Bill Kristol: End the War

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Videos are also released on Windows with Shopify, which can be used to a real help. Start it and test it for just an Euro-Prommoner on Shopify.de/recoated. Hello and welcome to the board podcast, I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday, so he's back, editor at large, of the BoWork Build Crystal. Hey Bill.

Hey Tim, how are you? How do I do a pretty good? Well, I'm disappointed on behalf of all the Timothy Schell and A stands out there. It's three straight snubs for him at the Oscars. He should have three already, and yet zero, I think it's potentially discrimination against

Twinks. It's a play here. I could be something to that, but I don't know. We're hoping for more representation in the future.

“You should have him on the podcast, Martin.”

I've been trying. I've been trying. You want me to play as a call, I could help with that, you know. Okay. Thank you.

Nice to meet you, Yarkin. He's an interesting guy. I'm sure you guys have some, you know, same temple or something. We want to talk about Iran to start, and you had Bob Cagan on yesterday, your Sunday Conversations with Bill, and as we've come to expect from Bob, not exactly optimistic

about the state of affairs, but super insightful, no's region, understand. So what you can summarize what he described as the fork in the road facing Trump and where we're at right now with this war. Yeah, sure. You had him out of that six weeks ago after his big piece in the Atlantic, which was sort

of prewar, obviously, kind of what Trump was doing to our alliances and making the world much more dangerous. And I would say he views this war very much in that context. People should go back and look at your discussion with them and look at mine if they want that I kept to the highlights in the morning shots this morning.

“Now, I believe he's so good at, I think, Bob, he puts it in the bigger in the, you”

know, sort of the bigger context. And it is striking.

And this war has damaged our relationship with all of our allies, basically.

Europe, not consulted, can't believe we've gotten to this. Now we're calling on them for help after rejecting their help early on or rocking that. The idea that they could help. They care about you. They care about Russia.

And this war is helping Russia with the oil sales, the oil, the way you think of the sanctions. So from your opinion, point of view, the crisis going higher, right? Right. Exactly.

What it seems like is the things we kind of rickety there. So from the airport, if it's like he didn't consult us, he's gotten to war without a plan. It's helping Russia, which is really the existential threat. We are having to deal with without Trump's help because he's not helping Ukraine these days.

And so now he wants us to help in the straight. And the German defensemen is in this morning, notorious who, you know, that ones, but I mean, I gather from people who know this stuff is a very kind of pro-American hawkish that kind of, we've been hoping for a German defensemen just to like this building up Germany's defenseers and working with the other European nations helping Ukraine,

just basically said, forget it.

I mean, pretty stunning, with huge from a very close ally. Yeah. So the German defensemen are not the French. Yeah. Right.

I mean, it's a fancy French. Right. It's notable. It deepens the rift. It was already there that you and he just, you would want to discuss six weeks ago, and

just makes it even harder to fix it. I mean, it's, you know, Iraq, the Germans and the French, I remember well, did not agree with our decision. They tried very hard to get them out of board. We had endless meetings to UN Security Council, but it's we got a lot of the European

nations on board. And we respected, in a sense, the German French decision. I mean, the members of Congress, it made fun of the French ones, you know, the French fried ones. The freedom fried ones.

Yeah, the freedom fried ones. The push was polite. They, we continued to meet with them. They didn't go out of their way to cause trouble for the other European nations that were helping us.

“So that preserved the alliance, despite that pretty important rift, right?”

We're in the opposite situation now where, you know, where if we really deepening the rift in the alliance, I almost making it irreparable, Asia, the Trump people sold themselves as the, they're going to be tough on China. And now Trump's asking for help from China actually to open the straight and pulling troops out of the China theater to, uh, I don't know, what, maybe do a land operate at ground

operation in Iran. And if the Chinese are watching this, it's like we can't keep the straight open, you know, the straight between Taiwan and China is, let's still have a tougher to deal there with the Chinese military than the Iranian military. So I don't think they're getting very intimidated by what we're doing here in Iran.

Well, in a couple of the shows last week too, and, you know, the Japanese, South Koreans, like, okay, we were moving troops throughout, we're also moving weapons systems now to Middle East.

we will. It's like, that's where they're getting their energy from. Right. They're, they get almost all their energy, Japan, certainly from abroad, anyway, and a lot of it from the Gulf.

So yeah, totally. No. So they're, they're losers on this. And again, we're consulted. Japan is kind of an important ally, I mean, I can make a decision on the Gulf based on Japan.

And they wouldn't expect us to, would they expect to get a phone call at some point saying, hey, that heads up, and, you know, so again, just treating them as if we don't care what they say, which Trump doesn't, I suppose. One point Bob makes that, I hadn't really thought about it, is the Gulf states themselves. I mean, they've sort of cast in with Austin casting with the Trump family.

There's a lot of deals, let's just go on there, which have tried to cement that relationship in ways that are not entirely, you know, legal, or maybe, or appropriate, but still, whatever you think of it, it was a way of buying, I guess, getting them to invest with us. They have a huge stake now in America, the best with their tourism at all. Opening our TV networks, you know, are golf buddies.

Yeah. I mean, we're kind of like the junior partner to cut her in a lot of ways, we're borrowing their use planes. And now they're getting pummeled, some of them, UAE, especially, and we're not protecting them much, apparently.

And they've got to be thinking, I don't know, the whole point of this was to make sure that Big Bad U.S. was kind of behind us as we cut all these corrupt deals and do our business dealings.

“And they've got to be thinking, was that really worth it?”

I see all that reporting that MBS has been for this war in behind it, which I guess must be true. But I don't think he speaks for the other golf states, honestly. And I wonder, he's, I don't know, what his foreign policy judgment is either.

