Why the Iran Conflict Is More Complicated Than It Looks, Plus: Jonathan Freedland on Diplomacy vs War and Ralph Reed on Charlie Kirk

So much news, so much news, so much news. Welcome to Next Up on Mark Jelpern.

“Trying to track all the news on the editor”

and chief live interactive video platform two way in the host here to try to keep up with the news and help you guide through the chaos to figure out what's happening next up. Very happy, you're very happy.

St. Patrick's Day to you and yours. You've made the right call to spend a little bit of time with me here. We have two great guests who are going to explain a lot to you. And my reported monologue on the status of the Iran conflict.

First up, talk more after my monologue about Iran,

someone with a very strong perspective on America. And on why he thinks of the Iran crisis, the Iran conflict was a big mistake. The Guardian's Jonathan Friedland joins us from the UK. And then Dr. Ralph Fried joins us.

He's the founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. Can talk to him about the absence of Charlie Kirk as well as run through some of the current politics in 2026. So Ralph Fried and Jonathan Friedland coming up. But first, my reported monologue on the status of the conflict

with Iran, what is going well? What is not my reported monologue is next up. (upbeat music) Going online without express VPN, it's like printing your social security number right on

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Again, it's expressvpn.com/nextup. [MUSIC PLAYING] All right, now my reported monologue. I spend a lot of time since the conflict with the run started talking to government officials here

and around the world also business leaders who are very clued into some of the elements there. And people who are interested observers in all the affected countries and good news and bad news continues to come through.

“So what I'm going to try to do today is to tell you what I think”

is going well in the conflict from the point of view of the United States, not the politics of it, but the substance. And what are the areas where there are some questions either because they're going poorly or because we still don't know how it's going to come out.

War is unpredictable and there's an unpredictable situation. As I was preparing today to talk about this topic and doing my reporting last reporting, big news that's no doubt good for the United States and for Israel is a role reporting that they kill two senior Iranian officials,

including really the guys that kind of have been the top strategists for the Iranians, Ali, Larghani. That's good news to the United States and Israel. The destabilizes what was already a destabilized regime. They also reportedly killed a guy who

was one of the chief security officials. Not fully confirmed as I'm talking to you now, but just the latest in what Israel and the USA are, senior leadership losses. There's no doubt that the United States and Israel

have seriously degraded the brain of the Iranian regime as well as the military muscle. So this is a tactically impressive step finding them and killing them. But strategically, this still remains complicated.

So let's talk about it. What's going well? There's widespread reports, Washington Post and elsewhere today, saying that the Iranian leadership now is confused. It's paranoid.

It's struggling to coordinate, running the government, running the military operation. And some Iranians are quietly cheering. Not a lot of reports. We thought there'd be more, frankly, coming out of Iran.

But when people get to talk to folks in Iran about what's happening, the activists, the people most interested in trying to foster regime change their well aware of what's happening and pleased about it.

Another thing that's going well is markets in the United States and around the world. Now, gas prices are up, and oil prices are up. And we've seen some days of the markets taking it. And the United States and elsewhere.

But not at what it might be.

You always have to imagine what it could be like.

And in talking to people in the financial sector, what they say is there's some confidence in the part

There's also a belief that this will be a short conflict.

“And some people like to talk about taco, President Trump,”

chickening out. But more, they just believe this could be a short work. And that means they're looking for bargains. If the market takes a hit one day, a lot of people have confidence as the Trump administration does

in the fundamentals of the economy. So all that's going well. Again, it's not perfect. But the president, when he makes the case that when the conflict ends, and it will end soon,

that the economy could be very strong, particularly if there's access to the Iranian oil, there's some truth to that, at least potentially. Drones, people have made a big deal about this being

the first AI war, the first drone war on the Iranian side.

But also in the US side, US superiority as a fighting force using drones is a massive, massive upside for the United States in this conflict, but also going forward because other countries are aware now. But the US advantage in nuclear weapons

is really just kind of psychological and symbolic because there's no indication the US would use nuclear weapons. The drones can be used with impunity.

“Also using drones also having a great demonstration”

of technical competence are the Israelis. And the operational performance between the United States and Israel continues to just be extraordinary in finding targets and hitting them with minimal loss of life every American casualty

of course as a tragedy and we've seen people killed and people injured. But given the scale of this operation and the complexity, it's actually relatively low how many people have died, how many people have been injured.

That's also a positive. Another positive related to Israel is that Netanyahu and Trump have kept their disagreements at a public view. Now, make no mistake.

There's some disagreements already. There's some more coming. But the fact that they've been able to keep hostilities and tensions there had a public view as a victory.

And then finally, maybe the biggest victory of all

in some ways, if you think beyond the four corners of this conflict, Russia and China have largely stayed on the sidelines. They don't like the war, at least this, particularly the Chinese.

“But their US and Chinese delegations met”

very senior level Scott Basin for the United States and France, the President talked to Putin, Russia and China are not at the UN making noise. They're reports that they're helping the Iranians, but they're not in this like a cold war conflict

using the Iranians as a proxy to defeat the United States. That is good news. Now, there are a couple articles out that are getting really widely read in maybe what you consider unlikely places

that make similar cases about the US's really campaign is already producing strategic gains. And that regime change actually could be possible, even though it hasn't been talked about much of late.

First one is in the Atlantic magazine.

They run articles that are sometimes not so favorable that President Trump to say the least, but they'll also run articles that they think represent the truth. And two guys, Mark Dubuets, the CEO of something called

the Foundation for Defense of democracies and very prominent Andy Iran Hawk and then Richard Goldberg, a former government official. Their case is that Iran's air defenses have been degraded. Their missile force has been degraded.

The leadership, of course, has been degraded. And their ability to fight back both through their proxies and the region and through these missiles that they do have remaining seriously degraded.

