Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - The Real Cost of Trump's Iran Gamble + Ian Bremmer on How the Iran War Reshaped Global Power

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Full Episode - The Real Cost of Trump's Iran Gamble + Ian Bremmer on How the Iran War Reshaped Global Power · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: the code get the discap Hello Aaron Welcome to the
2:23
Speaker 1: Thursday episode of The Chuck Podcast. Look, I've got a
2:27
Speaker 1: pretty meaty episode for you. My guest is Ian Bremer
2:31
Speaker 1: of their Eurasia Group. You know, he is a frequent
2:33
Speaker 1: guest of mind when it comes to geopolitical situations. I
2:37
Speaker 1: think he is the best sort of independent analyst out there,
2:42
Speaker 1: frankly around the globe, let alone in the United States
2:45
Speaker 1: known Ian a long time, and I think frankly because
2:49
Speaker 1: of that, it can become an even more useful conversation. Look,
2:53
Speaker 1: we spend a lot of time in the Middle East,
2:55
Speaker 1: but we don't just sit there and talk about that.
2:58
Speaker 1: In fact, I have a little bit more of a
2:59
Speaker 1: preview of what he has to say before we get
3:01
Speaker 1: to the interview. So that's the centerpiece here, and frankly
3:05
Speaker 1: it is you know, I think that's where I want
3:07
Speaker 1: to focus focus this conversations today and for the weekend.
3:13
Speaker 1: It's a good one to sort of sit and stew in,
3:15
Speaker 1: which is just the There's a lot of fallout from this,
3:23
Speaker 1: and I think that's the question is how, you know,
3:26
Speaker 1: how is history going to characterize this confrontation with Iran?
3:30
Speaker 1: Is it a loss? It is not a victory? Right there,
3:34
Speaker 1: is no way you can describe what the United States
3:36
Speaker 1: and Israel did with Iran as a victory. But I
3:41
Speaker 1: accept the premise you can't yet call it a failure. Right.
3:44
Speaker 1: It certainly doesn't look like this is going to end
3:46
Speaker 1: in a better place than where we began. In many ways,
3:49
Speaker 1: we're in a worse place than where we began in
3:53
Speaker 1: this sense, but it is not going to ever be
3:56
Speaker 1: seen as a victory at best. At best, it may
4:01
Speaker 1: serve to turn out as a as a as an
4:04
Speaker 1: opportunity to reset the Middle East, and maybe the reset
4:08
Speaker 1: that will be better than the current situation now, but
4:11
Speaker 1: I'm highly skeptical of that as well. I think that
4:15
Speaker 1: the biggest thing that America's failure here to win this
4:21
Speaker 1: confrontation with Iran, and I think that's the fairest way
4:24
Speaker 1: to America did not win. And and again we're we're
4:27
Speaker 1: in We're in World Cup season, so I guess you
4:29
Speaker 1: could say they salvaged a tie here, but that's that's
4:32
Speaker 1: the best case scenario. We've not been eliminated from competition.
4:35
Speaker 1: But what the United States did signal was a bit
4:38
Speaker 1: of a retreat from being the stable organizing force of
4:44
Speaker 1: the Middle East. If you're the UAE. Can you rely
4:49
Speaker 1: on the United States as your security blanket if you're
4:53
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, if you're cutter frankly, if you're Israel. So
4:58
Speaker 1: you know when you entered New doubt, right, that you
5:03
Speaker 1: know we've lost something. And arguably this is now the
5:09
Speaker 1: third region in the world where Presidents Trump's policies have
5:15
Speaker 1: and actions have created splinters, right, and we've sort of
5:21
Speaker 1: fragmented the world, and we've fragmented decision making. Right. Europe
5:26
Speaker 1: is not necessarily fragmented. They're very united, that's good news.
5:31
Speaker 1: And they're trying to figure out can they and I
5:33
Speaker 1: can't really operate without the United States, but they're trying
5:37
Speaker 1: to figure out how they can at least be less
5:40
Speaker 1: dependent on the United States. I think you have the
5:43
Speaker 1: Asian democracies not realizing that they need the United States too.
5:48
Speaker 1: They're not ready to be independent from the United States
5:51
Speaker 1: on security or on the economy. But there's certainly some
5:58
Speaker 1: concern about just how stable stable is the wrong word.
6:06
Speaker 1: I think, just how much will there will be in
6:10
Speaker 1: any leadership in the United States to be there for
6:13
Speaker 1: Asian democracies and to check what they perceive as a
6:16
Speaker 1: threat to them from China. Probably the one place where
6:20
Speaker 1: you can say Donald trump Is foreign policy has had
6:23
Speaker 1: more gains than losses is in the western hemisphere, not
6:27
Speaker 1: North America, but frankly in Central and South America, where
6:31
Speaker 1: he certainly is creating relationships that seem to be not
6:37
Speaker 1: just bending the hemisphere a bit to as well, but
6:41
Speaker 1: certainly bringing countries closer to the United States. Right in
6:44
Speaker 1: every other region, his actions have been pushing countries away
6:49
Speaker 1: from the United States. Maybe they don't want to be
6:51
Speaker 1: pushed away, but they feel like they have no other choice.
6:56
Speaker 1: And that's the And what he's going to do is
6:59
Speaker 1: leave a fleet and utter mess for the next president
7:01
Speaker 1: to clean up. And you're not gonna be able to
7:03
Speaker 1: clean up right away. You're gonna have to deal with
7:04
Speaker 1: near turbin challenges, and you're gonna have to deal with
7:07
Speaker 1: and so this is this is something that's going to
7:09
Speaker 1: take a generation to potentially put back together. But there's
7:15
Speaker 1: no doubt this has been a consequential shattering of America's
7:20
Speaker 1: form policy. And yes, you can we can sit here
7:23
Speaker 1: and say, well, that wasn't so bad, but the problem
7:26
Speaker 1: is there's a lot of others that is bad. Here
7:30
Speaker 1: but I do think we I want to sort of
7:33
Speaker 1: give a second draft, if you will, of sort of
7:35
Speaker 1: the interpretation of Trump's impact on American form policy, because
7:39
Speaker 1: there's a comfortable story about Donald Trump and the world
7:42
Speaker 1: that gets told, and it is wraw, right, And the
7:45
Speaker 1: story is that he's simply an isolationist, that America first
7:48
Speaker 1: means America pulls back packs up and comes home. That
7:51
Speaker 1: isn't what's happening, right, because if you look at the
7:54
Speaker 1: map of the last six months, this is not a
7:56
Speaker 1: country withdrawing from the world. So that's that's not what
8:00
Speaker 1: he's done, right, This is they're certainly in You know,
8:03
Speaker 1: it may be that Jada Vance is a real isolationist,
8:06
Speaker 1: but Donald Trump isn't what you see instead, right, look
8:09
Speaker 1: at the last six months. To see a country that
8:10
Speaker 1: invaded Venezuela, threatened to a next Greenland, bombed around and
8:13
Speaker 1: pick trade fights on five continents, right, that's not a retreat.
8:17
Speaker 1: If you're a true isolation list, you just walk away.
8:20
Speaker 1: So it's hyperactivity. He hasn't left the world, but I
8:25
Speaker 1: think the question is what has he left. Here's the
8:28
Speaker 1: pattern that I see, and once you see it, I
8:30
Speaker 1: think you won't be able to unsee it either. What
8:33
Speaker 1: he has done is withdrawn America from everything in the
8:35
Speaker 1: world that Americans cannot see, right, and he's doubled down
8:40
Speaker 1: on everything that we can see or that is obvious
8:43
Speaker 1: in our face. Right. The organizing principle is not some
8:46
Speaker 1: grand strategy. There's no strategic organizing principle. It isn't even ideological.
8:51
Speaker 1: It's whether a foreign policy produces something a voter back
8:56
Speaker 1: home can watch. Right. Trump very much views forign policy
9:01
Speaker 1: through the lens of domestic policy, pure and simple. Right,
9:04
Speaker 1: He's behaving the way American voters behave. We've been counting
9:07
Speaker 1: on our presidents not to you know, It's true. Americans
9:10
Speaker 1: don't vote on foreign policy, and if they ever do,
9:12
Speaker 1: they're just simply it's usually a retreat of some sort.
9:15
Speaker 1: It's not our business. Get out right, it is. It
9:18
Speaker 1: is not. And if you want to keep America's power
9:21
Speaker 1: and prestige, you need a president frankly that isn't worried
9:24
Speaker 1: about the domestic impact of foreign policy decisions. But of
9:27
Speaker 1: course that's not Donald Trump. And if and that's the
9:30
Speaker 1: I think the only through line here is that he
9:32
Speaker 1: his foreign policy he views through the prism of what
9:36
Speaker 1: will a voter back home say. So, let's start with
9:40
Speaker 1: what he cut right in January, he pulled the United
9:42
Speaker 1: States out of sixty six international organizations in a single stroke.
9:46
Speaker 1: We formally left the World Health Organization. Then we turned
9:48
Speaker 1: around and floated spending two billion dollars a year to
9:50
Speaker 1: rebuild the disease surveillance we used to get from it
9:55
Speaker 1: for a fraction of that price. Right, And now we've
9:58
Speaker 1: got this abolat challenge that we can't that the world
10:00
Speaker 1: is struggling to get its arms around because the United
10:02
Speaker 1: States is retreated. He shut down USAID, He let the
10:05
Speaker 1: last nuclear arms control treaty with Russia drift towards expiration
10:09
Speaker 1: with nothing to replace it. And I got a lot
10:11
Speaker 1: more to say about Putin and Newts in a minute. Here,
10:13
Speaker 1: the climate frameworks, the development a the UN agencies, treaty, architecture,
10:17
Speaker 1: all of it gone or gutted. And what do all
10:20
Speaker 1: those things have in common? Not one of them has
10:22
Speaker 1: a domestic constituency. If anything, there's an anti constituency to it, right,
10:28
Speaker 1: there's a anti vaxed constituency. With the conspiracy theories of
10:32
Speaker 1: the World Health organizations, for instance, nobody in Wisconsin feels
10:36
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization Always they think they don't trust me.
10:39
Speaker 1: You will when these diseases make it to our shores.
10:43
Speaker 1: But they don't. At the moment, nobody's marching for an
10:45
Speaker 1: arms controlled treaty with the Russians. These are the diffuse, slow,
10:50
Speaker 1: invisible goods, the things that pay off over decades and
10:55
Speaker 1: never show up on television. So Trump discarded them first.
11:00
Speaker 1: At what he's amplified, and every single one comes with
11:02
Speaker 1: a built in audience here at home. Venezuela, he invaded,
11:07
Speaker 1: captured Maduro and flew him to New York to stand trial.
11:10
Speaker 1: Huge constituency for him in South Florida. Immigration, Fennyl and
11:14
Speaker 1: a purp walk all in one night, Greenland and the
11:16
Speaker 1: Panama Canal territorial muscle wrapped in a China store, oran Ah,
11:21
Speaker 1: the evangelical base, the pro Israel coalition, and gas prices
11:24
Speaker 1: all at once, and the moment had threatened to curdle
11:27
Speaker 1: into a forever war with no upside at home. That's
11:30
Speaker 1: when he reached out for a deal. Tariffs, the entire
11:34
Speaker 1: economic nationalism narrative in one instrument right, and of course
11:38
Speaker 1: the biggest tell of all is Ukraine. When he set
11:40
Speaker 1: a deadline to end that war. It wasn't pegged to
11:42
Speaker 1: anything actually happening on the battlefield. Zelensky set it out out.
11:46
Speaker 1: The timeline was built around our mid terms. Trump wanted
11:50
Speaker 1: to form policy when in hand before he pivoted to November.
11:55
Speaker 1: The wars get picked up and put down according to
11:59
Speaker 1: when a victory is useful here at home. Now, you
12:03
Speaker 1: might say, hey, that's smart politics. You know you shouldn't.
12:05
Speaker 1: You should always be mindful of your of your current
12:08
Speaker 1: near term politics. But it's terrible leadership for those that
12:12
Speaker 1: care about democracy and freedom around the world. But here's
12:15
Speaker 1: the part that also should bother you. It's and it's
12:17
Speaker 1: at the heart of what I want to get into today.
12:20
Speaker 1: The thing he's actually dismantling isn't a charity that the
12:24
Speaker 1: United States was running for the world. It's the source
12:28
Speaker 1: of American For seventy five years. We wanted Europe and
12:34
Speaker 1: democratic Asia and frankly the Middle East dependent on us.
12:39
Speaker 1: That was the design. It was not an accident. NATO's
12:42
Speaker 1: first Secretary General said the alliance existed to keep the
12:45
Speaker 1: Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down, and
12:51
Speaker 1: that last part was the whole point. We helped right
12:55
Speaker 1: Japan a constitution that made it lean on the United States.
12:59
Speaker 1: We kept wartime command of South Korea's military inside an
13:03
Speaker 1: American structure. We held a nuclear umbrella over Germany, Japan,
13:08
Speaker 1: and Korea precisely so they would never feel the need
13:11
Speaker 1: to build bombs of their own. And why do we
13:14
Speaker 1: do all that? Because dependence brought us control. This is
13:19
Speaker 1: something you'd think of. Donald Trump would understand. He loves
13:21
Speaker 1: a good dependency. Trust me. A dependent ally doesn't go
13:25
Speaker 1: to war without our says, It doesn't cut its own
13:28
Speaker 1: deal with Beijing, it doesn't run a foreign policy that
13:30
Speaker 1: crosses ours. That defense bill we supposedly got fleeced on
13:34
Speaker 1: for decades, that was the subscription fee for a controlling
13:38
Speaker 1: interest in the security of half of the developed world.
13:41
Speaker 1: It was the cheapest empire in history. There's never been
13:46
Speaker 1: a more America first arrangement than a room full of
13:50
Speaker 1: allies who couldn't afford to tell us now. It always
13:53
Speaker 1: struck me weird that the phrase America first is used
13:57
Speaker 1: for disengaging when actually what we did over the last
14:01
Speaker 1: seventy five years was the most America first thing we
14:03
Speaker 1: could have ever created. So here's the irony that out
14:06
Speaker 1: of sting. If we were truly America verbs, if you
14:09
Speaker 1: actually wanted an American interest to come first everywhere, every time,
14:12
Speaker 1: then that dependency was the crown jewel. It's the whole game.
14:17
Speaker 1: You guard it, you deepen it, you make them need
14:20
Speaker 1: you more, not less. Pursuing that dependency ruthlessly is what
14:24
Speaker 1: America first looks like when somebody actually means it. And
14:27
Speaker 1: Donald Trump did the exact opposite. He took a wrecking
14:30
Speaker 1: ball to all of it. He hasn't broken all of
14:32
Speaker 1: it yet, but he's breaking a lot of it. And
14:34
Speaker 1: when he tells Europe that an oil crisis in the
14:36
Speaker 1: golf is quote, not our war, when he treats the
14:38
Speaker 1: guarantee itself as unreliable, he doesn't make allies pay up
14:42
Speaker 1: and fall in line. He makes them do the one
14:44
Speaker 1: thing we spend three generations preventing, stand on their own.
14:49
Speaker 1: And a Europe that can defend itself is a Europe
14:51
Speaker 1: that no longer needs our permission. A Japan or a
14:54
Speaker 1: Korea that stops trusting our umbrella is a Japan or
14:57
Speaker 1: a Korea that starts thinking about its own bomb. When
15:00
Speaker 1: every one of those outcomes is worse for American interests
15:02
Speaker 1: than the dependents ever was were the Allies overreliant? Of
15:07
Speaker 1: course they were. That was a feature, not a bug.
15:10
Speaker 1: But if you wanted to fix that and keep your leverage,
15:12
Speaker 1: you make them. You make the dependent pay more rent.
15:16
Speaker 1: You don't burn down the building. He's refunding the free
15:20
Speaker 1: loaders and handing them the keys and then calling it
15:24
Speaker 1: a win. And if you want to watch all of
15:27
Speaker 1: this happen in real time, not seventy five years of design,
15:29
Speaker 1: but in a single month, just look at this deal
15:32
Speaker 1: he cut with Run because we ran the play on
15:35
Speaker 1: two of our closest partners at once from opposite directions.
15:39
Speaker 1: Israel went into a regime chained war alongside us. We
15:42
Speaker 1: bombed around together, we killed Kameni together. And then the
15:45
Speaker 1: moment Washington wanted out, we negotiated the terms over Jerusalem's head.
15:50
Speaker 1: The Israelis weren't even allowed to see the draft before
15:53
Speaker 1: the signing. I called the shots. The president says, he
15:56
Speaker 1: does it. That's how you talk to a client, not
15:59
Speaker 1: an ally. The Golf States got the mirror image. They
16:02
Speaker 1: didn't ask for this war. We pressed them to join it.
16:05
Speaker 1: Although there was probably some that were hoping we'd be
16:08
Speaker 1: successful with it. They absorbed exactly the catastrophe they warned
16:12
Speaker 1: us about Iranian missiles on their refineries and their cities.
16:16
Speaker 1: The Straight choked off their economies, taking the hit, and
16:20
Speaker 1: then they watched us, in the words of one Saudi analyst,
16:23
Speaker 1: prioritize optics over the Gulf realities that they were living in.
16:28
Speaker 1: We cut a fast deal that left Tehran emboldened and
16:31
Speaker 1: claiming victory, handed it leverage over the very waterway there
16:35
Speaker 1: oil depends upon, and brushed their concerns aside one more time.