Anyway, so basically, it's weakening us around the world.

I think this is Bob's core insight that people, you know, we look at these things, so much and regional terms, it's understandable. Obviously, that is the primary effect, for some little bit, but the degree to which right now, two weeks in, we look like we don't know what we're doing. We went to war without a plan.

It's not going well. We keep saying it's going better than it is. We keep saying it's going to be over soon. But also, we could be doubling down and sending in ground troops. And people look at this as the U.S., this is a superpower, if you're an ally, you're supposed

to depend on. And if you're an enemy, you're supposed to be scared of. And in both cases, we've eroded that. Just really looking at the Saudis, I don't want to pretend to be an expert on this stuff. I did do some work a couple of years ago for some Saudi Arabian dissidents who were

being targeted by the regime, so I have a decent amount of familiarity with the politics there. I don't think it's crazy that there could end up being a little bit of inconsistency

“or in congruity between what they want, what like UAE and others want, right?”

Because the big article on the Times of the Weekend about how to buy, like my ever-recover from this, the types of people that move to Dubai are not really keen, like they have plenty of money and resources, and it's not really worth the risk that a missile's going to hit their high-rise condo, you know, to live there, there are other fancy places in the world that they can live.

And so the Saudi and Iran, you know, geopolitical kind of competition is a play here. So, I don't think it's impossible that MBS is kind of working back to you on a president's son-in-law supportive of this, and that maybe the other Gulf states were, like initially, kind of supportive and are starting to get me. I don't think that's a crazy development, potentially.

One other thing on the Canadian conversation, in addition to kind of the strategic problem is the Trump is created throughout the rest of the world, is just like, he now is kind of at a decision point a little bit about what to do, I mean, I think that many of us thought just based on Trump's past behavior that he was kind of, do what he's done before, which is kind of like the clear victory, there's the guy I found online, he said one of Trump's

great political superpowers is he can always just say, hey, we did it, you know, and he'll

have a base of supporters that will believe him and go along with him, that's said vantage

“having a cult of personality, and so I kind of a lot of folks, I think assume that was going”

to happen here. I think Bob points out that that is getting a little tougher to do now, certainly than in the 12-day war, for various reasons, and potentially, you know, at some point, they're going to have to have kind of a shit or get off the pot decision here that they both carry different types of consequences and ramifications.

It's like just talking about that a little bit. Yeah, and that was the second big point Bob made, and it's, I see that York Times is making this point this morning too, it is, yeah, we're getting to a decision for when I guess Trump can delay it, but pay a price for that too. I mean, do we go in in a serious way and try to secure the straight, I mean, the regional

goal, remember, the grant, the big goal was regime change, you know, here much by that anymore. Now, the real big goal would be securing the straight, which is kind of pathetic because the straight was open until two weeks ago. And getting rid of their like missile capabilities, I think that's the other thing to keep

saying that. Right. But that we probably have done. So I've assumed you would cut and run and I said, taco and was the more logical thing

for him to do from his own personal point of view, which is always his main point of view.

in with, when we're in expeditionary forces landing on the surrounding side of the straight and all the risks that entails.

And then basically, once you go that far, you can't really just get out without caring about

what happens in Iran, you get out the short of regime change, you have troops there on Iran in sorrow. When the IRG is still running the country, I mean, there's so many risks and that's such an escalation. So I still am 60, 40 that he doesn't do that, Bob is more than 60, 40 the other way

I would say. He just thinks Trump has gone so far down the road of bellowing about how, you know, this is so important and fundamental and it's going to be such a great victory that little harder from the back-down. I don't know.

You can't make a judgment about the war till we know which of those decisions he makes and then what the effects of each of those decisions is both are bad.

“He could have bugged out honestly after the first 48, 72 hours and I think taken credit”

and I don't think it would have been more like June and he could have done a huge amount

of damage to the missiles, all of that said he could have just said, you know, we have made the world safer where the area is safe and we weaken this horrible machine. We killed a huge number of their top leaders, thank you, goodbye. A little harder to bug out two weeks in, but I still think he could and the damage though making us look weak would be real, the damage you're getting involved obviously with

ground troops, so that everything that that implies is a higher risk and more fundamental. When I said to Bob, I guess I did push them a little, I mean, they really think he's going to stick with it. It's so risky. And Bob then sort of played the final card on that side, which is nothing, which is

are we sure that Trump doesn't see the advantages of having a war go out for a while in terms of his domestic authoritarian agenda. President's have used wars to crack down on free speech and crack down on dissent and clearly David, they were interested in doing that and they got elections coming up and the national security sort of excuse could be used to do all kinds of things.

And that was the, this slightly dark note that the conversation closed off. Yeah, I definitely think that you can't rule anything out on this front. We're going to get a little bit more into what they're kind of threatening right now, though. It's been a lot of empty threats on this front, I think, too. We should also just be honest about.

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rejected Trump's Spain, rejected Japan, France's hesitant Norway, no candidate, no Australian no Germany no you mentioned UK's at the sporting-care starmer, kind of saying we're still looking at it. We're going to give it another look, we'll see in two weeks, Netherlands, no response, South Korea, no confirmation, that's a pretty big review for the United States on this one.

“And I think speaks to kind of what you and Bob were talking about about how there's no”

work at all done on the front end to get these folks involved at now Trump just thinks he can boss him around. I was soon maybe some of them might look at Trump and say, hey, instead of us maybe you should be calling your friends at the board of peace to keep the straight open, you know, what about Kazakhstan?

Can they help? You know, Belarus maybe those folks are in and it's pretty noteworthy. I like who knows how things go in a week or two, but just even the Trump administration is kind of hedging on now at the ask is, kind of saying, well, maybe it'll just be after hostilities and that we're asking for this help.