And that this is phase one. Week in Iran's work capacity, then move on to phase two to try to undermine their police state. And some of that has begun as well, we're told in the reporting, knocking out the ability

of the Iranian regime to suppress the people. That could lead to regime change. It's not a sure thing. But people who are impatient for regime change are for the President to talk more about it,

expected maybe that to happen in phase one and it hasn't, but phase two is underway. Now, the straight-of-arm use of core moves, of course, is still a big issue. But people who believe this is going well,

think that over time, that can be resolved that the U.S. can force Iran or negotiate with Iran to open it back up. And of course, they still need to deal with the nuclear sites we'll talk about that in a minute.

The sustained pressure, though, is what these guys think is super important. The sustained pressure is working. And it could conceivably lead to collapse. Now, the other article also may be in surprising places

in on the website of Al-Jazeera in their opinion section. It's a guy who's a veteran journalist and a senior policy fellow at the American University of Beirut. Rami Corey, are you similarly that this early phase is substantially degraded Iran's capabilities

and made it harder for them to fight back. That's a victory in and of itself. That's a big deal. EMphasizes as the other authors do that the air dominance and leadership capacity, the gapetation,

There are a lot of critics who suggest to the war's failed, not going to achieve all the objectives, but the cumulative effect he argues is still unfolding. The proxy network weakening and Israel's done that by going into Lebanon has been effective.

And part of why this operation took place was Iran was a bully in the neighborhood. Iran had all these proxies surrounding Israel. Some of that's been degraded previously in Gaza and elsewhere, but now more of it's being done

and Iran's being cut off from their proxies. And this takes away a lot of the leverage that Iran had to terrorize people. So he argues that this campaign could really make the Middle East generally safer.

You could see more momentum out of this.

In towards the second Abraham record.

So read those two pieces.

“If you want to hear really muscular, well-reasoned arguments”

about why this is going well. Again, in Al Jazeera and the Atlantic. Now, what am I sources say is not going as well? Well, Iran continues to be able to strike. Their capacity is diminished,

but they continue to strike Israel. They continue to strike other Gulf targets. And that's not great for the psychology of this. And the practicality of it. And there's still vulnerable targets out there.

We saw them hit ships. We saw them hit some financial centers. We saw them hit some aviation targets. Some energy targets. That continues to be a problem.

And the fact that this trade is closed, the biggest problem really right now,

how that's going to get reopened,

when that's going to get reopened, the president on true social today saying, all his attempts to get help from other countries not going to work. So that's a big problem.

This conflict is not going to be resolved favorably for the United States until that figure it out. And Iran still has the asymmetrical advantage. They don't need to win. They don't need to kill as many Americans as Iranians

or kill. They don't need to overthrow the American government. They just need to stretch this out and test the capacity of Donald Trump

“to go into this conflict on an extended basis, right?”

The president's now talking about maybe another month of this. The Iranians can hear them say that. He's under pressure to the markets and to the Congress and the public to say this won't be a long time. So if he says it's going to be 30 days, they say,

okay, let's mark the 31st day on our calendar. Let's survive until then. The costs are mounting, right? How much the Congress is being going to be asked to spend on this, how this is hurting the economy.

Even though it's not devastating yet on the shipping traffic, not just of energy and fertilizer, but other things through this trade. And it's possible that what this is leading to. Well, here we talk to Jonathan Friedland about this

is to a more radical regime in Iran that if you can eliminate them, you leave yourself with a set of government actors who can't afford to do anything, but oppose the United States. The Gulf countries, good news is they're not siding with Iran,

but you could easily imagine them ending this conflict feeling a little upset about the United States' actions and Israel's actions. They've been exposed to retaliation now and changed places like Abu Dhabi Dubai

“that aren't used to being targeted the way they are.”

Some Trump allies are a little concerned and the critics of the war that Iran now controls the tempo of this. Iran is in some ways more in control and to deal with things like opening the straight,

to deal with things like the car island, we might have to put boots on the ground and that would open up a big political problem for the president. The other big, longer-term conflict,

short-term, it's opening up the straight, my sources say, "Is erish uranium?" You're either going to have to negotiate an iron-clad deal to get that removed and that's a complex process or you're going to have to somehow destroy it

without creating an economic catastrophe. So that's a big one to watch. The president, I believe, is hoping according to my sources to so-degrade the regime, to so intimidate them into surrender.

That they negotiate in good faith for once to figure out how to get that uranium out of there.

Finally, the things we don't know.

We don't know about Cargallon. The president says it was destroyed in terms of its infrastructure, but not the energy infrastructure. What's going to happen there?

Is he going into Lebanon? Has definitely reduced Hezbollah's capacity? But opening up that front is a big unknown and something some in the American government aren't crazy about.

There's also the U.S. China relationship. What kind of impact is what's happening around having on the relationship? What kind of impact is the relationship having on Iran so far so good?

But there are people worried about that. And then the president's under a lot of pressure, domestically, and he's usually pretty impervious to this. But neocons like at the Wall Street Journal at a twirl page, don't want him to take the foot off

the accelerator, working with the Israelis. Magga is restive.

on the ground. And then finally, the media-- the media framing of this, the White House will tell you, with some truth, a lot of truth, is super negative. And they're covering it the way they cover Donald Trump

doing anything. And there's some in Trump's orbit who push back and think, well, this is great when we attack the media. It's going well. But it's certainly frames how the public is experiencing the war.

And they're seeing an emphasis more on the negative things I listed from my sources than the positive. So that's the snapshot of where we are now. This is a fast-moving story.

And you'll never know exactly if everything I'm able to report

is the full picture. You can bet that it's not complete.

“But I think that gives you a good sense of what's going well”

right now, what's going poorly, and where the big unknowns are. As always, I'd love to hear from you and send me your emails. Tell me your theories. Tell me what you think I left off of any of my lists of good

bad or unknown. You can hit me up at [email protected]. Send me your thoughts on the war syndrome quick because it's fast-moving. If you liked what you heard, be a good citizen

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Turn on the downloads whether you're on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

“So you always get one tap away from the latest programs,”

Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and bonus content. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to be joined by someone with very strong views on the Iran conflict and what Donald Trump and these rallies have done.

My friend, the Guardian columnist, Jonathan Friedland, who also has the podcast, "Politics Weekly America." We'll join us to lay out his case against what Donald Trump has done. That's next up.

