
6:01
There's a certain swath of UFC fans who are going to be mad at
6:06
Trump and they're
6:07
SPEAKER_01: like,
6:08
SPEAKER_01: why are you dragging this sport that I like into partisanship?
6:12
SPEAKER_01: And you know, most people are not UFC fans, also not Donald Trump fans.
6:16
There was this kind of lame Patrick Ruffini effort to like
6:20
re-get the high of
6:22
SPEAKER_01: November 2024 and be like,
6:24
SPEAKER_01: Republicans are cool now.
6:26
SPEAKER_01: But it's like, you're cool when you're winning elections.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: You're not cool when you have a 38% approval rating and you're
6:31
Losing Wars like I don't know yeah I you know I am actually
6:37
like I do enjoy a UFC
6:39
fight I like watching UFC fights at bars and I found out this
6:44
weekend that so does
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SPEAKER_00: so does my wife
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which somehow I didn't know and I had like floated the idea
6:50
that you know we're not
6:51
going to go get a Paramount Plus subscription to line David
6:55
Ellison's pockets to
6:57
watch this but I was kind of curious both because maybe the
7:01
fights would be good
7:02
but also like the weather was pretty inclement in DC on Sunday
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and I thought there
7:08
SPEAKER_00: was a good chance that they were going to have to suspend
7:12
SPEAKER_00: the festivities.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: And I kind of wanted to be watching, you know, to see how that would go.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: So I mentioned this,
7:19
SPEAKER_00: I was like,
7:19
SPEAKER_00: should we go,
7:20
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:20
SPEAKER_00: up to the neighborhood tavern to see if they're playing it?
7:24
SPEAKER_00: And she was like,
7:25
SPEAKER_00: no,
7:25
SPEAKER_00: because like,
7:25
then I'm just going to get sucked into watching it because I
7:28
really like UFC
7:29
SPEAKER_00: fighting.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, you do?
7:33
SPEAKER_01: See, Trump is strengthening America's marriages by delivering...
7:39
so I guess I just I mean you guys have known each other for a
7:41
long time I think
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it's a little weird I know I know I know I mean like it was not
7:47
like I had any
7:48
assumptions that she hated it or anything but it's just like it
7:51
has never come up
7:52
that maybe we should attend a UFC event or or make plans around
7:56
a UFC event to go
7:57
watch a fight somewhere or whatever so I just assumed this is
8:02
something that like
8:03
when I'm scrolling on my phone and I see some UFC content I
8:06
stop to watch um
8:08
but uh anyway yeah uh totally new horizons like the the second
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decade of our
8:13
marriage might end up being all about UFC yeah that's uh you
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know my wife um is a
8:20
uh a notorious San Antonio Spurs fan so oh she must be crushed
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I finally I finally
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SPEAKER_01: got over on her uh game game game game five was on her birthday um
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um it's oh it's over so she shares a birthday with Donald Trump
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who yes raced to I
8:39
didn't realize this and he raced to surrender the Iran war
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here's our pivot so that
8:43
he could announce uh a ceasefire a permanent ceasefire I don't
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know what he called
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it um on his birthday ahead of the big White House law and UFC
8:55
debacle um and uh
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SPEAKER_00: and so now um
9:01
SPEAKER_01: They have a memorandum of understanding.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: That has not been signed.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: That nobody has seen the text of.
9:08
Because it's so good that Trump doesn't want anyone to see it
9:13
until after it's been
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SPEAKER_00: signed on Friday.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: But we...
9:19
SPEAKER_00: We do have some ideas.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: So he's obviously describing it as the greatest deal ever,
9:23
SPEAKER_00: the way he does everything,
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SPEAKER_00: way better than the one Barack Obama and the Democrats signed.
9:29
But the people in his coalition who actually care about this
9:36
issue and have wanted
9:37
to topple the Iranian regime for decades are not seeming to go
9:41
along with it.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: At least he hasn't gotten them back on side yet.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: And they're unhappy because,
9:49
SPEAKER_00: A,
9:49
SPEAKER_00: it punts the major substantive issues to after the memorandum is signed.
9:55
But the terms of the memorandum basically allow Iran to take
10:01
effective control of
10:02
SPEAKER_00: the Strait of Hormuz.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: It says, I think, that they will not charge tolls, but...
10:07
But they can charge fees or like convenience charges or like
10:12
gratuities,
10:13
whatever.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Like,
10:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
10:14
they're playing the same games that Republicans play when they
10:16
need to raise taxes.
10:18
And so they just like raise park fees and pretend that there's
10:20
a major difference
10:21
SPEAKER_00: between a fee and a tax.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: And then if the deal is consummated,
10:25
SPEAKER_00: Iran gets $300 billion from,
10:31
SPEAKER_00: you know,
10:32
SPEAKER_00: neighboring states essentially,
10:33
SPEAKER_00: but,
10:33
SPEAKER_00: you know,
10:34
SPEAKER_00: through us.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: to rebuild in exchange for getting back to something like the JCPOA,
10:42
where there are inspections to make sure they're not rebuilding
10:45
their nuclear
10:47
SPEAKER_00: program.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: But Trump cut bait in this war without any upfront nuclear concessions,
10:54
SPEAKER_00: which was like,
10:56
SPEAKER_00: first the idea was regime change,
10:58
SPEAKER_00: then it was complete and total surrender,
11:00
SPEAKER_00: then it was get rid of the nuclear or
11:04
whatever the nuclear dust I think is what he likes to call it
11:07
uh and now it's just
11:09
I'm out you're reopening the strait and we'll deal with
11:12
everything else later um
11:14
and I mean it's uh it's a it's like a total defeat for the
11:19
United States and a
11:20
total victory for Iran and it makes me wonder you know when we
11:24
when we when this
11:26
SPEAKER_00: news broke over the weekend I was like this is what we're gonna have to
11:30
Talk about on the podcast and we're going to have to talk about
11:33
it as the end of the Iran war.
11:34
But because of this lag before the thing is signed and because
11:40
of the intense
11:41
SPEAKER_00: opposition from Iran hawks in the U.S.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: and seemingly from Israel,
11:45
SPEAKER_00: like I'm not certain we get to Friday and the deal is still intact.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: So I obviously cannot verify that
11:58
SPEAKER_01: Josh Bloch,
11:59
SPEAKER_01: who used to be like an APAC comms guy in D.C.,
12:04
SPEAKER_01: and now he's a fellow at the Hudson Institute.