Caldum and he's like back to making threats that made up. It's just, it's not a lot of evidence that he's in control of the situation. Now, absolutely. And they've mocked the Allies and it's clearly especially the UK, which they have. And I mean, he has gotten away with a mistreating them, if I could put it that way.

For a long time, because they look, they still depend on us, they still want the U.S. to be involved. They've all sucked up to Trump in different ways and pull their punches. Let's say, you get the sense here that this is maybe the moment of a look. I'm sorry.

When they don't want to do it, they don't, as the German officer said, we wouldn't even want us for. I mean, you got the U.S. Navy. If you can't open this, we can't help you open this. And so again, but it's particularly, with Trump and Hexas Redderick, this is the

idea of military force that was overwhelming, we're intimidating, we're crushing. We only fight tips, tweaks that we can crush. But hey, could you guys all help? And instead of the number one country on that list, we're near that to eat or whatever was five or six countries who was asking for was China.

How pathetic does that look?

And if you're a Japan, you think, really, wait a second, aren't we supposed to be like,

“we're inviting China to come into the straight-of-port moves?”

I mean, I don't know. It's just the degree to which this has a sort of spiraling out of control, fiasco effect. I think is what strikes me. It's also in pretty big contrast to the whole, how long ago was it that there was like a lot of high-minded foreign policy analysts talking about how Trump was changing the world

order. And we're going to do the Don Road doctrine. And spheres of influence are all the rage now. And we're focused on Greenland because of its strategic importance on our side of the globe. And it's like, well, OK, well, how did the spheres of influence Don Road doctrine turn

out? Because now we're in a quagmire in the Middle East and Trump once helped from people in Asia and Europe and they're not going to give it to them? I mean, the JD Vases of the world, if they would say what they really think, would say, I guess, I mean, truthfully, I guess, hey, that all depended on us bouncing around little

countries in the Western Hemisphere or maybe Greenland sort of in the Western Hemisphere, I guess. And that's kind of what that whole Don Road doctrine was.

This is why vance in a way is more consistent if you're America first.

You shouldn't get involved in these things the Middle East, but you can't really pull this off in the same way. So, but vance has been kind of quiet hasn't even been following it closely there. JD has been quiet. Greenland isn't the Western Hemisphere, right?

You have me for a second. Just because of the time. I don't know. I confused. It's very misleading.

Yeah. That's curving. That's curving. That's pretty good.

I think the geography in third grade, I was like, I think that's right.

But you know, your magic starts to fade. Yeah. JD's been pretty quiet. Let's talk about the maga response to this a little bit. I don't want to come back to the economics stuff, too.

JD, one kind of speech where he was doing the condescending JD thing, where he was talking about, you guys want me to tell you what I really said to the president and our private repartei in the, in the skiff and I would not do that because it would be illegal and, you know, he needs to get good guidance and we're not the same as the liberals that, you know, that tell everything to the New York Times and so I know is like, what he tried to do.

He hasn't been, he hasn't been fighting on social media, you know.

“I mean, I just, I think all you have to do is point to the gap between this and what happened”

after the Alex Freddie and Renee Goodmuggers. I mean, Renee Goodmugger killed by a government agent and JD Vance was at the White House briefing room the next day, insulting the victim, insulting the people that are concerned about it, insulting local law enforcement and talking about how good and right it was that we had mass people on the streets like cracking down on free synthesis.

So, JD saw that as a political victory that he was in line with, like, I mean, is arguing with people on social media about it, like a random troll. Not now. You know, simultaneously to that in this inter-right feud of you and following, making Kelly verse, Mark Levin, just the, it's just so what it's you tweets, set the most elevated.

Well, of course, I would say on the internet and that's saying that it's that's saying so they've got Mark Levin saying that making Kelly is a shill and doesn't know anything and is stupid. I can Kelly said that Mark Levin has a micro penis and has wrong, Margie Taylor Greene. This morning said this, I wholeheartedly support Megan Kelly telling the world that Mark

Levin has a micro penis. It's the most deserved insults and I don't care if it's vulgar and Trump's gigantic defensive livin only in rage is the base more. People are done, all caps, maga, destroyed by micro penis mark. So that was, um, MTG, she's a little bit sharper on the nicknames, Trump's nicknames

“are starting to kind of taper off, but I think there's something there from MTG, you know,”

how much do these people matter how much influence they have and we see in the polls, the Trump does have a called personality, there's a big group of people who go along with

Levin, who was the never trumper, who was all in for Ronda Santas, was that a never

trumper in the sense of like voting for the Democrats, but within the Republican fighting, he was always anti-Trump, now Trump is complimenting on how great Levin is. The more maga folks, original maga folks are attacking Levin and then, at least with MTG, Trump himself, JD is, you're kind of hiding in the bushes a little bit, and I think that

“just all tells you what you need to know about the weak political position, he's like,”

and one dark reason why I think the maga split could be mysterious as to obvious that the America first stuff, tough tales with anti-ajual stuff, which tough tales, with cement, a cementic stuff, and G, Mark Levin, what a coincidence they're going after him, you know. And then, Shapiro, yeah, and those are the guys who, on the one hand, and on the other hand,

it's MTG, I guess, and Tucker Carlson, and they're true, I mean, they are true or America

first-ish people, they also are pretty vitriolically against Israel and against pretty

into sort of conspiracy theories about Israel and the US and the Jews and the Jewish lobby, and so, this could go into a very dark place, but I think, unfortunately, there was support for that, and some chunk of maga world. So, particularly among young folks, and there's a little bit of a young old split, and I think you see also, that's the strategic thing that what maga and Tucker doing, I don't, you know,

I can't get inside maga and charge, but this doesn't all seem authentic to me. And, you know, you just look at the polls, I don't know, in front of you, it's probably the Gen Z

“poll of maga, the debate, and it's like a shocking number, I believe in Holocaust denial,”

as I believe that Jews are bad for the country, they also think that Muslims are bad for the country, by the way, but some other groups too, but I think that for people who don't follow this closely, they might assume that, like, it's the older maga Republicans who are more big in it, right, just because that's kind of like the stereotype, like older generations, and, you know, but that's like not true, actually, it's the inverse, I feel like the numbers.