16:41
Speaker 1: So watch what they're already doing about it. The UE
16:43
Speaker 1: walked out of Opek, asked Washington for a dollar lifeline,
16:47
Speaker 1: put Israeli air defense batteries on its own soil, and
16:50
Speaker 1: shut its embassy in Tehran. The Saudi's kept a private
16:53
Speaker 1: channel open to Ron the entire time. That is not
16:56
Speaker 1: the behavior of allies who trust the American umbrella. That
17:00
Speaker 1: is the behavior of allies who started building their own
17:04
Speaker 1: defense infrastructure. That's three now Europe, Democratic Asia, and now
17:08
Speaker 1: the Gulf and Israel, three different sets of the closest
17:13
Speaker 1: friends this country has, all drawing the identical conclusion in
17:17
Speaker 1: the same twelve months. We cannot count on the Americans.
17:22
Speaker 1: That's not a retrenchment. Retrenchment is a strategy. This is
17:25
Speaker 1: the liquidation of the one asset. It took us seventy
17:29
Speaker 1: five years to build the belief that we would be there. Look,
17:33
Speaker 1: Donald Trump knows a lot about bankruptcies, and he has
17:36
Speaker 1: now bankrupt American exceptionalism. So the real story of America
17:41
Speaker 1: first isn't retreat. It's a country that traded oversight of
17:43
Speaker 1: its own interest for a grievance that polls well and
17:47
Speaker 1: in the bargain taught every ally it has on every
17:50
Speaker 1: continent to start planning for a world without reliance on
17:54
Speaker 1: the United States. It's the collapse of the old line
17:57
Speaker 1: where politics stopped at the water's edge, and the conversion
18:02
Speaker 1: of the entire planet into one more thing to perform
18:05
Speaker 1: for the people back home. So here's what I keep
18:08
Speaker 1: coming back to. So we have a security system like
18:10
Speaker 1: the one we spent three generations building, does its most
18:13
Speaker 1: important work invisibly, not in the wars we win, but
18:17
Speaker 1: in the wars that never start, the bombs that never
18:20
Speaker 1: get built or dropped, the crises that are strangled in
18:24
Speaker 1: the crib that never start. You never see what it's
18:29
Speaker 1: buying you. You only see what it costs, which is
18:33
Speaker 1: what makes taking a reckon ball to all of this
18:35
Speaker 1: so reckless. Trump is knocked down America's global security system,
18:39
Speaker 1: the alliances, the institutions, the guarantees, and the honest truth
18:43
Speaker 1: is we have no idea how exposed that leaves us.
18:46
Speaker 1: The bill doesn't come today, it comes the next time.
18:49
Speaker 1: Something we used to be able to head off doesn't
18:51
Speaker 1: get headed off. Maybe that's a bola. Sure hope this
18:56
Speaker 1: one doesn't hit us here. That's the type of things.
19:02
Speaker 1: Or how about the screw worm that's suddenly screwing up
19:04
Speaker 1: our cattle. It's these little things. It's the silent things.
19:13
Speaker 1: But by then the machine that would have stopped at
19:14
Speaker 1: all is rubble. So that's the question I'm going to
19:18
Speaker 1: leave hanging in the air at the moment, not whether
19:20
Speaker 1: America walked away from the world. It didn't walk away
19:22
Speaker 1: from the world. The question is how vulnerable we just
19:25
Speaker 1: made ourselves and the world. And the frightening part of
19:29
Speaker 1: this answer is that nobody can tell you we tore
19:32
Speaker 1: the thing down before we ever measured what was holding
19:35
Speaker 1: it back. Right the famous Chester in Chesterden's fence. We
19:39
Speaker 1: just knocked it down, not asking the question of why
19:43
Speaker 1: was the fence the first place. Well, this episode of
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Speaker 1: the code toodcast. Now, look, there is there's three big
21:39
Speaker 1: headlines I want you to take away from my conversation
21:43
Speaker 1: with Ian Bremmer. Number one is understanding the new Middle East.
21:49
Speaker 1: It is splintering. There are going to be at least
21:52
Speaker 1: three factions. The Uranians are going to be a faction,
21:57
Speaker 1: UA in Israel is going to be a faction, and
22:00
Speaker 1: the Saudis in Egypt, and there's gonna be a third
22:02
Speaker 1: faction here. And that's you know, that's going to be. Yes,
22:08
Speaker 1: the UAE and Israel may be closer to the United
22:11
Speaker 1: States than they than they ever happen they have in
22:15
Speaker 1: some ways, they're they're they're two all in to to
22:18
Speaker 1: do anything else. The Saudis are already hedge and bets right.
22:22
Speaker 1: They want they're going to be China's best friend, and
22:24
Speaker 1: they want to keep the United States an important client
22:27
Speaker 1: as well. And of course the Saudis helps, He'll remind
22:33
Speaker 1: you finance the nuclear program that the Pakistani's had. Saudis
22:36
Speaker 1: already kind of have their own nuclear umbrella. They hedge
22:41
Speaker 1: that bet. So what you're seeing there, you know, good
22:45
Speaker 1: news is that fracturing hasn't taken place inside Europe yet.
22:48
Speaker 1: That was something we were all concerned about. But in
22:50
Speaker 1: some ways this is this the Putins the Ukraine's success,
22:56
Speaker 1: Putin's of raticism UH has has helped keep Europe united.
23:02
Speaker 1: And I would argue that democratic Asia right now still
23:05
Speaker 1: there's just too much reliance on the United States. And
23:07
Speaker 1: you're going to hear him Ian make that case as well.
23:14
Speaker 1: But don't miss what he hasks to say about North
23:16
Speaker 1: Korea versus Russia. Who is the more unpredictable rogue head
23:22
Speaker 1: rogue of rogue head of state at the moment. It's
23:27
Speaker 1: not the person you're thinking. It's much scarier than that.
23:32
Speaker 1: And that's where we end our conversation. As for Donald Trump,
23:37
Speaker 1: he's going to try to memory hold around. We know this,
23:41
Speaker 1: and he's going to turn his focus to Cuba, and
23:43
Speaker 1: politically it's probably a huge benefit to Marco Rubio. I mean,
23:47
Speaker 1: this is the small I almost feel, I almost feel
23:51
Speaker 1: guilty talking quickly about the domestic political fallout here. What
23:55
Speaker 1: does it mean inside the Republican Party? Look? Jd. Vance
23:58
Speaker 1: is holding a third sandwich. He is he has been
24:02
Speaker 1: punished and because this is not a good thing for
24:06
Speaker 1: him to be out there having to sell, he is
24:08
Speaker 1: selling a shit sandwich that he doesn't know how to sell.
24:12
Speaker 1: He's not very trusted on the world stage. There's a
24:15
Speaker 1: lot of skepticism of him, and Trump won't care if
24:21
Speaker 1: Vance takes all the arrows. In fact, it's a design,
24:24
Speaker 1: that's the feature. It's not a bug. Marco Rubio's Homer
24:28
Speaker 1: Simpson into the Bush's disappearing act is also a feature,
24:31
Speaker 1: not a bug. And you will suddenly see Marco Rubio
24:34
Speaker 1: come back and be front and center when Cuba is
24:37
Speaker 1: suddenly front and center, because one thing we do know
24:40
Speaker 1: about Donald Trump is that is is as is Ian
24:45
Speaker 1: Bremer put it so well, he said, use the Kennedy
24:47
Speaker 1: Center naming thing as sort of a you know, he
24:50
Speaker 1: doesn't want anybody to see the bad stuff. He wants
24:53
Speaker 1: to memory hole. He doesn't want you to see his
24:57
Speaker 1: name coming off of the building of the Kenney Center.
25:02
Speaker 1: And how is he going to memory hold around. He's
25:04
Speaker 1: going to desperately want a victory in Cuba because that
25:08
Speaker 1: has a domestic political audience. That will be the next
25:11
Speaker 1: shiny metal object. So does it happen this summer, this fall,
25:18
Speaker 1: It probably happens before the midterms, and it is you know,
25:22
Speaker 1: among the ink there is probably is. My old friend
25:26
Speaker 1: Tom bro Broke call used to say about campaign seasons
25:29
Speaker 1: is that the unforeseen will happen. He had this little
25:32
Speaker 1: metaphor used to go the UFO, the unforeseen will occur
25:36
Speaker 1: was his way of using And I think the F
25:38
Speaker 1: is foreseen. Eh, I always thought it was. I thought
25:41
Speaker 1: he stretched that one, but the larger point was really
25:45
Speaker 1: important here. There's always a few things we don't expect
25:48
Speaker 1: that have huge impacts on the campaign. Sometimes you call
25:52
Speaker 1: him October surprises and all those things, but they don't
25:54
Speaker 1: always happen now in October. And the two wild cards
26:00
Speaker 1: before November that are in Donald Trump's hands, well, the
26:04
Speaker 1: one wild card that's in Donald Trump's hands, well they're
26:06
Speaker 1: two wild because one is his health. This is I
26:09
Speaker 1: mean my word, and I think the feeding frenzy of
26:13
Speaker 1: those that sort of get excited about pointing out his
26:19
Speaker 1: declining health are only going to you know, play to
26:22
Speaker 1: the algorithms there in the same way the right wing
26:26
Speaker 1: you know, obsessed over the Biden stuff in order to
26:29
Speaker 1: to sort of make fetch happen. The left and Trump's
26:33
Speaker 1: opponents are going to be doing the same thing, and
26:34
Speaker 1: he is just providing more and more ammo. I mean,
26:36
Speaker 1: he does not look well. Eighty year olds don't travel well.
26:40
Speaker 1: I mean, this is just you know, every So his
26:42
Speaker 1: declining health is a huge wildcard for these mid terms.
26:45
Speaker 1: But the other is going to be the takeover of Cuba.
26:48
Speaker 1: What does it look like? Is it clean? Is it messy?
26:53
Speaker 1: How grifty? Is it right? If we do get some
26:56
Speaker 1: form of control, and is it really sort of a
26:59
Speaker 1: a takeover that's more out of bribery and it's sort
27:02
Speaker 1: of like the castros participate in it and you know,
27:06
Speaker 1: take the payoff in order to give him the give
27:09
Speaker 1: him the glory he's so desperate for. Because that's the
27:12
Speaker 1: thing here, what Trump is desperate for as as as
27:16
Speaker 1: the end is near, right, he knows the end is near.
27:19
Speaker 1: And yes, I'm referring not just to his political career.
27:22
Speaker 1: He is desperate for something that makes him historic, beyond
27:27
Speaker 1: his personality, because about the only thing that makes him
27:30
Speaker 1: historic is that his personality has greaped all sorts of
27:33
Speaker 1: havoc on our on our society, but it hasn't really
27:37
Speaker 1: done anything to make America great again, being able to
27:43
Speaker 1: do something expand the map of the United States, Right,
27:46
Speaker 1: That was his desperation for Greenland, or with this, with
27:50
Speaker 1: with Cuba. He wants to He wants something so that
27:53
Speaker 1: the history books have to mention his name in a
27:56
Speaker 1: positive way. And I think think that that desperation is
28:02
Speaker 1: going to lead to a huge, huge aggression trying to
28:06
Speaker 1: make the Cuba thing happen, especially in the face of
28:09
Speaker 1: what is a colossal failure with Iran. Somehow he took
28:15
Speaker 1: a situation with Iran and somehow made it worse and
28:18
Speaker 1: somehow handed them more leverage. It's a disaster by any definition.
28:25
Speaker 1: So how do you quickly memory hold it? See if
28:28
Speaker 1: you can find, you know, find an easier entity to
28:32
Speaker 1: pick on and bully, And the Cubans are probably an
28:35
Speaker 1: easier entity to pick on and bully than the Iranians.
28:38
Speaker 1: As he's found out, it's the hard way, all right?
28:40
Speaker 1: With that, let me speak of a break and when
28:42
Speaker 1: we come back, a fascinating conversation with Ian Bremer, who's
28:47
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31:58
Speaker 1: friend Ian Bremmer from your Razior group in the G
32:03
Speaker 1: zero newsletter that I know I have told many of you.
32:05
Speaker 1: If you don't subscribe to you're making a mistake. Mister Bremer.
32:09
Speaker 1: Nice to see you, sir, Hey Chuck, it's good to
32:12
Speaker 1: see you man, so as as is always the case
32:18
Speaker 1: when you come in, I've got a couple of larger
32:20
Speaker 1: theories I want to throw past you. But let's talk
32:21
Speaker 1: about the near term now and Iran. Look, you, what
32:27
Speaker 1: do you make of the fact that the Trump administration
32:32
Speaker 1: is allowing the Iranians to spin the deal? First, because
32:35
Speaker 1: forget everything else, that is what's happening. The Iranians are
32:39
Speaker 1: filling the vacuum and they're sort of leaking this stuff out.
32:43
Speaker 1: The Trump administration is letting them do it. And what
32:45
Speaker 1: strikes me is intriguing about this is they're usually on
32:49
Speaker 1: the other end of this. It's usually one of their
32:52
Speaker 1: opponents who's being quiet about something, and Trump fills the
32:56
Speaker 1: vacuum and he's allowing the strategy to be used against
32:59
Speaker 1: him and potentially putting him in his own little message box. Yeah.
33:06
Speaker 2: Look, it is hard for the Americans to directly criticize
33:12
Speaker 2: a deal when you don't know what the contents of
33:14
Speaker 2: the deal are.
33:17
Speaker 1: And you know you're right, Chuck.
33:20
Speaker 2: I mean, the one thing we know about Trump is
33:23
Speaker 2: he's not quiet right when he when he does something,
33:28
Speaker 2: he blasts it out. But I can think of another
33:32
Speaker 2: incidence in the last week when he actually wanted to
33:37
Speaker 2: be very quiet about some news. You remember when he put
33:40
Speaker 2: his name on the Kennedy Center, it was all over
33:43
Speaker 2: the place, But then when they were taking it down,
33:46
Speaker 2: they had a tarp on it, right, For some reason,
33:49
Speaker 2: he didn't want everyone looking at the fact that they
33:51
Speaker 2: were taking his name down. And that's exactly what's happening here, right,
33:55
Speaker 2: is that the contents of this deal are on active
34:00
Speaker 2: for the United States. They make Trump look weak. They
34:05
Speaker 2: they do not come close to meeting any of his
34:10
Speaker 2: war aims. I mean, it is true, of course, that
34:14
Speaker 2: there's no other American president that could have gotten this
34:17
Speaker 2: deal done. There's no other American president that could have
34:19
Speaker 2: gotten Iran to reopen the strait because of course it
34:23
Speaker 2: had never been closed before.
34:25
Speaker 1: So you can give Trump that.
34:28
Speaker 2: But this is the only thing that this deal does
34:33
Speaker 2: is it ends the war and it opens the straight
34:37
Speaker 2: In other words, it does none of the things that
34:39
Speaker 2: Trump went to war four. It just stops the bleeding
34:44
Speaker 2: as the consequence of the decision to go to war.
34:47
Speaker 1: That's all it does. Although it's funny, I found myself
34:51
Speaker 1: doing a when I was sort of criticizing that. Look,
34:56
Speaker 1: he just went about this in a half assed way.
34:58
Speaker 1: Whether you were against him going to war or or
35:00
Speaker 1: whether you wanted him to do this, he didn't. There
35:05
Speaker 1: was no strategy to this, and the strategy didn't and
35:08
Speaker 1: if there was, it didn't work. But I said, he
35:11
Speaker 1: does deserve credit for at least to know when to
35:13
Speaker 1: stop digging. Is that about the best praise you can
35:16
Speaker 1: give him here? No, he should have stopped digging weeks ago.
35:21
Speaker 1: My god, I mean this, this deal was on offer for
35:26
Speaker 1: a long time.
35:27
Speaker 2: Well, and he kept saying I'm going to destroy your civilization.
35:31
Speaker 2: I'm going to hit your infrastructure, and I'm going to
35:33
Speaker 2: take your oil, and I'm going to.
35:34
Speaker 1: Invade carg Island and none of those things happened.
35:37
Speaker 2: What Why have we been doing this for weeks and
35:43
Speaker 2: weeks while the strait has been closed and everyone has
35:47
Speaker 2: been suffering economically, And so no, I'm this.
35:53
Speaker 1: Is by look, I'm not I Like I said, the
35:57
Speaker 1: only thing worse is if he didn't stop digging. I
36:00
Speaker 1: guess that might be the best. I mean, No, I
36:01
Speaker 1: could have I can give you other things that would
36:03
Speaker 1: have been worse. He could have.
36:04
Speaker 2: He could have taken those fifteen thousand troops and actually
36:07
Speaker 2: taken carg Island, which he wanted to do, and his
36:11
Speaker 2: military advisors told him in many different ways, this will
36:14
Speaker 2: go very badly, sir.
36:17
Speaker 1: And that's I'm glad they told him that, right.
36:20
Speaker 2: And it's not like Trump can't be successful in foreign policy.
36:22
Speaker 2: Venezuela was wildly successful. Abraham Accord's wildly successful, you know
36:28
Speaker 2: USMCA before he decided he didn't like it, wildly successful.
36:31
Speaker 1: But but but this has been an astonishing failure.
36:35
Speaker 2: It's exhilarating in how much of a failure this Hran
36:39
Speaker 2: war has been.