12:07
He's published on Twitter what he represents to be the text of
12:11
the Memorandum of Understanding.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: Oh, did he?
12:14
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: And he describes it as,
12:17
SPEAKER_01: if this is remotely accurate,
12:19
SPEAKER_01: it is the worst text of any ever conceived in diplomacy.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: I think that that is an overstatement.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: But I think that- Wait,
12:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that it- I mean,
12:31
SPEAKER_00: look,
12:31
SPEAKER_00: like he and I will disagree about what that means,
12:34
SPEAKER_00: right?
12:35
But- Well,
12:37
no,
12:37
no,
12:37
but I think- Like a total,
12:38
total defeat for the United States,
12:40
right?
12:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that, you know-
12:48
Listen to the AIPAC guy is not like the message that most
12:52
progressives are in the
12:54
SPEAKER_01: mood for exactly these days.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: But it is,
12:56
SPEAKER_01: I think,
12:57
SPEAKER_01: important,
12:57
SPEAKER_01: not just in cynical politics,
12:59
SPEAKER_01: but in substantive terms,
13:00
SPEAKER_01: to understand why it is that bloc is so hostile to this agreement.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: And I think,
13:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
13:10
SPEAKER_01: he didn't really explain himself,
13:11
SPEAKER_01: but based on remembering what he was saying about Iran 10,
13:16
SPEAKER_01: 15 years ago when we were talking about this,
13:19
The key thing is that the United States is committing in this
13:23
text to ending all
13:26
SPEAKER_01: types of sanctions currently facing the Islamic Republic of Iran,
13:30
including resolutions of the United Nations Security Council
13:32
and the Board of
13:33
SPEAKER_01: Governors of the IAEA,
13:35
SPEAKER_01: and all unilateral U.S.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: sanctions,
13:38
SPEAKER_01: both primary and secondary.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: Now, what I think the Trump administration would say is that, you know—
13:46
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to do that on Friday.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: We're committed to doing it as part of the final agreement.
13:53
And the final agreement is also going to include Iran disposing
13:57
of its highly enriched uranium.
13:59
SPEAKER_01: So this all may not happen.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: Netanyahu may throw it under the bus, et cetera, et cetera.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: But if the final status agreement that is envisioned in this MOU is
14:12
SPEAKER_01: is contemplated, right?
14:14
SPEAKER_01: Iran will go back to the nuclear structures that it was under,
14:18
SPEAKER_01: under the JCPOA,
14:20
SPEAKER_01: but it will receive more sanctions relief than Obama gave them.
14:26
And the concern that Israel always had with the JCPOA is that,
14:35
how do I want to put this?
14:39
SPEAKER_01: The point of JCPOA is that it was a good deal for Iran.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: Like that's why they signed it, right?
14:46
And so it gave the United States of America a lot of specific
14:50
assurances around
14:52
SPEAKER_01: nuclear weapons development.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: But in exchange, Iran was getting like meaningful economic benefit.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Not just this like pallets of cash thing,
15:00
SPEAKER_01: which is bullshit,
15:01
SPEAKER_01: but like sanctions relief,
15:02
SPEAKER_01: which was real.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: And Iran could use sanctions relief to grow its economy,
15:08
SPEAKER_01: to put more money into its conventional military,
15:11
SPEAKER_01: and to give financial assistance to Hezbollah,
15:14
SPEAKER_01: Houthis,
15:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
15:15
SPEAKER_01: other sort of regional actors around the world.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: So that was Obama saying, my priority is addressing the nuclear issue.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: And Israel was sitting there saying,
15:26
SPEAKER_01: well,
15:27
SPEAKER_01: that's like good for you,
15:28
SPEAKER_01: but like we have like 17 other things we would like to see addressed.
15:32
And all of those things are going to get worse if Iran gets
15:36
sanctions relief.
15:39
Trump is now talking about making the exact same decision to
15:43
strictly prioritize
15:44
SPEAKER_01: the nuclear issue over other regional things,
15:47
SPEAKER_01: but to go beyond what Obama did in terms of sanctions relief.
15:51
As well as leaving Iran with some capacity to get user fees out
15:57
of the Strait of Hormuz.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's worse than that.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: I think it's worse than that.
16:02
It's the JCPOA,
16:05
so all the same reasons Israel would oppose it in the past.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: But it's not just that they get extra fees from the Strait of Hormuz.
16:14
They get essentially sign off to shut down the Strait of Hormuz
16:17
whenever they're
16:18
SPEAKER_00: displeased by what's happening in the region or around the world,
16:21
SPEAKER_00: right?
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Well,
16:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
16:23
SPEAKER_00: that's just sort of how,
16:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
16:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that,
16:24
SPEAKER_01: but just in concrete terms,
16:26
SPEAKER_01: right?
16:27
SPEAKER_01: I think it's important for Democrats,
16:29
SPEAKER_01: including Democrats who may not care about this substantively,
16:35
SPEAKER_01: just to understand that if this text is accurate,
16:39
SPEAKER_01: it is going to just make it way easier
16:43
SPEAKER_01: for Iran to help Hezbollah rebuild, for example.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: These were the sort of concerns that the Israeli government had
16:53
SPEAKER_01: about the whole concept of JCPOA,
16:56
SPEAKER_01: not like the details of the text,
16:58
but just conceptually this kind of strict prioritization of the
17:01
nuclear issue.
17:02
And Trump appears to have had to make significant additional
17:07
economic concessions
17:09
SPEAKER_01: just to get back to what Obama was achieving on the nuclear front.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm sure that...
17:17
SPEAKER_01: Trump will have,
17:17
SPEAKER_01: in exchange,
17:18
SPEAKER_01: won some superficial additional concessions on the nuclear issues.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: He got it on his birthday.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: I think that was the big concession.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: In terms of the phase-outs and things like that.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: But also,
17:29
SPEAKER_01: when Obama was negotiating these nuclear protocols,
17:33
SPEAKER_01: he had Ernest Moniz,
17:35
SPEAKER_01: a nuclear physicist,
17:38
SPEAKER_01: negotiating the technical details.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: Trump has Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, two real estate guys,
17:47
SPEAKER_01: Spearheading the technical detail negotiations.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: There are no technical details in this MOU.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: The MOU is just referring to hypothetical future technical details.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: But there's a real risk that when you get into the weeds on this,
18:02
we're going to get robbed blind by having people in charge who
18:06
don't know what
18:06
SPEAKER_01: they're talking about.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean...