Yeah, our friend Dick Fuente is there, that guy, you follow, you keep an eye at him, right? He's probably, I keep an eye at Nick Fuente. But Nick Fuente is a song on the, again, like he's insmeticly, he's all on the maga and NTG side of that sentence. Right, so make sense, you know, I mean, you can have a really nasty stab in the back,

by BB kind of ruining maga, ruining America first, dragging us into this war.

It's the Jews were one step from that, I mean, that narrative is out there already, obviously, and Fuente is where all the questions could appropriate into sort of more political,

“elected official world. I think we're a bit away from that, but I don't know how far.”

Yeah, I agree. The best of all, the best of all, the legendary check-out of Shopify, just on their website, just for social media and everywhere, it's all over. That's the music for your ears. Videos are also released on Wendels with Shopify,

you can get to an actual hit. Shout it on Test Nacho to Fuente, I'm an oil proponent of Shopify.de/recorder. Anytime I say something that Tucker said, to caviat, Tucker has demonstrated himself to be just a liar and a fabulous. It's like not just a conspiracy theorist, so he just lies and makes up stories,

exaggerate stories to suit himself. And so, I assume the story is exaggerated, I guess, is what I'm starting up. But he does a big monologue about how the CIA says that he got a call from DOJ, looking into his conversations, he was happening with Iranian nationals before the war started, and the CIA, Tucker says that the CIA has hacked his phone,

is looking through his text messages, and they had information about his text messages. And that led to a serious people on the right thing that maybe Trump was using him as a useful yes, kind of like back channeling bad information to the Iranians, our old friend Mark Caputo reported that that is not what happened, like that Trump was not doing for each else with Tucker when Tucker came to visit him

and tried to convince him not to be the war. But I don't know, I guess it's not where the if it's a lie that you have Tucker going, like now doing a full frontal attack against the Trump deep state, because that could set up something down the line, 2028 for Tucker or some other, you know, vassal candidate for Tucker.

And it's also not where it's true, I don't want to weigh it like totally eliminate the possibility that there is some, I guess, I think it would make sense that the intelligence agencies would be spying on Tucker. I mean, he's talking to Putin, he's talking to the Iranians apparently,

Well, especially given, I mean, who knows which intelligences given that tells the and to tell, I'm running them, but you know, we have all the normal constraints on spying on American citizens or whatever metadata, all those stuff we once knew, I once knew better, because if they were actually legal constraints and one had to think about those things I want to assume they're all gone. So who knows? I agree. I really thought about this to you

brought it up. They agreed at which you have a Tucker, MTG, younger, gripper, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, America first thing that could build up on the right, I don't know, is that trivial

in Republican primaries in 2008? Is it right now? It's presumably 10 or 15 percent against, you know,

a J.D. Vance marker would be a, you know, field, but I don't know, it could be 25, 30 percent. It's trivial as long as Trump is around, because because of the cultural personality element,

“just like I just, you know, I don't want to overstate like the degree of the splintering. I think”

that it's at an elite level and at a younger, activist level more than among the electorate. Like you, I think it was talking to about this, but if you look at the, the internals of the polls about Iran, it's kind of strange. Like people who say I'm a magma Republican are more supportive than people who just say I'm a Republican, right? Because if you say you're a magma Republican, like that's basically like saying like I'm part of the lifestyle brand, and I support anything

Donald Trump does. So I get what we're interesting to see, like, assuming Trump leaves and, you know,

there's a lot of potential ifsans or bots, but I can theory, I think that if there was a vacuum on the right, I think it would be a very significant force to talk around T.G. wing. And I think that the idea that he's laying the groundwork that the Trump government went after him. I'm not saying anything, I think Tucker's in a run for president would be a favorite or anything, but like, to me, that is laying the groundwork for, like an actual, whatever, pincers tack on, on the Trump

part of maga at some level. So anyway, we'll keep monitoring that. Just really quick while we're talking about crazy right wing stuff. I do think it's important for our listeners also to just be a little vigilant about, I don't even know if I would call this crazy left wing stuff, but crazy conspiracy stuff that gets into the left pipeline, including, for example, this weekend, the idea that BB was dead, several people, regular people, normals in my life, not, you know, not randoms on the

internet, like texting me, asking me as BB really dead. They've been following influencers that were like doing Zapruder film, style, like, looks at these videos that BB put out that look kind of weird, I would say, but like, you know, kind of saying it a sixth finger when there's just a shadow, or, you know, doing deep analysis about his coffee, like, why didn't spill? And it's just like, and it's when everybody, like, if you're following an influencer that's doing a frame by frame on