36:41
Speaker 1: So what does it mean in the long term? For
36:45
Speaker 1: you know, I was and this gets it to one
36:47
Speaker 1: of the thesis that was coming up. You know, he
36:49
Speaker 1: is now in three different regions of the world broken
36:55
Speaker 1: essentially an essential pact if you will, that the United
36:59
Speaker 1: States either formally had with that region or informally had
37:02
Speaker 1: with that region, that we were the reliable security partner,
37:06
Speaker 1: whether it's free in democratic Asia, whether it's free in
37:09
Speaker 1: democratic Europe, or whether it's the Middle East. Okay, let
37:13
Speaker 1: me ask you. If that's the start, what packed does
37:18
Speaker 1: he broken in Asia? So that's what I'm asking. What
37:22
Speaker 1: I mean by the pact is the idea that America
37:24
Speaker 1: is going to be a reliable security partner that we
37:26
Speaker 1: want to actually cut off dependence, and whether it's you're
37:30
Speaker 1: not sure where America stands on Taiwan, right, so Japan's
37:33
Speaker 1: trying to figure that out. You're not sure. I'm just
37:36
Speaker 1: throwing all that out there in this respect. In the
37:39
Speaker 1: Middle East, the Gulf States and Israel have designed foreign
37:44
Speaker 1: policies for decades assuming a reliable partner in the United States.
37:49
Speaker 1: Does this Iron war? I mean that to me is
37:52
Speaker 1: what it leaves in tatters. I mean everybody in that
37:56
Speaker 1: region who has relied on the United States now has
37:58
Speaker 1: to wonder what do I do now?
38:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so I think that is the case
38:04
Speaker 2: in the Middle East on the back of this Ran war.
38:08
Speaker 1: I think it is. There's some of that.
38:11
Speaker 2: There was some of that when Trump kicked Zelenski out,
38:15
Speaker 2: you and I were talking about it at the time
38:18
Speaker 2: a year ago April, and then suspended intelligence support for Ukraine.
38:24
Speaker 2: That that was a very significant rift. The Greenland stuff
38:29
Speaker 2: was a very significant rift with the Europeans, not to
38:33
Speaker 2: the degree that we're seeing in the Middle East right now.
38:36
Speaker 2: There's nothing that Trump has done in Asia that approaches
38:39
Speaker 2: that in my view.
38:41
Speaker 1: In my view, there's definitely concerns. And I mean when
38:45
Speaker 1: he says, when he.
38:46
Speaker 2: Says, well, you know, maybe i'll I'll talk about the
38:50
Speaker 2: Taiwan defense deal on the back of my conversations with
38:53
Speaker 2: Chijinping that that, you know, sort of interdependence is something
38:58
Speaker 2: that certainly worried American allies in Asia, but nothing close
39:03
Speaker 2: to Europe and what the Europeans have experienced, nothing close
39:07
Speaker 2: to the Golf States and the Israelis now because Trump
39:12
Speaker 2: has decided I've gone to war and I've really undermined
39:16
Speaker 2: all of you and the Golf and I've made you
39:19
Speaker 2: very vulnerable.
39:20
Speaker 1: And now I've cut a deal, and that deal doesn't give.
39:24
Speaker 2: Any of the sort of reliance that the Israelis wanted
39:30
Speaker 2: on the Iran side, and it makes the Golf States
39:34
Speaker 2: extremely concerned long term. So yeah, I think going forward,
39:39
Speaker 2: if you're in the region, if you're in the Middle East,
39:42
Speaker 2: you've got to think very differently about your security than
39:44
Speaker 2: you have historically.
39:47
Speaker 1: So as much as and this was very helpful exercise,
39:51
Speaker 1: if you're looking at where is he sort of breached
39:54
Speaker 1: alliances the most, it is the Middle East. Yes, yes,
39:58
Speaker 1: very much so. Very much. So.
40:00
Speaker 2: So I mean, like even like Russia Ukraine, America is
40:02
Speaker 2: no longer paying the Ukrainians off, but the amount of
40:05
Speaker 2: intelligence the US is providing to Ukraine on a real
40:08
Speaker 2: time basis to help them target the Russians is essential
40:12
Speaker 2: and it's still happening. And you know, yeah, the US
40:15
Speaker 2: is taking five thousand troops out of Germany, But does
40:18
Speaker 2: that really matter for the Alliance? No, But what the
40:22
Speaker 2: Americans did in Iran and then the Cutteries and the
40:26
Speaker 2: Saudis and the Emordis getting directly hit by the Iranians,
40:31
Speaker 2: and now the United States basically saying.
40:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, we're gonna end the war and you.
40:36
Speaker 2: Guys can figure out this other stuff that like ballistic missiles,
40:40
Speaker 2: nuclear program, all the rest. You figure that out, because
40:44
Speaker 2: we can't. We can't do that, right. That is that's
40:48
Speaker 2: a very very serio. That's an existential issue for the
40:53
Speaker 2: countries that have relied on the United States for their
40:57
Speaker 2: security in the Middle East.
41:00
Speaker 1: So, you know, when we saw Canada and we saw
41:03
Speaker 1: Mark Carney do this, Hey, it's time for the Middle
41:05
Speaker 1: Powers to sort of start to worry about things on
41:08
Speaker 1: their own. He can't rely on the United States and
41:11
Speaker 1: he's well speaking more in the I think more in
41:14
Speaker 1: an economic security sense, not in a national security sense.
41:19
Speaker 1: What do the Golf States do here?
41:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, because again Canada, And you know, I talked to
41:24
Speaker 2: Mark all the time I was up in Canada last week,
41:28
Speaker 2: and I mean, seventy cents of every defense dollar in
41:31
Speaker 2: Canada ghost the United States.
41:33
Speaker 1: And you know in ten years now that isn't broken.
41:35
Speaker 1: The defense partnership is not broken with Canada. It's our
41:38
Speaker 1: economic partnership. Well, it's funny.
41:39
Speaker 2: I mean they the Canadians are now talking a lot
41:43
Speaker 2: more about spending that money inside Canada, So I mean
41:46
Speaker 2: it is part of their economic relationship, is the point, right,
41:49
Speaker 2: I mean, and doing more with the Europeans and on trade.
41:53
Speaker 1: You know, they're they're trying, They're.
41:55
Speaker 2: They're rebuilding India and they're stabilizing China. But still ultimately
42:00
Speaker 2: it's the US, right, I mean, because you can't change
42:02
Speaker 2: your geography. In the case of the golf right, I mean,
42:06
Speaker 2: their geography is the Strait, their geography is the Iranians
42:12
Speaker 2: have now shown they can shut this thing down, and
42:15
Speaker 2: they can do it without the Americans being able to
42:18
Speaker 2: stop them. So what are they going to do with
42:23
Speaker 2: the United States going forward, and it depends a lot
42:26
Speaker 2: on which countries. I mean, what I see happening is
42:30
Speaker 2: the golf essentially splitting into two competing blocks, and one
42:35
Speaker 2: of those blocks is you could call the Abrahamic block,
42:41
Speaker 2: and it is the UAE feeling like the Israelis are
42:45
Speaker 2: their top ally helping defend them and go into war
42:51
Speaker 2: with the Iranians with them, right, I mean, the UAE
42:54
Speaker 2: has also been fighting together with Israel in against uh
43:01
Speaker 2: Iran Uh.
43:02
Speaker 1: They are.
43:03
Speaker 2: The more that the Iranians are aggressive, the more the
43:07
Speaker 2: UAE feels like they have to double down on that relationship.
43:10
Speaker 2: They will be a core tech, intelligence and defense partners
43:16
Speaker 2: with the United States in the region.
43:18
Speaker 1: That will not be broken. It will only strengthen. They
43:21
Speaker 1: will also align more with the Indians, they will align
43:23
Speaker 1: more with with Greece.
43:25
Speaker 2: They've left Opek, so they will they will expec Expand.
43:30
Speaker 1: There is that something you expected. It's been threatened now no, no, no,
43:35
Speaker 1: that came because of the war.
43:36
Speaker 2: And again that is the emaradis saying, you know what,
43:41
Speaker 2: this war shows that the world is going to move
43:46
Speaker 2: much faster away from oil and gas because anyone can
43:50
Speaker 2: disrupt this stuff, whether it's in the Strait.
43:52
Speaker 1: Of Ormuz, or it's the Red Sea, or it's the
43:54
Speaker 1: Malacca Straits.
43:56
Speaker 2: And for all of those reasons, we we can't constrain
44:00
Speaker 2: in our oil export. We need to get as much
44:01
Speaker 2: out as soon as possible and get that money.
44:05
Speaker 1: We don't want stranded assets.
44:08
Speaker 2: And because the Amoradis are not a regional power, they're not.
44:12
Speaker 1: They're not a power in the Middle East. They're a
44:14
Speaker 1: global city state.
44:16
Speaker 2: They've got ten million people, one million of whom are Amoradis.
44:20
Speaker 1: They're not a friend described I had a friend described
44:23
Speaker 1: the UA to me is it's more like going to
44:26
Speaker 1: somebody's really nice house, and as long as you play
44:29
Speaker 1: by their rules, you'll be fine. But remember it's a
44:32
Speaker 1: nice house. But it's more like somebody's personal property than
44:36
Speaker 1: it is a country. Oh yeah, thrown by a family.
44:39
Speaker 2: But by the way, it's increasingly run very effectively and
44:43
Speaker 2: very efficiently with a lot. They're bringing some of the
44:45
Speaker 2: smartest young people from all around the world to engage.
44:49
Speaker 1: And they love themselves a good mackenzy contractor, that's for sure.
44:52
Speaker 2: Well much more than that, I mean, the Saudis have
44:55
Speaker 2: incredible mckensey contractors. I mean, these guys are actually building
44:58
Speaker 2: those capabilities inside their industries and it is a revolution
45:03
Speaker 2: what they have done internally to build a world class
45:06
Speaker 2: city state in the last forty years, very much analogous
45:12
Speaker 2: to what the Singaporeans have done.
45:14
Speaker 1: Who is just going to say it sounds a lot
45:15
Speaker 1: like Singapore and its like.
45:17
Speaker 2: But they're bigger. But they're bigger, so you've got that.
45:20
Speaker 2: And they're in the Middle East, so which is more
45:23
Speaker 2: which turns out to be there?
45:24
Speaker 1: They're going to be a powers They're going to stay
45:26
Speaker 1: in Israel and you see that bond tightening Israel.
45:30
Speaker 2: And I do, and I also see the UAE being
45:32
Speaker 2: more external and outward focused. They're going to look to
45:37
Speaker 2: invest in and connect with much more the top everything
45:43
Speaker 2: from all over the world.
45:44
Speaker 1: And they want to cut They'll cut deals with China,
45:46
Speaker 1: and they'll cut deals with the United States.
45:47
Speaker 2: Right.
45:48
Speaker 1: They will almost now.
45:49
Speaker 2: From a military and tech and AI perspective, they will
45:52
Speaker 2: be American first. They'll be an American first time American.
45:55
Speaker 2: The Saudis have thirty five million people. They're almost all
46:01
Speaker 2: the Saudis. Remember, UAE run by MBZ not going anywhere,
46:06
Speaker 2: very popular inside the country.
46:08
Speaker 1: He's got control.
46:09
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia run by MBS, young guy not going anywhere.
46:13
Speaker 1: He's there for.
46:14
Speaker 2: Generations, right, and he's incredibly popular among the young people.
46:20
Speaker 1: He is transforming this country.
46:22
Speaker 2: He's bringing women into the workplace in ways we've never
46:26
Speaker 2: seen before.
46:26
Speaker 1: He's changing society. He got rid of the religious police
46:30
Speaker 1: and they're you know.
46:32
Speaker 2: Tight control over how society is actually manifest. He is
46:37
Speaker 2: trying to invest overwhelmingly in Saudi Arabia, and he has
46:42
Speaker 2: an Arab street and that country it's a Muslim.
46:47
Speaker 1: Country, right, it's a Muslim population.
46:50
Speaker 2: And their principal ally in this war has been Pakistan.
46:56
Speaker 2: Pakistan sent thirteen thousand troops on the ground Saudi Arabia
47:00
Speaker 2: and an air force. And they've got a nuclear program
47:05
Speaker 2: that the Saudi's funded, right, and so that that's their
47:09
Speaker 2: nuclear umbrella.
47:11
Speaker 1: That's what ultimately protects them.
47:12
Speaker 2: And they're much more aligned with the Turks, They're much
47:15
Speaker 2: more aligned with the Egyptians. And this is Saudi Arabia
47:19
Speaker 2: as controlling OPEC, producing oil at major scale, second producers
47:26
Speaker 2: in the world after the United States.
47:28
Speaker 1: They want to be.
47:28
Speaker 2: The large scale producer at the cheapest cost, much cheaper
47:32
Speaker 2: than the United States for the next decades, when the
47:35
Speaker 2: world is still going to need.
47:37
Speaker 1: Oil and gas, though in lower and lower amounts.
47:42
Speaker 2: And they are driving a regional strategy, a Muslim block
47:49
Speaker 2: strategy that they are the dominant players in. And by
47:54
Speaker 2: the way, they're close to Trump and close to Jared
47:58
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of money there. But they don't
48:01
Speaker 2: necessarily think that they're going to be close to the
48:03
Speaker 2: Americans if the Democrats win in twenty twenty eight. Heck,
48:08
Speaker 2: I don't think they think they're going to be close
48:10
Speaker 2: to the Americans, even if it was the Republicans, if
48:12
Speaker 2: it was someone like Tucker Carlson. And the Saudis are
48:16
Speaker 2: going to hedge much more towards China. Their missile program
48:20
Speaker 2: is already a Chinese program because the Americans wouldn't sell
48:23
Speaker 2: the Tomahawks after nine to eleven. So I mean, for me,
48:28
Speaker 2: I see that this is and this is a major
48:30
Speaker 2: consequence of the Conques break into two completely different blocks.
48:37
Speaker 2: And nothing like that's happening in Asia, nothing like that's
48:40
Speaker 2: happening in Europe, right, I mean, the EU is only
48:43
Speaker 2: getting more aligned, frankly, and it's expanding. More countries want
48:47
Speaker 2: to join the EU. Asians aren't going anywhere but the
48:51
Speaker 2: Middle East. That's where you're seeing a real geopolitical change.
48:55
Speaker 1: So everybody else starts to take sides that's not in
48:59
Speaker 1: that in the Middle least then, right, not as Cutter do. Yeah,
49:04
Speaker 1: I think that's right.
49:05
Speaker 2: I think that they also have to start figuring out
49:08
Speaker 2: how to make sure that they have a deal of their.
49:12
Speaker 1: Own with the Iranians.
49:13
Speaker 2: The Cutteries, you know, took twenty billion dollars of damage
49:18
Speaker 2: from Iran with their gas fields that they share with
49:22
Speaker 2: the Iranians. There's a single gas field, you know, cut
49:25
Speaker 2: down the middle basically by the territorial divide between these
49:29
Speaker 2: two sovereign nations, and they paid the Iranians off to
49:35
Speaker 2: promise not to attack them again going forward. So the
49:37
Speaker 2: Cutteries have to be very careful, and they surely thinking about,
49:41
Speaker 2: you know, what's the purpose, what's the vulnerability of US
49:44
Speaker 2: to have major US base in cutter going forward.
49:50
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say that was considered a good
49:53
Speaker 1: thing for that country. Yeah, they regard this suddenly it's
49:56
Speaker 1: a vulnerability. Yeah, they have made a big bet on
50:02
Speaker 1: the United States, right, but.
50:04
Speaker 2: They now need to they need to ensure that the
50:06
Speaker 2: Iranians don't attack them, and the Americans by themselves are
50:10
Speaker 2: uncapable and unwilling to provide those guarantees.
50:16
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Speaker 1: this is a pretty bad domestic political situation at the
51:57
Speaker 1: moment for mister neetya in is real to you. I
52:00
Speaker 1: think that's right now.
52:02
Speaker 2: You know, keep in mind, this deal that is being
52:07
Speaker 2: struck by the United States in Iran includes an end
52:12
Speaker 2: to hostilities in Lebanon. But the Israelis and for that matter,
52:18
Speaker 2: has Belah are not signatories to the MoU so. I
52:24
Speaker 2: mean that raises a question because obviously Israel's being pressured
52:28
Speaker 2: by the United States to stomp But BB is very
52:34
Speaker 2: uncomfortable with that. He is hemorrhaging support of his own
52:40
Speaker 2: lacued party from all of the Israelis that live in
52:42
Speaker 2: the north of the country who are on the receiving
52:46
Speaker 2: end of missile strikes from Hesbelah. Now, Israel is not
52:51
Speaker 2: going to withdraw from the territory that they have occupied
52:55
Speaker 2: in the past weeks in Lebanon. But the question is
52:59
Speaker 2: will they stop striking Lebanon, Well, they stop striking Iran.
53:04
Speaker 2: And if I mean the thing about Hezelah, I mean
53:08
Speaker 2: I mentioned Hesbelah is not a signatory, but Hesbelah unlike Israel,
53:11
Speaker 2: I mean Israel. There's a lot of US influence over Israel.
53:14
Speaker 2: But you wouldn't say this control. You would say there's
53:17
Speaker 2: Iranian operational control of Hezbelah military decision making.
53:24
Speaker 1: And so to the extent that Iran is on board
53:27
Speaker 1: with this.
53:28
Speaker 2: Deal, they can tell Hesbelah, you're not allowed to actually
53:32
Speaker 2: hit the Israelis, and presumably that is something that they
53:36
Speaker 2: are going to do for at least a period of time.
53:40
Speaker 2: But if they change their mind because they don't like
53:44
Speaker 2: the way the deal is going, or they don't like
53:46
Speaker 2: the pressure they're getting from the Americans, then that decision
53:50
Speaker 2: will immediately lead to the Israelis to engaging in strikes
53:55
Speaker 2: in retaliation, which might well be much bigger than the
53:58
Speaker 2: strikes that are launched by Hez a Lot, and that
54:01
Speaker 2: in turn could undermine the deal. So essentially, the Iranians
54:06
Speaker 2: have a bank shot because of the Israeli positioning on
54:11
Speaker 2: all of this, to unwind this at any moment going
54:14
Speaker 2: forward if they choose to.