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(upbeat music) All right, next up in joining me now, someone with a different view than some in the United States, but not all on what's happening in Iraq. Jonathan Freedlandis, the Guardian columnist,

host of what I'm told to say is an acclaimed podcast, politics weekly America, new episodes drop every Friday on Apple Spotify, wherever you get your fine podcast.

First of all, who's Jonathan?

Welcome, who's acclaimed your podcast? Well, you just did, I think, even though you are a pain to attribute it to others, but no, we have a loyal following inside the United States and actually around the world.

“So, yeah, I think the acclaimed is legit,”

I think you're well-sourced on that. Yeah, now you, one reason I love you, be besides the fact that I love you, is you understand the United States, which not every British reporter does,

and calmness does. Where did you learn to understand the United States so well? Well, I think you and I cross paths back in the 1990s, I was a reporter, sort of baby, cup reporter for the, initially for the Washington Post,

in the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton, Ross Perot, George H. W. Bush, that campaign,

I was on the road on the bus that is on their first one,

et cetera, covering that campaign, and then got so sort of hooked on the story that I then persuaded the Guardian newspaper and the BBC actually in combination to make me the Washington correspondent.

So, I did that for just over four years in the mid '90s, and then ever since, I've made it my business to come back. Every election cycle, every presidential, every mid-terms, I'm there on the road usually, and I've maintained my interest in it

and covering it all bit now from here with this podcast, but I speak to American journalists, political strategists, players, we can we count for this podcast. - And what you've done is what I've tried to do, which is use elections, not as just a spectacle,

So, what are some things you think a lot of people in England don't understand about the United States

“that you do in terms of our culture, our politics, Trump?”

- Well, that's a really interesting question.

I always felt the one huge thing that is missed out

is this huge, just swath of American terrain that isn't New York, Washington, Los Angeles, or at a push Florida, meaning those are the places and Brits tend to go to. And the idea I used to make sure as a correspondent,

I was spending a huge amount of time in Iowa, in a small town, in normal Illinois, in Kansas. So, these places that just, I mean, you talk about those fly over country, these are places that were,

don't fly at all country to non-Americans. Nobody ever would ever make it to those places. And there was no feel for small town American. I think the other thing that was hugely missed was the embedded nature of American democracy

at the lowest possible level. I mean, I would make a point of writing about school board elections and county board of supervisors and just explaining to Brits that really every position that in British life

would be appointed, you know, police chief, was subject to election that there was democracy was encoded into American life from top to bottom. And I would even notice that as a reporter, still to this day, if you try and do a Volkswagen,

meaning like a street interview in Britain, your average person will just run a mile. They won't want to talk to you. And if they do, they will be faltering and often hesitant, not really particularly eloquent.

You can stop any random American on any random street and they will be up to speed with the politics and fluent about voicing their own opinion because they are taught from birth, I would say. But they are co-owners of the United States.

It's their country, we though people, and that therefore they are responsible for it. And they take that responsibility quite seriously.

I was always very struck by Americans who were talking

about presidential elections as if they were job interviews that they were hiring a CEO who they could then fire.

“Brits tended then, I think it may be a tiny bit more now.”

Not to feel they had that degree of agency or power. Probably because this country historically was structured as a monarchy, it's very, very different. - One more predicate laying and question and then to Iran.

Explain as best you can, why Donald Trump won in 2024, in 1926, but why did he win in 2024? - I think he won in 2024 because people thought the economy was in the tank or very underperforming. And they thought he would say what you like about Donald Trump,

the economy was okay and still people saw him as a businessman and capable on the economy. I think they believed he would bring down prices and he would do it pretty quickly. I think they saw his opponent, Carmella Harris,

as culturally outside the mainstream, the San Francisco liberal thing, I think there is still enough sexism in American life but not only American life that still hesitates about a woman president.

“I think given the history of the country,”

a black woman as president was always gonna be a big ask.

And I think she was tainted by association with an administration that was blamed for the poor functioning of the economy. And for a whole battery of problems and the sort of low energy quality of Biden rubbed off

on her and she didn't have long enough to turn it around. So I think all of those things, and I think there was a sense that Donald Trump, you know, yeah, he talks crazy stuff on the stamp but he won't do anything crazy.

When he's president, he will just be lots of tweets 'cause that's what it was last time. So I think they were under prepared, many Americans for, for what Trump 2.0 has actually entailed. - So in your very good list of reasons

for all of which I agree played a role, you didn't include anything about a backlash against either how Trump was treated in terms of prosecutions or by the media. He didn't include things like areas

in which the Democratic Party was perceived as being too liberal, too woke, too far to the left. Do you think those two things played a role at all? - Yes, they did, it's fair few to bring those up. I mean, I remember my own reaction

when I heard on a radio spot, I think it was wild, while on the road for the 2024 election, that I had that said, Kamala, she's for they, them, president, Trump's for you. And I remember almost gasping thinking

that is such an effective piece of political communication that will cut through, I thought to myself,

to put his finger on the sort of vibe shift

“that we people called it, but the excesses of that period,”

many of which were not actually attributable to the Democratic Party, capital D, capital P, or to the Biden administration, just things that had happened in American life.

And so that they, them, line, was very powerful

'cause it went to something cultural that people would have known just from their own workplace, or from emails that got. And it sort of managed to tie her to a cultural shift that, look, many millions of Americans welcome,

but many millions of Americans feel really uncomfortable with, and it managed to ride that way, even distill it in a very powerful way. And, you know, I was certainly at one of those rallies in Salem, Virginia, I remember,

where Donald Trump brought on stage girls from a girls swimming team who had stood firm against competing against trends, girls, or biological males in their team. And, you know, it got through with that crowd, note out about it.