“why BB's coffee didn't spill, like, I think you just be a little bit skeptical about the material”

that they're providing, and I know we have some legitimate complaints about the MSM these days, but like, there's a reason why there's, you know, editors out there and some of those outlets, so I don't BB's alive. Do you want to talk about the hill first or the economics stuff? Why don't we talk about the hill? Then we'll go to that in the economy. I saw this from punchball this morning, it's jumped out to me, and I think it does kind of relate to the conversation we're having

about MAGA and the, and the, and the factioning on this, punch was the capital hill, kind of insider, newsletter rag. There I does. The White House Pentagon and congressional leaders have begun talks about a supplemental funding bill for the Iran War. We've had several sources suggest the package

made carry a price tag of $100 billion or more. Lawmakers see this as potentially the last must

pass bill of the year. It's March 16th. Isn't it March? Aren't we in March? And they may try to attach their own costly proposals to it as well. Wow. I, I just think there's a lot of unpacked there about, you know, it kind of relates to it. Kagan was talking about about how they're like planning for a more extended conflict that they would have, I think, I don't know, it could question for the Democrats. I want to do about this. I think, you know, talks about just how

neutered capital hill is. I mean, because they've been less powerful, same-party leaders in

“the history of Congress than Thune and Johnson that they're like, this is the only thing we might do all”

year. Anyway, so go ahead and riff on any of those elements. Tugave's voice, hey, what is, as Trump launched the war? Some of us thought, gee, well, before the war started, Trump should get approval if he's going to do this, as he was threatening to do it. He did it. We thought, hey, Trump should get approval. Now that he's begun to do it, at least this will work hours act type vote 30 day, 60 day cut at deadline. And now we're talking, the Marine Expeditionary 4,

so I think the 31st meeting was heading towards the Gulf. The serious talk about the words not letting up. Tech Seth boasts that it's more intense each day. You know, literally we're now we're going to fight what weeks, months with no congressional authorization or no even fresh

hell either, except in a couple of secret sessions with some committee leaders, it's a new level and just cutting them out entirely. And their public and leadership is obviously totally pathetic. And some point is one of these people who's allegedly privately very concerned, you know, the Roger Wickers of the world and all these characters, and I think they could say something, they could seemingly vote for a war powers resolution type thing. I mean, probably not for a

well, but it is pretty astonishing. How did the Democrats handle this? Traditionally, like there have been, you know, the Democrats have even when they opposed wars, like this saw this in a rock, like there would be Democratic senators who are opposed to the war, but they did it. They would vote for the funding, because you didn't want to see an anti-troup, you want to make sure the troops had the resources we're going to be in the war. I don't like,

I don't, I don't feel like this is that situation, particularly on this first vote, right?

Especially if you're not going to have a war powers resolution, I feel like the Democrats have to be aligned just a hard no on this. Your hard no with the caveat that the hard no should be obviously will appropriate fund for 30 days to make sure our people can exit this area safely, or we will consider appropriating funds if, if, a, there's a 60 day deadline, b, there's a plan submitted, see, you know, if there are things they can do to make it, they have to be

better for backers a little bit, probably not to undercut the troops who are actually a harm's way, but I think, you know, you can easily, easily say, 30 days, 60 days to get them out of arms way, or let Trump come back in 30 days and say, he really needs the money to this, case for keeping them in harm's way, but yeah, I think it's pretty hard no on extending the war. I mean, he's fought for 16, 17 days now already. I mean, I think the Democrats just have to say no

“blank check for ground troops in the Middle East. That's what I think. I mean, I, I, I don't disagree”

with those caveats you offered for the behind-the-scenes negotiations. I just think that the Democrats need to be a little bit better in having the top line message be absolutely not. I don't think you see some Democrats who are good on this Rubin's. Guy goes when God he was on recently, Chris Murphy, they're Vince Mothers. But I just, I feel like every time I see Chuck Schumer talk, he's like starting with the caveats, and it's just like, give me the top line, which is that this

was where they didn't come to us to support. It's believed all like they did not come to Congress for approval at the beginning, and they have an offer to rationale, and it's been a total shit show, and we're against the details can come after that. I totally agree with you at the top line, and then the need to be very firm on that and sharp on that. And I think the phrase and maybe does that is end the war. End the war is not the same as undercutting the troops or

“backward looking. You should have come to us, which is Schumer spends too much time talking about,”

you know, just end the war. It's not working. We're risking more the war. We think of we deep the ticker. Okay, we don't want to say it. The deeper we dig this whole. We dig. Yeah, stop digging this whole. Dig, literally deep. Exactly, we dig, yeah. So I think end the war is a good thing that they need to say over and over. And I think that's, and sadly that's honestly their view. I take it. It's honestly my view. I, you know, so to say it.

On that economic consequences, you do hear, especially from the more rara folks about the war and about the way that we've annihilated the Iranian capabilities. You know, when it comes to the economic part, there's a lot of, oh, this is a short term thing. You know, like this is a shock. It's going to take a few months. It'll be, you know, we'll be back down to normal at the end of the year. I kind of wonder of any of those people were awake during the COVID inflation situation,

which, you know, spiraled out of control and ended the Biden presidency, basically. And, you know,

it happened years after we already had the job. And like, you know, it's supply chains. Like, this stuff just doesn't remedy itself overnight. You shared this. It was on CNBC, I believe Jeff Curry from Goldman Sachs, who's a commodities analyst. And I thought it was pretty compelling. I just want to play it for everybody. This is not just a disruption oil. It's gas. It's fertilizer. It's metals. It's petrchemicals. The list goes on and on. And then you've disrupted supply chains and

countries all over the world. The ships are in the wrong places. The insurances have been canceled. You've taken the pressure out of the fields that you've shut in in places like that Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, or even in the UAE. I can just the list goes on and on. The damage is going to take months to unwind. But I want to bring it to the immediate. There is no policy response

that can stop the succent and crude. None. And yes, you've paid this 400 million barrel headline.

“Flow rate is what matters. You know, the maximum sustainable flow rate is 2 million barrels per day.”