54:17
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like, but Israel can unwind this, That's
54:19
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. But the Iranians can force the Israelis
54:22
Speaker 1: to unwin want to well, and are is the United
54:29
Speaker 1: States suddenly powerless and all this? But not powerless, of
54:33
Speaker 1: course not.
54:34
Speaker 3: But but the United States here, well, the United States
54:39
Speaker 3: has decided that they really don't want to continue this war,
54:45
Speaker 3: that they really want the straight open and they wanted
54:48
Speaker 3: to stay open.
54:49
Speaker 1: So, I mean, the US has hit really hard.
54:52
Speaker 2: The Iranians killed the supreme leader, you know, killed all
54:55
Speaker 2: these leaders in the country, and so hit. I mean,
54:58
Speaker 2: the the American mil military punch is greater than anybody else.
55:02
Speaker 2: But it turns out the Americans are incapable of taking
55:05
Speaker 2: a punch. We saw that when the Chinese hit back
55:08
Speaker 2: against the US after Liberation Day.
55:10
Speaker 1: We're now seeing that when the Iranians.
55:13
Speaker 2: Hit back against the Gulf States and against the Strait
55:17
Speaker 2: and and Trump has been focused on an off ramp
55:22
Speaker 2: for the last five six weeks. No matter what he says,
55:26
Speaker 2: watch what he does. He's the only time he really
55:30
Speaker 2: used the military since that ceasefire, when it was clear
55:33
Speaker 2: that Trump wanted this to be over, was after a
55:37
Speaker 2: US helicopter was shot a week ago, shot down.
55:40
Speaker 1: It was just into self defense retach that essentially.
55:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you kind of knew that this was
55:45
Speaker 2: Trump using the military, but he wasn't risking further escalation
55:48
Speaker 2: because the Iranians were the ones that hit first. So
55:52
Speaker 2: it's very clear if you're the Iranians here, it's very
55:56
Speaker 2: clear that Trump does not want anymore military engagement region.
56:03
Speaker 1: Now let's talk about iron There have been reports that
56:06
Speaker 1: they are IRGC's somehow perhaps more ideological, has more sort
56:15
Speaker 1: of Is that the case and are they really running
56:18
Speaker 1: the show?
56:20
Speaker 2: I think it's incredible to watch Trump and jd Vance
56:24
Speaker 2: in the past forty eight hours talking about how the
56:30
Speaker 2: Iranians have now realized the mistakes of their ways for
56:34
Speaker 2: the last forty seven years.
56:38
Speaker 1: Have you been able to laugh at those comments or
56:40
Speaker 1: do you cry when you hear those You know.
56:42
Speaker 2: It's it's amused. I mean in the sense that, yes,
56:46
Speaker 2: they have learned the mistakes. They've learned that actually they
56:49
Speaker 2: should have disrupted the straight a long time ago, because
56:51
Speaker 2: that's where their real leverage is.
56:53
Speaker 1: Forget the nuke. Forget nukes, the straight was the whole U.
56:57
Speaker 2: Okay, turns out that nukes are less essential, or at
57:01
Speaker 2: least imminently essential for the Iranians. But I don't think
57:05
Speaker 2: that that's not the point that JD's trying to make.
57:07
Speaker 2: He's trying to make. No, we can find a way
57:09
Speaker 2: to engage. We can do a deal with these guys.
57:11
Speaker 2: We can build some trust with the Islamic Republic, trust
57:16
Speaker 2: with the Islamis.
57:16
Speaker 1: Imagine if Barack Obama had said that, what would they
57:19
Speaker 1: right have said? It's insanity.
57:22
Speaker 2: And again I don't consider myself left or right, but
57:25
Speaker 2: it's objectively insane the idea that suddenly, after having assassinated
57:31
Speaker 2: their leaders, that this Islamic Republic led by Mushtabahameni, the son,
57:36
Speaker 2: the injured son whose family has been killed by the
57:40
Speaker 2: Americans in the Israeli suddenly is going to engage in
57:42
Speaker 2: a relationship of trust with the United States.
57:45
Speaker 1: It's on its face ludicrous. So no, that is not
57:49
Speaker 1: what is happening.
57:51
Speaker 2: And the true sadness here, the true sadness is that
57:57
Speaker 2: the ninety million people of ira on right have been
58:02
Speaker 2: brutalized all the way through, and they're now facing a
58:06
Speaker 2: regime that will continue to treat them with horror, and
58:12
Speaker 2: and no one is coming to their rescue, no one.
58:16
Speaker 1: Was there a strategy the United States could have pursued
58:21
Speaker 1: that would have assisted the people to help them topple
58:23
Speaker 1: their I don't think so spread that from day one.
58:27
Speaker 2: I mean, if you were not prepared to have boots
58:30
Speaker 2: on the ground to enforce a regime change operation which
58:34
Speaker 2: which certainly the American people would have strongly opposed and
58:38
Speaker 2: which Trump wanted no part of. But absent that the
58:44
Speaker 2: idea that you're going to give weapons to the Kurds
58:47
Speaker 2: and they're going to fight for all of this, or
58:49
Speaker 2: that the Iranian people with you know, disorganized, very courageous,
58:54
Speaker 2: but nonetheless facing a very brutal and capable Iranian regime,
59:00
Speaker 2: I thought that was never a likely prospect of regime
59:04
Speaker 2: change never.
59:07
Speaker 1: Is. Are we going to look back on five years
59:10
Speaker 1: and say that the biggest consequence of this of this
59:14
Speaker 1: Iran war was to bring Iran back essentially legitimize this
59:23
Speaker 1: regime because now you're going to have individual countries decide
59:28
Speaker 1: they got to make their own deal of Iran, and
59:30
Speaker 1: every individual deal that happens only legitimizes the regime more.
59:34
Speaker 2: I hope not. I agree with you, Chuck. It is
59:37
Speaker 2: plausible that that could happen. But I mean, it's not
59:41
Speaker 2: like the Iranian government is full of competent people that
59:47
Speaker 2: know how to run an economy.
59:49
Speaker 1: There's still a water crisis in Tehran right, very like
59:54
Speaker 1: it does feel as if, you know, on one hand,
59:56
Speaker 1: I know that we sit here and we're like in
59:59
Speaker 1: some way impressed with their ability to take the punches
1:00:03
Speaker 1: that they've taken. Yeah, at the same time, this was
1:00:06
Speaker 1: a country that was just not just abusing its people,
1:00:10
Speaker 1: but neglecting them, that's right.
1:00:11
Speaker 2: And their infrastructure has taken an enormous beating, and so
1:00:15
Speaker 2: the economy is going to be in much worse shape,
1:00:17
Speaker 2: even though they've been able to sell a lot of
1:00:19
Speaker 2: oil in the early days of this war. Another of
1:00:21
Speaker 2: the ironies is that while the Americans are hitting them hard,
1:00:24
Speaker 2: they also allow them to get the oil through the
1:00:26
Speaker 2: Strait to keep the prices low, so they could be
1:00:29
Speaker 2: in worse economic condition if it was like Cuba, but
1:00:32
Speaker 2: it's not because a lot of people, including the US,
1:00:35
Speaker 2: still need the stuff that's coming out of Iran. I
1:00:39
Speaker 2: fear that it's it's not going It would be nice
1:00:45
Speaker 2: if in a year's time of two years time, you know,
1:00:49
Speaker 2: the Iranians becoming less capable at the national level, the
1:00:54
Speaker 2: gang that can't shoot straight with all of the internal challenges,
1:00:57
Speaker 2: that the Iranian people start to actually rise up.
1:01:01
Speaker 1: I don't I wouldn't make a bet on it.
1:01:04
Speaker 2: I think it's more likely they muddle through, but that
1:01:07
Speaker 2: they're not suddenly like the new superpower in the regions,
1:01:10
Speaker 2: just that they're more stable and more countries end up
1:01:13
Speaker 2: dealing with them. That I don't think that legitimizes them globally,
1:01:16
Speaker 2: certainly because so many of their proxies have been you know,
1:01:20
Speaker 2: also hurt. And I think Israel will still engage in
1:01:23
Speaker 2: strikes against Iran going forward, and again the Amadis will
1:01:26
Speaker 2: be with the Israelis on that. Now, the biggest consequence
1:01:29
Speaker 2: of this war even bigger than the split of the
1:01:35
Speaker 2: Gulf into two competing blocks, is that the world is
1:01:40
Speaker 2: going to move much faster away from oil and gas.
1:01:44
Speaker 2: This is really going to accelerate the move to electric
1:01:50
Speaker 2: vehicles and batteries and solar and wind deeply.
1:01:54
Speaker 1: The number of countries. You know, we didn't cover it
1:01:57
Speaker 1: very well in the American media, and I don't say
1:02:00
Speaker 1: that is criticism. We don't cover international news collectively very
1:02:03
Speaker 1: well in the American media. The number of smaller countries
1:02:07
Speaker 1: that were so dependent on oil from the Middle East
1:02:10
Speaker 1: and now realize they've got to come up. I mean,
1:02:13
Speaker 1: the one of the unintended consequences you're pointing out, and
1:02:16
Speaker 1: this economically in the near term is really going to
1:02:18
Speaker 1: benefit China, right. That's because they've cornered the market on
1:02:22
Speaker 1: renewables and reusables, and we've retreated here in the United.
1:02:26
Speaker 4: States, so that the former is true, the US retreat
1:02:32
Speaker 4: So certainly you are no longer seeing policy support for renewables.
1:02:37
Speaker 1: You know, government support for it.
1:02:38
Speaker 2: Yes, but you know, with the incredible and voracious energy
1:02:45
Speaker 2: demand of data centers for the AI hyperscalers, that is
1:02:51
Speaker 2: leading a lot of new renewable energy investment that's going
1:02:56
Speaker 2: to lead to a lot of nuclear investment in the
1:03:00
Speaker 2: the States. And and the fact that the Chinese are dominant,
1:03:04
Speaker 2: just like on critical minerals. Now the Americans are paying attention.
1:03:08
Speaker 2: This will the Americans will be late, but it will
1:03:11
Speaker 2: It will probably course correct. So I think that in
1:03:14
Speaker 2: ten years time, you and I may well look back
1:03:18
Speaker 2: and say Trump did more to promote the green transition
1:03:22
Speaker 2: than any president.
1:03:24
Speaker 1: In US history. Is own a weird way, but no,
1:03:28
Speaker 1: I've always said, I said, the Trump presidency is going
1:03:30
Speaker 1: to be a huge benefit to us going forward because
1:03:33
Speaker 1: it is exposed. It's been an tremendous MRI for the
1:03:37
Speaker 1: political system. Europe is realizing what an MR. You know.
1:03:41
Speaker 1: It is making everybody think of think of things that
1:03:44
Speaker 1: they didn't think about and they probably should.
1:03:47
Speaker 2: Have and they now need to do. Yeah, that's you know,
1:03:50
Speaker 2: spends like having energy. The Canadians need to diversify their trade.
1:03:53
Speaker 2: This will make them stronger. It's smart.
1:03:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, hiring a really good home inspector and finding out
1:03:57
Speaker 1: oh wow, okay, we have a term my problem here
1:03:59
Speaker 1: we have here. We got to plug those holes. One
1:04:03
Speaker 1: more question on the Middle East, and then I want
1:04:06
Speaker 1: to shift to North Korea here a little bit. So
1:04:13
Speaker 1: where is China in this is spotty Their main partner
1:04:17
Speaker 1: are they do they see opportunity in taking advantage of
1:04:21
Speaker 1: this sort of of the United States. It's not going
1:04:23
Speaker 1: to be in retreating the Middle East. They just are
1:04:24
Speaker 1: not going to be as universally influential as they had been.
1:04:29
Speaker 2: So the Chinese are not a military factor in the Middle.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: East, and they don't want to be do that.
1:04:36
Speaker 2: They're not really capable of it in the near term.
1:04:40
Speaker 2: They were not a principal component of the negotiations the
1:04:46
Speaker 2: way that Pakistan and Cutter has been.
1:04:50
Speaker 1: But the Chinese have no enemies in the Middle East
1:04:52
Speaker 1: at all.
1:04:52
Speaker 2: They've got actually good and stable relations with every country
1:04:56
Speaker 2: out there, and they're only become more important for those
1:05:01
Speaker 2: countries because of China's technology, because of China's commercial heft,
1:05:07
Speaker 2: their trade, their investment, and that's going to grow.
1:05:12
Speaker 1: The Chinese were the ones that.
1:05:13
Speaker 2: Facilitated the Iran rapprochemont with Saudi Arabia in Beijing before
1:05:23
Speaker 2: the war.
1:05:23
Speaker 1: Happened, and they certainly will be doing more of that
1:05:27
Speaker 1: going forward.
1:05:28
Speaker 2: So on balance, I think that China's equities will rise
1:05:32
Speaker 2: with everybody and there will be certain countries that they
1:05:36
Speaker 2: will be seen as a much more significant hedge as
1:05:39
Speaker 2: a consequence.
1:05:40
Speaker 1: I want to ask about North Korea because when you
1:05:43
Speaker 1: think about Trump's first term, the most you know, look,
1:05:46
Speaker 1: he was the thing that I think some people are
1:05:50
Speaker 1: attracted to Trump for is that he's willing to do
1:05:53
Speaker 1: things that others, you know, he's willing to sort of
1:05:55
Speaker 1: and sitting down and talking with the North Koreans directly
1:05:58
Speaker 1: right with something like great, why do you know it?
1:06:00
Speaker 1: Why not right? The other way? Has it worked? Yea?
1:06:03
Speaker 1: Try this?
1:06:05
Speaker 2: And he got the freeze for freeze on military tests,
1:06:10
Speaker 2: military exercises and batistic missile tests at the time. That
1:06:15
Speaker 2: was actually even though he didn't coordinate it with the
1:06:17
Speaker 2: South Koreans and Japanese and advance and really should have
1:06:20
Speaker 2: because it undermined the relationship and the trust, but it
1:06:23
Speaker 2: was an actual advance in stabilizing that relationship.
1:06:29
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Speaker 1: times may vary and rates may vary. I want you
1:08:13
Speaker 1: for a little bit of a BS detector here. There's
1:08:16
Speaker 1: been some pretty interesting coverage of North Korea lately about
1:08:20
Speaker 1: how Yanyang is a changing city, the amount of money
1:08:26
Speaker 1: that the country's made in exporting some of its defense,
1:08:29
Speaker 1: in some of its arms, essentially selling troops to the
1:08:33
Speaker 1: Russians in Ukraine has really benefited North Korea's economy and
1:08:38
Speaker 1: only strengthened them more. And they've been doing more testing,
1:08:41
Speaker 1: I think launched more missile tests lately than they ever
1:08:44
Speaker 1: have before. What do we make of that and what's
1:08:47
Speaker 1: the you know, we're there's a lot of failed opportunities
1:08:53
Speaker 1: here in trying to restrain the North Koreans in history,
1:08:58
Speaker 1: but what kind of mistake was made here? It does
1:09:03
Speaker 1: seem that way.
1:09:05
Speaker 2: And look, I think that the North Koreans clearly take
1:09:15
Speaker 2: advantage of a geopolitical vacuum, I mean rogue states and
1:09:22
Speaker 2: organizations all over the world. If you don't have a
1:09:26
Speaker 2: global sheriff, if you don't have a global leader, if
1:09:28
Speaker 2: you have fragmentation, if you have taught you can talk
1:09:31
Speaker 2: about middle powers, but.
1:09:32
Speaker 1: There isn't a middle power there.
1:09:34
Speaker 2: There there's no coherence or strategy or ing alliance. Then
1:09:38
Speaker 2: a country like North Korea can get away with more.
1:09:41
Speaker 2: And when the Russians invaded the Ukraine, uh and and
1:09:45
Speaker 2: the Ukrainians and they and they started failing, the North
1:09:49
Speaker 2: Koreans saw an opportunity not just to be close to China,
1:09:53
Speaker 2: but also Okay, we can balance these forces out.
1:09:56
Speaker 1: Now. It's very interesting to me.
1:09:58
Speaker 2: You know, Shijinping just went to Pyongyang last week. It
1:10:03
Speaker 2: was his first trip there in seven years. And my
1:10:07
Speaker 2: understanding is the reason he made that trip is because
1:10:10
Speaker 2: she understands that the war in Ukraine is going badly
1:10:13
Speaker 2: for Putin wants it to be over had Putin in
1:10:17
Speaker 2: Beijing said we're willing to play a role to get
1:10:21
Speaker 2: a ceasefire going, and got nothing back from the Russians,
1:10:25
Speaker 2: And so Shi Jinping went to Pyongyang to see if
1:10:29
Speaker 2: if he could maybe get some better intel and maybe
1:10:34
Speaker 2: align on how to try to rain Putin back in
1:10:39
Speaker 2: a very self destructive and dangerous war. In many ways,
1:10:44
Speaker 2: Putin is becoming more dangerous on the global stage and unstable.
1:10:50
Speaker 1: Then, because he's right than Kim Jong un. And that's
1:10:54
Speaker 1: a that's a really minute is that is an incredible
1:10:58
Speaker 1: statement that Putin is right now potentially more dangerous than
1:11:01
Speaker 1: Kim John Nun.
1:11:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I mean because Russia has.