But I still think, from Senator, were those other things starting with the economy. - All right, this is all a layer predicate for the Orion Conversation, if you give those of you aren't familiar with Jonathan's point of view,

a sense of things, a little known fact, the friendship between myself and Jonathan, is actually the basis for the special relationship between the United States and Great Britain. And I was surprised in reading your most recent column

about the Orion War conflict. How mostiferously opposed you are, to it. In my monologue earlier, I talked about some things are going well, some less well. But let me start this way, because, you know,

you say, it's not gonna achieve regime change, it's not gonna make Orion less of a threat. That's a summary of your comment. I recommend it to everybody, 'cause it's as opposed to your stuff is,

all your stuff, very well-reasoned. But what was the alternative? If there's a shared view that Orion should have nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, terror networks, the a threat to the region.

And that, it's gotta happen somehow. President Trump had said to stop me. I'm gonna do this unless he's stopped me, but I still need to achieve these goals shared by the United Kingdom,

shared by the Saudis. What was the alternative to the way this has been pursued in your view? - Well, we have first of all that there wasn't going diplomatic effort.

The Omanee Foreign Minister, maybe you take that with skepticism.

He was convinced he'd made a breakthrough

on the question of enriching enrichment of uranium. He flew straightaway to Washington to press that case, and he was convinced that with a bit more time that he was going to get there, there's no doubt all serotonellists of Iran will tell you,

there were divisions in that regime. And there were some factions who wanted to cut a deal and some who didn't. Now, Artful Agile Nimble Diplomacy knows how to boost the faction who want to make a deal,

and diminish or shrink the faction that are hard-line and stubborn.

“That's what sophisticated Diplomacy will entail.”

But let's say that isn't to your taste and you think you want a more muscular approach. That approach had already and was already being tried in the form of attacks on Iran's proxies and Israel had done a pretty effective job of reducing his volars

arsenal. Hamas, obviously, is still there in Gaza, but they weren't the fighting force they had been before. You could say that actually in terms of Iran's ability to hit back, it was held in check.

Just two facts I would mention.

The first one is anybody who looked at the chessboard

beforehand and I don't say this with some kind of hindsight. This is what people are saying, you know, to me in conversation before it happened, that Iran held this huge asymmetric weapon in the form of the street of horror moves.

They're even if you were to whack their arsenal, their weapons, you were going to leave them in control of this massive weapon that can hold the entire global economy to ransom. The trick is to reduce the incentive for them to use it.

The problem with launching a war of regime change

“and saying from the outer, that's what you want to do,”

is they then have no incentive to cut any deal. You then make it do or die for them. You make it existential and so sure enough within two weeks they've reached for that massive asymmetric weapon. So I think there was some containment going on.

I agree, it wasn't giving you the sugar rush of seeing Hamas and I's head on a spike, the Supreme Leader wasn't dead, but it was, you know, containing, reducing, potentially getting another nuclear deal.

And I know people, a lot of them laugh at the Iran nuclear deal that President Obama broke it. But I recommend a lot of people dig out this, there's a nurse, extraordinary graphic prepared by the financial times.

We chose the production of fissile material

The graph suddenly stops between 2015 and 2018. No production. In the years of the Iran nuclear deal, they just stopped producing them. And after the 12 day war last June,

the graph goes through the roof.

“Iran suddenly started producing them all over again.”

So we incentivized effectively the hardliners and made it much, much more difficult for those who were looking to cut a deal.

Well, connect up your first and last points.

Of first you said, some people credit that the negotiations were going well and then you say, well, the deal, a model for some about particularly for Obama-loving Brits of how to deal with this was another deal. The data that would go into that financial times chart

would be dependent on having an accurate view of what the Iranians have been doing. And I don't think based on what this administration feels that that's accurate. In other words, they believe the Iranians

tricking the international inspectors as they've done in the past documented. We're still producing nuclear material, including at one facility that they claim was only for medical research and producing medical isotope.

So I don't feel comfortable saying that we know for a fact

“that the Iranians had attempts to build a bomb”

ended under the Obama deal. I just don't think we know, but I'd be skeptical. And the American negotiators were skeptical, despite what the Omani diplomat said, that the Iranians were dealing in good faith.

And even a nuclear deal. Even if he assumed it's enforced and enforceable, they still have ballistic missile capability. They're still an existential threat to Israel. They still are the greatest sponsor of terrorism

around the world. And they're still running a repressive regime that are killing their own citizens and keeping people from having real lives.

So I add all that up, and I go to your second point.

I can't explain the failure to prepare for the control of the straight. It makes no sense. It was obviously discussed, but it's a prima facia. It's not true when they say, what we knew all about this

and we were prepared, because now there's still days, later, scrambling to try to do with it. So I agree with you on that point. But I just go back to the original thing. No one likes war.

No one wants to see a failure of regime change. No one wants to-- no one can explain how you get to nuclear material out. But the alternative is, more years of a repressive and dangerous regime run by fanatics.

So again, I'm just trying to figure out if there's any-- any openness-- let's say it ends well, for instance. I asked Democratic the use. You sound like you could be the third senator from Connecticut with your position on the war,

on the conflict. Let's say they open the straight. They get the nuclear material out. Let's say they negotiate a deal with Iran that maybe doesn't change the regime, but puts more moderate

people in place. That's not some fantasy world. That could happen. Would you then say, well, I misjudged the capacity of this, or would you still oppose it?

Because you thought the means were not moral, or not the right way for international behavior to be conducted?

“Well, I think the-- look, interesting question.”

I think the international-- the means is a real question about, but it's not sacrosanctomy. I mean, I think I was one of those people in the '90s and early, nor too did think that the notion of a responsibility to protect was real.

And the idea that a notion of international law that says state sovereignty is invaluable, which translates as dictators have the right to kill their own people. Well, I don't think that's a sacred principle. So I'm not completely closed to this idea,

but I do know, and just we've all learned, what happened in Iraq in 2003, what happened in Libyan to India 11 is, this is extremely difficult. You have to approach this task humbly and with enormous preparation and tremendous care.

So that you create-- you strengthen those people for who might be able to affect change on the ground and you weaken those who had thought it. It seems to me that to blunder in with no plan, isn't just a sort of side operational question.

It actually goes to almost the morality of it,

because this is so delicate, 90 million people in Iran

depending on this working. You owe it to them to approach this with seriousness, with preparation, with care. If you are going in there, winging it on the hoof, add a living, a day by day, changing the goals.