So 400, that'll take them two hundred days to get that out. And you put that in the context of a disruption of, you know, let's net it out of this. It's got to be somewhere around 18 million barrels per day right now. You're just at minuscule in terms of offsetting it. So again, there's not many options here.

listen to those guys. It's like even if you did, you know, take the fork in the road out now. I mean, that's months and months and months and 200 days. You know, to get it back to where it was. Right. I mean, even that fork in the road, it was only has to have some face saving. You know, ceasefire or negotiation. So we've had a week or two from that. But yeah, I guess the other point I'd make is just two weeks is a pretty long time. Four weeks is twice as long as two weeks.

Eight weeks is four times as long as two weeks in terms of the disruption, right? I mean, it is the COVID-19 situation where yes, you can manage these things as short-term spike.

“But I think that's what the markets are telling us. They're looking at it and thinking,”

this could be much longer. God knows. I can't really judge it. I've talked a couple of economists and they're a little cautious because these things are pretty hard to judge in real time. But the economy was slowing anyway. And I've got to wonder if six months or now when people

look back at this first quarter or 2026 they say the economy was slowing bigger or shock recession.

I'm just about to find a point about it because sometimes you're following this and it's like, oh, there's the one day it goes up and goes down and you know, like you can be overly responsive to this sort of movement to the market. I just pulled this up like the Brent oil barrel price on February 17th. So one month ago, it was 66 bucks. Right now it's 101. I like that's not quite double, but a very significant increase that has like just

twins of ramifications through an economy that as you mentioned was already kind of shaky. You know, all of the jobs numbers, there's a, you know, they've been doing the corrections, you know, looking back at last few months as like turns out there are fewer jobs created than we

“thought. It's a dicey situation. And I guess that's why Carolina Levitt just posted that Ben Shapiro”

praised Trump strike is the single bravest foreign policy move of my lifetime because it is pretty brave to just absolutely hammer your own domestic economy and, you know, the rationale for your presidency on behalf of a project internationally that it doesn't have like a clear outcome. I think that does take some courage to do that. I guess. Yeah. Yeah, some way. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Half step. I think half step. So Brendan Carr was out talking about threatening the network TV licenses for supposed misinformation about the Iran war. Trump posted that media companies wrongly reporting on the war should be charged with treason. There's some death penalty threats for journalists wrongly reporting on the war. I'm not shaking my boots personally on that one. But it is something that the president said, uh, which I've last week, the secretary of war,

you know, it's talking about how excited he was for CNN to be taken over by his friend. I mean, the degree to which they're trying to manipulate the media crackdown on free speech, you know, is pretty start. Try is the key word there. I mean, like they've had some success. Obviously in the private sector with the purchases and the takeovers from the elephants, uh, the using the force of government power has been not that effective so far. Well, I actually have a caveat in that,

but why don't you go first? Well, just I mean, the next no kings protest is in just under two weeks now.

They tried to describe the one in October. Remember, very, you know, that was trained to go

“on a shutdown. So that was the militants, the rabid militants. I think they used the word terrorists. We'll”

be out there demonstrating anti-american and stuff. I take it part of the no kings protest. We'll be anti-war protest and in any case, there'll be other anti-war protests. I think there you will have real, you know, Joe McCarthy, I, or 1919, depending on what it's starting. This has happened before where people, you know, presidents who are fighting wars, label everyone who's opposing them, but certainly anyone who's protesting them as, you know, on the side of the, the your enemy and

kind of on the side of terrorism, I suppose, since Iran is a sponsor of terrorism on the side of

and just treasonous and stuff. It's been pretty ineffectual. So far, it's only was for the first

no kings protest, the attempts to either sell that or to weaponize it mostly. There's been, you know, they've been executive orders and attempts to begin to lay the groundwork for, for really going after people, but I don't know where to real war now and it sort of on the one hand, not quaking my boots, but on the other hand, taking it a little more seriously than I would have just a month ago. Like, there's a ton of evidence out there that Trump and this administration has, has had success

intimidating people on the private sector, because having a conversation over the week, I'd have about this about somebody who's working on projects that two years ago would have been approved for, you know, that were, that are in the politics space, news documentary type stuff that's just like they don't want to do it. Like it's just not worth the risk of, you know, backlash from Trump than these Hollywood studios. So like, there's been chilling, in fact, there's been success in that.

Like the most robust effort that they had to try to silence people directly, there was over

like, I'm going to threaten your licenses and you would think that those, they would be less able or

willing to, to handle this kind of economic assault from our government than, you know, Disney or whatever, some big multinational corporation, and that didn't work, right? Like, where I know it for a couple days, like he was off the air for a couple days, and then, and then,

“you know, everybody, push back. So I will say, I guess, I think it's important to note that,”

like, while he's making these threats have been pretty empty threats in the past, but, you know, I think also just looking at it more globally, and this was the hungry playbook, and it took time. You know, for a button to kind of take over these various companies, Trump made a post on true social, that's like simultaneously like intimidating and mockable, you know, which is, it's a meme talking about how he's reshaped the media, and at the top, it's like gone.