18:08
SPEAKER_01: And I mean this is no knock on Steve Wyckoff,
18:12
but like I couldn't negotiate the technical aspects of a
18:15
nuclear arms control deal
18:17
SPEAKER_00: because I don't know anything about it.
18:20
They pretend to think JCPOA was some bullshit deal that Obama
18:25
got suckered into,
18:25
but like the terms that Ernest Moniz negotiated are still in
18:31
the text of the JCPOA
18:34
SPEAKER_00: and like
18:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, Ruben Gallego will call this TMU JCPOA.
18:38
Like,
18:39
they can just basically be like,
18:41
look,
18:41
we don't know what we're talking about.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: Can we just go back to those terms but say,
18:45
SPEAKER_00: like,
18:45
SPEAKER_00: it's a 20-year plan as opposed to a 15-year plan or whatever?
18:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean...
18:49
SPEAKER_01: No,
18:50
I mean they actually can't because the problem with Trump 1's
18:56
Iran policy is that
18:58
SPEAKER_01: Iran created all of this additional highly enriched uranium.
19:02
Like the whole JCPOA was about verifiably preventing Iran from
19:09
enriching uranium.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: But they've already done that now.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: So even if you get a deal that's like identical to,
19:17
SPEAKER_01: like in no way,
19:18
SPEAKER_01: Temu,
19:19
SPEAKER_01: the same old provisions,
19:22
it doesn't accomplish the same thing because they have all this
19:27
HEU now that Trump
19:29
SPEAKER_01: bombed.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: So it's like buried under a bunch of rubble,
19:33
SPEAKER_01: but it's just sitting there and they already have access to it.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: So
19:38
SPEAKER_01: I think this is like worse than that.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Like nuclear physics has not changed in the last 15 years.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
19:47
And so there may be some logistical question about how you
19:49
verify that the HEU that
19:51
SPEAKER_00: is buried needs to be removed.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: But as far as just like,
19:54
how can the United States and the global community be satisfied
20:00
that IAE inspectors
20:02
SPEAKER_00: are
20:04
like giving us correct information when they say Iran is in
20:07
compliance with the deal.
20:08
I think that you can mostly just cut and paste from JCPOA and
20:14
you know Trump will
20:15
pretend that's not what he's doing but like that's the dumb
20:18
game they always play.
20:20
For me I think that the situation is so much worse for Israel
20:26
that I don't think
20:27
that they can abide it and I think that there's a good chance
20:30
that between now and
20:31
SPEAKER_00: Friday Netanyahu
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Because the stakes are so great for him personally in some sense too.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: This might be the end of his premiership and he might go to prison.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: He has a lot on the line.
20:47
And if he wants to tank it,
20:50
he will be tempted to say this is much worse than the JCPOA.
20:54
Because what Trump really cares about is the perception among
20:58
his most naive
21:00
SPEAKER_00: supporters that he...
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Did this and the payoff is a deal that's better than Obama's, right?
21:07
SPEAKER_00: And if Netanyahu says that,
21:09
I think it either sinks the deal or sinks the U.S.-Israel
21:13
relationship or maybe
21:14
SPEAKER_00: both.
21:16
But it's something Netanyahu has to do both because of his
21:21
personal exposure and
21:24
SPEAKER_00: then also because...
21:29
A new status quo where Iran can cause massive global economic
21:35
disruption whenever
21:36
Israel takes any action that Iran disapproves of is going to be
21:43
intolerable to,
21:44
SPEAKER_00: I think,
21:44
SPEAKER_00: any Israeli leader.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: In a way, I think...
21:49
This whole deal changes the way geopolitics works so that it's
21:54
like driven less by
21:55
shared interests and more by just a balance between raw force
22:00
and moral authority,
22:02
SPEAKER_00: right?
22:03
Like what happened is that we with Israel attacked Iran in a
22:07
way that nobody
22:08
SPEAKER_00: outside of Israel or the US could justify.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: And so Iran closed the strait in retaliation.
22:14
And that left us with no good options because escalating would
22:19
have just deepened
22:20
SPEAKER_00: us into pariah status.
22:21
We would have been going from a moral atrocity to an even
22:24
greater moral atrocity,
22:25
SPEAKER_00: and the world would have abandoned us.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: You could imagine this the other way around,
22:29
SPEAKER_00: like if Iran had teamed up more openly with Hamas on October 7th,
22:34
SPEAKER_00: and so Hamas invades Israel while Iran closes the strait and says,
22:38
SPEAKER_00: we're basically taking Israel hostage.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: We get our way with Israel until...
22:44
SPEAKER_00: or else the strait never reopens.
22:46
I think what would have happened there if they had tried to
22:49
blackmail the world is
22:51
that a large coalition of strong allied democracies would have
22:55
done a regime change
22:56
SPEAKER_00: in Iran.
22:56
And they would have had a good combination of military force
23:01
and moral authority to do so.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: But I think that that's basically how everything's going to go now.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: The calculation for everybody...
23:09
SPEAKER_00: trying to pull a fast one in geopolitics is like,
23:13
is this going to be so atrocious that the world is going to
23:16
unite to stop us?
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Or is it going to be ambiguous enough that we'll get away with it?
23:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think that what Iran is going to bank on is that U.S.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: is going to leave,
23:35
SPEAKER_00: not going to want to come back,
23:37
SPEAKER_00: And then if Israel and Lebanon get into some kind of whatever,
23:43
SPEAKER_00: and Israel is the stronger power in that war,
23:49
SPEAKER_00: that Iran won't have to get involved militarily.
23:53
It can just say,
23:54
we're closing the strait until Israel's allies get it under
23:57
control.
23:59
And how can Israel,
24:01
like,
24:02
I mean,
24:02
set aside how Israel conducts itself in the world,
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Which,
24:06
SPEAKER_00: like,
24:06
SPEAKER_00: we can discuss,
24:07
SPEAKER_00: like,
24:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't think any country could tolerate that kind of,
24:11
SPEAKER_00: like,
24:11
SPEAKER_00: being on a leash to an enemy power.
24:15
So,
24:15
like,
24:16
they're going to have to try to blow up this deal before
24:19
Friday.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean...
24:21
SPEAKER_00: I think.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: Maybe.