One minute, it's regime change. Then it's unconditional surrender. Then it's negotiation.

If you have prepared no allies and no alliances,

“then you are not serious about this task.”

And instead you are as I wrote in the piece, you're walking towards a tinder box that's drenched in gasoline with a lit match. I'm not saying that such a task is impossible and no one should ever try that.

But if you are going to approach that tinder box, drenched in gasoline with a lit match, you do it gingerly, carefully, with support, with preparation. Now, you think about George H.W. Bush, who I mentioned just before, five months passed

between the invasion of Kuwait and Desert Storm, laying the ground militarily, but also diplomatically. Making sure there are allies there, making sure that, in effect, military, nothing could go wrong. There were no surprises.

This was seems to me as if this was almost just dreamed up on a whim. The military have done there a bit of it well, but you had to prepare for week two and week three. And to fail to do that is actually

to not just discredit the goal of regime change, but to leave the people you claim to be helping in an even worse position. So just as one example, Donald Trump issue, is it show those in pleas to members of the Iranian security forces,

lay down your arms? Question, to whom? Who are they meant to lay down their arms, too? There is no organized force, there's no opposition. So either you do this thing properly and with seriousness,

in which case, maybe I would take your point and be open to support it, but what you do not do is treat this like some kind of game. And I am, it's not a side point. I'm sickened by those war propaganda memes and videos

that treat this literally as if it's an amusement.

This is the fate of 90 million people that are riding on this,

who were looking up at the sky's hoping, at one point, for deliverance in the form of Western bombs, who instead are seeing places kill and seeing their own tormentors, the Iranian regime, dig in and be held stronger.

“So I think it's, you want me to, in a way,”

support an operation that isn't there, which is a careful methodical world for through plan. This isn't that. - Yeah, I wish we had two more hours because I'd listen so closely what you just said and I agree with so much of it,

but there's a couple things I don't agree with necessarily. I've talked on this program and I flip flopped in this base of two days about whether Donald Trump's shifting rhetoric is a positive or negative. I thought before in the beginning it was fine

because it just puts out a buffet of options. And you may not get regime change but talk about it and then if it's not seem like it's in the cards, immediately pull back. Now I tend to agree with you that this requires

consistency and seriousness. But on this issue of no plan, I feel it's pretty clear what he's going for. He's going to add a minimum with the Israelis, minimize their ability to be a naval threat,

a missile threat, a nuclear threat, and a terror threat. And if in addition to that, we can have access to their oil. And if in addition to that, we can foster regime change. Great. But those are those would be nice to have,

but those are an essential for this to be a success.

And if what Israel and the United States achieve something that's never been achieved, we've given the Iranian people a chance to rise up. Maybe the U.S. could do more, but then you're headed towards Quackmar.

Given them the best chance they've had, we've eliminated their command and control, and we've undermined their credibility. Still difficult, but that's a nice to have. Great to have.

What's clear is if it ended today,

“assuming the straight was open, which I think it could be,”

we've degraded their capacities more than they've ever been degraded. And that means the neighborhood, not just Israel, but the Gulf states, the Saudis and everybody else, who doesn't want them to be super powerful, they've achieved, they've achieved a benefit from that, no?

- Well, it doesn't look like that. And the reason why I say it doesn't look like that, is because I think that when you draw the balance sheet at the end of this, yes, it's true, they've lost a whole lot of hardware and kit, that's true.

But do they look like a more powerful player on the chessboard? Is there deterrent power actually asserted? Because we've seen they can exert a choke, a chokehold over the entire global economy.

I mean, the straight-of-wall moves,

it was always a sort of abstract,

because people thought it was like almost a nuclear buff and they wouldn't ever dare push. Well, now we can see they can. And when they do, the oil price surge is globally. Energy, the inflation goes up globally.

Ships cannot be ensured. World trade, not just in oil, actually, there's huge numbers of goods that go through there.

that you could almost have a few dinghyes in a couple of Olympic minds, nothing else. And they still have a massive mighty deterrent in their hands. It's almost an economic nuke that has been advertised by these three weeks.

You add into that the notion that the moderate such as they were, and in these of terms are relative, have taken a defeat here, and the hard liners are going to be absolutely ensured when they argue, we obviously have to have a nuclear weapon.

Look at North Korea, no one bombs them. We need that nuclear weapon. We've advanced that cause through this war.

And then finally, it's the notion

that there was nothing else that could be done. I just think you'd had 30,000 people on the streets. You had an economy that is just on its last legs. Is it, isn't it perhaps the case that with more pressure, more thought through pressure on this regime?

Yes, we're threats. Yes, even with actually limited military traction to degrade the military capabilities you've talked about, in a way like the June war of last year, could that not have left the regime on its knees

whereas instead what you have is a situation where you could have a broken regime who have nothing to lose, nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose. And with this enormous weapon in the hands, in the form of an economic stranglehold over the world economy.

So I don't look at any ledger at the moment and say, okay, it's not everything, but it's pretty good.

“I think you could potentially have said that”

in June of last year, I don't think you can say it.

Now, and I also do think there's this legitimacy point, which is Israel and the US and the eyes of that region and in the world have made themselves seem like an unreliable bit for a lot of those. The UAE is a huge amount of ordinance dropped on it.

Punished in a way for its close ties to the US and to Israel. When all this is settled, do they sit down and think you know, maybe actually it makes more sense for us to be with China than to be in these A-Brahama calls with Israel and with the US.

I think you could see a lot of reassessment because the United States has shown itself to be in some ways a dangerous friend to have and that would go for Israel too. - Yeah, normally when I talk to Jonathan,

I say, oh, you're right. In this case, I'll say, you might be right, but you may not, and we'll see.

Jonathan, very grateful to you.

The podcast drops every Friday, again, it's called Partics Weekly America. How often do you colonize? - Also, once a week, every Friday, so that drops online on Friday after noon your time,

or Friday lunch time your time, really. And so those two, you know, the column is very often about the US, this week, the Middle East and so on. So yeah, if people want to turn to that,

just Jonathan Friedland at the Guardian, they'll find it. - And you're a great novelist as well, do you have anything coming out soon? - Well, the last two books I've done have been non-fiction and a book called The Trade to Circle,

which is a true story, remarkable true story of a group of very elite Germans who were anti-Nazi in during the war. They gathered together in secret.