You know, and there's some things that are really like serious. PBS defunded, you know,

but then it's like joy, read, and Terry Moran fires. It's like, I don't know, I was like, for Terry Moran, he's been on the show, he's doing great on sub-stack, but it's like, okay, you know, Chuck Todd out at NBC, like there's some of these things, and then the reforms, like Trump is doing that interviews, you know, news bias, on-blood's been at CBS. So, you know, Disney ends key-DI practices. So, you know, it's like, there's like, it's this mix of like,

things that have happened, that have changed in ways that the media has accommodated itself to the Trump regime that's chilling, and then it's tied it with other kind of silly stuff, in Trump's personal beefs with people on the stories that he watches on TV. But like, that took time and hungry. I don't know, I have two minds about it. On the one hand, it's like, it took time and hungry, and there is a lot of power and danger in government

censorship and control of media, on the other hand, in this brave new world, like, reality, kind of does end up finding a way, not in the way that we want, is like the Jurassic Park, on how life finds a way, like, I don't know, I mean, they're efforts to intimidate the media into silence over the Iran War, don't seem to be working based on the polls. So, I don't know, which side of that do you kind of fall on? That tend to come down on the optimistic side of it,

with the caveat that people need to fight, and I do think, you know, the merger with parents. I mean, this is where people have to have a, thank you, just a stupid term that I don't like,

“normally a holistic view of what's happening. You need to fight on many, many, many fronts.”

The merger stuff, which is a business story and not one that I personally pay much attention to, and that people in the media sphere, that are thing, you know, unlike direct intimidation of Jimmy Kimmel, whatever. But it's kind of important if they're only allowing mergers to trump friendly people. Oh, that's a part of super, yeah, it's really important. There's so chaotic and so mockable and such jackasses, but they are pulling a lot of levers at once, I guess, as the way I would say it.

And we need, we, if I can say, we, the Democratic opposition, Swalty, they don't need to be alert to that, and pulling whatever counter levers at once it can, too. You know, I mean, it can't just be sort of, wow, the courts work, I really like that one, and it needs to be an aggressive response on all fronts. I agree. And I want to caveat my caveat, just also, which is with technology, the degree to which reality can find a way might change. You know, I think that in

some ways, you know, the stuff is all, like, progressing and changing. It's like a river. And, you know, in the 80s, crackdowns by fascist governments on media, we're like, very effective, because there are some few media outlets, right? If you look at what's happening, and, you know, kind of the Soviet sphere of influence, right? You know, right now, obviously, the disinformation was effective enough to get Donald Trump elected twice. It's not like nothing, but right now,

there also is, other information is getting out. It's just like a question of whether it's getting to people, right? So it's different than the type of censorship we've seen in the past, from fascist regimes. And, you know, eventually, again, like Trump lost his second election, and right now he's losing politically. So I just think that's important to deal with that reality. But, as the technology changes with AI, and, you know, these guys controlling TikTok,

“it's controlling the big tech companies. You know, I think the threats get much, much greater. And,”

like, to that point, I'm not talking about some immigration stuff, too. There's federal case in Oregon, where ice officers set under oaths, something that we've kind of, we've known already. But,

I never wanted to say that they had the daily arrest quotas. But, second is that they're using

the Palantir app elite for, like, mass surveillance and targeting. And, again, those who's been watching this have known this because, like, fucking little Greg Bavino was, like, taking his phone up and putting in people's faces and telling them that he was putting their face to a facial recognition app. But, that technology is advancing very quickly. And, the government now, using this with impunity, targeting citizens, not to be okay for them to do it,

targeting undocumented people. They're doing it, targeting citizens, protesters. People that here legally, people that are suspected of being here legally, is pretty chilling. I mean, libertarians have been upset for a long time. I thought, excessively, but not crazily about the 702 program. I don't even, you know, the NSA. It's, I don't even understand all that stuff. But, pretty carefully monitored and restricted actually uses, with the federal government,

with Iranians, and or Putin. But, the careful in how they getting Pfizer warms, all that stuff. But, we are now totally blown by any of that kind of stuff. We're blown by the notion that we should have a debate about whether, well, maybe I shouldn't be allowed to do this. The Congress Harris states could actually pass a law saying they can't have such a register of terrorists. Well, I want to ask you a question on the Republicans in Congress who discuss it for a minute.

But, I mean, do they just endlessly go on? There's no point to enough of them say,

wait a second, that you really begin to get a crumbling. We've seen sort of hints of it.

“And, of course, it's all been ultimately disappointing. I think so far. But, a little bit of crumbling”

in the, in the ability frame to hold 50 Republicans senators in total, 18 Republican House members. And again, if it's so if you're getting, of course, this would take a handful of them, right? To say no on a whole bunch of areas. You know, look, that's the midterms. You know, it's how to people act when they're in the minority. How might they act in a Senate if it's really a one vote situation rather than three? Well, maybe you see some difference. I don't know. I just think it

comes back to the short term incentives. Like, this is like the nasty primary is interesting and Sam talked about this last week, right? It's like, we still now, 10 years in, no one has really challenged Trump directly and won and survived. The caveat to that would be the Georgia guys, camp and reference burger and so all credit to them, honestly, but like the state elections are a little bit different. At the federal level, House or Senate, you know, there hasn't

really been anybody. You know, everyone in those challenges either retired or one run quixotic primary is like, this trainee did, you know, nobody is really like dug in. And so the nasty primary

“and Kentucky, I think is a very important reflection point on that. But I just think it's like,”

they decide it's not worth it. They decide it's not worth it. I'm looking at, this is the primary and Louisiana, for example. So I get the deviats for Bill Casting, which will be a lot though. And you would think that Bill Casting was the biggest Trump fan in the universe. If all you're doing is just watching basketball and saying the ads and not what, I'm not getting any news, otherwise. And that Julia let low, the Trump endorsed mega candidate is, you know,

Bill Crystal is some woke never Trump to switch. You're just watching the deviats, that's what

you get the sense of. As long as that's the case, that they feel like they need to have the Trump halo to survive. I don't, I don't know if they're going to see a lot of this perch. But I question about you on the health stuff. You're out early on the Democrats needing to be offer a middle ground on the DHS shutdown and just saying, hey, we're not fully fund FEMA, TSA, these other elements, anything else that's related to domestic terror threats, etc. They've

done that, but I don't, I haven't really like done a big pressure campaign on it. I wouldn't say, where do you think this stands? I mean, it's pretty crazy that DHS is still like not funded, given the state of affairs. Actually, I got a call from a member of Congress. My staff showed me your tweets and yeah, I want you to know, we do agree with you that we, we're for no additional