1:11:07
Speaker 1: Made exactly a ton of sense. I mean, to put
1:11:10
Speaker 1: Moscow in their sights, right.
1:11:12
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, and no one can do that
1:11:14
Speaker 2: or would do that with Pyongyang. And you know you've
1:11:18
Speaker 2: got I mean, the fact is that the Russians are
1:11:21
Speaker 2: all in against an enemy that suddenly is far more
1:11:26
Speaker 2: potent than they had possibly imagined. And Putin is getting old,
1:11:31
Speaker 2: and he doesn't listen to anyone. He gets bad information, right,
1:11:35
Speaker 2: he's basically in a punker. I mean, you know, Putin
1:11:38
Speaker 2: is in some ways talking to fewer world leaders on
1:11:41
Speaker 2: a regular basis then, I mean, you saw Putin and
1:11:45
Speaker 2: Kim Jong un on that stage with Xi Jinping. I
1:11:49
Speaker 2: mean it's at this point, you know, Putin may have
1:11:53
Speaker 2: five thousand nukes, but the difference between five thousand nukes
1:11:58
Speaker 2: and like twenty nukes in this.
1:11:59
Speaker 1: Environment is not as great as you might think. You
1:12:03
Speaker 1: can do a lot of damage. It's funny, I know.
1:12:06
Speaker 2: And I mean, look of all of the things out
1:12:09
Speaker 2: there that I worry about geopolitically, I'm not talking about technology,
1:12:14
Speaker 2: AI and all the rest, but just pure geopolitics. The
1:12:18
Speaker 2: one thing that could go very, very badly, that would
1:12:20
Speaker 2: suddenly ruin the global economy is that Putin decides to
1:12:24
Speaker 2: use a nuclear weapon as a consequence of this war
1:12:27
Speaker 2: in Ukraine.
1:12:28
Speaker 1: And that doesn't it sounds like you're more worried than
1:12:34
Speaker 1: ever about his state of mind. I am, I am.
1:12:37
Speaker 1: I'm very worried about his state of mind. I'm very
1:12:39
Speaker 1: worried about the fact that, you know, Saint Petersburg is
1:12:42
Speaker 1: directly targeted when he is there hosting his own Davos.
1:12:46
Speaker 1: I'm very worried that he seems to be completely unmoored
1:12:50
Speaker 1: from the reality of what is happening on the ground
1:12:53
Speaker 1: between his country and Ukraine, and only doubling down. I
1:12:57
Speaker 1: worry that his top advisors.
1:12:58
Speaker 2: Are incapable of actually in any way hitting him back,
1:13:04
Speaker 2: and that he is spending more and more time isolated
1:13:06
Speaker 2: from his people, from his military, and from his government
1:13:10
Speaker 2: all and he looks he looks a lot older now
1:13:13
Speaker 2: than he did three years ago, five years ago, ten
1:13:16
Speaker 2: years ago.
1:13:16
Speaker 1: He looks frail. All of those things worried me. If
1:13:21
Speaker 1: you were advising the next president of the United States,
1:13:23
Speaker 1: would you tell him your biggest geopolitical risk right now
1:13:25
Speaker 1: in the near term is Russia. Sure?
1:13:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean just again from a tail risk perspective,
1:13:30
Speaker 2: From a tail risk, no, China is a much more
1:13:33
Speaker 2: potent No, I get it.
1:13:34
Speaker 1: China is the term. I get that. China is the
1:13:37
Speaker 1: hard work. China is the the constant work. But a
1:13:42
Speaker 1: near term you know, hey, you've got this is the
1:13:45
Speaker 1: emergency you've got to worry about. It's that, That's how
1:13:48
Speaker 1: you put it.
1:13:49
Speaker 2: And I mean, look, the fact that Trump, you know,
1:13:53
Speaker 2: has engaged with Putin, and that he has bona fides
1:13:58
Speaker 2: with Putin because he's beaten crap out of the Ukrainians
1:14:01
Speaker 2: in ways that are completely inappropriate in my view, but
1:14:04
Speaker 2: nonetheless he's done it. Putin should should be willing to
1:14:08
Speaker 2: listen to Trump at least a little right, and you
1:14:12
Speaker 2: have you'd have to think, I mean, if there was
1:14:14
Speaker 2: anything that more stability and alignment between the Americans and
1:14:18
Speaker 2: the Chinese could accomplish, it should be to try to
1:14:23
Speaker 2: like stabilize this horrible, horrible position that Putin is getting
1:14:28
Speaker 2: himself into.
1:14:29
Speaker 1: Well, this brings me to a story I put as
1:14:31
Speaker 1: the most important story you probably haven't read about this week,
1:14:34
Speaker 1: and it was the story the BBC and Financial Times
1:14:37
Speaker 1: investigation about the cure starmer Arsonist and it was basically
1:14:43
Speaker 1: just a Russia It was a Russian operation and should
1:14:47
Speaker 1: by the Kremlin, like paid by the Russian government. Yeah,
1:14:50
Speaker 1: just just an astonishing story. And frankly, I think good
1:14:56
Speaker 1: for the British intelligence for making sure this information got
1:14:58
Speaker 1: out into the public. You know needed to be out there.
1:15:04
Speaker 2: Did you should be the warning shots against the yacht
1:15:08
Speaker 2: in the British channel that came from a Russian ship?
1:15:11
Speaker 1: So what what should the Why isn't this the most
1:15:14
Speaker 1: important issue at the G seven At the moment, there's
1:15:18
Speaker 1: a lot going on in G seven. Oh, I get that,
1:15:21
Speaker 1: but this is not a small thing.
1:15:23
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, impact on the European economies of the
1:15:26
Speaker 2: Strait of Hormuz has been much greater than the US,
1:15:29
Speaker 2: so obviously they're paying more attention to that. The United
1:15:33
Speaker 2: States has just put export controls on the most advanced
1:15:36
Speaker 2: AI model, and that feels like a kill switch for
1:15:39
Speaker 2: the Europeans meetings. Americans, any tech that you rely on,
1:15:42
Speaker 2: they could shut down and you have no say over it.
1:15:45
Speaker 1: So at best this would be number three for the Europeans. This, yeah,
1:15:51
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Actually, yeah, that Russia targeting one of the
1:15:56
Speaker 1: you know, one of the member, the prime minister, one
1:15:59
Speaker 1: of them, of the G seven and it's it's not
1:16:01
Speaker 1: the number one, seems like a pretty big I get it.
1:16:04
Speaker 1: You're not wrong. I mean, you just you've laid it out,
1:16:07
Speaker 1: but it that entire story was so shocking, and our
1:16:11
Speaker 1: lack of reaction has been surprising to me.
1:16:14
Speaker 2: I didn't actually tell you this at the time because
1:16:17
Speaker 2: it wasn't appropriate to but now that that administration has gone,
1:16:21
Speaker 2: I should share with you. So early months into the war,
1:16:25
Speaker 2: between when Russia invaded Ukraine after they failed to take Kiev,
1:16:30
Speaker 2: and when they were on their heels and losing territory
1:16:33
Speaker 2: quickly in southeast Ukraine, I had a meeting with Jake Sullivan,
1:16:39
Speaker 2: you know in the.
1:16:39
Speaker 1: White House National Security Advice at the time.
1:16:43
Speaker 2: We would see each other all the time, and he
1:16:47
Speaker 2: he sat down with me, and I could tell this
1:16:49
Speaker 2: was like, I mean, it was always a serious conversation,
1:16:51
Speaker 2: but this was a he was quite somber, and he said, look,
1:16:57
Speaker 2: we we got information this morning. We believe that the
1:17:02
Speaker 2: there's between a twenty and a forty percent likelihood that
1:17:05
Speaker 2: the Russians are going to use a tactical nuclear weapon
1:17:08
Speaker 2: in Ukraine.
1:17:09
Speaker 1: And I could have fallen off my chair right and.
1:17:13
Speaker 2: And the US was immediately I mean, direct messages to
1:17:18
Speaker 2: the Russians from Bill Burns, CIA director, direct highest level
1:17:23
Speaker 2: conversations with the Chinese, with the Indians, trying to make
1:17:27
Speaker 2: the Russians aware of what the consequences would be directly
1:17:30
Speaker 2: from US military if they were to do that. You know,
1:17:35
Speaker 2: that Russian that Russian troops in Ukraine would be hit
1:17:38
Speaker 2: directly by.
1:17:39
Speaker 1: The United States if that were to happen, for example.
1:17:42
Speaker 1: But I mean, this was a.
1:17:45
Speaker 2: That's the kind of thing that like you would have
1:17:47
Speaker 2: I would have thought about from the Cold War, from
1:17:49
Speaker 2: the Cuban missile crisis. This was suddenly and this was
1:17:52
Speaker 2: this was Russia was in a far better position back then.
1:17:57
Speaker 1: Than they are now in my view, I mean economically, politically,
1:18:03
Speaker 1: geo strategically, So I mean this is and you know,
1:18:07
Speaker 1: we weren't making this ship up. This is this is
1:18:10
Speaker 1: I have no operational clearance.
1:18:13
Speaker 2: So they're not going to tell me anything in terms
1:18:15
Speaker 2: of what exactly they found. But but there's no question
1:18:20
Speaker 2: that that was the issue that the President of the
1:18:22
Speaker 2: United States was dealing with right at that moment, and
1:18:25
Speaker 2: I I do worry if that were to happen today
1:18:30
Speaker 2: that we have the.
1:18:34
Speaker 1: Fully a capable leadership in the United States to respond
1:18:40
Speaker 1: appropriately and to do to rally to do exactly what
1:18:43
Speaker 1: you said they did. Then get Mody on the phone, guys,
1:18:46
Speaker 1: We've got to this is a we got to triangulate.
1:18:49
Speaker 2: This full full court press, you know, on the most
1:18:52
Speaker 2: important issues with a level of seriousness and policy understanding
1:18:57
Speaker 2: that can really engage by the way. I think Marco
1:19:00
Speaker 2: Bio could definitely do that, and I think Marco in
1:19:03
Speaker 2: many ways is more capable in that role than blinkln was,
1:19:06
Speaker 2: but it was Jake that was actually running, you know,
1:19:09
Speaker 2: sort of those those top strategic conversations. I would argue
1:19:13
Speaker 2: Tony was had more of a bureaucratic role at that
1:19:16
Speaker 2: point acted because you know, so it was and and
1:19:21
Speaker 2: Marco's doing everything. Now, if Marco were actually running it
1:19:25
Speaker 2: and Trump wasn't, maybe I'd feel more comfortable. But what
1:19:29
Speaker 2: we've seen on Iran is that that's not the case.
1:19:31
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, what do you make of the incredibly disappearing
1:19:35
Speaker 1: Secretary of State in the current Iran situation?
1:19:37
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's it's good that he's not the
1:19:39
Speaker 2: one that is seen as the statesman doing the Iran deal.
1:19:42
Speaker 1: Instead, it's it's Vans, which again, of course is.
1:19:46
Speaker 2: Completely reward or a punishment, but it's obviously a punishment.
1:19:50
Speaker 1: And for Vance and and you know, again in the
1:19:54
Speaker 1: same way that there were some on the right that
1:19:57
Speaker 1: were trying to blame bb for the war as opposed
1:20:00
Speaker 1: to Trump, whose decision it was, and he took it.
1:20:04
Speaker 2: And he's more than capable of taking decisions and not
1:20:06
Speaker 2: taking decisions when he feels like it, and that includes
1:20:09
Speaker 2: with Israel. There's no magic to the Israeli influence over Trump.
1:20:13
Speaker 2: Although I am you know, knowing Trump. Trump loves to
1:20:16
Speaker 2: scapegoat people.
1:20:17
Speaker 1: It is interesting to me he hasn't done that yet
1:20:19
Speaker 1: with BB That's right, that's but he's not a bit
1:20:22
Speaker 1: of it. He's done a bit of it on on stuff,
1:20:24
Speaker 1: frankly in the last few days. But ultimately his his
1:20:30
Speaker 1: war and ultimately his MoU He can't admit somebody else
1:20:35
Speaker 1: made him do something because that's worse for him, isn't it.
1:20:38
Speaker 2: It's right I think for him to say no, no, no,
1:20:41
Speaker 2: I it wasn't really me.
1:20:42
Speaker 1: He made me do it? You're kidding me. It makes
1:20:44
Speaker 1: him look weak. Absolutely, he's not going to do that. No,
1:20:48
Speaker 1: does this guarantee that we do action on Cuba before
1:20:51
Speaker 1: the end of this year. It strikes me that Trump
1:20:54
Speaker 1: is going to want to memory hole Iran as fast
1:20:56
Speaker 1: as he can. Yeah, I agree, And one of the
1:20:58
Speaker 1: best ways to do it is, Hey, let's show the
1:21:00
Speaker 1: shiny metal object in the Western.
1:21:02
Speaker 2: Hemisphere, which is first of all, which is why the
1:21:05
Speaker 2: sixty days doesn't really matter on the nuclear deal, because
1:21:08
Speaker 2: I think that that's gonna get kicked and kicked and kicked, just.
1:21:10
Speaker 1: Like sixty days. It'll be a consist. It'll be like
1:21:14
Speaker 1: the government continuing resolutions, right, Yeah, they'll built fun government
1:21:17
Speaker 1: down the road. Yeah.
1:21:18
Speaker 2: And and just like Gaza where you got your phase
1:21:21
Speaker 2: one deal and then where's phase two and you know
1:21:23
Speaker 2: we're the condos and when we started not happening and
1:21:27
Speaker 2: so but but you.
1:21:28
Speaker 1: Know I put it down payment on one, so I
1:21:31
Speaker 1: should I'm not going to get that money back. I Yeah.
1:21:36
Speaker 2: Just think of it as you know, you're you're you're
1:21:38
Speaker 2: doing your part, like Star Starship Troopers. You're doing your part,
1:21:43
Speaker 2: you got right? Yeah, yeah, so I love that movie.
1:21:47
Speaker 2: So anyway, look, the Western hemisphere, Yes, he wants to
1:21:50
Speaker 2: pivot to the Western hemisphere. If he hadn't done it
1:21:53
Speaker 2: on and just like it actually done a victory lap
1:21:56
Speaker 2: properly on Venezuela, there'd be much more to talk about
1:21:59
Speaker 2: in the Western hemisphere today.
1:22:00
Speaker 1: And by the way, Trump is winning in the Western hemisphere.
1:22:03
Speaker 1: He is and is and he's got new allies that's right,
1:22:06
Speaker 1: are winning I mean Columbia right.
1:22:09
Speaker 2: Definitely that that that president is going to be very shortly,
1:22:13
Speaker 2: it's going to be the guy that that Trump had
1:22:15
Speaker 2: actually endorsed. He couldn't stand Petro, he thought it was
1:22:19
Speaker 2: a communist before.
1:22:20
Speaker 1: He's doing better there than in Georgia.
1:22:21
Speaker 2: Governor Argentina, right, I mean Melay is like not only
1:22:25
Speaker 2: legitimately he's popular and and he supports Trump, but he's
1:22:30
Speaker 2: actually doing a pretty great job comparatively comparatively with the economy.
1:22:36
Speaker 2: You've got El Salvador, You've got Honduras. You know, You've
1:22:40
Speaker 2: got Panama, which is kicking the Chinese out and is
1:22:43
Speaker 2: working more closely with the United States. I mean, Brazil
1:22:47
Speaker 2: probably doesn't go Trump's way, and that's a big deal.
1:22:50
Speaker 2: But but still Lula doing everything he can to engage
1:22:54
Speaker 2: with Trump.
1:22:55
Speaker 1: At this point, I was just gonna say it, Lula
1:22:57
Speaker 1: doesn't Lula is trying not is basically try to defang
1:23:00
Speaker 1: Trump a bit, isn't it.
1:23:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, as as the Mexicans with a lot
1:23:04
Speaker 2: more at stake, And so everywhere you look, the Western
1:23:08
Speaker 2: hemisphere is basically a good story for Trump. And if
1:23:11
Speaker 2: you read his national security strategy, you know, at the
1:23:14
Speaker 2: beginning of the year, and I'm not suggesting that Trump
1:23:16
Speaker 2: read it, but but if but if you or I did,
1:23:19
Speaker 2: you know it means.
1:23:20
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio wrote it. Marco Rubio. This has been his vision.
1:23:24
Speaker 1: It's his name. Frankly, you know this, you know was
1:23:27
Speaker 1: I I've always believed that, But for nine to eleven
1:23:30
Speaker 1: this might have been the George W. Bush vision. He
1:23:34
Speaker 1: was really wanting to engage the Western hemisphere.
1:23:36
Speaker 2: And then Cuba becomes a deal that that Obama couldn't do,
1:23:42
Speaker 2: and after sixty years of effort that suddenly Cuba's open
1:23:46
Speaker 2: for business, open for investment, and and the Maga guys
1:23:51
Speaker 2: are going down there.
1:23:52
Speaker 1: Okay, it's still going to be the Castros. So it's
1:23:56
Speaker 1: not you know, it's it's not it'll be grift throw.
1:24:00
Speaker 1: It'll be very grifty too, but yeah.
1:24:02
Speaker 2: But it'll still be what Obama wanted to do and
1:24:05
Speaker 2: ultimately failed a doing, but didn't have any stick. It
1:24:08
Speaker 2: was all carrot and here so the so the Cubans
1:24:11
Speaker 2: ultimately punted and punted and punted and decided it was
1:24:14
Speaker 2: too risky. Now you know, you're you're killing their economy.
1:24:18
Speaker 2: There's a lot more urgency for the Cubans to play
1:24:21
Speaker 2: ball with the United States, and I think it's more
1:24:24
Speaker 2: likely to happen.