“They won, they gathered for a secret tea party.”

It was disguised as. They thought they were among their own. What they did not know is that someone sitting around that table with them, they thought was a kindred spirit was instead

about to betray all the rest to the Gestapo. Holy true story, I framed it like a who done it, but it's really about resistance, who stands up to tyranny when it comes and who does not, it's called The Trade to Circle.

- And the best narrative non-fiction reads like a novel as that does. Jonathan, thank you, Jonathan Friedland, grateful to you from the Guardian. Thank you for joining, great to see you, my friend.

- Good to be with you. - All right, next up, doctors in the house, next up with Ralph Friedland, and Chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, Ralph Fried is next up. (upbeat music)

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and Freedom Coalition, someone with an extraordinary role

in the Republican Party for many decades.

It's hard to be at the level Ralph has been for as long as he's been, and grateful to have you here, Mr. Chairman. - Thank you very much, Mark, good to be with you. - I know, I'm not the only one who says this to you, but it's clear that part of the fact

that you've had all this longevity is, you still look like you're in your 20s, which is quite a few. 'Cause you're your grandfather, right? - I am indeed, I have a fork on the way. - Yeah, I would still carge you if I had a tab or any of you.

There's so much I want to talk to you about, I just want to start with Charlie Kirk, that someone who was guessed on this show

“and appeared on, and such an important force.”

How do you evaluate what his absence from the National Tansquare means for MAGA for the conservative movement? How is that being felt in your view? - Well, there are a lot of people who are replaceable,

but Charlie falls in that category. I got to know Charlie as he was coming up. He was a young buck who used to bring young people and college students to faith in freedom's policy conference. He was also doing that at CPAC.

So I don't know how old he would have been at that time. Maybe 18, 19, 20. And he was a great talent, had a great intellect. He was a great organizer, and he's not replaceable. You know, it's like losing a Rush Limbaugh,

maybe five years into his syndication.

We'll never know what Charlie could have accomplished,

but the good news is he made a huge impact while he was with us. It's a terrible tragedy and a terrible loss that he's no longer with us. And, you know, there are people like that mark

that are just once in a generation talents. And he was one of those. - So I accept your premise, it's the premise of my question, but what's something specific? You say he's not replaceable.

What's a place tangibly where you see his absence, for instance, he worked on voter registration and voter turnout is he not replaceable on that? But where do you see it?

“What's an example where you see and feel his absence?”

- I would say it's less the aspects of the ground game

to which he contributed mildly. And more his talents and abilities as a communicator and a persuader and a motivator and a mobilizer. You know, he punched above his way.

In other words, it wasn't just turning point. It was the podcast, it was the radio show. It was his campus appearances. And he increased the intensity and excitement of our folks.

And that's an intangible mark. It's not like you can sit there and go, number of doors knocked or number of students recruited. It's not a data point, it's an intangible. And you know, I live in the Atlanta area

and one of the last times that I was with Charlie was backstage at a turning point event that they did in Duluth, which is where I used to live. I used to live right around the corner from the arena where he was doing this event.

And I had come in with President Trump and his team and we were arriving at the venue. And I've been in that arena many times, mark for concerts and things that were entertainment events.

And he filled that arena. And he was also an extraordinary networker. He knew everybody, he was very responsive.

“I think the last communication I had with him”

was probably a couple of weeks before he was assassinated. And I texted him and thanked him for taking the courageous stand that he had against reclassifying marijuana under federal law. And he was courageous, he was fearless.

And he was right about 99% of the time. You know, he sometimes took a while to get there but like his stand on cannabis was an example. That did not resonate well necessarily with every element of his audience.

So I'm gonna miss him and I don't expect to, again, there are some talents that are just once in a generation. And he was one of those. - Yep. Well said, everything you said and I just want to raise

one more thing about Charlie and then we'll move on. Where I see his absence right now is in the extraordinary vitriol that's occurring within MAGA

and I both know your friends, people like cover.

“I mean, we can spend an hour listing them all”

but online and on podcasts and in real life. There's, and marijuana is a good example. Canada is a good example. That divides MAGA, the president's not with where you say Charlie was.

There's all these substantive disagreements on Israel, on Iran, on immigration. And Charlie had the ability to talk to everybody and try to keep everybody from recognizing that being unified was better than being divided

that in his view, the enemy was the Democrats, not the fellow conservatives. And I can't help but think that the explosion of conflict is in part because he's not on the text chains. He's not calling people and saying, hey,

let's see if we can't keep this a little bit more within the family. Do you agree with that premise? I don't know because it's a counterfactual. Meaning we're speculating about what it would be like

if he were here and I don't know. I tend to think that a couple of things. Number one, these kinds of robust disagreements among family are not a necessarily. They don't have to be a sign of weakness.

They can be a sign of strength that we have these disagreements. We've had 'em in the past. And until they're resolved, you talk those things through and eventually somebody wins and somebody loses. But whether it's the life issue or the terror issue,

remember Mark in an earlier time that you covered and that I was a part of. When we were going into 94 in the Gingrich Revolution, we were having to graph in the parallel movement, which was a bit of a precursor to the magma movement.

It was populist in style. It was anti-establishment and ideology. He was also for tariffs, term limits, ballots, budgets. There was a particular, for lack of a better term, sort of populist peroagenda.

And remember when we went into the mid-90s, if we were going to win, we had to graph them in and not everybody agreed with us. We had good friends of ours that were against elements of those philosophical or legislative items.

“And I think that's kind of what magga has been.”

But remember that in the end, and this is what as a strategist, I try and keep my eye on this ball that you don't focus on the storm and drag of the short-term disagreements.

You focus on the fact that you're practicing the politics of addition and you're growing a movement. And one of the benefits that I have from having been a part of this for as long as I have and being part of the Reagan movement.