24:24
The thing about this deal is that,
24:27
you know,
24:27
it really is like a deal,
24:30
a deal to do a deal.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: Right, like it doesn't, and you get sort of different things.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: You know,
24:36
SPEAKER_01: so World War I,
24:38
SPEAKER_01: right,
24:38
SPEAKER_01: ends with an armistice that,
24:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
24:43
is commemorated as Veterans Day in the United States and
24:47
Armistice Day in Europe.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: And the actual terms of that armistice are pretty neutral.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just like everybody stops fighting.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: At that time, Germany is completely unconquered by the Allies.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: There's still German soldiers on French and Belgian territory,
25:05
SPEAKER_01: and we're just kind of freezing in place.
25:08
SPEAKER_01: But the armistice allowed the Allies to continue blockading Germany.
25:16
SPEAKER_01: So in effect,
25:17
SPEAKER_01: even though nothing was conceded in the armistice,
25:22
SPEAKER_01: it meant that Germany had to crumble in the peace negotiations.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: You know,
25:29
SPEAKER_01: because they gave up sort of the leverage,
25:32
SPEAKER_01: the actual war itself,
25:34
SPEAKER_01: because they were running out of ammo,
25:35
SPEAKER_01: they were running out of people,
25:36
SPEAKER_01: they were having mutinies,
25:38
SPEAKER_01: their military was collapsing,
25:40
and they agreed to stop fighting on terms that gave them no
25:42
leverage in the final
25:43
SPEAKER_01: settlement.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: This MOU is way more ambiguous than that in terms of what's going on,
25:50
although it appears that the United States is immediately
25:53
unblockading Iran and
25:56
SPEAKER_01: that their ships are now going through.
25:59
Iran is not going to,
26:00
I guess,
26:01
shoot at anybody who's going through the strait.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: So that sort of resolves Trump's short-term political pain, right?
26:07
SPEAKER_01: Like global oil prices are going down.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: The pressure is off Iran, which is now not being bombed anymore.
26:14
and they now have like 17 million things that sort of need to
26:18
be negotiated.
26:20
SPEAKER_01: And the question is like,
26:21
SPEAKER_01: will either side like actually push hard on any of these things,
26:26
SPEAKER_01: right?
26:26
SPEAKER_01: Like if Israel just blows
26:29
The United States Off Completely And Keeps Going Full Steam
26:33
Ahead In Lebanon With
26:34
The Trump Administration Doing Nothing To Restrain Them Will
26:37
Iran Do Anything
26:38
Retaliatory About That Will They Just Say Like We're Glad To
26:42
Have Our Money And Do
26:43
Have Basically Won This War And We're Just Hopping Along We
26:47
Don't Know Right Iran
26:48
Has This Whole New Leadership Team That Nobody Knows Anything
26:50
About Conversely I
26:52
SPEAKER_00: Was Following A Guy Is Iran Or I'm Sorry Israel Could Decide
26:58
SPEAKER_00: We're just going to finish the war with Iran.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that would be a very- Right.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: They could keep bombing Iran, which would be much more provocative.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, go on with your thought.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to throw that- Yeah.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: There's this guy,
27:13
SPEAKER_01: Max Meiselich,
27:14
SPEAKER_01: who's at Foundation for Defensive Democracies,
27:16
SPEAKER_01: which is another,
27:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
27:17
SPEAKER_01: Israel Hawk organization.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: He did sanctions enforcement in Trump One for Treasury OFAC.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, what he keeps saying about this deal is that it's
27:30
There's all this stuff that the United States is not going to
27:33
literally do as
27:35
SPEAKER_01: favors to Iran,
27:37
but that the MOU seems to be committing us to not preventing
27:42
the other countries in
27:43
SPEAKER_01: the region from doing those things,
27:46
SPEAKER_01: right?
27:47
SPEAKER_01: So that we're going to stop doing secondary sanctions enforcement on UAE,
27:52
SPEAKER_01: Qatar,
27:53
SPEAKER_01: Oman,
27:54
SPEAKER_01: Turkey,
27:54
SPEAKER_01: et cetera.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: So de facto,
27:59
Iran is going to score these big wins while the Trump
28:02
administration is going to
28:03
SPEAKER_01: say,
28:04
SPEAKER_01: hey,
28:04
SPEAKER_01: we're not doing any of that,
28:06
SPEAKER_01: right?
28:06
SPEAKER_01: That it's like a complete abandonment of the maximum pressure strategy.
28:12
That's how Meiselich is characterizing it,
28:14
which obviously,
28:15
if you look at what J.D.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: Vance is saying on Fox News,
28:19
SPEAKER_01: Vance isn't saying that,
28:20
but the people who follow this closely from the hawkish side
28:25
are saying that that's
28:25
SPEAKER_01: what it amounts to.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: Now,
28:28
SPEAKER_01: It could go the other way.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: You know,
28:30
like the Trump administration will still have the authority
28:33
three months from now
28:34
to completely U-turn on this and like start doing new secondary
28:38
sanctions.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: But then we may get new straight closures, right?
28:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it seems like Trump has...
28:45
feels accurately that he was snowed into a course of action
28:51
that he believed would
28:51
have very low political cost for him and low economic cost for
28:55
the United States,
28:56
SPEAKER_01: and that proved to not be the case.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: And while he has,
28:59
SPEAKER_01: like,
29:00
SPEAKER_01: a pro-Israel take,
29:02
he does not actually want to bear any price for the sake of
29:06
these policies.
29:08
And,
29:08
you know,
29:09
Israel is going to get not coerced the way leftists want them
29:13
to be,
29:14
but
29:15
Left to their own devices because Trump is not going to give a
29:20
speech to the Oval
29:21
SPEAKER_01: Office where he said,
29:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
29:22
SPEAKER_01: this has been the problem with the war from day one,
29:24
SPEAKER_01: right?
29:26
SPEAKER_01: Has been that you could easily say, look, guys,
29:30
SPEAKER_01: Gasoline that costs $4.70 a gallon is like not the end of the world.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: We're accomplishing something really, really important here.
29:38
I'm sorry that you're going to have to pay slightly more,
29:41
but like it's fine.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: And Trump has never been willing to say that.
29:45
Trump has never been willing to say that the strategic
29:47
objectives of this war are
29:49
SPEAKER_01: worth Americans paying.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: paying higher energy costs in order to pursue.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: So realistically,
29:56
there's no way he's going to get tough about any of the
29:59
provisions on this laundry
30:00
list because he's acknowledging that he doesn't want to bear
30:06
any pain for this.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: So for the Hawks, it's like a complete defeat.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's important to say that.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there was this Matt Duss tweet that was like,
30:18
We've got to give no quarter to the hawks and just stomp on
30:21
their throats.