1:24:27
Speaker 1: How's the US doing it as the World Cup host?
1:24:29
Speaker 1: Are we making friends or are we making enemies? I
1:24:32
Speaker 1: don't know. I went to France Senegal was the first
1:24:35
Speaker 1: World Cup game I've ever been to in my life,
1:24:37
Speaker 1: and first of all, was extremely well organized, every piece
1:24:42
Speaker 1: of it. It's way too expensive. Was that? Where was that?
1:24:45
Speaker 1: Was that in Dallas? No? No New Jersey.
1:24:48
Speaker 2: That was a New Jersey just across the river from me.
1:24:50
Speaker 2: I had no problem getting over there. People were super happy.
1:24:54
Speaker 2: The French were there in very large numbers. Senegal no,
1:24:57
Speaker 2: but loud and look, it's a great thing because the
1:25:02
Speaker 2: the first of all, the Chinese don't matter. The Americans
1:25:06
Speaker 2: are only okay, though they played real well against Paraguay
1:25:10
Speaker 2: the other day. This is like the whole the Middle
1:25:12
Speaker 2: Powers all come out and they all celebrate.
1:25:15
Speaker 1: This is their most this is their time to shine, baby,
1:25:17
Speaker 1: and they love it.
1:25:19
Speaker 2: And it is you know, it's not really political. And
1:25:22
Speaker 2: there are a couple side shows. You know, maybe it
1:25:24
Speaker 2: looks clausible the iraniance could end up playing the United
1:25:27
Speaker 2: States and what would that be like? Right, But but
1:25:30
Speaker 2: ultimately this is a celebration of sport and athletics and
1:25:34
Speaker 2: some of the most extraordinary athletes from all over the world.
1:25:36
Speaker 2: And in the same way that all of New York
1:25:38
Speaker 2: came together to support my knicks, which was wonderful. You know,
1:25:43
Speaker 2: this is something that you know, brings people together, which
1:25:46
Speaker 2: is more important than the most.
1:25:48
Speaker 1: Of the stuff that you and I talk about. No,
1:25:50
Speaker 1: I mean, I've I've uh, you know, we could use
1:25:52
Speaker 1: a little better pr around the world, and it sounds
1:25:56
Speaker 1: like everyday World Cup influencers are doing better pr for
1:26:00
Speaker 1: than anything formal we could have done in a while.
1:26:02
Speaker 2: They know they're coming to the US and they're like
1:26:04
Speaker 2: having a great time. And most of them, I mean, yeah,
1:26:07
Speaker 2: there were some that didn't get in, and there was
1:26:09
Speaker 2: you know, some some customs issues, but most of the
1:26:12
Speaker 2: experience that most of the people are having having going
1:26:15
Speaker 2: to most of the games has been overwhelmingly positive.
1:26:18
Speaker 1: And I am delighted because Trump, as you know, Trump.
1:26:21
Speaker 2: I'm worried about this. Trump does worried the American flag.
1:26:24
Speaker 2: Trump does not own the fourth of July. He does
1:26:26
Speaker 2: not own the two fifty ay, And I don't like
1:26:29
Speaker 2: when Americans, you know, sort of like, well, we're not
1:26:31
Speaker 2: going to celebrate because we don't like Trump.
1:26:33
Speaker 1: What's wrong with you?
1:26:34
Speaker 2: You know, he's gone in two years, he's gone, and
1:26:38
Speaker 2: we're still here. So you know, we got it's on
1:26:41
Speaker 2: us and and and I'm glad that the that we're
1:26:44
Speaker 2: representing with the cup here.
1:26:45
Speaker 1: Well he'll be gone in two years, but the algae
1:26:47
Speaker 1: and the reflecting pool will be there. Yeah. Sure, but
1:26:50
Speaker 1: we don't. You know, I kind of when I think
1:26:52
Speaker 1: reflecting pool, I think algae. I mean, that's kind of
1:26:54
Speaker 1: one of the things. I think. It's sort of bizarre
1:26:57
Speaker 1: that you think you're gonna it's not meant to be
1:27:00
Speaker 1: a swimming pool. It is not meant it is actually anyway,
1:27:05
Speaker 1: it's meant to open into nature.
1:27:07
Speaker 2: Chinese should bring some carp you know, she's in paying.
1:27:11
Speaker 2: I mean, it's always panted diplomacy. We need some carp
1:27:14
Speaker 2: diplomacy for the reflecting pool, right.
1:27:17
Speaker 1: And that great Acte to resolve all of this carp diplomacy.
1:27:21
Speaker 1: Ian Bremer, did you get to any Knicks games? I did?
1:27:24
Speaker 1: I did.
1:27:24
Speaker 2: I was out of town for the finals matches, so
1:27:30
Speaker 2: I couldn't go.
1:27:31
Speaker 1: If there had been a Game six, I was all
1:27:33
Speaker 1: over it. But I went to all the other This
1:27:36
Speaker 1: is a rare time for you New Yorkers where one
1:27:38
Speaker 1: of the rest of the country was actually rooting for
1:27:40
Speaker 1: New York and that's normally not the case.
1:27:43
Speaker 2: Because the team is amazing and they play like a team.
1:27:46
Speaker 2: They're likeable. It's that's the thing. Rarely has a New
1:27:50
Speaker 2: York team been this likable. Yeah, Derek Jeter is probably
1:27:53
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, I will admit Derek Jeter was likable,
1:27:56
Speaker 2: but not what.
1:27:57
Speaker 1: Karon Judge is likable a great but he doesn't want
1:28:00
Speaker 1: he didn't want anything yet. No, but I mean he's
1:28:02
Speaker 1: fun to watch, right, This was a fun little thing.
1:28:04
Speaker 1: Bill Simmons said this. So if you're if you're in,
1:28:06
Speaker 1: you're running the fanciest restaurant. Aaron Judge, Jalen Brunson, and
1:28:09
Speaker 1: Derek Jeter walk in and one of them, only one
1:28:12
Speaker 1: of them can get the private room. Yeah, Bronson, Yeah,
1:28:16
Speaker 1: it's not even close. He's the King of New York.
1:28:19
Speaker 2: Brinson gave up one hundred million plus so that you
1:28:23
Speaker 2: had more salary cap to bring the team together. Yeah,
1:28:26
Speaker 2: that's I mean, at the time when Americans are like
1:28:29
Speaker 2: feeling bad about billionaires and Elon's got his trillion and
1:28:33
Speaker 2: everything else, suddenly you've got this guy that wins it all.
1:28:37
Speaker 2: You know, he's got the chip and and he's like, mister,
1:28:41
Speaker 2: I'm about the team, and he's got his you know what,
1:28:43
Speaker 2: is his college Sweetheartady married.
1:28:45
Speaker 1: And the whole thing, the whole thing is that is
1:28:49
Speaker 1: it is it is, it is, it is. It is
1:28:52
Speaker 1: a Hollywood script, mister Bremmer. I always learned something from you.
1:28:55
Speaker 1: That's why I try to drag down here as much
1:28:57
Speaker 1: as I can. Thanks you got really great to see
1:28:59
Speaker 1: you again. Absolutely all right, Let's go a litt last chuck.
1:29:08
Speaker 1: And by the way, I normally don't like to advertise this,
1:29:10
Speaker 1: but I have. You may see there's a slightly different backdrop.
1:29:13
Speaker 1: I am at a different home base. Uh yes, I
1:29:16
Speaker 1: like to spend a couple months a year in Florida
1:29:18
Speaker 1: when I have an opportunity. I am back and forth,
1:29:20
Speaker 1: so you never know where I'm going to be in
1:29:22
Speaker 1: any given second. So I don't want you to presume anything.
1:29:24
Speaker 1: And I'll be going uh in in some ways. You'll
1:29:29
Speaker 1: see me with my uh my Arlington, Virginia backdrop or
1:29:33
Speaker 1: my or my uh my, uh my Northwest Florida backdrop here.
1:29:40
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm in Florida, that's gonna be more
1:29:42
Speaker 1: football references more directly behind my head. And yes, that
1:29:45
Speaker 1: is a Jimmy Johnson sign. You never say, mimy helmet
1:29:48
Speaker 1: the only one, all right, So with that, let me
1:29:52
Speaker 1: take a bunch of questions. First question comes from Ray
1:29:55
Speaker 1: and he writes, Hey, love your inside and honesty, And
1:29:57
Speaker 1: if Democrats were to win majorities and move to impeach
1:29:59
Speaker 1: and convict Trump, could that actually have political consequences heading
1:30:03
Speaker 1: into twenty twenty eight? Could it, for example, give someone
1:30:06
Speaker 1: like JD. Vancey heads Well, Ray, look, you're obviously hinting
1:30:10
Speaker 1: at the concern that plenty of Democrats have in in
1:30:16
Speaker 1: whether the obsession with making Trump pay in some form
1:30:24
Speaker 1: on accountability and accelerating it, you know, in some form
1:30:30
Speaker 1: or believing that that's the voter mandate if you will,
1:30:36
Speaker 1: could boomerang right. And you know, if you look back,
1:30:41
Speaker 1: House Republicans, even after they got their assets handed to
1:30:44
Speaker 1: them in the ninety eight midterms, and when I say
1:30:47
Speaker 1: handed to them, basically it was the best performing six
1:30:51
Speaker 1: year rich midterm incumbent president it ever had. And it
1:30:54
Speaker 1: was because they the public was basically saying, get off
1:30:57
Speaker 1: of this impeachment stuff. We don't approve of his behavior
1:31:00
Speaker 1: in his personal life, but we don't want to see
1:31:02
Speaker 1: him out of office. Go focus on something else. And
1:31:05
Speaker 1: they doubled down and did it anyway. Now you could say, well,
1:31:09
Speaker 1: they won the presidency in two thousands, so was it
1:31:11
Speaker 1: really a net negative? I actually think it was the
1:31:15
Speaker 1: way they did that they strengthened the Democratic Party. It
1:31:19
Speaker 1: is why al Gore won the popular vote, and it
1:31:24
Speaker 1: is why Democrats picked up four sentences. So no, I don't,
1:31:27
Speaker 1: in fact I think that that. You know that in
1:31:30
Speaker 1: many ways all of that did hold the Republican Party
1:31:34
Speaker 1: back in two thousand. Now, I don't know if if
1:31:38
Speaker 1: you know, they want to they want to ever believe that.
1:31:41
Speaker 1: So I think that is something. Look, I could tell
1:31:46
Speaker 1: you this when I when you put together two strategists,
1:31:51
Speaker 1: democratic strategists whose goal is to win a majority for
1:31:55
Speaker 1: the president's here Republican strategists whose job is to win
1:31:57
Speaker 1: a majority for the presidency, and you asked them what
1:32:01
Speaker 1: would help your cause? The Democratic strategy would say, don't
1:32:04
Speaker 1: do impeachment, and the Republican strategists would say, please do impeachment.
1:32:09
Speaker 1: That's the conventional wisdom. Now I'll throw a few scenarios
1:32:14
Speaker 1: at you that says, well, you know, if the voters
1:32:20
Speaker 1: give the Democrats massive majorities seventy nineteen seventy four like
1:32:27
Speaker 1: sort of reactions to this where even Bob Bowle came
1:32:34
Speaker 1: within a point of losing his Senate sea back in
1:32:37
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four. If you, if you know, let me
1:32:45
Speaker 1: paint this scenario where I think, actually I could argue
1:32:48
Speaker 1: the voters have given the Democrats a mandate to impeach
1:32:51
Speaker 1: and convict him. Fifty House seats, ten Senate seats. Now,
1:32:59
Speaker 1: these are totally unrealistic and the only way they would
1:33:02
Speaker 1: happen is if large majorities were so fed up they
1:33:05
Speaker 1: said you got to do something. That's the only scenario.
1:33:11
Speaker 1: So if the voters demand it, and this, to me,
1:33:16
Speaker 1: it gets back to what I think, And it's why
1:33:19
Speaker 1: what Letitia James did in New York, what Fanny Willis
1:33:23
Speaker 1: did in Atlanta strengthen Trump. It did not waken him
1:33:29
Speaker 1: because ultimately, when the voters decide he should be punished,
1:33:35
Speaker 1: then then then that's the Then let the voters decide.
1:33:39
Speaker 1: And to me, if the voters decide to hand the
1:33:42
Speaker 1: Democrats massive majorities their sen they're telling you get rid
1:33:47
Speaker 1: of this present. But if you're staring at a country
1:33:51
Speaker 1: that's still even a fifty two, you know, fifty three
1:33:54
Speaker 1: percent majority, say, hey, give the Democrats the power here.
1:33:58
Speaker 1: That is not a mandate to just throw Trump out
1:34:03
Speaker 1: of office. It's a mandate to check him while in office. Right,
1:34:07
Speaker 1: there's to me two distinct messages there. So I think
1:34:11
Speaker 1: if you pursue impeachment after winning narrow majorities, it's likely
1:34:15
Speaker 1: a net negative. But I'm not going to sit here
1:34:19
Speaker 1: and say that there's never a scenario where that wouldn't
1:34:21
Speaker 1: be the case, but it would. Again, this should be
1:34:25
Speaker 1: voter driven, and in this case, if you're looking for
1:34:29
Speaker 1: voter sending you a message to do impeachment, it would
1:34:34
Speaker 1: be you know, winning congression, winning three congressional seats in Kentucky,
1:34:40
Speaker 1: for instance, winning senate races in Kansas, Mississippi, Texas, and Florida. Okay,
1:34:50
Speaker 1: you know that's the type of election results. To me,
1:34:53
Speaker 1: that would that would tell me that you could actually
1:34:59
Speaker 1: claim there might be a voter mandate for this. Needless
1:35:04
Speaker 1: to say, I don't quite see I don't quite see
1:35:06
Speaker 1: it that way, all right. Next question comes from Jeremiah,
1:35:11
Speaker 1: and he writes, hey, longtime listener, first time asker, as
1:35:13
Speaker 1: someone who's followed Republican politics closely in the past, I'm
1:35:16
Speaker 1: trying to understand how presidential war power seem to operate
1:35:19
Speaker 1: in practice. How is it that a president can continue
1:35:21
Speaker 1: a military conflict even after the war power's deadline and
1:35:23
Speaker 1: congressional efforts to limit it. Is this a legal loophole
1:35:26
Speaker 1: or more about how the system is actually enforced? Well, Jeremiah,
1:35:30
Speaker 1: I look, the issue is that the War Powers Act,
1:35:34
Speaker 1: it's unclear how constitutional it is, right, every presidential administration
1:35:40
Speaker 1: has questioned the constitutionality of it. That's number one. So
1:35:43
Speaker 1: that's why there's a little bit. Now Congress does have
1:35:46
Speaker 1: real leverage, but that leverage is very tough to actually
1:35:51
Speaker 1: politically pull off, and that is funding or defunding a
1:35:54
Speaker 1: military action, which politically turns into they won't even feed
1:36:00
Speaker 1: or pay the troops in order to make us stop
1:36:02
Speaker 1: this war, right, And you could see how quickly that
1:36:04
Speaker 1: could get weaponized and polarized, you know. So I think
1:36:11
Speaker 1: that's the issue here, is that this issue over over
1:36:15
Speaker 1: the power of declaring war, the power of conducting war,
1:36:20
Speaker 1: and the power of funding war right is sort of
1:36:24
Speaker 1: all blurry lines between the executive and the legislative. And
1:36:31
Speaker 1: you won't see the judicial branch on this. You know,
1:36:34
Speaker 1: this is something that gets referred to as a political
1:36:37
Speaker 1: question by the courts, meaning it's a branch dispute, and
1:36:40
Speaker 1: they don't want to truly be involved in branch disputes
1:36:43
Speaker 1: per se. But that's the issue, right. The War Powers
1:36:48
Speaker 1: Act was passed, but it was you know, it's one
1:36:53
Speaker 1: of those it's in law on paper, but it has
1:36:56
Speaker 1: never really been challenged, exercised. It is. It is essentially
1:37:01
Speaker 1: served as a promisory note. And so Congress passed it
1:37:06
Speaker 1: and the you know, after Vietnam, in the hopes that
1:37:09
Speaker 1: maybe president you know, if it's signed in the law,
1:37:13
Speaker 1: presidents would at least abide by the the you know,
1:37:17
Speaker 1: generally abide by the sixty day rule, thirty day rule
1:37:21
Speaker 1: of this or that. But it hasn't. Obviously, it's not
1:37:25
Speaker 1: an actual check. What it does is, at best, it
1:37:28
Speaker 1: keeps the administration normally this one doesn't do it. But
1:37:37
Speaker 1: it keeps the administration more tightly intertwined with Congress on
1:37:44
Speaker 1: the information front, right, they're more likely to inform the
1:37:47
Speaker 1: so called Gang of eight. And in this case, the
1:37:49
Speaker 1: Gang of eight in Congress refers to the chair and
1:37:52
Speaker 1: vice chairs of the of the two intelligence committees. So
1:37:55
Speaker 1: that's four, that's four of your eight Senate into House
1:38:00
Speaker 1: Intel Chair and vice chair. Right, so there's four and
1:38:03
Speaker 1: then the other four are the speaker, ranking member of
1:38:08
Speaker 1: the minority party, Senate Majority Leader, and Senate Minority leader.