And so forth is I look at what we have now, and I wouldn't trade it for what we had 30 years ago or 40 years ago for all the money in the world. So yes, when you pour to use a biblical analogy, when you pour new wine into old wine skins,

they tend to rattle, but they don't have to break. - Yeah, well said. - Well, you talk about populism and outsiderness. And one of the things I so respect about you is you have a through association

with the establishment wing of the party, which has been a lot of your career with,

you've always understood the populist wing of the party.

You've always understood the outsider sensibility. And you think of people like Mitt Romney or Coral Rove or Mitch McConnell. These people, if you flash them up on a screen and add a mag event, would be booed in most cases.

And yet, their huge Mitch McConnell is responsible for all, in part for all these conservative judges who are on the bench now in justices. And so I want to ask you about the current state of the establishment versus populism

through the prism of the governor's race in your state.

“Are you supporting one of the Republicans in that primary?”

- Yeah, I got a lot of friends running for you. - Yeah, I figured. - I'm for my friends. All right, so the president supports the Lieutenant Governor Bert Jones and normally in a Republican primary these days,

there's one dispositive variable who's the president endorsed. But here's the sky who most people in politics

had never heard of 20 minutes ago.

Rick Jackson, health care executive, has gotten in the race. He spent a lot of money and the polls show now that he's either ahead or even money matters a lot. But what is it about Rick Jackson's message that has allowed him to go from nowhere to now being in contention

- Well, I'll just give you my opinion.

And it's just mine.

“But I've shared this with all the candidates.”

They're all friends of mine. And in some cases, friends of decades, Chris Carr, who you didn't mention, the Attorney General, I've known since he was Johnny Isaacson's campaign manager, when Johnny was elected in '04.

And I've been involved in Georgia politics. I'm not even gonna say how long Mark 'cause it's embarrassing. So they're all friends. And I've told them what I'm getting ready to tell you.

The reason why there was such a huge undecided in this race,

even with Bert being Lieutenant Governor

and even with Trump and Dorsing him. You could debate which poll was reliable, but it was between 30 and 45% of the race of the electorate. The primary electorate was undecided or kind of floating among candidates.

And Rick kind of jumped into that. And not like a big fish in a small pond, but with his financial resources, like a whale in a bathtub and the hunger that he's tapped into is a desire for a candidate and a governor who will be a champion

and a fighter for conservative values and for conservative policy that will transform our state, the way similar governors, the series of governors in Florida kind of a crown of it being DeSantis,

but as you know, it goes all the way back to Japan. - Yeah, Mitch Daniels in Indiana in an earlier time. Abbott and a now very conservative legislator in Texas, not just passing incremental school choice or incremental welfare reform or incremental pro-life legislation,

but transformative legislation, elimination or phasing out of the income tax, true tort reform, universal school choice, protection of every innocent human being in that state at every stage of pregnancy and at every stage of life.

And once you do that, you look at Tennessee. Look at how many people are fleeing other states and going to Tennessee. Look how many people are going to Florida and Texas. Mark and Georgia, we only got a little bit of that

because we haven't yet hung a banner of such bold colors rather than pale pastels to quote Ronald Reagan, did the entire country goes, "Oh, I get it. If I want to be free and I want to grow a business and I want to go to the school of my choice

and I want to live in a state where my values are not only not denigrated, but they're honored and celebrated, I want to go to Georgia."

“Now personally, I think most of the candidates share”

those values, but what the voters are hungering for and what the activists and the grassroots are hungering for is I want to be a state that lots of other people around the country want to move to because of those things that I refer to.

And our people more likely to trust someone who espouses those points of view, because as you suggest, most of the candidates in this race are who's not a career politician. - Well, I think there's a bit of Trump envy out there.

The idea is we can continue to elect for another decade or two. Candidates were in blue suits and red ties who say all the right things and have good voting records.

But for some reason, we never quite get what they promise us.

So they sort of promise us all this stuff in the environment of the campaign. And then when we go to them, when it's time to deliver, it's like, well, I've got this issue with this constituency. Or I can't tick off the teachers' union before my real app.

So the theory is you elect an outsider and they're willing to go in and break the parents' er.

“Now, I think the challenge for a bird and for other candidates,”

and again, they're all friends and good friends, is you just need to make that case. And I think it's gonna be good for the party. I think this is ultimately gonna be healthy. - I know bird doesn't necessarily feel that way

because now if he's in a real dogfight, but remember, Mark, we have a runoff. So unless you get 50% plus one, primary day,

So that's where we're heading, and one last thing that I want to say just as a point of personal privilege, all these things that I've talked about are not a reflection on those who have fought for us. I mean, you look at Governor Brian Kemp,

he passed election integrity legislation, he cut the income tax, he signed the heartbeat bill, protecting every unborn child once a heartbeat could be, be discerned, and he's been the most conservative governor we've ever had, I think he's done a fabulous job.

But I think what that did in a counterintuitive way was it raised expectations even higher if that makes any sense? - Yeah, I mean, I was gonna be too polite to raise that with you, but I know his record, and I know you think well of him, and yet as you point it out,

people don't think of Georgia as their first place to go.

Yet over Florida, over Tennessee, when they're looking for a place that's as a governor to say, the free state of Florida, right? So, and I would just say Governor Kemp for all his achievements,

and he's a very politically sophisticated guy, as you know, he's an establishment figure, right? He's because he's been in office now for a while.

“So that's why I still think Jackson, part of why”

I think he's doing well as people say, the bar's raised, now we need a real outside, we need a Trump-like figure, rather than elevating a lieutenant governor, maybe a business person, who's talking like an outsider would be more in line

with what people are looking for with that raised bar. Last topic I wanna cover, I'm in the midst of doing reporting on this battle for the Senate majority, and I know you follow it closely,

and I'll do my reporting with you right here in front

of everybody. I think people is narrative, and you see it on the betting markets, and you see it in the plunditry, that Democrats have an increasingly good chance, maybe even a base case chance to take the majority.

I think if you go raised by race, it's just not true. I think everything has to go right for the Democrats, and that includes holding three seats that they currently have a Democrat in. So let me ask you about those three seats.