30:22
SPEAKER_01: And I'm here, I'm quoting Josh Bloch, I'm quoting Max Mazelich.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying this because I agree with their national security vision,
30:30
SPEAKER_01: but I think it's important that
30:32
SPEAKER_01: To get people to understand their perspective on this,
30:36
which is that Trump initiated this thing to accomplish goals
30:40
that they think are
30:41
SPEAKER_01: important.
30:42
And to the people who are bought in on this,
30:45
he's not accomplishing any of those goals.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: He's in fact making things worse.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: There's no...
30:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: Good for him, I guess.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: But like,
31:07
SPEAKER_01: it's actually,
31:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:09
it's telling to everyone who has ever counted on Trump to
31:13
deliver something for
31:15
SPEAKER_01: them.
31:15
That when push comes to shove,
31:17
he's completely abandoning his former allies on this.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: And then he's lying about the fact that that's what he's doing.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: So this sort of gets us nicely into this question of like,
31:29
SPEAKER_00: how should Democrats politic on America's defeat,
31:33
SPEAKER_00: thanks to Donald Trump in this war,
31:35
SPEAKER_00: that he should never have started in the first place.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: And,
31:39
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:39
SPEAKER_00: you get this very interesting,
31:44
super unique tension between various arguments for an ethic of
31:49
responsibility and
31:52
various arguments for an ethic of just punching the dude in the
31:56
face over and over
31:57
SPEAKER_00: again,
31:57
SPEAKER_00: right?
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Like
31:58
The Israel Hawks who've been trying to bully or manipulate
32:02
presidents into doing
32:03
SPEAKER_00: this for however 30 years or whatever,
32:07
SPEAKER_00: it is important that they be discredited.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: They've conducted themselves in nothing but bad faith.
32:13
They've been spoiling for a war with Iran the whole time while
32:17
denying that that
32:17
SPEAKER_00: was their intention.
32:19
They were only able to get it thanks to the second election of
32:23
Donald Trump,
32:24
the
32:25
Most Faithless President We've Ever Had And So Of Course It
32:29
Turned Into A Total
32:29
Fiasco And Like Pretending It Was Anything Else Is A Way Of
32:35
Letting Them Off The
32:35
Hook That I Feel Like Is Fairly Intolerable And Then There's
32:40
The Political Question
32:41
Like Okay So How Should Donald Trump Pay A Price For This And
32:45
It Does Making Him
32:48
Pay A Price For It Increase The Risk That For Basically Ego And
32:52
Political Reasons
32:53
SPEAKER_00: He
32:54
tears up this MOU and just resumes the war in a more aggressive
32:58
way to save face.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: And I look,
33:03
I get the argument from people like Matt and I saw Julian
33:07
Sanchez made a similar
33:08
SPEAKER_00: point on Blue Sky last night that like letting Trump
33:12
claim and then maybe even convince himself that this was
33:16
brilliant and it worked
33:18
out exactly as he wanted and whatever is maybe like a harm
33:22
reduction strategy.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: And like,
33:26
SPEAKER_00: I think for the last 10 years,
33:28
every time Trump has thought about doing or actually done
33:33
something that was stupid
33:34
SPEAKER_00: and obviously gonna end in failure,
33:37
SPEAKER_00: there's been this temptation and like a fairly compelling logic
33:42
SPEAKER_00: for, you know, like painting lipstick on the pig for him, right?
33:50
SPEAKER_00: Like just he reverses himself or he backs down and like,
33:56
SPEAKER_00: you know,
33:56
SPEAKER_00: claims some victory and you say,
33:57
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
33:57
SPEAKER_00: fine,
33:58
SPEAKER_00: whatever you need to say so that we don't do the stupid thing.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: And on a case-by-case basis,
34:03
SPEAKER_00: it's compelling,
34:04
SPEAKER_00: but in totality,
34:06
it has just insulated Trump from consequences in a way that has
34:11
basically brought
34:12
SPEAKER_00: the US to the brink of collapse.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's unfortunate that
34:16
SPEAKER_00: That now we have,
34:18
SPEAKER_00: like,
34:18
SPEAKER_00: we're pitting,
34:19
SPEAKER_00: do we want to insulate Donald Trump further against,
34:21
SPEAKER_00: do we want to risk him restarting the war?
34:24
SPEAKER_00: But he's a fucking adult human with agency,
34:27
SPEAKER_00: and if he restarts the war because he's got his ego wrapped up in it,
34:32
SPEAKER_00: that's on him,
34:33
SPEAKER_00: you know?
34:34
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I also think that, like, the...
34:43
SPEAKER_00: The harm reduction logic kind of works, but it also might not, right?
34:49
SPEAKER_00: Insofar as if you let Trump just say this was a flawless victory,
34:57
SPEAKER_00: maybe you reduce the risk that he restarts hostilities with Iran,
35:01
SPEAKER_00: but you might also tempt him to try it on a third country,
35:04
SPEAKER_00: right?
35:05
We had the perfect victory in Venezuela followed by the perfect
35:08
victory in Iran,
35:09
SPEAKER_00: so why not go on to Cuba,
35:10
SPEAKER_00: right?
35:13
But if he's Realizes that he's been humiliated He might feel
35:18
like he needs to go
35:19
Attack Cuba anyway to Like reset the game board And replace His
35:25
defeat in Iran with
35:27
SPEAKER_00: A victory on an easier target like Cuba.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: So like we can't predict how he's going to react to telling the truth.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: So I think where I come down is tell the truth.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: And then if you're a Democrat,
35:37
SPEAKER_00: that means doing it in a way that exposes Trump as a humiliating failure,
35:43
but without doing it in a way that's like this is leaving
35:46
America less safe.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is part of Matt's point,
35:50
SPEAKER_00: which is that if you're going to rub this in Trump's face,
35:53
SPEAKER_00: don't do it in a way that
35:55
that elevates and puts the Democratic Party on the hook for
35:59
what are ultimately
36:00
SPEAKER_00: right-wing arguments about war.
36:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I mean, this is the thing, right?
36:06
There's a long-running argument inside the Democratic Party
36:11
about Israel,
36:13
right?
36:15
SPEAKER_01: Seems like it's over now.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, this is what I mean.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: Matt has been winning this argument.
36:20
SPEAKER_01: Trump
36:23
SPEAKER_01: Doing this huge sellout deal is a potential opportunity for,
36:30
SPEAKER_01: you know,
36:30
SPEAKER_01: Trump critics to quote people like Josh Bloch,
36:34
SPEAKER_01: who I was quoting before,
36:35
SPEAKER_01: as doing hits on Trump,
36:37
SPEAKER_01: right?