“funding for ICE and border patrol. We're fine with funding the West of it. So you need to make”

that put a little more emphatically in my humble judgment. And this person said, yes, well, we're beginning to go to the Lord. Did have actual legislation and she's in leadership in the house, Patty Smith is at an end the, uh, uh, Smith. Sorry. Sorry. Patty, why are you? Patty, why are you talking to the singer? Yeah. Yeah, thank you so much, music. A lot of touch there. Patty, where are you? The appropriations, I think, remember in the Senate,

asked for you that was consent to do that actually last week. The Republicans blocked it. And this member of Congress said, look, we, we've had some internal debates. Some people thought we had more leverage if we kept the whole DHS clothes. That said, come on, really. That's not, it's negative leverage at this point with TSA and this person said, yes, we're, we're, we're, this, you'll see this week. We will make clear. Our position is, we will not give additional funds

to ICE and border patrol apps at the Kaiser for forums. They demanded, uh, we want to give these other funds and it's the Republicans who are providing you. And I think it's a pretty easy argument to make. It's a true argument and they just need you really hammered home this week and they say they're going to do so. We'll keep an eye on that. All right, final topic. There's a candidate that I want to highlight out in America. I sometimes have said some pretty negative

things about Alabama on this podcast and our Alabama listeners who I appreciate have not always

appreciated by, you know, stereotyping about Alabama. I use of the word Alabama as a slur. We have a candidate here that I think is interesting. His name is Jamel J Brown. He's a pastor and an influencer who is running for governor of Alabama. Now, Tommy Tubberville is running on the other side. I think that's an uphill battle. And so you gotta have some creative thinking. And on the podcast, I've been discussing how in red states we need heterodox Democrats. You know, I don't need to be

Brown's list of 20 executive orders that he is going to sign on day one to put the people

“Alabama first. Legalize and tax marijuana for personal use. Part in nonviolent offenders and”

state prisons eliminate state tax on groceries. It's good. Legalize and tax the lottery. Okay. $3,000 stimulus checks for those making under 100 k and little kingsian for me, but okay. Restore law and order in crime written cities. All right. We're pivoting a little bit to the right here on on law and order issues. Put parents back in charge of education. People like that. Number eight, legalize sex stores. Number nine, bring prayer back into schools.

Interesting pairing. But I like it. I don't, you know, and separation and church of state

know that, but I do think that the Democrats reaching out to religious tables important, legalized sex stores and bring prayer back into schools. Number 10 of us now, Alabama businesses for the Chamber of Commerce class 11 pay raise for all state employees. Public sector, that's nice. Number 12, make Montgomery history. Number 12, make Montgomery history club city. I don't know what that entails exactly, but I'm interested. Is that a thing you could be like

in some cities, sanctuary cities, in some cities, or in some clubs city. It was so sanctuary to me.

“We should call this camp. He's a big success of what they got in line. I think we can just direct”

to him and ask him what exactly. Yes, I'm alive. I've never been to Montgomery, for example,

and I might consider it. Now, I know not a stroke club guy myself that just about as a cultural thing, just as a curiosity, make Montgomery a stroke club city. Three months, grace period for utility bills, that's good support or veterans. Anyway, there goes more. I like it. I should say that Doug Jones is also in the governor's race. And I think his is the more prominent candidate for the nomination, and I don't want to dis endorsed Doug or say anything negative about him,

but I just, I think that what your mail is offering is something different. He's trying something, and I want to make sure I'm highlighting that. So that's all. Do you have any thoughts on the Jamel Brown candidacy? It'll be great when Doug, I know Doug summits you to win Doug. He's a serious kind of earnest guy. When Doug gets asked today, you know, after people watching there, I mean, maybe they saw the original tweet by this other discovered. His rival, maybe after they

watched the show, Doug gets asked, where are you? I'm making Montgomery a strip club city, you know, and then it becomes the big issue in the Democratic governor's oil factory in Alabama. And a lot of times, particularly presidential races, the niche candidates bring an issue to the four, you know, and the more mainstream candidates co-opt it, you know, because they see the popularity, and maybe they're going to be making Montgomery a stroke club city. Okay, Bill Crystal, thank you.

I don't even know what to expect for tomorrow's show. So we're going to see. It's going to be fun, I think, but it's going to be a little surprise for folks to stick around for the afternoon. The next level podcast also comes out on Tuesday. So a lot of a lot of material, and then we're in Austin, later. So Dallas, Anderson, Dallas, Wednesday, night, Austin Thursday. We got a surprise guest in Dallas, Wednesday. That'll be your Thursday podcast. Then Friday, it will be me with a hangover after

a night out in Austin with somebody. So that's a schedule for the week. It's going to be pretty good. Bill, thank you so much for doing it. And tickets are still available in Austin. The war.com/tickets, it's a big event you've ever played. We already sold over a thousand tickets. So it's

“awesome how to people coming. But if you want to pop in, go check us out. Anything else, Bill?”

If the government becomes a strip club city, we need to do a little work about there, obviously. Great. Good. That's right. Don't you think, I'm not going to make that clear. It's just absolutely. That's a kind of gesture of rewarding, you know, freshly outside the box thinking, you know? Totally great. Montgomery, we'll see you in 2027. Everybody else, Bill Christmas, see you back here, Monday. Everybody else will see you tomorrow. Bye.

The board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with Audio Engineering and Editing by Jason Brown.