You just tell me, who you favor in the race, and if you wanna give me a sentence or two about why, that'd be great. Michigan is an open seat. Democrat have a three-way primary,

Mike Rogers, pretty strong candidate, although not best for the judge. Who do you favor in that race? Blue State, you favor Democrat or Republican,

knowing we don't know who the Democratic nominee is gonna be.

- Well, obviously, Mike is a friend, and I support him the last time he ran, and we expect to be there for him again.

“I think it's gonna be a very competitive race.”

I don't want to overstate it, but Michigan is clearly trending our way. And it's changing, and part of that is, you know, the auto workers, and I'm not necessarily saying the leadership, but the grassroots, Mike's gonna run a great campaign,

and we got a real shot there. - All right, so I'm gonna interpret that to me. Do you favor the Democrats of a better chance, but don't count Mike Rogers at it all? Is that fair?

- I think it's gonna be highly competitive, and we'll be at one point race, and I think Mike's got a very good chance to win. - Okay, how about your state of Georgia, where John Ossoff, I think is running a spectacular campaign,

and you've got a three-way primary on your side. Who do you favor in that race? - Well, you know, I think we have a very good chance of picking that up. It's the best single pickup opportunity

in the country for Republicans. But again, you know, as with the 2020 races where we came up short, and then the HRSA Walker's campaign in 22, when we came up short, you know, we need everything to go right.

We've got execute on the ground, and if past is prologue mark, Ossoff is gonna raise almost unlimited money. - Yeah. - I mean, almost unlimited money.

- So in that race, who do you make the favor?

“- You know, I think you would have to say”

the incumbent is the favorite on paper, but I think once we have a nominee and once we unite, if we have enough money, again, highly competitive, almost to jump ball, one point race.

- Okay, under appreciated is New Hampshire. It's an open seat, and Republicans, you guys are almost certainly gonna nominate John Sinunus, who's one statewide New Hampshire before. - Yeah.

- Who do you make the favor in that race? - I make Sinunus the favor in that race. I think he's gonna win that seat, and so I need you to amend, because that seems like you're saying, that's actually a more likely pickup

than Georgia, where there isn't incumbent. - Well, I just think, you know, again, it's hard to make a prediction this far out when we don't even have a nominee. We don't know how the Iran war is gonna go,

but I like our chances and all of those races. - Yeah. - And to your point on the broader map, I look,

where for us to lose the Senate,

“we needed quite literally everything to go wrong.”

- Yep. - And everything went wrong. - Yes, sir, that's their hope. - I'm thinking of 2006, so I'm not over confident, but if we do our job, you know,

we should be able to hold the Senate, and I think, you know, even stay at 53. I think we could do that. - Yeah, and again, folks, I would say I have a whole monologue about this coming up,

but those are three Democratic-held seats where Rousa now says exactly. The right Democrats could lose them all, even in a good year for Democrats, Republicans could win all those races,

if things go well. Now, then there's three seats held by Republicans, the Democrats are counting on, and I will say, none of these are sure things. North Carolina, Maine, and Ohio.

- Right. - Democrats must win those six. If they're gonna win the majority, they must win all six. If Republicans win a single one of those six,

just one, they'll keep the majority. So here's my question, Tia. We don't have time to talk about Ohio and Maine, and North Carolina. Big debate amongst my sources in both parties,

about what the fourth one is, right? So Democrats would have to win all six of the ones we discussed, plus one more, to get the majority. And the three leading prospects would be Iowa, Texas, and Alaska, that we don't know the nominees

in Iowa and Texas, and that could make a big difference. But based on where we are today, and I know it's early, and you wanna put me out of business by saying, I can't talk about this stuff to laughter Labor Day.

Which of the three, do you think is the most likely

“Democrats to get their fourth pick-up to get the majority?”

- Oh, gosh, Mark. - Iowa, Iowa, Texas, or Alaska? - Honestly, I don't think any of them are likely, but if you were to put a gun to my head and said which one would be most likely,

I would say, again, I'm not in the prediction business. - Yes. - Under strategist, I'm not a person. - Yes, sir. - If Ken Paxon were to win that nomination,

and maybe, maybe Mark, I could make an argument, if Korn is the nominee, either way, but especially Ken and they're both friends and I'm neutral in that one too, if he's the nominee, that's gonna be a Beto Cruz 2018 race.

I mean, that's gonna be a very close race. It'll be very competitive, very hard for him. - Yeah, all right, so you may Texas the most likely of the fourth seat the Democrats would need. - I would turn a screw on and say,

not the most likely, but probably the most vulnerable. - Yeah, okay.

Finally, most likely Republican presidential nominee

in 28 is JD Vance. Second is Marco Rubio. Who is third? Who's the third most likely to Republican nominee today for president?

- This early? - Yeah. - And at this point, it's just kind of a board game. - Yeah, that's true. - That's what we do here, board games.

I knew you were gonna say takers. - Yeah, and I'm gonna let you go when you tell me who's fourth. - Oh, boy. Now you got me. I don't know, it could be somebody who surprises us.

Does DeSantis run? Does by then my former governor, Brian Camp run? Do other senators run? I would think so. I bet Glen, Glen, young kid on the fantasy list as well.

“- I think he's one of the most attractive candidates.”

I've seen him my career. I don't know what he's gonna do, but he's an extraordinarily attractive candidate. - Yeah, Mr. Chairman, Grandpa, thank you for making time. I want to have you on regularly if that's okay.

- Sure. - Fins with your schedule. We thanks Ralph Reed for being here and look forward to having him come back Ralph, thank you. - Thank you, Mark.

- All right, also thanks to Jonathan Friedland for being here. And we'll be back on Thursday with a brand new episode,

as always, don't forget to share every episode,

whether it's on YouTube or as a podcast. With everybody, you know, expand the network of nexters. And if you're on YouTube and that's where you take the show in, please make sure you like and subscribe. And same with the podcast, we wanna spread the word.

Thank you for that. And I'll see you on Thursday and make sure you come back so you always know what's coming next up. (upbeat music)