36:37
SPEAKER_01: And I just think, like, baseline common sense...
36:42
SPEAKER_01: Politics Politics is like you criticize your political opponent.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: You throw everything at him, right?
36:48
SPEAKER_01: Like you put together a table, a panel.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: You elevate it when the internal critics are mouthing off.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: Right.
36:55
SPEAKER_01: You elevate.
36:56
It's like all Democrats who have a lot of different opinions
36:59
about Israel agree
37:01
SPEAKER_01: that the orange man is bad.
37:03
SPEAKER_01: And so if you can get people,
37:05
SPEAKER_01: some AIPAC people,
37:06
SPEAKER_01: some FDD people,
37:07
SPEAKER_01: some Hudson Institute people,
37:09
SPEAKER_01: some like of the Israeli opposition leaders,
37:12
SPEAKER_01: like Avigdor Lieberman and Naftali Bennett,
37:15
SPEAKER_01: to be like all talking about how terrible Trump is,
37:18
SPEAKER_01: like that's just good for Democrats,
37:20
SPEAKER_01: straightforwardly.
37:22
But it's maybe not good for the like ascendant anti-Israel
37:26
faction of Democrats,
37:28
SPEAKER_01: because like part of the
37:31
SPEAKER_01: Left,
37:31
SPEAKER_01: like substantive left worldview is that like,
37:35
I shouldn't be treating an FDD guy as like an authoritative
37:40
expert who should be
37:41
SPEAKER_01: quoted about things.
37:42
These people should not be prominent commentators in the media,
37:46
et cetera,
37:46
et cetera,
37:46
et cetera.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: And like, that's like the true, you know, factional
37:51
SPEAKER_01: Michael Schoen
38:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, do we just go in on like tariffs are bad?
38:16
Or do we need to have like a nuanced view that really
38:19
incorporates like longtime
38:21
SPEAKER_01: criticisms of neoliberalism?
38:23
SPEAKER_01: When Trump does like a shitty,
38:25
SPEAKER_01: stupid sellout deal,
38:26
do we like put on TV the people who are most fired up about
38:29
that and just emphasize
38:31
SPEAKER_01: that the orange man is bad?
38:33
Or do we need to make sure that the only people hitting Trump
38:37
are the people
38:37
SPEAKER_01: hitting him in the exact right way?
38:40
And in all this stuff,
38:42
it depends on what your views of the substance of this are.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: Chuck Schumer voted against the JCPOA, right, in Congress.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: If Schumer was not concerned about his party leadership standing,
38:56
SPEAKER_01: et cetera,
38:57
SPEAKER_01: et cetera,
38:57
you would expect him to be hitting Trump much more vociferously
39:02
than he is over the
39:03
SPEAKER_01: past 24 hours,
39:04
SPEAKER_01: right?
39:04
SPEAKER_01: This is a Democrat, an anti-Trump,
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Michael Schoen
39:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, I mean, that that's just life.
39:31
Like people have their feelings about the issues as well as
39:33
their feelings about the orange man.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: But it's it's it's something that's going on out there.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: Well,
39:38
like I think that the tariff example is interesting in the ways
39:41
that it parallels
39:42
SPEAKER_00: in the way that it doesn't parallel the Iran thing.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: Right.
39:44
Like I think that the only out of bounds thing for a Democrat
39:47
when Trump was,
39:49
SPEAKER_00: you know,
39:49
SPEAKER_00: talking about Liberation Day would have been to say this is a good idea.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: and nobody did.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: Instead,
39:56
SPEAKER_00: you had this sort of like division between people who are like,
39:58
SPEAKER_00: this is stupid and people from the Midwest and from,
40:04
SPEAKER_00: you know,
40:05
blue collar parts of the Northeast saying things like tariffs
40:10
have their place when
40:11
SPEAKER_00: they're done strategically,
40:12
SPEAKER_00: but this is boneheaded.
40:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: I was fine with that division of views.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't feel like
40:20
it like you know implied anything particularly like suspect
40:27
about the party either
40:28
you know either wing of the party like this was just like doing
40:33
opposition politics
40:34
in a way that makes sense for whoever your constituents happen
40:36
to be I think that
40:38
the only line of attack on Trump right now in the Iran
40:43
situation that I would find
40:45
SPEAKER_00: reprehensible like you know
40:46
worthy of costing somebody like Chuck Schumer their leadership
40:49
position would be to
40:51
SPEAKER_00: say something like,
40:54
SPEAKER_00: you know,
40:55
that implied or explicitly asserted that this deal is so bad
41:00
that Trump should rip
41:01
SPEAKER_00: it up and go back to war.
41:04
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: And that leaves open a few options.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think the...
41:16
SPEAKER_00: The challenge,
41:18
SPEAKER_00: such as there is one,
41:18
SPEAKER_00: is to rub Trump's nose in his own defeat,
41:22
SPEAKER_00: but in ways that pertain exclusively to his incompetence,
41:27
SPEAKER_00: stupidity,
41:29
SPEAKER_00: corruption,
41:29
SPEAKER_00: whatever,
41:31
SPEAKER_00: and not to the higher order question of like,
41:37
SPEAKER_00: what is America's interest in toppling the regime in Iran?
41:43
And I don't think that that's like a terribly hard needle to
41:46
thread,
41:47
right?
41:48
SPEAKER_00: Like,
41:48
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
41:49
like it's humiliating for the United States that Trump started
41:52
a war that he never
41:52
SPEAKER_00: should have started and then immediately lost it.
41:55
And now Iran is gonna be stronger than it was before,
41:58
but that's his fault.
41:59
And we don't need to go back to day one and try to do this all
42:02
over again.
42:03
We just need him to be constrained and not make stupid
42:07
decisions on behalf of the
42:08
SPEAKER_00: United States anymore.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: Yes,
42:09
but I think that we need to elevate the substance of the
42:13
disagreement on the right
42:15
SPEAKER_01: to either get,
42:17
SPEAKER_01: like,
42:19
SPEAKER_01: pro-Israel people mad at Trump or to get Trump,
42:23
SPEAKER_01: because,
42:24
SPEAKER_01: like,
42:24
SPEAKER_01: the thing that would,
42:25
SPEAKER_01: like,
42:25
SPEAKER_01: actually discredit the Hawk viewpoint on this,
42:29
SPEAKER_01: as opposed to just Donald Trump personally,
42:31
SPEAKER_01: would be for Donald Trump to need to articulate the
42:35
SPEAKER_01: Like, no, you guys are wrong.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: It turns out we did need to have a negotiated settlement of this, right?