1:38:11
Speaker 1: That's your so called gang of eight. And you know
1:38:14
Speaker 1: that is something that you know, Bush, Jen Obama, and Clinton,
1:38:20
Speaker 1: we're all more respectful of at least keeping those eight
1:38:26
Speaker 1: people informed. This president is paranoid about leaks, always likes
1:38:32
Speaker 1: to politicize everything they do, and doesn't trust anybody. You know,
1:38:39
Speaker 1: they assume everybody will behave like they do. So if
1:38:41
Speaker 1: they're going to politicize something, they assume their opponents will
1:38:44
Speaker 1: take the same thing and politicize it back, so it
1:38:46
Speaker 1: becomes this. So that's how they sort of talk themselves
1:38:48
Speaker 1: into not even letting Congress knowing what they're up to.
1:38:54
Speaker 1: Like the War Powers Act declares, so at best you
1:38:59
Speaker 1: can hope for a court showdown here. But you know,
1:39:02
Speaker 1: unless unless you have a supermajority in Congress on the
1:39:07
Speaker 1: same side on this, because any check could get veto,
1:39:11
Speaker 1: they could pass this, he can beat away. You're gonna
1:39:13
Speaker 1: have a supermajority override it in these polarizing times, right,
1:39:17
Speaker 1: Unlikely you know only if the President is seem as
1:39:21
Speaker 1: a runaway rogue leader. I think would you be able
1:39:24
Speaker 1: to find a supermajority in Congress to deal with this.
1:39:27
Speaker 1: So the bottom line is that the War Powers Act
1:39:31
Speaker 1: is toothless. And this is you know, this has been
1:39:36
Speaker 1: a hallmark of the Trump era. He's his behavior has
1:39:40
Speaker 1: done a good job of showing us what what norms
1:39:44
Speaker 1: need need codifying and what laws need teeth. And I
1:39:49
Speaker 1: think the War Powers Act is one that needs teeth,
1:39:52
Speaker 1: that's for sure. I forgot your ps. Jeremih said, by
1:39:57
Speaker 1: football always keeping expect take sent in check man. I
1:40:03
Speaker 1: have to tell you I don't understand, and I think
1:40:07
Speaker 1: my guess is I still think BYU is going to
1:40:09
Speaker 1: be a winner in this new NIOL world. And you know,
1:40:16
Speaker 1: we saw it with the basketball side. You had an
1:40:20
Speaker 1: engaged owner of the Utah Jazz who's also a BYU alum,
1:40:23
Speaker 1: who decided to help make sure Devansa became a Utah
1:40:26
Speaker 1: guy became a BYU guy. Right, So the opportunity is
1:40:33
Speaker 1: there for BYU football to benefit. I mean, the BYU
1:40:37
Speaker 1: alum alumni network is very wealthy and very devoted to
1:40:46
Speaker 1: that university, and so I am. I am expecting a
1:40:52
Speaker 1: big leap from BYU over the next five years because
1:40:56
Speaker 1: the opportunity is there and we know and do you
1:41:00
Speaker 1: have the resources? The resources exist, you know, and you
1:41:07
Speaker 1: know it all starts with them and the other built
1:41:10
Speaker 1: in advantage, right, especially with those that are are are Mormon.
1:41:15
Speaker 1: You missions, you end up with grown adults on your
1:41:19
Speaker 1: football team, and that is an advantage. You know, older teams,
1:41:24
Speaker 1: just ask Indiana. Older teams have an advantage in college football.
1:41:28
Speaker 1: So I I do for what it's worth, Jeremiah believe
1:41:31
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of opportunity here for b White football.
1:41:34
Speaker 1: Two take a take a leap. Sounds like what's needed
1:41:39
Speaker 1: is somebody to be the guy. Right, there's like a
1:41:41
Speaker 1: Cody Campbell down in in in Texas Tech. You've got
1:41:45
Speaker 1: the the Moss brothers or the guys behind the big
1:41:49
Speaker 1: the big money at the University of Miami and some
1:41:52
Speaker 1: of these there, there's all these you know, maybe it's
1:41:55
Speaker 1: the Romneys, Maybe it's maybe it's the Romneys. Maybe it's
1:41:59
Speaker 1: tagged a little bit more engaged in the sports world
1:42:01
Speaker 1: than met is. But I do think the opportunities are
1:42:05
Speaker 1: maybe it's the Huntsman's we shall say, all right, Sarab
1:42:13
Speaker 1: from Pune, India. Right, this is not my first overseas question,
1:42:19
Speaker 1: but first one from India. I believe he could, Saab
1:42:23
Speaker 1: and I apologize in advance if I blundered the pronunciation
1:42:28
Speaker 1: of your name. Regular listen second time, ask Chuck participantcy
1:42:32
Speaker 1: and I've missed this. How can the broader media ecosystem, traditional, independent,
1:42:36
Speaker 1: better and sure verified information is what gets amplified without
1:42:39
Speaker 1: limiting free expression. Also, what would happen if more independence
1:42:43
Speaker 1: or third party candidates were elected in the United States?
1:42:45
Speaker 1: Could that realistically shift us toward a more coalition driven system? Well,
1:42:49
Speaker 1: Sirob I, I do believe we could have a coalition
1:42:54
Speaker 1: driven system, not necessarily a parliamentary system, but you know
1:42:58
Speaker 1: this is one of those You could build the system,
1:43:02
Speaker 1: the candidates aren't going to come. You kind of need
1:43:04
Speaker 1: the candidates to happen and then they'll build the system.
1:43:08
Speaker 1: Now be as pretty transparent. Here, I'm working with a
1:43:13
Speaker 1: group of people that are hoping to build a folkrum system.
1:43:18
Speaker 1: If you will create a coalition, you may get elected
1:43:23
Speaker 1: as a deep or an R you may not even
1:43:25
Speaker 1: get elected as an independent, but create sort of a
1:43:28
Speaker 1: network of independent driven Democrats, independent driven Republicans, and actual
1:43:34
Speaker 1: independent independent elected officials who band together to ensure certain
1:43:42
Speaker 1: governing structures exist, right, whether it's you know, making sure
1:43:48
Speaker 1: that a one party can't deny a bill even getting
1:43:53
Speaker 1: a vote on the floor of Congress, which the way
1:43:55
Speaker 1: the House works, you know, without these so called discharge
1:43:59
Speaker 1: petitions and finding a will of the majority, you can
1:44:02
Speaker 1: sometimes see bills that have majority support, but because it's
1:44:06
Speaker 1: on both sides of the aisle, the majority party decides
1:44:10
Speaker 1: they don't want to they don't want to buipartisan bill
1:44:12
Speaker 1: to succeed, or they don't think they'll have control and
1:44:15
Speaker 1: they won't allow it a vote on the floor. So
1:44:18
Speaker 1: the point is is that how can you know the
1:44:22
Speaker 1: duopoly has hijacked government? These are private institutions that have
1:44:27
Speaker 1: entrenched their power within the system that has to be
1:44:30
Speaker 1: extracted from the system so that it can function the
1:44:33
Speaker 1: way it was intended to be functioning. I mean, the
1:44:36
Speaker 1: irony is that our founders basically wrote, wrote, built a
1:44:42
Speaker 1: system that was intended for coalition politics, right, and then
1:44:48
Speaker 1: the two party system developed and it we had for
1:44:52
Speaker 1: a long time, it's still functioned as coalition politics. Right.
1:44:55
Speaker 1: The umbrella of the Democrats. There was ideological diversity within
1:44:59
Speaker 1: the Democrats. There was an umbrella on Republicans. There's ideological
1:45:02
Speaker 1: diversity among the Republicans as both of those parties have
1:45:05
Speaker 1: purified themselves and pushed out, essentially those that are that
1:45:09
Speaker 1: were less devout Democrats or devout Republicans out of the
1:45:14
Speaker 1: parties and push them into this growing independent space that
1:45:17
Speaker 1: we've seen. I think it is certainly put a spotlight
1:45:24
Speaker 1: on this on this need that that we have now
1:45:27
Speaker 1: to to sort of we we we we are. We
1:45:30
Speaker 1: are not buying the consent. You know, we're we're supposed
1:45:33
Speaker 1: to be. We're supposed to be. We're supposed to consent
1:45:38
Speaker 1: to being governed here. But the majority is not consented
1:45:41
Speaker 1: to this type of governance. Right, We've had minority consent
1:45:44
Speaker 1: that has given government majority power and that's what's broken here,
1:45:49
Speaker 1: and that's what we have to sort of recalibrate. But
1:45:53
Speaker 1: I don't think it's something structural that you can build
1:45:56
Speaker 1: and then hope candidates fill it. I think you've got
1:45:58
Speaker 1: to find the candidates that basically are willing to break
1:46:03
Speaker 1: up the duopoly systems that have been there. Now. Your
1:46:07
Speaker 1: second question was in the Verified information. You know, this
1:46:13
Speaker 1: is a much harder issue. You know, over the last
1:46:19
Speaker 1: over the last seventy two hours, I have been less
1:46:23
Speaker 1: comfortable using, for instance, the Iranian leak on what's in
1:46:28
Speaker 1: the deal. And if you listen to my reporting and
1:46:32
Speaker 1: my monologue of the last couple of days, I've not
1:46:34
Speaker 1: leaned on the Iranian reporting. I've instead reported on what
1:46:38
Speaker 1: I can see, right, and what I can see is
1:46:40
Speaker 1: that the Americans are not the Americans are avoiding giving details,
1:46:45
Speaker 1: allowing the Iranians to fill the vacuum. And the question
1:46:47
Speaker 1: is why is this government allowing the Iranians to fill
1:46:51
Speaker 1: the vacuum here? It's getting more and more credibility and
1:46:55
Speaker 1: so but you do raise an important point, and I
1:46:58
Speaker 1: think that that look, trust is built right now in
1:47:05
Speaker 1: this system. Trust has built on one viewer at a time.
1:47:09
Speaker 1: That's the way I view it. I can tell you
1:47:12
Speaker 1: I'm giving you the best information that in my experience,
1:47:17
Speaker 1: that I can gather and that I can deliver. And
1:47:23
Speaker 1: when you know, when I and frankly you know, I'll
1:47:26
Speaker 1: let you know. And for instance, that BBC report that
1:47:29
Speaker 1: I highlighted about the Russians being behind this islamophobia polarization
1:47:37
Speaker 1: attack that they tried to create and they're targeting the
1:47:39
Speaker 1: Prime Minister of the UK. You know, the reporters aren't
1:47:43
Speaker 1: going to tell you that they got a lot of
1:47:44
Speaker 1: help from the intelligence community. I can just tell you
1:47:47
Speaker 1: from my own experience that there's no way you get
1:47:50
Speaker 1: some of the details that they got without a lot
1:47:53
Speaker 1: of sourcing coming from the intelligence community. And I think
1:47:56
Speaker 1: that that's an important aspect of that story because it
1:47:59
Speaker 1: means British intelligence is alarmed by this and they want
1:48:02
Speaker 1: the world to know, and it's important that they've decided
1:48:07
Speaker 1: it's important that the world know exactly what happened here.
1:48:11
Speaker 1: So you know, there's no easy way other than you know,
1:48:18
Speaker 1: we have a system that is built on sentiment, not
1:48:20
Speaker 1: on facts, right, and what goes viral and what doesn't.
1:48:25
Speaker 1: And unfortunately some of our information, some of our information
1:48:31
Speaker 1: brokers have their own partisan beliefs, right. I mean Elon
1:48:36
Speaker 1: Musk is control. You know, his control of AX has
1:48:39
Speaker 1: created an ecosystem that is very friendly to one side
1:48:43
Speaker 1: of the aisle, very unfriendly to the other. And yes,
1:48:46
Speaker 1: they have equal access to the site, but they don't
1:48:49
Speaker 1: have equal access to the algorithm, right, And that's how
1:48:52
Speaker 1: you know, and there's been some questions on how TikTok operates.
1:48:56
Speaker 1: That it's the same thing. You may have equal access
1:48:58
Speaker 1: to the app, but you don't have equal access to
1:49:01
Speaker 1: the virality of of how the system works, and that
1:49:06
Speaker 1: that to me, is the scarier part of this verification issue.
1:49:13
Speaker 1: That's why I want to build a network of truly
1:49:15
Speaker 1: independent folks who are not don't have corporate interests. I'm
1:49:20
Speaker 1: I'm don't get me wrong, I'm not Bernie Sanders here,
1:49:22
Speaker 1: I'm a capitalist, but I don't believe you can trust
1:49:27
Speaker 1: uh these conglomerates who have there who may have more
1:49:30
Speaker 1: financial interests in UH in in sort of box A
1:49:34
Speaker 1: of their company also owning an information ecosystem that they
1:49:39
Speaker 1: that they may just simply use in order to enrich
1:49:42
Speaker 1: and enhance the value of everything they have in box A.
1:49:46
Speaker 1: And I think that's the that's the thing I'm I'm
1:49:48
Speaker 1: really concerned about. And so it's not great if you
1:49:53
Speaker 1: have a thousand flowers bloom and no organization around it,
1:49:56
Speaker 1: no verification. Yes, there's truth that will bloom, but there's
1:49:59
Speaker 1: a lot of untruth that will bloom there too. Creating
1:50:02
Speaker 1: a network of trusted folks where there's maybe you know,
1:50:07
Speaker 1: if you don't abide by a certain set of of
1:50:11
Speaker 1: of reporting principles, you're out of the You're out of
1:50:14
Speaker 1: the network. That is something that I'm hoping to put together.
1:50:17
Speaker 1: I think it would only enhance the credibility of local
1:50:20
Speaker 1: independent journalists, but national and international ones as well. All right.
1:50:28
Speaker 1: Next question comes from John V. Bellingham, Washington. He says, Hey,
1:50:30
Speaker 1: love the podcast. I always feel like I learned something
1:50:32
Speaker 1: new after your discussion of the few typology groups. I've
1:50:35
Speaker 1: been wondering, if both parties are effectively locked into their bases,
1:50:38
Speaker 1: does that leave a small, less engaged middle deciding elections?
1:50:41
Speaker 1: Are we essentially handing outcomes to it disengaged slice of voters?
1:50:45
Speaker 1: And is that why things feel so cyclical? Best? John B. Bellingham, Washington. Well, yes,
1:50:50
Speaker 1: I mean you could argue we've always had some form
1:50:52
Speaker 1: of that, right. I would say this, though, that the
1:50:55
Speaker 1: we've never had as large of a disconnect. I mean
1:51:01
Speaker 1: the voters that decide who's in power and the voters
1:51:06
Speaker 1: who get represented by those are in power. And what
1:51:10
Speaker 1: do I mean by this? Think about the slice of
1:51:14
Speaker 1: voters that decide who carries Pennsylvania, right, who carries Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin.
1:51:23
Speaker 1: They are these very you know, they're the most important
1:51:29
Speaker 1: voters in October, and they're the least They're the voters
1:51:33
Speaker 1: that the members of Congress least are least concerned about.
1:51:36
Speaker 1: Once they start governing, right, they are all but a
1:51:40
Speaker 1: handful of them are always more worried about primary challenges,
1:51:45
Speaker 1: which means the voter they're concerned about is not the
1:51:48
Speaker 1: voter that put him, that gave their party power, but
1:51:53
Speaker 1: the voter that put them individually in power. So what
1:51:59
Speaker 1: I mean here is that I I this is if
1:52:02
Speaker 1: you're If I had a dream, it would be how
1:52:05
Speaker 1: can I galvanize swing voters of America to realize that
1:52:11
Speaker 1: they're the least represented people in government, they're the most courted.
1:52:18
Speaker 1: More money is spent on getting a swing voter to vote,
1:52:21
Speaker 1: and less money is ever and less governing is ever
1:52:25
Speaker 1: done in order to help said swing voter. Instead, it
1:52:29
Speaker 1: is the activists that get all the attention, the activists
1:52:32
Speaker 1: on the left and the activists on the right. Which
1:52:35
Speaker 1: is why you should be incredibly concerned when you have
1:52:38
Speaker 1: entities like the Club for Growth trying to purify the
1:52:41
Speaker 1: Republican Party or the Democratic Socialist America trying to trying
1:52:45
Speaker 1: to essentially take over and be the animating force of
1:52:48
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. You know, they're trying to they're trying
1:52:53
Speaker 1: to turn both parties into into sort of ideological homes
1:53:00
Speaker 1: rather than coalition homes. And you know, we've maybe we
1:53:06
Speaker 1: didn't realize that that's really what we had over the years,
1:53:09
Speaker 1: is that the two parties were more of just coalition
1:53:13
Speaker 1: homes rather And now you've got the activists inside them
1:53:19
Speaker 1: that they don't want that, right, they don't. They're tired
1:53:22
Speaker 1: of moderates deciding the direction of the party and instead
1:53:27
Speaker 1: they want to have more say in the party. But
1:53:28
Speaker 1: in doing that, they have definitely untethered governing from the
1:53:33
Speaker 1: very voters who decide which party gets power. And that's
1:53:36
Speaker 1: the disconnect that I'm trying to figure out what is
1:53:39
Speaker 1: the best way to solve this, Right, I'd like to
1:53:41
Speaker 1: see myself as somebody who's trying to you know, I'm
1:53:45
Speaker 1: trying to look at politics through the prism of the
1:53:49
Speaker 1: voters who decide who gets power, not necessarily the voters
1:53:55
Speaker 1: that are the most engaged with who they think deserves power. Right,
1:53:59
Speaker 1: it is easy to talk to people who are already
1:54:02
Speaker 1: engaged and have made a decision. There's much harder to inform.
1:54:08
Speaker 1: I think the messy middle, if you will, this less
1:54:11
Speaker 1: supposedly less engaged voter. And I think that that's you know,
1:54:14
Speaker 1: that's certainly a huge challenge. And yes, it is true.