42:42
Just like left of center people just being like we were right
42:45
all along achieves
42:46
SPEAKER_01: very little ultimately.
42:48
SPEAKER_01: It's like the infighting is itself really important, right?
42:52
Like part of Trump's political mastery has been his ability to
42:59
just bully everyone
43:01
SPEAKER_01: into not arguing.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: about Trump's policies, right?
43:08
SPEAKER_01: So that,
43:08
SPEAKER_01: like,
43:09
SPEAKER_01: Mark Zuckerberg comes to the UFC fight because,
43:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
43:12
SPEAKER_01: he loves masculine energy now and just,
43:15
SPEAKER_01: like,
43:15
SPEAKER_01: doesn't opine on,
43:17
SPEAKER_01: like,
43:18
SPEAKER_01: this,
43:18
SPEAKER_01: like,
43:18
SPEAKER_01: weird Trump shutdown of Anthropic,
43:20
SPEAKER_01: right?
43:21
SPEAKER_01: And,
43:21
SPEAKER_01: like,
43:21
other stuff that's going on that everyone who's in the Trump
43:23
coalition is just...
43:26
SPEAKER_01: And,
43:26
SPEAKER_01: you know...
43:28
The pro-Israel forces are traditionally a little bit more
43:34
bipartisan and a little
43:35
SPEAKER_01: bit more well-funded than a lot of other people who are out there.
43:39
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's good to encourage them to speak up and complain.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, but no, I agree.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: Look, I agree, but I also think that this is not...
43:50
SPEAKER_00: This is not a situation where you can't...
43:53
The only way to do that is by saying things that implicitly put
43:59
Democrats or
44:00
SPEAKER_00: individual Democrats on the side of restarting the war,
44:04
SPEAKER_00: right?
44:05
SPEAKER_00: Like... Sure.
44:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I agree.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: If I saw the Josh Bloch tweet...
44:12
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't just retweet it.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: I'd probably put a little comment on here that'd be like,
44:17
SPEAKER_00: you know,
44:18
SPEAKER_00: lie down with the devil,
44:19
SPEAKER_00: you know,
44:19
SPEAKER_00: whatever.
44:19
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: Like,
44:23
the point is to emphasize that these two bad actors made a
44:29
devil's bargain with one
44:30
SPEAKER_00: another.
44:31
It has failed spectacularly in a way that proves that the
44:35
people advocating for war
44:37
SPEAKER_00: with Iran were...
44:41
SPEAKER_00: Malicious and incompetent in their own right,
44:43
SPEAKER_00: and that their agent,
44:46
SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump,
44:47
SPEAKER_00: should not be allowed to make decisions on behalf of the United States.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: This is not a coalition,
44:52
SPEAKER_00: whether they splinter or stay together,
44:55
SPEAKER_00: that ought to be in charge of the U.S.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: military.
45:00
I think that like that is a way to like they will still be at
45:04
each other's throats
45:04
if you say it that way right but like you are not in
45:11
encouraging infighting on the
45:13
SPEAKER_00: right accidentally traipsing into like
45:21
suggesting that the right move is to rip up the MOU and start
45:26
the war again.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm just trying to say, you know, I'm like a trade-offs guy.
45:30
SPEAKER_01: I believe in trade-offs.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: And like,
45:33
there is a trade-off here between is the thing you really want
45:37
to accomplish to put
45:39
SPEAKER_01: the boot on the neck of AIPAC,
45:42
or is the thing you really want to accomplish to put the boot
45:44
on the neck of Trump?
45:46
SPEAKER_01: And like, I really want to put the boot on the neck of Trump.
45:49
And I think most progressive policy influencers really want to
45:54
put the boot on the
45:55
SPEAKER_01: neck of AIPAC.
45:57
SPEAKER_01: You know,
45:58
SPEAKER_01: and like you see this,
45:58
SPEAKER_01: there's like day in,
45:59
SPEAKER_01: day out,
45:59
there's so much more energy and enthusiasm around like D&D
46:06
primaries in safe blue
46:07
SPEAKER_01: states than there is about swing races.
46:10
SPEAKER_01: And you see it in the takes and the discourse too.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: I feel like in the U.S.
46:16
SPEAKER_00: political context,
46:18
SPEAKER_00: AIPAC is under boot already,
46:20
SPEAKER_00: and now Trump is joining them.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: I know that's how you feel,
46:25
SPEAKER_01: but I'm saying my mission in life,
46:27
SPEAKER_01: Brian,
46:28
the one thing I want to achieve on this podcast is for you to
46:32
sometimes say that
46:33
there are explicit differences between the Boitlerist worldview
46:38
and the progressive
46:39
SPEAKER_01: worldview.
46:41
and that there is more to life than whining about frontline
46:45
members trying to do
46:47
SPEAKER_01: their politics.
46:47
There are powerful actors in the political system who have
46:51
substantive commitments
46:53
and those substantive commitments lead them to compromise on
46:56
partisanship.
46:57
Let's pull up the Matt Dust tweet that inspired this because
47:00
like,
47:00
let's just see what he said.
47:02
Begging Democrats to resist the urge to bash Trump from the
47:05
hawkish right,
47:07
which only reinforces the very stupid discourse that enabled
47:10
this very stupid war
47:11
SPEAKER_00: in the first place.
47:14
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
47:15
SPEAKER_00: Now,
47:16
I think I know that he's trying to ensure against like a
47:20
scenario where Chuck
47:21
SPEAKER_00: Schumer says this MOU is a disaster and we should go back to war.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: But I don't think that there's anything here that,
47:31
SPEAKER_00: like,
47:31
SPEAKER_00: should trigger your,
47:32
SPEAKER_00: like,
47:32
SPEAKER_00: sense that this is him focusing on crushing AIPAC as opposed to Trump.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: Like,
47:41
SPEAKER_00: he's talking about not,
47:45
SPEAKER_00: like,
47:46
SPEAKER_00: you know,
47:46
SPEAKER_00: with Trump's diseased mind,
47:48
SPEAKER_00: like,
47:49
SPEAKER_00: accidentally convincing Trump to restart the war,
47:51
SPEAKER_00: right?
47:54
SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
47:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's how I read it.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: And I don't disagree with that.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: And I think,
48:00
SPEAKER_01: as I said,
48:04
SPEAKER_01: I always get so close with you,
48:06
so close to you agreeing that there are people in the world who
48:10
have priorities
48:12
SPEAKER_01: that are not the priorities of pure partisanship,
48:15
SPEAKER_01: and that not all of those people are moderates,
48:17
SPEAKER_01: that sometimes it's because of their
48:18
SPEAKER_01: left-wing political commitments.
48:20
SPEAKER_00: That they compromise their peer partisanship.
48:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think that Matt Duss very clearly is one such person.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: He is a guy who has spent his entire life,
48:29
SPEAKER_01: his entire career campaigning inside the Democratic Party
48:34
SPEAKER_01: for a different view of Israel policy.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: He has been winning that argument.
48:38
SPEAKER_01: He's been doing a very good job of it.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: And he wants to continue winning it.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: But that's what he and his organization and his people are focused on.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not even saying that in a critical way.
48:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying that that is a different focus from your focus.
48:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, okay.
48:54
Fine but let's put a pin in this and let's see what happens
48:57
between now and Friday
49:00
because there are going to be Democrats I doubt there are going
49:02
to be very many
49:03
Democrats except maybe like Fetterman who say rip up the MOU go
49:08
back to war but
49:09
there will be a mix of Democrats some of whom are going to be
49:12
more focused on the
49:14
AIPAC Israel half of how this fiasco happened and then there
49:18
will be others who are
49:19
SPEAKER_00: just trying to like turn Donald Trump into Jimmy Carter say that like
49:24
SPEAKER_00: He's like, he doesn't know what he's doing.
49:27
SPEAKER_00: He's a failure.
49:28
SPEAKER_00: He's weak.
49:28
SPEAKER_00: He just got humiliated.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, we should be embarrassed that he's our president.
49:32
And in a way that kind of just like forgets that Israel was
49:37
like a major actor in this.
49:39
And I don't think Matt Duss is going to be angry at that second
49:41
group of people.
49:43
SPEAKER_01: Let me just give you like a concrete example, right?
49:47
Democratic majority for Israel released a statement on,
49:52
you know,
49:52
this MOU,
49:53
right?
49:55
SPEAKER_01: and the statement says um what does it say um
50:03
SPEAKER_01: There are concerning details about what is and isn't in the deal.
50:06
President Trump should bring in serious and experienced
50:08
negotiators and technical
50:09
experts to get this deal over the finish line rather than
50:12
relying on friends,
50:14
SPEAKER_01: family,
50:14
SPEAKER_01: and donors.
50:16
We continue to stand with the Israeli people who've been at war
50:18
for more than two
50:19
SPEAKER_01: years,
50:20
the people of Iran who've endured too many decades under a
50:22
brutal regime and
50:23
SPEAKER_01: bravely demanded an end to oppression,
50:25
as well as the Lebanese people who've lived under Hezbollah as
50:27
a Rand-backed
50:28
SPEAKER_01: occupation for decades.
50:29
We will await the final text of this deal and hopefully bring
50:32
this war to an end.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: Right?
50:34
So,
50:34
like,
50:35
that's a Democratic majority for Israel way of criticizing
50:40
Donald Trump.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: And then,
50:41
SPEAKER_01: like,
50:43
SPEAKER_01: Matt dunked on that statement,
50:46
SPEAKER_01: said that DMFI was,
50:47
SPEAKER_01: of course,
50:48
SPEAKER_01: fully in support of this war from the start,
50:50
SPEAKER_01: which isn't true.
50:53
and then said they're completely out of step with the vast
50:55
majority of Democrats,
50:56
SPEAKER_01: which I think is true.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: And it's just like, you know, it's factionalism.
51:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, it is what it is.
51:02
SPEAKER_01: That's a bad tweet.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: The one that you sent me ahead of this podcast seems fine.
51:07
I'm not talking about individual people's tweets and whether
51:11
they're good or bad.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to get you to acknowledge that most people,
51:18
SPEAKER_01: I would say the vast majority of people in D.C.,
51:21
SPEAKER_01: do not share
51:22
SPEAKER_01: exactly your view, right?
51:26
They are more interested in the substance of what they care
51:30
about and their
51:31
SPEAKER_01: factional infighting than in beating Donald Trump,
51:33
SPEAKER_01: most moderate Democrats and most progressive Democrats.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: But most Democrats are progressive Democrats.
51:40
SPEAKER_01: The bulk of the people who are not invested in full Boitlerism
51:45
are on the left because that's who's been winning the factional
51:49
fights in the Democratic Party.
51:51
SPEAKER_01: That's what they're focused on.
51:53
SPEAKER_01: That's what their money is going to.
51:54
SPEAKER_01: That's what their primary campaigns are about.
51:58
The wager I make is that Democrats can buy off progressives who
52:03
are interested in
52:04
SPEAKER_00: various policy objectives by punching Donald Trump in the nose harder.
52:08
SPEAKER_00: And that is not a way to buy off
52:12
SPEAKER_00: Moderate Democrats.
52:13
SPEAKER_01: And so that ends up being- Yes,
52:16
SPEAKER_01: believe me,
52:17
I fully understand the mechanism through which you convince
52:20
yourself that you never
52:21
SPEAKER_01: need to articulate disagreements with progressives.
52:24
SPEAKER_00: I just did.
52:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying it's wrong.
52:26
SPEAKER_00: Matt tweeted the Democratic majority for Israel seems off point.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: All right, there we go.
52:30
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
52:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
52:31
SPEAKER_01: We've got to take a break.
52:33
SPEAKER_01: We need to talk about SpaceX.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: Here's my pivot.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: We should go back to war with Iran to drive up the price of oil.
52:42
SPEAKER_00: To do the Green New Deal, yes.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: So that more people start buying electric cars,
52:47
SPEAKER_00: including Teslas,
52:49
SPEAKER_00: so that when Tesla gets folded into the SpaceX Borg,
52:52
maybe it doesn't actually end up ripping off a bunch of
52:56
American retirement account
52:57
SPEAKER_00: holders.
52:58
SPEAKER_00: Does that work?
52:59
SPEAKER_00: All right.
52:59
SPEAKER_00: Does that math work?
53:00
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
53:00
SPEAKER_00: All right.
53:00
SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about Elon Musk stealing your money.
53:03
SPEAKER_00: If you want to listen to that part of the conversation,
53:05
SPEAKER_00: go to politics.fm and upgrade your subscription.