1:54:19
Speaker 1: The less engaged voter is is who decides which of
1:54:24
Speaker 1: these two activist groups are going to do the least
1:54:28
Speaker 1: amount of damage to their lives, because that's how they're voting.
1:54:30
Speaker 1: They're not voting for anybody, They're just simply voting against
1:54:35
Speaker 1: the entity that they think will make their life worse.
1:54:39
Speaker 1: How we recalibrate that relationship? How can we empower swing
1:54:45
Speaker 1: voters to be the voter that those that are governing
1:54:51
Speaker 1: thinks about when they're making policy first? Which is the
1:54:55
Speaker 1: vast right? That's this vast middle that we keep talking about.
1:55:00
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying, right, is it is, Look, the
1:55:03
Speaker 1: lazy political activists go to the extremes, The lazy political
1:55:07
Speaker 1: influencers go to the extremes. The lazy political analysts say
1:55:12
Speaker 1: things like, oh, you know, you're naive. You know, politics
1:55:17
Speaker 1: has always worked this way. It's about making sure your
1:55:20
Speaker 1: your base is engaged, and then you see what happens
1:55:24
Speaker 1: in the middle. Sure, if you want a country that
1:55:27
Speaker 1: continues to fail, and if you want a politics that
1:55:30
Speaker 1: continues to not work, we had a politics that was
1:55:36
Speaker 1: oriented to swing voters for a good fifty years, arguably
1:55:40
Speaker 1: from Eisenhower to Obama. These those presidents worried more about
1:55:49
Speaker 1: those swing voters. And now you now see what happens
1:55:54
Speaker 1: when you are a president that doesn't give a shit
1:55:56
Speaker 1: about swing voters and does not care about where the
1:56:00
Speaker 1: plurality of this country lives politically, which is in the middle,
1:56:04
Speaker 1: not a majority, but we've seen it. A plurality lives
1:56:07
Speaker 1: in the large center cut right. The typology report told
1:56:11
Speaker 1: us this. But what happens when you have a president
1:56:15
Speaker 1: that just governs for an extreme this is this is
1:56:18
Speaker 1: what you get? All right? Next question? What do we
1:56:28
Speaker 1: got here? Bill S Newberg, Oregon. I believe he is
1:56:32
Speaker 1: a return questioner. Hey, hope your travels are going well.
1:56:35
Speaker 1: They did. By the way, I do it as a
1:56:37
Speaker 1: road trip, and I do it twice a year, and
1:56:42
Speaker 1: I do different routes, but it's always, you know, somewhere
1:56:45
Speaker 1: Obviously I stay east of the Mississippi. My different routes,
1:56:48
Speaker 1: but look, I you know, there's no better way to
1:56:57
Speaker 1: sort of be in awe of this country and to
1:57:02
Speaker 1: sort of understand that we are a complicated and a
1:57:07
Speaker 1: diverse place politically than a good old fashioned road trip.
1:57:12
Speaker 1: And you know who's discovering this World Cup fans, They're realizing, Wow,
1:57:16
Speaker 1: America is a lot more than d C. Washington, San
1:57:18
Speaker 1: Francisco in LA. Yes, it is, and it's a pretty
1:57:22
Speaker 1: interesting place, and it's a pretty complicated place. And we're
1:57:25
Speaker 1: a lot harder to stereotype than you think we are.
1:57:27
Speaker 1: But anyway, but I digress. Quick question here from Bill
1:57:31
Speaker 1: s in Newberg, Oregon. Where do you come down on
1:57:33
Speaker 1: the Great Man theory of history versus more modern, broader interpretations.
1:57:36
Speaker 1: Curious how you think about that, especially given your conversations
1:57:39
Speaker 1: with guests like Fiona Hill. Ps. Your nets got the
1:57:42
Speaker 1: better of my Mariners after I jinxed them. Still think
1:57:45
Speaker 1: you're at Emerson Hancock fantasy pickup will pay off? No,
1:57:49
Speaker 1: not only is it paying off, I've already got like trade.
1:57:52
Speaker 1: I've already got members of my fantasy league trying to
1:57:55
Speaker 1: get Hancock because I have not I'm not had to
1:57:58
Speaker 1: put them in my starting lineup yet. I plan to
1:58:00
Speaker 1: but I haven't. I haven't. My league counts stats for
1:58:05
Speaker 1: the whole season once you put him in your lineup,
1:58:07
Speaker 1: and then all the stats go away once you take
1:58:08
Speaker 1: him out of your lineup. It's how my league's done
1:58:12
Speaker 1: it for forty years, since before I ever joined it.
1:58:15
Speaker 1: It is what it is. It's like the electoral college.
1:58:18
Speaker 1: It's not not my favorite system, but it's the system
1:58:21
Speaker 1: we use, so you deal with it. You know. It's
1:58:28
Speaker 1: funny on the great the idea of the great man theory.
1:58:30
Speaker 1: I just think the Times, you know, I guess I'm
1:58:34
Speaker 1: ultimately a believer in the Times make the man. The
1:58:41
Speaker 1: man don't make the Times or the woman. Don't make
1:58:43
Speaker 1: the times. The Times make the person, you know, being
1:58:49
Speaker 1: you know, David actually writed a great line once about
1:58:51
Speaker 1: running for president. He said, it's an mri for the soul.
1:58:54
Speaker 1: But being president is the ultimate character test, right, It's
1:58:58
Speaker 1: the greatest character test there is. And you find out quickly,
1:59:00
Speaker 1: right because the president really can get away with anything,
1:59:03
Speaker 1: can do whatever the hell he wants. And it's those that,
1:59:07
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's that who falls for that temptation.
1:59:10
Speaker 1: I think they all fall for the temptation, you know,
1:59:13
Speaker 1: to in some form or another. I always I think
1:59:17
Speaker 1: it was I think I'm trying to remember which Bridges
1:59:22
Speaker 1: was one of my favorite underrated fictional president. I think
1:59:26
Speaker 1: it was bow Bridges, who was not Jeff. I think
1:59:29
Speaker 1: it was Bo who was the president for the the
1:59:33
Speaker 1: movie that was about the first woman running mate at
1:59:35
Speaker 1: the time. I think it's called The Contender. Look, I'm
1:59:39
Speaker 1: I know I can go check these things in some ways.
1:59:41
Speaker 1: I just you know, I'm trying to be an honest
1:59:43
Speaker 1: answer here, just sort of but there. I do know
1:59:48
Speaker 1: this line is correct from that movie. Give me. In fact,
1:59:52
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just correct this here. This is why you check.
1:59:57
Speaker 1: I had the movie right. It's The Contender. It was
1:59:58
Speaker 1: the wrong Bridges. It was a boat was Jeff played this?
2:00:01
Speaker 1: But anyway, that presidential character one of the it was
2:00:05
Speaker 1: just sort of a sidebar character. You didn't really have
2:00:08
Speaker 1: to carry the movie. But he would be like, Hey
2:00:11
Speaker 1: watch this, I'm gonna order me a shark sad whatever
2:00:14
Speaker 1: I order, they can make me. You know, if that's
2:00:17
Speaker 1: the only crazy thing my president did, Like I'm going
2:00:20
Speaker 1: to order a shark fin sandwich and watch they'll produce it,
2:00:24
Speaker 1: I'd be okay with that. But the point is is
2:00:26
Speaker 1: that there's when you're president, there's a temptation that you
2:00:29
Speaker 1: you know, it's anything you want, anything you want your
2:00:32
Speaker 1: to take is yours. If you choose to do it,
2:00:35
Speaker 1: you're the president. You can get away with it, you
2:00:37
Speaker 1: can pardon anybody, you can do this, right, And so
2:00:40
Speaker 1: it's an incredible character test. It's incredible what we learn
2:00:49
Speaker 1: from that. So that's why I don't believe you know that. Look,
2:00:53
Speaker 1: it is why I believe character is destiny and why
2:00:56
Speaker 1: characters should be the single most important thing of voter
2:01:00
Speaker 1: uses to decide who should be president, not a policy decision,
2:01:04
Speaker 1: not a policy belief. All right, you know, what are
2:01:07
Speaker 1: they What are they going to do when defending my
2:01:10
Speaker 1: life matters? What are they going to do when the
2:01:13
Speaker 1: integrity of America is at stake? Right? So you know
2:01:17
Speaker 1: that's I just you know, you could say I might
2:01:19
Speaker 1: have the luxury to vote on character, but it's the
2:01:22
Speaker 1: single most important thing, and I vote on character in
2:01:24
Speaker 1: all my political rays. And that's why I've never voted
2:01:29
Speaker 1: straight ticket, because if you're voting on character, you know
2:01:32
Speaker 1: there's people of good character on both sides of the island.
2:01:34
Speaker 1: There's people a bad character on both sides of the eye.
2:01:39
Speaker 1: So no, I'm not a believer that, you know, I
2:01:42
Speaker 1: believe the times make the person in the times in
2:01:46
Speaker 1: some ways reveal they they they surface the leader that
2:01:51
Speaker 1: we need, not necessarily the leader that we want. Uh.
2:01:56
Speaker 1: And so you know that's uh. And by the way,
2:02:02
Speaker 1: if if Roosevelt wasn't the right guy, we would have
2:02:05
Speaker 1: voted him out right, and if Lincoln wasn't the right person,
2:02:10
Speaker 1: we might not have ever voted him in. So I
2:02:12
Speaker 1: you know, when you think of the two of the
2:02:14
Speaker 1: presidents that sort of I think that that argument. You know,
2:02:18
Speaker 1: where they were they would they have been great in
2:02:21
Speaker 1: any era or was the were they just right for
2:02:28
Speaker 1: the moment that was needed or did the moment sort
2:02:31
Speaker 1: of they just these were good character people. And we've
2:02:36
Speaker 1: had say half our presidents have been high character people
2:02:38
Speaker 1: for sure, maybe more than that. But let's assume we've
2:02:41
Speaker 1: had half our president's pretty high character people, and under
2:02:46
Speaker 1: maybe half of them would have been able to handle
2:02:49
Speaker 1: and would have met the moment that FDR met or
2:02:51
Speaker 1: Lincoln met if faced with it. But we don't know
2:02:57
Speaker 1: for sure doing and so the debate will live on it. Look,
2:03:02
Speaker 1: I don't believe in divine rights. Okay, I don't believe
2:03:07
Speaker 1: that they're I think all monarchies are just dictatorships with
2:03:11
Speaker 1: fancy titles. So that should tell you I'm not a
2:03:14
Speaker 1: big believer in the great man or great woman theory
2:03:19
Speaker 1: of leadership, that's for sure. All Right, last question here, Oh,
2:03:31
Speaker 1: this is a perfect way to end, because it's sort
2:03:35
Speaker 1: of when you get to end where you start it,
2:03:37
Speaker 1: and it's on foreign policy. Dan writes, if the communist
2:03:40
Speaker 1: regime in Cuba were to fall as a direct result
2:03:42
Speaker 1: of the Trump administration, would that result in Democrats losing
2:03:45
Speaker 1: Florida for a generation? Or is it more complicated than that.
2:03:48
Speaker 1: I've been pondering that question and would love this opinion
2:03:50
Speaker 1: of the wide syst of all Florida men. Thank you well, Dan,
2:03:56
Speaker 1: It's funny. So it's exactly what I was thinking in
2:03:59
Speaker 1: the back back of my head when I told you.
2:04:02
Speaker 1: But when I said at the end of my monologue
2:04:04
Speaker 1: at the start of this podcast, before the interview with
2:04:06
Speaker 1: Ian Bremmer, that look, while Cuba's going to be a
2:04:11
Speaker 1: wild card in this election, and you know a lot
2:04:19
Speaker 1: of time, here's here's what I do know, is what
2:04:22
Speaker 1: history tells us is that when you have these big,
2:04:26
Speaker 1: sort of consequential moments that reward a constituency, it actually
2:04:33
Speaker 1: doesn't have legs for a generation. In some ways, I
2:04:37
Speaker 1: think it would. You know, if Cuba is no longer
2:04:41
Speaker 1: an issue, then suddenly there's a lot more issues that
2:04:44
Speaker 1: are going to divide South Florida Florida residents. Right, the
2:04:50
Speaker 1: Cuba issue has been an easy way to organize politically
2:04:53
Speaker 1: in South Florida. If Cuba is no longer front and center, right,
2:04:59
Speaker 1: and we've solved the problem, do you think voters just
2:05:02
Speaker 1: reward politicians for solving a problem or do they start
2:05:05
Speaker 1: looking at the next problem? Right? So, no, I don't.
2:05:10
Speaker 1: So I'll here's what I think. In the near term,
2:05:15
Speaker 1: it is going to be a you know, a boom
2:05:19
Speaker 1: I think for local Cuban political leadership, no doubt. As
2:05:24
Speaker 1: I've joked, I'm like, you know, move over. You know,
2:05:29
Speaker 1: in South Florida, a lot of there's a lot of streets,
2:05:32
Speaker 1: a lot of named after the Diaz Balarts, but in
2:05:35
Speaker 1: particular the father who was an important exile leader of
2:05:40
Speaker 1: the Cuban community. My friend whose ideas bal Art's father
2:05:44
Speaker 1: beloved late father, and but yeah, everything is going to
2:05:51
Speaker 1: be named after Rabio around around Miami over a generation.
2:05:58
Speaker 1: So it certainly is good politics for Marco Rubio, right,
2:06:01
Speaker 1: And it could be you know, it could be something
2:06:07
Speaker 1: that's that's truly monumental politically for him and legacy building
2:06:12
Speaker 1: for him in a way that I don't think we
2:06:14
Speaker 1: can fully fully appreciate. But I don't think it's a
2:06:17
Speaker 1: long I don't think it ends up doing anything long
2:06:20
Speaker 1: term because of the phenomenon. I told like, once you
2:06:24
Speaker 1: take once that issue is solved, we move on to
2:06:28
Speaker 1: other issues. Right it is you know once I mean,
2:06:32
Speaker 1: look at what happened to the country once the Cold
2:06:35
Speaker 1: War ended. All of a sudden, our consensus started to fracture.
2:06:39
Speaker 1: In fact, I believe we've been fracturing ever since the
2:06:43
Speaker 1: Cold War. Was this sort of it sort of forced
2:06:46
Speaker 1: these various coalitions to stick together. I think there's a similarity,
2:06:51
Speaker 1: a similarity down in South Florida in particular. So look,
2:06:54
Speaker 1: in the near term, it's a huge boon for Republicans,
2:06:57
Speaker 1: you know. And if Cuba happens in a semi peaceful
2:07:00
Speaker 1: way and it is quick and as fast as Venezuela
2:07:03
Speaker 1: did before the midterms, Yeah, I wouldn't be betting on
2:07:06
Speaker 1: David Jolly or Vinman to pull any upsets there. I'd
2:07:09
Speaker 1: be betting on Donaldson and Moody and everybody in a
2:07:15
Speaker 1: pretty big Republican sweep, at least in South Florida. But
2:07:19
Speaker 1: I don't think it transfers beyond that. By the way,
2:07:21
Speaker 1: I don't think it would matter at all outside of
2:07:26
Speaker 1: the state of South Flora or as the late great
2:07:29
Speaker 1: Howard Snallenberger used to call it, the state of Miama
2:07:31
Speaker 1: and the state of Miami, and case you're wondering for
2:07:33
Speaker 1: football recruiting purposes, was Miami, Broward and Palm Beach. So
2:07:38
Speaker 1: the state of Miami. Absolutely, it is a boon, and
2:07:43
Speaker 1: it absolutely will be in that positive for Republicans and
2:07:47
Speaker 1: that negative for Democrats. But I don't think it's generation
2:07:50
Speaker 1: because I think if it goes away, it actually opens
2:07:54
Speaker 1: the door for other issues to come in and new
2:07:58
Speaker 1: coalitions to be created and reformed. That was kind of
2:08:04
Speaker 1: a political science answer for you instead of the Florida
2:08:07
Speaker 1: man answer wasn't it. But either way, hey, enjoy the weekend,
2:08:13
Speaker 1: be safe out there, and as always, I appreciate you
2:08:18
Speaker 1: listening and subscribing. By the way, if you really want
2:08:23
Speaker 1: to see and you want to get involved in a
2:08:26
Speaker 1: true underdog story, Come on and jump on the natspand way.
2:08:29
Speaker 1: We're four games over five hundred the playoff. If the
2:08:32
Speaker 1: season ended today, the Gnats would be in the playoffs.
2:08:37
Speaker 1: And if you can't name one Gnat picture yet, I
2:08:41
Speaker 1: know you can name at least one hitter on the
2:08:43
Speaker 1: Nats the best hitter in baseball, mister James would. I'm
2:08:47
Speaker 1: sorry these All Star voters haven't figured that out yet,
2:08:50
Speaker 1: but All Star voters will figure it out soon enough.
2:08:56
Speaker 1: But you need to get to know these Nats because
2:08:58
Speaker 1: guess what. I don't think we're going anywe I think
2:09:01
Speaker 1: this team is going to contend for the rest of
2:09:03
Speaker 1: the season. They're too young, not too and I and
2:09:07
Speaker 1: We've got an operation that puts a strategy together to
2:09:11
Speaker 1: figure out how to win every game. They don't worry
2:09:14
Speaker 1: about season long projections. They worry about day to day
2:09:17
Speaker 1: month projections. It's the Raise Way. And man, am I
2:09:21
Speaker 1: a convert? Count me in. I love it, So I'm
2:09:25
Speaker 1: gonna enjoy my NAT's weekend as well. I'll see it
2:09:28
Speaker 1: on them